Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
Twilight couldn’t remember when it happened. All she had was a window in time; a rough span of dates between her brother’s death and Flurry Heart’s last letter. As it were, the net she had cast was sitting languid, tangled in the depths of her aging memory. She couldn’t even remember the last time she saw Cadance smile, really truly smile with nothing but mirth behind those sparkling eyes.
Twilight looked out of the window on the last functioning train line to what was left of the Crystal Empire, now a bitter and frigid wasteland nearly devoid of life. The ground was grey, the sky was grey, the interior of the plush cabin seemed grey as Twilight tried to muster what was left of her courage. A voice in her head, one that had died less than a hundred years ago, told her to be strong, to be brave, to be loyal to the mare Twilight had loved for over a century.
Twilight knew it was already too late.
The train ground to a halt and Twilight exited, hardly noticing the cold that tore through the world around her. The sun burned in her chest, a permanent reminder of everything destiny had forced her to sacrifice. As she plodded along to the last habited building in the Empire, a ramshackle house-turned-library, she thought of her past. She thought of her library, her friendships, her quiet life destroyed by a worthless pair of wings.
Twilight’s feathers twitched as she stepped across a magical threshold. She traced the pattern of the early warning rune in her head, a large circle that covered most of the city block and centered around Sunburst’s home. It was her idea; a way to provide some small comfort to the solitary scholar. As she approached her destination, the door swung open to let her in.
The aging unicorn regarded Twilight with a warm smile, setting the book he cradled in his hooves off to the side. “Please, Princess, come in. Make yourself at home. I put water on for tea but… you were a little later than I expected.” He adjusted his glasses, the weak smile plastered across his face souring from nervous to forlorn.
Twilight lit the burner with her magic. She didn’t intend to stay for tea but she couldn’t stop herself from play-acting the pleasantries of friendship. “Yes, well, the record-breaking snowstorms make train travel difficult and Cada—Heart Breaker’s magic makes teleporting a dangerous idea at best.” Twilight shook her head, trying to clear her mind of the crushing negativity seeping in around the edges. This place, this sun-forsaken pit was sick with it; a blight upon the face of Equestria. “Has she tried talking to you recently?”
Sunburst shook his head, reaching for a letter on the mantle with his magic. “No, just this. You’ve read over it a hundred times already so nothing to say there.” He studied the failing floorboards, trying to build a sentence as Twilight pulled the letter close to her. “I see her sometimes, though. Stalking through the snow. She looks at me and just... leaves.”
Twilight set the letter down, pacing around the cramped, messy kitchen. Sunburst did his dishes, at least, but she expected that putting a book away in its proper place might kill him if the space around her was any indication. “I know you miss her. I do too.” Sunburst said nothing, hardly looked at anything but the closed book in front of him. “I’m going to get her back. I promise. Either I get her back or I die.”
This pulled Sunburst’s attention out, a desperate look in his eyes. “You don’t mean that, do you?” Sunburst looked around the room, at the decaying remains of the life he once lived. “If you don’t come back then who’s going to raise the sun? The moon? Who’s going to rule Equestria?”
Twilight shrugged, her heart a burning hole full of a century's worth of pain. “Her, I guess.”
Twilight didn’t know what to expect as she pushed into the raging blizzard that held the world outside her in its crushing grip. She didn’t expect it to slow, certainly, stalling to a comfortable snowfall that wouldn’t be out of place in Canterlot. It didn’t help quell the raging panic building in her chest as she ventured forward, the inclement weather still impeding her visibility to a worrying degree. She tried to clear some of it away as she had countless times before and found it resisting still, a powerful spell held together by the massive wellspring of emotion that powered it.
This was the first time she had been out here alone. Before she had backup, friends and allies to depend on. Sunset and Starlight were too old, too infirm to brave the weather and the Elements were dead. So it was just her and her crown, a worthless bauble in the face of the only pony left alive that still truly loved her.
Love! What a funny concept. What a fragile, delicate, idiotic concept. Yet still she put so much stock into it, as she did friendship when she was younger. Love is what drove Twilight to put one hoof in front of the other, to come stalking alone into this frigid hellscape in some foolish mission to save an unsaveable mare. Love was all she had at the end of the day.
