VII
So you know when you have a chapter almost finished, and you're all like "Yeah! I'm going to get this out by christmas!"...and then life punches you in the jaw, and then suddenly it's April? Yeeah....
Still feel sort of weird about this chapter honestly, something still felt a bit off about it (for me at least. I really hope you guys enjoy it) but there is certain point where you have to Elsa up and let it go. because it's been like seven flipping month's since you've posted a chapter.
Quick warning: This has not been officially edited as of yet. I gave it a look-over, but I tend to miss things in my own writing, so fair warning on the probable grammar errors. I promise I'll have the edited version up at some point in the near future, but I was afraid that if I didn't post this chapter right now, it would stay in writing limbo-hell-whatever until August or something.
Without further ado, I will push this ever so slightly deformed baby bird out of the nest and pray that it flies. 
I hope you guys enjoy.
Hugs and apologies,
The-Pony-Librarian
Twilight closed her eyes, letting the current of her magic guide the stack of books up into a swirling dance, each circling, swooping, into its proper place. She could sense the entire room around her when she focused of her magic like this, every crack in every wooden shelf, every minute wrinkle on every page of every single book, every single strand in the pile of the carpet she stood on. When she focused on her magic, on feeling with it, it was like seeing the world seamlessly, from every angle at once. Sorting books was as relaxing to her as a massage, or a warm bath.
She wasn't sorting the whole library of course...unfortunately. Twilight at least possessed the social knowledge to tear apart and reshelve somepony's entire library without asking permission first. She supposed the curators of the Royal Canterlot Archives hadn't been all that upset when she had rearranged the entire forbidden wing after a particularly bad day, but then again, she doubted any of them would have the pluck to tell off a princess.
In the Seaside library, there had been a perfectly serviceable cart of return books that needed to be replaced on the shelves...And a few books strewn about that needed to be returned to their proper spots...And maybe Twilight was also halfway through putting the entire Foal's section in perfect order after having already organized the entire fiction section.
She had woken up at four in the morning, and hadn't been able to get back to sleep. She had been bored.
Twilight suspected it was around eight thirty now, judging from the light creeping through the blinds. She turned to get a better look, and immediately gave a choked yelp, all the books tumbling free from her magic and slamming to the floor as gravity reclaimed them.
Leaning against the open door to the library, Banned Books blinked slowly, a hint of amusement on his face "Mornin." he drawled, raising an eyebrow curiously.
Twilight opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Spike barreling down the stairs with the speed of a small freight train, obviously still mostly asleep, but apparently ready to duke it out with any would be assailants. He skidded to a halt at the bottom of the steps, and squinted at the situation, before slowly turning to stumble back to bed, muttering something that sounded a great deal like "Every Celestia-Damned time."
As the bedroom door shut once more, Twilight resumed her rebuttal.
"How long were you standing there?" She shrilled, heart still pounding.
Jumpy as a cat, Spike always like to tease her.
It had only been getting worse.
"Not long" Banned Books waved a hoof "I didn't want to startle you." A small, wry smile spread on his face "A rather futile endeavor, it seems."
Twilight turned her focus to gathering the dropped books, shoulders raised, lips pursed tight, wings fluffed up like bristle brushes at her side...Not that anyone but her or Spike could have observed. As Banned Books trotted over to help, smiling affably, she wanted to scream internally.
The poor stallion was just trying to be nice, the more reasonable part of her brain rationalized, but the rest of her would have to be dragged kicking and screaming into any sort of interaction.
It was just this panic. It overwhelmed everything. She knew she was being unreasonable. She knew the fear was completely unfounded, that she should ignore it, overcome it. She just couldn’t though. She couldn’t do it.
"I should really thank you for re-organizing" Banned Books began grabbing tomes in his own magic as he talked "It's been too long since I've gone through the children's section..."
As he continued, Twilight felt an animalistic urge to flee welling up inside of her. It tugged at her throat, tightening her breathing. She wanted desperately to teleport, somewhere, anywhere, and had to tamp the rising energy in her horn as it prepared to whisk her away. Her wings, too, expressed their desire to be away and airborne, tips twitching and fluttering out from her sides like trapped creatures.
"It's okay. I've got it." She barked, buckling to the irrational impulse. Neglecting the graceful flow of telekinetic force from before, and opting for speed, she scooped up all the fallen books and shoved them into their proper places with a single burst of magic, before spitting out some reason to exit, and escaping to the sanctuary of the small room upstairs, to the right of the bedroom. It was a sort of makeshift living room, home to a thick loveseat that swallowed up anypony who sat it, a magivision set, and a small play pen, filled with soft toys. Twilight curled herself up on the couch, under the blanket that was resting on it's cushions, digging for the remote. At least her forceful reshelving wouldn't have been noticed as out of the usual. Too vain to limit herself to simple telekinetics, Twilight had simply used charms to dissuade any perception of her magical prowess as strange.
She had been living in Misty Point, Seaside Library for two months, though! She should be able to handle a simple conversation with some state of calm. She couldn't though. Not with Banned Books, despite his futile efforts to be nice to her, and certainly not with strangers. Twilight had been forced to send Spike grocery shopping for the past months because being around the handful of ponies going about at the supermarket made her feel like there wasn't enough oxygen to breathe.
