No pony can hold onto their magic forever. Inevitably, a pony's body will be broken, and their magic will return to the air and soil. Celestia has held onto her magic for a very long time.
After many long years of preparation, the time for Twilight to succeed Celestia as Bearer of the Sun has come. But as the abdication ceremony in which Celestia will relinquish her power approaches, Twilight begins to desperately search for a way to stop the dread ritual of the ceremony and save her friend.
Chapters (1)
I honestly like how this story was written. I really found this to be a great read.
YESS YOU POSTED IT YEEEESSSSS
I haven't read this final version yet, but I assume it's a) substantially similar, and b) still awesome.
Well, this is going to get featured. I just know it.
so this was quite the thing.
This story... Was powerful.
Bravo!
I......... WOW....... INCREDIBLE!
I- but-this-
Wow.
I'm following & favourite-ing. Thank you. Thank you for the wonderful, full-of-feels time.
Thank you ever so much.
~Your Satisfied and Now-Crying Reader,
Peppermint Terminal.
unless the story of unicorns raising the sun is a lie this makes Celestia's duties a curse that no one should have to bear.
This is excellent.
This is... magnificent and truly, truly powerful. What a gemstone! What a gem.
I cried.
This story made me feel empty inside, because all of those words... were true.
Wow. Powerful imagery. Powerful words. Very well done in every respect.
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Thanks for showing me this. You always seem to find the best stories.
Damn. At least she was out before the grisly stuff happened. I've read a fic or two that has it happen while the sacrificee is still alive, and it's been traumatic.
You just killed me inside. I think I'm gonna go reconsider life now...
I wrote a review of this story here.
Fuck.
Yes. Well done, though sad to the max.
There is peace in death, away from the perpetual turmoil of life. Dying is, in its own way, a reward. Celestia earned her rest.
I feel like I have a lot to say, but I can't find the right words. Great story, sad, tragic, but definitely great.
I... I'm not crying. I just got some story in my eye.
Where are the rest of the Bearers of Harmony?
Luna is very dislikable here.
5920849
How so?
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She is very arrogant, rude, offensive, unwise and emotionally unstable. She feels evil. Her behavior is disgusting, especially in the scene with Twilight.
I mean, there are a lot of stories where she is very dislikable, but this Luna is one of the worst. I almost hate her there (and she is one of my favorite characters in the show).
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5921749
Where are you getting evil, disgusting, and offensive from? Offensive towards whom? Evil how? By trying to break through Twilight's denial? By saying simply, 'You can't change this, you've made a promise that it would be wrong to break, my sister and i believe you will do the right thing'? I really have no idea where you're getting words like 'disgusting' from.
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Twolot Spockle.
Not evil like "Muahahaha, I will bring eternal night and suffering!", but evil like bad/abusive person.
She isn't nice. She isn't kind. She don't even respect Twilight. She doesn't care about Twilight here, despite everything that Twilight did to her (and to her sister) before. In my opinion, she don't even have the right to be angry at Twilight after NMM incident and "Luna Eclipsed".
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She didn't say exactly this. Here she is rude and all she does is threatening Twilight, trying to intimidate her and releasing her own wrath. I even dare to say she enjoys feeling of her own superiority, which is so wrong considering that Luna is one to blame in both "NMM incident" and "not appearing during the events of Canterlot Wedding", while Twilight is flawless.
They are describing Luna's behavior from my point of view.
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P.S. My English is far from perfect, sorry. And so is my opinion.
I'm afraid that I found this story somewhat ugly... Not in the writing, which was quite evocative, but in the implications. I feel like it was meant to show the burden that Celestia lived under and grant her a merciful release after a long watch (or at least that's what I wanted it to be), but in stressing her burden it tipped over the line for me and instead became a story about Luna and Celestia being willing to sacrifice Twilight to a horrible fate in order to free Celestia from it.
As such, I agree with Lunar Pheonix about how Luna's anger towards Twilight reads in hindsight... In light of the horrible price they are asking of Twilight, it's pretty monstrous to explode at her and threaten her should she not go through with it. It's immediately followed by Celestia guilting Twilight into it. At the time reading it, it still seemed like it was Twilight's choice and so not so disturbing... But then the words of the ceremony come.
That's where it all flips. By the ritual's own words, it's impossible that Twilight is giving informed consent to what she's agreeing to. Apparently she will only understand once she has thoroughly been broken of all hope, and only then can she be released... The words of the ritual go far beyond humbling, especially when applied forward as well as back. Celestia truly understands them now, and so it means that she doesn't believe Twilight is capable of doing any good, or making the world any better. Twilight is merely the means to the end of her own suffering... And Celestia has groomed her for this role.
So I can appreciate that in this tale of blood rituals, It's actually Twilight who is the sacrificial lamb and not Celestia, despite whose blood gets spilled. But man... That is dark. It was labeled as such, so I can't overly complain, but still...
