Chapter 10: Fear of Spiders
“This is the best day EVER!”
Pinkie beamed as she hopped along the path through the trees, the top of her mane just barely kissing the canopy above. She bounced hither and thither and around, circling the group many times over and appearing from the most unusual of places in her exuberance.
“The 'best day ever?'” Twilight asked with a raised brow. “Well, the Sun's almost two hours late, we've been trudging through a veritable smörgåsbord of the worst the Everfree has to offer in the way of deadly monsters, three of us have siblings that have been injured or foalnapped, and we're about to face off against the creature parents scare their foals with by relying on equally ancient and equally dubious rumors of a powerful magical artifact that may or may not exist, and we might or might not be able to use. But other than that, yeah! I can totally see this being the best day of anypony's life.”
“Hmm.” Pinkie cupped her chin, bouncing along with three hooves just as well as with four. “Those are some very interesting points there, Twilight. Allow me,” she said, snatching her towel from her mane and whipping it around her torso like a toga, “to present my counter-argument.
“Item the first.” She held up the alligator that had given the team so much trouble before. “I have a new pet! He is best pet. And his name is Gummy, which is best name for best pet. So that's four points in my favor.
“Second!” She tossed Gummy carelessly off to the side as a wreath of leaves fell from the tree above her to rest lightly on her head like an ancient pegasi general. “I got to throw my first party ever outside my home or Castle Canterlot, and everypony came, including not one but two Princesses.
“Third!” She held up a tray of six cupcakes, the colors of which looked vaguely familiar. “I told my secret to my new friends, who I also met today, and they're perfectly okay with all the weird stuff I can do! Like pull things out of nowhere, use my tongue like a fifth limb, unhinge my jaw like some sort of bright pink snake-pony, and defy the laws of physics on a whim – perhaps only on a whim.” Pinkie shrugged. “Celestia and I tested it, and it seems like it breaks down under pressure, or something.”
Applejack winced. “Maybe not so far as 'perfectly' okay, sugarcube. Ah mean, ah would appreciate it if'n you'd tone it down a touch...” Her eyes drifted off towards the brush on the side of the road. “That 'gator's okay, right?”
“Of course, silly,” Pinkie scoffed, holding up Gummy in her forehooves as she bounced backwards along a curve in the path. The towel, cupcakes and wreath seemed to have vanished. “I wouldn't do something that would put Gummy in danger. I'm just as responsible as I look.”
As she finished talking, she stopped bouncing and came to a halt in the air above the path. It took a moment for the others to realize that it wasn't another demonstration of her casual relationship with gravity. Pinkie was hanging a meter from the ground, held up by transparent threads almost half an inch in diameter, which glistened with a dark fluid.
“Speaking of looking,” Pinkie mused, “maybe I should look more where I'm going.”
“Is that a spider web?” Rarity asked, taking a step backward. “It's simply enormous! Ugh, I do so abhor spiders.”
But Rarity and Applejack were surprised when Twilight and the two pegasi gave gasps of horror, with fear in their eyes. Even as Rainbow Dash fell back, she reached for her sword.
“Octospi!” she cried. “Everypony mov-”
Her words were cut off as a string of sticky webbing slammed into her torso with the force of a heavy rubber ball at high speeds. As quickly as she was struck, the strand was yanked back into the hidden depths of the forest, the sword fell from her grasp as her head snapped back from the whiplash, and she was gone.
“What in tarnation was that?” Applejack shouted. “Twi, what's an Octospi?”
Twilight's eyes were trained on where Rainbow Dash had disappeared to as she muttered rapid words under her breath. “Gotta find it- heat vision! No, it's on the attack, I've gotta dodge-”
Then the web was back, and Twilight was yanked off into the forest as well.
“Oh dear,” Fluttershy squeaked, voice almost a whisper and eyes almost popping out of her skull. Rainbow's voice drifted back through the trees from a short distance away.
“You think you can take me on?” Rainbow cried. “You think I'm scared of a little web in my feathers? I'll show you, this stuff can't hold me, I'll rip it in two! I'll... Mmph!” The sound cut off as it was muffled, though it didn't die away completely.