The girls wouldn't be up for another hour or so. Usually Rainbow started causing a fuss around nine, and soon everypony was up. Armed with the youthful magic surges typical in pony infants, the quintuplets were always on the edge of gaining the upperhoof in the never ending battle of Please-Don't-Destroy-the-Library.
Wresting the controller from the couch's cushy grasp, Twilight turned on the magivision, and winced. News coverage of the continuing search for the Princess. Of course. It seemed like the Media just couldn't put the no-longer-current event to rest, despite objectively more interesting stories, like the continuing investigation into the Fitte's Corp disaster, or the recent laws legalizing wider use of synthetic magic implants. She imagined a certain somepony had something to do with the unusual focus by the media, which usually flitted spastically from one hot button issue to the next like Rainbow Dash on coffee.
The official story was that a radical group of ponies had targeted Princess Twilight for her stance on certain magic regulation laws.. The attack had been foiled midway through, and the perpetrators captured, but Twilight had disappeared. Celestia had warned in a press conference that the missing princess was probably confused and disoriented, maybe hurt, and if anypony recognized her, they should alert the royal guard immediately.
Twilight had her own hotline number. She felt sorry for the poor government officials who had to answer the endless prank calls Discord was making to it. He had insisted the practice was necessary to ensure Twilight’s tracks were covered, but she suspected he just enjoyed being a nuisance.
A soft knock at the open door made her look up, expecting a recently awoken Spike. Instead, Banned Books stood in the doorway, smiling with awkward cheerfulness. With a cup of coffee held in his magic, he held out a second mug hesitantly, as if offering food to a feral animal that might bolt or attack at any moment.
Celestia, Twilight felt terrible but a part of her was screaming to bury her head in the blanket and play dead. What was wrong with her? Why was she being so irrational?
Instead, she smiled half-heartedly and accepted the drink, taking a bitter gulp from the cup. Coffee was hard to resist, and she really had missed it during her eleven months holed up in her castle. Hot or cold, straight black coffee had been her energy source of choice for the past three hundred and fifty years, and she suspected it would remain so for a long time.
Anxiety tugged at her chest, but she firmly pushed it down, gritting her teeth.
Banned Books sipped his coffee quietly, watching at the news anchor talked about the latest in the large series of phony Sparkles ponies had been phoning in in an attempt to lay claim to the rather astronomical award now attached to her name.
"Shame about the Princess." Banned Book's remarked, absently stirring the spoon in his cup "She was always my favorite when I was a kid."
Twilight looked at him as if he had just told her he was the long lost heir to the throne of Saddle Arabia.
"What?"
Banned Books turned to her, eyebrows raised "You're telling me you never had a favorite princess growing up? You know, that one princess you just idolized as a foal?”
"Celestia." Twilight said, almost unthinkingly. She remembered her first summer sun celebration, seeing, seeing her future mentor take off into the air, pulling the sun with her, looking to all the world like some otherworldly goddess. Like she had been crafted from light itself. "...She just seemed so...wonderful."
"Yeah, she was most of my friend's favorite..." Banned Books chuckled "Mostly because we were little colts, and she was pretty."
The whole conversation seemed so surreal to Twilight. She had always been aware that, despite the country run mostly by parliament and elections, she and the other princesses were treated as symbols and guides to Equestria. However, she had never really given too much thought to the almost religious reverence given to herself, and to the ponies around her. She had never really thought about little foals looking at pictures of the princesses and playing with dolls of then and reading magazines and books about their lives...and picking favorites. Like they were fictional entities, completely separated from their lives, only to be observed. Which they were...in a way.
"Why..." she asked softly "Was Twilight your favorite?"
"Oh!" Banned Book's eyes lit up "This is a great story. You see, one time, when I was a little colt, I snuck into the forbidden wing of the Canterlot archive."
"Seriously?" Twilight choked, thinking back to herself as a filly, wandering around the Canterlot library whenever she didn't have school. A born rule follower, she had skirted away from that restricted section like it housed the plague as a filly, despite her curiosity.
"Well, me and all my friends when I was young were a bunch of little dweebs, and being dweebs and colts, we had collectively decided that sneaking into the forbidden wing was the coolest possible thing to do. It was the ultimate combination of books and youthful rebellion. So I slipped in at the heel of a scholar-"
Twilight gave a loud squawk "Do you realize how many ways you could have killed yourself?"
She thought of the careless researcher she had seen open up a book of Screaming Runes once, and shuddered slightly.
Banned Books laughed "I know...I know... But I haven't gotten to the best part. I wasn't two feet into the library when I ran straight into Princess Twilight. Not thirty seconds into my rebellious escapade and I headbutted one of the four highest authorities in the land right on the shins!" He chuckled, shaking his head "I had never been so terrified in my life."
Twilight blinked. She didn't remember that. She didn't remember that at all. She furrowed her brows slightly, trying to recall a day what, fifteen, twenty years ago? The past two hundred seemed like a blur.
