Losing a Sister

by Anstca

Chapter 1

Looking back on the events of the past few months, I should have been able to stop this. If I had realized what was happening I could have saved my … no, our sister, but I'm a fool.

Now I just hope I can buy enough time for you to be able to fix this. Either you can bring her back, or you have the nerve to do what I couldn't.

I should start from the beginning. Maybe something I know can help you, or perhaps if I get it out I'll find something you can use.

It all started back on the day of the Crystal Putrefaction Celebration. Hard to believe it's been five hundred years since Luna and I beat Sombra. Luna still couldn't celebrate it this year, she flew into a rage. While I will never forgive him for what he did to the Crystal Empire and the Crystal ponies, for Luna it's far more personal. You're her best friend and you know she thinks of you as another sister. What he did to you and the ponies who stayed loyal to you is almost too much for her to bare, then to drag the empire out of time.

And little Mi Amore ... Luna loved her like she was her own.

If she ever gets a chance, I know she'll kill him - though I hope he stays lost forever.

Is that what is to blame for this? Is it what planted the seed?

Things calmed down after that; I thought it may have just been bad memories coming back. How I wish that's all it was, then you and I could have helped her. Things did calm down until about a month later. It was a particularly slow day at court and I decided to take an early lunch. I had just started to eat, when I heard a scream that seemed to shake the castle.

"Luna!" I shouted as I took off in a dead sprint to her room. When I arrived there were already guards trying to open the door.

"What happened?!" I shouted.

"We don't know, princess," one of the guards answered. "Everything was fine then she just started screaming and we can't get the door open."

"Luna?" I asked as I knocked on the door. "It's Celestia, whats wrong?"

"No no, it's not true!" Luna shouted at someone. "You're lying to me! Do you really think I'm foolish enough to believe you!?"

"Lying? Luna, what are you talking about? Of course it's me. Just open the door so we can talk."

I lit my horn to unlock the door. Ss soon as I did, a great wall of ice formed around the door,

"You ... you stay away from them! Both of them! If you do anything to either one of them, I swear what I do to you will make whatever hell you crawled out of look like a paradise!"

"Luna, who are you talking to!? Let me In we can fight them together!" I shouted as I pounded on the ice. Then I heard what sounded like a storm of swords from inside Luna's room.

"Get back!" I shouted to the guards as I lit my horn and called upon the power of the sun to melt the ice, the door, and anything else that stood in my way.

When the ice had cleared, I rushed inside and it looked like I had walked onto a battlefield. There were swords, lances, axes, arrows and all manner of weapons you can think of that Luna could make covered the walls floor and ceiling. It looked like she had fought a small war in her bedroom. She stood not far from the door as if she were guarding it. She was panting and her eyes were darting around the room as if looking for a foe that might still be there.

"Luna?" I asked, not sure what to make of the battleground before me.

"Tia?" she asked me ,using a nickname she hadn't uses in years and sounding on the verge of tears. "Did … did I get her? Please tell me I got her," she implored sorrowfully. She now sounded more panicked. "If not, I'll hunt her down, I won't let her do it,” she said as she moved to walk out the door.

I moved to back her. "Luna, who are you talking about? What happened here?"

"I don't know who she was, but I feel like I should know her. She first tried to tell me the ponies don't love me and never will, that at best they will fear me and my night. I know that to be a lie, since they love me as much as they love you, and even if they did one day stop loving me I would still love them and protect them all the same. Then she told me she was going to kill you and Chrissy. I can't let that happen, I love you two more than anything in this world or any other. I won't let it happen, she'll have to kill me first."

I couldn't take anymore of that and pulled her into a tight hug and wrapped my wings around her.

"Luna ,whatever it is, we'll fight it together like we have everything else," I try to reassure her. If this thing, whatever it is, wants to threaten Chrysalis too, you know she'll help us. You go to my room and try to get some rest. I'll send Chrysalis a letter." Luna did not want to go, it was plain to see. But she did need the rest and she knew it.

