• Member Since 14th Apr, 2012
  • offline last seen Sep 11th, 2019

The Wizard of Words


Come what may and test what will, I always find peace in some form of writing. Be it famous, hidden, or simply my own, it is and forever will be a sanctuary.

T
Source

She did not know how, she did not know why, but before her banishment on her moon, Nightmare Moon experienced every kind of pain. Pains of the mind, body, and spirit. But they healed in time, forgotten to memory.

But the greatest of pains was yet to come.

An epic reading has been uploaded here courtesy of SerAaron: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGz9rt1yrds

Inspired by a short narrative from VelcroHeart. Image by CosmicUnicorn. Edited by NinjaFox

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 76 )

Read that on fanfiction.net and still *manly tears*

Holy sh*t was that good.
I've just recorded a reading of it. it tell ya, i was crying about half way though, i'm amazed i managed to finish the reading...
Anyway i'll be editing it and uploading it later today so i'll send you a link when i do.
Thank you for this.

That was terrifying. Terrifying, but well written. I have no words.

DAmn you! you made me sweat from my eyes:fluttercry:

635558>>635350>>635313>>635313
Mission Accomplished.

635100
Where did you read this on FF.net? I haven't uploaded it there yet.

635236
My day, you have made it!

635653
"Where did you read this on FF.net? I haven't uploaded it there yet."
I saw something similar to this, it was posted on FF.net a while ago (last year). It was of course shite and nowhere near enjoyable as your fic (what with it's multiple grammatical error and poor storytelling. It was also based upon the exact same image).

The only thing it shared was the basic premise of NMM giving birth on the moon and the foal dying.

635653>>635665

Aha i THOUGH it was the same one , just moved here.

Will read this one then. :twilightsheepish:

Read it and must say, the manly tears were doubled, this is much more emotional then the one on FF.net

maybe write a sequel where Luna remembers dawn and has to deal with it? :duck:

636073
You have corrupted me to write more!

635665>>635764
Well the idea was inspired by the pic from Crappy Unicorn, but I got permission from VelvetHeart before I wrote it. Upset that I'm not the first, glad that I'm the best :rainbowdetermined2:

Here we are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGz9rt1yrds

took waay longer to encode than i thought it would, probably because i accidentally re-sized the imaged by a few pixels. oh well it's up now, now you can go listen to me getting all emotional an' sh*t :P

637490

you will make me watch you wont you... ok done :rainbowlaugh:

Very well done.

The biggest flaw I see with this is that.... well, I don't see Celestia NOT knowing about Nightmare Moon. Unless she was sent off-world so early in the pregnancy that it was impossible to tell- even then though, I can't see Celestia NOT helping her and letting an innocent foal die... unless it was an irreversible spell and she couldn't bring her back until the end of the thousand years- but even then, why couldn't she send O2 to the moon?

Either way, good fic despite the plot hole.

647157
I'm glad you enjoyed the story. As for that one plot hole, well... Celestia is shown to NOT be omnipotent, so her NOT knowing about Nightmare Moon's pregnancy isn't all that out there. Plus, if she could here voices from space, just imagine the headaches she get from the ponies around her.

Very deep. I love it.

This needs to be featured!
Double post because it won't let me edit

675192
While I would love to be featured, the chances are below possible at this point. Still, love to see those manly tears.

manly tears were shed :fluttershbad:

I bet in the sequel (if there is one) Luna is raising the moon and she's like "the dawn tonight is so pretty... wait."

And then Celestia was found with a knife in her head. :pinkiecrazy:

Bawling like a baby in 3...2...BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA :raritydespair:

745558
There is a sequel, but not with the slaughter.

1253440
A one-shot out of my collection. Here's the link.

So Luna can live with no air for hundreds of years... but baby Dawn dies two seconds EVEN when she has air?
encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQYSNNob_m_0xXWHrxFAhLAVxahsUGdX9oqJCYHw5IbKEj2NXPNOw

1260215
Baby alicorn has no magic to help her out with that. Like how adults can go several days without sleep, but babies that are sleep deprived for over six hours develop severe brain damage. Maybe a bit more extreme in this case, but I'm pure evil. So... :trixieshiftright:

Oh dear sweet Celestia what have you done! I need to go watch some episodes to remember how happy the world of Equestria is.

