Things Change
The door to the Golden Oaks Library burst inwards with a crash that sent Spike vaulting over the armrest of the chair in which he had been sitting. The dark shape of one of Equestria’s gods strode into the reading room and the wind following her blew out all of the candles and lamps. Indigo fur faded into the darkness flooding into the previously warm and bright space, leaving only her lightning-filled eyes floating mid-air. “Twilight Sparkle, I demand an audience with thee!” the goddess shouted with her ‘Canterlot voice.’
For several moments the only answer was the plonk and tinkle of an over-sized snack bowl’s worth of gems raining down around her. Luna cleared her throat and then tried again at a more normal volume. “Um, Twilight? Are you within? I really do need to speak with thee.”
The juvenile dragon poked his head out from his hiding place. “Luna? What are you doing here?”
“I am here to have a confrontation with Twilight. There are many things I must say to her,” the divine mare answered. Luna was being drawn off-balance by the utter lack of dramatic confrontation. She had played the argument out in her head dozens of times but had never planned for having to talk to Spike.
Anger creased the little face, “ You've done enough to her Luna, go away.”
Over the last few months of her and Twilight's relationship Luna had grown close to the dragon whelp. More often than not, the young dragon would take her side in the two mare's quarrels. His utter dismissal hurt, badly. “But she was, I haven’t, I need to point out her errors. I must tell her how she hurt me.”
At this, Spike’s eyebrow scales rose to nearly the top of his head. He stepped out from behind the dubious protection of the furniture and stalked towards the alicorn. “Don’t you dare!” he fumed poking the mare in her chest with a finger.
Luna took a step back in the face of the dragon’s rage. “But, wait, I-”
“No. You don’t get to. She cried for hours after you broke up and I won’t let you hurt her like that again!”
“After what I did? She was the-”
“No, Luna; I don’t care!” the dragon interrupted. "I like you Luna but I love Twilight. She might be a pony but she's the closest thing I'll ever have to a mom and you hurt her." He stalked the retreating mare, green fire leaking from his lips. "You hurt my mom, Luna, and I won't let you hurt her again."
Luna's haunches were pressed against the wall now, having backed up as far as she could. "But I-"
"No. If, if, she ever chooses to talk to you again, it’ll be on her terms. So, go away and stop sending her letter after letter. She hasn’t read any of them and sending more is just a waste of paper.” To emphasize his last point, Spike pointed to the pile of unopened scrolls, stacked like cord-wood next to the fireplace.
Luna’s eyes followed Spike’s motion and saw that each scroll bore her personal seal and remembered her instructions to her staff. “Oh no.” she said, encapsulating her sudden dread within the short sentence. Spike was still glaring at her but she stepped over the small reptile. She approached the pile of letters as if they were an explosive device and carefully grasped one in her aura and broke the seal.
Luna’s eyes scanned the document, her visage became progressively more grim. As soon as she finished the first, she read the next, and the next, and the next. She was dimly aware that Spike had stopped staring daggers at her, puzzled by her intense scrutiny of letters he had mistakenly believed were from her and not to her.
As she finished the last of the letters, she prayed: “Father, Mother, and all the Fates. Please let this be an error.” Shaking herself free of the horror playing out behind her eyes, she noticed the drake staring at her. His expression was an inscrutable mix of contradictory emotions. “Spike, I have to go. There is an emergency back in Canterlot that I must attend to. Please tell Twilight that....Tell her...”
The goddess’s mind flashed to the myriad scenes of Twilight’s disappointment during their relationship. Again and again, ‘emergencies’ had cropped up to ruin their evenings. She let out a shuddering breath and tried again, “Tell her nothing, I was never here,” she said to Spike while silently vowing to return as soon as possible to regain her love. “And please burn the letters, don’t read them or let anyone else do so. I ask you to do this as your Princess, not as a friend nor as...whatever me and Twilight are...were. Will you do this?”
Spike nodded, too puzzled for words.
“Thank you,” Luna looked around the interior of the library, is if trying to memorize the contours of this place. Turning back to Spike she simply said, “Fare thee well,” and then left via the abused door.