"You'll send her a letter, right? Telling her what happened, and warn her that something may be trying to kill her?"

"Yes, Luna, I will I'll send it right now."

If I had sent you the letter, could you have helped her? Could seeing your face and hearing your voice have set her mind at ease? All I can do is ask that you forgive me for not telling you sooner.

After that, she just got worse. She became convinced that she was the only thing that could save us, that this thing was going to kill me and then kill you. She hardly ate, she never slept. She just waited for whatever it was to show up.

Being as stupid as I am, I thought I could save her. I believed that it would all work out because she was my sister. But now I have to accept the truth - that my sister is dead. And if I fail, you are the only thing that stands between Melinoe and the ones we have sworn to protect.

I can hear her now, saying "This will be the last day Equestria will ever see."

She may be right. But if she is, it will be a day that is never forgotten - I'll make sure of that.

Comments

[DeshLune]

I'll get this out of the way first and foremost -- the thing that is resting on everyone's minds as they read the story -- get a flippin' editor or proofreader! I will do it myself if I have to, but it is the second story (which you did better on) and the errors still persist in the great quantities that shouldn't be in the story. They are persistent, much like a leech leeching your blood away. You can have some credits, for a ticket to a remote planet on the outer rim that you can learn.

The dialogue is a tad clunky, the quotation marks are spread out in seemingly random places that don't help. You succeeded at making it so that it is almost impossible to tell thought from spoken word. Remember: a quotation mark is at the start and end of the dialogue, not (possibly) at the start, then after that, then in the next paragraph. It loses any consistency for what it is and what it could become. It isn't even that it isn't interesting, but that it is left to be so inclusive that one is left wondering what the hay is going on. I could probably spend another paragraph on dialogue alone.

Buck it! That is what I'll do. Here is an example from the text: "'Did..did I get her?' Please tell me I got her.'" That is all one piece, yet you separated it for no reason whatsoever and ran with it. Was the thought, "This is a sentence and that is a sentence, so let's split them up in the dialogue." Clearly not how you talk, but you get the point! Right? No? Well... let's continue with this... evocative comment. Get the bucking quotation marks correct! The spelling is bad, sure, but one should be able to tell what is being spoken versus what isn't being spoken.

Now it is time for the next part... the spelling, the part that has gone to the moon (or will); through the fire (and the flames) this was beaten with the large hammer's face, slowly being bent and molded, before heated and beaten again -- all before its inevitable quenching in the water. That is how the process should have gone... but instead, you decided to quench it, heat it, quench it and so on; eventually it became so brittle it just snapped off and we were left with this... this... bloodstain. Those shards that remain are where the blood came from as when they were picked up, you continued to pierce your skin and slowly bled -- or maybe that was us.

The simplest of mistakes were made, time and time again; even in the last one we said get an editor. Did you? It seems not. I will commend you, this one improved over the last one by leaps (not bounds). It has a long ways to go, and I don't think it will be perfect (nothing will); yet that doesn't stop one from hoping! Homophones (the words that sound the same but mean different things -- often times even looking similar [there, their, they're]) are a particular weakness of yours, maybe one day you will learn... maybe you won't, at this point I can only say good luck. Now that I think about it, you also used the wrong words entirely at some points! The one that rubs me the wrong way (slightly) would be this one: "sward" it is the sorriest excuse for anything that I have ever seen!

I am given the image of a "sward swallower" who earns a living swallowing a fictitious item known simply as a "sward"... er... you may try at it, but you seem to fall so hard (and got so far) in the end it didn't even matter. You tried so hard. That much shows. That much is clear. That much... is a small step. You will... nay, you must improve more. No excuses.

I know you say you are bad at this type of thing, but do you know what? That is an excuse. And you keep hiding behind it. If you are bad at something, don't default to hiding behind those dreaded words of deficiency -- no, improve and get better (you thought I would say "git gud"). It works the same as when someone tells you that you are bad at something, prove them wrong by improving; it is even better when they say you are the absolute worst at it, then you turn it around by getting good (had to do it) and turning their words around in their face.

