Fanfic / The Apprentice, the Student, and the Charlatan

Image created by Truesailorcomet

“The stallion likes the mare, the mare likes the stallion. The mare is open about it, the stallion keeps it to himself, leading to all this unnecessary drama and tension. Really, this story just writes itself, doesn’t it?”

— Nova Shine, summing up the first half of the story.

Freshly freed from her 1000-year imprisonment on the moon, Princess Luna takes a student of her own to train in magic for the first time since before her banishment. The unicorn she chooses, Nova Shine, is a rather reserved unicorn with a cutie mark of stars and a moon, a sign of his potential to become a powerful spellcaster. However, his ability is hampered by his own self-doubt and his issues with anyone who tries and succeeds at getting through to him to get him to open up, such as Twilight Sparkle, a mare he had met earlier on the day he was selected as Luna's apprentice.

Not long after his apprenticeship begins, Nova and Twilight are asked to come to Canterlot by their teachers to take a quick test and compare their abilities in magic. Nova and Twilight discover that they have been plagued by nightmares featuring old ruins in the Everfree Forest and a strange glowing vial. Nova and Twilight agree to investigate the nightmares and hopefully put a stop to them. Along the way, Trixie Lulamoon shows up, also suffering from the same nightmares, and as Twilight discovers, she and Nova have a rather rough history.

Together, the trio discover and investigate the ruin in the Everfree Forest and discover the subject of their nightmares: a shadow as old as Equestria itself, who has been using Trixie as a vessel and would like nothing better than to plunge a knife into all of their backs. Nova and Twilight escape and begin to work to defeat this shadow, rescue Trixie, maybe resolve their burgeoning relationship, and hopefully escape with their lives.

The Apprentice, the Student, and the Charlatan is an epic-length My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfiction written by FIMFiction user (and troper) Rytex. The fic was originally uploaded on 16 November 2012, and was finished a full year later on 16 November 2013, but he began rewriting chapters in early 2015 due to the contrasting quality between the beginning and end of the story, as well as to utilize characters that were fully fleshed out as opposed to not quite developed yet at the initial time of writing.

In February 2016, the first episode of an audio drama produced by TrueSailorComet was released on YouTube. Partly due to the wider audience of YouTube (and partly due to being featured on Equestria Daily), the audio drama quickly gained relative popularity, outshining the original fic by a good margin.

The fanfic can be read here, and the first episode of the audio drama can be viewed here. The fanfic had a sequel that was ultimately cancelled. A second sequel, titled The Archmage's Last Bow, began in late 2019 following the show's finale, and remains in progress.

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This Fanfic Contains Examples Of:

A-G

• Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Nova is dead set on staying loyal to Twilight during his time in the past, but despite their differences to Twilight, he does end up falling for both Clover the Clever and Summer Blossom. He does return to Twilight, though.
• Action Duo:
  • Nova and Comet Novus on Nightfall, battling Envy, and later, Nightmare Moon.
  • Sharp Eye and Aegis in the climax defending themselves from the brainwashed townsponies of Neighton.
• Adaptational Badass: In the original writing, Steelshod never really stood a chance against Nova Shine in their duel. In the rewrite, he had Nova on the ropes toward the end, only for Nova to snatch victory away.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: future!Nova cameos in Chapter 5 in the rewrite.
• Adaptational Expansion: There's more to Nova's cutie mark story and its fallout in the rewrite than there was before. The biggest is that the unnamed proctor who cost Nova his spot is given a name and a motive. It was Abacus Cinch, doing it in exchange for Tantalus Lulamoon backing her for the new Headmaster after Nocturnal Glow retires.
• Adaptational Personality Change: Clover the Clever in the original writing of the fic was essentially a second Twilight, and it's easy to see Nova's confused feelings for her as he's essentially dealing with Twilight in all but name. Clover the Clever in the rewrites is colder, more calculating, impersonal, and hyper-professional. Nova reflects on just how different they are and wonders how he'll end up falling for her with that in mind. He ends up doing so by simply getting her attention, which causes her to warm up to him in a short time.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Referred to by name, when referring to Ponyville's Premier Party Planning Pony.
• Affably Evil: Lord Silverblood and Sombra.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Lord Silverblood quickly lets it go out the window when Nova pushes his buttons during the talk before their duel.
• Affection-Hating Kid: Spike tends to react with exaggerated disgust whenever Nova and Twilight are acting particularly lovey with each other.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Nova likes to refer to Twilight as "Twi" (he starts calling her "love" as well once they reach that stage), and Cadance as "Cadenza".
  • Shortly after their Relationship Upgrade, Twilight tries to give Nova one. She starts with "lovey", then tries "honey", "dear", and "darling", but Nova shoots them all down.
    Nova: There’s just something… emasculating about being called that, and I don’t know why.
• After Action Patch Up: After the battle with Envy, Twilight helps Princess Celestia patch Nova up from all of his injuries, and the Princess eventually leaves them alone.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Or Fluttershy does, in any case, as she ends up dating Sharp Eye, and Sharp Eye even alludes to it.
• All-Powerful Bystander:
  • Celestia and Luna. At any point, they could go after Envy themselves, but they never really do. Then, Envy goes after Luna, leading to her becoming Nightmare Moon, and forces Celestia to act. Fast forward to the present day, and again, they do little until more of their subjects are actually threatened.
  • The Consciousness of Magic appears to be nigh-omnipotent but only seems interested in making sure her Elements are not misused.
• Allergic to Love: Nova at first thinks the butterflies in his gut that started in Chapter 5 are some kind of illness. Luna thinks it's hilarious and congratulates him on falling in love when he asks her if she knows about them.
• Alone in a Crowd: Almost referenced by name. Nova feels alone and isolated in the crowd of ponies waiting outside the Castle of the Two Sisters, despite being surrounded by those he calls friends, because of the events he knows are about to happen.
• Almost Kiss: Originally Chapter 5 featured one of these, but the rewrite saw them actually go through with it, leading to a panic attack. Played straight in Chapters 8 and 9 (though Twilight exploited it to win their magic duel in 8).
• Alpha Bitch: Shimmer Silvermane.
• Always Someone Better: Almost referenced by name. Steelshod expresses such to Nova, that their duel wasn't about winning, but merely standing up and facing him head-on to prove to himself that he could.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Night Light and Twilight Velvet enjoy teasing Twilight just a little too much, though they soon take it out on Nova too.
• Ambadassador: In short order, Nova tracks down a missing princess, rescues a captured changeling child, defeats a rogue unicorn lord, and thwarts a plan to cause a war between ponykind and the changelings all while serving as Equestria's ambassador to the Unicorn Kingdom.
• Ambition Is Evil: Or at least, it makes Abacus Cinch and Tantalus Lulamoon make a rather poor decision that costs Nova Shine his future as a colt.
• Amusing Injuries: Nova, over the course of the fic, has been scared awake by Twilight's loud teleportation which led to him calling out of bed, had his back scalded by hot shower water, been sent falling down stairs by an Absurdly Bright Light, been dropped in ice-cold slush right where his coat doesn't cover him, gotten his arm burned after correcting Twilight's grammar, and been bucked in the face by Applejack for making a suggestive comment. And those are just in the rewritten chapters!
• Ancestral Name: Zig-zagged. Nova Shine is named after his family's patriarch, Nova Shine I, a unicorn spellcaster said to be just as prolific as Star Swirl the Bearded. Present-day Nova constantly struggles with the weight of the expectations placed upon him because of this. Subverted, in that it later seems that he and the first Nova Shine are actually the same pony and that he will be journeying into the past shortly after discovering this information. Double-subverted, because while he was in the past, he met and fell in love with Clover the Clever but they ultimately could not be together. She then named her son after him, who then grew up to become the Nova Shine that he was named after.
• Ancient Tomb: More like a bank, but it has the appearance of a temple of some sort and it does serve to hold Envy's Soul Jar prison.
• And I Must Scream:
  • Envy has been imprisoned in that Soul Jar for over a thousand years, and it's implied she's been aware of the passage of time.
  • Silas Silverblood is reduced to being a shell after the spell he uses on Nova Shine causes his horn to explode. Steelshod says he stares straight at a wall, completely catatonic and unresponsive to the world around him.
