Chapter 22 Epilogue
After several days of observations and tests, Twilight was finally released from the hospital to the care of her friends. They helped Twilight back through town, walking alongside and telling her about every little thing she missed while she was asleep. The Summer Celebration passed by, though the Princesses weren’t as upbeat as they usually were during public appearances. Rainbow Dash promised her that the next Daring Doo book was the best one yet. Pinkie explained about how even though she threw several parties, they weren’t as good because not all her friends could be there. Rarity made a joke about the time Pinkie tried to throw a party in Twilight’s hospital room and got them all in trouble.
Twilight carefully shared some moments from her dream. She didn’t want to get into too much details with her friends. Especially about the aspects of her relationship with Celestia. It felt very personal and even though she completely trusted her friends, she wanted to talk it all through with Celestia first. The Princesses had returned to Canterlot the day after Twilight woke up; they had their duties to attend to after all. Twilight knew that, but part of her wished for Celestia to have been by her side.
Ponyville looked exactly like she remembered. They passed by Rarity’s shop, closed for now, looking just as prim and proper as ever. Quills and Sofas looked as she remembered this time, its welcoming store front offering the promise of comfortable seating and high quality feather quills on a sign in the window. The cafe Celestia had taken her and Spike to was just down the street from Quills and Sofas, as she remembered. That day had been a serious blow to her, and it seemed like a forever ago now.
As the group walked through Ponyville, Twilight spotted all sorts of familiar faces. Most of them were happy to see Twilight awake once more. Derpy flew overhead, her brown mane a huge mess as she tried to help the weather ponies clear the skies. BonBon waved to Twilight from the window of her shop. The Cake family, out for a walk, quickly offered Twilight a speedy recovery as they headed for the park.
Soon enough the familiar foliage of the library came into view. Its branches looking freshly trimmed and the windows spotless. “We started cleaning up right after you woke up,” Dash said with pride in her voice.
“It looks great!” Twilight turned and flashed a large smile to her friends. “Thanks girls.”
The blue front door to the library slammed open as Spike came running out. “Twilight!” He leapt at her, his short arms encircling her neck as his claws gripped her coat.
Twilight quickly embraced her number one assistant, nuzzling the top of his head. “I’m home, Spike.”
Her friends stayed for several more hours to make sure that Twilight would be okay. Spike prepared lunch and snacks for them, but eventually they all returned to their work for the day. Each one of them promised to visit every day until Twilight was back to normal. With all her friends gone, Twilight laid in bed, mentally exhausted from the sudden change in her lifestyle. If she hadn’t been woken up by Luna and Celestia, who knows what she’d be doing right now in the dream world.
“A letter from Princess Celestia just arrived, Twilight!” Spike proclaimed as he came into her room. Upon finding her about to go to bed, however, he began making a hasty retreat before she called him over to dictate the message. “My Dear Twilight,” Spike started, reading the scroll in a slightly higher pitch from his usual voice. “I have just received the news that you have been discharged from the hospital. I hope you are resting up. Unfortunately I cannot get away from Canterlot, so I have sent a train ticket dated for the day after tomorrow. I hope to see you soon, Celestia.”
Twilight finally sat up slowly as Spike held up the single train ticket, looking somewhat confused at it. “Huh? Only one? But what about me?”
“Sorry, Spike. I need to talk with the Princess privately,” Twilight replied calmly as she levitated the ticket away from him.
The train left Ponyville station two hours after sunrise. Twilight sat in a window seat, watching the familiar Equestrian landscape slide by. It was a sunny and clear day, allowing her a good view of Cloudsdale hanging in the distance. Time seemed to fly by as the train slowed down, pulling into Canterlot mere minutes after departing Ponyville.
Twilight exited the train, looking around the familiar sights of Canterlot when she was violently grabbed with magic. Instinctively, she flared her horn to defend against any kind of attack, before she realized what was happening. Allowing herself to slide across the train station, she fell into the waiting hooves of her mom and dad. “Twily!”
The rest of the morning—and well into the afternoon—she spent with her parents. A home-cooked meal for lunch made her feel much more relaxed about her upcoming conversation with Celestia. Her parents had taken a trip to the hospital with the Princesses right after they heard the news about what had happened, but with nothing that medicine could do, they simply had to wait.
After several days, with no changes, they returned to Canterlot and relied on Twilight’s friends and the Princesses to keep them up-to-date on her condition. Shining Armor also came to visit for a few days, but ultimately the work they were doing in the Crystal Empire needed him to return. Twilight told her parents that she would go visit them as soon as she could.
