Routine day with a dirt cheap brush, then a week goes by and it goes untouched. Then two, then three, then a month, and the rest of your life you beat yourself up. - Aesop Rock, "Rings"
Twice in Equestria's history, an unhinged flying pony has attempted to take over before being sealed in stone as indefinite punishment. The first failed usurper didn't mellow at all during her sentence. The second one though...
Moody, atmospheric character vignette that got 2nd place in the Cozy Glow Group's August 2020 Short Story Contest. Golly, am I honored.
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The perils of dreamwalking I suppose. An unfortunate situation to be sure.
Luna dying while dreaming and remaining in the dream realm as a result is an interesting concept. I like it so far.
No matter how many times the petrification comes up it always makes me sad and angry that it happened.
Seemes that she's more compassionate while dead then when she was alive.
10411279
Predictably, this is one of the main things Cozy will call Luna out on.
Come on Luna, or what’s left of Luna. You can do this.
I’m a little confused. Also, I’m glad this came out on my birthday.
Is this a piece of Luna, or a piece of Nightmare Moon?
I’m honestly confused.
10413850
Drat. I was worried the ending leaned a little too hard into the symbolism.
Very simply, the story is about Cozy accepting that she can’t change her past or dictate her future. She’s served her punishment and is ready to move forward and brave the unknown.
10413860
Will we see where they go next?
This was lovely, I wonder if anyone will recognize them, those two must be a subject in school
10413862
If I come up with a good enough idea, sure. The sticking point is that this fic takes place several centuries after Celestia and Luna retired. So I’m not sure which canon ponies Luna and Cozy could encounter who would still be around after all this time.
10413876
Oh ok, and Luna is dead?
Fascinating
10413904
Dead and peacefully departed for the afterlife. The “Luna” in this story is the small piece of her soul that is able to enter the minds of others and comfort them. She’s what TVTropes would call a Living Memory.
I mean it’s great that Cozy has reached a point where she can move past her past, but it was still an unfathomable act of cruelty to put her into this position in the first place - and to leave her like that for centuries without any attempt to help her, or Chrysalis, or Tirek.
10414385
I agree completely, but addressing the monstrous moral misfire of the Trio’s punishment is simply too big of a thing for a character vignette like this one to address directly. The contest has a 10k word cap, so I decided to focus on Luna and Cozy bonding over mutual, overly severe punishments.
You’ve no doubt already read it, but Innocent Until Proven Cozy and it’s teasered sequel are my ongoing and more in-depth attempt to explore exactly what type of punishment / help a character like Cozy Glow really needs.
10414457
I can dig that. Sorry if I came across as dismissive of this story, it is a good one.
10414502
Nah, it’s cool. Truth be told, I’m not entirely satisfied with this one anyway.
The original plan was to have Luna stay with Cozy and in the last paragraph they would sit down to play imaginary chess. Possibly forever. But by the time I got to that moment in the actual draft, it felt like a real downer. So at the last minute I reworked everything after the “Let go of me old mare!” line to give the two of them a metaphoric but cautiously optimistic departure into the unknown. Don’t know if the hasty rewrite really hits the emotional note I was going for.
(By the way, it’s not lost on me that I’m talking to the one and only creator of the Lunaverse. Hearing a small-timer like me vex about how difficult it is to write a proper Luna story is probably pretty amusing.)
Great story, although an increadibly sad one.
That poor filly. Who could possibly justify this torture?
10414229
Oh, so she’s dead but still is able to go into pony’s dreams?
10414510
To be honest I interpreted it as the two of them accepting that they’re dead and moving on to the afterlife. Which I guess is kind of a positive ending, in a Matchstick Girl kind of way, though I admit I vastly prefer how Sir Terry handled that story.
10414533
The afterlife certainly fits an “into the unknown” journey, though you’re right Discworld plays with the idea in a way that’s more satisfying. Pity that Luna isn’t a time traveler or patron of the dead. She’s just a shepard who provides relief for foals gripped by nightmares. And Cozy definitely fits that description in this fic.
10414529
Yes indeed. She barely exists outside of the dream realm now (as chapter one shows), but on the inside she’s decently complete and able to function.
10414555
That would be creepy.
This is some good void-walking.
10412733
How much of NMM was left after the rainbow lasers in S01E02?
There’s a tiny human centipede drawing in the picture of the office. And now you know what kind of details immediately jump to my attention. Back to reading now.
Now that I’ve finished it,
Of course the magic laser would create a magically-perfect crystalline structure when it seals villains in stone (or the statue is stored somewhere that really is that close to absolute zero)
This gave me some strong House of Leaves vibes. Not so much that you can just slap this sequence of words anywhere and remind me of the house but having read that book before encountering this story made those two sentences have that much more impact once they arrived.
Thankfully, you did not give a 13-page hoofnote listing every single object that was not present in Cosy’s imagination nor in Luna’s void.
10413876
The ones that I can think of are Twilight, Discord, Ocellus (assuming changelings have long life spans), Spike and Smolder (also assuming dragons have long life spans), Cadance, and Flurry Heart.
I seem to remember that you (or perhaps it was somebody's comment) mentioned a song that is supposed to accompany the moment Luna and Cozy leave the room, but now I don't see that note/comment. Was it this one by any chance?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax203gaiyCA
10727843
You got it. A few days after this story was published I decided to just let the ending stand on its own. I still love that song, but the fic feels less heavy handed without it.
Besides, I already linked Distant Bells in the author’s notes of a different story. Felt cheap to pull the same mood-setting trick twice.
10727853
Thanks for confirmation. It is a lovely song. :)
Could I ask which fic is that?
10727856
Dis one.
- MLP: FiM
- Adventure
- Drama
An unstable Breezie. A dissident Kirin. And an instrument.I really gotta pick it up again and finish it someday. A Breezie villain was too good of an idea to just leave hanging like that.
10727860
Thank you. :)
>alicorns
>dying
555-COME-ON-NOW