• And Then What?: By Nova's own admission, he had no idea what he was going to do if his plan got as far as it did. He has a general solution, and it turns out to work and keep things moving.
• Angst Nuke: Multiple times, Nova gets so angry he blows up, dealing minor damage to things around him. With his increasing control over his abilities, he stops doing this entirely by the time he ends up in the past.
• Anti-Magic: Inmanipulon-stone, which absorbs magic when large enough, but at the very least prevents magical energy from being seen on its other side, even in trace amounts. It's mentioned that the Changeling Throne is made from the stuff, and it's theorized that it has something to do with Tirek.
• Anti-True Sight: A common counter to Nova's ability to sense energy is simply to let out a small but intense blast of magic that temporarily blinds his energy sense. It's described as being like shining a bright light directly into one's eyes.
• Applied Phlebotinum: Magi-tech, which is seen in the form of a computer, an arcanograph (a device used to measure the depth and concentration of a pony's magical power), televisions, and even a magi-gun.
• The Apprentice: Naturally. We meet two Night Apprentices in the story, and both from the same family tree. Our protagonist Nova, and his ancestor Comet.
• April Fools' Day: A special chapter was released in 2018. Just over a thousand words, with Twilight, Nova, and Spike reenacting the memetic "Steamed Hams" sequence from The Simpsons.
• Arc Words: "What will come will come, and we'll be ready to meet it when it does." Doubles as Book Ends.
• Armor-Piercing Question: In the early part of Chapter 5, Twilight asks Nova what it is he actually wants. Nova cannot arrive at an answer he actually believes in, and it serves as a major catalyst for his Character Development over the next several chapters.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: In the old versions of chapters, Nova briefly turns into this when he and Steelshod get off on the wrong foot. In the new ones, Nova is still a bit haughty about his magical ability, but never to this extent.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • "The Night Apprentice offers many benefits. For starters, he or she is accorded the rights and privileges of the minor nobility until their graduation. He or she wilt receive the opportunity to learn powerful magicks directly from myself and my sister. He or she wilt receive an unparalleled education of the night, astronomy, and many other fields of science and magic, overall adding up to an education to rival many of the most educated ponies in Equestria. And finally, the Night Apprentice wilt receive a fancy title to include on resumes for job applications."
  • According to Rarity, a lady does not spit out all of her drink at any moment short of poison or seeing your friend having the gall to wear mismatched colors that don’t go together at a formal event.
  • Also according to Rarity, the Miasma of Muddling is perfect for suppressing magic and inducing sleepiness in its imbiber, and it tastes fantastic with earl grey tea if one has taken the antidote.
• Art Evolution: By his own admission, Rytex's writing improved drastically over the course of writing the fic, which is why the earlier chapters are being rewritten to bring them up to speed with the later ones, both in terms of everyone's characterization and his style.
• Asleep for Days: After Nova meets Sombra in the desert, he wakes up at least four days later in bed in his house, after having a Catapult Nightmare.
• The Atoner: Trixie clearly is trying to make things up with Nova for what her father did to him years ago when they meet alone in Chapter 4. After that, she's back to her usual antagonistic self, with a side of Shipper on Deck.
• Author Appeal:
  • Nova is a big fan of hoofball and Arsenal because Rytex is a massive Arsenal fan.
  • The three instruments Nova is described as being able to play in some vein in Chapter 8 (drums, trombone, and Prench Horn) are the three instruments Rytex can play to some degree.
• Background Halo: Nova manages to catch Twilight at the right time to see her with one caused by Hearth's Warming lights. He falls in love with her that very instant, though he refuses to admit it to himself.
• Bad "Bad Acting":
  • Nova and Twilight, when Cadance and Shining Armor disrupt their lunch date plans in Chapter 12, start being overly melodramatic about it, for no other reason than having fun with each other, with the overly-dramatic swoon and everything. Cadance doesn't think they should be trying out for any Flankspearean tragedies anytime soon.
  • Nova intentionally oversells his second reaction to one of Summer's comments. In the process, he drenches Shimmer Silvermane with his drink, escalating the moment from one of levity to one of tension.
• Badass Boast: In tandem with Dude, Where's My Respect?, a younger Princess Luna vents to Nova Shine about how she is ignored in favor of her sister.
  Luna: "Why is it that Our sister gains so much love and adoration from our subjects, but it is only the odd ones such as thee who pay any attention to Us? Do they not see how much We do for them!? Who is it that wards off their nightmares? Who is it that watches over their dreams? Who paints the canvas of the night sky with the gentle brush of Her magic? Who guides the moon and the tides of the great seas!? Who watches over the students, who spend their nights secluded in rooms lit only by candlelight!? Who does all of this, and receives nary a simple ‘Thank you’, nary a single grateful comment!? Who, Nova Shine!? We wish to hear thine answer!"
• Badass Cape: The Night Apprentice and Faithful Student, as well as their graduate selves the Night Master and Prime Magus, all get a cape as a show of their position. Said capes are color-coded and imbued with spells and enchantments galore to help them in combat. Nova uses his to bat away spells and teleport multiple times in the fic, as well as an Invisibility Cloak.
• Badass Teacher: Make any attempt to harm their students, and Celestia and Luna will stop sitting idly by and watching from afar.
• Bait-and-Switch Comparison: The opening of chapter 12 in narrative form, which takes place the morning after Nova and Twilight make their amends and become an Official Couple. A picturesque pair of unicorns exit a train, obscured by steam and very clearly in love with each other as they trot along happy with life. Moments later, Nova and Twilight, bickering Like an Old Married Couple, stumble off with Nova complaining about why they had to bring so much luggage.
• Ballroom Blitz: At a party celebrating the completion of the Old Castle, Nova and Steelshod duel for everyone's entertainment and over Clover's hoof in marriage.
• Bar Brawl: Nova starts one to extricate himself and Summer Blossom from a situation involving Shimmer Silvermane that all parties will regret. He magically knocks several ponies into each other, and then stumbles into one himself, spilling beer over others in the process, which starts a chain reaction of shouting that devolves into a full brawl. Summer uses it as an excuse to punch Shimmer in the face.
• The Bartender: There's an entire family of Germane ponies called the Brew family that show up in this role in different cities. They've existed for well over a thousand years minimum, and Nova always seems to have a positive relationship with every Brew he encounters due to being a beer connisseur.
• Basement-Dweller: Of the non-negative variety. Despite owning his own house three hours away, Nova spends the majority of the fic living in Twilight's basement while they figure out the source of the nightmares plaguing them.
• Battle Couple: Nova and Twilight.
• "Be Quiet!" Nudge:
  • Twilight likes to elbow Nova after he says something stupid to someone else, like when he jabs Trixie verbally in their meeting in Chapter 4.
  • Rarity to Nova to keep their planning of his date with Twilight a secret when Twilight comes to Carousel Boutique (to ask for the same thing).
• Beam-O-War: Comet Novus, Envy, and Nova all share one at one point.
• Beardness Protection Program: Star Swirl sneaks his way to Everfree by dressing as a bald pegasus, since he reasons that no one would expect Star Swirl the Bearded to be beardless and a non-unicorn. In reality, it's an illusion created by his cloak, and as soon as he takes it off, he returns to his usual appearance.
• Beautiful Dreamer: A subtle detail that shows how Nova's feelings about Twilight had changed. The first time he has an opportunity, after helping put her to sleep, he simply shrugs it off and tries to sleep himself. The second time, however, after she has a terrifying nightmare induced by Envy, he watches her for several moments, musing about how where she had been full of terror before, she was now snoozing peacefully.
• Beneath the Mask:
  • Nova is not a fan of showing what's behind his Stepford Snarker exterior, but ponies like Twilight continue to find ways to get under it.
  • Clover likes to keep her thoughts and feelings hidden behind a cold and dispassionate exterior, but like Twilight to Nova, Nova is particularly adept at bringing them out in her. Not to mention, she's a very expressive alcoholic.
• Berserk Button:
  • For Nova, it's both managing to get him to reveal too much, pestering him to reveal more than he wants, or hurting children. In the rewrites, he displays some ferocity even towards those he considers friends if there's even a hint that he was/is being manipulated, or having his free will taken from him in some way. And when he and Clover stumble across a number of thugs whipping a young Chrysalis, he comes close to outright killing one of the abusers in cold blood.