Twilight just screamed. Then her voice was cut off too, dulled down, like somepony had wrapped a wet cloth around her mouth. But Applejack could still hear her screaming mindlessly through the suffocating string, with no thought as to if she could be heard or not.
“Oh hey! It looks like the neurotoxin's working,” Pinkie noted. Sweat was starting to drip down her face. “That kind of sucks.”
Rarity yelped as she was knocked down, her hooves scrabbling vainly for a grip on the worn surface of the road as she was dragged off into the bushes.
“Fluttershy!” Applejack hissed. “What is this thing? You know what it is, right? Tell me what we're dealin' with here!”
With a thwap, the webbing shot out again and caught Fluttershy all along her side. She let out a quiet “eep!” as she was reeled off in a direction slightly different than the others. This time, Fluttershy was stopped close enough that Applejack could just make out the sight of dark and sinister something stringing Fluttershy up to another one of those giant webs and wrapping her up like a spider's lunch. The creature was hard to separate from the dim browns and grays of the forest, but Fluttershy's pastel hues stood out as she struggled wildly, screaming bloody murder in what was the loudest anypony there aside from Rainbow Dash had ever heard her speak.
“Hang on, Fluttershy!” Applejack cried. “Ah'm comin'!”
“Be free, Gummy!” Pinkie said, tossing the alligator to the forest floor. “Save yourself!”
The web shot out from somewhere up above, and Gummy was pulled away like the others. Pinkie's face fell.
“Curse you, cosmic irony!”
As Applejack ran towards where she could see Fluttershy hanging up in the trees, she snatched up the sword Rainbow Dash had dropped. She traced the line of the webbing down to where it met the base of a tree, close enough to the ground for her to reach, and she stepped up to take a swing at it. The sword came down and the sharp edge bent the anchoring strand all the way to the ground before it broke. Without hesitation, Applejack moved to the next strand.
And then something caught her by the leg.
“Oh my,” Nightmare Moon said suddenly. “I do believe your sisters are about to meet their death. How unfortunate.”
“W-what?” Sweetie Belle started back at the first words Nightmare had spoken in over half an hour. “What do you mean, 'their death?'”
“I mean they've managed to stumble upon the feeding grounds of a ravenous Octospider.” With a gesture of Nightmare's horn, six images appeared in the air, showing the six brave ponies of the rescue party each trapped in their own separate web.
“And to think, that road used to be so safe to travel on not so long ago. What have things come to in my absence?”
“Pssh. Octospiders,” Scootaloo said with a wave of her hoof. “Rainbow Dash'll take care of them, no problem.” She perked up. “Where is she? I don't see her.”
“Well, by process of elimination,” Nightmare said, “I would assume this one.” She pointed at an image which showed a pony-sized ball of unidentifiable webbing. “Although it is rather hard to tell at this point, really.”
“Oh.” Scootaloo frowned. Then she snorted and puffed out her chest. “She's just lulling it into a false sense of security, that's all. Once it turns its back, she'll cut her way out of there with her sword, no problem. You just watch.”
“Hey,” Apple Bloom said, “isn't that Rainbow's sword mah sister's holdin'?”
Scootaloo gave a startled cough and stared bug-eyed at the image of Applejack. “What's your sister doing with Rainbow Dash's sword? She needs that!”
“She must be usin' it to bust 'em all loose,” Apple Bloom declared.
“But your sister's a farmer!” Scootaloo cried. “She doesn't know how to use a sword!” She turned back to the image. “Give it back to Rainbow Dash!”
“Hey,” Apple Bloom argued, “my sister kicks trees all day, so she's really strong. Ah'll bet she's even stronger than Rainbow Dash is. She'll do even better in getting' 'em loose, you just watch!”
“When you have an older sister, it can feel like they are so much stronger and faster and wiser than you are that they are capable of anything,” Nightmare Moon said, a softer look coming into her slitted eyes. “It is part of growing up when you realize that they are not invincible.”
