literature

Quiververse Bonus Reel - Vignette One

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  Assorted moans and groans sounded amongst the six mares as they roused themselves from unconsciousness and recovered from the magic they’d unleashed.

  “Ugh, my head.” Rainbow Dash rubbed her cranium with one hoof as she pulled herself up and stretched out her wings.

  Applejack looked about among her friends, weary but recovering. “Everypony okay?”

  “I believe so, I certainly don’t feel…” Rarity gasped, back on her hooves and almost instantly noticing the single biggest change on her person with glee. “Oh thank heavens!”

  Fluttershy smiled and approached the fashionista. “Oh Rarity, it’s so lovely.”

  “I know!” The white unicorn swished her restored tail about, the limb now fully restored to its glory from the start of their adventure, before she’d sacrificed it to aid the sea serpent they’d met along the way. “I’ll never part with it again!”

  “Oh, yes, your tail does look nice, but I was actually talking about your necklace.” As her friend noticed her new accessory and the violet gem upon it, Fluttershy explained, “It looks just like your cutie mark.”

  “Ooh, so it does…” Rarity’s eyes wandered to Fluttershy’s neck, where she noticed a similar accessory. “As does yours, dear!”

  Fluttershy let out a small gasp at the butterfly-shaped gemstone upon her neck, and looked to Applejack and Pinkie Pie to notice the ones they now wore, shaped like an orange apple and a blue balloon respectively. While the farmer looked a little embarrassed by her new bit of jewelry, the party mare was decidedly more excited. “Look at mine! Look at mine!”

  Rainbow prodded at her own, a red lightning bolt-shaped gem upon it, and smirked. “Jewelry’s not really my thing, but this is kinda awesome.” Her attention turned to the last of the group and noted, “Less silly than what Twilight’s got, anyway.”

  Twilight Sparkle, lone among her friends, had not been granted a necklace, but instead wore a crown, crafted in such a way that her ears held it comfortably in place. Its base was studded with bright blue stones, but they paled in comparison to the six-pointed star-shaped gem that sat upon it. Twilight felt a little silly wearing it, but a tiny part of her thought that it did feel nice to have it upon her head.

  “Ah guess you were right, Twilight.” Applejack approached her and admitted, “We really do represent the Elements of Harmony. Who’d’a thunk it?”

  A gentle laugh sounded out as light flooded the chamber through its windows and the sun rose in the distance. As the sun shone ever more brightly, a flash of light briefly blocked it out before fading away to reveal a familiar and far happier sight. Standing before them was an alicorn, the only one that anypony could recognize on sight, tall and elegant with a long horn emerging from her head and wide wings emerging from her sides. Her mane was a flowing sea of pinks, blues and greens, and she wore gilded horseshoes, a peytral and crown, with a smile upon her face as she gazed upon her subjects.

  “Princess Celestia!” As her friends bowed in the presence of their ruler, Twilight rushed forward to embrace her. As the princess warmly embraced her in turn, the unicorn asked, “What happened? Where did you go?”

  “Nightmare Moon sent me to the moon in her place. When you defeated her, the banishment was undone.” She beamed with pride as she regarded her faithful student. “Well done, Twilight Sparkle. I knew you could do it.”

  “But you told me that it was all an old pony tale…”

  The princess shook her head. “I told you that you needed to make some friends. I saw the signs of Nightmare Moon’s return just as you did, and I knew that it was you who had the magic inside to defeat her. But you could not unleash it until you embraced friendship, and allowed it into your heart.” She looked to the other bearers, who had long ended their bows and had approached with some hesitation. “And from what I’ve seen, you’ve done an amazing job of exactly that. Well done, all of you. The Elements of Harmony are now yours, bonded to you so long as you’re worthy to wield them.”  The smile faded as she looked to the last pony in the room, one whom the rest of them had failed to notice in all of their excitement. “Now, however, it’s time your predecessors took care of some unfinished business.”

  In the opposite corner of the room, where Nightmare Moon had stood, now rested fragments of shattered armor and another alicorn mare, indigo in color and similarly clad to Celestia. She moaned softly as her eyelids fluttered open, then gasped as if waking up from a terrible dream. She looked about, then turned fearful and ashamed as Celestia approached.

