Restarting
Twilight fiddled away at dozens of pieces of paper and parchment, writing and working on theories while Luna worked on the floating piece of night sky hovering above the mirror of water.
"I could put this here instead," Luna thought aloud. She dragged her hoof across the cloud expanse, creating a trace of red, purple, and white. "Place this here as well."
Sitting next to Twilight's table were multiple stacks of paper as tall as Celestia, and the mare only added to it. It had been a week since Luna had taken her in and done whatever she could to help the unicorn readjust to her current predicament and what she had just gone through. The mare had been very apathetic to everything until Luna forced her to do something. While not the best approach, it reignited Twilight's brain, but she was too invested in her ideas to stop now.
The mare peered over toward Luna's location, dipped her quill in ink and started scribbling away at her sheet of paper. "I wonder if I could pull the princess from beyond the veil and recreate her body here?" the mare thought quietly to herself. "Gah!"
Twilight dropped her quill and grabbed the top of her head. Luna had just smacked it with the arm of her wing. "I told you to stop doing that," the alicorn chastised. "Just because I'm over there doesn't mean I can't hear you."
"Then I just won't say anything," Twilight pouted.
"I can still see you," Luna specified as she burned the sheet of paper in her magic.
Luna tolerated Spike's presence thanks to it being Twilight's only source of mental comfort for reasons that seemed to escape her and everypony, but she would not tolerate the unicorn raising more undead, let alone attempting to resurrect her sister a second time. There was nothing left of her anyways, and, considering Twilight's mental state, it was obvious that she would likely cause a catastrophe worse than when she resurrected Celestia's body. This was a reoccurring event with Twilight where she would either sneak off somewhere to try and find ways to resurrect Celestia again or do it in plain sight when she thought Luna was occupied. After all, one isn't doing anything wrong if they act 'natural' in plain sight.
The alicorn eyed Twilight. "Have you been eating?" she asked her.
The mare cleared her throat and shied away. "Yes?"
Luna shook her head. "So you haven't, but you have been gaining weight," she realized. "Better that you start with eating a bit instead of nothing at all, I suppose, but don't make me force-feed you like the hippogriffs do to tuna." She leaned in close to Twilight, unsettling her. "You're not a tuna, are you?"
"No!"
"Good. Then eat regularly. You need to strengthen yourself properly," Luna ordered her.
"But I have so much to write, still. The ideas keep coming."
Luna shrugged. "Then eat while you're writing. There's nothing stopping you, and you have magic to hold up your food or your quill. I do it while working on the night sky," the mare explained. "It's not that hard."
"But I'll dirty my papers if I do that," Twilight protested.
"A bit of dirt on paper is not something that we can't clean with our magic, especially with somepony as meticulous as you are."
Twilight looked at her sheets and then back to Luna. "But Princess Celestia told me that using our magic for something so frivolous would make us overly dependent on spells and leave us exhausted when we actually need it."
Luna nodded, pleasantly surprised. "So my sister really was a good teacher. I'm shocked."
"Hey!"
"Don't take it personally," the alicorn teased. "She always had a tough time teaching anypony anything when I was...not imprisoned." She cleared her throat." Anyways, I didn't say that you should use your magic to do everything," Luna explained. "You can still use it when you try to clean things you consider extremely important. It's not a waste of magic then, now is it?" the mare asked with a raised brow.
Twilight hummed pensively. "No. I suppose not," she mumbled. "But are you sure? What if Princess Celestia was here? I don't know if s--"
Luna put a hoof to the unicorn's mouth, shutting her up. "You need to learn to think for yourself at some point, Twilight? Heeding the warnings of teachers and elders is always important, especially when they've lived through similar 'catastrophes' in a given situation, but you still need your own context to formulate." She removed her hoof, letting Twilight wipe her lips clean. "Make your own decisions. No pony can make them for you." She grabbed one of Twilight's notes from a pile and purposefully coated it in mud, horrifying the observing unicorn. "What will you do now?"
Twilight stammered, shocked at what Luna had done. "B-b-but why?! I-How could you?!"
"Will you need your magic later or can you afford to expend a bit of it now?" Luna asked.
The unicorn's eyes shook as the stress of the decision was eating her away. She wanted to listen to Luna and make her own decision, but what if Princess Celestia didn't approve? What if?
The alicorn leaned down to Twilight and spoke softly. "My sister isn't here anymore, Twilight," Luna insisted. "You have to make the decision soon or your notes will be lost forever."
Twilight shut her eyes tightly and clenched her teeth before finally pooling magic into her horn and coating the stained note with it. In just a small flash of light, the paper finally found itself fully clean of any and all mud and liquid, giving her back her notes on parasitical fungus and how their roots could serve to replace lost or damaged nerves. The unicorn hugged it close to her body.