As the sun started to get lower on the horizon, Twilight bid her parents a good night and made her way through the city, up to the palace. The guards quickly escorted her to Celestia’s bedroom, which thankfully looked much different from her dream. It definitely looked the part of a royal chamber more than what her dream conjured up. Celestia was sitting on a collection of pillows, reading from a large scroll nearly as long as the Princess was tall. She looked up as Twilight walked into the room. “Twilight, you made it.”
“Princess,” Twilight said with a smile, walking into the room with a bit of hesitation. Before her coma she wouldn’t have thought anything strange about meeting privately with Celestia in her bedroom. In fact, she had never even been in Celestia’s bedroom before. But during the dream, this very same room had been renovated and used as their shared bedroom.
“Please, just Celestia while we’re in private.” Celestia floated over a large pillow, placing it in front of her. She waited for the purple mare to get comfortable before speaking again. “How have you been feeling the past few days?”
Twilight smiled warmly. “Much better once I got to get up and leave the hospital. My friends have been with me everyday just to make sure I’m healing.”
“I figured they would be. They are great friends, after all. Did you enjoy your time with your parents as well?” Celestia asked with a slightly-coy smile.
Twilight nodded, chuckling softly. It made sense that Celestia would tip off her family. How else would they have learned which train she was taking to Canterlot. “I did, thank you. I haven’t had a lot of time to do so since I moved to Ponyville, so it was great to just relax and catch up with them.”
“That’s good. Now, let’s get on to the more serious matters.” Celestia’s expression became grave, but she still maintained a smile. “The spell that put you into the coma.”
Twilight fidgeted; she was hoping the conversation could be delayed a few moments longer. But it couldn’t be helped, she sighed to herself with a nod. “Luna mentioned it to me. It was supposed to make me an Alicorn, yes? I saw my notes and Star Swirl’s book back at the library. Though I still couldn’t make any sense of his spell, even after I returned.”
Celestia nodded. “That is what I told Luna it did, yes. However, because of what happened to you, I feel that I should tell you the truth.” She seemed to hesitate before committing to her decision. “The Star Swirl spell is a fake.”
“It’s what?!”
Celestia winced, and uncharacteristically of her, she began to nervously shift her hooves about. “I actually invented the spell myself, a long time ago. But all it was designed to do was place the caster in a trance-esque state. However, something during the casting must’ve went wrong and the trance became so severe that you ended up in a coma.”
Twilight blinked the revelation away. “So I wasn’t going to become an alicorn then? Why, though? Why would you lie to Luna about that? For that matter, why give me a spell that would put me in a trance—?”
Celestia, apparently needing a moment to compose her response, rose a hoof to silence the tirade of questioning. After a few seconds’ peace, she began. “The transition from mortality to immortality is a harsh one. The spell’s purpose was to ease the intended target through the process to prevent any unwanted casualties by sending them into a catatonic state of mind.
“You would have become an alicorn, though. I didn’t lie about that.” Celestia paused to take in a breath, and allowed her current explanation to sink in. “However, instead of the spell turning you, I would. I don’t want Luna to know that I’ve figured out how to turn ponies immortal, though; she already holds stigma against the alicornification process. So I lied to her about an unfinished spell written by Star Swirl,” the Princess explained calmly. “Had the spell fired properly, you would have been placed into a trance and I would have teleported you to me. Once in the trance I could instruct you not to remember what happened, and I would have spent the next few hours casting the spell to turn you both into an alicorn, and an immortal.”
Twilight’s jaw dropped slightly as Celestia continued. “Once done, I would wake you up and send you back to Ponyville as Princess Twilight. The coronation ceremony would have happened right away, crowning you as the third full Princess of Equestria.” Celestia’s expression softened. “When I teleported you to my side, you fell over, unresponsive and barely breathing. I instantly knew that something had gone wrong and rushed you to the nearest hospital.”
A single detail stuck in Twilight’s mind as strange. She blurted out her question, interrupting Celestia’s flow. “Third Princess? What about Cadence?”
Celestia stiffened slightly. “Cadence is a Princess, yes. She is also an alicorn. However, she is not immortal. I had hoped for her to take up the Element of Magic when I first met her. She had remarkably strong magic for such a young mare. I adopted her as my niece and raised her myself, but in the end she wasn’t right for the role. I turned her into an alicorn and crowned her as a fellow princess, but I never finished the spell. Luna actually thinks she is a natural-born alicorn found during her exile (for now anyways), but Cadance is definitely still mortal. She attended school with your brother, growing up as a normal pony. I then met you on that fateful day and took you as my student.”
