Epilogue
Earlier that same day…
In the faraway land of the Crystal Empire, in the largest room of the highest tower of the castle, Shining Armor prayed for the smallest pause in existence. It was denied from him, not by an outsider, but by his sense of duty that would have him read and approve the season’s applications for the Crystal Guard before the day’s end, even if it meant staying up until the very last minute of it. Right now that was hours away, but the pile of paper on his desk was thicker than his horn was tall. Thus he worked, for there was no other way out. Not until the front door opened, at least.
“Shining Armor is not present at the moment,” he said mechanically. “Only His Majesty, the Royal Rubber Stamp, is, and he is very, very busy.”
Cadance, walking by the red carpet that led all the way to his desk, smiled sympathetically. “You know, there is no disgrace in delegating. You’d be doing the clerks a favor, really: they take great pride in their position.”
“Some things I must do personally, even if there is no practical difference in who uses this damned thing,” he said, imprinting yet another “Approved” to an application with a rubber stamp. It made a noise like tsak. “I’m the pony who's supposed to lead all these other ponies, should the need arise. Their trust must be met with something more concrete than a few minutes on some clerk's desk, even if that something is just a few minutes on my desk.” Another stamp, another dull tsak echoing in the high room. “It’s a military thing.”
Cadance shook her head, but left it at that. “Could I then perhaps steal my husband from the Rubber Stamp, even if just for a moment? I find myself in a need of advice.”
The paper on Armor’s desk suddenly lost even the shadow of interest it might’ve had for him. Armor looked up, his tired eyes suddenly regaining some of their sharpness. “Of course. What is it?”
Cadance coughed and produced an opened envelope, which she floated in front of him. “It’s from Ponyville,” she explained. “Arrived just a while ago, sent by Spike.”
“From Twilight?” he asked, pulling the letter out.
“You’d think, right? No, it’s from Rainbow Dash.” She thought something for a moment and said: “It’s better that I don’t try to explain it first. You’ll find it complicated enough as is, I believe.”
Armor gave her a look and resumed by reading, which at this point resembled breathing for him. The letter had been written with some haste, that much was clear with a glance. There weren’t many words as such, which was a shame, for there definitely was a demand for more. He finished it quickly enough, but only on the third attempt did he really get to the heart of the matter.
“Is this a prank?” he asked, looking at his wife.
Cadance shrugged. “If it is, it’s not very funny. I’d except it isn’t, based on what little I know of Rainbow’s sense of humor.”
Armor looked stunned. “So she is seriously asking guidance from you with a ménage á trois, the likes of which you usually find for a couple of bits in those stands at train stations?”
“Why she shouldn’t be asking from me?
“No, don’t take it that way… I’m wondering why she’d be asking this from anypony?”
Cadance’s frown only deepened. “Why shouldn’t she?”
“You read the letter, right?” After her nod, he continued: “It practically solves itself! A lovesick stallion who’s so afraid of rejection that he falls in love with another mare? A mare so shy that she falls for anypony who loves her more than she does herself? And finally Dash herself, who clearly has some weird hate-love relationship to Thunderlane? They should split up and continue like they used to, however that was. I’m sure Dash knows this, too.”
Cadance gave him the type of look she had hoped would be uncalled for now that they were married. “Is that it, then?”
Armor recognized that look well enough. “I suppose not?”
She sighed. “Dash clearly wrote this letter mostly for herself, to support the course of action she feels right. The depiction you just gave is how she sees it, or how she’d like to see it. The fact that she turned to me with this means that she does have genuine doubts, although they may be deep enough that she doesn't hear their call, but only sees what she wants to see.”
Armor looked at her with round eyes. “Oh.”
“I came to you with this mostly to see if you could spot that,” she said quietly, pulling the letter and envelope back to herself. “The situation itself is clearly complex enough to demand a full exposition, not a colored perspective like this. I’ll write her back with an offer for an encounter, in the case it really is advice that she seeks.” She turned away, and made it casually towards the door.