The Crystal Castle, once a place of comfort and safety was now sitting wretched on the horizon, an ice-caked ruin stitching across the bleak sky. It was decades ago that Twilight led an expedition into it’s gutted corpse to try and find something of value. She was the only one to survive. She didn’t know what she hoped to find in taking a second trip inside. Maybe closure, maybe warmth, maybe the frozen remains of the ponies who had trusted her to protect them. She pulled the heat of the sun that hung unused in her chest and pooled it at her hooves, shivering as she climbed the slick steps of the castle.
The castle was huge, a sprawling labyrinth of crystal that Twilight could still navigate by memory alone. Her legs pulled her forwards, taking the familiar path to the guest bedroom. As she approached the massive oak door that now lay in splinters that punctuated the hall preceding it, she thought she heard laughter.
A look around confirmed she was alone.
Twilight pulled Cadance close, nuzzling into the soft fur of her chest even as her vision threatened to spin off its axis. She would spin if she had to for she knew that Cadance would be there to catch her, to cradle her too-soft in her hooves and right the spiral of her mind with that unyielding tenderness she commanded so effortlessly.
The hiccup of her lover broke the spell of Sappho and brought Twilight giggling back to the reality of the silk-draped room, a hindleg kicking out to meet a downy blanket and an empty bottle of wine. “Twilight, dear, did you drink the rest of that bottle while I was away?”
Twilight snorted, afraid to meet Cadance’s eyes in fear that the ruse might dissolve under scrutiny. Indeed, it had already dissolved when she splashed red wine across her fur. It clung to her chest and marred the bed they laid sprawled across, only half as bright as her burning cheeks. “Perhaps.” Twilight whispered, pressing a kiss against the thin line that made up the mouth of the Princess of Love. “Who wants to know?”
Twilight reckoned Cadance could only hold her steely gaze for so long, a hypothesis that proved true as she doubled over in a fit of laughter that brought them crashing together like two lonely planetoids held in the grip of a burning star. Twilight was lying on her back and Cadance sat above her, her mane hung a tangled mess and her face flushed with the heat of love and wine. Twilight opened her mouth to speak but was silenced by a kiss, a warm melting of lips together that stole the words right out of her mind. She was left an empty vessel, built to hold the love of a goddess and naught much else. “I do.”
I do. What did that mean? Those words, hanging lonesome in the thick air of the bedroom, who were they for? They couldn’t be for her, certainly. Could they? Twilight’s eyes slid off of Cadance and onto the portrait that hung above the bed where they stuck for an age. The portrait was of two mares, one in a finely-tailored suit and the other in a beautiful gown. The pink mare, the one in the tuxedo, stretched the limits of the art of painting with her beauty. Twilight remembered those words, spoken differently and many years prior on this exact date, and her heart swelled. “And I’m so glad you did.”
Cadence blinked once. Twilight turned to catch her face and she blinked again before a smile spread across her face, putting the sun to shame with such blinding beauty. Twilight was kissed again and a third time, maybe a fourth or a fifth but both her heart and her memory failed her in that moment. “You’re a dork. Did you know that? I married a dork.”
Twilight rolled her eyes and fired back a few kisses, her neck straining to meet the goddess that hung suspended above her. She had lost the battle, no doubt, but wouldn’t go down without a fight. The fight was all she had left, disarmed as she was by the totality of her love. She stroked Cadance’s muzzle with her hoof, smiling in a futile pantomime of her wife. “That’s your fault, not mine.”
“Yes, well,” Cadance kissed her again, missing her smiling face and landing squarely on the delicate perch of Twilight’s collarbone, “I don’t regret it in the slightest.”
Twilight traced an idle hoof across the now-blackened gold that lined the doorjamb. Somewhere an icicle was dislodged from its perch, echoing through the cold and empty halls of the castle. She followed the sound, bereft of any true goal or destination. She’d take walks like this in the summer, when the hot air mingled with the cool mountain breeze and the storm clouds loomed thick on the horizon.
She remembered swooping in and out of those storm clouds, the lightning chasing her flying form but never catching her in it’s thunderous embrace. She remembered watching the storm clouds rumble and shake the ocean out of the sky, watched the rain pour down like sheets of water, watching the tide rise and rise until she was swallowed whole.
She remembered the laughter and the thrill as her and Cadance danced through danger, near pulling to violent static behind them in a wake of booming sound and crackling white heat. They would crash into a heap when their wings were spent and let the wet, idle heat of the summer surround them. They would laugh and laugh as the world opened up and poured water upon their tangled bodies, as if to wash away all the recklessness held inside them.