  • When Nova reveals he knows how to sense energy to Clover the Clever, Clover gets truly emotional for the first time, believing Nova stole his research or lied about how he learned this technique. She later explains that this is because she is quite proud to be Star Swirl's apprentice, and does not tolerate slights or things that trivialize what he learns, which she first thought Nova did.
• Betty and Veronica:
  • Per Word of God, Trixie was originally supposed to become the Veronica to Twilight's Betty for Nova's affections, but it never materialized. Considering Trixie and Nova were friendly rivals as kids, her and Twilight's positions could very well have been switched as well. By the rewrite, Trixie has even gotten rather supportive of Nova and Twilight ending up together, in her own antagonistic way.
  • When he goes back to the past, Nova is a bit torn between the down-to-earth Betty that is Summer Blossom and the magical prodigy Veronica that is Clover. Clover as well has her childhood friend Steelshod and the mysterious pony that appeared out of nowhere in Nova.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Nova does not like conflict. He attempted to talk down Envy and Nightmare Moon before their battles. The only pony who didn't get an offer of peace was Silas Silverblood, and by that point, Nova's Berserk Button had already been pushed. Said Berserk Button was when they stumbled across a number of his thugs abusing Chrysalis, after which Nova nearly strangled one of them.
• Beware the Silly Ones: There is a moment where Nova Shine is acting completely relaxed, not at all serious despite a serious moment, and generally blasé about the search for Princess Platinum. But then he discovers that Chrysalis is being whipped and treated as a slave, and he very nearly strangles one of the ponies doing it until Clover manages to snap him out of it.
• Big Bad: Envy.
  • Big Bad Friend: She knew Nova before she went bad.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • Played with. Shining Armor never threatens Nova personally over Twilight's feelings for him and their relationship, but Cadance does, by using Shining Armor as a threat. Indeed, Nova and Shining never seem to not get along.
  • Played straight by Celestia to Luna in the past. Despite her constant teasing, one of the first things Celestia does is quietly threaten Nova to not take advantage of her sister of the position she wants to give him for personal profit.
• Big Damn Heroes: Celestia, Luna, Tantalus, and Ray all show up in the nick of time to rescue Aegis, Sharp Eye, Nova, and Twilight.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Nova and Twilight, finally resolving his romantic issues once and for all. It's even given the appropriate treatment in the story, as it's experienced through Twilight's eyes.
• Big Entrance: Steelshod throwing open the doors of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters' Grand Hall, clad in all the finery of a showy soldier, making sure to be extra loud to get everyone's attention, which succeeds.
• Big "NO!": Nova panics with one of these when he comes to his senses right in the middle of sharing his first kiss with Twilight.
• Big Sister Mentor: Cadance tried to be this to Nova, but Nova wasn't having it. By the time the story rolls around, he's still not on good terms with her, but they eventually patch things up.
• Bilingual Bonus: Stout Brew mentions Bielepferd as a city where Brew cousins are from. Pferd is the German word for "horse" and the city it's based on is Bielefeld.
• Birds of a Feather: Nova and Twilight are both very dorky, both enjoy reading, both enjoy magic, both appear to enjoy baseball, and are both students of the two diarchs. They end up together.
• Bitch Alert: Shimmer Silvermane's first appearance has her flirting shamelessly with Nova, only to get turned down when Nova discovers her Seduction Scent spell and nullifies its effects on him. Then she demonstrates her inability to take being told no.
• Blindfolded Vision: With his energy sensing, Nova is able to detect the energy of everything around him, including the plants, other ponies, and the spells everyone casts. He uses this to grand effect in his practice duel with Twilight in Chapter 8, until Twilight casts a spell so bright with energy that it blinds him for a moment and forces him to revert to normal vision.
• Blue Blood: The Lulamoons and Novuses (and all related families) all possess a degree of influence in Canterlot society, with Nova's father being a member of the House of Nobles just for being head of the family, a position Nova will inherit years down the line, though he becomes the equivalent of a high noble simply by becoming Night Master.
• Book Ends:
  • The first and final chapters feature Luna offering Nova a position. First, as her Night Apprentice, and by the end, as the Archmage-in-Training.
  • Celestia tells Luna "What will come will come, and we'll be ready to meet it when it does" in Chapter 1, Ray Novus repeats it to Nova by the end of the climax.
• Bookcase Passage: Tantalus Lulamoon uses one to conceal a passage to the Canterlot Underground.
• Bookworm: Obviously Twilight, but also Nova.
• Bowdlerize: The audio drama by necessity. The original fanfiction is rated T and features plenty of swearing, sex jokes, and other such, but the audio drama is cutting back on the swearing and double entendres to make it more family-friendly.
• Boy Meets Girl: Played straight in an interesting way. The first half of the story is played straight. Nova and Twilight meet, Nova and Twilight fall in love, they lose each other, and they regain each other. The story as a whole as well. The same happens, but they lose each other as Nova forays into the past, and they regain each other yet again by the end.
• Brain Bleach: Nova accidentally walks in on Night Light sitting on the toilet and immediately backs out, wishing he had some.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs:
  • Nova teases Balanced Budget that he should be careful around Twilight Sparkle or else he will end up banished. Or put in prison. Or put in prison in the place he is banished to.
  • Nova, describing his hobbies.
  Nova: I prefer pub-crawling, reading, magic, and reading about magic while pub-crawling.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Nova, describing his life situation to his parents.
  Nova: Oh, you know, studied magic, started dating a mare, currently engaged in a life-or-death struggle between myself and an evil shadow that wants me and Twi dead...
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • Nova outright refers to the "backstory part of the chapter" they need to get past in Chapter 6 at one point.
  • Nova is also aware of the fact that the chapters are being rewritten, since he seems to recall the old version of Chapter 8, in which he mastered a spell in a day instead of over the course of a month.
  • The Interlude is full of them, from Lightning Lance remarking that if the readers want to hear the first part of the story of how he named his colt Nova Shine, they could go back and reread the beginning of chapter 1, to Envy noticing all five instances of ponies drinking tea across the many short stories and calling attention to it, even to her pointing out that this chapter's not canon unless it is.
  Aegis: There's going to be no fourth wall this chapter, is there...
  • Nova even references the Interlude by name when Twilight asks when Sharp Eye and Fluttershy got together.
  • Pinkie as usual, considering her common fanon interpretation. In Chapter 11, she mentions she already knows Nova is innocent because she read ahead, and even tries to spoil the next chapter, only to get shut down by Rarity.
  • When Clover asks how complicated Nova's romantic issues are, Nova replies "it's about twelve chapters and an interlude, and one of them is split into two parts."
  • A direct fourth wall break happens in Chapter 16, which serves as a short nod to the story's 10th anniversary where Quantum Bit thanks the readers.
• Breakout Villain: According to the author, Envy wasn't supposed to be used as much as she was, but he liked the dynamic between her and Nova, and it just snowballed from there.
• Breather Chapter:
  • Chapter 8, a fun chapter in which Nova learns some more magic and has a play duel with Twilight, which takes place between the backstory-filled Chapter 7 and Chapter 9, which spurs the shift into slightly more serious territory.
  • The Interlude chapter comes after the already-fun Chapter 8, but with less plot advancement and more fun, meant to celebrate five years since Apprentice was first published. Immediately after it is Chapter 9, which as noted above, is far more serious.
  • Chapter 20, which takes place between the serious Chapter 19 and the start of the climax in chapter 21, shows Nova enjoying a quiet stretch of days, and is even called "Semblance of Normalcy."
• Brick Joke:
  • In the first chapter, Nova insinuates to Mayor Balanced Budget that if he accidentally insults Twilight, he could find himself imprisoned, or banished, or imprisoned in the place he was banished to. Fast forward to Chapter 12, and Nova finds himself being arrested and informed that impersonating a Peacekeeper, something he did back in Chapter 2, is punishable by imprisonment, banishment, or in severe cases, imprisonment at the location of banishment.
  • In Chapter 8, Nova reveals that he can speak in Gratuitous Iambic Pentameter if for no other reason than to annoy Twilight. Fast forward to the beginning of Chapter 12, when he and Twilight are being melodramatic about Shining and Cadance disrupting their date plans, Nova cries out, "I am afraid that I can help you not, for she has bound me far too tight to move!" It takes Shining a moment, but he figures it out.
    Shining: Was... was that iambic pentameter?