Before I get lost in writing, I should really get back to the writing, so here it is: punctuation. Remember that? Based on the writing I would say, "No." to that, however, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say you did. It is all over the place, things just put down without any thought of clarity through punctuation. This is, in every sense of the word, a match-box (the one where you match shapes to the holes)... oh, wrong thing -- it is exactly what is known as a cluster. There are missing spaces, commas, semicolons... everything. You even managed to do an ellipses wrong! How do you do that?

Due to the time, I will be heading to bed... I'll continue this tomorrow. Check back then for part two...

[logros13]

8672620
you do realize people are far more likely to take your advise if you do not act like condescending ass while giving it to them right? while i agree with your points the way you deliver them practically guarantees the author wont seriously consider them assuming he even bother reading through you entire post after the blatant insults start... To be honest your post confuses me more than anything, it's well thought out and full of good points but worded in way that practically guarantees that people will dismiss it as flamebait.

[DeshLune]

8672900
I'm aware that it comes off as frank (condescending as you called it), however, I did say there is a part two. Not only that but some parts are exaggerated to put the point across to Anstca (a friend of mine), and while everyone certainly wasn't privy for it; I'm being nicer about it than how Anstca views it himself -- and part two is where I'm going to be giving the advice. The first part is me trying to get the errors across (would have added it to the first part but I needed to get some sleep).

If you see it as just "flamebait" (something I poked fun of in the comment itself) then you are only looking at a face value, and not even well enough; an example would be this: "I'll give you credits--". While some parts may come off as this unimaginative attack on the author, it really isn't. Anstca is my friend, and as he said: "Do your worst; I'm a big boy." I won't be back until I write part two, but I hoped that helps. My advice: Look at a comment more carefully, look to the wording used throughout; if it seems like the person is being needlessly rude, perhaps they have a reason -- perhaps they are just being rude.

[Sparkling blaze]

Great story, Love.May I edit it for you?

[Anstca]

8673387
Yeah go ahead Sweetheart.

[DeshLune]

8672620
Time for the much awaited part two. I'll start this off by saying, "Good job!" Several of the errors have been fixed, and while plenty remain things are looking much better -- readable even... to some extent. I still haven't gotten your credits together, not with the rise of the Empire going on; makes credit collection rather difficult to do now-a-days. Maybe one day this planet won't be under the heavy thumb of the Empire and we can get some proper...

You know what was lacking in the other part? Some real advice. The last part dealt with nearly all the errors that had been in the story, but because I had to leave early I wasn't able to transcribe the most important parts: tips, for improvement. I think I will do that in a few categories; punctuation and spelling (grammar) improvement, and story telling improvement (because this is totally different). More may come if I think of them, however, those three should cover all of the things I want to talk about with you today.

The first up punctuation and spelling (grammar). Now... most people will say this, "If you have a hard time with the grammar side of things, then you need to read more." to that I say this, "False." Simple, no? Reading does help, but only by reading in a certain way: you have to read in a more analytical sense; as if you just read, you aren't paying much attention to the words used, just that you are getting the story told. What you should start doing is reading more things; not just anything, but the stories that are written well -- they don't even need to tell a good story (as that isn't what this part is about), however, they have to be as grammatically correct as you can find. There is no quick solution, you will have to spend time to develop a better understanding of language. Sure, you can always get an editor or a proofreader, but that means you are relying on someone else to do something that you should be able to do.

Another way to improve at grammar (as odd as it sounds) is to help people edit, or watch someone edit (I'd say Melody or Saint -- they will be far more proactive about it than I); the second thing you need to do with this way, is ask questions. It is highly important that you ask any and all questions, it will go a long way to coming to understand what (and why) they do what they do (actions, not editing in general). There is one final method, study. Read through articles about punctuation and look up words when you don't know if it is correct; eventually things will become so second nature that they are registered in a more muscle memory way. (Listened to that one Frozen song while writing this part, hopefully it wasn't too cold.)