Very well wrote though, props for making me tear up, I managed Cupcakes, Rainbow Factory and Even my little Dashi without feeling emotional enough to cry, but this, dammit this hit hard :pinkiesad2:

A very good story indeed.

Sweet!!! I love when I find old (awesome) fics from the times before I had an account here, Definitely going to have to go back and read this again sometime, I really liked it before. It always amazes me to see the different directions people can take using the same stories we all know and love.

Very interesting idea, and very well written. You suggested this http://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=H-OE-PaWMLA for your latest TwiDash story, but I find that it fits here perfectly.
And you have given me some ideas that I may turn into a story.

Really good. Now onto TwiDash. Wonder how that will work out, with the main concept behind the theme for each story. Will the first be like this in emotion? Or will it be more so with the love to Twilight? Anyways, other than some stray words, nothing much to say.

I believe MrManWriter (I think that's his username) did a reading of this... And I was depressed for a few days. I never cry. I only get depressed. (And I do really mean the actual term of depressed, not the "I'm super sad so I will call myself depressed".)

1707679
I should have responded to this sooner. This story came out before my Twidash challenge. It is just a personal favorite of mine I go back to now and then to remind me that not everything revolves around those two. At least not yet.

1770652 I am aware. I was just saying.

Mah poor feels... :fluttercry:

Well, as is, it's a tad hard to take this seriously as a key to fan fiction is how well it uses cannon, either by way of how well it sticks to it, adds to it, or provides a convincing explanation for how something that's been established as being one way is actually another way. As this depicts Nightmare Moon going through a change in character during her incarceration on the moon, it's kind of jarred out of place by the fact canonically she was still as bitter and vindictive when she got back as she was when she was banished. And the whole explanation behind why Luna/Nightmare Moon became with foal was left way too open; explanations tend to help with suspension of disbelief.

Bit of a trivial thing to bicker about, but this story really should've come with an 'alternate universe' tag to frame NMM in the light this story sets out to cast her in.

So let's just look at this from an alternate universe perspective, and grade the story based on those credentials. And now, let's gauge my response...
....
..
....
i.imgur.com/LEuVL.png

My God, that was dark.

This one is going to f*cking haunt me for a long time.

Luna's case always struck me as the epitome of 'little sister wants to grow up to be just like big sister' instances. I don't think it was that nopony appreciated her nights that drove her mad over neglect, it was that nopony appreciated her. She didn't really want the night to last forever, she just wanted to feel loved. But she didn't, and from that resent grew hatred, and... you know the rest.

So watching Nightmare Moon go trough such a drastic change of heart over the course of the story is incredible. Eternal night and just night in general stop mattering to her, and she goes from thinking about ruling with an iron hoof to precisely how she's going to raise a foal and all the wonderful things she's going to teach her. She even decides to call her foal 'Dawn' of all things. Nightmare Moon, Dark Goddess of the Infinite Nocturne, deciding to call her foal Dawn; as in 'the end of night and beginning of day.' She really did seem genuinely invested in turning a new leaf over, all because she was not only about to receive but with unbound generosity bestow bounties of love, and in one of the most precious connections love can offer; between mother and daughter.

And then her daughter dies.

My God.

denver.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw58_130009985880.jpg

The most sinister of tragedies are the ones where the protagonist has gone through some build up before they're torn down and torn to pieces, and this does it in the most gut wrenching of ways. And even as I sat here and read this story, knowing that poor Dawn wasn't going to be able to survive didn't ruin the story for me, but made it even more painful a story to read, knowing what cruel cards fate held and being powerless to intervene. The ghost of an ex-girlfriend possessing ones shadows isn't going to haunt me as much as this will.

And yet strangely, I find myself wanting to see how much further this would go. It's pretty much a given that this is an alternate universe story, so how would the return of Luna/Nightmare Moon play out differently had they arrived back to Equestria not concerned about shrouding the land in unending darkness, but with her dead filly? How would confronting Celestia work, knowing her elder sister has just as much a hoof in her daughter's death for exiling her to such an inhospitable land as she does for her insurrection being responsible for getting her banished there in the first place? And where do the lines between Princess Luna and Nightmare Moon now lie, as it was both their tragedy they suffered?

Could be interesting. But knowing your repertoire for writing, I'd just expect more unbearable heartbreak.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go shatter all the lights in my bathroom against my face and then take a freezing cold shower while still wearing all of my clothes, curled up in the corner and crying profusely.