“So Cadence will die?”
“She’ll have a significantly-longer lifespan, thanks to the Earth pony mixed in her blood. But yes, she will eventually grow old and die.” Celestia closed her eyes, her head hung down. “And like her, now I will you let decide… Do you wish to become an alicorn as I intended? It will be much harder for you than it was for Cadance. Immortality is eternal, and irreversible. But by becoming an alicorn, an immortal; you’d be able to serve at my side to make Equestria a better place.”
Twilight was silent for a few moments. Just a few days ago she was about to let Tia make her immortal. She had already decided to go through with it. But Tia’s manic expression flashed through her mind’s eye. “I want to think about it for a moment,” Twilight finally said.
Celestia sighed, visibly relaxing. Her shoulders slumped as she looked back up at Twilight. “I will admit I was sure you would outright reject my offer after what you’ve been through in your dream.”
“Before you and Luna came into my dream, I was prepared to become immortal. But that was a different situation,” Twilight explained. “I was actively serving Equestria alongside you as an equal. I was… I was dating you. It was a very different life than being the Element of Magic.”
“You won’t wield the Elements forever. At least not in the same way you do now. Your friends will grow and die, while you could be immortal. Once they pass, your life will be different; the Element of Magic will remain with you, but the other Elements will find new bearers.”
Twilight blushed as her mind deviated. “…What about us?”
Celestia nodded once, her face also taking on a red tint. “Immortals have issues taking mortals as lovers, for obvious reasons. It is hard to love and lose over and over. Luna does provide friendship, but family is not always the same.” She stumbled over her words for another few moments before stopping herself. Clearing her throat, Celestia nodded again. “I mean. Yes, Twilight. We could go on a few dates together.”
Twilight suddenly paused. “And what if I don’t wish to become immortal? Would you still give us a chance?”
The question seemed to physically harm Celestia. “I... I don’t know. It would be hard, so hard, on both me and you. I am not entirely sure I can survive losing another loved one. Not again. Not ever again.” A shy smile appeared on her muzzle. “But, if you were willing to let me make you an alicorn, neither of us would have to worry, right?”
A smile appeared on Twilight’s face. Seeing the normally-so-composed Celestia blushing like a filly reminded her of Tia. The thought was quickly pushed away. That was the past, a dream; this was now, the present, reality. But could she really go through with it? Strip herself of mortality? Those icy tendrils still clawed at her coat, despite them being only fleeting, phantom sensations. She doubted she would ever fully recover and suppress what had happened in that dreamscape.
But in doing so, in surrendering herself to alicornhood and immortality once again, she could be with Celestia. The real Celestia... Her decision was made. “Yes.” Celestia looked up. “Yes, I’ll become an alicorn.”
Celestia’s face broke out into a large smile. The embarrassment vanishing, leaving only a light-red tint to her pristine white coat as she rose to her full, towering height. “Then let’s not wait. I’ll cast it right now. You should come to, once it’s all done.” Celestia’s horn lit up and before Twilight could even begin to ponder on when the spell would take hold, her world went dark.
For a long period of time, she felt cold, and numb. But it eventually subsided, and in its stead a warmth began spreading over her and the darkness started to retreat. She was still sitting on the pillow, with Celestia in front of her. Feathers tickled her back as she groaned. Her head felt rather cloudy, though it was bound to pass. “What was that?”
“That was the spell. You’ve been asleep for four hours.” Celestia’s magic reached out and pulled aside a curtain, revealing a window with the morning sky visible. “I just sent word for some food to be brought up, since we missed breakfast.”
Twilight turned her head, looking at the large purple wings resting gently at her side. “I’ve got wings,” she said simply.
“You do,” Celestia replied coyly.
“I’m immortal. And I have wings.” Twilight jumped up, flaring her wings out. She danced around the room, flapping her wings at random, even at one point lifting herself off the ground for a moment. After several minutes of this process, she abruptly lunged at Celestia, hugging the Princess tightly. “Thank you, Tia!” Twilight didn’t mean to call her that, but she didn’t seem to mind, so she too stopped minding also.
