Final Corruption

by Epsilon-Delta

Chapter 16. Sermon

Twilight was in her dorm room in Canterlot. It felt claustrophobic compared to her new bedroom, just a bed and a bookshelf with almost zero space left over. Everything was tight like that in Canterlot.

Exasperating the feeling, Twilight couldn’t read the titles of any of her books, they just kept blurring. She was looking for her transmutation textbook, but how could she find it if she couldn’t read the titles? And the color of the books kept changing too. She’d look away for one moment and a book would change from green to red.

She was getting more and more frustrated! But then Fluttershy came in and sat down next to her. Twilight looked over to see the pegasus, or rather the bat pony, smiling back at her with her little fangs. Fluttershy didn’t look at all scary like this, but friendly. Having a vampire around was comforting.

“Twilight.” Fluttershy grabbed Twilight in a hug. “What’s something you like?”

Twilight felt a sense of warmth and comfort overtake her, drowning out her frustration.

“No, I don’t think I can use Rarity.” Fluttershy laughed. “Oh! But that works.”

Fluttershy took a step back and held up a book, the one about dark magic that Rarity gave to Twilight.

“When you see this book,” said Fluttershy, “you have to pay attention.”

And then suddenly a lot of things made less sense. Twilight looked around, just now wondering why she was back in Canterlot. She’d been in her old dorm room for a few minutes, but she hadn’t thought to question that. More alarming than that, parts of the room were blurry, almost like Twilight was wearing glasses with smudges on them but fixed to certain parts of the room.

"Whoa! What is going on?" Twilight got up and ran to the window.

She peered out the window, but the city outside was a blurry, hazy mess of colors. She could make out a few important buildings, the castle, the star observatory, but nothing else looked like it existed in a solid state.

That was not normal.

Fluttershy was the only thing that wasn’t blurry.

“Fluttershy?” Twilight turned back to her. “What the buck is happening? How did we get to Canterlot? Or wherever this is.”

“This is a dream, Twilight,” said Fluttershy.

“Um,” Twilight thought about how likely that was. “That would explain things. This doesn't feel like a dream. But then I guess when you're dreaming you don't feel like you're dreaming, so would I know what being awake feels like? Does that mean you’re just a figment of my imagination?”

“No. I’m the real Fluttershy.” Fluttershy shook her head a smiled. “I was given an ability called dreamwalking by Princess Luna. It’s a bit difficult to do outside of the forest, but I can go into other ponies’ dreams like this. I can do all sorts of neat things in your dream! Here, try thinking of your house.”

Twilight didn’t do much imagining, but the entire room shifted from her bedroom in Canterlot to the one in Ponyville. Twilight looked around the more spacious room, still furnished, the way it had been before she’d moved most of her things to Rarity’s house. She didn’t think Fluttershy had ever been here, so maybe this was a form of mind-reading at the very least.

“Dreamwalking?” Twilight repeated the word. She’d never heard of it before, but then there was a whole branch of magic she’d only started learning about a month ago. “Is this dark magic? I never thought such a thing was possible! How does it work?”

“I like your eagerness.” Fluttershy patted Twilight. “But maybe now is the best time for a lesson. I can explain it later. I don’t normally dreamwalk outside the forest at all, but I wanted to talk to you about your condition right away and you’re not going to wake up for a little while.”

Twilight’s condition? Remembering the waking world felt like remembering a dream. But it did slowly come to her.

“Oh, buck!” Twilight put her hoof on her chest, where she’d gotten cut. It was unharmed at first, but as if her expectation made it so a massive gash suddenly appeared on her chest. Had it been that big?! “Was it that bad? Am I going to die?!”

“You’ll be fine. It's more like this.” Fluttershy ran her hoof over across Twilight’s chest. The wound shrank significantly and took on the melted appearance cuts got when magic had been used to close them up. “I stopped the bleeding and lucky for you Applejack had type O blood. Applejack gave you more blood than a normal pony would be willing to donate. It would have been a lot worse otherwise You really should thank her when you wake up, but please don't make any vampire jokes about it. Both of you are back at my house sleeping right now.”

