Two Steps Forward, Four Steps Back
Chromatic Diminishment Syndrome:
Chromatic Diminishment Syndrome is the mechanism by which a pony loses her color and Vigor for life. Triggers can include Talent Mark Dissonance, in which a pony is unable to express that which makes her special, or by any event that causes a melancholic imbalance. Ponies who have lost loved ones and those with broken hearts are especially vulnerable.
Left untreated, her color will fade away entirely, and the Fire of Life in her breast will be extinguished.
Ponies afflicted with CDS require the presence of loved ones, encouragement to exercise their Talent, and gentle care. They may become unwilling or unable in their weakness to feed and groom themselves and may require assistance with daily tasks.
-Star Swirl The Bearded, Mage Meadowbrook's Magical Maladies
On final approach to Canterlot, the port rotor of the airship Star Light broke its shaft, resulting in the combustion of the ship. Rescue crews were unable to respond in time, driven back by flares of hydrogen and the heat at which the aluminum-doped envelope burned. A memorial service at which Celestia herself will be in attendance is planned for…
Early in the evening of 27 June, the lives of Dame Everfree Star Sparkle (45) and Sir Night Light (50) were lost when the airship Star Light burned.
They are survived by Twilight Sparkle (10), and Royal Guard Cadet Shining Armor (18).
Visiting hours at Sparkle Manor will be…
“Twilight, sweetheart, you need to eat.”
“Sparky, I brought the next volume of Principles of Sorcery.”
“Your friends are here, Ladybug.”
No matter what was said or tried, Twilight could hardly be shifted from her bedroom desk. It had amassed a drift of newspaper clippings, anything and everything relating to the deaths of her parents.
They could only watch as the formerly rambunctious, curious, and sweet-hearted foal first became snappy. As her coat darkened to a muddy gray. As the color gradually receded entirely from her.
Sunset rubbed her withers with an awkward smile, her jaw shifting slightly as dishwater-colored eyes slowly panned in her direction.
“Hey Sparky. Do… you remember my first real visit here, with your p-parents?”
Those eyes closed and opened again in loose approximation of a blink, as Twilight gradually lowered herself to the desk and idly ran a small hoof over a newsprint image of her parents.
Sunset smiled and tugged her close. Those eyes stared through her, deepening to violet for just a moment.
“Why do you hate Cadance.”
Sunset closed her eyes and winced. Her ears fell flat, and she drew back to arrange herself Buffalo-style on the filly’s bed.
“I don't hate Cadance. Not personally.” She rotated her hooves around one another. “This whole… loving family, supportive parents, older siblings thing- I never had that. I grew up in an orphanage on the Mountward side of Canterlot, practically on the terraces. Everything I had was fought for, claimed, and protected.
“When it came time for me to enter Celestia’s school proper when I was about your age, I had an entrance exam not unlike yours…”
Sunset stared in mounting horror as a cart was wheeled in. It bore a wooden box, and a sheet of paper was taped to the side. She watched the proctors retreat to the warded observation room, where there was nopony to watch her triumph- or fail.
The instructions were clear- she was to use magic to hatch the egg contained within the box. She had thirty minutes in which to do so. She opened the box slowly with shaking hooves and gasped at the sight.
Nestled in padded velvet was a red-orange the size of her hoof, with tongues of flame lapping up the shell. The egg of a phoenix, lost and alone. Just like her.
She reached out and took it carefully into her hooves, her mind spinning. Her Beastiary lessons bubbled up to the front; long hours with her nose buried in a tome in the Canterlot Public Library. Phoenixes only laid their eggs when they were ready to die, and their final incandescence burned the scales of dragons and nurtured the life within.
Her mane started to smoke as she turned her attention inward. Her coat curled and hissed as she stoked the fire in her breast.
“... Our magics intermingled. I drew on the only thing I could think of, solar-magic. Philomena is a being of pure life-fire.”
She gestured to the mark on her flank.
“After that I was officially part of Celestia’s School, and the mare herself asked me to move onto campus so she could teach me. I think… both of us eventually wanted a relationship that we couldn't have.”
She sighed.
“The only time she had time, she paid attention, and cherished me like a mother should was when I not only succeeded but excelled. I had to hatch a phoenix every day. And then… here comes this little mare with the wings I deserve, who Celestia instantly named her family, who got the attention I craved and was constantly denied.”
Twilight shuffled a little closer and pressed her snout into Sunset’s barrel.
“You're a Princess to me.”
It was hours later when it was Cadance’s turn to be blindsided by a question. Twilight had been coaxed away from her newspapers to stare at a book long enough to call forth a few fitful sparks. A meal had been picked at long enough for the filly to claim she wasn't hungry.
