Chapter 41
There was soft sunlight, and a warm breeze blowing on the air. Her eyes cracked open to see skies of blue, white and fluffy clouds now drifting overhead. The grass below her was green and soft, and as Twilight Sparkle raised her head, she felt only bliss and comfort.
Until she snapped into awareness of her situation. “What? Huh?” She stood upright and whirled around. “Where am I?” This looked nothing like the deer enclave. It didn't even look like Equestria- though off on the horizon, near a tree, she could swear she saw the silhouettes of ponies. “Where am I?”
“You are in the Summer Lands.”
The voice was strong, but gentle. She whirled about, then gasped as her neck craned upward. A huge bull elk was standing right before her. His coat was finely brushed, soft brown and a little iridescent. His antlers were tremendous, huge and tined more than a dozen times on each. Yet for all his power and his grandeur, his might and greatness, his eyes, a gleaming silver, were polite and kind.
Twilight gaped at him a moment- then she dwelt on what he said. Her own eyes bulged. “The- The- The Summer Lands?” she repeated. She spazzed out and began to swirl around. “The Summer Lands! So I'm- I'm- I'm-”
“Dead?” said the elk. He chuckled gently. “No, Twilight Sparkle, you are not dead- or, not entirely. You are half-dead, and even as we speak your alicorn magic is restoring you to full health. You will soon return to the land of the living.” He smiled down at her. “For the moment, however, I am glad you are here. I have long desired to speak with you.”
“Who are you?”
“Come now, Twilight Sparkle. You know my name already.”
She stared into the silver eyes a little longer. Then her own eyes widened. “You... you're Gil-Galad, aren't you?”
“Very good.” He smiled yet again. “I am so happy to meet you. I have watched you from afar for some time now, ever since you came in contact with my brother.”
“Your bro- Fëanor,” she whispered. She winced, flinched horribly, remembering his fate. “I'm so sorry for what happened to him.” Her ears drooped. “I wish I had been able to save him.”
“My brother,” breathed Gil-Galad, glancing to the side, “you know, when we were children, he was distant. He did not... connect with me, I suppose. The war drew us closer together. We were inseparable by the end. However, even I could not have foreseen what would happen to him... how he would be twisted.” His brows lowered. “I hate to think I was the cause. I hate to think my death turned him into what he became.”
“No, it wasn't you!” said Twilight. “I know it wasn't. It was Reiziger. He... his corruption, his rot. It didn't matter that he never actually touched Fëanor until the end. He poisoned his heart.” She glanced away. “He poisons everything.”
“Reiziger's hunger will destroy all in time, even himself. He wants an empty universe, and he will get it.”
“I- oh! You didn't call him 'Herd Lord.'”
“Why would I? He is the Herd Lord, true, but he has chosen a new name, and so I shall respond to him that way.” He smiled bitterly. “My fellow high deer choose not to use his new name, I think, because they are still seeing him through the lens of the past. They are stuck in the ending of the old world.” The silver eyes grew narrow. “But we are not in the old world, Twilight Sparkle. The world was remade by the Wills. The world is new, and so the old ways and old connections must be cast aside.”
“I... I know that now.” Gil-Galad began to walk toward a gentle stream, Twilight beside him. “The Elders tried to fight Reiziger the way you all did. Equestria has tried the same way! But it hasn't worked! All our battles have done is make him stronger.”
“Indeed. Reiziger is a creature of violence and hate. He cannot be beaten with violence in turn. He can be defeated militarily- his conquests can be turned back, his armies can be routed- but he himself taps far deeper, fouler powers than simply the ability to physically destroy. He is Death, Twilight Sparkle. Death cannot beat Death.” They were at the stream now. Gil-Galad glanced down into the babbling waters, seeing his reflection swim and shimmer. He hung his head. “I should have realized that. I did not see the solution staring me in the face.”
“Huh? What?”
Gil-Galad said, “You have read my history, I know. You know of my successes as a politician, as a mender of hurts and a builder of alliances. Through my charisma, and my focus, I was able to unite the six species against Reiziger, finally breaking the Red Deer Republics away from his control. I used my eloquence of speech to banish all ideas of the mule deer and the white-tail deer being inferior to the high deer. We still had our slaves and servants, of course, but I even tried to improve their conditions. For the first time in more than a century, all the deerfolk were united against the Enemy.” He turned aside, face twisted in wrath. “And yet I did not see it. I was a fool.”
