Epilogue: Life Goes On
“So it’s over?” Applejack asked.
Twilight nodded, sipping her tea. It had been several days since the Alura Une incident, and the girls now found themselves at one of Ponyville’s open-air restaurants for some much-needed R&R.
“That’s right. The Alura Une is locked up in Tartarus now, so we won’t be seeing her again for a long time, if ever. Princess Celestia assured me that she turned the key herself.”
“That’s good,” said Applejack, “I don’t even wanna think about what else that thing coulda' done.”
“I’m just relieved that nopony was seriously hurt,” said Fluttershy, taking a bite of salad, “Celestia and Luna said that Alura Une’s feeding was stopped just in time, so there won’t be any side-effects.”
“I agree, Fluttershy. And good riddance to that dreadful creature. Though I think I may just make that dress I saw,” said Rarity, sipping at her own tea, “I wonder... if it was forcing us to dream, why didn’t Princess Luna realize what was happening?”
Twilight shrugged.
“Well that’s pretty simple. Luna mainly keeps an eye out for nightmares. Since the Alura Une gave us happy dreams, they simply escaped her notice. She was pretty appalled when she realized the oversight.”
“Happy is right!” said Rainbow Dash, “I know we were kind of in danger, but it was so awesome to be Captain of the Wonderbolts for a little while.”
“Abso-posi-lutively, Dashie!” agreed Pinkie, “I wonder if we could make friends with the Loola-Loonay and have it make awesome dream parties for everypony!”
Applejack shook her head.
“Nah, not that one. Weeds like her don’t care about anyone’s happiness but their own. We’re better off with her gone.”
“Bah, you’re probably right…” Rainbow Dash looked suddenly thoughtful, “Hey AJ, the rest of us already talked about our dreams, but what about you? What was yours?”
Applejack was silent for a few moments, picking at her food while the others waited. Finally, she nodded.
“I saw my parents again.”
Immediately the other girls tensed up. Fluttershy gasped softly. Rarity reached out and put her own hoof over Applejack’s.
“Oh my stars, darling… I can’t even imagine how you must have felt.”
“Well it certainly wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, if that’s what you mean.” To their surprise, Applejack smiled. “But honestly... I feel better about the whole thing than I thought I would. Mom and Dad’s passing happened real suddenly, see. But this dream felt so real that… well, it actually felt like I was able to say goodbye this time. Really, that’s all I wanted.”
Twilight blinked.
“That’s… that’s actually a really nice way of looking at it, Applejack. And I doubt the Alura Une anticipated that somepony would actually want an endpoint to their dream.”
Applejack nodded.
“Well that, and I realize now that there was one other thing that wasn’t quite right with my dream. You girls weren’t there.”
A collective 'awww' issued forth from the other five as Applejack picked up her mug of cider.
“Now then, I propose a toast: Here’s to us and our friendship. Let’s work together and make our lives so great that no dream can compare!”
The girls cheered and joined in on the toast. The danger had passed, and their friendship had been reaffirmed and strengthened. Applejack proceeded to have a wonderful lunch with her friends, five ponies she trusted and cherished like no other. The future ahead of them looked brighter than ever.
Truly, Applejack and her friends were happy.
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8021589
Thanks! I've been wanting to write that scene for a very long time. I'm glad you liked it. ^_^
Aww
Thinking out of all of them AJ
deserved her happier time the most, the others' dreams being more achieveable and ego-driven. Poor AJ.
8021965
And thus, that's why she's the central character here. ^_^
Thanks so much for reading!
Wonder if anyone did a (YouTube) reading of this? Would be effective I think. Especially the "[character] was happy" part at the end of each section when read aloud.
Have you seen the Doctor Who episode Last Christmas? It uses a similar idea to the one here of a too-perfect life (basically same as here).
8022759
Heh, it would actually be pretty awesome if someone ended up doing a dramatic reading. ^_^
8022767
I haven't seen that episode, but I based this story on some other Lotus-Eater Machine scenarios. It's primarily a mixture of the Superman story For The Man Who Has Everything and Fate Testarossa's dream of happiness from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's (mainly the movie version).
(For some fun, check out the Black Mercy from For The Man Who Has Everything and compare it to Alura Une)
8036887
Oh wow, thank you! I'm really happy to hear that you enjoyed it so much!
8039742
Awesome, thank you! Might I ask which parts you enjoyed the most?
Now THAT is a good story, and it has a great message to it as well.
While the past is a great source of happiness and living in it can help you avoid facing the pain of the future, true courage is learning to learn and live with the past being gone, and using it to move on to a better future.
Applejack's time with her parents is probably a memory that she will treasure forever and never forget, but the past is still the past, and we must move on if we are to continue to a better future. Well done Lance. Two thumbs....er...two hoofs up. XD
8044648
Indeed, I figured that would be a nice little moment to warm the heart.
8046235
Thanks for all your excellent comments, Xander! I'm stoked that you enjoyed the story. It's something that I've been thinking about doing for a while, and it's awesome to finally have it complete. ^_^
Hello my good man and or lady. You requested a review for the Reviewer's Café, no? Well, you asked and you shall recieve
8076020
Thank you so much for the glowing review! I really appreciate it. ^_^
I suppose my only follow-up question would be: What did you think of the villain?
8076454
would come back and attacked Ponyville with sentience. I mostly like that it was mysterious who was the cause of all of this until the reveal.
Thought that it was very unique that someone thought back to the vines that emerged from the Everfree in that episode that I can't quite get the name of at the moment
Her character and motives reminded me heavily of Chrsyalis. I didn't say anything in the review because I wanted it to be a surprise to anyone who would read the story after reading the review.
8076481
Indeed, I assumed that was the case. I appreciate that. ^_^
Plunder vines. And yeah, they were most certainly on my mind when writing this, though they weren't Alura Une's primary inspiration. But who knows? Perhaps they played a part in her origin. Discord did spread a lot of seeds, and they lay dormant for over 1000 years...
Nice, that's what I was going for. Each of the mane six could remember a slight piece of the puzzle. ^_^
Yeah, there's really no getting around the similarities to Chryssy, with them both being female dark-coated pony-shaped emotivore monsters. To try and mitigate this, I attempted to make Alura's outward personality and demeanor as different as I could.
Recognized this plotline from the Justice League Unlimited episode "For the Man Who Has Everything." Overall, a pretty good adaptation. What makes it even more interesting is that in Superman's dream, he envisions himself to be a Kryptonian farmer. That's probably what inspired the adaptation, am I right?
Anyway nice job and well written. Almost no mistakes in syntax or grammer. A pleasure to read.
9172479
Thanks for reading!
The initial inspiration for this fic was episode 15 of Digimon Savers, but as time went on, For The Man Who Has Everything did indeed become what the story primarily paralleled (including the Alura Une being a massive reference to the Black Mercy). Here and there it also draws certain elements from Fate Testarossa's dream sequence from the second Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha movie.
Believe it or not, Kal-El being a Kryptonian farmer and Applejack also being a farmer was actually coincidental. I chose Applejack for the focus due to her having one of the larger personal losses in her past (mainly due to fandom perception at the time, though The Perfect Pear would later vindicate that perception), thus her perfect fantasy dream would be the most poignant and tragic.