Celestia sat across from Luna at the dining table. Both ate quietly before Luna looked up at her sister. "I feel as if I have made an important step forward today."
Celestia's expression brightened. "Please, do tell."
Luna waved a hoof. "Time is one thing we both have in abundance. I have been behaving as a short-lived pony." She tapped the tabletop with a hoof. "No plan of mine will be hindered if I must wait a generation. I will let Silver Stars live peacefully, serving as her godmother." She sat up straight. "It is time for me to behave my age."
Celestia clopped her hooves together once. "I know you hate it when I say it, but it's true. I am so proud of you right now, sister."
Luna huffed softly. "I'm not doing it for your approval, Tia. Silver has been the center of my meddling for long enough. She can bear her foal in peace." She raised a brow. "Will you also leave her be?"
Celestia tilted her head. "I have little waiting on her, though I did bless her and her foal, to make the birth easier. She--"
Luna jerked upright. "You did what?"
Celestia looked surprised at Luna's strong reaction. "I blessed them. So she would have a good birth. She asked for it."
Luna sank against a hoof. "Tia, sister... I already blessed Silver Stars, slowly, over the course of weeks. Did you not see she was quite well ripened for such a young flower?"
Celestia raised a hoof over her mouth. "I had thought that was my own hoofwork in changing her." She frowned. "You have shown exceptional growth today, I suppose it's just my turn. I have made a mistake. How do you propose to address it?"
Luna tilted her head. "I... Thank you, Tia." She watched Celestia a moment, savoring this rare moment when her sister admitted cleanly to wrongdoing. "You've already done it. She is full of both our magics. I assume she didn't look immediately ill?"
Celestia shook her head. "A little overwhelmed, but that is a natural reaction. She went off with Twilight immediately after."
Luna rolled a hoof in the air. "Silver is a lunar pony, with a lunar foal, both very pure bred, and yet..."
Celestia suddenly smiled. "And yet, it is Twilight's foal. Her name comes to haunt us again."
Luna smiled even as she sighed. "Where day meets night. Are we still making a foal?"
Celestia tilted her head. "I saw the swell of it. What do you mean?"
Luna wobbled a hoof. "I have swollen with life before, but it was no foal. What if what Silver holds so lovingly is something greater, or less, than a foal?"
Celestia frowned at the thought. "It would break her heart, and it wouldn't do well by Twilight either."
Luna rested her hooves on the table. "Let us make an oath, to each other, sister. The former human, Silver Stars, has been the middle grounds of our petty squabbles long enough."
"What do you suggest?"
Luna smiled. "I am entirely convinced she will do what is best for Equestria until the end of her days. Let us treat her well, together. As Twilight's friend, and as ours. Let there be no more scheming on our part towards her, for better or worse, and let no magic of ours touch her unless she requests it."
Celestia flashed a gentle smile. "I can agree to this. I will add one thing. Let neither of us intimidate her into asking. You know she would do whatever you asked if you asked the right way. Does this mean you won't chase her hoof anymore?"
Luna huffed at that. "Low blow, Tia... She is hooves-off unless she comes to me begging, and then I will perhaps consider."
Celestia leaned forward. "Then you are available. I have a few strapping stallions I'd love to introduce you to."
Luna turned red. "Tia!"
Celestia waved off the shout. "None of that. You need to learn how to be loved. You just leave this to me and you'll be so much happier in no time at all. A real warrior! I know how you are. Some of the guards that served along Silver were quite brave and fierce in their defense of the Crystal Empire. I'm certain they might interest you..."
A unicorn poked his head up under the cloth, looking directly at Silver. His horn flashed and Silver's heart crystal was wrenched free without a word. The unicorn slipped away and it was quiet again. The sense of movement stopped after some amount of time. Starlight appeared, slipping under the cover without pulling it up. "Oh poor thing. Still holding it in?"
Being reminded made her nod quickly. She really did have to go.
Starlight smiled, then frowned. "Where's her pendant?"
A male voice replied. "It was a heart crystal. I've stowed it in the back for safe keeping."
Starlight rolled her eyes, then moved for the door. She undid the lock and allowed Silver out They were in the middle of some kind of forest. Silver could hardly see anything but a lot of trees. Starlight nudged her along towards some bushes. "Go on, I won't let any of those stallions bother you."
Silver nodded at her and looked around for a place with some privacy, but Starlight kept her in view at all times. Eventually Silver gave up and did her business. Starlight approached to put Silver away. Silver pulled away, trying to resist until Starlight just plucked her up with magic and carted her off towards the cage. "Don't be a bad girl. Good girls get treated very well. Have you changed your mind? If your cutie mark is removed, you could be on your way home soon. They're nothing but trouble anyway. Look at all the pain yours has caused you."
