Silver helped Night to the ground and nuzzled her. "You were great."
She smiled even as a chuckle forced its way free of her. "I learned it from you, dummy." She looked past to Luna speaking quietly to Night Wing. "It seems you have something else in common with Luna."
"Hmm?" He noticed a moment after saying that. "We both have a lunar filly we adore."
"That is correct," spoke Luna as she settled down and set a hoof over Wing's fallen form. "I will relieve her of guarding you, Silver, and take her on myself."
Wing's eyes widened. "You can't be serious!"
Luna nipped one of Wing's tufted ears. "Silver can't have all the mares, and your fight reminded me how much I value your presence. You will have to learn. We live in a different age than you imagine, and we will adapt. Will you learn beside me?"
Wing glanced rapidly between Luna and Silver. "You will want me to respect your... coltfriend."
"Husband," corrected Luna. "You will afford him respect and care. He cares for you, do you not see? He is devoted to being a good prince. Be with us, for Equestria."
"I'm not doing that for him. I'd soo--"
"Enough," stated Silver, rising despite the aches. "I'm not marrying you, or otherwise foisting myself on you. Enough. You're Luna's bodyguard, so your behavior reflects on her, and Equestria as a whole."
Wing grumbled softly, but her complaints faded away as her head came to rest on the floor. The fight had taken more out of her than even she wanted to admit, and she faded from consciousness to recover.
Watch wasn't ready for sleep, though Luna had wounded her badly. "We're married."
Luna perked her ears. "We are." She carefully stood up and around her slumbering guard, approaching Watch. "I've done something else I need to--"
"No apologies." Watch forced herself to sit up. "We all did our part. Are you ready to be a wife?"
Luna met the gaze. "Are you?" She turned it towards Silver. "And look at you, standing so tall... It's like a dream."
Silver tensed and looked for that sense. He wasn't dreaming and he let out a sigh of relief.
The reaction made Luna raise a brow. "I meant that in jest. Stallion that has taken the sun and moon, Ambassador of our country, it is time, you realize."
"Time?"
"To wear your crown. With Celestia and I properly married, the coronation may proceed without further delay." Luna raised a hoof and ran it along a jagged bit of Silver's armor carefully. "Night Wing tested your mettle thoroughly."
Silver glanced to Wing and Watch. "We have many wounds to heal. John operated... I didn't like him, but he had an important message." He stole a quick kiss from Luna's cheek. "Every morning I hear Samantha rambling about her plans, they're good."
"But they won't heal it alone." Luna nodded at Silver. "It has been too long... I have been hiding from my own past. I am ready to face them." She gave a hopeful smile. "But not alone, we trust?"
Watch shook her head. "You're part of our herd. We watch out for our own." She glanced aside at Silver. "Even if that vaguely includes all of Equestria." Her eyes moved to Wing. "So... she doesn't seem the herding type, and there would be--"
"I am not asking to induct her," cut in Luna.
Silver rolled a hoof. "Are you asking us to look the other way?"
Luna raised a brow. "I respect her, and admire her, but I do not covet her in such a way. She may be drawn to me physically, but that is one-way, and I have made it clear. I hope to find her a more suitable partner, but she will be my guard for now. This will please her, and she is a fine pony. She is just one wound of many that needs... healing and care."
Silver nodded at that. "I'll try to not be in the way. I don't have anything against her, besides aches and pains." He glanced to the door and back to his wives. "Shouldn't we... do something?"
Luna blinked, then smiled a bit. "We have been together before. They can wait. That I am yours is not in question. What remains to commence is your coronation, and neither of us are in ideal physical shape to consummate this bond."
Watch forced her way to shaking hooves. "Ideal or not, we should to be official. Don't worry, we'll be gentle." She smirked as she said it, looking the worst for wear of the three.
They, gently, made it quite clear that they were a family unit and married securely.
Silver was led by a procession of ponies in fine attire and closed eyes. "Behold, behold!" they sang as they walked in measured steps. The entire thing had an intense feeling of repetition to Silver, as it wasn't the first time he had experienced this social ascension.
What was new was what was beside him, and on him. Despite his regal garb, he wore a foal at either side, proudly displaying that he was not just a prince, but a father, and a dutiful one at that.
To his immediate right stood Night Watch, dressed in flowing garments with her head held high and eyes forward.
Just behind him were the Royal Sisters. Each held up his cape, one side to each of their mouths as they walked, showing they belonged to him as surely as many who watched had heard.
It was not a one sided ownership. When they arrived at the end of the procession, to some non-alicorn nobility and Blueblood who stood severely, the cape was drawn free of Silver with a careful communal tug. He turned to his newest wives and bore his neck. Celestia advanced and bit down on his throat.