  • Twilight and Nova begin Chapter 12 with a debate over whether it was a good idea to bring so many suitcases up to Canterlot. It gets nodded to later when Twilight admits Nova was right about it, though Nova is too distracted to care. And then even later, Nova himself brings it up when he and Twilight are having a debate over whether events changed in time travel always happened, or could change the future they end up in.
  • In Chapter 17, Star Swirl knows the difference between en/deciphering, en/decoding, and en/decrypting, which is something Nova had been exasperated by in earlier chapters. He is over the moon about it.
• Broken Hero: In Celestia's own words, "[Nova] is about as broken as they come", in reference to his relationships and ability to trust others, due to his family issues and having lived life on the run. A large part of the first half of the story or so is Nova slowly letting himself grow close to Twilight.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Nova, with his severe confidence and family issues, is the brooder to Twilight, who is always the one to lift him from his moods.
• Bullying a Dragon: Lord Silverblood tries this. It doesn't go well for him.
• Burning with Anger: Twilight's Flame-light form shows up as a manifestation of Twilight's alignment with fire during particularly emotional moments, though unlike its appearance in the show, she can control it outside of said moments too.
• Butt-Monkey: If something amusing happens at someone's expense, that someone is usually Nova, from incinerating his own back via hot water to getting tied down and forced to listen to The Cake Song, to getting fake-arrested, to getting dunked in a river to wake him up by Princess Luna.
• Byronic Hero: Nova is a textbook case. Intelligent, likable, and a good-natured sense of humor, but all of that to mask his great insecurities and to avoid getting on the topic of his family issues and past.
• Call-Forward: Due to the rewrite, there are a few moments that nod to what will happen in the original sequel story, or just later in that one, such as Twilight talking to Nova about how the phrase "a casual event where two best friends can hang out in a completely platonic manner" might grow on him.
  • Call Forward to the show:
    • Nova mentions that, like Fluttershy's brother Zephyr Breeze, he has a lot of Fleeting Passionate Hobbies.
    • Aegis mentions there's a retired Equestria Intelligence Agent living in Ponyville, a reference to Special Agent Sweetie Drops from the one-hundredth episode special.
    • Nova and Twilight practice in Applejack's buckball clearing.
    • Star Swirl notes that things are taking a turn for the worse at the end of his final appearance and that there were a number of things that demanded his attention. For example, he worries about the Kirin and his correspondent Rain Shine, who had gone mysteriously silent. He also worries about storm clouds gathering to the southwest, across the seas. Most pressingly, Stygian has completely disappeared.
  • Call Forward to later in the fic.
    • Pinkie Pie apparently can read ahead, and knows all about what happens later in the story.
      Pinkie: Next chapter. *points at Nova* You.
  • Call Forward to the original sequel:
    • Envy accidentally calls Trixie "Trisha," which is her name when under the memory curse.
• The Cameo: In the audio drama's fourth episode, Rytex voices the train conductor who appears for all of ten seconds.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Twilight Sparkle, at first. Once she does, she seems to enjoy saying it whenever she can.
• Can't Hold His Liquor:
  • Nova appears to be good at it, though the reason he's plastered over the bar just makes him surly (which he was before he took up drinking).
  • Clover is not good at it. She spends the ensuing several minutes flirting shamelessly with Nova, making an overt sexual advance on him, even trapping him in her own bed when he tries to tuck her in for the night, and then just crashing.
• Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: Nova enjoys his solitude, but after a time, he enjoys spending time around Twilight far more.
• Captive Date:
  • Twilight keeping Nova with her via leash on their first casual event where two best friends can hang out in a completely platonic manner.
  • Clover ties Nova down in her bed while drunk. Nova just resigns himself to it.
• Captured on Purpose: Twilight in the climax.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Envy is a Type-3.
• The Casanova: Ray Novus, in his youth. Shimmer breaks him out of it.
• Cast from Calories: Implied, Twilight's POV narrator mentions that she was feeling thinner after spending lots of her energy using magic to save Nova from bleeding out, and she's spending the opening part of the chapter eating hayburgers to balance the calorie deficit.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Nova's being detained by Unicorn Kingdom Guards to open Chapter 14. He treats it like it's a relaxing experience.
• Catapult Nightmare: Nova's dream in Chapter 15.
• Cathartic Crying:
  • Early in the fic, Trixie suffers a complete breakdown from a lack of sleep due to nightmares mid-performance as she is heckled and unable to perform basic tricks, leading her to run away and just collapse into a fit of tears at the state her life is in. Eventually, she gets it together and, with some help from the voice in her head, decides to go to Ponyville to ask for Twilight Sparkle's help in solving her current predicament.
  • Nova Shine is put through an emotional wringer in Chapter 7, where he is finally able to let go of his grudge with someone who wronged him earlier in his life, but when he tries to let go of his grudge with his parents, he is unable to do so and under the weight of his failure, he breaks down in Twilight Sparkle's hooves once he makes it back to her parents' place.
• Caught in the Rain: Subverted in Chapter 9. Nova and Twilight's first date is going well, and they're about to spend a romantic rainy evening at her home. But then Envy strikes by successfully manipulating Twilight into catching Nova "cheating" and it just about destroys the relationship.
• Cerebus Retcon: While there are shades of this sprinkled throughout the fic related to the freezing of Dream Valley, Steelshod's account of Hearth's Warming changes the mood of it entirely. Rather than a comical event where the Three Patriarchs bickered and were frozen for their trouble, they were distrustful for past grievances, and the freeze brought on by the Windigoes is portrayed as a horrific and traumatizing event that killed ponies through exposure or starvation, and that Steelshod barely survived and has a lot of scarring from underneath his coat.
• Character Development: Nova goes from being an antisocial loner, who never lets anyone in, acts suspicious of everyone, and is intensely self-critical of his own magical ability, to being a very warm, open individual, engaged to Twilight, very quick to make new friends, and a very confident, powerful spellcaster.
• Character Tic: Nova has a tendency to rub around his horn whenever he's in deep thought. Similarly, Twilight taps her chin when doing some serious thinking. It rubs off on Nova, because he starts doing it too.
• Characterization Marches On: Averted for the most part, thanks to the rewrite, but a few characters who haven't seen their revisions do get this, such as Steelshod, who was, in Rytex's own words, originally supposed to be a Gaston-esque suitor for Clover, and eventually evolved into one of Nova's more steadfast friends over the course of three chapters.
• Chastity Couple: Invoked by Nova. At one point, when Twilight wonders why they haven't been physically intimate, Nova thinks it's better if they wait, simply due to his horrendous luck, their upbringings in Canterlot, and their positions of influence that would make an unplanned pregnancy a big deal if something happened.
• Chekhov's Gag: Night Light jokingly threatens Nova with a magi-gun if he hurts Twilight. Guess what they use to give themselves and advantage against Envy.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Nova's knowledge and use of cryptography, which is what allows him to figure out what the gibberish in Nova Shine I's diary says.
  • The Royal Guard Armor Uniformity Enchantment, which protects Aegis' appearance matching Steelshod completely.
• Chekhov's News: The newspaper Nova picks up in the morning in Chapter 1 mentions a new Headmaster of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. A few chapters later, it becomes important because the pony in question is Nova's old mentor and he plays an integral role in helping Nova get past his worst day.
• The Chew Toy: No one suffers nearly as many Amusing Injuries as Nova. It's almost to the point of being a Once A Chapter occurrence.
• Chick Magnet: Nova, to his own dismay. Originally, only Twilight falls for him. Envy also shamelessly flirts with him when they start routinely encountering each other. Then in the past, Shimmer Silvermane, Summer Blossom, and Clover the Clever all go for him, Celestia admits that Luna has been secretly pining for him and that she herself is patiently waiting for an opportunity, and then during Chapter 18 Nightmare Moon makes a rather forward suggestion that he's incredibly Squicked out by.
• Child Abuse Is a Special Kind of Evil: When Nova and Clover stumble upon some of Silas Silverblood's goons whipping an enslaved Princess Chrysalis, Nova drops his usual lax attitude and very nearly strangles the one with the whip to death until Clover pleads with him to stop. He does, but his serious attitude doesn't fade until he takes it all out on Silas Silverblood himself.