Apple Bloom stared flatly at the dark Princess. “Ah don't know if you just insulted mah sister by callin' her weak, or me by callin' me un-grown-up-ish. Whichever it is – shut up! You don't know nothin' about us!”
“Don't know anything,” Sweetie corrected. She flinched as Apple Bloom turned the stare on her instead.
“Don't move!” Pinkie hissed to herself. “Just. Keep. Still. It can't see you if you don't move. Don't move!”
“Don't move?” Applejack asked, dangling helplessly from a web roughly a meter and a half over Pinkie's head. Most of her legs were stuck to the sticky strands, along with strips up and down her back. The tension placed on the hairs of her coat as she moved was irritating, just short of painful. “Pinkie, do you know what these things are? Ah never got a good look.”
Pinkie looked up at the sound, getting her mane tangled in the web she was stuck to. She had a shaky smile on her face. “Oh. Hi Applejack!” she said in a strained tone of cheerfulness. “I didn't see you there. Did it get all of us?”
“Yeah, it did,” Applejack said, glancing back into the forest. She could still hear the other's voices, but the sounds had begun to die down. “We need to get out of here now. Tell me what this thing is.”
“HmMMmmMm,” Pinkie mused. “Well, from the direction of the wind, the angle of the stars and Moon, and the gigantic webs coated with terror-inducing neurotoxin, I'd say this is a textbook Octospider ambush.”
“What's an Octospider?” Applejack asked. “And how do we beat it?”
“An Octospider is like your average giant spider,” Pinkie said, “only it's got tentacles instead of legs, ink-like toxin it spreads on its web, and a highly-developed ability to camouflage itself. Oh, and it's one of the few creatures to have the dubious distinction of being a natural predator of ponies. Pegasi specifically.”
Pinkie perked up an ear. “Did Rainbow Dash stop yelling yet? She's a trooper alright, got some real guts. Spitting in the thing's eyes all the way. Pegasi generally have a phobia of the big guys, you know. Not like us earthponies.” Pinkie giggled somewhat hysterically. “We're actually the lucky ones. Pegasi are terrified of them, and Unciorns fall prey to their venom so fast they don't stand a chance of using their magic to save themselves, but we've got all sorts of earthpony magic to fight off the toxin just enough that the dumb brute has to come check on us personally before we snap.”
There was a rustling in the leaves above, and Applejack looked to see the huge form of the Octospider fade into view, it's eight legs rippling and undulating in a boneless fashion as it tended to a smaller web set in the crook of a tree. With a sharp snap, the alligator Gummy dropped to the ground, trails of webbing still sticking to him in places.
“Oh hey, Gummy's alright!” Pinkie tried to follow him down, but her mane caught and kept her from looking. Her eyes widened. “He's alright, right? Applejack? Applejack, I can't see him, is he alright?”
The alligator rolled to his feet and blinked ponderously, seemingly no worse for the wear.
“Yep,” Applejack nodded. “He looks fine to me.”
“Oh good,” Pinkie sighed. “When Octospiders hunt, they usually end up grabbing a whole bunch of things that aren't really edible, like logs and twigs and stuff, because they have such terrible eyesight and basically no hearing. So they just grab everything that looks interesting, wait for the fear toxin to set in, and if they detect the frantic struggles of their terrified prey, they wrap it up for lunch. If they don't, they figure that whatever it is it's not alive, so they cut it loose to free up their web for later.” Pinkie's breathing started picking up speed. “At least one of us will make it out alive. Until the eternal night makes the plants start dying and everypony starves to death. But hey! The rest of us will have starved long before that, and the spider will have enough meals to keep it alive for the next month or two. So everything's just peachy, all round!” She glanced up at Applejack. “You know, you seem to be taking this pretty well.”
Applejack looked at the strands of web that were stuck to her sword leg. Looking closely, she could see tiny black droplets that must have been the toxin Pinkie had mentioned. “Yeah,” Applejack agreed. “Ah guess Ah am. Ah mean, this ain't exactly a good situation, but you gotta keep your head or it'll all just turn out worse, you know?”