She could have killed him easily, but instead she kissed gently at the spot.
Luna was next, then Night. Unlike the others, Night sank her teeth in for a moment in a sting of pain, but she licked the wound she created and smiled, and he returned the gesture.
All three backed away as Silver turned to face the nobles.
Blueblood was the first to speak. "Let the lands of Equestria know that it has a prince, sworn to uphold its ideals and ready to defend it." With a soft glow of his horn, the crown was floated over from its pillow towards Silver. "May your reign be long and benevolent."
"Wait!" Discord appeared, hovering in the air. "Not all the alicorns are here. This won't do at all!"
Celestia raised a brow at the chaos spirit. "Cadance and Twilight are too far away to ask--"
"Not them," He waved the thought away. "I mean right here, in Canterlot. You're leaving out my alicorn! Why, I bet he'd look smashing in a crown."
The gathered nobles grumbled. Prince Blueblood moved to continue despite Discord, but the crown slid from his grip as Discord grabbed the silver adornment easily. "Ah ah ah."
Luna's wings flared. "This is too far, even for you!"
Silver held up a hoof to her, then turned to face Discord fully. "Hey, man, we've been friends since forever. Now isn't the time."
"But this is the time," objected Discord. "If I don't get him over right now, you'll never even give him a chance."
"Who?" asked Silver.
"You met him before. Trainwreck? Big, kinda obvious. There's no way you forgot him."
Even Silver could remember a pony like that. Celestia as well as she stepped forward. "He's gotten himself into trouble, but I feel he will learn from his mistakes. He'll get his chance."
"You promise?"
Celestia raised a hoof to her chest. "I will give him a fair shot. Every pony deserves that."
"Right right. I'll hold you to that. Here you are." He dropped the crown on Silver's head without ceremony, then vanished.
Blueblood advanced and nodded. "As I was saying, behold, our new prince!"
The crowd cheered and clopped. It became an overwhelming sound for a moment, and Silver knew he had to move. He spread his wings wide and took a pose to show off his horn before he launched himself free of the balcony only to land on an open carriage waiting for him that began to wheel forward. His wives, all winged, landed soon after to accompany him even as his foals cooed and reached out towards the ponies they passed.
He spotted Samantha, waving eagerly from beside Nefertari, who was one of the few faces in the crowd not overwhelmed with emotion of one sort or another. She calmly watched him going, her own plans in her head.
"Over here!" called a familiar voice. Rough Draft was holding Trixie on his back, who was waving wildly at them as they went. It was only at that moment that he realized that adoption ran powerfully through his family, from his own adopted parents, to his adopted daughter and her adopted son.
He saw his colthood friends, from gym owner to actress to even Rough Tumble who gave a truck horn motion as he went by in silent approval.
There were changelings buzzing about, joining in the cheering as the royal procession pushed past. He saw Fast Change who hollered with a lack of decorum and pumped a leg in the air. "I call dibs on next!" She called out with a predatory grin. There was no malice there. Silver felt only warm friendship.
The umbrum had made a patch for themselves, where it seemed everything went monochrome and the lines from one pony bled into the next, making their wild cheering somewhat confusing to watch. One he recognized though. With bright blue eyes and a familiar red dress and skirt, Shade Fire stood out and looked at him pointedly. There were so many questions there, but they weren't to be answered yet.
One thing that was absent were any attacks. No explosions rocked his ride, and they made it to the end of the parade route peacefully. Silver smiled as he went, waving at all the ponies as he went by. All the souls he'd share responsibility for. His adventure felt like it was over in many ways, but was just starting in whole other ways.
Silver Lining was well and truly gone. David Silver was a fading memory.
Long live Prince Silver Watch, Ambassador of the land. He quirked a smile at that. He was a prince of friendship, in a way. It was a more courtly and proper friendship, but he would offer a hoof out to the world while he kept an eye on his deserving subjects.
Before anything else, I have to say...I hope that this story isn't over, but if it is, this is by far the best ending you've ever written. Major kudos to you!
Hehehe... Luna finally joined the herd... Time to bring out that wine I was saving
er,,,shouldn't it be an open carriage?
Huh, I had expected the audience to react more to how Discord appeared and demanded Train Wreck formally become royalty though I guess it got drowned out by the festivities. Nice save by Blueblood there.
7429619 Thank you for that. That's exactly why the emotion became clear. This was clearly an ending, in my eyes.
Let it be known that if you end the story here, Train Wreck will totes steal your remaining waifus. Fast Change will go along with it just for the snub.