“Well it’s good to hear I’m not dead.” Twilight still had one other ‘condition’ to worry about, though. She felt her ears and sure enough, there were nice, big tufts there. She was one of them in her dreams now, too. Twilight tried feeling for fangs with her tongue and they were there now.

“Yes, that.” Fluttershy gave her own ear tufts a flick and spread her wings so Twilight could see their bat-like form. “You don't actually have fangs, yet. You look how you expect to look here. But it's important I talk to you about how quickly you're transforming."

“They told me the transformation would take years! That I’d have time to see everything and decide!” Twilight grabbed Fluttershy. “Fluttershy! Was this a horrible trick?!"

“They weren’t lying.” Fluttershy smiled calmly and gently patted Twilight’s hooves off her. “Normally transforming takes several years. The amount of dark magic it takes to permanently change your species is incredibly high. Even if you were somehow exposed to that much, it should have killed you instead of transform you. Your natural affinity for dark magic makes you change faster too, but that's not enough to account for this either.”

“Great!” Twilight started nervously trotting around her imaginary dream room. “So not even you know what’s happening to me!”

“I didn’t say that.” Fluttershy held up her hoof defensively. “I can think of a few possible explanations, but I can't tell which one is right just yet. That's why I wanted to talk to you now."

“Well can you give me one of them?” Twilight begged. “I think I’d feel better if I had just one straw to clutch right now! I feel stable now, but before it was like I was going crazy. I totally snapped!"

"Yes, Applejack told me." Fluttershy nodded. "You don't have to be too worried, it's something that will go away. You know your brain and instincts were going to change, right?"

"Yeah, but not like this!"

"Well your friends changed very slowly. They had time to get used to their new instincts. But yours changed suddenly, which is why they're out of control." Fluttershy sat down on Twilight's dream bed and patted it in an offer to Twilight. "I went through the same thing and I got better. I'm the only other pony who transformed as quickly as you did and I felt like I went insane at the time, too. But you get used to it fast and I'll be here to help you."

“Well thanks.” Twilight sat down next to her. “But why did you transform so fast? What happened to you?”

Fluttershy looked a little too excited by the question and smiled wide.

“Twilight, did you maybe.” Fluttershy scooted closer to Twilight. “Did you maybe have a special dream?”

Thoroughly corrupted by Rarity, Twilight’s mind went straight to the lewdest possible interpretation of ‘special’. Fluttershy had an eager smile on her face like she was waiting for her Hearth’s Warming gift, too. That did not help.

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked. “Like this one?”

“Maybe a little,” said Fluttershy. “What’s the last dream you remember?”

“I remember having a dream where there was this door-to-door vacuum salespony. He was knocking on my door and Rarity kept telling me not to answer it but eventually he just broke down the door and started vacuuming.” Twilight thought about that for a moment. “Wait! That is kind of similar to what happened yesterday! Does that mean something?”

Fluttershy shook her head.

“That’s not it.” Fluttershy held her breath for a moment before continuing, speaking slowly like she was choosing her words carefully. “Maybe you had a dream where you met a blue pony in a castle? And she gave you a present?"

“I don’t remember a dream like that,” said Twilight. “But I forget my dreams pretty fast. The average pony completely forgets her dreams within ten minutes of waking up.”

“I know. But- I'm asking if you had a dream about Princess Luna." Fluttershy put her hoof on her chest. "I've only ever seen our princess in dreams but she was the one who transformed me into a bat pony. She could have done the same to you."

"Well I don't know what Princess Luna looks like," said Twilight, "but I can't remember ever seeing an alicorn in my dreams. But couldn't she just transform me without warning?"

"Maybe," said Fluttershy, "but I don't think she would. Maybe it wasn't her, but let me try one more thing to make sure. I might be able to jog your memory if you have one. Try clearing your mind for moments."

Twilight had plenty of practice clearing her mind so that didn’t take much effort. But she hesitated, putting her guard back up when Fluttershy tried to suggest something directly into her mind. It felt so alien having an image flash into her like that. But a second was all it took, so it seemed.