After Luna was gone, Spike crouched next to the fireplace and stacked the letters, neatly, into a pile. He kept his oath to the princess, resisting the terrible urge to read whatever had disturbed her so. But as the letters crackled and burned underneath his breath, one of the letters curled open. Before the green fire consumed the paper he inadvertently read a single word: “Discord.”
Alone in the dark, the boy used his dragonfire to re-ignite the candles and lamps. The light they now cast felt inexplicably thinner and weak.
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Eventually the waiting became too much for the filly. “Mister Grogar, why are we just standing here?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Because she’s late,” the great ram answered, enigmatically.
The filly looked up at her mentor with suspicion. At first, Grogar had asked her to relate every detail of her encounters with the ghosts but she had finished her recounting over an hour ago. Since then they had been sitting in silence, except for the occasional yawn from the filly. The full moon was high in the sky but falling into the west, indicating that midnight had already come and gone. Losing patience with the the goat’s laconic tendencies she prompted him again for an answer that actually conveyed information. “Who’s late?”
“Twilight Sparkle,” was the half-whispered answer.
Now Apple Bloom was truly puzzled. “Didn’t you tell her that she couldn’t come, that ‘this magic wasn’t for her to know’?”
“Exactly,” was his answer.
At first, the filly pursed her lips in frustration, growing angry at the god’s explanation. Before she lost her temper, however, she paused and took a breath. She thought, really thought, about what Grogar had said and what she knew about her sister’s friend. Suddenly, it dawned on her: by refusing the mare Grogar had turned whatever lesson he had in mind for her into mysterious forbidden lore and therefore irresistible to the unicorn scholar. “Oooooh,” she said as things became clear.
Grogar’s reply to her was a wry smile. Within a few minutes there was a sound from the grassland behind them, as if a mare totally lacking any training in outdoors stealth was trying to sneak through the tall grass. “Finally. Miss Sparkle, if you would be so kind as to stop skulking about and come over here?”
Twilight stumbled as she passed through the last foot of dense bluestem. Her legs wobbled and pinwheeled as she fought to regain her balance. She ended up on her rump a few meters away from them by an awkward combination of falling and sitting that left her dignity in tatters. “Um, I thought...um, that I heard something. I mean, somepony calling for help and-”
“Jeeze Twilight, even my sister’s a better liar than that,” Apple Bloom interrupted, putting the half-formed lie out of its misery.
Twilight had several choice replies regarding Applejack’s ability to deceive fighting to exit her mouth. She managed to keep her promise to demur on that subject, barely, but unable to reply she just sat there, mouth resolutely closed.
Judging by Grogar’s toothy smile, he was apparently quite amused by their exchange. “If you were much later, we would have had to start without you.”
“Late?” the mare asked, “You told me not to come.”
Again Grogar answered using only an eyebrow. Apple Bloom began to wonder if those particular facial muscles ever got tired.
Twilight regained her feet and walked slowly over to join them. The purple mare was muttering petulantly to herself. The only words the filly could make out were “stupid gods’ and “atheism.”
After Twilight had joined them Grogar addressed her. “I am given to understand that you have extensively studied Starswirl the Bearded’s catalog of spells.”
The choice of topic immediately drew the muttering unicorn back out of her surliness. “What? Er, yes. Yes I have. Why?”
“There is a particular spell of his I need you to cast. I cannot do so despite having helped him develop it,” was Grogar’s answer.
“You expect me to believe that you helped Starswirl the-”
“Our kinds were not in conflict until after the founding of Equestria,” Grogar interrupted.
“But even with that being true, the chances that you and he were personally acquainted are simply astronomical!” Twilight protested while her irritation at being constantly interrupted built.
The ram gave a rumbling sigh and then continued, “I don’t care if you believe me or not. I need you to cast Starswirl’s Amniomorphic Spell.”
“Why in Celestia’s name do you need me to change you into a lamb?” Twilight demanded.
Grogar didn’t answer her, instead he just sat there quietly waiting for Twilight to catch on. Eventually, Twilight’s gaze fell on the yellow filly sitting quietly besides the ram. The unicorn’s eyes widened as she said, “Oooooh.”
Grogar privately cursed his lack of eyes to properly roll. “If you can manage casting it twice, you may come along.”
“I...I,” the mare swallowed, “I think I can but the spell needs some very specific equipment: Candles, chalk, incense, bells-”
“I promise,” the ram interrupted, “All you really need to make this work are the bells.”