“No,” Pinkie said, “I know that, and Twilight knew that, we all knew that, but you're the only one whose been able to stay all objective about this. You must have a huge amount of magic for you not to be affected by the toxin. I mean, I've got the most Princess Celestia's ever seen, and it's not working for me!” Her voice cut off with a squeak.
“Pinkie!” Applejack cried. She struggled against her bonds, but the webbing simply stretched along with her movement, and she couldn't get the force to break it without tangling herself up further. “Just hold on, Pinkie. We'll get through this!”
Pinkie had started to tremble violently. “Heeeyyy, Applejack, you're pretty strong, right?” She stared at the farmer with wide and frantic eyes. “You've gotta break free, you're our only chance! You've got the sword. You can cut us down, just break loose!”
Applejack tugged on her leg again, harder this time. Her free hoof slipped and landed against the web, sticking fast. Try as she might, she couldn't break herself free, and as she managed to get the side of her head stuck to another of the strands, she stopped moving.
“Don't give up!” Pinkie cried. The sound of leaves rustling in the bushes by Pinkie's tree heralded the coming of the spider. “You've got to keep trying! Applejack!”
“Ah'm sorry, Pinkie,” Applejack said. “Ah can't break the webbing.”
“You have to try, Applejack!” Pinkie yelled. “It's our only chance!”
“No, Pinkie,” Applejack sighed. “Ah'm not gonna do it.”
“What?!?”
“What?!?” Apple Bloom cried. “Don't give up, sis! You've gotta break free!”
Nightmare Moon stepped up close behind her and spoke in a soft and gentle tone. “Even the strongest pony alive could not break free from the web of an Octospider through force of limb. Your sister... is no exception, I'm afraid.” She set an imperceptable hoof on Apple Bloom's withers, and whispered in her ear while the filly's eyes were fixed on the sight in front of her.
“She's only a pony, after all.”
“Give Rainbow Dash back the sword!” Scootaloo cried. “If Rainbow had it, she wouldn't give up, not ever!”
“My sister wouldn't give up!” Apple Bloom shouted. “You take that back!”
“Then why did she just do that?” Scootaloo said back. “She just did give up, Apple Bloom.”
Apple Bloom stared at the image of her sister hanging there, motionless while the spider crept up behind the last of her friends. Applejack did nothing, even as Pinkie began to break down in fear and their doom grew ever closer.
Apple Bloom whirled round to Nightmare Moon. “Help them!” she cried. “You can't just let this happen! You're powerful, you can save them, you can even send them away so they won't stop you. That's my sister out there! You've gotta help them!”
Nightmare stared down at the filly inscrutably. Then the images disappeared and left the castle hall shrouded in darkness.
“I will consider it,” Nightmare said. “You three just stay here for now. I have somewhere I need to be.”
The hall seemed very cold and empty as Nightmare walked into the shadow of a doorway and vanished from their sight.
“No no no, Applejack!” Pinkie jumped as she heard something crawling nearer to her. “We need to get out of here, it can't end like this. Applejack!”
“Just stay calm, Pinkie,” Applejack said. “Ah'm gonna try tricking it into letting me go.”
“You can't do that!” Pinkie cried. “Nopony can! Your fragile pony psyche will snap like a twig! It'll know!”
“It worked with the 'gator,” Applejack argued. “And you said Ah'm doin' better than anypony else has at this thing. It's a better shot than tryin' to break myself free, that's for sure.”
Pinkie stared. Water started gathering at the corners of her eyes. “Right,” Pinkie said. “Ha ha. Best day ever.” She stared off into space and started humming to herself as the rustling grew ever closer.
“G- giggle at the ghosties...~ Heh heh... heh...”
The bark shifted and the Octospider revealed itself in its full, unmasked monstrosity. Pinkie screamed, and started flailing around as the spider picked up the web and folded her into an inescapable ball of webbing, where her screams only intensified for all that they were muffled as the fear-inducing toxin was introduced along every inch of her being.