The area they were in changed again, this time to the forest. Twilight quickly recognized the ruins of the bank and the vault with all the band books behind her. But this place wasn't as close to the real thing as the other two had been.

The trees looked like they were made of paint that became smeared. Most of the other nearby buildings were missing too. She found when she pictured what the forest outside the vault looked like in her head, the blurriness came into focus and the objects around her changed, coming more into line with how it truly looked

Twilight’s mind was blazing with curiosity about this place and dreamwalking. She had so many questions about how this worked. But there was something else she was even more curious about, the image Fluttershy put in her head. The moon.

She looked up at the sky and there it was. The sun was the best thing Twilight could compare it to, but it wasn’t exactly the same. It was much bigger in the sky than the sun was, but glowed softly instead of brightly, barely lighting up the world at all. It was so pale that Twilight could make out small dark spots along its surface.

Twilight felt a sense of awe staring up at it. She didn’t know if it was her new instincts overwhelming her or if it really was that beautiful, but at that moment the moon was the most amazing sight Twilight had ever seen. It felt at once overwhelmingly enormous, but completely gentle. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. And unlike the sun, you really could stare straight at it. The light coming off it felt gentle, cool, comforting.

“See? That’s called the moon.” Fluttershy smiled up at it. “This is what the sky will look like during the age of darkness, once the forest overtakes the world. The sun won’t rise anymore, but the moon will take its place."

But despite it being a harbinger of doom, or at least cataclysmic change, Twilight couldn’t help but feel a longing towards the moon. It felt like the first day of spring. Twilight wanted to go outside and feel the moonlight, even though she still didn’t know what it was like.

"Could you maybe picture Celestia in your mind for a second?" Fluttershy suggested next.

Twilight couldn’t not imagine her after the suggestion. An image of Celestia appeared in the forest. Fluttershy quickly changed the illusion of Celestia, making her blue and changing a few of her features. Her mane flowed like it was made of the night sky itself. Her gold regalia was instead made of some black metal.

“This is Princess Luna, the rightful ruler of the entire world.” Fluttershy put her hoof on her heart and smiled with such adoration at Luna. “This is mostly what she looks like, anyway. I promise you can’t even imagine how beautiful she is. Anypony who sees her for the first time falls to the ground in tears because she’s that pretty.”

Twilight wondered what that would even look like. She already thought Luna was one of the most beautiful ponies she’d ever seen, assumed this image was an exaggeration. It was hard to believe she could be much better looking than this.

Twilight read about the sense of awe that seeing an alicorn in person was supposed to inspire. Lately, she’d been skeptical about it, but looking up at Princess Luna in wonder banishes her doubt.

“I can tell you haven’t seen her, though,” Fluttershy said, disappointed. “So it wasn’t her that changed you.”

“Then what did?” Twilight looked at Fluttershy briefly, then quickly back to Luna. “You said you had other explanations.”

“The next most likely idea is that the fog is changing you faster than normal,” said Fluttershy. “I can’t know for certain unless somepony else eats the fruit, but some things do suggest it. Applejack seems to be suddenly as close to a bat pony as she can get without eating fruit, around where you were when I got back. That mist killed several of Sunset’s guards despite being further away than she was, but Applejack was mostly fine.”

That did make sense. Twilight was changing slowly until it showed up. Correlation didn’t mean causation, but she couldn’t think of anything else that changed since yesterday, or however long it’d been.

“But what the heck is that thing?” Twilight asked. “So much dark magic was flooding out of it!”

“I have no idea what it is.” Fluttershy shook her head. “New monsters appear sometimes. Dreadstalkers, jackalopes, and even us bat ponies didn’t exist not long ago. Luna’s magic isn’t creating anything new right now, only changing Celestia’s creations into creatures of darkness. Something was transformed by dark magic into that, but I can’t say what until I catch it.”