In Armor’s mind, a particularly long fuse burnt out. “Hey, wait! Were you just testing me?”
“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t like being tested,” she said over her shoulder, smiling playfully. “Keeps you sharp, doesn’t it?”
The door closed with a thud. For a moment, the room was quiet.
Tsak!
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- TheVulpineHero1 · 17k words · 56 3 · 1.1k views
- Skylight77 · 6.3k words · 69 23 · 4.7k views
- ACTASAP · 12k words · 64 3 · 2.4k views
- Starlight Shadow · 3.3k words · 52 6 · 1.3k views
- Der_Fur_Shur · 39k words · 84 12 · 2.3k views
- Ghosttown Brony · 13k words · 66 3 · 1.8k views
- Dracoliat · 16k words · 58 7 · 4.6k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.146 seconds
Total duration
595 users online
930,455 hits today, 2,591,549 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.®
This was one amazing story. So, will there be a sequel?
4724911 Thanks! To what comes to your question, I cannot say. This was a sequel to begin with, but on other hoof I really enjoy playing with these particular little ponies, so who knows? It'll be a while in any case, for I got me three other stories (four, really) that need to be looked after. Also, I'm kind of spent on ideas on this one at the moment.
4724981
With an ending like that? There better be a third part in the trilogy, dangit!
*deep breath* That was a little bracing. I feel bad for Thunderlane, who gets jerked around the most and winds up with nothing, but it is what it is. Stepping out is a mature move on his part.
The ending's a little confusing that the "epilogue" that shows Dash has doubts about her conclusion that they should kick Thunderlane to the curb comes after the where she does that (albeit a little more kindly), which narratively would normally indicate there's more to the story, but you said that there's only maybe a sequel so it's more like reflecting on her behavior in the previous chapter, I suppose.
But I think everyone can agree on one thing: Thunderlane's mom is awesome.
4725622
4725213
Yeah, okay, the story has loose ends, some of which are intentional. The epilogue does carry more than one possible sequels, and it's not in any way out of the question that I wouldn't try to nurture them in the future, whatever that means. But it defintetly helps my decision to know that folks dig this series.
Extra thanks for rooting for Thunder Cloud! It might be worthwhile to write a sequal just for her sake.
4740180 Well, he kind of brought this down on himself. He gets treated alright in the prequel, though.
4740751
How? the only Thing he did wrong was keeping his mouth shut when the others wanted him to.
4743833 I didn't say he absolutely deserved what he had coming, only that he was the one who caused it (with the others, obviously). I usually refrain from making moralizing claims about the characters outside the story.
5144897 The next best thing to clop.
5282703 In a sense, they all used each other. Dash wanted to have great sex, Fluttershy wanted to please Dash, even against her better judgement, and Thunderlane just had fallen for Dash years ago, which ended up clouding his reason. For some reason, it was Thunderlane especially who got the blame in some the readers' minds, although personally I thought they all had somewhat of a equal share in causing their troubles. Well, not perhaps equal in any mathematical sense, but simply different shares -- the point is, they would not have ended up where they did if they all had had sincere intentions about one another. In a way, the story's moral was that we can never have absolutely sincere views of other humans.
Does that cover your curiosity?
Wow, yeah, that was heavy stuff. And you know what, I really loved it! I can't get enough of how deeply you explore each character's feelings and flaws, and I love nothing more than a story about disillusionment with the lies that one tells oneself.
I have to say, the ending's execution was remarkable. I mean, from the moment that Dash says “I love you, Shy,” the remaining paragraphs of the chapter at first seem to be entirely unrelated to the plot up to that point, as if the curtains that Thunderlane draws over the door to the back room separate the worlds of two entirely different stories. I spent a minute wondering why the hell I was reading a casual chat between Thunderlane and his mom about Octavia and Rumble, who each only had one appearance in the story (and, in Octavia's case, as nothing but a passing background detail), but Octavia's move from the Café to the Inn is a nice note of the journey that the three protagonists have completed: from the passion and infatuation of the "too sweet for the ears" summer and "too sweet for the ears" romance to the Inn, a place where facts are faced—and Thunderlane's words on growth and his resolve to keep an eye out for Rumble in case he needs to help his little brother understand and navigate the complexities of love and heartbreak speak to the maturity he's gained and the lessons he just learned. The epilogue is similarly a neat one-step-removed reflection on the story. All these worked pretty well.