Next up is story telling improvement. This would be the way a story is told; as well as the contents making it up. This one is going to be far more... evocative. I'll use your story for examples and either find something or just make up other things for others. Time to jump right in -- the story opens up right into mentions of Celestia talking about the events of the past and why she believes things turned out the way they do, she then goes on to explain the events of the Crystal Purification Celebration (I assume that is what you meant). You then mention that something happened between Sombra and Chrysalis, before going off tangent about how much Luna adores Cadence. She (Celestia) ponders about what could have caused Luna's changing nature. Then it goes in a small scuffle between Luna and... something, before it ends.

That was the entirety of your story (leaving things out of course), but those were the main events. Do you notice something I didn't mention? The note. The entire thing isn't the note, it has several different writing styles and it really doesn't make itself appear in a note manner, or even in the way Celestia would do it. She still has a more formal writing style. Anyway, critics aside, this is to focus on improvements. How do you get better at telling a story? This one is funny; you read things that other people have written. Instead of paying attention to the grammar, pay attention to the words chosen and how things are presented. If you want to write something sad, you can't (or at least shouldn't) read a clopfic to understand sadness... at least I don't think that is how it works.

Naturally that is only one way to improve. Another way is to keep writing, however, it requires that others help you -- by leaving feedback and suggestions. You can improve through simply writing (it is partially what I did) and experimenting, though this method has the most troubles; because you need at least an average understanding of story telling to begin with (something that we both know you aren't quite at). It does help to read lots of stories, just to see the way things are written.

I could honestly go on and on about ways to improve certain skills and whatnot. But I will end it with this: You should read other stories, and pay attention to the way it is written, not just the story itself. It will take some time to get far better, however, you did make an improvement from the last story and if you stay on this forward trajectory then you will get there eventually. I'm off...

Edit: Almost 2k words. I think I won! XD

[Anstca]

8674663
Thanks for the advice man. And yeah you wrote more then I did so here. 🍰 (Would have gave you a cookie but the don't have a cookie emoji)

[DeshLune]

8674673
The cake is a lie! Why would you do that to me?! T_T

[Anstca]

8674708
This cake was real tho. I baked it myself.

[RoboCom64 Zelos]

Alright, move over, Deshy. Time for some hard hitting REAL manly criticism. I won't be saying anything about the grammar because Deshy has covered it already.

1. Honestly? Starting a story with a brooding protagonist who ruminates about how he/she fucked up and failed and how they are a fuck up for fucking up? This is the every person's "never written a story, but how I imagine emotionally resonant stories start" starter pack.

2. It feels way to self-indulgent in it's own mysery and drama.

3. It has no style or apparent feel to it. It feels like a jumble of words, hastly written by some random bloke. The only thing that shines through is the edgy drama, I've already mentioned and by now, they have become just about the most common staple of shitty "my first time writing" fanfiction.

4. The pacing is utterly horrid. Things just confusingly jump from one to the other, not letting any single moment set in.

5. I know that many write fanfiction, because they already have the existing world and characters to work with and people will inherently care, more of less, but damn, mate, there is not a single reason to care for anything that goes on here. From the very start it's just the standart amateur drama schlock, that spends no time actually investing the reader into anything that is going on.

6. Just realized, that this whole thing is supposed to be a note. That makes it even worse. There is nothing in the writing to signify it being a note. It does not feel like a note. It is not structured like a note. It uses no upsides and tools, that are given to the writer, when they write about a note.

7. Duuuuuuuuuude...😎

[Anstca]

8674714
Well I can't say you're wrong. Thanks for being honest. Also duuuuuuude.

[Anstca]

8679214
Thanks Saint

[Anstca]

8679327
I fixed it, thanks again.