"See? That wasn't so hard," Luna added.
"To you it wasn't," Twilight grumbled. "You weren't the one struggling to decide with something so valuable to you in hoof."
The alicorn shrugged. "And yet I am certain that you've had to make decisions like this on your own to further your knowledge of necromancy."
Twilight opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came. "Maybe," she finally managed to blurt out.
Luna laughed and returned to her night sky projection and continued expanding on her craft, leaving Twilight to ruminate on what she was just told.
The days went by, and Twilight became comfortable enough to send letters to her brother and step-sister. The first few letters inquired about Twilight's well-being and how Luna was behaving which eventually shifted to asking about how the Crystal Empire was doing since Spike tore it up, to Flurry's wellbeing and development. Things were starting to go well for the outside world as everyone slowly but surely recovered from the Green Sun, and almost everyone had now become aware of the existence of spirits and other crazy entities roaming the world unseen.
One of Luna's visits to the Saddle Arabian palace gave her the knowledge that ghost hunters and spirit slayers have started appearing in the country and likely in Equestria where the event occurred. Most were con artists taking advantage of the newborn fears of the people to make a quick buck, but a few others had successfully caught some rather terrifying creatures. Knowing Twilight's experience with the dead, Luna wanted to ask her for her expertise, but letting the mare work on her theories was enough for now. Any further stimulation might have her devolve into trying to bring Celestia back, as always.
There was always the risk, and with Twilight's progress, no matter how mediocre given the span of time, it was too early to expose her to the world again, especially with everypony now acknowledging the existence of spirits everywhere rather than them being the pure and distinct creations of necromancers. Luna pondered this fact and grumbled to herself. While she knew nothing of the dead, she knew that messing with them and antagonizing the larger and more dangerous ones could lead to severe issues, even if she didn't know what they were. Attack a bee hive and the bees get mad. Attack their queen and the bees want your death. What happens with spirits? Is there a balance with all of them or was there something else involved?
The world had changed once when Celestia was killed, and it had once again changed indirectly because of her again. Luna found it somewhat ironic that she was the one imprisoned in the moon but her sister had almost caused the destruction of everything both directly and indirectly. Regardless of these thoughts, Luna didn't like the idea of Twilight staying cooped up in her cave, no matter how beautiful and illuminated it was. A mare her age needed to go outside and get fresh air, but every time Luna suggested it, Twilight would open a tiny portal to the outside world and get her 'fresh air' from there while continuing her work.
"I wonder if I shouldn't have told her that she can expend her magic in any capacity," Luna regretted.
Lowering herself to the ground near the dilapidated shack, the alicorn stepped on the teleportation rune and activated it, sending her back into her cave where Twilight was now regrouping and reorganizing all of her notes. She would give her newly joined books to Spike who set them on a newly built shelf of white stone the Lugalik had gifted Twilight indirectly for sharing her theories and studies into medicine. Although he cared not for Twilight, he found a modicum of respect for the mare through Princess Luna and decided that he could contribute to her betterment by gifting her things she might require instead of just granting them to the alicorn at her request. It was a win-win situation for the two in a way, and the Lugalik thought it amusing to mock the current Equestria with their scientific and artistic advancements. It seemed easy for the alicorn to bring up his ego over such things rather than to goad him into showing off his military since that would aggravate the other nations around, and Saddle Arabia was already treading a thin line thanks to the envy of their position as a center for trade.
Three more weeks had passed since the Green Sun, and the alicorn of the night had a new gift in tow for the studious mare.
"Twilight, I've brought new maps," Luna shouted. She pulled seven maps from the holder hanging off her right side and let Twilight gluttonously grab them and look them over.
Luna looked to the side, seeing the enormous collection of old maps that the unicorn had collected over the years. She had confiscated the medallions Twilight held when she arrived unconscious, but, with the progress the unicorn had made, allowed her to teleport back to her home. Shining and the soldiers had left everything as they had found it, preferring to let everything disappear for good rather than take it with them or destroy it all.
While the alicorn was disgusted at the state that Twilight lived in, she made sure the unicorn focused only on taking back all of her notes and the maps she had collected, leaving behind all of her scientific equipment. The Lugalik promised to give her brand new and much cleaner ones if she continued to provide him with her research, to which Twilight excitedly agreed.
