A My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic by Chrono_Ryono.
Stressed by the growing rift between herself and her sister, Princess Celestia confides in her brightest student of the era. That fateful night, the legendary battle between sun and moon shakes the foundation of Equestria. But, what brought them to that point? And, after the fact, are the repercussions merely the prelude to something even worse?
Originally posted as the one-shot As Night And Day, it has since been continued as Whispers and focuses on Arcanus, Celestia's brightest student of the era.
It can be found here.
This fanfic provides examples of the following tropes:
- Action Prologue: The Celestia vs Nightmare Moon battle at the start.
- Aloof Big Sister: Aurora's sister Belphegor seems to be one of these.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Nightmare Moon attempts one, but Celestia doesn't buy it.NMM: "What would father say, knowing that we... that you used his gift to do this to me?"Celestia: "Nothing. Father isn't here, Luna. He was never here."
- Artifact Title: As mentioned, its title was changed to Whispers specifically to defy this trope.
- Berserk Button:
- Arcanus has two: mention his brothers, or question Celestia.
- Celestia seems to treat any reference to her father as one of these.
- Big "SHUT UP!": Nightmare Moon to Celestia.
- Break Them by Talking: Celestia lectures Nightmare Moon on the virtues of the Elements of Harmony after blinding her with the sun.
- Crazy-Prepared: Moonthistle's saddlebag, which seems to contain a wide variety of tools for all sorts of scenarios.Moonthistle: "Ever find thyself thinking, 'gosh, this'd be so much easier if I had a screwdriver?' I made a list."
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The end of the Celestia vs Nightmare Moon fight, which is the only part we get to see.
- Cute Bookworm: Arcanus.
- Dark Fic: Advertises itself as this.
- Dark Is Not Evil:Celestia: "Dark magic, or rather, evil magic. In her normal frame of mind, Luna would detest the implication that her night was in any way associated with evil."
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Luna becomes Nightmare Moon by abusing dangerous dark magic, and may not have been entirely sure what she was getting into.
- Expy:
- Arcanus is mostly Twilight Sparkle with a bit of Fluttershy's reticence mixed in.
- Aurora combines Rarity's refined demeanor with Rainbow Dash's snark and Inferiority Superiority Complex.
- Moonthistle somewhat resembles Applejack (down-to-earth, straightforward thinking) crossed with Pinkie (perpetually upbeat, doesn't take anything seriously).
- Fantastic Racism: The unicorn-dominated nobility seems to drifting back to this. Lord-General Ixion in particular is referred to as an infamous "closed-minded unicorn supremacist."
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Moonthistle is outright referred to as a "hard-drinking partygoer" in chapter 7, and she lives up to it by drinking too much wine and flirting with both her best friends and strangers.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Aurora and Moonthistle, although the latter's heterosexuality is debatable.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Silvermane. A blink-and-you'll-miss-it line establishes that she's coughing up blood.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: Aurora has developed one of these due to being stuck in her sister Belphegor's shadow. It's possible that her snark toward Moonthistle is a manifestation of the superiority half of the equation.
- Innocent Innuendo: Arcanus overhears his brother Prism exchanging suggestive conversation with a married mare, and assumes it to be this trope. Subverted.
- Insufferable Genius:
- Aurora behaves like one, but it's not clear if she's actually this or just an arrogant Blue Blood.
- Moonthistle doesn't usually act this way, but does have the skill to slip into the act on occasion. She casually levitates a plate of food and wine, setting them to orbit around her head in opposite directions, occasionally stopping one to take a sip/bite without affecting the other, all without needing to pay attention.
- Lampshaded Double Entendre: "Inner workings" and "Hoof it."
- Love at First Sight: Arcanus falls for Lady Stella the moment he sees her, and by the next chapter, they're apparently married.
- The Magic Poker Equation: Moonthistle's approach to intelligence gathering at the Pony'borough card table is to mention Princess Luna with varying levels of respect and gauge the other players' reactions. Naturally, she is dealt exactly the ammunition she needs to make this believable: the queens of clubs and spades, which both depict Luna and allow her to win via two pair.
- Meaningful Name: Turning Tricks.Tricks: "Yeah, ah sure had prophetic parents. Sometimes ah wonder if they somehow knew ah'd end up livin' up to it."
- Noodle Incident:
- The "silence weed incident" Celestia and Luna supposedly pulled on their mother in their youth.
- Arcanus's brief recollection of his two most notable parties is riddled with these.
- Moonthistle insists that if Aurora gets "targeted, robbed, murdered and/or ogled" in Pony'borough, it won't be her fault this time.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Despite being the premise of the original short story, most of the Celestia vs Nightmare Moon battle occurs offpage between chapters 1 and 2. All we get to see is the conclusion, which is decidedly one-sided in Celestia's favour.
- Purple Prose: A lot of things are qualified with needless adverbs and a great deal of Said Bookism.
- Rags to Riches: It's suggested that Moonthistle's family "gambled" its way into the nobility. Aurora doesn't seem to approve.
- Royal "We": Celestia uses this only when believably speaking on behalf of the kingdom rather than on a personal level.
- Sherlock Scan: Moonthistle performs a small one in chapter 7, surprising the hell out of both her best friends.
- Shout-Out:
- One that actually lampshades the fact it's a shout out, too.Moonthistle: "Heh, inner workings. Phrasing-"Aurora: "We talked about this, 'thistle. Devise your own jokes."
- Aurora's nickname: Red Mare.
- Stella of the House of Artois.
- Moonthistle's water spell in chapter 8 is called Hydro Pump.
- The random terms Arcanus rattles off while reading the history book are mostly references to other fiction, including Amdusias and Tantarian and Dirt Dragon. And the quoted song Back in Time references Sonic R.
- One that actually lampshades the fact it's a shout out, too.
- Single Mom Stripper: The dancing mare introduced in chapter 7, known as Turning Tricks.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: She also offers "services" in exchange for money, and even refers to herself as a callmare.
- Sophisticated as Hell:
- Irontail chewing out Golden Ace in chapter 2 and capping it off with:Irontail: "Or how about knowing thy bucking place?"
- Silvermane, Moonthistle and Stella are fond of this.
- Irontail chewing out Golden Ace in chapter 2 and capping it off with:
- Stellar Name: Lady Stella.
- Super-Speed Reading: Arcanus is referred to as a "cutie mark-powered super speed reader."
- Thicker Than Water: Celestia compares Arcanus's rocky relationship with his brothers to her own relationship with Luna, and reminds him that "for better or worse, your siblings are all you'll have someday."
- Title Drop:
- Appears to be a recurring theme, as all chapters are named after a phrase contained within them.
- The title of the story itself, Whispers, is dropped in chapter 5.
- Tome of Eldritch Lore: The book Luna uses to transform into Nightmare Moon.
- Upper-Class Twit: The sun court in chapter 5, Golden Silver in particular.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Aurora and Moonthistle. Silvermane notices it and muses that it's a healthy dynamic her own children could learn from.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Celestia. With the loss of her sister, the coming years are expected to become a lot bleaker.
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Better than some, but the Flowery Elizabethan English is far from perfect.
- You Need to Get Laid: Arcanus's royal assignment to "study the magic of love" (an obvious parallel to Twilight Sparkle's future task to study friendship) is pretty much a glorified version of this.