Starlight set Silver down in the cage, then stepped in after her and closed the door. "All you have to do is lay down and let me take care of you."
Silver stepped back nervously, but there wasn't much room for retreat in the cage. "I'm fine with my cutie mark, thank you."
Starlight advanced on Silver, raising a hoof to stroke over her chin. "Poor little mare. You'll come around. Nights with me are a lot less cold than the floor of this cage by yourself." She turned away, brushing Silver's face with her tail before she departed.
Silver sank to the floor. It was cold. She wondered why Starlight seemed to want to convince her into it instead of just taking it, but decided not to complain. The foggy mugginess of a neutralized cutie mark was horrible, and she didn't want it. She looked up to where she thought the moon was, hoping Twilight might be coming soon to rescue her.
Twilight recovered from the stunning magic just before she struck the ground herself. She righted herself and pulled back into the air, surrounding herself with a bright shield. There were no additional attacks coming. And no Silver. Twilight cringed, looking around slowly over the ground, trying to locate where Silver had fallen to. It occurred to her that Silver's heart crystal was attuned to her. She cleared her mind and sent out her thoughts, trying to find the crystal, but... nothing. "She must be asleep." Without Silver's consciousness, the crystal wouldn't be fully powered enough to trace, at least easily.
Twilight took off to Ponyville, grim and resolute. She landed on her balcony and trotted inside. She went to her room and threw herself on her bed, eyes closed and marshaling her magic. She let Silver fall, she would find her and rescue her. Those that attacked them would pay. She wouldn't admit it, but the lingering fury at Silver's alarming words only built over time, focusing on their attackers. By the time she felt the return ping on her magic, she was ready to bring down the full weight of her fury on those that wronged her. As her emotions built, she felt a sudden wave of hope and helplessness in overwhelming pulses. She shook herself out. "Get it together, Twilight. Silver is counting on you!"
She let out her breath and rose to her hooves. She called up her shield and went over her spells. "Zap in next to Silver. Make them pay. Get out." With her plan gone over in the simplest of checklists, she felt ready. She focused on the signal, pulling it tighter and tighter. It was clear Silver was still not filling it with magic. She must be very hurt. The thought of it made her scowl. They would pay...
Twilight appeared beside a wagon with a pop. Twilight looked over at it and nodded. Silver must be inside. She launched up into the canopy of the forest they were in, magic gathering dangerously just over her horn. She hurled the mass down at the wagons and the forward part of the caravan train was obliterated instantly.
Silver looked up at the sound of wings. There was a bright flash. Silver died. She was barely aware of the happening, it was over so quickly.
Twilight landed with a soft panting. There was nothing left. The door to the wagon beside her opened and a unicorn stepped out. Starlight?! "You get away from Silver!" Twilight slammed Starlight to the ground with her magic. "You awful pony! Give up, give up right now!"
Starlight scrambled against the ground, trying to regain her hooving unsuccessfully. "Twilight? What did you... do?"
Twilight stepped towards Starlight, growling. She passed the open door and looked inside. Silver wasn't in there. There were no other ponies in there. She released Starlight numbly. "Where is Silver?"
Starlight got to her hooves quickly. "You destroyed everything! You and your wicked cutie mark!" There was a bright flash, and Starlight fled into the thick forest, quickly lost to sight. Twilight didn't chase her. She just wasn't important anymore.
Twilight sank before the crater she made. "Silver..."
well this is gonna be interesting 0.0 wonder what happens next, so hope you update soon X3
Well....
That happened....
So here's the lesson kids, DON'T piss off the super strong magically gifted purple pony princess.
5883365 Tomorrow!
ok first part of story I am scared for the foal. is it safe.
second part of story lets just say I have a feeling.
I will say this. season 3 last episode.
do not look farther as I am only 75% sure of my guess.
I can see Equestria getting princess silver Stars the big question is who will save her life changing her in to a alicorn. her wife Twilight is the one on the scene. can she do it?
Harts Fire
.... You have rustled my jimmies with this ending.... I await more impatiently.
5883473 Tomorrow!! I welcome your feedback in the meantime.
The phrase "very pure bred," feels odd. For one thing, you're either pure or you're not; you can't be "very" pure.
For that matter, "purebred" is a compound word.
The middle "ground" of their petty squabbles.
She is "hoofs-off" unless she comes begging.
Some of the guards that served "alongside" Silver.
"Safekeeping" is a compound word.
You need a period after "out."
5883517 I will fix these as soon as I get home. Thank you for looking over it, I hope this chapter wasn't too something or another.
5883486 .... You're lucky I have writing to do right now or I would rant about this.
Ummmm..... What? That can't be right. She Died?
5883590 Tomorrow!
Before anything else, I have to note that you just made a blog post about parallelism in your stories, and now you've had a character die in both of your fics on the same day.