"All the professors and researcher ponies in there immediately start freaking out, but the Princess just holds up a hoof, all cool and collected and says 'I'll handle this', and scoops me up in her magic. I was convinced I was going to die, or be thrown in the royal dungeons, so I start bawling my eyes out, telling her I only wanted to read more interesting books, and she just plops me down on the floor, looks me straight in the eyes and tells me that if I wanted unrestricted access, I'd have to either become a princess, or the Archive Loremaster first. Then she gets this little smile and says that it takes a minimum ten years of working in the archives to even apply for Loremaster, and even longer to become a princess, so I had better get started right away.” He paused, sighing “...Then she had me help the librarian reshelve for the rest of the weekend."
Twilight laughed. Son of a nag, she thought, that sure sounded like her. The memory now was sneaking back into clarity. An errand to grab some texts for personal research. A scrawny colt, frozen at her feet like a spooked animal. A twinge of guilt tugged at her chest for not remembering the moment. It wasn’t as if her memory was going either, she just...hadn’t considered it important enough to remember.
Banned Books smiled "The next day, I found this massive box of books on my front porch. None of them from the public archive, most of them way above my reading level, and with a note saying 'For the next time you feel tempted to sneak into the forbidden wing.'" he laughed "They were great, after the ten or so reads it took me to understand them.”
"Let me guess." Twilight said sardonically, covering up her growing discomfort. "Then, inspired, you rose through the ranks to become Loremaster and made snow-pegasai in restricted texts all day."
"Well...yeah!" Banned Books said "Without the snow-pegasai part, mostly it was organizing, and delegating tasks, and-"
"You're kidding." Twilight said, leaning forward. Though as a princess, some could say she was a tad above it, a part of her still got excited at her foal-hood dream job.
At the same time, another part of her cringed. She had influenced this pony’s life, for Celestia’s sake, and yet the memory had been tossed out like any other trivial, meaningless event. Completely insignificant. Something about that struck her as wrong.
"Nope. For real. Coltscout's honor. Turns out the restricted wing is pretty boring; all the books that aren’t incredibly dry research novels will kill you with horrifying black magic. Not really much fun."
Twilight snapped back into the conversation, cocking her head "Then… If you’re the archive’s Loremaster, what in Equestria are you doing here?"
Loremaster for an Archive like Canterlot’s was no small position, it was an honor, not to mentioning paying well, as you would expect from a job spent mostly babysitting volatile tomes of ancient spells.
“Was the Loremaster.” The smile on Banned Book's face wavered and fell, and Twilight immediately snapped a hoof to her mouth, knowing she had said the wrong thing. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"
Of course. Of course she had said something stupid. It hadn’t been going too terribly either. Maybe not great, but for a little while she hadn't felt the pressing need to transform herself into a potted plant, or cast an invisibility spell. Magic lent an incredible amount of spells ripe for the abuse of an antisocial sorceress. Now even the slightly open window was looking like an appealing exit to the situation. The room was too small, the TV was too loud, she needed to get out. She needed to get out right now-
"No, it's okay." The smile was back, if a bit strained, a bit evasive. "I just needed a change of pace. Somewhere different."
Twilight sat stock still, shoulders raised, the fur on her back and neck bristling. With effort, she raised her coffee mug to her face and took a too large gulp. She realized it had been a bad move as she nearly choked, anxiety hiking up another frantic notch as she resisted a sputtering coughing fit. Her hooves began to shake, and she felt the mug listing and wavering in her magic as her focus slipped.
Twilight looked at the window with increasing calculation in her gaze. If she teleported in this state she would probably and end up blinking up into a tree, or in the ocean, or inside somepony. Nope, window was the best option. She would erase Banned Book's memory of the incident later or something.
"...You alright there?"
No. No. Twilight, with great effort, forced her panic down.
"Yeah... I'm fine." She swallowed back a stutter. What had he even been saying before? Twilight struggled to recall. Finally, her mind latched back on to the thread of conversation.
"I can relate...um...It's beautiful here."
She had only briefly been to the seaside, and hiked about the woods only once, but the landscape held a serene charm, and an almost tangible aura of peace. Though not having been there long, Twilight could admit a genuine love for the serene little town. The thought of it eased her, if only slightly.
"Yeah." Banned Books smiled fondly "A little quiet at times, but beautiful."
"Quiet?" Twilight squeaked.
"I dunno, maybe I just can't appreciate the calm like some." Banned Book's turned, smiling "It's been nice having you guys around though...Livelier."
Lively was certainly one word to describe it.
As she opened her mouth sputter some sort of reply, or more probably just to scream, a long drawn out "TWIIII-YEEE!", sounded from the adjacent room. Foals usually started speaking and stringing together proper words around four months of age, and so far Rainbow had proved to be the quickest learner. She only had "Twi-ye" "Spie" and "No" mastered so far, but she usually managed to get the rest across through shrieks and excitedly waving her chubby little hooves. Twilight had never been so grateful for Rainbow Dash's ability to interrupt conversations.