Twilight looked up from her reverie to see the entrance to the throne room. It looked just like it did ages ago, when life still had a place in these halls. She found it interesting that, of all the rooms in the castle, this one escaped Heart Breaker’s ire. Twilight chalked it up to some shred of sentimentality surviving Heart Breaker’s corruption. Maybe the destruction of the Prince’s throne, the last physical marker of his existence outside of his saber and his grave, was simply too much for even her to bear. Twilight considered destroying the throne, provoking the errant Princess.
She knew better.
They had been apart when the news broke. Twilight was in the middle of a meeting with a foreign dignitary, the daughter of Prince Rutherford had come to discuss how they might handle the discovery of a new crystal mine. She remembered every minutia, every tiny detail in the tear-soaked face of her lover as she appeared beside her, clutching her close in some desperate attempt to feel less alone.
What Twilight didn’t remember, however, was how they got up to her bedroom. She didn’t remember how long the two of them had spent howling together in wordless sorrow, taking turns blubbering empty platitudes and tired phrases of affection and comfort. Truly language here was a burden and she wanted nothing more than to shed her voice and scream silently at the world that allowed her brother to die.
“Cadance…” Twilight wanted to pull her lover close, to wring the sorrow out of her broken frame with her hooves, but to be close would be to invite that same sorrow in. She had enough of her own to deal with right now so she opted to remain distant from her.
“Why are you comforting me? He’s your brother, I should be holding you!” Even when she was between sobbing fits, Cadence still thought of Twilight first and foremost. It stung, like the last breath before hypothermia claimed you.
“And you lived with him. Loved him, for all these years. Spent more time with him than I ever did.” Twilight thought of her distant star, her lover hanging lonely and afraid in the dark of the night, far from the spires of Canterlot. Oh how she had missed her.
“Still…” If there was more to say, Cadance couldn’t find the words as another wave of grief washed over her. Flurry Heart should be here. Twilight had sent for her personally, a magical message that not even the fiery-hearted Princess of Passion could ignore. Or so Twilight thought.
“Still nothing, Cadance. I’m your wife and even if I wasn’t I’m still your friend. I still love you.” Twilight gently guided Cadance’s muzzle towards her and their eyes met. Only now was Twilight aware of the vast distance that stretched between them, the wild and unmanageable space that had grown in her absence. Twilight started to cry.
“I love you, Twilight.”
Twilight nestled her weeping face in the crook of Cadance’s neck and hoped her words rang true. “I love you too.”
Decades after Shining Armor’s death, Twilight found she didn’t miss him. Not in the way she missed Cadance or Luna or Rarity or Pinkie Pie or, indeed, any of the lovers she had let wander into and then out of the fragile bounds of her heart. She missed him like she missed her parents; their deaths as sure in her mind as the setting of the sun. The death of her family always seemed so certain and the death of her friends so hazy, filled with the possibility of immortality. The truth is she knew the moment she felt the crown settle on her brow they were all going to die before her.
Cadance would remain. Twilight didn’t know how short her presence would be; how brief the touch of her love, and if she did know nothing would have changed. Nothing could have changed. Twilight and Cadance both had empires to lead, lives to live that did not contain either of their disparate bodies. Flurry Heart could have been there for her mother, at least, but adventure called to a young Princess and it was not in Twilight’s power to deny her that call.
She could have done more. She recounted the list as she climbed up to the observatory, the frigid air thinning as she went. This thought process was rote, a familiar cycle that kept her company in times of uncertainty. A Princess’ foresight was strong and her hindsight even more so and it was through this lens that she pored over the past, hungry for answers to questions she had yet to ask.
She had ran out of questions ages ago, however, and answers ages before that. Now she was stuck treading the same paths that she always had, climbing over the same ruined crystal staircase that sought futilely to impede her advance. She breached the open air and the vastness of the sky almost took her then and there, near ripping her soul from her aimless body. There was nothing up here to stop the wind from blowing. Nothing separating her from the endless expanse of a world she had tried to leave behind.
She thought she heard hoofsteps approaching.