With regards to this fic, I'm a little surprised at how the alicorn sisters were acting here, especially Luna. She says that she feels she made an important step forward today...which is apparently that she needs to get over Silver and move on, both personally and professionally (e.g. her plan to have Silver be the progenitor of lunar unicorns). The problem that I had here is that this doesn't follow at all with what we just saw. Why does Luna feel that the important step she made was to get over Silver, when everything in the chapters immediately before this led us to the exact opposite conclusion? Luna was just talking about how she wanted to understand why Silver left her, was pouting over being a "godmother," and was deep-kissing her to boot. Now she's decided to get over her and move on?
I'm not expressing disbelief at the idea that Luna could suddenly have a change of heart like that. I find it entirely believable that someone can have a moment of sudden enlightenment, when they realize that they've been too stuck on the past and what they've lost, and find it within themselves to let go and move on. The problem is that we haven't been told/shown that Luna has had anything like that - one minute she's slipping Silver tongue, the next minute she's telling Celestia that she's over Silver. We've been given no insight into this one-eighty, and so it feels like whiplash.
Presuming that this wasn't an oversight, and that the lack of exposition in this regard is deliberate, then this leads me to one of two possible conclusions. Either Luna is lying to Celestia, or she's lying to herself. If it's the former, then perhaps Luna is aware that Celestia is trying to run pass-block between herself and Silver (e.g. she knows that Celestia told Silver to stay away from Luna, because she (Celestia) would see to Luna's happiness...which was a rather creepy, possessive statement unto itself), and it hoping to misdirect her away from any other plans to come between them (which would be rather moot anyway, since Celestia can't interfere with Luna's dream-walking). More likely, I think, is that Luna is lying to herself. She's trying to convince herself that she's over Silver when she's not, because she wants the heartbreak to end. In that case, she might very well have some rebound stallions and some casual sex, but I suspect that this will only throw into stark relief just how much they're not the same thing as a pony that loves her, and wants to be in an actual relationship with her. A broken heart doesn't heal all at once just because you have a good day.
Of course, all of that pales in comparison to the oath that Luna and Celestia made to each other. That struck me as powerfully binding, not because of any magic or force, but simply because they regard each other as (near-)equals, and so would naturally respect a deal struck between the two of them. That felt very genuine, and the fairly severe nature of it - to basically leave Silver Stars alone, despite Luna's feelings for her and Celestia's (probably still lingering) suspicion towards her - is the main reason why I think that Luna thinks that she's over Silver. She wouldn't make an oath that all-encompassing unless she really thought that she was really going to dial back her interaction with her. She's apparently even giving up on her plan to breed lunar unicorns, even though it will, by her own estimation, take at least a generation before she can/will try again.
As for Celestia, I'm much more suspicious of her agreeing to such a deal. Celestia has intervened twice now when Silver has acted in a manner that Celestia found to be too violent to countenance, and that she took action then. As such, I suspect that in this case there isn't a true "meeting of the minds" with regards to Luna's deal - in Celestia's mind, she's never been "scheming" with regards to Silver the way Luna has; she's simply taken the necessary action as the situation dictated, and it all worked out for the best. To Celestia, she's not agreeing to anything she wasn't already doing, and as such Luna's oath doesn't curtail her from continuing in the manner that she's been doing. Which means that if Silver does something Celestia doesn't like again, the white alicorn will come down on her just as she's done before.
Insofar as Starlight goes...was she flirting with Silver? Because "Nights with me are less cold" sounds a lot like "I want you to sleep with me."
Turning our attention to Twilight, this was taking her character to a place where she doesn't often go, and so greater justification was needed for her actions. In this case, I think you met the burden - after all, we've seen her channel that level of rage and violence before, when fighting Tirek - except for one part. I can see Twilight being that impulsive (though not necessarily waiting so long and not getting her friends) that she'd run right back to get Silver back, not to mention mistaking the location of Silver's heart crystal for where Silver herself is. I can see her being that angry and upset that she'd go straight to violence, especially in terms of channeling her uncertainty and anger about what Silver said about Celestia towards that end. What I'm having a hard time understanding is Twilight's decision to blast part of a caravan, a caravan that presumably had at least a few ponies in and around it, into oblivion. I just can't see Twilight killing that easily.
Leaving aside that Silver was caught in the blast, this is going to haunt Twilight for a long time to come. Taking lives is something she's never done, and to have done it in a fit of rage is something that I can see hurting her self-respect very badly - she wasn't comfortable even wielding political power; knowing that she did something that awful with her overwhelming magical power is likely to be a wound that never fully heals. That she killed a pony she cared about, as well as her own unborn foal - even if they somehow turn out to be fine later - has the potential to shatter Twilight completely.