In as normal a voice as she could muster, Twilight excused herself "Duty calls, it seems." Using her magic to refold the blanket she had been curled under, she attempted to wriggle free from the couch's pillowy maw, having sunk impressively into the cushions since first sitting down. Banned Books reached out and pulled her to her hooves, smiling.
Twilight forced a little smile in return, then bolted like a rabbit.
Walking into the adjacent room, she shut the door, then sat down, pressing her trembling hooves hard against the carpet. After a few shaky breaths, she pushed herself back upright. While she would have liked to stay there longer, she had more pressing matters to deal with. Trotting over, she pulled Rainbow from her crib. The little filly giggled, fluttering her tiny wings. From the other cribs came the small, gentle noises of waking, mostly drowned out by Spike, still snoring on the air mattress.
Twilight gently roused the others, scooping them up in her magic as they yawned and cooed.
As she gazed out through the window, she sent streams of magic out to grab bottles from the fridge, the sparkling aura turning from pink to orange as she muttered a warming spell under her breath.
She sat down on the bed, folding her legs underneath her, and setting the foals down next to her. Though being in the same room as Spike and her foals- the girls...calmed her down, she was still trembling slightly, and didn't want to even take the chance that her levitation might falter.
Rainbow immediately set to burrowing underneath the blankets like a groundhog, snuggling herself into the down comforter. From her tiny fort, she batted a hoof at Twilight's long mane, pulling a genuine laugh from her. Her hair measuring almost to the floor, Twilight kept a spell on it to make the strands almost friction-less and prevent tangles. To her satisfaction, it also had added bonus in preventing tiny hooves and mouths from grabbing hold and pulling.
Pinkie clambered up Twilight's back, squealing happily in her ear before rolling down and onto the comforter. After the filly had turned up without explanation, in a closet, between two books on a bookshelf, in the neighbors house, on the roof, and once, inside a large apple pie, Twilight had placed a tracking spell on her for easier retrieval. She doubted however, that it would convince the local bakery to let her back in. The logical part of her rationalized that Pinkie might have some underlying, unicorn heritage, causing the rare but not unheard of condition where a pony displayed the magic of another race instead of, or occasionally alongside, their own. During the strong magic surges common in foal hood, even during adulthood, if strong enough, it could easily result in some extra sensory ability. Spontaneous teleportation? Maybe. By a stretch.
A much larger part of her suspected that the cause was just Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie.
Rarity, possessing a healthy amount of aplomb and dignity even as a foal, sat primly at Twilight's hooves and gave a delicate yawn. Twilight was glad she seemed to be in a good mood today. At odds with her usual air of temperance, Rarity's tantrums were characterized by an incredible amount of screaming, at a pitch that made Twilight pity any whales or dolphins that happened to be swimming by the coastline.
She swirled the bottles, testing the warm liquid on her foreleg before distributing them. Fluttershy then Rainbow, Rarity, and Pinkie. Applejack, snuggled underneath Twilight's wing, looked up at her with wide eyes as she held the bottle out enticingly. Finally, the little filly opened her mouth, scooting out from her favorite hiding spot just far enough to for the rubber nib with her tiny orange hooves. Eventually Twilight would have to shield her wings from even the girls' eyes, so they wouldn't talk to their friends about their alicorn caretaker. For the moment, however, they remained a veritable playground for the fillies, who seemed enamored by the shiny, golden-pink tipped feathers.
Fluttershy scooted herself further into her spot, nestled between Twilight's forelegs. Unlike Rainbow or Pinkie, who would wriggle about like seaponies on land if made to sit still for more than a few minutes, Fluttershy would happily be held for hours. Twilight smiled, tucking a little strand of pink hair behind the filly's ear.
When the empty bottles were taken and floated to the sink, and the girls were burped, Twilight allowed herself thought. It was a luxury, one Twilight could easily get caught up in, so to keep herself focused, she tried to regulate it as best she could. Short term goals accomplished for the moment, Twilight turned her mind to long term to-do’s, in order of importance.
In a month, the previous owners of the house down the street would be moving out, and Twilight's little family would be moving in. The paperwork was all signed. Getting her own home...check.
She would need to keep checking and patching the various spells on herself, Spike, and the girls, but she had performed a thorough inspection and maintenance last week so they would be good for another month at least. Check on that one too, she guessed, for the time being.
Discord had been keeping her up to date on his work to keep Celestia off her tail, the latest being a month ago in the form of a small piece of paper, which she had woken up to find rolled into a ball and stuffed in her ear. If she didn’t hear from him again in a week or two, she would have to check in to make sure everything was alright…
And so on, and so on, finally dwindling to things like: Get some sleep maybe, eat something today, and don't forget to drink water, you keep doing that; no, coffee doesn't count. Over the past centuries, Twilight admitted she had gotten into some bad habits. Her alicorn metabolism could take a real beating, and sometimes, without the normal cues that told a pony when they hadn't slept or ate or had any water in the past seventy two hours, Twilight just forgot.
She held up a hoof, still shaking slightly, and frowned. The panics had been getting worse. They had been bad for decades, but lately...the nightmares, the shaking, the nausea, the overwhelming fear, seemed more often present than not. Social interaction, loud noises, small spaces, even the dark, all seemed to trigger an irrational, uncontrollable panic.