Twilight had grown used to making hard decisions. She had to; any sign of weakness on her end would've been exploited ruthlessly. So it was that her royal presence was a flawless wall, a stalwart bastion of the ideals of friendship. She was magic made manifest. It was the easy decisions that tripped her up, surprised her with the way she slipped comfortably into them. Easy decisions like her partner Rainbow Dash slipping into the wrap of her wings, soaking in the summer sun under Twilight's feathered embrace.
Rainbow Dash was lying curled against her, the gentle purr of their sleeping form a welcome addition to the distant sounds of mirth from the town below. Twilight drew her Captain of the Guard close and they stirred, barely conscious of anything but the gentle heat of Twilight beside them.
It took two months of planning to get a day off for the both of them and another three to actually schedule that day off but it had been beyond worth it. It wasn’t often Twilight was able to hear true mirth in Rainbow’s voice, see the sparkle in their eyes as the zipped and ducked and twirled through the clouds. Twilight delighted in the way they turned heads, ponies gawking in absolute disbelief as they strode through the town with their heads held high. It’s like Ponyville forgot they both used to call this town home.
Twilight’s lovesick daydream was interrupted by a displacement in space, a ripple of magic that sent shivers down her spine. The two of them were wrest from their relaxation as a raspy voice called out across the skyway. Before Twilight could compose herself Flurry Heart was upon her, eyes wild with panic.
“AUNTIE TWILIGHT! SOMETHING’S HAPPENED WITH MOM!” Flurry Heart always struggled to control her volume and now was no exception.
“Cadance? What happened to her?” Twilight and Rainbow shared a look, concern passing between them like a letter might pass between two clandestine lovers.
“The whole empire is... it’s under attack! From her! I think? It’s hard to tell but she’s not there and there’s some other evil mare there instead and she’s got wings and a horn like mom does and everyone is really scared and I tried to talk to her but I can’t even get close and—” Flurry’s tirade was silenced by a stern hoof plugging her muzzle. Twilight felt dread creeping in around the edges and hindsight would tell her, eighty years from now, that this was the last moment she would know peace.
“Can you take me to her?”
“Twilight Sparkle.”
Twilight Sparkle did not think she heard hoofsteps approaching. She knew she heard them. There was no other end to this, no alternative but conflict. She turned to face Heart Breaker, exhaustion soaking into her voice. “Hello, dear.”
Heart Breaker snarled, advancing a single step. Twilight didn’t move, didn’t budge from where she stood; less resolute and more resigned. “You. I am not your dear, whelp.” Heart Breaker spat her words as much as she spoke them.
Twilight searched Heart Breaker’s face for anything, any sign of the mare she once held close to her. Twilight wondered too as she stared into the flickering gold ring of her iris if she still held onto their wedding band. “Can you just please come home?”
Heart Breaker seemed as surprised to hear that as Twilight did. She faltered, just for a moment, before continuing her advance. Her horn was glowing a sickly pink, her magical aura a barely contained weapon that filled the thin air with a palpable feeling of hate. “There is no home left for me, Twilight. I thought long ago that perhaps I could build a home in your heart but I was wrong! I never should’ve trusted you, not after you abandoned them.”
Twilight shook her head and furrowed her brow. It was hard to fight the rage building in her chest, coiling around her throat as she pushed against the crackling barrier that separated them. “I tried! I tried to stand by you every chance I had but being a Princess isn’t easy. You don’t think I missed you? You don’t think I hurt too?!”
A hoof stamped into the snow and Twilight felt the roof shake, more and more of Heart Breaker’s raw fury seeping out of her trembling body. “TRYING and DOING are two separate things, Princess. You failed to do either, by my recollection. Don’t you understand? YOU DID THIS TO ME!”
All Twilight could do to rebuke Heart Breaker’s words was shake her head desperately, too busy fighting off a rising tide of tears that threatened to tear through her heart in a centuries worth of anguish. Heart Breaker continued to advance and Twilight continued to retreat until the emptiness of the sky was nipping at her heels. “Just.” Twilight’s eyes drifted to the sky, a miserable swathe of grey that clung to the horizon like a tumor. "Hit me already. See if that solves anything.”
Twilight saw a flash of light, felt the impact of a powerful bolt of magic, and was only dimly aware of her body arcing downwards before the world went black around her. When she woke up, body sore and barely held together, Heart Breaker had left.