“I suppose that is possible but where am I going to get bells tuned to exactly the...”
Twilight trailed off as Grogar parted the fur covering his chest exposing a pair of criss-crossing bandoliers of some sort. They were dyed a dingy shade of red and appeared to be made of some creature’s preserved skin (leather; her mind insisted on the proper term even while shuddering in horror at the thought). Attached to each was a series of bells ranging in size, material, and presumably tuning as well. The god grasped one with the toes of his cloven hooves and removed it from the strap. The bell was placed on the ground before the mare and two others quickly followed.
“I think you’ll find these sufficient to the task,” said Grogar.
Twilight looked down at the simple brass bells as if they were poisonous. She was reminded of what Grogar’s bells had done to Luna back in Tartarus (she felt a pang in her heart from just thinking her name). She then thought about the costume she had worn a year ago for Nightmare Night. Hadn’t Luna (another pang) complimented her on the outfit’s accuracy, specifically the series of round, brass bells attached to the brim of the hat and the hem of the cloak? Bells that looked very much like the ones Grogar wore. Twilight felt nauseated as she was forced to incorporate this evidence of collaboration into the idealized image of Starswirl she had developed during a decade of hero-worship.
The mare grit her teeth and hefted the psychically filthy bells in her aura. “Ok everyone, hang onto your hats,” she warned as magic began to gather around them. As the magenta field took shape around both Twilight and Apple Bloom, the bells began to ring. Their tuning almost made a chord but the third note was half a note too low and the dissonance made Apple Bloom’s ears buzz.
The filly glanced over to her mentor and asked, “Didn’t Twilight magically exhaust herself just twelve hours ago?”
“Thirteen, and don’t remind her unless you want to end up a llama,” was Grogar’s hushed answer.
“What’s a ‘yamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa’?!?” Apple Bloom’s question was pulled into a strange braying bleat as her body stretched and squished into a new, strange shape. She felt like a mis-strung guitar, with all of her bits in the wrong place. Out of one eye (she couldn’t bring both to bear on the same point) she saw Twilight undergo, presumably, the same sort of transformation. It looked disgusting and painful but the unicorn both finished the spell and managed to remain standing - if panting and wobbling.
Twilight’s mane was gone, as well as the long hair of her tail. She was the same violet color as before but her sleek coat had been replaced by fluffy wool. The mare (the ewe, Apple Bloom mentally corrected) was slightly shorter than before with a stocky body and thin spindly legs that ended in cloven hooves. While Twilight’s new face was definitely reminiscent of her old, pony one, the sheepish features would have rendered her a stranger if the filly hadn’t already known it was her. It was very, very weird and Apple Bloom assumed that she was equally transformed and alien.
“Well, just look at the two of you. Simply adorable,” the great ram said with a genuine smile.
The lamb and the ewe turned and glared at him as one. Twilight said, “Baaaaaah,” and then covered her mouth in surprise.
Grogar snorted in suppressed laughter, “I’m sure you’ll get the hang of talking like this soon enough.”
Apple Bloom replied with a testy but high-pitched, “Baaaah!”
Grogar desperately fought against a giggling fit.
Twilight tried again with slightly more success, “Baaaaaaastaaaaard!”
In response Grogar fell over, entirely losing himself to belly-shaking guffaws.
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Luna landed with near silence on the royal balcony. “A royal balcony,” she mentally corrected as it wasn’t her royal balcony. Technically, she didn’t have any legal right to be here. As a diarchy, the two Equestrian princesses each wielded equivalent executive power everywhere within the kingdom and absolute power within their respective private chambers. As a goddess, by entering her sister’s chambers uninvited she placed herself at Celestia’s mercy. As a sister, she was barging into her older sibling’s private space; something she never did lightly. Luna held her breath and nosed her way through the drapes demarking the boundary of her sister’s private realm.
The first thing the lunar mare noticed was the empty bed. At this hour, her diurnal sister should be fast asleep and the crisply made bed was worrisome. Luna’s eyes rapidly adjusted to the near-absolute darkness within the shrouded room and piles and piles of books scattered about the apartment came into view. Hundreds of tomes, many ancient and unique, were scattered about like so much flotsam.