Luna, however, was completely confused as to how a recluse had acquired all of this. Even if Twilight interacted with the 'underbelly' of society, the maps she had acquired were all so bizarrely old and well taken care of, to an extent. Maps that held secrets that modern ones didn't, things that had been forgotten or simply never known, and worst of all: A couple of the maps were older than Luna herself. They should have crumbled to dust long ago, but there they stood in their wrinkled, aged beauty. When asking Twilight about where she got them, all Twilight would say was 'I found them'. She either refused or simply couldn't elaborate where they came from, and bringing in some of these very old maps to the cartographers at the palace left them all lost. They recognized some bits of Equestrian terrain, but the rest was completely unknown to them. The oldest of the lots was almost three thousand years old, leaving even the oldest and most experienced cartographers confused as to how they were still solid enough to touch and not crumble into dust.
There were more mysteries to Twilight Sparkle than Luna initially thought, and the alicorn knew she would likely learn about them as time went on. There was no reason to hurry. However, today was different, especially when the alicorn noticed Twilight seem lost when looking at two of the maps.
"I don't recognize any of this," the mare said.
"You shouldn't," Luna replied with a smile. "These are maps from far, far to the east."
Twilight looked up at Luna with awe then peered behind her, looking in the wrong direction. "What? But...isn't it just the lands of the griffins and hippogriffs?"
"And minotaurs, but no. I'm not talking about the known lands," Luna specified. "We are going on a trip for exploration. We're going to see what is over there, if anything," she said with a grin. "Who knows what kind of creatures there are over there? The knowledge? The books?"
Twilight's ears perked up at the last word. "Hmmm. I...I'm not sure," she said, hesitantly. The mare looked back at her notes and rescued maps, worried.
"You needn't worry, Twilight. No pony can enter this place without my express permission. Everything is safe, and we will be bringing Spike, so you needn't fret either."
Twilight looked up at Luna holding a wing next to her and gulped. Her heart was beating a mile a minute, and her head felt constricted.
"Do it. What is there to lose?" a voice told the unicorn. "There's more necromantic knowledge to be found in such a place if it exists!"
Twilight shook her head, chasing the voice away. She looked at Luna with a weak smile. "Okay."
Luna smiled in return and led Twilight to the teleportation rune to lead them outside. They would need to get supplies from the Lugalik financing this 'expedition'. The alicorn giggled internally. Thanks to the grapevine, she knew that there was an exorbitant amount of 'loyalists" still in Equestria, and they had learned of Luna's existence. Even if she was the mare in the moon, they still trusted the sister of Celestia over the usurpers. They were just waiting for her to make the call to go to a new land. There were plenty of territories in the world that had not been claimed by anyone yet thanks to the time and resources it would take to establish a new home and country, or even simply extend territory.
For now, however, Luna just wanted to explore with Twilight and continue to help her grow and recover. As they teleported outside, they both grimaced from the sudden light hitting their eyes.
Twilight shielded herself and moved away. "So bright!" she complained.
Luna recovered faster and realized that the color was off. The sun was far 'cleaner' than it had been before, and the warmth it gave off despite the desert environment was soft and just warm enough to feel comfy while cool breezes regularly buffeted the landscape.
"A white sun," the alicorn realized with a smile.
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This story definitely begs for a sequel. Who knows, maybe it will be one where the loyalists and perhaps the Element Bearers will make the exodus to new lands to found a new nation.
And hopefully Twilight will finally grow into a fully independent mare who is self-reliant.
11863920
sequel? :v
The voice is still inside her head? That's interesting.
Also this story is over!? Noooooooo!
I hope to see a sequel one day, kind interesting how the story just kinda ends on a cliffhanger, opens alot of new ideas, maybe a story where Twilight now goes on new adventures with Luna.
I also ask for a sequel if permitted.
While the story was great and it's ending was good. Twilight's story clearly has not finished yet, and I like seeing it go on. As, there is always more to death, there is always more to learn.
Either way, good luck Lady Sparkle & may magic be on your side.
It was fun to read, and I hope there's a sequel. ^^ 👍
I am totally satisfied with this story, the ending is a bit open but I am calm knowing that Twilight is with someone who can guide her.
i just wanna say, this is some crazy output bro. you all good after this? i'd be tapped out if i was writing this much daily
other than this, very good work, i'm always up for necromancer fiction
11864606
Still good to go!
Pros:
Creative premis that was unique to other fanfictions, most characters weren't flat and coppy paste, had an open ending that enspires wonder and creativity, and made sense most of the time.
Cons:
Could have been written better(the flow of sentences, dialog, pacing, etc...), had a rough start(supper hard to get right),
Result:
This was a pretty fun story! It's not the best I've read on the sight, but it had it's charm and a main character/story line i could invest in. In the end I enjoyed reading this tale of what if and will look forward to more if you have any extra ideas floating around in your brain cage! Have an awesome day!
amazing story