7429700 Well you could leave it here and make a sequel if you feel like the ending to this chapter of Silver's life was truly perfect
7429723 What do you think?
7429725 Hmm hard to say but a sequel that involves his new life has royalty married to the prettiest strongest mares in equestria does not sound bad. But if it was an ending it was really good. it's been a long journey to get to this point
Does not anyone find it wierd that they had sex in a room with unconscious pony in it?
It's been a long road
Gettin' from there to here
It's been a long time
But my time is finally near...
With this, it looks like Silver has finally made it to where he's supposed to be. It's been a very long journey, especially if you count his time in the dream world, but this chapter really felt like he'd completed a lengthy saga. I say that mostly because of how well that last segment - which was the majority of the chapter - served to bring things to a close.
I really can't stress enough just how artful of an ending that was. It did exactly what an ending is supposed to do, which is look back and acknowledge where you've been, and how it's led to where you are. The sheer number of supporting cast members that were mentioned or featured - ranging all the way from Rough Draft to John Smith - was incredible. Now, I could nitpick a few areas where something else could have been acknowledged (e.g. having Lyra in the crowed), or something that was acknowledged could have been fleshed out more (e.g. using Nicole Foalman's name rather than a brief description), but those strike me as such small issues that I honestly can't bring myself to treat them as serious critiques. Instead, I remain wowed at just how many call-backs were here.
In this last chapter, we had Silver not only acknowledging the various ponies he'd met, whether these were major encounters or not, but also the major events in his life. Silver's wince and quick check that he wasn't living in a dream-world still, for example, was excellent. It served to not only acknowledge that we aren't going to have that particular rug pulled out from under us again (which is good, since I think that would critically injure reader confidence in the story) but served as a call-back to those events. Another excellent example of this was his recognition of adoption being a recurring theme in his family life. He also gave a nod to his previous names, and with them acknowledged who he was before. We even got references to things yet to come, deftly indicating that, even if the story ends here, Silver still has a life in front of him with new challenges to navigate (e.g. Nefertari, Shade Fire, etc.).
All of this isn't to say that I don't think that this chapter was flawless. The initial part, with Night Wing and Luna, was one that was...okay. I didn't comment on the last chapter because I thought that, while all of those characters were being very true to themselves in how they were presented, the actual execution suffered in its pacing; that is to say, the interplay of dialogue and actions felt stilted. Luckily, that was ameliorated here, and we were able to bring Night Wing's (somewhat lopsided) arc to an acceptable conclusion.
My other complaint was with Discord's brief interruption. I know just enough, from previous collaborations that have happened, that this was in reference to one of the other "Silver Verse" stories. That said, it suffered from the same problems that those other "collabs" had, which was that it was presented in such a way that it felt confusing and intrusive if you haven't read those stories. It didn't advance what was happening here, particularly as it didn't have Discord acknowledging his relationship with Silver (which has largely atrophied over this story; presumably that's also due to the events of that other fic?), and so felt like what it was: an interruption.
Overall, though, this was an excellent chapter, one that really felt like we'd reached the last part of a long and involved tale. I personally hope there's more, but if there is it might be better to make it it's own fic, separate from this one. If nothing else, this story deserves to go out on such a high note.
7429798 Poor Trainwreck, he was in a chapter, really! They'd even promised to swap places for a little bit for demonstration purposes. He's married to Surprise, who Silver knows well, and yes, it was an interruption. That's something Discord does well, and the ponies recovered from it nicely.
I'm glad the chapter came out as well as it did though! A fine ending mark, I think, on this story.
7429840 I think at this point, everyone is still eyeing that "Incomplete" tag.
At least, I know I am.
EDIT: And it changes to "Complete" right as I post that!
7429840 one last typo then
A find ending mark
fine
A perfect ending is intending, but a sequel will be quite attending! :D
7429853 I'm sure people will come along months later and find new typos :p Fixed!
7429867 I know just wanted to be symbolic at least for me. Send it out with a typo one might say
There has to be at least one major cockup at every royal wedding, and this time Discord made sure it was him.
Well, after 1.5 Megawords(?), this has been one hell of a ride. And it makes it feel as if the story isnt over, even if nothing else is ever written, its just the finale to this season, with a whole new expanded storyverse available.
Looks like theres going to be more time to work on the new Ponyfinder classes while the Kickstarters going on, now this realm is idling. Wonder what sorts of fantastic creatures and abilities peopl have thought up and proposed this time.
Time for Twilight and Pinkie to finish this off.
Twilight:Be excellent to each other.
Pinkie:PARTY ON DUDES.
7430179 Thanks for the kind words. The universe is free to add to and as public as things get.
Who the heck is Train Wreck? I do not know who that character is.
7429788 LoL
I really liked that story silver and it was a fun ride, i hope their are more fun adventure to be had
~shadow lance
P.S i hope your having fun
I am sitting here crying beautiful just beautiful.
the best ending you've ever written.