Celestia’s respect for the written word was well known and bordered on the religious. Seeing the state of the literally irreplaceable tomes sent a shiver of fear through Luna's shoulders. They lay open, often with other books stacked haphazardly upon them, breaking their spines. Some of the letters that had been waiting for her at Twilight's had related rumors of madness. This tableau did nothing to assuage her fears.
Luna swallowed, fear causing the fur on her shoulders and croup to stand on end. Her wings were spread in a fight-or-flight posture as she wended her way through the literary obstacle course. As she passed the books she glanced at the open texts at random. She saw books on astronomy, prophecy, destiny, Tartarus, the Fates, Marks, others postulating about the nature of alicorns, others about the nature of draconequus, and still more about the nature of the pony soul. It was a worryingly esoteric collection for her sister to be reading.
A faint and flickering light spilled out from under the doorway leading to her sister’s study. With the faintest silver glow, the goddess of the night inched open the door and moved an eye into the gap. She saw that the detritus of her sister’s research continued into this second and much larger room. "The entire restricted wing of the archives must be here," she thought to herself. Her sister’s white bulk was hunched over her desk, a single candle guttering and smoking beside her. Instead of the smooth aetheral flowing mane Luna had grown used to seeing on her sibling, Celestia’s mane looked like each of the dawn-colors were fighting for supremacy. The goddess’ normally folded wings were half-spread, furling and unfurling in agitation.
Luna’s heart ached at the sight of her sister’s state. “In some ways, Twilight is so much like her,” she thought to herself while comparing the current scene to the frantic studying binges to which her love (former love, she scolded herself) occasionally lost herself.
“Come in sister,” Celestia said without turning around. Her normally clear alto voice sounded rough and strained.
Luna closed her eyes and grimaced at being caught out. Not having any other option, the mare opened the door the rest of the way, causing an avalanche of yet more discarded books. Wincing at the noise, Luna tip-hoofed the rest of the way to her sister’s desk.
Celesta looked like a broken mare; bags hung underneath red, raw eyes and her pure-white coat was mottled with stains from dust and ink. Salt from uncounted tears, long dried, sparkled on the goddess’ cheeks. Luna’s gaze was torn from this sight by the black-bound tome sitting closed on the desk before the princess. Luna immediately recognized the book, it was Starswirl’s last journal and spellbook. It bore no title, only an image of the long-dead mage’s Mark on the cover. The book had no title but for those who knew Starswirl back then knew what magic this book was supposed to contain: Apotheosis.
“Your spies are terrible if you just now found out about this,” the elder alicorn lightly chided.
“They aren’t spies and I was out of touch. This delay is no fault of theirs,” was the nearly automatic rebuttal. “Why is that here?” Luna asked her sister. Starswirl had been a keen student, a fast friend, and the greatest sorcerer the unicorn race had ever produced. The spell in that book had killed him.
“I’m going to give it to Twilight,” Celestia said as if pronouncing the mare’s death-sentence was simply what one did on a Friday night.
“No, Tia, you can’t. She'll try to cast it. It'll kill her." Luna’s heart felt as if it had been replaced by frozen lead.
“That doesn't matter, she's already dead.”
“What are you talking about,” Luna asked, confused and alarmed in equal measure.
"Tartarus, Luna. I'm talking about what happened to her in Tartarus."
"Where she almost died?" Luna asked.
"No," Celestia's voice cracked on that short word. "She didn't almost die, Luna. She really, truly died that day."
"So? She got better. This is Twilight we are talking about, doing the impossible is her hobby."
"We may love her, Luna, but we aren't the only gods in this world. The Fates cut her thread that day and yet she walks."
Luna felt the blood drain from her face. "One did not cheat the Fates," she remembered the adage told to her by her their own mother.
Celestia acknowledged her sister's terror, "Yes, exactly."
"There has to be something we can do," Luna said.
Celestia, tears beginning once again, gestured to the black tome.
"Something else," Luna growled. “Starswirl tried this and it killed him,”
“She’s not Starswirl,” her sister rebutted.
“No, she’s not. He had nearly five decades more experience than her,” Luna struggled to contain her panic.
“She’s nearly mastered the magic of friendship,” Celestia countered.