• Child Prodigy: Not to Twilight's extent, but Nova became only the fourth student in twenty-four years to enchant every rock in the Runecrafting Entrance Exam to Celestia's School and earned his cutie mark in magic. In Professor Hoofman's own words, he was destined for greatness. But then everything went wrong.
• The Chosen One: Twilight and Nova both are the ones who must defeat Envy, but that isn't to say they can't have any help along the way. Other Night Apprentices and Faithful Students did the same. However, they are chosen because Nova told past!Celestia about the future versions of himself and Twilight.
  • The Chooser of the One: Princess Luna and Princess Celestia both choose their students, so they are responsible for picking them both, though at the start of the story, Celestia chooses Nova for Luna because Luna is still getting accustomed to modern times.
• Circling Birdies: After Nova gets his eye blacked by Applejack, his magic unconsciously makes literal stars dance around his head.
  • In the audio drama, Twilight sees literal stars after her first attempt at long-distance teleportation.
• The Clan: The Novus and Lulamoon clans, direct descendants of Nova Shine I and Star Swirl the Bearded respectively, are two of the most well-known unicorn clans with magical talent being very prevalent in their members. The Sparkle clan itself is a branch of the Novus line, and the Novuses and Lulamoons have been known to inter-mix through the generations.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Nova. While legitimately powerful, smart, and cunning, he has severe confidence issues as well as issues with his family that he overcomes over the course of the story.
• Cliffhanger: A few.
  • Chapter 11's rewrite features Envy attacking Zecora and then taking possession of the Alicorn Amulet.
  • Chapter 12 Part 2 ends with future!Nova arriving, internally revealing that Envy had acquired the Alicorn Amulet, and then revealing that he's the reason Envy even exists in the first place.
  • Chapter 17 ends with Nova being pulled out from his Time Stasis early by Celestia, realizing what day it is (Nightfall), and then asking what happened to Luna.
  • Chapter 20 ends with Envy kidnapping the townsponies of Neighton with the help of the amulet.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Twilight tends to express annoyance when another mare expresses interest in Nova, even when they're just a filly. Envy exploits this.
• Clingy Sleepers: After Twilight suffers from a major psychological nightmare, Nova lets her sleep in his bed for the night. When he wakes up, she's clung so hard to one of his hooves that he can't feel it anymore.
• Cloak of Defense: The Night Apprentice, Faithful Student, Night Master, and Prime Magus each had cloaks that were symbols of their station and carried a number of useful enchantments, such as invisibility or teleportation. Given the in-universe First Fundamental Law of Magic that magic cannot pierce magic, no matter how powerful one Source is compared to the other, this makes magically-impregnated clothing defensive against magical attacks by default, something Nova Shine uses on several occasions.
• Clocktower: Neighton has one, which Nova uses to hide some plot-relevant trinkets for when he returns from the past.
• Cloth Fu: Nova uses his cape to smother a pony into unconsciousness, as well as to block spells.
• Clothing Combat: Nova uses his cloak as a shield to deflect spells, and even at one point as a means to strangle an enemy into unconsciousness.
• Cock Fight: The point of Nova's and Steelshod's duel. Clover even calls it such.
• Color-Coded Characters: Nova is blue, Twilight is magenta. In addition, due to magical resonances, every unicorn or Alicorn has a color that is uniquely theirs.
• Color-Coded Wizardry: Magical resonances enforce this. Everyone's resonance is uniquely theirs. Even Clover the Clever and Twilight Sparkle have a subtle difference in the color of theirs.
• Combat, Diplomacy, Stealth: The trios, at any given point.
  • Typically, Nova Shine is the Stealth. He prefers subterfuge and sneaking around. The only time this changes is when someone pushes his Berserk Button, and he completely discards subterfuge in favor of kicking that stallion's teeth in.
  • Typically, Twilight Sparkle is the Diplomacy. She has an eye for a logical solution that doesn't involve being needlessly confrontational or needlessly subtle.
  • Aegis, Sharp Eye, and Trixie typically serve as the Combat option, with Aegis and Sharp Eye being experienced fighters, and Trixie being... well, Trixie.
• Combat Pragmatist: Nova. He chokes an enemy into submission with his cape, abuses trap spells, and isn't above physically striking an opponent in a serious duel.
• Commitment Issues:
  • Ray had them, out of fear of what his life with Shimmer would look like.
  • Nova has them, stemming from having opened up in the past and being betrayed.
• Compete for the Maiden's Hand: Steelshod engages Nova Shine in a wizards duel at the castle celebration for everyone's entertainment, with the stakes being Clover's hoof in marriage. Nova accepts. Clover isn't consulted and she's furious because of it. However, when she and Nova speak alone after he wins, Nova pieces together that she's actually thrilled Nova won. In the original version of the chapter, Nova altered the stakes of the duel to give her the final say, which dismayed Steelshod because Steel knew if he won, she'd turn him down, but if Nova won, she'd accept.
• Compound-Interest Time Travel Gambit: Nova stores away a few things from his time in the past to be sold in his own time, giving himself a comfortable fortune with which he would never have to actually work and could devote his life to studying magic and eventually to becoming the Archmage.
• Continuity Nod: The story takes place before "Magical Mystery Cure", but after "Games Ponies Play." Due to it not being explicitly stated, much confusion was created in viewers of the audio drama. Even so, little nods to the show are made for the purpose of time reference.
  • Chapter 1 has a letter to Twilight from Celestia, which first tells Twilight that the Night Apprentice has been named, but also that Twilight neglected to mention how she defeated an Ursa Minor in her previous letter.
  • Aegis thinks no one would dare attack Canterlot Castle with the Equestrian military headquartered there. Nova asks him if he's been to any weddings recently.
    • We also find out how Chrysalis knew about the crystal caves beneath Canterlot. It isn't a pretty story.
  • Discord's statue in the Canterlot Gardens is a replica now, since he was released and reformed by Fluttershy.
  • Twilight wonders if she told Nova about the time a hundred Pinkie Pies invaded Ponyville.
  • Trixie mentions that Twilight humiliated her twice.
  • As it turns out, Nova was also jolted into discovering his special talent due to Rainbow Dash's first Sonic Rainboom.
  • Nova and Twilight practice magic in Sweet Apple Acres' west orchard, but are warned to beware of the fruit bats.
  • While on the date, Twilight tells Nova about the time she charmed a bunch of rapidly-reproducing fuzzballs into eating everything except food, leading to the whole town being consumed.
  • When Nova returns to his present time seven months early, he meets with Celestia and Luna right before Twilight arrives for their "test."
  • The entirety of the chapter "Epilogue" takes place during the events of "Magical Mystery Cure".
• Contrived Coincidence: We're supposed to believe that the exact book Nova and Twilight needed to continue searching for their nightmare source just happened to fall to the exact page when clumsily knocked off a shelf by Trixie. Subverted. It turns out Nova from the future rigged it that way to get him moving where he needed to be.
• Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: Aegis is forever thankful for it.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Rarity tortures Nova with the Cake Song from LazyTown in the interlude chapter. It's justified as being something Pinkie Pie is singing (and by the chapter not being canon except when it is).
• Cool Big Bro: Spike seems to think of Nova as this a lot of the time, though that doesn't stop him from blaming Nova when Twilight barricades herself in her room in Chapter 4.
• Cool Teacher: Princess Luna for Nova, full stop. She just gets him and is able to help him overcome so many of his own issues, which leaves him unflinchingly loyal to her.
• Cracks in the Icy Façade: Nova Shine starts off as an incredibly closed-off Snark Knight, who hides bad experiences in his past under sarcasm, refuses to let anyone in, and does everything he can to not draw attention to himself despite going out of his way to help the less fortunate. However, Twilight Sparkle is particularly good at encouraging him to open up, much to his chagrin, and several times, she's able to get him to reveal more than he wants to let on in a moment of emotion. Eventually, she helps him work past the trauma in his past, and he opens up completely and falls in love with her.
• Creator Cameo:
  • Rytex's OC, "Quantum Bit," appears in the Interlude, and alongside his sister "Pen Strokes" in Chapter 10. They even come back for the finale so that Aegis and Sharp Eye can beat the crap out of them. His older OC "Black Hat" is alluded to in the Interlude, as well.
  • The audio drama version features a number of OCs belonging to Truesailorcomet, the artists, voice actors, etc., as background ponies in various shots.