Sunset had left sometime during the meal, citing a meeting with Celestia’s secretary Raven Inkwell. Twilight watched her trot down the walk leading up to Sparkle Manor with unseeing eyes before being ushered upstairs for a bath.
Cadance was just reaching for the showerhead to rinse Twilight’s mane when the filly spoke up.
“How did you get your wings?”
Cadance’s laughter was often likened to the tinkling of crystal bells, her voice like sweet honey on warm bread. The soft lilt of her accented speech had brought Twilight many nights of restful sleep.
“Oh Ladybug… I was born with them.”
She waved her hooves vaguely.
“My title is just… politics. If I'd stayed in Cavellia, they would probably have declared me Princess there and broken away from Equestria. When I got my horn, I had to come here and be an Equestrian Princess. And I had to learn… Princess stuff.”
Twilight spoke as if words were worth gold and she were a miser counting pennies. As if every sibilant was a razorblade across her tongue, every plosive barbed wire in her mouth, every glottal acid in her throat.
“Horn then.”
Cadance sighed as she methodically brushed a hoof over Twilight's skull, rinsing her mane with the showerhead held in her teeth. She turned the water off with a free hoof.
“Nopony knows from where I actually come, but I was found in a little village called Chonamare, on the coast of Cavelia. There's a small cloud district to the north, but I didn't belong to any of the pegasi that lived there. But there were also frequently free-range pegasi who lived in the wild places, so not much thought was put towards it.
“This was how I found my way to Calm Presence and Caring Heart, who ran a home for the unwanted. I was raised as if I were a Earth pony with wings. I made myself useful. I learned to patch nets, I learned to cook, I looked after the younger foals and kept them out of trouble.”
Twilight arched a brow with the careful slowness of a major tectonic shift. Cadance had the decency to blush.
“I know. Sunset would say ‘get to the point’, but starting from the beginning is the way of Cavellian stories.”
She took a deep breath.
“When I was ten, new ponies moved into the cottage at the edge of the village. Crystal List and her mother Prismia. Crystal was a pegasus just like me, and her mother was a witch.”
Cadance’s head bowed, her mane hiding her face as she blew a soft chuff.
“I thought Crystal would be my friend. I was wrong. She was… wrong. But not as bad as Prismia. Even as a filly I could see them, the ties that bind one heart to another. I could see… everything Prismia touched tarnished. Her heart was black, with no love in it.”
Cadance clapped her hooves together as she thought.
“Prismia had an amulet, a scarab, that she always wore. She called it a good luck charm. I could tell it was evil. I confronted her, all ten years and three feet of me. She laughed and… I snapped. I called her every mean name I knew, which wasn't many and-
“I felt it stirring, like when my wings wanted to flare. I looked inside myself and saw the threads as I'd never seen them. A thousand hearts beating as one. I begged them, love. Pity Prismia, for she had no love in her heart, and was unloved. Remember the things she'd done and love them. How she'd set the milliner’s leg so it would heal true, how she'd saved the life of a filly who'd caught the fever.
“Where the binds lay on her she writhed as if they were hot iron. She screamed and balked and- Crystal List disappeared. Her scarab exploded, and I fell… somewhere, filled with stars. Celestia appeared and said that I had accomplished a great feat, worthy of being endowed as a Princess.”
She tapped her horn with a hoof.
“And that's how I got my horn- and my cutie mark.”
Twilight sunk down an inch or so, until only her nose and eyes were visible above the waterline.
Hidden recesses of her mind clicked into position for the first time in a month as she parsed through the story. She smiled softly.
“Power of love? Sappy.”
Cadance let out a small snort and splashed her playfully, before dipping her head under to pull the plug.
“I know. Let's dry off and see if Sunset has a better story?”
No sooner had the filly been carefully dried and brushed than Sunset burst through the door. She glanced at the clock and smiled vaguely as if she'd been slapped on the forehead with a hammer.
“How do you feel about a trip to the palace, Squirt?”
Twilight arched a brow faintly but allowed herself to be scooped up in a turquoise haze, and deposited on Sunset’s shoulders.
“You can come too, Cadance. We're going to see an expert in Twilight’s little issue.”
The march across town didn't take very long at all, and Sunset ignored any questions posed to her. To mild confusion she diverted at the doors leading to the audience hall and instead slipped through the gate of the Royal Gardens. She wiggled herself under a covering bush and waited, waving a hoof to the others to be silent.
Their spot was directly underneath the balcony of Celestia’s tower. They watched as the pony herself stepped out onto the marble, and bowed her head towards the horizon.