“He had actually mastered the magic of conjuration! Please, think about this!” Luna was now so agitated she was shouting.
“Because of her, the world is changing.” Celestia closed her eyes and shook her head, as if clearing cobwebs. “No, that’s not right. The world is crying out for change. It wants change. It needs change. It must change.” Fresh tears overran their dam and began to dissolve the salt on Celestia’s face, the divine mare took no action to stay their course and they fell, dripping to the wood of her desk. The hollow sound of their impact was the only noise for several minutes
“You can’t do this.” said Luna, her voice shaking from the shock of seeing her steadfast sister in such a state. "I won't let you."
Celestia made a noise that may have started as a laugh but changed immediately into a sob. “I have another asset, one that Starswirl didn’t have. I’m freeing Discord.”
“So I heard. I can’t let you do that either,” said Luna.
“The only way to save her is to change the world and her fate along with it. Only by cutting the thread at her end can we free her from the Fates."
“And how did you come to this realization?” Luna asked dreading the answer.
“I’ve been speaking with him,” her sister confirmed. "As long as Discord is imprisoned, change is muted. The universe is too static for her to survive the transformation. Not unless we let him go.”
Luna broke eye contact with her sister, turning away from this twisted version of Celestia. “Sister, he is a consummate liar. His words are poison, you cannot trust them.
Celestia shook her head, “I’ve independently confirmed what I can. Being free certainly is to his advantage but I don’t think he’s lied to convince me.
“Have you forgotten what happened the last time he got loose? What about the wedding? I gave him an inch and I was almost trapped in Tartarus for all eternity. What about our mother?”
“He didn’t kill her, Luna, we did,” was her sister’s emotionless reply.
The words twisted in Luna’s gut like a knife. “That’s even worse. He caused our mother to commit suicide with the help of her daughters. It’s fiendish and horrible and unforgivable,” Luna’s words accelerated as she spoke, panic causing them to spill forth in a torrent.
“Have you ever asked him why he did that?” Celestia asked.
“No! Of course not! I’ve learned my lesson!” Luna was nose to nose with her sister now, shouting directly into the older god's face.
Celestia’s bloodshot eyes pinned Luna in place for several seconds, allowing the silence to build to acutely uncomfortable levels. Finally, the elder broke their staring contest and turned away. She then broke the silence with an apparent non-sequitur. “Luna, what is his name?”
“Discord,” Luna replied immediately.
“No. That’s what we call him. What does he call himself?”
Luna was still puzzled, “I don’t know. Being what he is, it could be anything. How about Banana-Blue-Five Steam-Engine the fourth? It’s as good a guess as anything.”
Celestia smirked, not a common expression for the alicorn. “He doesn’t have one,” she replied.
“How can somepony not have a name?” asked Luna, still unsure as to where this was going.
“He’s not a pony, he’s a force of nature. The closest thing to a name he has would be ‘I’ or ‘me’. He doesn’t think of himself as Discord, that is what we and our kind call him and it is an incomplete moniker.”
Luna had nothing to say in response, utterly confused.
“Luna, he is change. Like I am the sun, you are the moon, mother was harmony, and father is the sky. To define him only as ‘Discord’ would be the same as defining you only as Nightmare Moon.”
Luna, in wrath, slammed her hooves on the desktop. Wood splintered and cracked. “That isn’t the same thing at all! Don’t you dare conflate him with me!”
Celestia’s face was stony, “I’m sorry you can’t see the parallels, but that doesn't make them any less true.”
Desperate, the indigo alicorn lowered her head onto the desk before her sister, supplicating herself, begging. “Please, sister, there has to be another way.”
“I’ve looked, Luna, oh how I’ve looked.” Celestia sounded defeated.
“Sister, I love Twilight but there’s no way I can let you release that demon. I’m going to have to take this before parliament.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Celestia lips pulled down with regret as her horn began to glow with gathering power.
Luna only had time to gasp before Celestia’s golden aura washed over her.
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You have AJ as a tag character in this story, but it seems she is a background pony(albeit with a unique revelation)...Will there be more AJ later?
I love so much how this series increasingly works as an alternate version of the back half of s3 that ends up in a lot of the same places (but of course darker and more epic).
Interesting, very interesting.
I think Twilight going with Grogar is going to throw Celestia's plan into a tumble.