Twilight struggled forward, compelling her body to move despite the crushing winds that buffeted her and the deep aching in her joints. She imagined that if she were to open her wings they’d be torn free, pulled from their sockets by the maelstrom that raged around her. She kept them firm to her sides. Her horn lit as she summoned a barrier, protecting her from the shards of solid ice that whipped and scoured her unprotected fur. The cold seeped through regardless and not even the heat of the sun could keep her from shivering.
Twilight looked up, shielding her eyes from the blinding light of an ice-cold sun. She felt Heart Breaker’s presence before she was visible, the storm opening up as she crested the horizon. Twilight wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry, she wanted to howl at the sight of her fallen lover. She stayed silent instead.
“Twilight Sparkle. Here to finally kill me?”
Despite the distance and the violent icestorm that separated them, Twilight could hear her clear as day. Her voice was deep and rough, devoid of any of the honeyed love that soaked through Cadance’s speech in decades prior. She shook her head and Heart Breaker only laughed, a cold bark that cut Twilight to the core just as it split the frigid air.
Heart Breaker opened her wings and the storm stopped, leaving only the lazy snowfall to carve contrails into the world around. Folding her wings and standing to her full height, Heart Breaker continued her advance. “Then where are your Elements, those silly stones you put so much faith in?”
Twilight stopped in her tracks. She hadn’t been able to use the Elements since Rarity had died. She was the last one. Twilight remembered cradling her as she walked slowly off the mortal coil. She remembered the light, the love, the spark of inspiration leaving her eyes. She remembered—
Twilight was nearly bowled over as a bolt of magic connected with her shield and she hissed in surprise. She should’ve expected this. She ducked another burst and stood her ground. Heart Breaker was on the assault and it was all Twilight could do to absorb as much damage as she could. “Heart Breaker! Stop!”
Heart Breaker’s face twisted with sorrow, her brows still furrowed with rage even as tears streamed down her face. Twilight was taking calm, measured steps forward now, the distance between them shrinking rapidly. Her barrier was failing, and if she didn’t make a move soon, she was dead.
“Why? So the Princess of Friendship can put me down? So you can finally kill me and save your precious empire?” Heart Breaker spat, focusing her gaze on Twilight. “You couldn’t save them. What makes you think you can save me?”
Twilight didn’t know what had gotten into her. Heart Breaker was typically cold and reserved, a difficult opponent to face. She was immune to the Elements and they were evenly matched in strength, existing in a permanent stalemate. Twilight sighed and let her barrier drop, her head hanging low. This was her only chance now. “I don’t. I don’t think I can save you.” She studied the ice that clung to her hooves, her voice meek. “Not without your help.”
Within an instant Heart Breaker was upon her, lifting Twilight by the throat with her magic. Twilight made no attempt to fight back, instead locking eyes with Heart Breaker. “You’re pathetic.” Heart Breaker cast Twilight aside, her body crashing against the snow. “What, did you come here to give up? To die like the rest of your friends?”
Twilight tried to push herself to her hooves but found Heart Breaker pinning her down, a single spiked boot digging into the flesh of her neck. “Cadance. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when I should’ve been. You have every right to kill me. I wouldn’t blame you.” Twilight couldn’t bring herself to look in her assailants eyes, choosing instead to focus on the darkening horizon. She found it hard to breathe. “Whatever happens, I have a promise I want to make.”
“Oh?” Heart Breaker laughed and Twilight thought she heard the mare she loved, that bubble of mirth and warmth that folded its wings around her on cold nights. “Tell me, Princess, what promise you could possibly make now?”
“I promise to love you for as long as I live. If that’s a minute or a millennium, I’ll be there. I’ll love you. I promise.” Twilight closed her eyes and accepted death.
Instead, she felt the pressure lift from her throat.
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Man, I remember seeing this fan art and instantly wanting more from it. Can't wait to read this.
alright that was Good, kinder wish there was more.
MOOOOOOOON! I NEEDED MORREEEEEEE!
But seriously, this story grasped me in its iron grip. I wouldn't have been able to stop reading before I got to the end even if I wanted to. I loved how you portrayed a darker version of Cadance, of how she was corrupted through heartbreak and became one that breaks hearts in return. Good work, Moon! See you at Quills and Sofas!