Twilight's eyes went wide. “But... you were the greatest of all the elk kings! You were wise and powerful and good!”
“I was a fool!” Gil-Galad snapped, making her jump back. He sighed to see how he had startled her, and hung his head again. “I was a fool, because I had created unity, and peace, and joy among the deerfolk again, for the first time in a hundred and fifty years. I had created it, yet all I could see, all I could think of, was how to wage war with this unity... with this harmony.”
“Harmony...” whispered Twilight.
“The thought will haunt me all my afterlife. What if I had gone to the Tree of Harmony? What if I had tried to retrieve the Elements? I might have failed, true, but I didn't even try. The thought didn't even occur to me. I could only think to combat Reiziger's violence with more violence- and so I failed.” He glanced down at her. His silver eyes grew bright; he smiled anew. “But where I failed, you can succeed- you and your five friends.”
“I...” Twilight stood up straighter. “I know that now.”
“Yes, you do. The world is a new world, in ways my brother did not understand, and in ways Reiziger does not understand, either. Ponies are not deer. You do not have our strengths- but in their place, you have your own strengths, and these are better suited to defeating Reiziger than all the magic and elegance and grandeur of the deer. Your love, your spirits, your strength of heart- these are what make ponies great. And they are what have brought the Elements of Harmony to your kind. Death does not beat Death. Life beats Death.” He smiled down at her, bright and lovely. “So then, Twilight Sparkle... what will you do?”
She beamed up at him. “I'm going to get my friends back.”
“Yes.”
Twilight's body started wavering, becoming slightly transparent. “What?”
“You are waking up,” said Gil-Galad. “You will soon be back where you are healing. We shall see each other again, I think. At the very least, some day you will be powerful enough to visit the Summer Lands at will.”
“That's great,” said Twilight. She made a gentle face. “At least now you can be with Fëanor again.”
Gil-Galad's own face twisted in pain. He glanced aside. “My brother... is in a different part of the afterlife.”
“No!”
“I anticipated it. It does not make it any easier to bear, though.”
“I'm so sorry.” Her body was translucent now. From her perspective, the Summer Lands were growing dim, and faint. “I'll find my friends! We'll get back together! We'll beat Reiziger! We'll win!”
“I believe you, Twilight Sparkle. Rally your friends. Unite the Elements. Defeat Reiziger. Succeed where we failed!”
“We will! I promise we will!” Things were very dark indeed; Gil-Galad's silver eyes were glowing in the growing shadow as her sight and hearing dimmed. “Goodbye, Gil-Galad! Thank you!”
“Farewell, Twilight Sparkle! Aa' menealle nauva calen ar' malta!”
She waved. “Goodbye! Lissenen ar' maska'lalaith tenna' lye omentuva!” The air grew dim, and all the feeling went out of her hooves and fur. She felt like she was falling, and all the brightness and the beauty of the world drifted away. She strayed beyond the bounds of time and space, if only for a moment, before she started sinking deep into the dark.
Twilight's eyes came open. She sat up; she was covered up in blankets. By the high white cavern ceilings, decorated with their swooping stone and metal, she knew that she was in the Enclave somewhere. Weeping, wailing, bawling drifted through the towering stone halls. The air was soft, and somber.
Twilight looked down at her hooves. She flexed her wings. She glanced around her. At last, she said, “I have to go back.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.038 seconds
Total duration
1,032 users online
1,355,118 hits today, 2,004,447 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, with the help of Gil-Galad, Twilight finally comes back to her senses, and knows how to beat Reiziger.
And she's finally going home, to those she loves, and who love her.
Godspeed to you, Twilight Sparkle, Bearer of Magic, and more importantly, of Friendship and Harmony. Godspeed, and with your Sisters of Harmony, may you prevail against the darkness.
blah, blah, blah
Do you have a good reason that Twilight needed this advice that is pretty much what they always do anyway?
And what exactly would they have done if someone was killed in the lead up to this?
Honesty, Laughter, Kindness and Magic are back....next come Loyalty and Generosity.....and pretty much the ending of Blackest Night.
6111464 Magic isn't quite back but she's getting there.
Twilight literally returning from the afterlife after gaining the wisdom she needs to defeat Reizeger? If that's not a transition from act two to act three, I don't know what is. Move over dark night of the soul, it's time for a climax.