- Christian 'My God, That Was Dark' Harisay

1817061
Well.... wow....

Let me be the first (and only) to thank you for such an extensive review and for enjoying the story as well. I did want to see how well I could do a dark pony story, as I have an odd inkling for dark, gritty, or realistic things. So... going pony with them seemed hard, but possible. By your reaction, I must have hit some kind of nail, or maybe I just pounded on your heartstrings, I'm not sure.

When I read the first paragraph of you review I thought you were going to go somewhere more like this.
media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ls068lSEPw1qcl835.gif

Good to know that wasn't the case.

And while I'm not going to try and change and views you have (for obvious reasons), there is one thing i want to point out. I think a mother would still be pretty damn bitter over her losing her daughter, and Nightmare Moon wouldn't be too different if she came down after that. Then again... you're idea of making her coming a more... peaceful affair is a nice AU that, oddly, won't leave me alone...

Dammit.

1817258 You're welcome. Bear in mind though that my wordiness stems from both believing the artist should be praised for their accomplishments and because I can't just say something succinctly even if I was beaten senseless until I sustained enough brain damage to leave me as mentally capable as a third grader.

Call it sadistic, but it's interesting to see suffering. Character mettle is determined by what they can endure and how they endure it... and this....

There's also the interesting aspect of it being applied to ponies. Canonically, this kind of agony would be unheard of; unthinkable, unspeakable, and even conflict is delivered fairly lightly. So there's almost a sick fascination to be had by some when they collide. It's like killing the songbird to hear what it's death rattle sounds like.

This is more a tragedy of circumstance, so it probably dances just in front of the line as opposed to seemingly intentionally go as far past it as it can. Like BronyNuemo's Shattered, or any of those grimdark as f:yay:ck fics that shall not be named.

But an old college instructor beat in into my head with how many times he told his pupils this; the goal of any story is to illicit an emotional response. I felt the love that Luna/Nightmare had for her/their daughter and saw how that love changed her/them over the course of the story. So likewise, to see it ripped away with such agonizing results resounds all that unimaginable pain. It hits right in the feels, and hits hard.

Glad to have proved your worries wrong, then. But honestly, my critiques are just that; honest. I'll point out what I liked. what I didn't like, and suggestions for improvement. Even fan fictions that I fucking loved had some things that I thought could've used improvement, like how the pacing in My Little Dashie couldn't have jumped through time any more than if it had a flux capacitor installed to it. Past Sins had an awful lot of conveniences in it, and Fallout: Equestria felt shaky at points and despite LittlePip being the spark that unites all of the Bearers of the Elements, we never get the slightest wind about who Generosity and Magic are... tyou know apart from the whole "Holy f:yay:ck, it was so G:yay:d d:yay:mn long!" thing.

I agree that NMM would be none to pleasant to be around after returning, but for different reasons. In the show, she was still all like; "Nopony wants to stay up and appreciate the night? Well then I'll make the night last forever! So there!" But had this course of events occurred, I'd think her return would be less impertinently vindictive and more unfathomable, terrifying fury; desire to force ponies to take so time to stargaze replaced with a truculent blood lust for celestia's head, relentlessly pursuing her until she lays broken and defeated as the Dark Alicorn screams "MY DAUGHTER IS DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!!!"

Huh; Nightmare Moon, the loving mother. Your story has taken one of the strangest concepts I've heard over ponies in a long time and makes it legitimately interesting to ponder.

And sorry if I've unintentionally stricken you with an idea for your next story. Happens to me all the time. Hell, just the other day I said something about Cadence being a walking Want It, Need It spell and I got this what if idea where a pony was a living incarnation of a particular spell. Hell, I'd probably have authored more fan fictions that Steven King has written books if I didn't type slower that frozen molasses. Hell, this comment alone has taken me over an hour.

I cringe thinking about how long it's going to take just to finish the one I'm helping work on now.


- Christian 'The Brain' Harisay

damn you for making me feel sad you sadistic bastard:flutterrage:

Make more.......:pinkiehappy:

went fist of the north star on my heart, I can't... manly tears activate.

I have not the words for the supirior quality and the "why?" I am not especially fond of children and a bit emotionally stunted but, I can understand these feels.

an excelent and heartwrenching work.

9/10 would chicken out untill reading again

Wow...just...wow...

Welp. It's going to be sad story day. I can just tell.

Login or register to comment