That Magnificent Bastard probably knows it too.
Magic of friendship means nothing if you can (potentially) bring yourself back from the dead.
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There'll be a bit more with her, towards the end. She at an awkward level, not as main a character as Twi, Luna, and AB, but more than Dash, Rare, or Sweetie. I'll have to think up some more scenes with her.
Wait, so Twilight has to die — again? Or is there a general misunderstanding by all parties involved except Grogar of exactly what happened to Twilight in Tartarus?
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Well, even in the episode (Magical Mystery Cure, if you really needed the hint
) she exploded in the library before she reappeared in the middle of the town.
I love how your kind of tying this in with season 3, it works amazingly and I absolutely love it. You have it the same and yet different, well played.
I do have one thing to say about you having Starswirl as Celestia and Luna's apprentice, I really like your idea but that was proved wrong in the Hearths Warming Eve episode when they said 'long before the rule of Celestia and Luna' and they had Clover the Clever, Starswirl's apprentice. But then again I really like your idea so keep it up, can't wait for the next chapter.
I think this is the best chapter you've made thus far for this story.
Maybe it was because Grogar finally came to town, but things have definitely picked up steam recently and the story feels better then, well, ever before -- perhaps it's also the presence of Celestia and Discord, beginning to give it that epic Titanomachy feel to it; whatever the case, this chapter was fantastic.
I love how influenced you were from the latest episode, as well as bringing up Starswirl's bells - it feels like a long time since you've made episode parallels like that, and having him be not quite what Twilight had in mind; I always saw Celestia as being the one she hero-worshipped, but it's true that he was apparently just as inspiring for her as well.
Luna...my gosh, did I miss her XD - busting in asking for a confrontation was just hilarious...however, it led to a confusing bit which was my only concern with this chapter:
...Maybe I'm not reading it right, but isn't Spike trying to say the exact opposite? That Luna has no right to cause Twilight to be affected like this? because it sounds like he's saying the exact opposite.
Seeing Twilight so torn up, was a surprise too...because while we knew she was missing her something awful, I never knew it was like this
then again, the letters...
Well, one of the reasons this chapter ends so well is because it's got a proper cliffhanger -- multiple things are going on, and Twilight is the center again in not-so-great way...you are bringing in Starswirl's deification spell (It's unknown exactly what his spell really was, given that I felt it wasn't the spell itself that changed Twilight so much that it was merely a final turning point that made Celestia feel she 'was ready'; it seems that Celestia herself was what changed Twilight in the canon), which makes me think all the times that Twilight has changed til now were just sneak-peaks...Indeed, she definitely seems vastly more prepared for what is to happen then in the canon, given she is an Alicorn in her dreams and Luna spoke of the fiery form she took on in Tartarus...of course, it's still a monumental change nonetheless, and given Twilight's stress as of late with Luna, I wonder how she'll cope.
That Cadence and Chrysalis were also responsible for bringing down Harmony was also a surprise...we know that Discord and her were intimate, but unless I forgot something, I'm surprised they both had a direct hand in what happened to her.
The Amniomorphic Spell.....honestly, I'm at a loss - it's been so long since I've seen the canon from beginning to end, but I can't remember such a spell from the show; though given the difficulty in something like that, I'm not surprised that it came from Starswirl....I'm curious why Twilight and AB would have to transform with regards to helping AB and her necromancy; in any case though, you've really come along way with him....in his own way, he actually reminds me of Discord though not as perverse - he may be stiff competition with Big Mac given his ability to communicate solely with his eyebrow
I was a bit confused about the letters, until I remembered right before Luna went to the Crystal Empire, giving me a "
" moment - I thought Luna sent her letters off-screen, until I realized it never happened at all; and Twilight, who's been caught up in so much lately, I honestly forgot her heartache back in Chapter 5....making use of little things this far back (though Erebus/Sombra has yet to appear) catches me by surprise and I love that 
.
I don't want to ramble on forever, but this chapter was perfect -- all these characters, all the cleverness, the foreboding mythic feeling...it's just like Titanomachy and I've really missed that here: while undoubtedly it wasn't any different back then, once again, It did begin to feel like you were a bit lost for a time with how long it took for Grogar to show up and events to really pick up...but now, not only are things are picking up steam, but it feels like you have a concrete future planned out. I can't wait to see what happens next
That was Luna's best joke ever; bar none
Damn it. That is just uncool, how am I, a humble reader, supposed to handle this kind of suspense.