There are still a bunch of he/she mix-ups and other typos, but besides those, you could make your prose more fluid by using contractions more often. For example, in chapter 5, the lines "One week he is drunk of bliss, the next he can’t get up from the bed." and "Yeah, but she is still here. Gosh, I’m sure she is watching us right now" would probably be better written with "he's" and "she's" instead of "he is" and "she is". On another note, I think that you had a few instances of misusing contractions, like in chapter 4, when you wrote "What would’ve you said?!" instead of "What would you have said?!"
Thanks for writing a great story! I've got to check out your other works.
yessss this is exactly why I love this pairing. shipping FlutterDash 'til the day I die
5437182 Much obliged! With comments such as yours, I'll be sure to write a third part for this threesome. At some point. SS FlutterDash sails forever!
It's true that my English suffers from rough corners, a few of which you rightly mentioned. Good proofreaders help, of course, along with writing more.
Yay.
Poor 'Lane...
That's gotta hurt, especially since it really looked like he and Fluttershy really did have something there, even if marriage really wasn't the best idea.
You wrote this just so you could make the pun, didn't you.
5622087
Never wasted a good pun in my life.
Thunderlane got utterly crushed at the end there. Of all of them, I felt that their arrangement lifted him higher than the other two - only to come crashing down far, far lower than them. Dash and Fluttershy have each other, Thunderlane is left alone with nothing but memories and rejections from the mare he loves with all his heart and the mare he'd developed (admittedly infinitely less intense) feelings for over the summer.
Of course he is responsible in part for the whole thing imploding, but I can't help but feel like he'd been used by both of them and then discarded the instant he was no longer relevant. It's very heavy stuff, but in that horrible-yet-great way that these things are when they're done well. I really felt bad for him; and I guess Fluttershy's hesitation about 'third wheels' in the first story was completely justified in the end. It's a shame that Thunderlane had to pay such a heavy price for proving her right, though...
Ah well, at least there's a slight glimmer of hope in the dark for him. Helia seems to like him, he 'just' needs to get over Rainbow and maybe things won't be so bad in the end.
6494118 That's exactly how I felt, too! I'm actually harboring intents of writing continuation for this series just to make things turn out a bit happier from TL's perspective. Like as not, Helia would play major role there...
...along with Tree Hugger...
6494285
Man, I really hope you continue it. The only thing I regret about reading both of these stories is that I didn't read them when they were new.
But Thunderlane better not get into another three-way relationship because holy shit he'd be the dumbest stallion in history.
6494544 Love makes fools of us all.
33.media.tumblr.com/1d2886dc23878069c3d873531064afc5/tumblr_n5ta6auZz11sjwvr2o1_500.gif
If ya need me...Me and my feels for Lane will go in a corner somewhere...
6574303 You're welcome to join me.
Went though this again cause I can't get enough of the feels train it seems.
So yeah, they all used each other in the end but by the end of it all it seems that Thunderlane got the short end of the stick no matter one might say. His feelings, forgotten like a leaf on the wind like that, still rather chokes me up inside.
I can only guess that he grew just a little bit wiser and in time will just push Rainbow and Fluttershy out of his mind completely. The only way they will ever return in the end of it is if he falls in love with one of the other mane 6, in which case I can clearly see some hostility some where down the line in some way shape or form.
In any case, stilling loving this story and hope you do at least one more story to finish this little ark up. I'll be waiting until then.
7494274 Aw shucks. Such a fine way to start a morning, reading that.
In fact I have several pages (some of it actually edited) awaiting to be finished in my gdocs file. The fall leading to winter ought to supply ample demand for me to open it again. It's the season most suitable for the case, I find.
7496790
...buck yeah