Silver was in a dark place. At first she wondered if the Text had summoned her again, but Luna stepped from the shadows instead. Silver wasn't sure which was the preferred option.
Luna's expression was sad, and only grew worse as she looked at Silver, "You wince with fear at the sight of me. What did you expect? What did I expect? Did I not tell you our union was doomed from the start?" She sat, looking down at Silver. "I cared for you as best I could. Was it so poor?"
Silver bit back any quick replies, trying to think of their time spent together, "I... liked a lot of it, but we were never really... together. You were my mistress, my queen... I basked in your glow and every smile I could produce made me happier."
Luna tilted her head, "You were quite skilled at forcing a smile from me on sour days. Why then has this proven insufficient, to run away, fleeing like an outlaw from my domain?"
Silver glanced away, "You let Celestia run roughshod over me. I was your pet, not hers, and I really shouldn't have been eithers, but... at least I walked into yours and put the collar on myself. Celestia just clipped her leash on your collar and pulled me along, and you didn't complain."
Luna sagged in place, "Do you think it pleases me to watch her take my things? Do you think it doesn't tear at me every time she just... assumes... She knows best. She has always known best." She looked to Silver with a few fresh tears, "I cared for you deeply, as close to love as I think I am capable. You were the light of my evenings, even when you were bringing trouble at your heels."
Silver pawed at the blank ground, shuffling, "I don't hate you..."
Luna spread her wings, "But you don't love me?"
Silver sank to her belly, "I do love you..."
Luna frowned, "Is this how you show love? Cadance has told me you are her responsibility, and that you are not likely to return. Night Watch as well, my entire herd, simply... gone..." Her wings fell limp to the black ground, "Do you think that does not hurt me? That I am above it all? Why did you not give me a chance?"
Silver stomped a hoof silently, "I have given you chances, Luna. I have..." She growled, then sighed, "It's my fault. I'm sorry. I dragged you into this, then I ran away."
Luna nodded slowly, "On this, we agree. You have hurt me, Silver Stars, hurt me in a way no pony has done since before I began to fall." She approached Silver, looming over him, but she felt defeated and hollow, not intimidating. "You have broken my heart."
Silver didn't know what to say or do. He didn't like the idea that Luna was hurt, but what could he, er, she, do? "Luna, I have something you might like."
Luna perked an ear, "No trinket will mend this ache."
Silver shook her head, "Better than that. I have a boon, from Celestia. Any one thing that doesn't break the law or hurt a pony."
Luna tilted her head a little one way and the other, "Do you speak truly? And you would give it to me?"
Silver nodded, "Think of it as a parting gift..." She stood up then, finding balancing on two hooves much easier in dreams. "I still love you, even if I'm not beside you. Take the gift, and have fun with it. You can always visit my dreams."
Luna suddenly flashed a predatory smile, "Do you mean that?"
Silver flipped her ears back, "As long as they're friendly visits."
Luna suddenly pinned Silver to the formless earth, which became Luna's bed, "I may yet make you regret that."
Silver found she didn't regret it, and awoke a little tired, but happy.
Night Watch was there, shaking her gently, "You OK?"
Silver perked an ear, "Why wouldn't I be?"
Night shrugged, "You were tossing and turning. I thought you were having a bad dream."
Silver rolled up to her hooves and shook herself out, "I saw Luna. We had a good discussion."
Night raised a brow, "There wasn't yelling and screaming?"
Silver shook her head, "Reconciliation, I think... She seemed happy with her gift."
"Gift?" asked Night adjusting her glasses, "You let her keep the artifact?"
Silver blinked, "I didn't even think of that, but no. I gave her a boon to use with Celestia. I hope she does something properly embarrassing to her." Silver suddenly giggled, "I wonder if she'll make Celestia a servant for a week or something. I would love a picture of Celestia in a maid's outfit."
Night extended her wings, "Why didn't you use it to keep them away from us?"
Silver frowned, sagging, "I didn't think of that... I still have one with Twilight?"
Night softly poked Silver on the nose with a hoof, "You are impossible."
Silver shrugged, "But I keep things interesting... So, do you regret your time with Luna?"
Night paused, looking thoughtful, then shook her head, "No... She made me feel so safe when I slept with her. She kept my waking hours in a comfortable schedule. She never let me go to sleep bored..."
Silver frowned a little, "I really messed it up for you."