Twilight did feel a great deal of relief at that explanation, liked it enough to subconsciously accept it already. This wasn’t Rarity’s fault now. There was no way her gang could have known some new monster would suddenly start existing. And somehow that seemed like the most important thing.

As long as that was the case, Twilight could deal with a sudden transformation. Even if she did snap again.

“Is that monster still out there then?” Twilight asked. “Is everypony okay?”

“It got away for now, but you don’t need to worry about any of that. I’ll take care of everything myself.” Fluttershy stepped closer again. “But actually, there was one other thing I wanted to talk to you about. I think maybe even now I’m underestimating how high your affinity to the darkness is. Applejack said you already teleported with dark magic.”

Twilight nodded.

“Then I want to make you a more serious offer to come and work for me, Twilight.” Fluttershy held her hoof out to Twilight. “If we do nothing, it could be hundreds of years until the age of darkness begins. But if you help me, it could come about so much faster. I think your affinity might just be high enough to try something I was never able to do before. You want to be a mage, right? I could ask Moonlight to teach you. Just come with me to Luna’s castle as soon as this is all over.”

Getting trained by this pony certainly sounded tempting, but no other part of this was.

“Maybe you didn’t notice, but I’m a total delinquent.” Twilight pointed at her hair. “I’m not going to accept the authority of somepony I’ve never even met. I’m not going to wake up an ancient, sleeping god unless I know for a fact that it’s a good idea. And honestly, from the sound of things, it could go either way. Luna could easily be lying to you. She could be just as bad as Celestia! She seems fine with taking out all the daywalkers.”

Fluttershy, to Twilight’s surprise, softly giggled at Twilight’s beratement of her goddess. But she grew more solemn a moment later.

“Sorry. That’s just the same thing Rarity always says. You really are one of her little friends now. But I understand Rarity and Rainbow Dash and I think I understand why you feel that way too.” Fluttershy bowed her head. “Celestia hurt you. She hurt a lot of people. You can’t trust as easily anymore. Celestia can’t apologize to you in her current state, so please let me do it for her.”

Fluttershy solemnly bowed down low before Twilight.

“As the real Princess Celestia’s last remaining servant, I’m sorry for everything that happened to you.” Fluttershy kept her muzzle against the ground as she spoke. “Both of us failed you. What she did to you was inexcusable, but I am doing everything I can to make it right. I will make it up to you for her, no matter how long it takes.”

Twilight wasn’t sure how she felt about the queen of the forest bowing in apology to her. True, it was far more kindness than she’d ever expected from Equestria, but she didn’t feel like it was Fluttershy’s place to apologize.

“Maybe you didn’t notice, but Celestia hates us. She had her goon break into my house and beat me up just for being one of you.”

“Yes. I’m going to have a talk with Sunset about that,” Fluttershy promised as she stood back up. “And it is true Celestia hates me right now. But that isn’t the real Celestia.”

Another image of Celestia appeared. Once again, as always, she was towering, flawlessly white, her regalness framed by her mystical mane and tail.

“That’s how you see her, that’s how everypony remembers her.” Fluttershy smiled sadly at Celestia as though she was looking at the photo of a deceased friend. “That’s what she looked like when I was a filly. Things were better back then, in the high magic age. Celestia was so wise and kind, in a way that nopony alive today can even match. I can’t even describe how nice she was. I admired her very much.”

Fluttershy hung her head sadly before the image of Celestia, remaining silent for a long time. Through all this, one question burned its way through the others. She remembered Celestia never made public appearances anymore.

“Does she not look like that anymore?” Twilight looked up at the tall, regal Celestia with her cosmic hair.

“No.” Fluttershy shook her head. She lied down prone next to Celestia for a moment, then stood up, leaving an after-image of herself. “This is what Celestia looks like now.”

The afterimage of Fluttershy quickly changed into a second Celestia. The second Celestia, if it was supposed to be Celestia, was lying prone on the ground now. Twilight knew Celestia was supposed to be unable to walk since getting injured so maybe she was always like that. But the other differences were odd.