    • Some of the people who did reviews also turn up from time to time, such as Fast Track.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Nova accepts a duel against Steelshod in front of a crowd of partygoers and defeats him, which leaves Steel inconsolable. When Clover confronts him over accepting the duel rather than rejecting it, Nova rebuffs that he was being merciful, because if he had just turned Steel down, it would have embarrassed him in front of everyone. By going through with the duel and defeating Steel, he allowed Steel to leave with at least some dignity.
• Crush Blush: Twilight does this several times when she's infatuated with Nova shortly after meeting.
• Crystal Prison: If a non-authorized pony tries to gain entry to someone else's vault in the Everfree Vaults, they get stuck in a giant pink crystal that keeps them alive until they can be interrogated. Envy uses this to get behind Nova and Twilight and trap them in a room with only one way out.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Nova versus fifteen thugs. Nova wins in about ten seconds.
  • Nova completely trounces Silas Silverblood. Silverblood is hyped up as a particularly powerful unicorn, and Nova does admit that he does have raw power on his side, but he lacks the finesse and forethought that make a truly powerful spellcaster and Nova spends the entire battle barely breaking a sweat.
  • Nova also completely wrecks Envy on Nightfall, even referencing the trope by name.
• Curtains Match the Window: Nova's mane, tail, and eyes are the same shade of deep blue.
• The Cynic: Nova starts out this way. Character Development helps him grow into much more of a realist.
• Damsel out of Distress: Twilight has blunders into a trap right in the climax, (which is odd considering she has energy-sensing capabilities). It was actually all part of the plan, and she and Nova expertly take Envy down.
• Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: In the fourth chapter, Nova gets startled by the bright sunlight, which causes him to fall backward down the stairs into Twilight's basement.
• Deadly Dust Storm: Nova Shine, when crossing the San Palomino Desert on hoof, ends up swallowed up by one of these. He conjures a magic shield to protect him, but after having made the journey alone and being several days into it, he is utterly exhausted and the sheer beating of wind and sand his shield takes overwhelms him within seconds. He is then saved from certain death by King Sombra.
• Deadpan Snarker: Everyone has their moments, but mostly Nova, who will let the sarcasm fly with abandon every opportunity he can.
• "Dear John" Letter: Clover writes one to Nova in the epilogue, and it causes Nova to realize he wants to marry Twilight.
• Deconfirmed Bachelor: Nova refused to grow close to anyone, and never felt that love was worth it. But then he fell in love with Twilight.
• Defrosting Ice King:
  • Twilight is able to get Nova to start opening up to her, and it coincides with him becoming a much friendlier and much more pleasant pony to be around.
  • Nova himself manages to get Clover the Clever to warm up to him after the events in the Crystal Caves, where she goes from hyperprofessional and impersonal to openly vying for his attention and affection.
• Desperate Object Catch: In a Shout-Out to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, even.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Less "looking for a purpose" and more "looking for a way to study magic," but when offered the chance to learn directly from Luna, he accepts it in record time, and this marks the start of his growth.
• Despite the Plan: Subverted, because though it first appears like Nova and Twilight blundered right into Envy's clutches, that was the plan all along.
• Deus ex Machina: The Consciousness of Magic. When Nova, Celestia, and Comet need to take the Element of Magic temporarily to battle Nightmare Moon, she shows up and possesses Nova to lecture him and Celestia, as well as to restore life to Sunbeam, Comet's future wife and Nova's ancestor, who had been murdered by Envy, thus setting all right as far as history was concerned.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Nova falls for Clover in the past, but ultimately has to leave to return to his own time. He still gets Twilight, though.
• Did You Just Have Sex?: Trixie teases Twilight about it in Chapter 4 in their first meeting. Though it's actually because a lack of nightmares finally allowed Twilight to get a proper night's sleep for the first time in months.
• Didn't Think This Through: Nova uses an energy transfer spell to constantly give himself the energy to run back to Ponyville all the way from Neighton, a good three hours away at a moderate trot. It's only when he gets back to Ponyville that he realizes he could have caused serious damage to his legs.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: At one point, Twilight hums something that Nova suspects sounds like something out of a television show. The text in question is linked to Spike humming the main show's theme.
• Disney Villain Death: Nova kicks Envy into the chasm she created in a final attempt to kill them. She survives, however, thanks to Nova allowing empty Soul Jars to fall as the cost of allowing himself to be rescued.
• Disowned Parent: Nova Shine and his parents start off on rocky terms, to say the least. However, things come to a head when Nova visits them in an attempt to fix the relationship between them, and poorly-timed comments from his parents press Nova's Berserk Buttons, leading him to disown them as his family.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Twilight uses this to her advantage to beat Nova in their first duel.
• Do Wrong, Right:
  • Nova was rather disappointed by Spike's paint prank in Chapter 8, vowing to teach him the finer points of painting rude things onto sleeping ponies.
  • Nova is also disappointed that Scourge can only call him "Nova Slime" instead of something more biting.
• The Don: Tantalus Lulamoon, in his disgrace over the incident at Celestia's School, took control of a crime family and used them as a front so he could continue to fulfill his duties as the Bookkeeper (it's implied the Princesses knew about it too). In his own words, he turned the Silverblood family from an overtly black crime family into a much lighter shade of grey, but he still maintains plausible deniability.
• Doorstopper: The original, non-revised version clocked in at over 242,000 words. At present, after chapter revisions, the Interlude, and an additional chapter in the past, it currently comes in at just over 380,000 words.
• Dream Weaver: Luna, as per canon, and Nova. At one point, Nova even weaves a dream between himself and Twilight so that they can sleep on the train to Canterlot but still talk and catch up on his recent excursion into the past.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Nova ends up plastered all over a bar at the beginning of Chapter 10 due to what happened at the end of Chapter 9. His father manages to snap him out of it and get him on the path to making things right with Twilight. Despite spending a week in the bar attempting to stay drunk so he can forget, Nova doesn't exhibit any symptoms of alcohol dependence ever after, even though his enjoyment of alcohol never diminishes.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: past!Luna lists everything she does that she feels she is not properly appreciated for by virtue of being the Princess of the Night, and it is also something of a Badass Boast, including warding off nightmares, painting the night sky, controlling the seas, watching over students burning the midnight oil, and yet never receives thanks for her work.
• Dumpster Dive: Aegis, in order to retrieve a spare set of armor in Chapter 2.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Future!Nova appears very briefly in Chapter 5 as the unicorn in a cloak Present!Nova bumps into to watch the hoofball match made of lights.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Nova, multiple times, to Twilight. First, when he spots her under the Hearth's Warming Lights tree in Trottingham, and that forms the moment when he falls head over heels for her. She was well aware of that instance. Second, when she emerges from a shower after washing prank paint off of her, and she catches him staring. Third, exploited by Twilight in their duel, where she managed to get Nova Distracted by the Sexy so as to win their duel.
• Elemental Powers: Apparently, every pony has an elemental alignment, and if trained, they can tap into it for a very literal use of their element. They are also able to be changed. A pony born a Fire Elemental could undergo a personality change until their affinity becomes earth or even water.
  • Blow You Away: Mostly Pegasi, with a few earth ponies and a good amount of unicorns. They tend to be flighty and impatient, like to move around, and prefer to tackle their problems from all sides. Nova discovers he is one, which explains why he always seems to have sourceless wind blowing around him when he gets angry, as are Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. Nova learns to harness the wind that comes from him and uses it to defuse several situations between himself and Twilight.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: Mostly earth ponies, but with a few Pegasi and a fair amount of unicorns. They tend to be firm and grounded individuals, who tackle their problems head-on. Applejack, Rarity, and Cadance are described as Earth Elementals.
  • Making a Splash: Two different manifestations, either as cool and gentle spirits or as cold and unforgiving types. They tend to wear away their problems with more patient tactics. Fluttershy is one, and Shining Armor is described as another.
  • Playing with Fire: Their passions burn bright and they embrace them fully. They find the easiest way to defeat a problem and then devote all their power into getting it done. Twilight is one, even to the point of gaining actual control over her Burning with Anger form, as is her mother.
• Elemental Punch: Aegis, at one point, punches with lightning. It got expanded on in the old sequel, with Nova borrowing his technique and punching with magic itself.