“Oh yes,” Applejack said to herself as she looked away. “That there's just what Ah needed to keep myself nice and calm for when its my turn.” She could feel her muzzle scrunch up in distaste. “Yeppers. Just a bit of a reminder of what happens if'n Ah fail.”
Applejack didn't look back, but she could hear as the Octospider moved away from its most recent captive. Pinkie's screams began to die down like the others had, and from this distance, Applejack could hear that it had been replaced with helpless, panicked sobbing. For a long while, there was no other noise.
Applejack almost started as a branch cracked and broke above her head, but she managed to keep herself from moving, just barely. The spider hissed, announcing its presence, and the hairs along Applejack's spine stood on end where they were not held down by web. Time seemed to stretch on for an eternity of heartbeats.
The spider reached out for the web, and Applejack let slip a cry of fear at the thought that it had seen through her ruse.
Then she was falling to the forest floor, and she landed with a thud that rattled her bones. The pain was almost welcome as it came with the relief of freedom, and Applejack felt like she could breathe again for the first time in far too long.
She staggered to her hooves, and froze as she feared the beast might see her moving and try to catch her all over again. She watched as it finished fixing the web it had hung her on for whatever it caught the next time something came along, and clambered back over unconcealed to rest in the shadows of a high tree.
Applejack kept her eyes on the monster as she moved over and began cutting down her friends. She started with Pinkie Pie as she was closest, and it took some doing to reach the higher strands – Applejack, for all she worked with trees, was not very good at climbing them. Once or twice, she would cut a strand and the web would shift drastically, and Applejack would look up at the spider, in fear of its coming down to find out what was happening to its food supplies. But the creature stayed where it was. Finally, Applejack had Pinkie's cocoon down on the ground. Applejack cut her free with the sword, and Pinkie sat up in a panic, sucking in deep volumes of air.
“Easy now, Pinkie,” Applejack said soothingly. “It worked! The spider ignored me, and Ah've got Rainbow's knife, so we can get all the others down too. Ah got you free now. It's gonna be alright-”
She was cut off when Pinkie wrapped her neck in a hug that could have qualified as a wrestling move. Then Pinkie snatched up the sword with a forehoof and glared up unerringly at where the spider hung.
“Oh, you're going to regret doing that to us,” Pinkie growled. “Fear leads to angry ponies, and angry ponies lead to very unhappy spiders!”
“Pinkie, wait!” Applejack said, but before she could stop the pink earthpony, Pinkie had disappeared into the brush. Applejack gave chase, and found Pinkie leaping a full ten meters into the air to hack at the webbing of one of their friends with ferocious speed, felling the cocoon in seconds where it had taken Applejack minutes.
“You can just go hungry for all I care,” Pinkie cried, as she sliced into the cocoon and freed an unconscious Fluttershy. “And have no fun at all rebuilding all. Your. Webs! Raaggh!”
And then she was on to the next one. In no time at all, she had freed all of her friends. Rainbow burst out of her cocoon ready for battle, with only half of its strands cut, and it took some convincing to keep her from flying up and attacking the spider where it sat in its tree. It took Twilight several minutes to recover enough that she could use her magic, but once she had used it to get rid of the remaining strands of toxin-laced spider silk, the effect began to wear off.
“Oh, I feel so much better now,” Fluttershy said, her shivers beginning to die down. “It's like it was all just a bad dream.”
“Such a horrid creature,” Rarity said, scowling up at the spider. “It's almost enough to justify arachnophobia.”
“I'm pretty sure that would be an oxymoron,” Twilight commented. “The term 'phobia' implies a degree of irrationality. If it were justified, it wouldn't be irrational.”
“Well,” Fluttershy murmured, “they are very dangerous. But even Octospiders can be reasoned with, if you understand them well enough. And they're not hungry.” The others stared at her. She scuffed at the ground. “Well, I can reason with them most of the time, anyway.”
“Whatever,” Rainbow huffed. She wandered off into the bushes in the direction of the path. “Let's just get back on the road.”