Celestia was about the same size and shape as a normal pony. She was still white, but her hair was pink and completely normal, not cosmic or waving at all. Were it not for the wings and horn, you could mistake her for a normal pony.

She looked incredibly young, could easily pass for twelve. And even through that youth, she looked haggard, like she was till soar from that fight. One of her eyes was bruised and shut. The other eye was only half-open so Twilight could see of it was reddened as if from exhaustion. Even that second eye looked bruised because of how heavy its bags were.

“Is she aging in reverse?” Twilight looked over the younger-looking Celestia.

“Not exactly.” Fluttershy shook her head. “Her appearance is tied to how much magic she has and Celestia has nearly run out. She really does act like she’s twelve at the best of times. She just needs sleep to get better. That’s all I want, for her to be as great as she used to be.”

Fluttershy raised her hoof and the image of Celestia returned to her former glory.

“I know you think things are bad now, but you have no idea how much worse they could have gotten. You’ve never had to deal with chaos gods, Twilight. You don’t know how scary they could be. Discord and Cosmos would throw your life into chaos just because they thought it was funny. The Smooze was a horrific creature that could drive you insane just by looking at it. It was a long time before all six of them worked together towards anything, but it was horrific when it happened.”

Fluttershy created an image of one of the chaos gods, Loki, standing across from Celestia as if opposing her now.

Twilight recognized him, of course. Equestria never faltered in praising Celestia on how incredible her battle with the six chaos gods was so she’d seen this creature before. Loki was a small, blue fox with an expressive face locked in a smile and black stripes that flowed freely swirling into different shapes.

“I met him a few times,” Fluttershy explained. “He’d tell me chaos wasn’t good or evil and that he had no motives. Sometimes he’d be very nice, but he could also be far crueler than any of the others. Maybe in a way, he’s the worst, because if there’s even a tiny amount of chaos magic Loki can reappear. Celestia drew all of it in the entire world into herself and destroyed it all, but something like that is going to have consequences. She saved us and freed us from the chaos gods forever. She doesn’t deserve to be like this. She told me she didn’t want this, gave me absolute immortality, and told me where Luna was so I could save her from this.”

Obviously, if all of that was true, it’d change the narrative about Celestia. But Fluttershy was a zealot and would paint Celestia in the best possible light no matter what. But at the same time, it was hard for Twilight to tell exactly how much Fluttershy would be exaggerating.

There was at least one thing Twilight knew about the alicorns, though, why she couldn’t trust Luna even in her current state.

“If this moon thing is brought into the world and Celestia goes to sleep it’s going to burn every Equestrian to death.” Twilight pointed up at it. “I don’t like the daywalkers, they’re all lame, but I don’t think they all deserve to die either. Asleep or not, Luna’s magic has already killed countless ponies!”

“They won’t die, they’ll merely change.” Fluttershy spread her bat wings to emphasize the difference. “Luna doesn’t want anypony to die, she loves all of us. All life will be transformed! Luna will have near-infinite power when she wakes up. She can stop every monster in the world and transform everypony instantly. It won’t be long or painful like it is for you, either.”

“So Luna will just instantly turn everypony into vampires-“

“Bat ponies.”

“Bat ponies without even asking them? I do want to become one of you, but I’m not sure how I feel about forcing it on everypony else.”

“I’m not sure exactly how it will happen,” said Fluttershy. “But I know Luna will do the right thing.”

“So in other words no. She’ll force everypony to change.”

“Is that really a bad thing?” Fluttershy asked. “If you’re worried about them dying, that’s what’s going to happen now. They don’t live very long at all in the scheme of things. If we don’t wake Luna up in the next hundred years, for example, nearly every single Equestrian alive now will die without ever getting a choice. Does that sound better?”

Twilight did need to think about that one. It was true that either way, an alicorn would be forcing something onto them and if Twilight had to pick, Luna’s was the better of the two. But then this could be another false dichotomy.

It was also possible Twilight only had so much resistance to all this age of darkness stuff because of cultural pressure, a lifetime of being told that’s what the bad guys do. Maybe she did need to think about this a little more.

