Part IV
The Secretary of the Night puzzled at the visitor’s frown.
“You should be happy, Miss Pommel. A Royal Warrant at such an early stage of your career is hardly heard of! The Princess must have been quite impressed by your work.”
“But ‘zero dresses per year’?” Coco glanced over at the dress horse that the Secretary had brought in, returning to her the dress she had earlier offered.
“Oh, but that is the best part! The prestige of a Royal Warrant without an actual obligation to deliver. What more could an artisan ask for?”
The mirth on the Secretary’s face fell off as Coco continued to frown.
“Ah, but I do not wish to make light of your disappointment. I know that not all of you artisans are mere social climbers, and do actually care if the Royal Household uses your work. But please, do understand. It was a great gamble to gift her such a thing. The Princess is rather sensitive about the time of her reign before her banishment. And as reactions go, moving her to the point of never wanting to see it again is quite a testament to your skill. Please, do take comfort in that.”
Coco simply nodded silently. She hesitated, before asking, “And was there anything else that the Princess wanted to let me know?”
“Ah, I am afraid not,” the Secretary replied apologetically. “She was quite firm on that, and that any further correspondence that you may wish to have with her is to be routed through my office.”
Coco did not need it to be explained to her what that meant. And despite the pleasant smile on the Secretary’s face, she clearly knew it, too.
“And with that, I am afraid this does mark the end of the Princess’s official audience with you, Miss Pommel. Please do be kind, and make sure to clear out your personal effects from this guest chamber by the mid-afternoon today.”
This night, like every night, from deep within Manehattan’s dark tangle of a million reveries, one dream shines in particular, bright and strong and clear. A dazzling vision of sapphire blue and scintillating stars in a sea of darkest black.
This night, like every night, the Princess of the Night stands on that dream’s precipice. Feels the comforting warmth of its enticing glow on her soul. Reflects on the fact that a single step forward would be all it would take to join herself to it. Lets herself imagine, just for a moment, the peace and calm and joy it would bring her.
This night, like every night, the Princess of the Night turns away.
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I'll leave another comment down the line, but this is nothing short of beautiful.
Part I:
"and Rarity could see how the brilliant cyan of her mane, reflected in the cyan of her eyes that seemed now as deep and as refreshing as a waterfall pond on the hottest summer day."
Did something go missing near the end there? How the brilliant cyan of her mane reflected etc., did or was what? Or is there s fault in the wording earlier than the end? Or am I missing something?
Part II:
"She is the same age as we were when we met!"
"She is the same age as I was when we met!"? Or am I missing something?
I wonder what it means, that the Rose in Luna's dream misremembered how Rose caught Luna's eye? Hm. Unfortunately, I'm very low on time at the moment.
Part III:
Ah. And then the start of this may be the answer to that question, or part of it...
...WELL NOW. That was an unexpected twist to the chapter end!
Part IV:
Oh, huh, and then a twist back.
...This story feels simultaneously actively satisfying and like it should feel actively unsatisfying, to me at the moment at least. Fascinating. And well done, I think! :)
Sadly, I'm quite low on time (When I mentioned looking forward to your stories, I didn't expect you to drop so many words at the same time. I mean, I enjoyed them all, but they did rather eat into my schedule! :D), so don't have much more elaborate commentary at the moment, but thank you indeed for writing!
The rise of Cocoluna makes my heart sing.
So, this is probably the best piece of yours I've read, by a wide margin. And also probably the most emotionally gut-wrenching exploration of Luna's relationship with love and loss I've ever read.
Oh this was certainly not the way I was expecting this to go. But I loved it all the same.
Top marks.
~Reggie
Coming back to this... what else can I say, really?
It's a masterclass in tragic romance. Character and events intertwining so deeply, so intricately that... god, I don't know what to say. Everyone here feels so rich, so alive, but none more so than Luna, from her experiences, her views to the pain she feels so keenly.
Very, very good work, my friend. Loved this story, despite how much it broke my own heart.
Greetings! Have a review!
All in all, thanks for writing this story!
10889484
Thanks so much for the review!
The idea for this story is superb. I'm impressed by how impressed this made me. It is a federal crime that this doesn't have more views.
I saw a bit of a movie once at my grandparents’. It was a movie about a girl who contracts amnesia from getting in contact with freezing cold water. The main character of the movie took advantage of the situation by making her fall in love with a man she never truly knew. I don’t think I ever learned the name of that film, but when Luna was talking to Coco as Rarity, I expected it to go that direction.
I can clearly see that the story did not go in that direction. While I personally think that a story like that might make for interesting reading material, this story uses a different concept, and draws a lot more emotion from its different concept.
It’s very interesting to read this story and realize that Luna simply went through an intense Heroic BSoD and simply never recovered. If the ending is anything to go by, she still hasn’t recovered because she simply can’t open up no matter how many times she tells herself to do so.
I especially love Rose (or Luna’s projection of her), who I feel like I relate to so much for reasons that the story is not intending me to relate to her. Her lines about wanting to be remembered more than just a footnote in a history book nopony reads just really hit me, because I would like to be remembered, too.
Overall, this is a very good and emotional story that takes a simple concept and does it exceptionally well.