Night swatted Silver with a wing as she chastised her, "We were together first! I could have gone back to Luna, but I didn't, moron. Let's get something to eat."
They began their day. After breakfast Night looked a little bored. Silver nudged against her, "Come with me to the library. I want to do something productive."
Silver checked out a book on farming magic, 'Earth Magic for Not Earth-Ponies', and headed to the edge of town where the farms were still being constructed. She gestured at them, "Cadance mentioned they were short on food. We're doing well, eating what Cadance serves herself, but we should help everypony else out, right?"
Night bobbed her head, "I'm with you so far. You going to cast some kind of crazy spell?"
Silver opened the book held in her silvery grip and flipped through it, "I have a few ideas to help things along, but first..." she found a section about earth ponies that explained their farming magic and began reading over it, "Can you find an earth pony or two and pull them this way for a second?"
Silver felt a familiar swell of magic, and her new voice rose in song. She loved the voice, coming through so clearly and sweetly, but everything got dim. She had faint memories of working with the other ponies, and Night. They were all singing, dancing, and farming. It all passed in a blur of music for what felt like hours before they ended with Silver exploding with fireworks, surrounded a circle of crystal earth ponies. As control passed back to Silver and vision cleared, she flopped forward.
Night perked an ear, "Something wrong? You that tired? It was a hard day."
Silver sat up on her haunches. She felt tired and worn as if she had worked all day, and the sun was starting to hang heavy where it had barely started its climb before the song. "Tell me what just happened."
Night walked up alongside Silver and sat with her, "You were there, what do you mean? We got the season's plants all nice and harvested with you coaching the earth ponies how to use their magic and helping get the seeds in the ground. I was helping direct their efforts from above, keeping them properly spread over the fields and not doubling up. We did good!"
Silver frowned a little, "I fell into song magic harder than before."
"Song magic?" asked Night.
Silver rose to her hooves, "Hard to explain and I'd sound insane trying."
Night looked at Silver flatly, "You want to try that one more time? I doubt you could say anything that surprising compared to the rest of our life."
Silver took a slow breath, "Alright. Apparently the people of this world can get swept up in a moment. They start singing and dancing and getting something done, without ever realising they were singing, or dancing, or sometimes doing things they couldn't normally do. Since I became a pony, I've felt it three times now. It seems to hit everypony in the area. I'm usually awake during it, but can't move my body, this time I half-blacked out... I have a nice singing voice."
Night looked pensive, "If everypony goes along, then it doesn't really matter."
Silver tilted her head, "Come again?"
Night waved a hoof, "If everyone goes with it, then we may as well have not done it at all."
Silver nodded, "Except humans are not affected. I was close to a song magic when I first visited Manehattan and felt no urge. A human might try to interfere, and we already know I'm not the only one here."
Night nodded slowly, "That's very odd, but what can we do about it?"
Silver tilted her head, "I'm not sure... So long as a human doesn't, you know, decide to attack us, I guess it's harmless."
Night flashed her teeth, "Did I dance well?"
Silver frowned, "I... let me try to remember." She tried to clear her jumbled thoughts, to think back on the song that had been hidden from her, "You were making loops in the air... You were graceful, as always."
Night nudged Silver, "You realize I have to accept what you say on faith alone. There's no way to prove what you said is right or wrong."
Silver tapped a hoof on the ground, "If I could make the song magic happen on command, it would be easy to prove it with Jake. He'd just snap a few pictures while it was going on."
Night rose up and started back to the castle, "We did a fine job, mystery of the universe or not. Let's tell Cadance and get some food."
Silver let the trouble go. There wasn't anything she could do about it. She followed after Night to the castle, to find Cadance in the dining hall, apparently entertaining a few crystal ponies with warm smiles and good food. She looked up at Silver and Night, "Ah! I just heard you two have been up to so much in the fields."
One of the crystal stallions nodded, "Oh yes, those are the two. They organized the farming force and helped spread the seeds. We're now two weeks ahead of schedule! "
A mare seated beside him smiled brilliantly, "They worked like they were possessed."
Silver giggled, "We kind of were."
Cadance blinked, "What?"
Silver waved a hoof as she sat down, "Nothing, bad joke. We're quite happy to have helped."
Night nodded in agreement, "It's much better to be helping than to idle around."