Fluttershy could tell she was making Twilight think and continued.

“Things aren’t supposed to stay the same forever. Nature isn’t static,” said Fluttershy. “You haven’t even lived thirty years, so you can’t see it, but I’ve lived long enough. Species don’t remain the same, they change slowly to match the world. When the world changes massively, so must life. And the world will change no matter what you do, not even Celestia can stop it forever. This isn’t the first time our species has changed to meet the world, you know.”

“You mean the kirin?” Twilight looked up from her deep thought.

“Yes.” Fluttershy transformed herself into a kirin briefly to illustrate her point. “Celestia didn’t create us out of nothing. She transformed the kirin into the tribes you know today so light magic wouldn’t kill us. And before that, we were something else. This change isn’t something horrible, but wonderful. It’s part of the path to the will of our princesses. You’ve never heard about any of the ages before the age of fire, have you?”

Twilight shook her head. She knew Fluttershy was going to start preaching even harder if she didn’t stop her, but Twilight sincerely wanted to know about the ages of the past.

“Luna ruled over the first age, in a sense.” Fluttershy used her dream powers to change the scene again, or rather delete it. There was nothing but blackness in every direction. “She created an endless void and the physical forms her, her sister and later we would take, but that was all she had power for. For ten thousand years Luna simply existed alone, waiting for her sister to awaken.”

Fluttershy waved her hoof across the darkness and all the stars appeared, as though they had been created that easily.

“And when Celestia woke up, the age of starlight began! Celestia created the sun and all the stars and planets before losing the power to create anything more. And she spent ten thousand years only slightly less alone.”

Next Twilight found herself deep underwater, in the dark depths of the ocean. Yet despite how dark it was, Twilight’s body could see perfectly. The water had a slight blue tint to it and around here there was some life. There weren’t any fish, but strange creatures.

She could see sea worms, creatures the looked almost like fish but with large bony plates over what should be their heads, and shelled creatures with long tentacles sticking out of their shells.

“Then Luna brought about the age of water. She created water and life, but it was simple. Just tiny little microbes up to some simple fish. But life finally existed.”

Another step forward and the world changed yet again. The sun was above them, but thankfully it was an illusion that did no harm. Perhaps even if it was real it wouldn’t hurt as much as normal. There was a thick mist covering the world and sky. It was a lush environment, Twilight found herself surrounded by thick ferns in every direction.

“In the age of mist, Celestia created the land and plants. She transformed life into something more complex, made reptiles and mammals and birds. Though you wouldn’t recognize any of the species from back then.”

Then it changed to something Twilight did recognize, had some knowledge of. The world changed to the age of fire. The moon hung above, but far more light was produced by the endless rivers of lava that flowed over a charred landscape.

“At the dawn of the age of fire, Luna created fire. She transformed species of animals into dragons and kirin, granting life true intelligence for the first time. They were just as intelligent as us, but they weren’t social. There was no civilization because those species always lived alone, never sharing their wisdom and never knowing true friendship.”

Fluttershy changed the world again to the balcony of Celestia’s castle, overlooking the massive metropolis of Canterlot.

“And finally in the age of light, Celestia transformed us again and granted us that power of friendship and kindness and generosity. Ponies became social creatures and the first civilizations appeared.” Fluttershy waved her hoof one last time and Twilight was again in the forest. “But it still isn’t over. The sisters want us to be ageless like they are but couldn’t do it until the very end. Only once Luna is awakened can we become what our creators truly wanted us to be. We can go through this endless cycle of change with them!”

Fluttershy flew up into the air, placing the moon behind her.

“Princess Luna will make the world a paradise when she wakes up. She’ll stop all of the monsters and overthrow this abusive government instantly. She can make all death optional, banish all the diseases chaos magic left behind. Doesn’t paradise sound nice, Twilight?”

Fluttershy held out her hoof one more time, the light of the moon shining gently behind her.

But still Twilight refused.

“I can’t believe in paradise that easily.” She turned her head away.

Fluttershy frowned, then slowly landed in front of Twilight.