Nightmare Moon walked the halls of the ruin castle, making her way down the maze-like passages with the ease of familiarity. Her iron-shod hoofsteps echoed out across the room as she emerged into the open-air expanse of what was once the ballroom of Castle Everfree, and was now marked and etched with sinister glowing runes, surrounding the tall, imprisoned figure of Princess Celestia.
The Princess of the Sun turned as well as she could at Nightmare's approach, twisting her head around as far as the heavy chains she was bound with would allow. Her legs were clamped to the floor, and an intricate iron ring hung heavy on her spiraling horn.
“Luna.” Celestia stared at Nightmare Moon with a single uncovered eye, betraying no emotion. “Have you finished your preparations, then? As you can see, I haven't somehow managed to escape these chains in the few minutes you've been gone.”
“It's been over an hour and a half, dear sister,” Nightmare said carelessly. “Ponies may have changed since I've been gone, but I doubt they call that 'a few minutes,' even now.”
“I see,” Celestia said. “You know, you're really making this too easy on me. I'm used to things being much more unpleasant than this. It makes the time seem to pass slower.” She shook her head, allowing the metal links of her chains to clink and clatter as she moved. “You're throwing off all my estimations.”
Nightmare ignored her, and walked around in front so the two mares were standing face to face. One of them was a pillar of inky night encased in the armor of a war long past, the other a pale pastel titan wreathed in iron bindings. They stood at the same height, looked each other in the eyes, and were as motionless as statues, for all that they still breathed and their hearts still beat.
Nightmare spoke. “Your student has come to rescue you,” she said. “The pink one.”
“I thought she might,” Celestia replied. “It seemed like a thing she would do.”
Nightmare was silent, and it was Celestia who continued the conversation.
“If she is coming here,” she said, “it is because she plans to defeat you. She would have brought others, her friends.”
“She did,” Nightmare offered. “Five of them.”
“Five?” Celestia asked.
“A motley crew. A hunter, an armorer, a scholar, a beast-master, and a farmer.”
“So many,” Celestia breathed. She smiled. “I'm glad for her. Her first night out of the castle, and she's already got so many friends willing to stand beside her.”
Nightmare smiled back. “They seem to have gotten into a spot of trouble. Two of them – the armorer and the farmer – have sisters. Did you know? I have them here visiting me, right now. And one of those little dears has asked for my help.”
Celestia's smile faded.
“Don't do this, Luna. You don't have to involve them.”
“Well I wouldn't,” Nightmare agreed, “if you would just tell me how you managed to use the Elements on your own. It would spare them no small amount of discomfort.”
“Just give up on this idea of a perfect revenge,” Celestia pleaded. “You don't need to use the Elements. Just deal with me some other way.”
Nightmare Moon's face contorted with rage. “You sealed me into the surface of the Moon for a thousand years. And for what? To keep me from getting a little recognition from my subjects? I'm going to do the exact same thing to you, and let you wake up tomorrow to find that a thousand years have left you behind!”
Celestia raised an eyebrow. “Luna, you attacked me. With lasers. In most countries I've heard about, that would be considered attempted murder at best, and treason by no stretch of the imagination. My advisors berated me for months for being so lenient.” She smiled. “I had to fire them to get them to stop.”
“As if you would have died!” Nightmare scoffed. “I wish you would, you vile nag. It would solve a lot of problems.”
“You don't mean that.”
It was not a question. Nightmare had known Celestia for the entirety of her thousands of years of existence, and she still couldn't detect even the smallest measure of uncertainty in the Sun Princess' face.
“Nice talk,” Nightmare Moon said, walking around to the exit. “Good thing, too. We probably won't have time for another when I come back. I'll be too busy.”
“It was nice to see you, Luna.”
As Nightmare left the room, a small part of her wondered at how her sister was able to say that so sincerely.
Stats
Page generated in 0.028 seconds
Total duration
1,044 users online
1,711,952 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Spiders are scary. It's nice that they normally aren't twice our size with tentacles instead of legs and active camoflague that is only one step removed from invisibility.
The Everfree isn't very nice.
Spiders? Nope
And here I thought phobia by definition was fear of something. Twilight, you and I are going to have a talk someday...