I am really confused with the timeline here. If I read that correctly Cadance was still normal when Shining died, and Flurry was apparently already gone, but then later on she was corrupted but Flurry hadn't disappeared yet. The flashback scenes do a decent enough job of fleshing out what happened after the show ended, but I'm left confused as to what caused Cadance to become corrupted in the first place. She blames Twilight for it but nothing in the story seemed to indicate what Twilight did or did not do. Near as I can tell Cadance just one day went full nightmare.
Okay, I took a second pass as I was writing this review. I think, after carefully rereading the whole thing, you meant to imply that Twilight was absent in Cadance's life and that's what happened? That after Shining's death Twilight didn't pay enough attention to her? If that's the reason that seems rather... weak as a plot point. Like, from what we know of these characters there is no reason to expect them to get married only to become so absent from each other that Cadance goes full nightmare.
I could go on longer about why this makes no sense to me but I'll just leave it here. In the end it feels like you decided to write a story about Nightmare Cadance and didn't really put much thought into anything else. Not to mention how confusing it was that Twilight apparently had multiple lovers even while married to Cadance? Like, she apparently had relationships with Luna, Rarity, Pinkie, and Rainbow, all while married? If this is socially acceptable, why did Cadance have no other lovers? There's just so many unanswered questions in the story, with very few details that would allow the reader to answer them.
Wait! I need more! That can't be it! You've made me hungry to know what will happen next! How dare you make me feel things! Aaaaa this is so good!
Though the timeline is a little muddled (that could just be me, though), this was extremely intriguing. The whole mood of it all was so well done that It almost swallows you from the beginning.
I'd like to ask for a sequel or epilogue of some sort to help tie this up, but honestly . . . I think you could leave it as is without sacrificing any of its power.
Well done, friend. Well done.
To be short, this a beautiful piece. I'd liken it to having four or five jigsaw pieces with some truly great artwork on it, but still only leaves me guessing as to how great the full picture actually is. Still, I don't think it's hurt by not having the full picture, as it surely jogs the mind to fill in the blanks. Wonderful.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this.
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Same thing here, while I liked this story, it really needed more chapters/lines to flesh out everything that’s on the story, we can presume that somehow a fragment of Sombra infected Candance, but from where it came from? Or the Nightmare returned and made Candance think that Twilight didn’t loved her anymore, and from what I understood Luna died? How? Again, while this was a quick good story, there are MANY things here that required more time to develop.
Wow.
I loved the writing and the world building.
But I can't figure out who did what that led to Cadance's transformation.
Any help is appreciated.
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hey! hope yall dont mind a uh, reply to these here comments, but i figured i could shed a little light on what i was thinking when i wrote this. the gist of the events is this: cadance and twilight get married at some point early after the show ends; theyre both still young with a lot of energy and twilight still has the elements for support, cadance has shining and flurry. flurry, as she grows older, basically leaves house to go on Adventures and is rarely there. thats fine while cadance has shining and sunburst etc for company.
eventually, however, shining armor, starlight, and the elements die. twilight is focused solely on an equestria thats more connected to its neighboring countries than ever. cadance is stuck running the empire with no daughter (flurry heart has just dipped completely, no doubt roaming all about the rest of the world) and no wife (i can imagine them still meeting every so often but once or twice a year in the life of an immortal is basically Nothing.)
this continues on for decades. for decades cadance sits in a giant empty castle filled with constant reminders of her dead loved one and even more reminders of a wife who can hardly make time to visit her on a good year. after a certain point, this frustration and grief and anger at always getting the shortest end of the stick causes cadance to snap. its no magical artifact or shard of anything, just a centuries worth of emotion all pouring out at once.
weve all been there, right? where youve been dealing with some stuff and the stuff just keeps piling on and on and on and on until the tiniest thing finally pushes you over the edge and suddenly days or weeks or even months worth of stress explode out of you. take that feeling and multiply it by a hundred-fold — thats what i imagine heart breakers creation to be like.
ill uh, ill readily admit that i dont go out and really say any of that because i am admittedly bad at talking abt my core themes in a manner thats concrete. one of the biggest weaknesses of my prose is it (and myself) struggle with grasping solid concepts and this is kind of a prime example. good learning material, certainly, with some thoughts to carry into my future as a writer. hope this helped! and thanks for the comments, it means a lot 💛
ps i dont think this is the last story of mine to feature this twilight, ive got a speedwrite that kind of explores the bleak reality of being the immortal princess of friendship after (almost) everyone youve ever known has died
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Thank you very much for the background information. It added to my understanding of the story.
