When her busy schedule suddenly opens up, Princess Twilight Sparkle decides the time is finally right to dig into some of the deeper questions of rulership.
As the ruler of Equestria, it's her job to decide when to deploy the nation's most powerful weapon against its enemies, at her sole discretion. It's a heavy responsibility, with severe ramifications. How can a lone pony decide if trapping someone in stone is justifiable? And what will happen if she can't make that choice?
It's time for Twilight Sparkle to find out.
Written for Imposing Sovereigns II, with the prompt Twilight Sparkle - Abdication.
Preread by Naughty_Ranko.
Chapters (1)
And this is why I hate deadlines and I say f**k them. It ruins all the fun of writing when you have that hanging over your head.
That aside, I think everyone but Twilight is being dumb a bit. It's a year. Not all eternity or even centuries. She'll be fine and they'll all still be alive to meet her.
Out of the many reactions to the stoning in the finale, this is definitely one of the more thoughtful ones I've read--I really like the premise of Twilight consulting creatures with similar experiences, and while I found myself agreeing with Cadance that undergoing the petrification herself wasn't necessary, it felt like a very Twilight move, especially with the unknown element of whether Discord was affected differently because of his, er, Discord-ness.
I think the biggest issue that stands out to me is that this whole story felt like a big exposition dump to me. It was functional, and got its points across, but when all was said and done, my most emotional responses came from smiling at some of the quips--and judging from the tags, those probably weren't what you wanted to be the highlights--and I think most of that came down to all that information being narrated to me.
Still, the characters here felt solid, and it handled an intriguing conflict with a lot of care, which I really appreciate seeing. Thanks for writing!
"Or, alternatively, as chaos incarnate, I simply can't be driven any crazier than I already am."
At first, I was surprised Star Swirl was still alive. Then I remembered who'd written this story.
Cadence's reaction does feel a bit excessive for a year-long investigation, but overall, this was a fantastic and very Twilit tale of empathy through research. When I first assembled the prompt matrix, I was worried what Twilight-Abdication would bring. Seeing you grab it changed that concern to anticipation, and I am very much pleased with the result. Thank you for it, and best of luck in the judging.
Huh. This is an interesting perspective. I personally have always seen the "stoning" as a sort of suspended animation they can be put into until suck a time as when they can be resuscitated where the proper ponies/beings are present to help rehabilitate them. Sort of like how in sci-fi they cryogenically preserve the terminally ill until the technology and resources are available to heal them.
One thing Twilight better ask herself is "Can she trust Harmony?"
I'm confused why it's a year, I get she wants to find out what it's like but a year feels like too much especially with how little is known about the experience. Why not a day? A week? Scale up until you get a feel for it? A day doesn't sound like a lot but no one knows what it would be like so how do we know that day wouldn't feel longer? Maybe no matter how long in stone it would feel like no time passed at all. Everyone is overreacting to it too, it was very relieving to hear at the end that it was only a year.
Now the world is all explored, and life is just thankless, mundane, boring drudgery. We all have to work, eat, sleep, repeat; work, eat, sleep, repeat; work, eat, sleep, repeat without end until death just to eke out a living and keep a roof over our heads. Damn... I feel you, Rockhoof, I feel you buddy.
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It is show canon Star Swirl rather than Swirliad canon, at least. Though I did drop in one more subtle reference to Crown of Night.
I mean, I had to get my magic boi in there
Thanks for reading, and for letting me have the prompt when I wasn't sure it quite followed the rules
And not least, thanks for making the contest happen.
Also, "a tale of empathy through research" is perfect.
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Eh, I think a year is quite a long time to say goodbye, especially for someone who established a new governmental entity specifically so she wouldn't have to go longer than a month without seeing her friends.
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Thanks. I try to be thoughtful and true to the characters. And that's fair, this story idea fell very heavily on people just talking very openly about things, rather than things happening. I enjoy stories like that, but it can feel odd.
Thanks for reading, everyone.
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A year is a long time, you'd think someone would've tried to talk her down from that but I'm not sure you could convince me that a year is necessary with how Twilight is approaching this very responsibly. Maybe it was a deliberate choice not to mention how long it was going to be until the end, but with how they talk about it, it sounded like generations would pass and her friends would be dead. A lot of the emotional impact was lost.
It's not that I don't like less action-y stories, I think NaiadSagaIotaOar said it well, the talking feels like exposition.
Meh
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(I just saw that I replied to the wrong comment earlier by mistake, so just to be safe here it is again.)
Thanks. I try to be thoughtful and true to the characters. And that's fair, this story idea fell very heavily on people just talking very openly about things, rather than things happening. I enjoy stories like that, but it can feel odd.
Honestly, you crank out stuff in a rush that's smoother than a lot of people's third drafts! This was a charming story.
What this will give Twilight is much more than just the experience she needs to make better decisions in the future, it also gives her some solid moral authority when/if she stones a villain in the future.
Of course, for her it will undoubtedly be a Keepers of Discord sort of situation. I know I'd be on the volunteer list to read to her.
Oh sweet summer child, you haven't even glimpsed punishment.
A short but well written story, I get the impression that Celestia and Cadence were acting mad to cover their worries and pain like when someone screams "you idiot don't you ever do that again!"
Would you ever consider writing a sequel or even just an epilogue telling us about Twilight's experiences?
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The thought actually has crossed my mind. But it's very far down my list of things to do, so no promises.
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Fair enough no pressure whatsoever.
A good response from Twilight.
Petrification has never been understood, in canon nor fanon.
A very good one shot.
I really should have seen that ending coming. c.c I don't know why I didn't.
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That governmental entity is a bucking joke if there ever was one. Twilight is just too lazy to do what she wants, and if ponies don't like it... Well. When you're God Empress of Equestria, nopony tells you what to do.
If she wanted to spend time with her friends, then Equestria should just have to deal with the princess doing nothing productive for a day. The Council is just another sign of lazy writing by Hasbro. Among MANY more in Season 9.
(Very late reply, I know. But I just remembered this one.)