“I understand, Twilight,” said Fluttershy. “And if I understand then Luna absolutely will. I won’t force you to help me with this, but if you do want to help everypony and bring justice back to the world, this is the way. Waking Luna up is the only way to fix the world you think is cruel and I hope you change your mind. I’ll see you when you wake up.”

Fluttershy backed up and slowly vanished from the dream, leaving Twilight alone. Twilight looked around the dream forest, wondering how she was supposed to wake up or even do.

As she wondered her mind started to get fuzzy again and she couldn’t remember what she was doing out here. She noticed the vault not far off and tried to open it to get inside where it was safe. But no matter how hard Twilight tried, she couldn’t get the combination to work.

Comments

[zachary12]

nice work looking forward to more

[Commander Darklight]

NOPE fuck it age of twilight right here and now also 10 bucks the monster is the night version of spike

[Xarmar13]

The birth of the new age seems like birthing a child...except this time the child is stuck in the canal.

[Argentyros]

Twilight's right to keep zealotry in mind when talking to Fluttershy, but remember that just because she's a zealot doesn't automatically mean she's wrong. Skepticism, not closing your mind off, is the best route.

[anonymous browser]

I'm really liking the setting here with its' new mythology and fundamental way light and dark magic conflict. I also like the Equestrian government's descent into dystopian authoritarianism in the face of their magic fading away. I can see Twilight easily falling for Rarity's arguments and logic in such a world.

That said, I don't know if it's intentional (but I suspect it is), something feels really, terribly and fundamentally wrong with the world. Obviously in normal Equestria all of the sapient races can co-exist happily in more or less the same environments, although obviously having different tolerances and preferences but here something really bad has happened a long time ago. The frequency of lethal monster attacks and general death around Ponyville gives the setting a really dark, pretty depressing feel too.

The Solar Diarch shouldn't be melting ponies more closely associated with their opposite number.
I'd personally be a little bit suspect about Fluttershy's ten millennia cycle story (although she certainly believes it). My suspicion is that it's all keyed to the Elements of Harmony (or lack thereof).

I'm guessing Luna got incapacitated ten thousand years ago before civilisation had really gotten started, Celestia never found the Elements of Harmony without her sister and ended up fouling up the world fighting Cosmos (by destroying all chaos magic instead of banishing Cosmos then stoning Discord I actually quite liked that comic, it makes Discord's reformation make a lot more sense, although it clashes a bit with his first appearance a bit ).
I wouldn't be too surprised if Light, Dark and Chaos magic could mix freely without much ill effect before the battle and then became dangerous to each other after.

Luna would still remain something of an unknown to any ponies living outside the Everfree due to the horrific monsters living in it and the closer to Luna you'd get the faster the forest would be growing, fuelled by her latent magic. But it would have been much like the Everfree in the show.

I'm sorta hoping that they do manage to fix the world, it would really suck to see everything slide into the GrimDark future where most of civilisation melts like a bad guy from Indiana Jones and the whole planet is overrun by horrific, lethal monsters.

[Epsilon-Delta]

10204506

Maybe I should preface this now, While uh, there is a pretty good chance I'll make a more adventurey sequel to this, this one's really more about mystery and Twilight's 'corruption' and there's only 3 chapters left of this one, concluding with that arc of her life.

[anonymous browser]

10204717
That's entirely reasonable. It's a nice, focused story with some great worldbuilding.

It's just one of those things where I've had it in the back of my mind for a while, trying to sift through the world and figure out what's happened and why things are the way they are (if there even is a reason, it's perfectly fine to leave things open ended in terms of deep lore).

[Cuy Val Dar]

And there was evening and there was morning the fifth day.

I noticed that formless and void earth with the spirit hovering alone above the waters. Don't you think I didn't.

[Epsilon-Delta]

10360432

Not entirely alone. Celestia was there just... asleep.

[BlueMoonHarlot]

Cool lore 😎

[Bones_]

I love this lore so much. One can only imagine what it must be like, another few cycles of this later.