She couldn’t keep ignoring it.
“Nee!” Rarity shrieked loudly as Dash tackled her over, and bounded away, play bowing like an energetic puppy. Rarity pushed herself back into a seating position with a whine as the pegasus bounded around her excitedly. Dash reached out with a hoof, bopping her sibling...friend, on the nose, and giggling at the the testy squawk in response.
Exiting from her thoughts and putting on a soft smile, Twilight scooped up Rainbow in her magic, and placed her over by Pinkie, who was usually more forthcoming to a wrestling match. Rough and tumble play was important to the development of young ponies, but she could tell it would turn nasty if Rainbow continued harassing Rarity. Twilight wasn’t in the mood for screaming at the moment.
Rarity huffed demurely, as if to declare it was about time, and then flopped over on top of Fluttershy, across Twilight’s forelegs, begging for attention. A strand of magic combed through the filly’s hair, and Rarity giggled, reaching her hooves to catch the sparkling light.
Underneath her, Flutters mewled in protest, squirming, and soon the pair were engaged in a play fight of their own, Rarity being much more eager to engage with a gentler opponent. These brawls had worried Twilight at first, but after consulting several books on foal development in the library, she had discovered that it was common, a lingering trait from the days when the early practice of skills in evasion, magical talent, and “combat” with hooves would have proved a vital edge in escaping predators.
Stretching her hooves languidly, and setting her head down on the bed, she turned to watch with a little smile as Rainbow and Pinkie jumped and danced around each other, playing a game with rules they were born knowing, passed down from the days when the world was much less cozy a place. The objective, from what Twilight had observed, seemed to be knocking the other pony over. Magic was used, whether it be pegasus flight or unicorn telekinesis or the inherent strength and good balance in earth ponies. The only rule seemed to be that playing nice was enforced at all times. Hoof blows were always pulled to gentle bats and taps, and infractions scolded with angry, high-pitched yelps from the receiving party, and admonishments from Twilight or Spike. She liked to think of herself as the referee.
The girls had tired themselves out after about an hour, so Twilight swaddled each of them and returned them to their cribs, the soft noise of her murmuring them to sleep finally causing Spike to stir.
“Hnnn...Waazzat?” He rolled over and blinked his eyes, stretching.
“Just putting the girls down for a nap” Twilight said quietly, walking back to the bed and stretching out onto it. Spike raised his head from the floor to rest his chin on the edge of the mattress, smiling sleepily at her.
“Morning.”
Twilight nickered quietly. “More like afternoon, Sleepyhead.”
Spike flicked his eyes to the bedside clock, “It is eleven.”
“I’m allowed to hyperbolize.”
Twilight huffed, then sighed softly, resting her head on her hooves.
“Everything okay?” Spike furrowed his brows, tilting his head slightly.
Twilight mentally considered her answer.
Yes, if she interpreted “Okay” as being judged on her own mental norms. This was her usual state of mind. However, if he meant “Okay” as judged by medical standards, the answer was a bit more iffy.
Celestia, what in the world was she doing? Her mind was hers, she should be able to control it! Why was she so-
“I’m fine.” Twilight smiled. “I was just up early is all.”
Shaking off the last bits of sleep, Spike stretched, standing up “Here” He pulled the bed sheets over her “I’ll take the girls into the next room, and you get some shut-eye in here. Catch up on your sleep. Maybe take it easy for a few days?”
“It’’s okay.” Twilight laughed, picked herself up off the bed, and gave Spike an affectionate nuzzle “You worry too much.”
“And you rest too little,” Spike shot back, before softening “It’s just...You don’t need to carry everything on your shoulders. I’m here to help” he reached out a wing, curling it around her shoulder. It wasn’t quite the same as being wrapped in a dragon wing, but the feathers were comforting.
“I couldn’t do it without you,” Twilight murmured, leaning into the embrace. For being the little brother, Spike sure took a lot more care of her than the other way around.
“I’m going to go get ready.” Spike gently folded his wing, smiling at her. “Just try and relax, okay?”
Twilight nodded, as he walked into the bathroom and closed the door. She let out a soft breath.
She thought about her time on the throne, about the massive gap she had felt growing between herself and the rest of the world...and how she had taken it with her. It protected her from her fears, but it also made them stronger. If she really wanted, Twilight could stay isolated. Once she got her permanent home, she could go out as little as possible, send Spike out for groceries, home school the girls. She could never talk to anyone outside her little family, and feel safe, and never have to look across that dizzying canyon again.
Wouldn’t that be easy? Wouldn’t that be nice?
Sitting down on the bed, biting her lip gently, Twilight added a new goal to her mental checklist. This whole time she had been trying to train herself to put up with new ponies, trying to quell her anxiety to the point where she could casually brush them off...But that was still walling herself in, hiding from her fears. That wasn’t what she wanted.
She needed to make some friends.
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omg update.
and you have a tendency to just vanish into the ether dude.
Holy crap its back!
I would highly recommend using paragraphs to break up the text so it dose not feel so clustered.