I very much look forward to seeing any additional stories you post with this Twilight.
A suggestion. The interaction with Sunburst might have provided a place to make some of the timeline clearer. Perhaps Sunburst lamenting not being able to help Cadance during the decades after Shiny's demise and Twilight's reply and internal monologue taking the blame on herself. Cadance was her wife. They could agree that it would have been almost easier if they could to blame Cadance's situation on evil magic, rather than on her feeling abandoned.
I just wanted to reiterate that you have a very evocative style and I have enjoyed many of your stories. The following three are in my Favorite's list, and I just went through your stories and added several to my Read It Later list.
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im really glad you liked it !! this kind of constructive feedback is really appreciated, believe me. especially happy to see some of my older work on that list! my styles changed a lot since i was younger and id love to revisit some of those older stories with a new approach
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Wait, so were Cadance and shining married? They must’ve been if Flurry happened.
Also Luna, Rarity and Pinkie were mentioned among “other lovers” (like Rainbow, I assume), so was there just a super-mega polygamy thing going on here?
I like the premise but I’m a bit confused haha
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personally i would have had it that shining armors death is what led to them becoming a couple the pain they felt bringing them together and making it even bigger tragedy when everything fell apart later
also the other relationship with elements feel tacked on doesn't resonate with me for the tragic relationship angle you were going for but that just me
other then that i enjoyed this story as a one-shot hope you do more in the same vein in the future
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yeah, shining and cadance were still married. twilight and cadance both are Very polygamous cus uh i think its cute and its an in-universe excuse to write a bunch of different ships without worrying too much abt an infidelity angle
"First Breath After Coma" plays while I read this
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YES god that album is WONDERFUL. massive inspiration for the tone of the story. saw them live, too; absolutely gorgeous
>Explosions in the Sky reference
OKAY. IM IN.
Damn that was cool, you don’t see this ship used too often and this was truly used at its best. Your writing was great nice work
Any chance of a sequel where Twilight brings her out of the darkness? TwiDance is one of my top five favorite ships and I would love to see this have more of a story to it.
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An excuse that I definitely approve of.
Ship away!
This was fantastically written, and had a great premise. Twilight and Cadance is a good ship, and open polyamory is perfectly valid for ponies. Your depictions of both time periods were very well done, showing both the passion of the past and the dread of the present. I was able to follow the timeline well enough, but I did get tripped up at one point. Usually it was alternating time periods, but the section break after Flurry told Twilight about Cadance becoming evil led to another section in the same time period, which confused me when I got to the section after that that was clearly in the present. I think the mechanism by which Cadance turned evil could have been explained better, and I'm not sure this was the best place to end the story. Still, this was overall very good.
Nicely written, but I feel this fanfic is incomplete, as if it's cut before the end.
That can't be it! There's gotta be more!
I see someone likes post-rock
This line here carries with it a lot of weight. The weight of the sun, the moon, the nation, possibly the world, but in there too is the weight that is the love between Cadence and Twilight. The weight felt the same way a boulder falls towards the bottom of the ocean. Though, in that very manner, the boulder still exists and can be fished out and resurfaced. The same can be said about love here. And while I'm not sure 100% on what's happening, I feel that's the intention, and beyond that, I can still feel that weight.
While that was the only line I'll be quoting, it is far away from the only one I loved. I'll admit my brain's rather small when it comes to prose like yours. That is, it took me a while to adjust to reading your style and really absorb it. That's not a fault for you, but a fault of mine entirely. That said, once I had acclimated, this story opened up to me, and it's nothing short of beautiful.
I've read the comments concerned about the timeline, and while I had questions about it that your response cleared up, I wouldn't have asked them in the first place. This story's not about anything concrete, in so far as the Crystal Empire collapsing, exactly where Flurry is, the specificities of Twilight's relationships, are concerned. It's about Twilight and Cadence's relationship.
I think your response said everything I was going to with regards to questions about why Cadence turned. There's a common pitfall among the mlp crowd to compare its world to ours on a 1:1 basis. What drives ponies in Equestria does not drive humans on Earth. A friendship lost to us isn't the end of the world, but then, friendship isn't coveted nearly as much with us as it is for ponies. But even then, say someone had plenty of friends and then lost them all, would they not devour themselves and leave an opposite doppelganger in their place? Now apply this, but twentyfold at the least for any given pony, and hundredsfold for Cadence.