Lol the elusive song magic
Enjoying the story so far it took me at least a week and a half to catch up to this chapter. Oh boy keep up the AWESOME job. Question what are your plans for Jake the human and First Star in the up coming chapters.
5808380 Jake got a tiny story all to himself! It's called Jake's Epic Adventure. Will he poke his head into the main plot? Maybe, though my readers seem to get a bit antsy whenever he shows up.
Luna is such a hypocrite. "You left me! You broke my heart! After all those times I used you, abused you, lied to you, did whatever I want to you and chose not to protect you from my sister having her way with you! How could you?"
interesting chapter.
still weighting.
Harts Fire
Given that it's the name of a specific entity, "text" should be capitalized.
Her expression only "grew" worse.
There are two spaces between "are" and "not."
"Cadance" should be capitalized here.
This chapter brought us the confrontation between Silver and Luna, and I admit that I was surprised with how it turned out.
I've been pretty harsh on Luna with what Silver has gone through, but the last few chapters have had Silver surprise me with his insightfulness regarding who was really to blame for their relationship ultimately failing. Specifically, that Luna tried to tell him going into this that it wouldn't work out between them, and Silver insisting that she try anyway. Luna let Silver convince her to try, and with the results having been what she predicted, I've come to realize that for all of the pain Silver has suffered, Luna is the real victim here.
That's a shocking realization to come to, because it means that I've been looking at this the wrong way from the beginning. I was trying to figure out who was to blame - and subsequently determining that it was Luna - when in fact, it was never about blame to begin with. When you can't make a square peg fit into a round hole, neither the peg nor the hole are to blame. What's truly tragic is that this has not only caused both of them pain, but that it was pain that Luna knew could have been avoided, but she let Silver lead her into it anyway. Her admittance of "you've broken my heart" was painful to read, because it really felt like Luna desperately wanted to avoid this exact outcome.
It was because of this that their sudden reconciliation felt so...trite. They've painfully admitted that they still love each other, but are too different to make a relationship work, and that's hurting both of them...but they can still have sex, so it's all good. That's what it felt like. That not only doesn't fit with the heavy emotional resonance of what they just admitted they were going through, but cheapens it. Being with someone you love when you know it won't work is neither comforting nor cathartic; it just highlights how you're going to need to part from them again - which is hideously painful - because it didn't work last time and it's not going to work this time. Every time Luna visits Silver in his, now her, dreams, it should be emotional agony for them upon waking, as each of them remembers their failed romance...each time, they'll wake up to the knowledge that they're apart again (particularly for Luna, who cogently noted that Silver also took Night away from her), and that is the renewal of the pain of absence.
It was nice of Silver to give Celestia's unspecified favor to Luna though, even if it was a very small apology indeed.
Beyond that, the references to "song magic" were amusing, but ultimately a diversion. I doubt that Silver's going to make much headway there, and even if he does, what of it? Though I was particularly amused when I realized that the oblique references to a large amount of time passing - the hazy memories of the day going by, and how much time was between the beginning and end of the song - were an in-character reference to a montage going on. That, I admit, put a smile on my face.
5812032 Have no fear, I am not unaware of how unhealthy a resolution as this is. This is slated to come up and be addressed. It's very much not the ideal solution, brought up by a very unideal pony to another unideal pony, and they give it a try, unideally. I liked how much of this chapter flowed, and it sounds like you did too, which is great!
Song magic, will it do something? Of course it will! It lets me shove my characters around whenever I want, pass time, or even set up potentially dangerous situations. It's an amazing narrative tool that also exists in-character, to Silver's annoyance. I love it.
Twilight is love, Twilight is life.
Night bobbed her head, "I'm with you so far. You going to cast some kind of crazy spell?"
Correction: Night bobbed her head, "I'm with you so far. Are you going to cast some kind of crazy spell?"
Silver frowned, "I... let me try to remember." She tried to clear her jumbled thoughts, to think back on the song that had been hidden from here, "You were making loops in the air... You were graceful, as always."
Correction: Silver frowned, "I... let me try to remember." She tried to clear her jumbled thoughts, to think back on the song that had been hidden from her, "You were making loops in the air... You were graceful, as always."
6475176 I protest this. While grammatically imperfect, it is still a way people speak.
6475180 Fixed!
"I wonder if she'll make Celestia servant for a week or something.
Where's the "a/her"?
7479336 Fixed!
"Nope, I just had a Night Mare."
10439183
But he likes that one.