For a long minute, nothing happened, until Celestia cast her head and dropped her peytral and set her crown down as well. Her horn lit brilliant gold, and the sun sank to touch the ground.
The ambient noise in the gardens fell, as if the world were drawing breath to fall into a hush. Flowers opened around them, in that magical moment between sunset and twilight, and Celestia stood before the world. She looked nothing like a princess so much as a filly nervous before a recital.
The stone walls of the gardens carried her strong voice well, until the greenery echoed with it and the air seemed to hum in counterpart. Pale flowers opened, surrounding them with the scent of lavender and a sort of mournful music as the Lyric Lavender reached for Moon.
”Fate has been cruel, and order unkind…
How could I have sent you away?
The blame was my own; the punishment, yours.
The harmony's silent today...
But into the stillness I'll bring you a song-
And I will your company keep...
Till your tired eyes and my lullabies,
Have carried you softly to sleep…”
Celestia had a fine voice, proud and regal and mournful. She sang about loss and loneliness and guilt and regret, her words resonating in the twilight. Of the few that heard, there were none untouched.
The song lasted until the sun had fully set and the moon had risen, and Celestia stood speared by the accusing glare of the Mare in the Moon. As the song receded into silence, she gathered her symbols of office and adorned herself. No longer a lonely filly crying for a lost sister, she had again become the marble Princess the rest of Equestria knew.
“She misses her sister.”
Even as she spoke them, the words hit Twilight. Her coat darkened imperceptibly, tending more towards her normal lavender than her current gray-white.
Sunset scrubbed her face with the back of her hoof and stared at the moon as if seeking guidance in its light.
“Every day for the past thousand years, Squirt. And every night she sings, and asks a mare who can't answer her to forgive her that she's not the one locked in the moon. If she can carry on under that, then we can carry on as well.”
She smiled down at Twilight, and was met with the tiniest lifting of the corner of the filly’s mouth in return.
Cadance had been ten minutes gone with Twilight when Celestia landed on the turf with a soft whicker of wings. Sunset glanced upward and tapped a packet of paperwork.
“You knew, didn't you.”
Celestia laughed quietly, and nestled down across from the smaller mare. It had taken years for Sunset to master Celestia’s body language, but now she was broadcasting that she'd rather be beside her, that the gulf between them didn't exist.
“I always know when I have an audience, my gifted student.”
Sunset shook her head.
“No, about this. You knew. About the endowments that let Trixie attend your school despite her mother being a travelling magician. Why that exists. That Star Sparkle had named me guideparent, that Twilight was going to inherit the title and I was to act as regent until she was of age.”
Begrudgingly, she adjusted the collar of her jacket and shuffled over slightly, until their sides touched. Sunset scuffed a hoof.
“We're trying. I don't… I can't raise a foal, and I'd never ask Cadance for her to put her life aside. Just once I want to be the pony you think I am.”
Celestia smiled softly, and tilted her head down. Their cheeks brushed once, the nuzzle meant for family.
“You never cease to amaze me, my glimmering sunset. You're gifted and you are strong, I'm sure your talents are up to the task.”
They stayed there a while, watching the moon.
Cadance had just tucked Twilight into bed, and had cracked a weathered tome of bedtime stories when the door opened. Twilight’s eyes widened, and her coat flushed full purple before her eyes.
“Shiny!”
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Nice way of dealing with the events of the previous chapter.
Woot! new chapter yes! I was seriously afraid that we weren't going to see another, that with all the crap you had given up on it. so man am I glad to see this back.
Now for the review of the chapter, it was good. I liked how Twilights depression manifested and that going grey is a thing in universe, it actually goes a way to explain both what discord did and starlight (though to a lesser extent) as both did different things to get the same result. the inclusion of the song was... interesting and not one I'm completely on board with, especially since it kind of reveals not only Luna to twilight but that Sunset and I assume Cadence have known for some time but I'm guessing that your going some where with it. and at the end we get confirmation that Sunset is now Twilights new guardian which is cool, and the return of Shining so it will be nice to see the siblings grieve together next chapter.
All in all can't wait for the next chapter. :)
Wait I'm confused, what does Trixie have to do with this situation and Sunset?
Back in the saddle, eh?
...
Wait, is... is that an adult thing? Can I say that in here?
wow, all I have to say about this chapter, it good chapter, great way of dealing with the events, and look like sunset now has power of a noble at least till twilight get of age and want it back.
What happened at the end with Prismia, and why her daughter disappeared?
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Her Daughter was not real, she was a magical construct.
Prisma was damaged, magically unable to make the emotional connection that most other ponies take for granted. Every attempt to fix or compensate for the damage made things worse, compounding into she was a corrosive hole for those connection. desperate to feel anything she tried to magically create a Daughter that she could love, that could truly love her.
