Daring Do writes fictional stories about the hero she wants to be. She wishes she had the courage to confront villains and curses but the truth is she’s spent her whole life running from both. She studies heroes of the past so she can try to be like them, but when she discovers the phylactery of Queen Somnambula she learns she’s not the only one to fictionalize history and that some heroes are better left unmet.
All of my stories share a common cannon that splits after season 2. The official stories of The Pillars of Equestria exist but the reality is much different.
This is one of the 50 or so stories that has been kicking around on my hard drive for a while. I had to curtail it significantly to meet the word count of the Pillars Shipping contest and will add a few chapters once the contest is over. This expands greatly, and makes some minor retcons to Hunter and Prey.
Once again, my deepest thanks go to Awalex for providing the artwork. Check out his page for some amazing stuff.
I’ve needed to cut a lot of meat off the story to fit the word count, including much of Somnambula’s character development. Basically think Azula from ATLA. I originally hated how they made her ‘go crazy’ at the finale. Later I came to appreciate Azula as an abused child who the only time she ever heard she was loved was from a hallucination in the mirror but I don’t think ATLA developed that enough before her sudden break to justify it, hence an effort to redo that angle properly with Somnambula. (Jeopardy and Welkin were initially going to reflect Tai Lee and Mai but that idea got abandoned almost instantly.)
Sombra said that he loved her. She knew that she loved him. Deep down she knows he lied, but pretending to love her was more than anyone else ever did and she chooses to delude herself into thinking it’s real rather than give into despair. She could have tolerated her husband loving other mares but watching him with Jeopardy showed for the first time real love looked like, proving his ‘love’ for Somnambula was only political and sexual.
Fortunately she was the first phylactery to be found and if she finds everyone else and arranges his restoration then he’ll finally love her like he does Jeopardy... right? Maybe?? PLEASE!?!?
Fun facts: Firelord Ozai and King Sombra were played by the same voice actor.A general note that in this age Equestria was a federation of independent city-states, warfare was more common with more stallions dying in war than mares made polygamy more normal among royalty. Marriages were often political.
Stories for all the other pillars will be in in the extended version.
Yes, that first candidate was Sunset Shimmer. She exists in my cannon but the porthole to Canterlot High does not.
Sorry Welkin but I just don’t have the word count to give you a proper home right now; I guess you should be used to that after your parents gave you up as a child. Your contributions to this story will be great, though mostly unrecorded, just like your contributions to The Crystal Empire. Here’s a bottle for you to crawl into, I’d ask you to control yourself but we both know that’s not going to happen.
Insert girls camping trip here. Bonding time with backstories for Somnambula and Welkin who show off their powers to make Daring feeling a bit braver.
Thanks for the submission! We look forward to reading this piece and wish you best of luck in judging!
10931636
Wait Mark Hamill voiced Sombra?
10932935
I was going off a facebook post but I just checked to be sure. Sadly no, Sombra was by someone called Jim Miller.
Sorry.
This definitely had a ton to unpack and was a super loaded story. I think that the use of Daring Do as a bridge between past and present was a very interesting concept, and the sort of duality throughout the story was a neat idea. I think though that this is a bit too loaded and had a ton to unpack. It may have been more clear to readers who keep up with the context of the series but as a standalone story a lot feels confusing and unexplained. I also had a hard time keeping track of which chracters were which and why they were relevent, in addition the scenes were a bit too jumpy and hard to follow. This was a bit difficult to parse out, but there were some very interesting ideas at play! Thank you for participating!
10958956
I think I need about 25k words to really tell this story well.
That’s a bunch of bullshit
aww, this is awesome! :)
10931636
oh dear... ohohohoho, you just opened a floodgate for me.
11059089
Sadly not. I heard that on FB so put it in but when Brosif 1357 commented I checked it and found it false which is why I crossed it out. That said Sombulanna's background and personality are definitely similar to Azula.
11059283
:( aww.
Well, either way- their voices are hot.