In retrospect, I probably could've made this all one comment, but oh well.
This ending was incredible. The intensity of Rose's love is clear, but there's something off about the whole thing. Rose keeps trying to convince Luna that she is greater than the mortals she granted love to. That they were all just droplets in the mist. It's an obsession that you can see faintly in both Rose and Coco earlier, but this is on a whole other level.
She moves on, discussing how modern ponies have become spiritually poor, but Luna can save them. Bring them a greater purpose in a larger chain. It becomes clear Rose is just an attempt by the Nightmare to grasp Luna once more. She won't be the secondary that she once was, as the Nightmare says, believe it has already won.
Even the Princess of the Night can dream. And so dream she shall.
It's just such a wonderful subversion. It doesn't feel out of place with the themes and it doesn't feel completely from left field either. If you look closely you can hints of the toxic worship in their love, both Coco and Rose, though the latter may be Luna's memories being corrupted. It's such a cute and tender story, that has this sickening other side to it. But that's just life.
Absolutely stunning, writing was on point, characters were fantastic, and the conversations with Rose really like two ponies from a millenniums past. Bravo!
Howdy, hi!
Oof, right in the hard feels for that one. Ah, but I'm a sucker for a good romance story and despite the tragedy, I still adored this.
The build-up and pay-off of how you interwove the nightmare into the story are just so absolutely fantastic and masterful. Going back it puts the entire story into a different perspective and really shows Luna's struggle through her immortality and continuous loss.
She has any number of lovers, each as important, but with an unhealthy fixation on reliving the past, perfectly shown in contrast who Celestia who can look into the past but not be overcome by it.
Ugh, honestly the prose and construction of this story are just so positively wonderful. The final payoff of Luna not succumbing to her desire due to her own insecurity and warped few of her past relationships was just absolutely tragically poetic and I couldn't think of a better writning of this story playing out.
Absolutely wonderful read Bike.
There are a lot of stories about unattainable love. There are a lot of fics about immortality angst. This is better than its individual parts.
Sometimes, it can be hard to get over a breakup, or even just a crush that doesn’t work out. Some hurt more than others for completely arbitrary reasons.
And the capstone that hold its all together is centering it around the question; is it love if you only love someone because they remind you of someone else?
I think most people would answer no. It skeeves me out, personally. I cannot imagine anyone describing it as true love.
But I cannot imagine anyone describing true love in a pithy sentence. A reason to love someone is a reason to love someone. Wegenerally accept that there are better reasons than others. If the thing you love most about someone is their body, most people would consider that a bad reason to marry them, for example.
Though some reasons are better than others, I don’t think there is a correct reason. If I could tell you the meaning of love in a paragraph or two, then we wouldn't need countless stories untangling its messy reality.
No one has ever lived for a thousand years, but people get older as we age. (Shocking, I know.) And as I get older, I find that things become less new to me. Nowadays, most things remind me of something else, which I can only imagine will get worse as time goes on.
It would be nice if there were a couple paragraphs that I could read that would make all these feelings make sense. But if history has taught us anything, the solutions to dealing with love and aging are not that simple.
This is a story that reminds me why I love stories.
I don’t know what else to say.
10937680
the man in the movie you described sounds awful! and i do not wish to portray Luna or Coco that way. but i m glad to hear that you thought the story worked despite not being what you expected. and the wish to be remembered is definitely relatable. sadly there are no immortal Alicorn Princesses in real life to make such an intimate mark on, and the dry history books are the best-case scenario for us.
10944078
thank you so much for the beautiful comment otter, i am really touched by this praise. i wanted to weave in the themes throughout the piece, not just have them present at the climax, and i am very glad that this was seen and appreciated. the difference between the two Sisters is also something i wanted to emphasize, following the canon's depiction of Celestia as otherworldly and aloof and Luna as angsty and emotional, but deepening both (and it goes deeper than that!). and the compliments on the prose really mean a lot coming from you.
and yes, with the pieces i set up there was not going to be an ending where luna accepts coco's offer, at least, not a happy one. luna's situation is indeed very much intended to be tragically poetic, and i'm really happy that resonated. i guess i write those a lot in my romances!
thank you for reading it.
Congratulations, your story has been reviewed!
Come on down and see the review here.
10886763
oh yes, and that relative lack of focus on Coco is thematic, thus good.
and i just could not resist the VA joke
10886769
that passage did take some refining, and is one of my favorites as well, so i'm glad it resonated. and i know you write a fantastic Celestia and Luna, so hearing that you were impressed by my depiction really means a lot, thank you! i do have a very specific alicorn headcanon, and worry sometimes that because of that i twist the canon alicorns into something unrecognizable.
and the last line's quite an anvil, isn't it? i do rely on those it seems!
10886775
thank you! this is definitely the part nearest and dearest to me, the true thesis of the entire work. if i can only communicate that tension and unease and horror Luna feels, i would have done my job.
10886785
and as before, this coming from a professional Luna enjoyer and depicter makes your words all the more meaningful to me. the image of the story is very vivid and alive in my head, and i'm glad that at least for you i managed to share that feeling. thank you so much for reading, and sharing your thoughts.