Ruin

by RB_

Epilogue

Sunset stood by the statue and looked out over the crowd of people, formerly ponies, who had gathered on the school’s courtyard. Not quite the full three-hundred and thirty-nine; not everypony had made it, or had even wanted to come, but that was okay. They were in charge of their own lives, now.

Five years had passed since the day the pony-siders had come to the human world. Today was the anniversary. The last day before summer vacation. Sunset could feel the eyes of everyone in the school on her and the crowd, of the students gathered by the windows.

Sunset herself was no longer a high school student; she was in college, now. So was Twilight, standing beside her, and Starlight, on her other side. They’d all gone to the same school, even though Twilight could have easily gone to a better one. Their shared experiences had bound them together; a bond that wouldn’t break.

Even if Starlight would be leaving them soon.

Sunset lifted up the megaphone in her right hand and spoke into it, the volume cutting through the murmuring of the crowd.

“Alright, everypony!” she said. “Everyone who’s going to Equestria, line up over here so Twilight can scan you!”

The crowd began to move. Not everyone was going; in fact, most of them were staying. They all had lives, now, on this side of the portal. Many didn’t want to give that up to try and salvage what was left of a dying world.

But some of them did, and these were the people who moved towards the line. The rest were there to watch. Today was an important day.

The people of Canterlot City had welcomed the pony-siders with mostly open arms. Magic had become kind of an open secret, at the time, and so an earnest explanation as to what had happened had convinced many people to take in the Equestrian refugees. They’d even had some support from the city government. It turned out that Principal Celestia had friends in high places, and with her support, they were able to get documentation for those who needed it.

Sunset cast a glance back at the machine that Twilight had constructed. The new Can-Opener was much larger than the little one they had employed all those years ago. A whole rack of computers were needed to control the output of the massive capacitor bank. The whole thing was about the size of two fridges.

Twilight hadn’t given up on her promise to find a way to re-open the portal. She’d spent the years between studying everything she could about magic and how to control it, and her studies had paid off. This new machine didn’t need the remains of the mirror portal; the wormhole it opened could stand on its own.

Sunset turned her attention back to the ponies, who had formed a line. Many of them carried supplies either on their backs, in their arms, or in wheelbarrows. Things like seeds, farming supplies, tools, building materials, food and water, and more. Everything that they would need to survive In the dust.

It had been five years. That wasn’t a coincidence; it was the same amount of time it had taken for Sunset’s natural Equestrian magic to dissipate. The ex-ponies were basically human, now. They had no inherent magic of their own anymore. Still, they wanted to be safe, and that was why Twilight was scanning each of them with her thaumometer. Things appeared to be going well so far; the ponies who had already gone through the screening were gathering in front of the portal. They talked to each other happily. Hopefully.

Sunset smiled. Among those ponies were Twilight’s friends. They had become leaders, or maybe they always had been. They’d all unanimously decided to go back to Equestria together. To carry Princess Twilight’s legacy back to Equestria with them. To reclaim their homeland.

“I guess I’d better get going, too,” Starlight said. Sunset turned towards her, and smiled.

“Good luck,” she said.

“Thanks,” Starlight replied. “I’ll see you around?”

“I’ll come visit you,” Sunset said. “Count on it.”

“I will,” Starlight said. With a smile, she headed off to join the other pony-siders. Sunset watched her go.

It wasn’t goodbye. With the new Can-Opener, they could visit either world any time they wanted.

Sunset looked back out over the crowd of pony-siders.

She smiled. Then, she looked up at the sun.

Five years had passed. And in this case, and maybe in every case…

…time really had healed all wounds.

---

The End

Author's Note:

The wrap-up blog, where I explain myself somewhat.

Comments

[gapty]

So a kind of happy ending, and the world is not filled with mysterious twins — partly.

What a journey it was. Mysterious, heavy and at the same time in a spare matter that wasn't going "all out". I liked it, and the reveal of what was causing it was simple and believable. A big mystery doesn't always have to be something big after all.

As I have pointed out before, I liked the inner conflicts the characters had, like Rainbow being angry for not being able to help.

The cover is also nice and points out for Sunset and Starlight the perfect expressions which what they were dealing — well, except for Twilight, but I have already told the joke to you.

Overall, it's definitely one of my favourite longer stories, as it fits right into what I like: Exploring mystery story of something unknown causing something.

Thank you for finishing and publishing this fic

[star1wars3]

It's hard not to feel frustrated with this kind of twist, I really, really liked Ruin and wanted to know where it was going but now I kind of wish I hadn't bothered. There's all this build up and then just here's this quick metaphorical ending and it's just... so unsatisfying. It does feel a bit like an intentional fuck you to readers with the argument between Sunset and Midnight, like they're arguing about the ending of the story in the story, then you leave it "incomplete" even though it's over. You might've just forgotten to mark it as complete, though. Overall this isn't the kind of story I'm into and try to avoid, it won't keep me up at night but for what it's worth it was interesting until the ending.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Honestly? This works for me, especially looking at the postmortem blog. Part of me is with Midnight, winding back through the multiverse to track down this nonsense to its source to resolve it once and for all. The rest recognizes that unhealthy obsession for what it is—after all, what is Midnight but unhealthy obsession made manifest?—and cheers on those who have moved on past "Why did this happen?" to "What do we do now?" And when a college student built an interdimensional wormhole generator, it's hard to feel like the world is lost in dust and desolation. Humans may not have any internal magic, but they've certainly learned a lot about how to apply it.

(That said, there is the not inconsiderable issue that no one's moving the sun or moon back in Equestria. Can-do pioneer spirit only goes so far when the planet's tidally locked and all local matter, soil included, is in a state of decay on a fundamental level. )

Not a perfect ending, but the whole point of the fic would be undermined if it were. All told, an engaging journey. Thank you for taking us on it.

[Uz Naimat]

Well, that happened.

A little bit anticlimactic, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Our characters got to heal from their pain and kinda-sorta move on, and that’s all I wanted, really.

I’ll be transferring this to [Best of Dark]! Though you might wanna tag it as Complete.

[RB_]

11415055
Knew I forgot something. Tagged.

[duckmagee]

midnight on the quest we all want to know why they ended G4

[Voltaje]

Ok, so, humans now will colonize Equestria, because ponies or anything with magic won't, they could bring soil, plants, water, etc. that doesn't need magic to survive, so this is just way bigger that just some humans returning, it needs a complete scale of colonization, or Equestria will be completely empty.

[Bones_]

I'm definitely with Midnight here.

[Mocha Star]

What a sad story, but in a varied way. Well done.

[Sunset_Shimmer83]

loved the ending, glad to see most of the pony siders went home, hope they didnt end up all dying tho.
one thing i'm not sure if you touched on it, did they all revert back to ponies?

[ASGeek2012]

The whole thing about how null magic is spreading between worlds and destroying everything is VERY reminiscent of an SCP. I don't remember which number it was, but it had to do with a probe finding a connection to a parallel Earth where everything was dead (and I mean everything, in that the bodies would not decompose because all the microbes were dead), and that this sudden complete death had spread to other parallel Earths.

It's too bad that they could not find a way to reverse it, but it's a very good story nonetheless.

[Legioner8]

Okay, they are going back, but the Sun doesn’t move and their world is now a tidally locked planet with only a twilight zone being livable.

11416401
O, Death