Edit: I also forgot to mention that they have a very interesting anatomy for legs. IfyouknowwhatImean.jpg
5153181
I admit my understanding of psychology is quite basic, but how I understand it is that for something to be designated a phobia instead of just a regular fear, it needs to lie outside of the norm, or be "irrational." That being said, if there's anything wrong with Twilight's comment, it's all on me. She's supposed to be correct here.
It's got tentacles! Roll for sanity loss!
4480764
Unicorn horns are a solid piece of material named alicorn. Not so much part of the skull as an independent structure braced and fused by the same. It would probably hurt a fuck ton more than you think, as they ostensibly contain neural tissue. Luckily for her, magic is directed through the hhorn and sourced in a structure called tthe carbuncle, which is a gemstone at ththe base of the horn.
I am liking your monsters. This one was out there enough to be new but well within what we can imagine. It actually has an Avatar vibe to me since it is like a combo animal (Duck Bear) or fun D&D monsters (MONKEY BEES!!!).
AJ was impressive and I like how Pinkie went on a rampage after she was freed by AJ.
As time goes by, I side with Luna more and more on this. A thousand years imprisonment. All her friends dead and dust for centuries. Everything she knew, gone... not even mementos of her lost life left. And her sanctimonious sister doesn't just erase her from history, she turns her into a foal-eating bogeyman so that every pony in the kingdom will be terrified of her when she finally returns.
Imagine being an ex con. You got hooked on crack, committed an armed robbery and went to prison. You get cleaned up, get out of prison and come home to find out your older brother burned down your childhood home, tore all your pictures out of the family albums, convinced all the neighbors that you were a child molester, stole your ride and has been screwing your girlfriend every night since you went to jail. And because he's SO GENEROUS, he might let you sleep on the couch in the new house he bought with the money in your bank account.
Guilt? Celestia should have woken up the next day with salad forks driven into her eyes.
5153349
I must ask this, how do you know or justified the composition of a purely fictional/fantasy creature?
5153991 Except the idea that Celestia chose a term of one thousand years is strictly headcanon. There's absolutely no indication in canon that Celestia had any control over the length of Luna's banishment.
5154252 True, but whether Celestia chose it or not would matter little to the victim. "It was an accident" or "I didn't mean to" couldn't patch that wound over.
Excellent. You do a superb job of writing Pinkie both at her chaotic self, but with that little bit of seriousness hidden beneath. (Like Pinkie does, in fact, display on occasion in the show.)
5154595
Equally though, I still stand by what I said when I first joined the fandom: Luna was lucky she only got banished for a thousand years and not destroyed (like Sombra was) or, against a non-Element of Harmony using nation/power/whatever, executed as her punishment, as would have been likely for less lenient ruling bodies. She did essentially attempt mass genocide, at the end of the day (pun not particularly intended, but let's go with it anyway)... And had she succeeded, the spectres of the dead would equally would have been angry and not have have cared if she meant to or not (or, by the same token of anger at being wronged, whether or not Luna did so of her own free will or under the influence of another power).
I believe that, whether or not there was an outside influence, Luna still had to have made the choice in that moment of weakness, so she has live with the responscibilty and the concequences of that choice.
(And my attitude is these days, if you don't want to get punished, then, y'know, don't do anything wrong in the first place. You (the metaphorical you, that is, of course) can get as angry as you like because you got punished for being caught, but it was ultimately you who decided your feelings (be they of entitlement or anger or whatever it was that motivated you to do wrong) were more important than other's people lives (be it their actual life or the quality of life etc) and you get to accept the consequences of that choice.
And, just so we're clear that I'm not anti-Luna or something, I think it a massive point of favour in show-Luna's character that she HAS appeared to accept that she did wrong and was punished for it, and appears to have resolved never to do it again. She has accepted the consequences of here actions and the punishment that followed and that's (all?) I really want to see. So all power to her. (Metaphorically, of course...!))