• Elemental Rivalry: Ponies with opposing elements generally butt heads a lot (but not always). However, those who overcome those sorts of conflicts are perfect for balancing the other out. For example, Wind Elemental Nova and Earth Elemental Rarity have a playful rivalry between themselves, but more seriously, he could not stand Cadance for the longest time, until eventually she was able to break through to him and now he happily calls her a surrogate older sister.
• Embarrassing Nickname:
  • Luna really does not like being called "Lulu" by her older sister.
  • Twilight does not appreciate Night Light calling her by her baby nickname "Twinklesparky." He only does this because Twilight didn't call Velvet "Mom," so he thinks it's only fair.
• Emotion Suppression: Nova at first is shown to fear his own emotions, partly because every time someone pushes his buttons, he blows up. Over time, he learns to control them and stop closing himself off.
• Emotions vs. Stoicism:
  • Twilight and Nova respectively. Where Twilight constantly cheerful or expresses herself a lot more readily, Nova tries to keep himself closed off. And when he does let slip something after his buttons are pressed, he tries to isolate himself so that it doesn't happen again as a punishment. By the time he travels to the past, he becomes the Emotional side (relatively speaking, anyway), whereas Clover the Clever becomes the stoic side.
  • Nova has two internal voices that are named Logic and Emotion, which he chatters with early in the story. He seems to pay far more heed to Logic.
• Empty Shell: The fate of Silas Silverblood after the shattering of his horn. Then he gets murdered.
• Energy Ball: Nova Shine uses several of these as extensions of his Source for spellcasting, allowing him to target opponents from multiple angles, physically harass opponents, illuminate dark rooms, and all sorts of applications. He eventually settles on using five at a time.
• Entitled to Have You: Shimmer Silvermane does not take it well when Nova turns her down.
• Establishing Character Moment: Nova is introduced paying for a homeless pony's apartment completely out of nowhere, just because he felt Lightning Lance needed an apartment more than he needed a fun night of drinking. And also because he didn't think he'd be in good shape to meet Ponyville's representative for Trading Day if he had a hangover. When asked how they could repay him, Nova essentially just shrugs and says "Literally, don't mention it."
• "Eureka!" Moment: The first Sonic Rainboom is what startles Nova into finally really getting magic, which allows him to ace an entry test for Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, as well as earn his cutie mark.
• Everyone Can See It: Aegis, Trixie, Night Light, Twilight Velvet, and even Celestia and Luna can see plain as day that Nova and Twilight have a thing for each other. Sharp Eye explicitly tells Fluttershy he thinks they're just made for each other.
  • Celestia and Luna are also well aware that Nova and Clover have more than just platonic feelings for each other.
• Everyone Is Related: Nova is the heir to the Novus clan, the descendants of Comet Novus' oldest daughter, and Twilight is a part of the Sparkle clan, the descendants of Comet Novus' youngest daughter, making them very distantly related. And as the Lulamoon family is said to have often intermarried with the Novus family at many different points in the past, this makes Nova and Twilight descended from Star Swirl the Bearded and related distantly to Trixie. It also makes Nova Clover's and Steelshod's own descendant.
• Everyone Has Standards: Envy may be a homicidal shadow who gleefully admits to wanting to stick a knife in the backs of two ponies, but how dare Trixie even think she stole something!?
• Everyone Went to School Together: Averted, despite them all being the same age and familiar with each other. Nova did go to school with Trixie, and clearly knew Aegis before he ran away, but everyone had a separate meeting with each other than simple school.
• Evil Makes You Monstrous: At one point, it's mentioned that indulging in hate physically changes a pony. For Envy, her eyes turned a bright red, though she didn't go to the depths that Sombra did.
• Evil Redhead: When she isn't possessing anyone, pretending to be someone else, or in shadow form, Envy's normal mane color is maroon.
• Evil Sorcerer: Silas Silverblood, the only unicorn we see cast Black Magic.
• Exactly What I Aimed At: Twilight notes while she's patching up Nova's stab wound that the wound didn't miss every vital organ, it avoided every vital organ.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!:
  • Nova cracks up when Twilight mentions that her teacher is Princess Celestia. When he sees she isn't laughing, and she calls herself the Princess' faithful student, he manages to make himself realize exactly who he is dealing with.
  • While in the past, Nova and Clover had a duel for fun that resulted in him accidentally blasting her into a tree with a wayward spell and gashing open her head. Without pausing to think, he used a spell that wouldn't be invented in several centuries to heal her, and when she's recovered, while she marvels at the spell, she manages to realize just how it is Nova would know that spell, and dashes off to be alone.
• Eye-Dentity Giveaway: Envy is a Living Shadow who can shapeshift into anyone she chooses, when she's not possessing them anyway. In both instances, shapeshifting and possession, her red eyes are her dead giveaway.
  • She disguises herself as a random Trottingham townie in the Interlude, where Trixie notes that her eyes were the only thing that didn't change about her when she's transformed.
  • Envy shapeshifts into Rarity at one point to emotionally manipulate and drive a wedge between Nova Shine and Twilight Sparkle, yet even though she wears Rarity's shape, Nova notices her red eyes but doesn't react given the situation she confronts him in.
• Face Hoof: Just about everyone's standard reaction to someone else's stupidity.
• Fan Discontinuity: Invoked within the story. Apparently, Twilight and Nova disagree over whether Harry Trotter and the Cursed Foal is canon or not. Twilight doesn't seem to think so.
• Feuding Families: Averted. While it has long been theorized that the Novuses and Lulamoons had a legitimate feud, especially in light of the incident involving Nova Shine, they never were outright feuding.
• Fighting from the Inside: Trixie, while being controlled by Envy, is able to keep Envy from killing Nova by preventing her from stabbing him with her knife at the end of Chapter 9.
• Finishing Each Other's Sentences: Nova and Twilight in Chapter 3, when talking about the nightmares they had, are able to just run on each other's statements to say what happens next. Night Light lampshades it.
  Night Light: How cute. You both can finish each other’s sentences. Truly you’re made for each other.
• The First Cut Is the Deepest: A non-romantic example. Nova closes himself off because the last time he trusted someone, he was betrayed.
• First Love: This is the Twilight pre-Equestria Girls, so she hasn't ever met Flash Sentry. Nova, however, has misguided views on love, so his feelings for Twilight are a very new experience for him.
  • Nova was also Clover's, and in Steelshod's words, Clover never would have even considered love something to be taken seriously if she hadn't fallen for Nova and opened her eyes.
• First Girl Wins: Played straight and averted at different times.
  • Twilight gets Nova, full stop.
  • Summer Blossom does not get Nova when he travels to the past.
• First Kiss: For both Nova and Twilight, but Nova has a panic attack in the middle of it. He even laments ruining the moment, as though for the both of them it were a Sacred First Kiss.
• First Time Feeling: We get to see Twilight's first experience with energy sensing, and she finds it irritating in the extreme. According to Nova, that's rather standard, considering it's like opening an eye that's been closed almost your entire life.
• Flare Gun: A magical example, as Neighton and Ponyville implemented emergency beacons so that in such an event, they could fire a magical beacon into the sky so that Canterlot would see and send responders.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: Nova completely and totally rejects love as a concept right in front of an alicorn who draws her magic from Love itself. It's implied that this is more out of his general sourness and out of spite more than it is a genuine rejection of love, however.
• Fleeting Passionate Hobbies: Nova apparently is into a lot of things, including three musical instruments, but isn't close to mastering any of them.
• Foe Romance Subtext: The way Envy acts around and when talking about Nova is far from subtle. Turns out it's feelings leftover from when she loved him in the past before she turned homicidal.
• Force and Finesse:
  • Nova and Steelshod duel, with Steelshod attempting to subdue Nova with force, and with Nova more elegantly dancing about and countering with his own spells.
  • Celestia and Nightmare Moon allude to this, as the latter attempts to overpower Celestia, but Celestia uses finesse to outwit her opponent.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In the rewritten opening scene, there's a unicorn casting some kind of magic on Nova, Twilight, and Trixie as they sleep, making them dream of memories before turning it into a nightmare. His magic is blue. He also apparently is able to close Luna off from her own dream realm, and according to Twilight, he would have to really know all three of them inside and out to be able to cast this kind of magic. All of it to eventually reveal that future!Nova was the one responsible for the nightmares, not Envy.
