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Trick Question


Being against evil doesn't make you good.

T

During the first war with Tirek, Princess Celestia sends her sister Princess Luna a very short letter. Although the letter could easily fit onto a single page, Celestia uses two.

Sometimes the medium speaks louder than the message.


Written for The Writeoff Association's "Princess Not Included*" contest.

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 116 )

Oh lord, I can't really put into words how much that disturbed me. It didn't help that I was trying to figure out what the problem was, before finally seeing the last sentence.

I don't get it.

...Well, that earned its dark tag quickly.

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I did not see that coming. Bravo.

(My personal guess was 'survivors,' including Celestia herself, and some less then accurate version of that 'enter paper' spell of Twilight's that got mangled in transit.)

Oh, sweet filly Luna, that was as dark as the deepest part of the Mare-iana trench! It's so dark, the only thing that will make me feel better is a terrible pun!

7550777
In order to prevent Tirek from draining her magic if he should find her hiding place, Celestia removed the skin from both flanks (including her cutie marks) and sent it to Luna using the scroll spell. That's the 'paper' she was writing on.

7550777

I don't get it.

Celestia cut off her own cutie marks and magically preserved them to keep the core of her special talent out of Tirek's gullet. That was the seemingly unnecessarily large parchments the letters were written on.

7550787
7550788 Oh, I'ma lose my lunch now..:pinkiesick:

7550787

Man, ninja'd by ten seconds...

Thinks that's a personal record for me. :duck:

Ye gods, a brick wall of horror just popped up in the last line like holy fuck that was sudden.

Good job sir. When someone says they cried over a fic, I just sit quietly reading with no visible reaction. When someone says a fic is too gruesome I just sit quietly and read (and maybe smile cause I like that kind of stuff) but this, made me almost barf at the end. Once again good job sir.

7550777 Parchment is basically leather used for writing material, the leather used in this instance was the skin that contained Celestia's cutiemarks.

I've tanned and worked with leather before. so this doesn't disturb me nearly as much as it should.

7550787 It could only have been better if she'd included a cupcake with the letters... :pinkiecrazy::rainbowlaugh:

Oh Jesus Christ... :pinkiesick:

7550788
But that's not how pony magic works...

The cutie mark is just a representation of your special talent, and is manifested by your inner magic, not your inner magic itself. We've seen a cutie mark get shaved off before, with no detrimental effects to the wielder. Celestia literally cutting off her cutie marks wouldn't affect her magic, nor would it protect her from Tirek's magic drain.

Meh, oh well; still a pretty good story.

My kind of humor.

Luna's observation of the weight of the missive is what tipped me off, given the Dark tag, and the setting.

Didn't think it was Tia's own flesh, but still.

well. Shit.
Good work.

7551863 When did we see a cutie mark shaved off to no detrimental effect?

7552030
The Gabby Gums episode when Snips and Snails got their asses bubble-gummed together.

7551863

Technically, you're right, but personally I'm not seeing any reason there can't be some sort of dark/forbidden magic that works that way.

We did see in the Tirek episodes that it's both possible to bestow alicorn magic to other ponies, and to steal it, after all.

That ending popped up like a jumpscare. I almost screamed.

I never scream.

You have earned a mustache, my good sir.

:moustache:

7552030 Didn't It happen to Twilight once as well?

7551863
This is true: the premise is a slight stretch, and I was well aware of it while penning the tale.

But it isn't a story about cutie marks, or magic, or even a story about Princess Luna or Tirek or General Firefly. It's a story about Celestia's love and devotion, and the premise is just the medium used to tell it. :twilightsmile:

7552011
In stories like these, it's always tricky to maintain the foreshadowing properly. You want to throw in just barely enough hints that the reader doesn't put it together, so that at the end the realization hits them like a delivery by Derpy. Judging from the comments it would seem I succeeded fairly well this time.

Well... that was certainly a twist. A pretty dark one at that. Tag definitely earned.
Good job there, the end was certainly a shocker.

I say, good show. The idea is unique and the execution makes it hit in the hardest way possible. Well done.

Yea good execution. I could see fallout equestria's raiders using parchment like thats. A bit surprised Celestia has a spell for tanning hide, but then again she's lived a long time. And I hope she has a spell for flaying. Otherwise ouch.

I don't really know if I'd agree the revelation hit me like any freight train, personally. The contraints of the story make everything happen rather quickly and it is not shy about hinting at what would happen in both the description and the first half of the story. The actual revelation was rather expected, but the particulars of it weren't.

After re-reading the ending to make sure I had gotten it right, it certainly did make me go "Ooh, that's clever. Cutie marks disappear when Tirek does his sucking thing, so removing them prevents him from getting at the magic in there. That's pretty hardcore of her," however. My first thought was that Tirek would end up having gotten to Celestia and having sent the letters himself just to fuck with Luna after killing and skinning her, which would have been rather horrifying, but not nearly as clever of a twist or as impressively self-sacrificing of Celestia.

Nice, but probably would've worked better at twice the length.

Damn, that was dark, in a good way. Well done!

Well you gotta do what you gotta do. No surrender.

Not bad.

~Skeeter The Lurker

Oh god, oh my.

That.

Well,

It's radical.

At least we know it was temporary.

~Leonzilla

7552640 OH, so that's what happened

Oh jesus. That's intense.

7552784
But that was the fur, not the skin below.

Wow. I was not expecting that ending. :rainbowderp:

I have done what is necessary to prevent Tirek from draining my magic

Resting gently on the table lay two patches of magically tanned horsehide, an unmistakeable royal sun emblazoned upon each one.

Oh.:pinkiesick:
Oh god.:pinkiesick:
I haven't seen one sentence make an entire story so horrifying in a long time.

Well... *urk*
It certainly makes you think... even if you'd rather not.

7553137
Yes, but the cutie mark is the symbol, not the skin beneath it. There's nothing different about the flank skin than say, the chest skin or neck skin.

7553308
The detrimental effect is that Celestia has huge areas of missing skin, and if she somehow survives the shock/bloodloss, she's guaranteed herself a life-threatening infection.

Very nice and disturbing.

Read the very first comment and thought I got spoiled. But I love a good dark premise so I read anyway. That comment didn't prepare me, it didn't prepare me at all.

This... I don't have the words.

Talk about horror.

Good cleanup and expansion. A+.

Brilliant, moving, twisted, and creative, all in just barely over a thousand words. That's hard to do.

You are one damn talented writer.

Wow.

That was ... dark.

You get a thumbs up and fav for that.

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