Am I the only one who's thinking that A) Reiziger really messed up and shouldn't have let anybeing in his head, particularly not one like Trixie with past connections to his enemies and therefore one whom they might seek to retrieve if the opportunity arises, leading to... well... losing all his secrets to the enemy? Clearly he has not read this universe's version of the Art of War! Oh, and B) Trixie recovered from that waaay faster than she should have. It's like she's totally back to normal with no side effects... even with Pinkie piecing her mind back together and Fluttershy doing her healing bit... Trixie should still be a shell-shocked, traumatised mess. You do not come out of something that psychologically damaging okay, even with near-divine levels of magic in play.
say, if they are supposed to use the Elements and not fight Reizinger was exactly is the point of what AJ and Spike are doing? Bringing in more people for him to kill before the Elements zap him?
6114837 The Elements seem to be single target, so even after they zap Ziggy they are still gonna have to deal with his rather large army of monsters, and the best way to do that is with a couple of similarly large armies of your own.
6114570 You're not the only one, I thought the same thing on both counts.
This chapter made me giddy. Not just because Twilight finally pulled her head out of her butt, but because of this line:
Buck yeah! I don't know why I hate Feanor so much, but it feels so good to metaphorically kick him while he's down.
6116026 You'd hate him even more if you read the Silmarillion. The original Feanor is an even bigger jerk than this one, responsible for two or three Kinslayings, dozens of wars, indirectly responsible for the bad blood between Elves and Dwarves as well as the establishment and total annihilation of the great Elven Kingdoms in the west and the destruction of all of Beleriand in the War of Wrath - let me put it this way, after the repercussions of Feanor's pride finally came to a close the Elves were a dying, fading race whose greatest cities had all been destroyed and lost long ago, leaving only the realm of Loth Lorien as any real bastion of the great Elven civilisations of old, with outposts like Rivendell and the Grey Havens and minor kingdoms like the Woodland Realm of Greenwood the Great/Mirkwood pretty much isolated and, in Mirkwood's case, slowly been worn down to nothing by the forces of darkness.
He destroyed his family, his people the Noldor and brought about the ruin of the Elves in the west... and even worse when he did have possession of the great jewels he sought, the only remnant of the unsullied light of the Two Trees that were before the Sun and Moon that were created from the last fruit and flower of them he refused to give them up so that they could be cracked open so the Light could restore the Two Trees - that self-same light that was so wonderful and powerful that ever after the Elves were divided into Light Elves and Dark Elves, those who had seen the light of the Two Trees and those who had not, with the Calaquendi who had seen the light far greater in grace, wisdom and power than their Moriquendi brethren.
Feanor is one of the biggest jerks in fiction history. Heck, Galadriel once refused him a lock of her golden-silver hair, that was said to have caught the light of the Two Trees and might have inspired him to make the Silmarils in the first place... who did she end up giving her hair to? Not one but three? Gimli, son of Gloin. A Dwarf. Take That oh high and mighty High King of the Noldor!
Gil-Galad! Awesome, and apparently exactly who Twilight needed to talk to.
*fist-pump*
Welcome back, Twilight.
Welcome back, Twilight!
BTW, could someone please give a translation of the Elvish near the end?
This is the part when This is War starts playing in my head.
6111849
)
You're welcome!
Also the way I read it, you can fit most of the thing into the first 30 seconds or so, minus the last line or two (in which case, just repeat the first part of the song at that point
Also, I can't say that name rings a bell. I'll need to do some Googling!
And this is why using Life on zombies is an insta-kill.
6125396 Mmmhmmm.. There are times in the actual Lord of the Rings where that song is appropriate as well. Also, I love how in the comments Reiziger is now universally known as "Ziggy".
6117863
“May your ways be green and golden!”
“Sweet water and light laughter till next we meet!”
Translations from The Grey Company, a roleplaying site documenting an extensive Tolkein-derived “Elvish” language; probably Sindarin, though site fails to distinguish that from Quenya.
I would like to know what the alternate afterlife to the Summer Lands is called, if it is not revealed later. Well, it's time to keep binge reading! I started at from Chapter 29 and now at 41. Wow, binge reading fanfics is amazing.
6676004
Probably Tartarus. Possibly Niflheim
Yay, Twilight's back to her senses.
Hmm, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed that Twilight having a talk in the afterlife for like, a minute or so was able to screw her head on straight. It feels like everyone else got to have proper journeys and lessons with wise masters whereas Twilight got to grow her Elemental potential via pure magical strength and some chill dead dude manages to undo chapters upon chapters of Twi’s growing cynicism and lack of faith.