The visceral comparisons and metaphors seemed a bit heavy at times, but all things considered it's a good story. Heavy stuff.
I have only one thing to say: Dude, Xanax, you need it.
I... didnt really like it. For a number of reasons, but im not sure i can explain them all.
Luna appearing to unsympathic has already been said.
The "oath" was waaaay overdone. Basically telling her that she can accomplish nothing ever. That is proven wrong, in the show itself. Things are not perfect, i get what its trying to say, but calling celestias actions meaningless just... no, just no.
The idea to find other means is bluntly dismissed by all, despite there being some elephants in the room. Like it completly conflating controlling the sun with ruling equestria, when theres no obvious reason this should be so.
Kudos to Celestia for offering twilight a way out.
I think twilight should have taken it. Would have taken it. She certainly came close... I wonder what would have happend.
The rest of my dislike comes from more emotional or subjective reasons, which may not be legitimate critcism, but i extremely dislike the overdown cynical and extremely stagnant worlview (how many millenia, and noone changed anything, and neither is the world changed(?))
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I don't think that the oath was trying to say that you could not make things better. What it was saying is that when you had come to feel that way it was time to pass on the power. That when you had been worn down by time so much that you felt like nothing you did mattered it was time to let go.
That was so good! You wrote Luna so well as a sentient being barely able to stand the reality of it all. And Celestia as a pony so utterly exhausted of century after century, as though she had only ever hung on to see her sister return from the moon. As for twilight stuck in the middle of some crazed ancient cosmic right! How could she do that, and yet, how could she possibly not take on the legacy and free someone she loved so much from their burden?
Thank you.
I have this weird Abraham sacrificing Isaac vibe.
Jesus this is way darker than "Towards Some Greater Dawn" you win this round. (Why didn't I think of drinking the lifeblood dammit that is so messed up I should have thought of that)
But... What if I didn't?
This was a beautiful piece. The tone was haunting all the way through, and I love the idea of how this sun power is passed on. Gives a lot more weight to the whole steward of the sun deal than any other fic concerning this transfer of power I've read. I really need to check out your other stuff sometime soon.
This story hurt me.
I don't believe I can criticize this story on any technical grounds, nor do I think it's worthwhile to anyone to ramble about personal hangups, like whether I believe Twilight would or could accept this, or how it plays seamlessly into my belief that Celestia is just really good at hiding her pain.
No, a story that so clearly has a theme in mind, and which executes it so flawlessly, must be accepted on it's own terms and viewed through the lens of the ideas it presents.
Those ideas are decay, stagnation, hopelessness, and the belief—in the form of the oath—that hopelessness, once achieved, can never be recovered from. This state of mind is the classic trap of depression.
With all the set dressing boiled away, this is a story about a depressed person convincing her family to watch her commit suicide.
Imagine whoever is dearest to your heart. You tell them you love them. You plead with them to stay with you. They look you in the eye and say:
"I would rather die."
The mere thought of it tears at my soul.
Like 6056170, I can't see this as a release. Only as a senseless scar left on her successors. All because the terrible logic of depression cannot be argued with, despite its fallacious nature. No state of mind is permanent, save death, but it's impossible to say anything to change just how much Celestia didn't give a shit, and it breaks my heart.
I don't know why I put so much effort into this comment, knowing you'd probably never see it. I guess I just hope that you don't really believe the oath.
5883596 Probably long dead by now.
The premise of the fic is good, I love it actually. It's just too detailed for my liking. I couldn't get very far before giving up.
**** you Luna, **** you Celestia, **** you Twilight and **** me...
Great story, terrible implications though.
Nice! At first, I wasn't too stoked by the heavily dramatic prose, and much of Twilight's drama, though definitely understandable and in-character, felt at least a tad overdrawn. Luna's extreme aloofness also came off as rather odd as well, though that can easily be seen as her way of coping with the situation. What I like, though, is the strong lore building, from little touches such as Celestia suddenly appearing old and tired to Twi as if she finally tore down an illusion of unscratched beauty/health, to the more upfront bits such as Celestia's aching burden and what the ritual words of the Ceremony suggest.
On the note of the latter, Harwick's and Nadnerb's takes on the implications intrigue me greatly in each of their own ways, and heck, I'm not even saddened by this fic; I find that tragic/dark fantasy is something I very much excited by when pulled off effectively. And while I kind of agree with Xexilf that this story's angle clashes with what the show had presented (and I'll say now it's a bit interesting reading this fic which was made years before the sisters' actual retirement), I find it best to read these sorts of scenarios as 'speculative explorations' rather than 'hard possibility proposals' (which is why I think Rainbow Factory having an 'AU' tag works in its favor, especially now)---and I apologize if that sounds at all like an insult to your choice in where to take Equestria's world.
And now too highlight one paragraph that struck me good and marked when the lore started to get good:
All those past stories, wrapped into an efficiently spaced package. Good job overall.