And that brings us to Silver herself. I have a guess about what happens next, and I'm going to spoiler-text it, just in case I happen to be right.
I think that you showed your entire hoof with regards to Silver's fate in that conversation that Celestia and Luna had at the beginning of the chapter. Luna asking if they were "still making a foal," and pointing out how she had been pregnant, but not with a foal, was a pretty clear hint as to what was to come, even if that wasn't immediately obvious.
Simply put, Silver died here...but she's about to be reborn as an alicorn.
You're always been consistent that the events of "Magical Mystery Cure" was Twilight dying and then being reincarnated as an alicorn. Throw into that the fact that, in this continuity at least, alicorns must be female, and that Silver is currently swelling with both Luna's and Celestia's magic, and it's an intuitive leap that the powerful energies swirling around in her womb are about to catalyze her ascension. My guess is that she'll have a conversation with the Text about what's happened and what's about to happen, and then reappear in a flash of light in front of a despairing Twilight.
If I'm right, then I have to say that this makes sense in both a narrative and a karmic sense. Narratively, this transformation feels very well-earned. We're over a hundred-fifty chapters in, and at no time was this particular change ever telegraphed (at least that I saw); the simple fact that this went on so long without ever feeling like this was inevitable or even obvious is an impressive feat unto itself. Karmically, this feels very appropriate for Silver - since coming to Equestria, she's given up her body, her gender, and now even her very life. This is the other (horse)shoe dropping. After giving up so much, she's finally getting back something proportionate.
While I suspect that this is going to be played up as her and Twilight being together - the remarks about how well her special talent complements Twilight's was a hint in that regard - it'll be interesting to see what this means for Luna, particularly if Silver would live forever in such a state. In fact, if Silver could recover her masculinity (or, more likely, simply use that spell she invented) in such a state, she might very well be able to meet Luna as the equal that she so clearly wants. Perhaps even give her a true foal of her own.
Of course, it's going to be sad that Silver's foal is going to be lost, but there's nothing that can be done about that - either her foal will be catalyzed to fuel her ascension, or Silver will simply stay dead, meaning that her foal will be also. Given how much she'd fallen in love with feeling new life swelling within her, and how alicorns apparently can't be impregnated by anything except another alicorn, that's apparently going to be off the table...unless of course Twilight (or maybe Luna?) feels like doing another "experiment"?
Either way, this is going to be a huge change if I'm not wildly off-target. Enough so that I'm anticipating this being the start of a new fic (if you're still going to structure it that way).
That happend..........
I hope you don't bring the foal back, because that would be impossible. Yes, you might make Silver an alicorn, but the foal was still unborn and completely obliterated by the blast.
So right when I decided to catch up...
Wtf did I just read?
>inb4 Text: "Didn't I told you you might die to become an alicorn?" *trollface*
5887859 Twilight was barely treated as royalty until she had her own domain.
What great ending! So tragic yet done in such finesse! See ya!
blog.chron.com/tubular/files/2013/11/tumblr_mf0h30X2QR1qjpyqh.gif
5905907 I thought you were gone ages ago. >_>
Silver could see little but a lot of trees.
That sentence is not agreeing with me.
Silver could hardly see anything, but a lot of trees.
Silver stepped back nervously, but there wasn't much room for retreat in the cage. "I'm fine with my cute mark, thank you."
I believe you mean: Silver stepped back nervously, but there wasn't much room for retreat in the cage. "I'm fine with my cutie mark, thank you."
"Don't be a bad girl. Good girls get treated very well. Have you changed your mind? If your cutie mark is removed, you could be on your way home soon. They're nothing but trouble anyway. Look at all the pain yours has caused you."
Said the girl with a cutie mark.(or is she covering it with makeup again.)
She went to her room and threw herself on her bed, eyes closed and marshalling her magic.
Correction: She went to her room and threw herself on her bed, eyes closed and marshaling her magic.
How are you using that in the sentence. marshaling means guiding.
She let out ber breath and rose to her hooves.
Do you mean her?
She focused on the that signal, pulling it tighter and tighter.
Correction: She focused on the signal, pulling it tighter and tighter.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1160m6_the-end-of-time-phantom-edit-3_shortfilms
14:16 = concentrate find the signal
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x11e40f_the-end-of-time-phantom-edit-4_shortfilms
2:31=come home
She was barely aware of the happening, it was over so quickly.
Grammar Error: She was barely aware of whats happening, it was over so quickly.
Silver looked up at the sound of wings. There was a bright flash. Silver died. She was barely aware of the happening, it was over so quickly.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w7CclVneVpw
6599018 Typos of the chapter fixed.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gkw8m950hp94k60/Screenshot%202015-11-06%2004.59.50.png?dl=0
The happening does not always work the way you think it does.
I think hooves off, or hooves-off.