Written Off

by Georg

Just Like Old Times - The Sun and Moon of the Future

The Sun and Moon of the Future

It was a beautiful machine, all crystal and spun bronze, with whirling widgets and spinning spheres, pointing golden arrows indicating the location of all the celestial bodies and toothed cogs marked in careful graduations. It ticked and tocked, sparkled and glowed, and hummed like a happy hummingbird in a field of flowers. One entire room of the castle was taken up by its impressive presence, with a maintenance crew of a dozen ponies who kept it polished, oiled, tuned, and coddled to the point where Celestia swore they read it stories at bedtime.

She hated it. No, Celestia loved her alicorn student who had created it, and admired just how beautifully the machine had turned out. The world appreciated the exactness of the motion of the sun and moon, and it certainly took a great load off the Royal Sisters’ shoulders. She just despised what the machine stood for. Often, she took a few hours out of her day just to stand in its presence and listen to the whir and tick and hum of the world progressing along to the dictates of steel and glass.

“Good eve, dear sister.” Princess Luna glided up to Celestia’s side and joined her in regarding the machine. “Still no name for our eternal nemesis, I presume?”

“No.” Celestia regarded the machine for a few more silent minutes before correcting herself. “Nothing printable, at least.”

“It hath only been a full decade.” Luna’s words held a light hint of chastisement, but much welcome humor. “There is no rush.”

“True.” The sisters remained watching while the golden needle of the machine dropped closer to ‘Sunset’ by small clicks.

“Do you miss it?” asked Luna abruptly. “The touch of our stellar burdens, that is.”

“No, of course not,” said Celestia. “There were days when I struggled until sunset, blessing the time when I could finally collapse into bed and surrender my task to you, dearest sister.”

“My banishment must have taxed your stamina greatly,” mused Luna nearly under her breath.

“And my will, and all my soul,” added Celestia. “Even then, I would not have surrendered my duty to a machine. It reminded me of you, every day and night, and promised your eventual return.”

“Masochist,” chided Luna.

“Also,” countered Celestia before both sisters fell prey to a fit of unstoppable giggles.

“We find ourselves briefly without a task this eve,” said Luna once she had regained her composure. “Would you care to join me on the solarium balcony to watch Twilight’s machine perform?”

“Gladly.” Celestia fell into step beside her sister, tracing their familiar paths through the busy castle until they came to the room where they had raised the sun and moon for many years. They took their places on the balcony, side by side, and watched the sun slowly descend until it reached the horizon…

...and stopped.

“Strange,” mused Celestia. “There must be something wrong with the machine.”

Luna shrugged. “Perhaps a chunk of rock found its way into the gearbox. A tragedy.”

Casting a skeptical look the innocent expression on her sister, Celestia raised one eyebrow and lit her horn. “Shall we?”

The sun set.

The moon rose.

And two sisters stood together, joined again in their duties.

Author's Note:

Writeoff Link to Just Like Old Times And the prize for Missing The Big Point goes to… almost all of the reviewers.  Except for Xepher.

Here we have Celestia, gazing on the machine that has replaced her greater role in the world.  She hates it with a passion, but refuses to admit that to anyone but her sister, because Twilight made it for her.  Have you ever gotten a sweater that you really want to burn, but it came from a grandma/aunt/insert relative here who you respect so much that you wear it anyway and smile when asked about it?  That’s what we have here. She can see all the advantages of the Infernal Machine, but misses the heavy task it lifted off her shoulders, an opinion that Luna shares.

After all, Celestia can’t just go to Twilight and *tell* her.  That would hurt Twilight.

So when Little Sister gently chucks a pebble into the finely crafted gift, she understands.  The machine will be repaired, but until then, the Royal Sisters are once again masters of the world’s sky.  And this is a good thing, rather than a discordant and worse, disrespectful act.

Critiques:
Yes, I needed to sand down the tonal dissonances, but the ending lines switching from Third Person Celestia to Third Person Abstract is *intentional* because we’re fading out, the curtain is coming down, the end is upon us, and the camera pans back up into the sky to show two sisters sitting side by side.

The POV choice (and shift, from the beginning to the middle to the end) was deliberate.  By starting abstract and hammering the effort put into the machine it builds the readers comprehension of the situation, then putting the reader in Celestia’s golden shoes, it personalizes the emotions, the conflict, the hatred/love of the machine.  Then the fade-out as above. Think of it as the camera starting with a long shot, zooming into Celestia for the action, then zooming out at the end. (which is how it would be done if this were a video)

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

People really didn't get that the perspective shift was intentional? I practically heard the end theme kick in.

Though I admit, I completely missed who jammed up the gears.

[Misplaced Mage]

Never the end…

---

At that precise moment, in the Night Guard barracks…

“Hey, look, Sarge! The sun’s stopped setting.”

<R. Lee Ermey voice> ”DAYBREAKER 1! I repeat, we are at DAYBREAKER 1! I need eyes on the Princess; get her moving! Scramble the Lunar Diversion Teams! Notify Raven Rock to prep for lockdown and watch for her Majesty incoming! Don’t just stand there gawking, ponies—move, MOVE, MO…” </R. Lee Ermey voice>

“Oh, there it goes. Must have been a glitch in the clockwork.”

“STAND… ahem. Stand down! Stand down. Everypony as they were. Everything’s perfectly all right now. We’re fine, we’re all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?”

“Sarge, you really need to switch to decaf.”