  A similar expression of shame was upon the larger alicorn’s face as she approached the smaller. “Hello Luna. It’s been a very long time, my dear sister.”

  “Sister?” Rainbow Dash approached the scholar of their group and asked, “What the hay is she talking about?”

  Awestruck comprehension slowly became clear upon Twilight’s face as she remembered the old story. “A thousand years ago, Equestria was ruled by two pony sisters. The elder raised the sun and brought forth the day, and the younger raised the moon and brought forth the night.”

  “But the younger grew resentful of the elder, as their subjects basked and played in the light of the day, and slept and neglected her beautiful nights.” A sad tone was clear in Celestia’s voice as she continued, “And as the younger grew ever more bitter, the elder became more and more distracted, and failed to see that she’d lost her beloved little sister until it was too late. The younger became consumed by a terrible darkness, and the elder was forced to banish her with the Elements of Harmony.” Tears formed as she admitted, “I was forced to banish my little sister.”

  The smaller alicorn whimpered.

  “Then, the ponies in the old story…” Rarity looked at the two in amazement. “But that means the two of you are well over a thousand years old!”

  Pinkie let out a low whistle. “That’s a lotta candles for a birthday cake.”

  “And for a thousand years, the story of Nightmare Moon has twisted and changed such that the truth became concealed by myth and legend. And for a thousand years, my sister has been the victim of my neglect, trapped as much by my own hooves as she was by the monster who took her. Had I only known…” She less knelt than she did collapse in sorrow. “Luna, I am so very sorry. For everything. We were meant to rule Equestria together, as equals, but for so many, yours became the lesser light. You were trapped long before the Nightmare claimed you, and I was too much a fool to recognize how you felt. You deserved better from all of us, but especially from me, as your friend and as your sister. I wish…”

  Celestia was interrupted as her sister jumped up and embraced her. Tears streamed down her face as she cried out, “I’m sorry too, Celie! I didn’t want to hurt anyone, I just…!”

  “You just didn’t want to be unloved.” Celestia wrapped her forelegs and wings about her sibling and held her close. “You didn’t want to be alone. I know.”

  The younger sister sniffled as she sought to regain control of herself. “I missed you so much.”

  The elder alicorn smiled even as her tears continued, and she took her sister into a tight embrace. “I missed you too, Luna. Welcome home. And things will be different now. I promise.”

  A few sniffles could be heard behind them. Both looked behind them as Pinkie Pie gushed tears, the other mares far more restrained but very clearly moved. The two alicorns recovered themselves, and both rose to their hooves as Celestia stood back. Luna approached them with as much regal bearing as she could muster, her gaze firm upon the lavender unicorn. “We regret not having heard thine name, young mare. It would please us to know it, so that we may properly thank you.”

  Twilight gave a respectful bow. “Twilight Sparkle, your Highness.”

  A nod. “Thank you, Twilight Sparkle. To you and your friends, for restoring us, for…” The regal veneer cracked and she softly finished with a smile, “For bringing me home.”

  “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I know what this calls for!” Pinkie pronked her way back to the chamber entrance and declared, “Come on, everypony! We’ve got a Summer Sun Celebration to get back to!”

  Celestia flashed an encouraging smile to her sister as they were led out by five of the new bearers of the Elements of Harmony, one lagging behind. “Aren’t you coming, Twilight?”

  The unicorn shook her head as if clearing out a daze and smiled. “Yes, of course.” She followed them out, the odd thought of sadness at having been left out of the full truth brushed aside with the assurance that things had worked out. Others still lingered, such as what would happen now, and whether she should return to Canterlot and her studies, or stay and embrace this new life with the friends she’d made in Ponyville.

  The latter thought would stay with her all the way back to town, but the former would come back to her for some time to come, until the day when she could ignore it no longer. But that was a day long in coming.
An alternate take on the reconciliation scene between Celestia and Luna from the two-part series premiere, adapted from the original as written by Lauren Faust. Many have objected to how the scene was presented, and I took the chance to show how it went down in my version, with a more regretful and remorseful Celestia and a promise that things will be different this time.

Take note that this is the only difference in events between the original version and the Quiververse version. A nice, small tweak, rather than a complete rewrite. And it won't be the last...
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Somvold's avatar
Fair enough as you have done a nice job here.