When Candance confronted her, and tried to properly fix the damage, it defeated(likely killed) Prisma, disrupting the construct, and likely forcing Prisma to be reborn so she could experience the love her first life deigned her.
Good job on showing how everypony is helping Twi with her grief. Warms my heart it does.
I'm interested to see where the details about Trixie lead to, I'm afraid I haven't quite figured it out yet.
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I think its that Fillies without a parent around get room, board and a stipend from the government to help them stay in school. it would explain how Trixie is going despite her mom being on the rode and would help twilight now that her parents... aren't around.
Finally shining armor arrives
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Cadance knows something about rats as part of "Princess stuff". Sunset knows because she's a nosy little shit. The Luna / NMM reveal was a couple chapters back, when Sunset reads the legend of Nightmare Moon to Twilight.
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It should be assumed that a meeting with the Princess' secretary that results in a packet of paperwork and the person who met them revealing that she's been made a godparent is probably disposition of will stuff...
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I guess we'll have to find out... I wonder who Crystal List is?
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Trixie is named specifically in the will...
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....
I take the enmity between Cadence and the Changeling Queen goes a looong way back.
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Didn't you mean "none untouched"?
... By the way, excellent pun.
9266265 Honestly hope not.
I was not prepared for lullaby for a princess, probably should have been, but I was not.
So, Sunset is exsecuter of Velvet and Night Light's will. Giving her regency until Twilight is of age. Part of that will gives her control over Trixi in a way as well...
Even a year ago this would be very, very bad. Let's see if Sunset is better than she thinks she is.
And it's about time someone thought of poor Shining. I know Twi is only ten and this kind of think hits her hard, but i lost my mom at 18 and it's sure as heck not easy at that age! He's just been orphaned too, and to top it off, his parents didn't think he could raise his own sister!
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I did! I'm stupid.
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It is, but you can.
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I wasn't either. I had to listen to it a handful of times, and Luna's Reply to get the right 'feel' for the scene...
Shining Armor is returning from a posting in the Frozen North. As an OCS cadet he's not really capable of raising her.
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"My name is Chrysalis Montoya. You killed my mother. Prepare to die."
Sweet chapter
Great chapter, glad to see you back.
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Thank you for your patience during this trying time.
+1 up vote.
Put it here since I already upvoted the story and you can’t upvote twice.
Why must you play with my heartstrings
Congrats Sunnybuns, welcome to motherhood. All the work and none of the fun getting there.
But seriously, good chapter. Lots of little plot threads and butterflies here.
Welp, from being her teacher to now as her mother, good luck Sunset
D'awww
Wait, so Cadance got her cutie mark and ascended to Alicorn for forcing "love" on someone against their will?!
Huh?
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Thanks I tried
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*Godmother.
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Sunny met with Raven, who is authorized to execute the wills of landed nobles (I imagine thoroughbreds use a regular lawyer instead of the Princess' lawyer / secretary). The implication is that there was something about Trixie and her being named a guideparent in the will of Star Sparkle and Night Light.
Sunny also says earlier that she doesn't think she can live up to Celestia's image of her. She's realizing that she can't hatch a phoenix every day, and is now confronted with the fact that she doesn't know the first thing about raising fillies.
Episode Five: Starlight Strikes Back.
Fascinating presentation of desaturating depression. No reason to limit it to Pinkie Pie when it can work for everypony.
Meadowbrook's name literally in the title.
Star Swirl gets author credit.
... Sadly, that sounds about right.
"Crystal List," eh? She wasn't exactly the mistress of deception at that age, was she? Also, I do love how Cadence confronting Prismia echoes Twilight facing down Chrysalis at the rehearsal. Though literal bonds of love weren't exactly an option in Canterlot.
Given the lullabye, Luna hasn't been forgotten in this timeline. At least, not as much. Sunset certainly knows who she is.
Great to see more of this story. Thank you for it. And the Anthology tag does a good job of showing what to expect in terms of interchapter connectivity for those who don't read the whole description. Looking forward to the next installment.
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I don't know if I'll have opportunity to divulge it organically in-story. Starswirl's observations on Chromatic Diminishment were based on Celestia, who fell to it shortly after the Banishment. Mage Meadowbrook writes elsewhere in the same book on "Talent Dissonance Syndrome" where a pony's talent is unappreciated or seen as worthless, or they're unable to express it due to societal pressure. Notable sufferers include Princess Luna, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie.
As for Luna...