Celestia returned the loving embrace, a huge grin on her face as she wrapped her wings around the freshly-turned alicorn, and whispered into Twilight’s ear. “My pleasure, Twi. Don’t worry. Now, together, we can begin to make Equestria a better place. Forever.”
The End
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- HermitKlam · 8.8k words · 423 17 · 8.3k views
- UhOh · 6.9k words · 266 7 · 3k views
- viwrastupr · 33k words · 630 14 · 10k views
- ArguingPizza · 15k words · 314 17 · 6.8k views
- Feedbacker · 24k words · 570 21 · 8.7k views
- hammerspring · 14k words · 330 11 · 11k views
- TCSNxs · 12k words · 326 8 · 5.8k views
- Coronet the lesser · 5.2k words · 471 24 · 9.4k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.19 seconds
Total duration
995 users online
166,992 hits today, 2,054,621 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.®
And so my work here is done. It was truly a magical experience to edit this story for you, and should you ever be in the neighborhood for another editor, come knocking: I'll probably answer. To try my best to help complicate and flesh out the plot, characters, and scenery was a true joy, and definitely major XP for my Editing skill. May you live long and well, my friend.
Also, this chapter. So heartfelt and pure after everything that happened, is it not? Such a shame it is the end... OR IS IT?! Spoiler warning: it is.
About as happy ending as one could hope for.
4992599 You read fast for a chunk of space rock and ice.
Passed, not past.
4992600 You type fast for a tiny speck of electrified mud.
Well written story.
I've enjoyed this from start to finish, and I like the ending you've come up with. It seems a little rushed, and perhaps could've been expanded on, but overall it's a great chapter.
Congratulations on finishing a wonderful story.
........... do not really like that ending at all. it would have been a lot better if she did not, in fact, have romantic interest in twilight. and her love was that of a parent to a child; a great love but not the kind twilight has.
That was... Nice.
A wonderful story, I enjoyed the trip and the end... It felt right.
Good story
4992635 Thanks, I corrected it.
Yay happy ending! I'm a sucker for those!
I just don't know what went wrong!
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130520180106/p__/protagonist/images/5/5b/Derpy_hooves_by_freak0uo-d5jedxp.png
I really enjoyed this story but is there any reason this is marked incomplete?
Did I already suggest that you should submit this to Equestria Daily?
4992785 Nope, I see nothing wrong here. Everything is perfect. The ending is happy.
4992787 Because I forgot.
Fixed.
4992811 I don't know if you have or not. I don't know how to though, and I hear they reject a lot of stories.
great story... i will follow you to see what other storys you write
Woohoo happy endings
Still feels a bit rushed and the alicorn spell being something Celestia can practically do on a whim with no stated requirements for the recipient seems kind of non-thought out. If it required some rare set of qualities in the recipient it wouldn't necessitate as odd an explanation for not saving people as "my sister is dubious on the matter"
pased -> passed
optional: cafe -> café
too -> to
mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw975_small.jpg
And now, nothing would stay between Celestia and world domination. Having another immortal alicorn with her that was loyal and loved her, she could imprison her sister and blame Luna for something that would start a long, brutal war between Equestria and the Gryphon Empire...
4992966
4993008 Thanks for pointing those out.
But, she's got blonde/yellow mane.
No sequel? Bummer. I was looking forward to seeing how this would develop. Oh well. It was a great way to finish the tale, though.
4993119 Clearly she must have a brown mane, and the show has just been coloring it wrong. That's what written down, after all. Brown. Definitely brown. I mean, it's not like Twilight waking up in hospital was some sort of trick in order to solidify Tia's claim on Twilight comatose brain forever....
Sorry, but the epilogue was... rushed. It didn't really make much sense, both the conversation, and as well as how quickly decisions were made. The first rule of psychology is not to make major decisions within six months of major traumatic events, and her being in a coma-dream would certainly count. Taking that into account, and Twilight AND Celestia BOTH are acting OOC. They would BOTH know not to rush that sort of decision, or even mention it for a couple weeks as Twilight starts to recover.
In short, far too rushed, making it seem OOC. The previous chapter was a good place to end it, honestly, as it basically said/hinted that there would be a relationship, but not what would happen. The epilogue makes the ending of the story weaker, IMO. Sorry.
The ending kills the whole of the rest of the story.
Whereas before the last chapter, it was someone choosing to face reality and putting the needs of her friends before her own happiness.