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I'm not counting what happened in Tartarus. Someone's body being killed in a realm where the soul cannot go anywhere leads to some strange meta-physical possibilities.
Yeah, I'm alluding to how the season ended. As far as my headcanon goes, Twilight's body was destroyed by the EoH (technically dying). Celestia's trying to 'save' her by giving her soul a chance to ascend into godhood. The body Twilight re-appears in (the one with wings) is made out of the same magic-stuff as Luna's and Celestia's are.
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Thanks!
I really did intend to build a "small" and personal story but with the season 3 ending being what it was I felt that I had to address or at least be consistent with Twilicorn. And, of course, the birth of a new god isn't usually a "small" thing.
As for that line of Spike's: What he's trying to say is (and a bit unfairly too) that whatever it was that Luna did to so upset Twilight had lost Luna the right to barge in and demand a confrontation with Spike's "Mom."
Yeesh, I evidently have parenthood on the brain: Applejack and Applebloom, Twilight and Spike, and Celestia and Twilight. Talk about hammering one's theme home.
Ooooh Grogar, you magnificent asshole!
I'm seriously loving that guy more and more.
I am left baffled and speechless.
The way you used the S3 stuff in this chapter... wow, just wow. There was one thing that came to mind, one single word that can express what I think of this.
Genious
I mean seriously. The way you did it was epic!
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Thanks!
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It was a hair's breadth away from becoming the chapter's title.
I know I'm probably overthinking it, but....It was both weird and funny reading that "atheism" bit
Funny in that, in the real world, Twilight would definitely be an atheist/agnostic....weird in that, I'm surprised that word even exists in their world - how could it when their really isn't any sort of ambiguity on many philosophical questions, like the origin of everything, the existence of deities like Celestia...
Now, yes, perhaps the average pony doesn't know esoteric secrets like Twilight does, but it still feels a bit off-beat to see that word crop because, a word like that in Equestria, would mean their are ponies who do, or did, not believe in the existence of deities; perhaps the average pony, again, doesn't see Celestia or Luna as actual deities but merely ponies who have many of the same qualities (so the whole world is full of atheists
)...but I feel an Atheist Pony would find things harder for themselves in Equestria then humans do in our world...because that pony would essentially believe that Celestia and Luna are not what they really appear to be, which in this story anyway, is false.
It's just one word, but it's placement is honestly intriguing.
THAT, i would like to see.
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I totally used that word as part of an effort to deconstruct Abrahamic religious traditions by subverting the aesopian format of a children's cartoon....Nah.
Mainly I had intended as a nerdy way for Twilight to grump about the sheer abundance of gods in her life (and bothering her - Luna's on that list at the moment).
If I had to think about how an Equestrian could even *have* that concept, I'd venture to say that philosophers one or two centuries ago postulated the existence of a purely physical world. This world would be governed by natural laws that could be understood and defined mathematically. In such a world, weather would progress by fluid dynamics, new types of creatures would come into being by natural selection, and celestial objects would move in accordance with gravity. Said philosophers were then told that they were being silly since their god was in that castle, right over there. Also, they should lay off the salt, have their mane trimmed, get a real job, and move out of their parent's basement.
I kid, mostly.
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.........You know what, forget I ever said anything
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Don't take my verbal playing the wrong way. I love your comments and some of your observations have actually changed the plot as it has been unfolding.
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Oh no, I was joking too, believe me
- The 'atheism' thing was just a joke anyway, so I knew it wasn't worth thinking too hard; I was just curious for curiosity's sake.
No kidding? I've had that much of an effect?
; I mean, Shining Armor's words of wisdom to Luna concerning Twilight did seem to voice what I was saying about her, to make an example, but I didn't think my words actually went that far -- what it comes down too, I suppose, is that I'm not trying to give a one-sentence "review", to actually say something actually substantial.