Ch 1, Greener Pastures
Nightmare Moon has not been forgotten. Luna exists in the footnotes of history, known only to those close to Celestia or to particularly adamant scholars. Luckily, Sunset is both.
One of the themes that I attempt to explore is that Celestia doesn't just grant Sunset wings and a title because she's afraid of her but because she's afraid for her. Sunset thinks Celestia sees too much of herself in Sunset. The truth is she sees too much of Luna in Sunset and is aware of the fact that the sun outshines even the brightest candle- that standing beside her Sunset will never know her true potential and neither will Twilight.
Also, we still believe in the Dark Ages even though scholars know that life in the middle ages was pretty okay. It's hard for us to even remember Vietnam even though it was only fifty or sixty years ago.
An event a thousand years ago, with a grieving sister actively trying to disconnect her baby sister from the monster she became, makes Luna being obscure or forgotten an easier pill to swallow.
I originally planned to translate the full lyrics into Middle/Old English (since that's what Starlight reads out of Starswirl's journal in Shadow Play, as "Old Ponish") and have Sunset mirror with the English translation, or into Welsh / Lleferyddbluen, since my personal headcanon is that Celestia was a pegasus pre-Ascension, so that would be her childhood tongue, or to have the garden-music carry Luna's Reply as a duet/counterpoint but it would have been too much work and I was running out of writing time for the day and wanted to bang out my wordcount target.
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Still counts
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After many hours of cogitation I've also slotted it neatly into what Discord did.
I don't think Discord actually did much of anything at all. Just held up a mirror and showed them the darkest part of themselves.
Applejack tells the truth because she's supposed to be strong. Lying is easy. Truth is hard. But sometimes the truth feels like a rusty razor across your tongue, where a lie would be like Tennesee whiskey.
Rarity is generous because it's the equivalent of slapping the greedy green-eyed monster in her heart across the face with a newspaper. But having things is so nice and it's not like she doesn't deserve them...
Rainbow Dash knows she can't be loyal forever. Sooner or later she'll have to choose. Her friends, her hometown, or her country.
Pinkie laughs because once upon a time she was a sad, lonely filly and NEVER wants anypony EVER to feel that way. She's afraid that ponies think she's annoying or nothing goes on in her head, that they're laughing at the fool and not the jape.
Fluttershy has twenty years of bottled-up blinding rage bottled up in her. The Stare is her opening up the Monster's cage just a little. But it feels good to express herself, to uncork. "Laugh at me? I wrath at you."
But acting that way is actively damaging to the pony psyche. Not only that, but it's antithetical to who they are as people. If they'd chosen something else to stand behind, the Elements would be different. I don't imagine what Twilight did as being a specific spell but reaching inside for that tiny spark, that tiny definition of who they are.
"Pa always tol' me, the only thing a pony owns is her word, so make it worth something. Right now I'm spittin a load of bent bits..."
"Tis always better to give than recieve. Having feels good, but the look on a grateful pony's face is better."
"I said I'd never leave my friends hanging. I might as well be pulling the trap myself."
"Papa always said, 'A stone as hath no purpose, hath no value'. I make ponies happy. That is my worth, my purpose. Everyone is sad, and it's my fault."
"I am nice. I am kind. I heal the sick and tend to the wounded. I speak for them as has no voice, like Meme Posey taught me. I protect from the world, and from the monster. I do not rage and burn everything around me."
"THAT IS NOT WHO WE ARE!"
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I was wondering how that might work. Fascinating presentation, and the end bit was truly inspiring.
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... it kinda evolved on its own.
"Of the few that heard, there were none touched."
Was that supposed to be "untouched"?
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No they're all super stoic
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Huh. That's what I thought at first, but then there was Sunset scrubbing her face with the back of her hoof a little further down, which I assumed was from tears from the song. Well, alright then; thanks.
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That was sarcasm, and this is a sarchasm
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Ahh, okay, sorry. :)
You'd want untouched.
I can't help but thing of the style/sound of Mordred's Lullaby when Celestia is singing.
"and carry you down into sleep..."
Or at least that part. The rest of the song doesn't necessarily fit her too well. Nightmare, maybe?
I guess some parts could fit for various members of royalty...
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YES I KNOW I'M AWFUL
The song is "Lullaby For A Princess"
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What did I even say?! There was one typo, and I thought the song sounded good; I was comparing it to another song that seemed similar and also emotional.
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I'm lame and the typo was up for a couple days.
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It wasn't that horrible. Believe me, I've seen far worse. I don't think I've ever seen a story that doesn't have a typo, and even some published books have them.
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ya but a bunch of people pointed it out and I didn't fix it
I really love this story.
Excellent chapter.
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This story is wonderfully written. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.