The last chapter of a tacked on reward of immortality because Celestia just wants an immortal lover and can’t deal with the pain of loss, going so far as to lie to her sister to keep to keep the alicornination spell secret and Twilight will now be forced to watch her friends/family die of old age (thus dooming her to a fate Celestia is jumping through hoops to avoid) despite all that fighting to keep them and turning Celestia into the very thing Twilight barely avoided becoming: someone who is primarily concerned with their own happiness above all else.
You fumbled the ball at the goal-line, but then most of us tend to.
Hmm. Is Twilight really awake? I do believe I'm detecting some possessive behavior from Tia...
Anyways. I'll be sad to see it go. I'll be watching for more stories from you.
... This is the ending, this is horrible, it completely takes away any emotional weight the rest of the story had, all of Twilight's character development, gone, the struggles she faced, worthless, the decisions she made, pointless, I gad such high hopes and you killed them, this is the worst possible ending for this story.
Welp. That went to the dark side.
4993176
4993220
4993425
4993518
You're all missing the point.
Spoiler 1:
Derpy's mane is blonde, and the Library's front door is red.
Spoiler 2:
Those little errors are hints: Twilight never woke up. She's still in the coma dream. A coma dream, rather, since now the dream more closely matches "reality." Not precisely, as those two little glitches showed us. My guess is that way back earlier in the story, when Twilight told Luna she wasn't welcome in her dreams any more, Luna listened, and everything since then - appearances of her Ponyville friends, the Celestia vs. Tia fight, the confession in the Epilogue, etc. - has been happening in the dream. That's why she didn't choose to wake, and why the love confessions and immortality spell at the end were so quickly and easily offered and accepted: Twilight wasn't sure the real Celestia would accept, or even forgive her, so she reworked her own dream to compensate. That, or Luna sculpted her a more pleasantly acceptable dream out of pity.
4993147
You are now officially Soft "INCEPTION!" Story. Very nicely done, despite how much I want to shake my fist and shout "YOU BASTARD!"
4993666 And the comment I have been waiting for all along. I'm glad someone was paying attention.
4993666 ... Dammit. I was GOING to comment on that first one, but I admit I got distracted by wanting to read it ALL before commenting, and then I forgot about that. ~_~
Well played...
(And sorry for having such a horrible short-term memory, lol.)
4993666
Praise be unto you for being the first to fully figuring it out (or, at bare minimum, being by far the closest).
4993692
4993693
4993695
Glad I could help! I'm sure there are more.
4993692
in which case you need sad and tragic tags (and even the romance is pushing it with everything being a dream) or else everyone just sees is a typo
4993763
4993784
Yeah, that's the thing about spoiler-tagging. The epilogue is kind of open-ended: we know she hasn't awoken yet, but we don't know that she won't do so at some point. But if we saw the Sad / Tragedy tags up front, it'd risk giving away the ending too early. It's a trade-off, and sometimes story quality doesn't make up for twist / mindscrew / WTF endings.
Here, I think it worked, mainly because of the open-ended ending and strong writing, but that might not fly with everyone.
4993692 You distracted me with other stuff! Like card games and hookers!
4993692 That still doesn't excuse the fact that Twilight was out of character and that the conversation she had with Celestia made no sense.
She is pretty much doing the exact thing she refused to do in the last chapter, all for the sake of the ending, also why didn't Twilight notice that the door to her house a completely different color, she's lived that house for almost a year at that point, or Derpy's change of hair color, you'd think she'd notice that a pony she knows by name has a completely different hair color, Twilight especially would notice these things since she's such a perfectionist.
I'm sorry to say this but the ending is still an absolute train wreck that ruins a perfectly good story.
Listen you have skill as writer, but this ending takes away all the emotional weight the rest of the story created.
Here's an idea for better ending.
Twilight arrives back at her library and she notices the door is blue instead of red, and when starts saying she's still in the dream world Spike tells her that planned on painting the door just before she went into a coma, and even shows her a checklist with 'get door painted blue on it,' her friends reassure her that it's all real and we close with them saying she's been through a lot and invite her to go out with them after she gets settled back into her house, and that's were it ends.
Just my idea, I know it's far less subtle, but it makes more sense than her not noticing her door is a different color.
why did Celestia say both and Twilight say when they meant just Twilight?
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/2/17/246845.jpeg
Very well done! I look forward to seeing your other creations.
Oh thank the gods! I swear, if you had made this a double twist and revealed that the other world was the real one, I would've (bleep) YOUR (BLEEP)-ING (BLEEP) THROUGH YOUR (BLEEP) WHILE I (BLEEP) YOUR (BLEEP)-ING (BLEEEEEEEEEEEEP) WITH A GODAMM PIG!