To give an example, you honestly need to do more spelling/grammar checking:
Nothing to flip out about, but little spelling mistakes like that, is something I've started to see more of lately - in all honesty, it's something I've been turning a blind eye over a bit, because It didn't bother me so much, since I know alot is just regional differences (I'm not gonna "correct" 'colour' for instance) and/or how the archaic vocabulary you often use (for Luna alot) is probably spelled. Even so, I'd take extra time to really check over your chapters for little errors like this before posting.
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Thanks,
I use spell-check but it doesn't catch everything (and none of the grammar mistakes). I don't have any pre-readers so I do what I can. I actually greatly appreciate it when commenters point out the typos. It makes me sound like less of a dyslexic if I can fix them.
2155212 - The concepts aren't mutually exclusive. In theory, in this AU, Celestia/Luna/Grogar have been around for a LONG time. They may have been part of the Equestria unification, but they were around before that. There's no reason to say that they couldn't have taken on Starswirl as an apprentice. They were around, and probably active, even if they weren't part of the political structure, just more 'free' gods roaming around a more 'mythical' world.
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This
Having read the new edits, I can say this version is vastly better
It feels more sensible, more streamlined....Luna's conversation with Spike feels better to me then it did before, which was something I questioned...I'm not sure if the middle section with AB/Twi/Grogar is any different, but the final bit with Celestia had the most change -- here, you actually changed the story a bit, and for the better: there is much more clearer necessity on why Discord needs to be freed as well as why Twilight is dying....bringing Fate into the mix parallels nicely with the canon in that Twilight apparently was going to become this Alicorn whether she liked it or not. I've tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to make theories concerning her, cutie-marks and so on to make as much sense as I can out of that final episode, but it got increasingly incoherent....in any case, it's a wonderful parallel bringing in the Fates because it feels, as ever, you are going your own deeper route.
I liked it - the little bits of dialog, the changes here and there....not as extensive as adding onto Titanomachy's ending, but wonderful all the same.
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Thanks a ton. Especially for the critical comments, they help me improve a lot.
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Really? I didn't feel like I said that much...
Going a bit deeper, I liked how you emphasized more on Spike/Luna's love for Twilight...it made Spike's whole argument a lot better, and really expressed the hardship of the last section better.
I suppose I could question what Celestia is so concerned about...she seems very worried, and yet, we really haven't gotten much indication of the horrors that are about to happen I suppose that comes because the story has, intentionally, been focused so much on this personal story with Apple Bloom...learning about mythical events happening in the wider world haven't been the focus of this story, so are just as "out of touch" as Luna is. Who would have thought that surviving Fate would have such a perilous result on the whole universe, but it fits with the tone of the story...it almost feels a bit ironic in a morbid way -- Celestia has always been so, I don't know, good at things like Destiny...weaving events for the betterment of everyone, including rescuing her sister through Twilight...now though, we have something predestined that's horrible and she feels she can't stop it...it's like a cruel irony.
...Huh? the Canterlot Wedding? Discord had nothing to do with that at all, unless Luna is blaming him for his daughter's actions, which wouldn't surprise me -- the knowledge of who his daughters are really brings new context into alot of situations, and explains partially explains why Luna isn't all that fond of her niece.
With more time, I'll probably say more.
You know, considering the Fairy Tale about the 3 brothers Gruff, I would never have expected the god of goats to be such a troll.
I am also shocked that I'm the first one to bring up this terrible terrible pun, but somebody had to do it
Unless I missed a comment within the last few chapters...
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Nope, you're the first. You "win."
I peed a little I laughed so hard.
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The writers of this fan-fiction deny all liability for laundry costs associated with spit-takes, rainbow-vomits, brick-pooping, and all forms of literature-invoked urination. Read at your own risk.
Looks like we share head cannons concerning Discord. When Luna talked about releasing 'that demon,' I have to wonder who she was talking about. She recognizes Discord as a God, but referred to Erebus as a 'demon of the old world' in her mind. Luna's thoughts also told us that Tartarus is the father of Erebus. Does the spell that killed Star Swirl do something with Tartarus or Harmony, was she referring to Discord in a derogatory way? Luna also said that Star Swirl had mastered conjuration: the ability to create, was he trying to give himself the body of an Alicorn?
This Grogar reminds me a lot of the Abhorsen series by Garth Nix- bells, talking to dead people (creatures) etc... If you haven't read the books, read them, they are AWESOME.