Besides, as events have shown Celestia wasn't completely out of line in what she did (even if it does seem a bit... odd at times: then again a thoussand years is a REALLY LONG TIME, something most stories and headcanons don't address well, and times REALLY change, so some of those decisions may have made perfect sense a the time), since Luna has come out extremely well and beloved in the end (even to the point she gets more favour than her sister from hairless apes from another dimension...)
5154595 How about "You left me no choice."? Luna isn't the victim here, no matter how the Nightmare might try to spin it otherwise.
Now imagine you have a brother who's hooked on drugs. And in his addled state, he decides that the best course of action is to blow up a school. You confront him and he shoots you. Luck for you, you were wearing a Kevlar vest. So now you draw your gun and confront him again. Again he tries to shoot you, but this time you shoot first. Although shot in the head, by some miracle your brother doesn't die. Instead he lies in a coma for thirty years. Of course when he wakes up the world will be radically changed - but that's not your fault, that's just time being time. By all rights he should be dead and the fact that he isn't is a gift. He can either accept the gift or whine that it's not the right color, but neither changes the fact that he doesn't deserve it.
Luna set out to commit genocide and her sister was forced to use the Elements of Harmony to stop her. The Elements decided to exile Luna on the moon, with no evidence that Celestia had any say in that outcome. Her liberation after a thousand years may or may not have been intended (remember the original legend says she was banished permanently).
Given how painful the memory must have been, it's hardly surprising Celestia didn't spend the last thousand years telling everypony about her sister. And without her firsthoof account, it's not surprising that the legend of Nightmare Moon morphed over time.
5153349
So... your argument is based entirely on your headcanon, vs the headcanon of the author.
Sorry, but your argument instantly fails as a result.
It's like arguing about the existence of a secret door in a room with the GM. It just doesn't work.
5157818
So "Headcanon" is the mythologies FiM draws from now? Neat.
5158239
The description you used is not apart of the official canon of the series (AnimTVS only)
Unless it's been described in-depth in the comics (which may not be canon to this story) then your argument is entirely baseless... and even if it has been described, in-depth, in the show itself, this is an AU Fanfiction.
The author could just as easily have unicorn horns be made of candy.
Your argument is, in this case, entirely invalid.
Rough anatomy of this creature:
sphotos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/1005259_365026040285840_1817524642_n.jpg
A spider, that is also an octopus.
…
I see that Australia has been busy.
5153991
On the other hand, imagine being an ex-con who tried to commit genocide on a scale the Nazis couldn't dream of. Your name is used for Godwin's Law, you're a boogeyman to be scared of or mocked, and that's completely deserved. If Hitler time-traveled to the future, and he had been mind-controlled during World War II, we'd still be mocking him.
if the first episode story said that Celestia killed the genocidal Nightmare Moon, we'd happily cheer her on. I might feel sympathy for Luna now that she's reforming, but I'm not going to feel sorry for the time or reputation she lost because of her own actions.
Celestia shouldn't have felt guilty, she should have put Luna down. She didn't do so because she was kind enough to let her live.
Luna should have come back to salad forks in her eyes instead of hugs and a kingdom.
5194827 ah sorry as I said sometimes i tend to skim if I'm tired or wish to rush through some sections >.<
So, do the guards and staff and stuff in Canterlot know about Pinkie's abilities? Or was it a complete secret from everyone? If the latter, when were they planning to revile the secret?
5219763
The guards and staff haven't really been told anything, but they've been around long enough to observe some of the strange things Pinkie does. That's one of the reasons none of them are close enough to her to be considered "friends."
Definitely your best chapter yet. Not sure why it took me this long to get to reading this, must have deleted the email by accident.
5591322 Is this still a thing? Please tell me it is.
5956711
This is still a thing. Just a thing that's been taking a long, long time. This next chapter... ugh.
I've written about 15,000 words for it, it's still not done, and I'm probably going to end up editing it so that most of that work doesn't even show up in the final product.
I'll get it done eventually, though.
5958613 I know how that feels. All of my last few chapters for my most popular story were published in different years. And I only do 4000 word chapters. Still, you had me a bit worried.
5153021 That would make them less scary to me. Except the camouflage.