A good story, but I see one major loose end.
What was the dream-Celestia? Was she just Twilight's hallucination, empowered by Twilight's own formidable magic -- or was she some sort of demonic parasite, like Neil Gaiman's Cuckoo from Sandman, or the "Other Mother" Beldame from his Coraline? Why do I think that if the dream-Celestia had been able to complete the ritual, if Twilight had then awakened it would no longer have been her own soul controlling her form?
Well, with the possible twist-ending thing in mind, I guess it's less rushed feeling than I thought. It is... incredibly tragic though.
At first I was going to comment on how it would have been much stronger for Twilight to have woken herself up, to finally realize that it was all a dream and shatter the illusions she'd built around herself.
Then I saw the comments and got the twist, and oh, does that change things.
She didn't wake herself up because she didn't wake up at all. This is just her mind crafting an even stronger illusion to lead up to the same end results.
Good show author, bloody good show.
4993825 Think about it: Twilight just went through a traumatic experience. She's spent the past few months (at least what felt like it for her) in a completely alternate universe where she at some point attempted to completely abandon her previous life. Upon her return, she would have been overjoyed and thus wouldn't pay attention to the small details to focus on the big picture for a moment.
There are certain psychological phenomenon that cause us to fail to notice things like that every now and then. Have you ever heard of the "Gorilla in the Room" Experiment? It's where a video is played, asking you to focus on one thing. While focusing, the majority of people fail to notice a man in a gorilla suit walk in front of the camera and beat his chest because of how focused they are. Similar experiments have been done where a man is asked for directions by a stranger, a couple of workers carrying a large door pass between them, and the stranger switches places with another stranger. The man giving directions doesn't notice that he's not talking to the same stranger anymore.
Thus, the stress and trauma of the situation she'd been in combined with her absence and her focus on trying to determine this Celestia's feelings for her, it seems more reasonable that she'd fail to notice certain small details for a time. By the time she's in a state of mind to notice them, perhaps the dream will have solidified enough where the will have fixed themselves to her memory.
This is all theory, mind you. It isn't canon unless stated by the author. This is just why I think that this story is deep and amazing and that the ending, while seeming rushed at first, actually makes a lot of sense when looked at from a psychological standpoint.
Perhaps there's 3, or even an infinite amount of worlds? Twi could just be hopping between them.
Or the show's been getting it wrong the whole time and Derpy actually does have a brown mane. Reminds me of something I'm writing right now. Suspicious...
4995577 You pretty much hit the nail on the head for why the chapter seems rushed. Celestia knew exactly what was going on and was taking advantage of Twilight's state of mind.
I'm glad you got the ending and I hope you enjoyed it.
4995577 Okay I'm willing to excuse her not noticing little details like door or Derpy's mane color, but I still think the ending kills what was great story, especially because of how the conversation between Twilight and Celestia went, I feel that it turns a great piece of fan fiction in to a piece of mediocrity, I just find it so stupid.
You can like it you want, thats fine, but I hate the ending with a burning passion.
Sweet Celestia, while that sounded sweet the first time I read through it, in the context of the plot twist that's really, really horrifying. I just figured that she had picked up on "Twi" from her sister's accounts of the dream, and thought nothing more of it.
How did I not pick up on this? Even the timescale is off.
Other (possible) clues that I picked up on, after looking back through the story:
Regardless, good show, Soft Story.
Depressingly good show.
4997610
Thank you.
5001339
I think that's just it: this story was originally not supposed to be something you had to look heavily into. Its original design was just for Twilight to go through the coma, find love in dream-Celestia, realize it's a dream, and then get out to resolve her feelings for the real Celestia. Boring, no? It wasn't until a bit later in the story that Soft and I were kicking around ideas on how to make more drama, and we came up with what we have. The hopelessness and no actual change to struggle or win, for me, reminds me of 1984. Twilight overcame her mental turmoil of discerning whether she wanted reality or a dream—which you could argue was the primary conflict of the story, rather than her getting out—but still lost (at least, it's implied). Few stories are willing to end stories on bad notes, and don't feel compelled that they need a happy ending to be considered a success. Soft decided that wasn't good enough, and made DAFAM into what it is; a double-edged sword that either tells a story of depressing despair, or sub-par victory. All depending on perspective.