Great chapter. I had to reread some of the story to remember what was going on though. I guess that's what I get for reading over 10 fics and over 20 manga at the same time.
seriously, at least long on once in a while even if you ahve nothing to post. the last time you did was fourteen weeks ago.
I'm curious to what Twilight's long term goals are. The girls will get older and they will asked questions. She can't keep it up forever. I think the reason she hides is she doesn't want to lose them again to the Elements (Still think that's a dumb reason for their deaths) I think Twilight could rely on Cadance to side with her, maybe Luna since she does owe the Mane 6 one. I think there's enough there plus an attempt of a mending between them to have Celestia swear to not use the girls again.
THis was a good chapter, but I want to see some signs of the end game from both POVs. Heck we haven't even seen Celestia's POV or how the other Princess dealt with what happened to the girls.
Well, I'm adding this to my watch list... I rather like it. Strange how all my favorite clean stories are about Twilight having some sort of mental crisis in one form or another... This and Asylum... Anyhow, keep up the good work, nd I can't wait for the next chapter.
Huh. This might make it into favorites if this keeps up.
The premise seemed dubious but this chapter is pulling things on track surprisingly well.
It's been awhile. Whatever Celestia did to Twilight warrants my interest...
5821878 What HASN'T she done? From episode one she treated Twilight like a mushroom--- kept her in the dark and fed her loads of horseapples. Pinned ridiculously dangerous tasks on her. Subjected her to dangers entire ARMIES should have faced...
And then when she finally ascended... treated her like the hired help. Really, Tia? All the way to the Crystal Empire to hang a banner? Really?
And now it's been implied that, due to some bullshit "balance of the cosmos" excuse, Celestia was responsible for the deaths of all her friends.
Cuteness overload. There was enough cute in this chapter to make my heart explode.
IT WAS AWESOME!!
Dude, how is this rated E? It should be AT LEAST T!
5822116 ....... no wonder your vulcan story is what it is. you have that ignorant celestia hate thing going on. and it monstrously impacts that story as it seems to only draw in others who have that idiocy going on. saying, oh this character suck, rather than taking into account the fact that the writers kinda wrote themselves into a situation where they simply have no way or using celestia.
5821878 Elevated Twilight to alicornhood with a ritual that uses the elements and a focus as a side effect being the deaths of the other five bearers without telling her.
5822416
At that point you have not the character of celestia, but the archetype and representations of celestia
In terms of story, these things are perfectly legitimate definitions of character.
The actual character that the mlp peeple wrote depends on the exact situation and the exact style of response and the exact motivations behind the celetia that mlp actually contains.
These things are highly interpretative. A lot of it depends less on what celestia does and says and more on what people associate with her which causes them to think of her actions as having certain motivations. What I am saying, is that they don't see the character you see because, from their perspective, with their memories and their understanding of people, the celestia YOU see is BOGUS and nonsense. To them, people just don't ACT like that for good reasons.
Maybe they only see more selfish motivations. Maybe their veiwpoint is wider then we can understand, and some concept you don't get means that celestia really IS probably a horrible person inside, despite the (quite arguable)good she has done politically and despite talking in a motherly tone of voice.
What I am saying, is that the Anti-celestia train has to be taken seriously, because, regardless of who is right, evil-bad celestia is perfectly coherent in SOMEONE's mind, which means that there is something to understand there and something to learn. If the story says that celestia is one way, that has to be accepted because it is true for the story. Hating that celestia is not hating the mlp celestia, it is hating whatever bitch that author made and, hopefully, exploring her a bit.
5823033 actually it appears that the elements were killing them to begin with.
5823288 except when its not. to someone's mind it is completely sensible that a low grade unicorn could be a serial killer who massacres the mane six as if they were kittens, despite them beating up an army of changelings and surviving incidents with chaos beasts and fallen angels. it only requires a disregard to the characters as characters to accomplish that.
interpretation is limited to a degree. for example one could come to the conclusion that rainbow dash is the most likely to perform an act of violence, as she is the most aggressive and is protective, but it only works if someone threatens her friends or herself. you can't have her just randomly attacking people.
if you want a character to do something you need to fit it into their personality and tendencies. and in such stories with celestia, that is not taken into account.
true we do lack a considerable bit of her but we do know distinct traits. she is far more humble than anyone in her position normally is, and she does not view others as beneath her (teasing the cakes for treating her like royalty). she is also maternal to those closest to her, as exemplified in the comic where she walks about with spike, revealing bits and pieces to how she operates.
also she may make mistakes but she is clever and adaptable, and can figure out past a problem quite easily. best example was during that parasprite episode. you can tell she has a strong idea of what is going on, and saves twilight and pony ville the embarrassment.
if you make her ignorant of events around her, make her act like an idiot, and basically knowingly put herself on a horse even higher than herself, then you are definitely not doing something in character.
5823301 True, but it would have killed Twilight much earlier then any of the others. Most likely channeling huge amounts of magic through a mortal body and being the central firing mechanism of a magical friendship cannon don't exactly do wonders for ones health.
Worth the wait
You've earned my like
5821670 I think she just wants things to go back to the way they were before her ascension. Her plan sound pretty much like: raise friends, befriend friends, not be a princess. You have a good point there though. What is she going to do when her children look older than her?