I will also contest the notion that this story's incomplete. It may not have followed through, as it were, on its conclusion, but it certainly is complete nonetheless. Heart Breaker could've killed Twilight then and there. It would've been easy, and there would've been no repercussions. But she didn't. She didn't because Twilight is now in the same position as Cadence was before she turned. She'd lost everything, her entire support system, everyone close to her that made her life wholly worth living. But despite that, her responsibility was, as said in that line, the sun, the moon, the nation, and the world. These were not rested upon her shoulders alone, but in the passing of her closest friends, it now is.
Heart Breaker recognized this, and that Twilight wouldn't have braved the blizzard, wouldn't have taken the time to leave her kingdom, and wouldn't have remained after being knocked out cold if she didn't truly want to repair and nurture their relations. That to me is why this story's complete and needs no follow up.
As to my opinion of it, as usual Dawn, you have skipped the park and knocked it clear out of the state. You've set up an entire world in a few thousand words that feels like it's dying, but still alive. You created a relationship between two vulnerable ponies, who let that side out to each other in their weakest moment when Shining died, and then let distance grow between them after. You made that relationship begin mending, and by that, the world you made begin mending as well. I truly loved this story, and hope that my comment is coherent enough to convey that! Magnificent work as always Dawn, I'm blown away!
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The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place
and
Take Care Take Care Take Care
Maybe Twilight should have tried giving her an Snickers isnead?
Edit:
Also found this.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/3/14/849446.png
Source.
Good story!
I enjoyed reading it.
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;3c
God, I want to respond to this but how do I even.
..... Everything you said, and everything you didn't say, came together in a vision that was perfectly embodied by your main charterers and as such you introduced us to a full world and let it crash down around us in the same breath. I want to see everyone about this world, everything that led here and everything that is to come, but what you give leaves it in the prefect moment of indescribable relief and unending tension.
This is nowhere near what I usually read, but god dang do I love and respect it.
The opening is the strongest bit here. The conversation between Twilight and Sunburst could have gone on a bit longer, but that last line is aces.
After that, it gets a bit muddled. Like others, I was a touch confused by the relationships angle with no explanation. And then it just kinda ends.
Solid concept, but really could've used a couple more passes.
The story feels incomplete. Sure, Twi gets to live, but what was Heart Breaker's reaction? What happened afterward?
Damn, I want more of this. Helps that Twilight and Cadance is a ship I enjoy. And I just like Cadance's portrayal in general.
I want to make sure I am understanding this correctly. That last part was the first interaction between Heart Breaker and Twilight Sparkle, yes?
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ye
10459350 Okay good, suspected so, but I was not entirely sure.
So it is not just loss what turned Cadance into what she is now; but also a broken promise than erased any chance of changing back she had.
I liked this story quite a bit. It is...bitter, I think is the best way to describe it. No 'sweet' part anywhere. There is no solution, not anymore. It is too late.
My only caviat is that Heart Breaker's personality seems to be a perfect copy of Nightmare Moon's. I like when they have a strong personality shift.
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Yes, many authors ship characters and make them couples without background, for its own sake. I find these superficial.
Wow, this is incredible. I remember loving the co test version, and you've fleshed it out so much more than I expected. I felt the weight of time pressing on both of them, and I absolutely love how well you built up the dread surrounding Heart Breaker's domain. I'm a sucker for Dark Cadance interpretations, and this one was one of the best I've seen.
i think theres horses in this
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i saw the notification that someone commented and i forgot who u were for a second ... why must u haunt me
A very good read, if at times confusing.
I’m always thrilled when there’s Twilight/Cadance shipping that doesn’t rely on something gross, like cheating, in order to happen. Really nice work on this one.
Wait, that's it? There are 3 things that I hate on this site.
1. Dark endings.
2. Incomplete stories
3. And cliffhangers.
As for 1 though, I don't hate it as much as I do for 2 and 3, especially 3.
I mean from the sounds of it, it's not like you tried very hard either. It's not like Cadance couldn't have visited Twilight too. It's not like she has to raise the sun and moon after all.
Not really a criticism since obviously she isn't meant to be whole rational. Great story.