Wicker Princesses

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The newly-returned Princess Luna can't quite understand why her sister allows her ponies to burn giant wicker and straw images of her royal self. Why would she tolerate this sort of blatant lese majeste?

Maybe it's about reminding the world that the princesses are ponies, too. Or maybe it's just a bit of seasonal silliness. Or maybe it's Celestia's way of reminding herself who they really are, under everything else.

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Comments ( 20 )

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fractalman

fractalman #1 · Dec 23rd, 2018 · 5 · ·

Two of those creepy guards were in her chambers with her and Faded that night, waiting for the princess and her archivist to complete their preparations for the night's exercises. He would have preferred to do this alone, but they still needed the foreign cultists' expertise in this strange, alien dream-magic. Faded had no experience in it, and when the Company ponies had arrived, the little princess had been more hole than pony, and hadn't the first clue how to work the magic which was her special talent - not the fighting, not the celestial, lunar object her divine sister had delegated into her care, not the night itself. The walking of dreams. The Queen of the Night.

Poor woona.

"Well, that is as it ought for such as you, O instructor to nations! I am, I must confess, still a student, and require lessons as much as, if not more than, your little students, Principal Celestia. I thank you for your teachings. I think I learned quite a lot this season!"

Aaaand glad to see she recovered very VERY well.

Cerulean Blue

Cerulean Blue #2 · Dec 23rd, 2018 · 3 · ·

I enjoyed this story, and I though the lines at the end capped everything off rather well.

jagvenne123

jagvenne123 #3 · Dec 23rd, 2018 · 2 · ·

is that the giant swedish straw goat in that picture?

Mitch H

Mitch H #4 · Dec 23rd, 2018 · 1 · ·

9363527

Yes.

darkhabit

darkhabit #5 · Dec 23rd, 2018 · 1 · ·

I notice you didn't mention the CotG Discord pushing this to be a fic...

Mitch H

Mitch H #6 · Dec 23rd, 2018 · 1 · ·

9363623

Uh... oops?

Arkonfleight

Arkonfleight #7 · Dec 23rd, 2018 · 5 · ·

You know, I don't think I've ever seen that particular setup with reclaiming her her-ness.
And now I'm wondering why I've never seen a Luna/Sandman mashup.

Mitch H

Mitch H #8 · Dec 23rd, 2018 · · ·

9363651

I could swear I remember gaming out the idea that the extremely long-lived alicorns maintain elaborate, persistent memory palaces to organize their recollections with someone on the fimfiction discord server, but I can't recall with whom, and can't find the conversation now.

fanreader999999

fanreader999999 #9 · Dec 23rd, 2018 · · ·

Fuck old English.

Alondro

Alondro #10 · Dec 24th, 2018 · 2 · ·

Uhm... time for bee memes?

Arkonfleight

Arkonfleight #11 · Dec 24th, 2018 · 2 · ·

9363794
It's apidae no one noticed that til now.

B_Munro

B_Munro #12 · Dec 24th, 2018 · 8 · ·

Delightful. And as an aficionado of weird horror, I liked the little shout-outs.

"He still had a copy of the manuscript hidden in a safe deposit box purchased under a pseudonym."

I understand he eventually got it published in Germaneay.

Babroniedad

Babroniedad #13 · Dec 24th, 2018 · 2 · ·

Thank you! That was just awesome!

DF #14 · Dec 24th, 2018 · 8 · ·

While I don't live in Gävle, the burning of the goat is one of our traditions I wholeheartedly support. It's wholesome, burning fun.

Hell, we've usually got a small Christmas goat in the center of the town where I live, about man-sized. Being covered in fresh spruce boughs rather than straw means that it doesn't burn very well, so people get a bit more varied in their destruction. Last year I believe the head disappeared. Somehow whoever did it managed to do it in the middle of the day without getting caught.

Sweetblue

Sweetblue #15 · Dec 24th, 2018 · 2 · ·

Good story with solid morals about burning things behind it, what is there more to ask?

Vaguely Demented

Vaguely Demented #16 · Dec 24th, 2018 · 8 · ·

Wonder if Twilight ever participated in this. If she did the body count that year would have been impressive.

FanOfMostEverything

FanOfMostEverything #17 · Jan 9th, 2019 · 7 · ·

I am, I must confess, still a student, and require lessons as much as, if not more than, your little students, Principal Celestia

And, in a nearby universe, a school administrator feels the strangest urge to thwack her sister.

In any case, fascinating presentation of Luna reassembling herself and coming to terms with the strange new world in which she finds that self. Faded's shifting devotion was a wonderful way to tie together the narrative arc, to say nothing of the symbolism of him helping Luna burn down Nightmare Moon.

Wonderful stuff. I can only imagine Twilight's reaction to the first Straw Sparkle.

Bookeater_otaku

Bookeater_otaku #18 · Feb 5th, 2019 · 2 · ·

Corn-goat... 8 sneerrk*

It's a good follow up for you other story In the Compagny of Night. And you make a very fun Luna but young broken Luna was hearth-wrenching. Glad she got better.

Construction hadn't begun when Princess Luna had returned from her sojourn in Ponyville for that town's famous (or infamous in Faded Palimpsest's irritated opinion) Nightmare Night festivities. His charge had ignored his disapproving refusal to join her in this visit, especially when he'd refused to explain why he didn't like that tradition.

I am interested as to why Faded Palimpsest doesn't like Nightmare Night. Maybe in another seasonal story in this universe? Could be fun to have the Cake in this one.

9394238
Oh yes.., The first Straw Sparkle and its the Mane 6 who lead the charge to burn it. Or Trixie.

Lurks-no-More

Lurks-no-More #19 · Feb 18th, 2019 · 1 · ·

An excellent story! I laughed at the Gävle goat reference, and the idea of Luna putting herself together from an old memory palace is just brilliant.

"You watch the world exploding every single night
Dancing in the sun a newborn in the light
Brothers and their fathers joining hands and make a chain
The shadow of the Wicker Princess is rising up again!"

Misplaced Mage

Misplaced Mage #20 · Jan 16th, 2022 · 1 · ·

Variations on this tradition persist to this day. Cornell University, for example, has Dragon Day in March right before spring break, where the first year College of Architecture students build a dragon and parade it around. (It used to be burned at the end of the parade, but pesky new environmental regulations eventually got in the way of that… ).

In more recent years, the College of Engineering students have built a phoenix to joust with the dragon. And a few years ago, the physics students decided to get into the act by building a unicorn. But not just any unicorn — a copyright-infringement-free version of a certain lavender unicorn we know and love…