Twilight seems... reluctant to refer to the foals as her children. It shows in how she corrected herself a few times internally when she refers to them. Also, Rainbow is calling her Twilight and not mom, so that means that Twilight isn't refering to herself as mom around her foals. I understand her reasoning, but she may just be stuck viewing her past friends as just that; her friends. It's sad because her children view Twilight as a mother, because she is by all accounts her mother. Also, fluttershy is adorable.
5823342
I'm not sure which part of my post you are objecting to. I said many things.
I think I'll just stick to things you said
Discord is a joker,not a killer. Nightmare moon was trumped straight and didn't stand a chance due to her personal unwillingness to slaughter them on the spot. The changeling army was starved, unless that part is non-cannon, I don't remember. Actually, it seems like the kind of detail that wouldn't be mentioned in the show. Actually, this was kind of the point. How battle-ready could a group of magically empty bugs be if their main combat ability comes from magic? We don't know and we don't know if it was even the case. In real life, how well can someone make a mask for their ego? How well could someone do in 1000 years of being polite to people who they don't know talking about boring things?
And how well do you think you would do on the end of knife?
Ah, ok, there we are
This is the misunderstanding we have.
Celestia from that fic does not equal celestia from the show.
They don't need to take her into account because she isn't the person they are talking about. That is what I was trying to say. If a person it truly out of character, then it isn't the same character. It is another character, one who does things which are outside of the comfort zone of the original character.
They share traits with celestia because they are based on celestia. The author can be totally wrong about who in-show celestia is, but the author is always right about who in-fanfic celestia is.
If you need to make a second character named celestia so that their story makes sense, then do that because that is the story they told. It is no longer "celestia" it is "a character who would do each of the things that the author said the character did" because they absolutely did do those things. Now, if you talk to the author, they may believe their rendition of the character is accurate, but that is another issue all together.
loved it
5824170 there was no statement of them being starved. if they were though they likely could not breach the barrier to begin with.
here is the issue. if you are going to create a world where things like serial killers exist, you ahve created a world where that has been a loong standing problem. and as a result you created a world that likely those dangerous scenarios were all the more perilous too.
you cannot change one primary aspect and not have the world changed. it is cause and effect. the idea that THIS would be the only incident of violence is completely ridiculous and contrived.
there is a difference between world building and artificially creating conflict. and in such stories it is used not to create an environment, but to artificially create conflicts.
and i mean artificial as they feel forced and come from forced positions. such as celestia not having regard to members of her kind who are carnivorous. or not having the regal sisters themselves pop up if one of the mane six is missing or hurt.
just because you can does not mean it will create something that is good. opinion may be opinion but there is only so far that something can go before someone has to look at it and say 'well this makes no sense'.
5823493 that would likely happen even earlier. They would ask why are the disguised, why she had wings and a horn. At best the status quo will only last a few years. For the girls would have the same drives they did before and not even Twilight can stop that.
And yes, twi. You DO need to make some new friends.
I still like this story'
but it feels like it's missing something
5824553
Maybe she's possessed by demons.
inb4 demons
MOAR
5824394 Well, she probably could stop that, but she wouldn't want to. She specifically used a spell so that they would have those drives.
5825817 You wouldn't happen to have any experience in exorcism would you? I'd do it myself, but my moustache keeps getting in the way. Something about these demons being the only 'fun' people around here.
5826188 exactly, so she doesn't have much time. Rainbow will do a Sonic Rainboom again and Celestia will be looking for that since Harmony Castle had signs that Twilight's spell worked.
5823288 heh! "exploring" also that was an excelent use of vocabulary that i appreciated because it was neutral and informative. no but seriously celestia's almost certainly not the all mothering figure she suggests she is.
5824392
One thousand starved warriors from a magic-based race which doesn't have a killing intent because their prey needs to be alive? Oh yeah, they could take down that shield. However, this debate is a bit too specific and irrelevant.
Why don't you think that pony society doesn't generate serial killers? Also, how would some pony applying a knife to a neck make discord more deadly? Because of theming changes?
What if I told you she fell up the stairs? I would think you would generate a blank, female character and assume that some sort of local magic is screwing with some stairs such that you don't have to assume that literally all of physics is different from our own world, since that would be hugely complicated and you don't personally think that an author would try to imply that huge of a change without actually mentioning it. See, cause that would have been unclear of the author.
I only told you that there was one female, but you already assumed that there were many, many females and some males. I only told you that one person fell up stairs once, but you did not(probably) assume that all stairs in this world are simply made that way for convenience.
Basically, anything can be made coherent with sufficient explanation. Even the most motherly can be cold and even gravity can go up. If a story tries to toss a killer in mlp, that is totally possible. If you don't understand how this is possible, that means that either the author never gave you an explanation or you didn't understand it. If they never gave one, I could agree that that was bad, unclear, writing. This is why I keep bringing up the changlings. Each thing I said about them is an excuse I made up to try to explain the story despite its own, internal inconsistency. That is what people do when the story doesn't make sense to them, they make sense of it. How are you to say that it doesn't make sense due to your own failure? Still, unclear writing is unclear. At this point, the reader is basically just making up the story themselves. I guess that could be used in a cool way, but I have no idea how right now. Just think, a story made so that every reader gets a different tale, somehow without being confusing and pointless.