I just don't feel the need to say more at this time.
I wish you the best of health and a get well sun.
Harts Fire
Yay for rainbows!
Things are certainly bright looking now.
Keep going! ;)
7430922 How do I keep going if it's complete?!
7430994 keep going in general? Like, take a breather and let's see what new adventure you come up with next!
7430404 Train Wreck is the protaganist in my story. We collab alot, although the two characters rarely directly meet. They don't know each other so much as their families know each other. It was shout out. I also do those in my story, but it's less obtrusive because mine is the spin-off so everyone already knows who Silver is.
7431411 ok cool. I was just confused.
I should really get back to work on my own spin-off, especially since it intersects with this about 37 chapters ago.
that is one way - that is one-way
slid from his grip easily as Discord grabbed the silver adornment easily - One of these is redundant.
*****
A fine chapter and a fine way to end the story, if we have in fact reached the end.
It's been a long, sometimes wild ride to this point. I'm a little sad to see it wrapping up, but happy for the journey and all the conversations that have been inspired along the way.
Come on! Like you've finished with Sam & Nefer & Fast yet, not to mention Shade. The fact you brought up Trainwreck tends to make me think there's more to come. Don't upset us!
stuffpoint.com/mlp-plus-fim/image/58002-mlp-fim-trixie.gif
Perfect, now that Mr Gary Stu got all the waifus, maybe we could finally get back to this part:
As in, the only reason why I started reading the story in the first place? I don't want to be rude of course, the story WAS somewhat enjoyable, but honestly I grew a bit tired of all the harem talk.
7431919 Fixed!
7432598 That train slid off that rail over 400k words ago. Life does that, and I'm a little murky why you'd bring it up now.
I would have to say that I'm sorry to see the story end. I like to know what about fast change the queen of the changelings. What about the other Pony that his daughter found? I still wanted to be there when he met Pony to Pony, with Twilight Sparkle. There were a lot of other things that his first book predicted from his dream. But at last you are the writer of the story and you can end it anytime you want to.
I just wanted to let you know that I thoroughly enjoyed this wonderful story. I personally would not mind if you continued it in a new arc. But at last that is your decision.
Dragonfox
I take it by having this marked as completed that there will be another Silververse story in the future given how much was left behind but you want to change focus currently? Or are you genuinely done?
And it ends with no spellcraft.
I suppose he did some for fighting Night Wing so he's not in dange or CMFIS.
So given that it already requires bouncing along different sequels to follow the actual plot, will there be a continuation of this or are you focusing more on exploring other parts of this particular 'verse now?
7449153 I am not, currently, continuing this.
7454709 Tree dangit Mint Mare! Why hav3 you done this!
OH NO!! She's gotten them into my comment sauce!
7472697 Fast Change?
7472763 I mean Peridot.
7477116 I am. Why does this story need casual hatred of males? It seems entirely pointless and frustrating, especially how everyone just shrugs it off as normal. Expressing hatred of an entire demographic should not be treated as acceptable as declaring a preference for certain foods.
7483290 Hate often works this way on a societal level.
7483326 Silver is one thing, as being too forgiving is his character, but his wife should not be tolerant of those who say her husband is horrible and useless because of how he was born.
7483423 It's been a while since I wrote this. You will need to be far more specific.
7483432 In the old/sequel story of Celestia's blatant hatred of stallions and belief that Silver would be less evil as a mare. That crime mare who took offense that Night Watch fell for a male instead of her. The spirit in service to Nefetari who said males were only good for reproduction and that's it. A while back when you said that the city of Fillydelphia was so misandric that they actually passed laws limiting the number of stallions who could live there in order to maintain a sort of mare only paradise. These and other little things all add up to a world of exceedingly bigoted ponies that most humans, and even other residents of this world, wouldn't want to deal with on a regular basis. Sure that prejudice is everywhere, but the fact that NO ONE calls them out on it is what aggravates me.
Night Watch: What's that? You despise my husband and son, declaring them useless and evil? Well that's fine. Nothing wrong with such an attitude.
7483673 But people do live with that, every day.
The dream was... the dream. Using it as part of the lynchpinning is odd. If you want to bevel Silver lives in an unfair world he can't succeed in, that's alright. Your choice.
7483717 He is succeeding, but it would just be nice if someone would call the bigots out on their bigotry.
... DAME IT WAS LONG....
i had to vent out a little... never did i think i might do another marathon reading like this, but i did (putting my normal reading on the side for over a week )
the rest of it is in this blog https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/664018/just-finished-reading-silver-verse-in-under-two-weeks-you-should-try-it
7486250 Starling words! And favorite part?