Elements have regenerative powers. It's evident elements make their bearers long lived not the other way around. And Twilight in this story is very OOC
5822116
She was personal student of princess Celestia. Princess in Equestria isn't Earth princess. They know how to fight and very often they do that. Twilight was sent to solve things she was trained for. Being princess is dangerous job in Equestria and that means candidates for princess have to be trained very hard.
You don't send whole army to do something that small group can solve and where army wouldn't be able to do anything.
5827363
Well, going by the show, there's no real "evidence" of the elements doing anything save blasting baddies with rainbow-punishment-beams o' friendship. Since the show canon keeps the element's origins vague (along with their powers, which usually seem to follow whatever is convenient to the plot) the viewers are free to imagine all sorts of background stories and side effects for the elements, ranging from: longer lifespans, as you suggested
to:
the tree of Harmony is actually a lovecraftian elder god beyond mortal comprehension, with Celestia, Luna, and the girls as it's unknowing mortal servants, while it wages a cosmic, chess master battle with Discord.
*shrugs*
Neither of those concepts are ever likely to be addressed in the show, and the fun part is really the imagining, and seeing other's interpretations.
As for Twilight being out of character, I try to keep to some core personality traits: loyal, tenacious, resourceful, intelligent, anxious, a tad awkward. She's not exactly the same as show Twilight, but anyone, I imagine, would change over three hundred or so years, and I tried to fit her personality to how I imagine Twilight would be shaped by the particular experiences in the story. Starting off this story's Twilight at a rather low point gives her some place to grow from.
5827557
Exactly.
Yay more!
Twi's anxiety is getting pretty bad. That won't go away easy.
But I fully agree that she needs to make some friends!
Also, AJ and demure? That doesn't sound right to me. Ah well, not everyone is defined perfectly right from the start
Great Chapter! Very detailed.
The day Twilight graced Banned Books presence was the most important day of his life, but for Twilight, it was Tuesday.
As others have said, you either need to indent paragraphs or add blank lines between each to make reading easier.
5824170
It's fanon. Chrysalis says one of her jobs is to "find food for [her] subjects." It's never stated or even implied that's their motivation for invading.
5824392
I'm not really understanding your point. The Elements are only very rarely used, so the cause and effect would be very limited in the grand scheme of things. I also don't see where it's been stated that that's the only violence to occur. Just because something isn't explicitly stated in the fic, doesn't mean it doesn't. It's likely crime, violence, etc. is just as much of an issue as it always is, it just hasn't been overtly addressed in the story (mainly because it's not important).
5851438 ............ yeah that conversation went out of hand. we weren't even talking about the fic itself at this point.
I have to say. This chapter does show a side of Twilight I didn't know exist. Twilight used to represent friendship and now she has anxiety attacks whenever somepony tries to interact with her. At least now, she acknowledged that that needs to change. I do have a couple of questions. What made Twilight finally believe what Discord told her so long ago about Celestia being the cause of her friends death? And where is Princess Cadence? I don't remember seeing her yet.
5894076
Which kinda ruins the entire point of Celly's character.
Since it's been a while, I'll post my nitpicks now:
(Also, as others have said, either indenting paragraphs or double spacing them is okay, but doing neither is inadvisable.)
focused on?
to ... not tear apart, right?
its
laws.
friends'
pegasi
Either delete "and", or you left something out
Love it! Can't wait for more. I especially enjoyed the girls' personalities manifesting in foalhood, and anxious Twilight.
A good chapter, brings up that Twilight's social issues are rearing up again, Celestia still hasn't given up, Discord is having fun, and the girls are growing up fast and seemingly taking on former traits from there previous lives. They may not BE her old friends but they will be close.
Oh good, the Princess of Friendship decided to look into friendship again.
I don't think I can read this in this format. It looks like a wall of text and I can't push past it.
You might want to add in some indents or breaks between paragraphs. Just to make it easier to read.
Seven chapters in at roughly 1 AM, and I have to begrudgingly put this down and sleep.
Honestly, I saw this in the feature box some time ago- I'd guess four to eight months- and I kinda wrote it off as a potentially interesting subject that I didn't particularly care about exploring. I only gave it space because of the fact that Twilight is immortal in the story, and all of her friends (sans Spike, of course) have died... and I'm not a fan of either scenario. It just spirals into Dark territory way too easily.
However, I saw it again today, and with nothing better to do, decided to give it a read, and, well, here we are. I obviously like the story, and I think Twilight lends herself well to internal conflict like this. I like it much in the way I liked Raugos' story Withdrawal. Neither story being my typical cup of tea, but enjoying it for the conflicts and characters moreso than the premise.
Also, the Twi/Spike banter is amazing and one of my favorite parts of the story. And no story I've ever read before has made me "D'aww" out loud like this line:
Fluttershy is just too cute for words.
I'll probably get around to finishing the rest soon. Until then, cheers!