  • Nova notices that his magical resonances, which are supposed to fade over time, are still around in his home when he hasn't been there in at least two months. There's also a mysterious, cloaked pony that he runs into at the Hearths Warming Lights festival in Trottingham.
  • Trixie, currently possessed by Envy, remarks that "[Nova] wouldn't have me, anyway. Not after what happened in the past" when talking with Twilight about him.
• Forgiveness: All but an explicit theme of the first half of the story is Nova letting go of his grudges and forgiving those who had wronged him.
• Forgot About His Powers: Envy steals the Alicorn Amulet from Zecora, but she doesn't really do much with it. It's implied she needed it to mind control every one of Neighton's townsponies, so it does play a small role, but beyond that it does nothing.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Averted. Nova and Twilight have been dreaming about the day they first met before they meet again on the first train ride to Canterlot.
• Foul First Drink: Clover the Clever is roped into a drinking game having never consumed alcohol before. When she first takes a gulp, she does manage to swallow it, but she does wonder aloud how ponies drink something so bitter, to be answered with a simple "We don't drink it for the taste" from someone else. However, after this, she develops a taste for lighter, less alcoholic beers like pilseners, as she is able to identify ingredients in a beverage in "The Final Night."
• The Four Loves: Referenced by name by none other than Princess Cadance, when telling Nova how proud she is of him for his growth in three out of the four. He enjoys a closer friendship with Aegis (Storge), he has made amends with his family (philia), and his romantic relationship with Twilight blossomed the previous chapter (eros), but despite his upbringing, his distrust toward everyone, and the time he spent running, he never lost his compassion for the less fortunate (agape).
• Freudian Trio: Played With in the first half, played rather straight in the second half.
  • There are times where Nova will serve as the superego, and there are times where he will be the ego, with Twilight filling in the other role, and Aegis or Trixie firmly serving as the Id.
  • Nova switches to a clear ego come the past arc. Clover takes the superego position, while Steelshod and Summer fill the id.
• Friend to All Children: Nova is really good with foals. He is able to get Sweetie Belle to (briefly) control her magic before the other Cutie Mark Crusaders startled her, and although he starts a food fight, he is able to entertain the foals at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Not even Celestia and Luna, who were alive before Envy existed, knew who she really was before she became the eternal nemesis of the Night Apprentice and Faithful Student. Nova even goes back in time to find out her identity and weakness. She turns out to simply be one of Nova's friends who had a romantic interest in him, and she lets her fury and jealousy of Clover "beating" her lead to attempted murder, and then to her transformation thanks to the Elements of Harmony.
• From Roommates to Romance: Nova lives in Twilight's basement while they investigate the nightmares, despite having his own expensive home in the nearby town of Neighton. Eventually, they end up falling in love over the course of the first half of the story.
• Future Self Reveal: Early on, Nova, Trixie, and Twilight are suffering from nightmares, and they come to the conclusion that whoever is causing these nightmares must be someone who knows them in-and-out. It turns out the pony causing these nightmares is none other than Nova's two-years-older self, fresh from a foray into the past and trying to get them moving to set the events of the story into motion.
• The Gadfly
  • Nova seems to live to get a rise out of Twilight.
  • Celestia enjoys her pranks and innuendo. This is far more apparent in the past, where she enjoys getting a rise out of Luna.
• Game of Nerds: The one sport both Twilight and Nova like is baseball. Twilight is a San Franciscolt Giants fan, courtesy of her mother, and Nova is a Trotston Red Sox fan, out of spite for Cadance, who supported the Manehattan Yankees the one game she took him to.
• Geek: True to canon, Twilight Sparkle. She even geeks out over Nova's first edition copies of the Harry Trotter series.
• Gentleman Snarker: Aegis. Also, Rarity whenever she makes an appearance.
• George Lucas Altered Version: The rewrite features cleaner writing, more coherent characterization, a few extra scenes, and even a few calls forward to both the rest of the fic and its original sequel.
• The Gift:
  • A cutie mark of stars is an explicit indicator that a pony with it has a talent for magic, and as such, Luna and Celestia seek out unicorns with these marks as their students.
  • Just like Twilight is very gifted in the magical department, so too is Nova, if slightly less so. His special talent, like Twilight's is magic itself, but he struggles to cast spells at first until, as Twilight puts it, he finds his niche. However, this is counter-balanced by Nova having prodigious talent at understanding the way magic works. After receiving a shock from the Sonic Rainboom, he is able to decipher and enchant every rock in a runecrafting test in mere seconds (becoming only the fourth student to do so), and is even able to comprehend and cast a time stasis spell alone (though with some energy reserves), when precious few ponies could comprehend it at all, and had to cast it in groups.
• Girl of My Dreams: Nova and Twilight both have dreams about the day they met as Trading Day representatives thanks to future!Nova's attempts to warn them about what's coming, but it isn't played for any romantic tension. It's mostly to establish Nova as a character and his role as Princess Luna's Night Apprentice. They do fall in love later, though.
• The Glomp: A younger Princess Luna practically tackles Nova once he finally manages to successfully transmute for the first time.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Envy has them in shadow form.
• Good is Not Nice: Nova is a very snarky and goofy stallion, but the few times he's been legitimately angry, he's taken the culprit to town.
• Grammar Nazi: Nova corrects Twilight's grammar in Chapter 8 rather patronizingly. She responds by igniting herself to burn him. In fairness, Nova had been trolling her all day.
• Grand Romantic Gesture: Steelshod challenges Nova to a duel, in an attempt to win Clover's hoof in marriage. He loses.
• Gratuitous Iambic Pentameter:
  • Chapter 8, Nova trolls Twilight with it, even to the point where she lapses into it herself, much to her consternation.
  • Later, during a moment of Bad "Bad Acting", he dips into it in an attempt to pretend to be Flankspearean, which confuses Shining Armor.
• Gratuitous Latin: The Novus Clan has their own Latin motto that Nova finds rather pretentious.
• Grave-Marking Scene: Nova visits Clover's and Steelshod's graves during a lull in the action on Nightfall.
• Greater-Scope Paragon: The Consciousness of Magic, a being to whom even Celestia bows.
• Guilt Complex: Nova comes back blaming himself for Envy's existence when he honestly could not have done too much to prevent it.

H-M

• Hair-Contrast Duo: Where Twilight's mane is long and neat, Nova's is short and untidy. Twilight's is multicolored, Nova's is monochromatic. Et cetera, even regarding their tails too. While they are alike in a lot of ways (both are intelligent, organized ponies who are very talented in magic and enjoy learning about it), they are at opposite ends of the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism (at first), and Twilight generally represents the "fair" hair, where Nova is the "dark" hair.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: Nova and Celestia both use Royal Canterlot Voice to shout each other down at one part, but it takes a third party shouting even louder to break it up.
• Hammerspace: Played straight in one case, and justified in another. Justified, in that unicorn ponies are able to store things in their Source, the storage space of which is limited by its depth, and can be brought out or put back at will (such as Rarity's fainting sofa). Played straight, in that Pinkie Pie, however, still uses hammerspace with zero explanation.
• Has a Type: To date, Nova Shine has been attracted to two powerful unicorns (both of which coincidentally were identical in appearance except for cutie mark), and a third unicorn who wasn't a slouch in the magic department herself.
• Healing Potion: Twilight keeps Elixirs of Energy on hoof for all-night study sessions, but they come in handy when Nova overexerts himself on a run back from Neighton. While they don't heal in the normal sense, they do help the damage in his legs to heal after some overnight rest.
• The Heavy: A number of antagonists appear in the story, such as Sombra or Silas Silverblood, but Envy is out and out the one who causes Nova and company the most grief.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation:
  • Nova has some serious self-esteem issues for the first half of the story. Comes to a head in Chapter 9, when Nova feels the need to ask Twilight why she wants him, and describe exactly why he thinks she deserves better.
  • Twilight takes it very personally when Nova proves himself right, and falls into it herself, telling Nova that he deserved better because she wouldn't hear him out when he was the one who did nothing wrong.
• Hidden Depths:
  • A good portion of Chapters 6-8 is showing more aspects of Nova's personality beyond "snarky self-conscious closed-off magic-user who likes books and hoofball." He's really good with children, enjoys music, theatre, and poetry, and can even lapse into conversational iambic pentameter and haiku. Chapter 9 continues the trend by revealing a lot more about what he thinks of himself, and it's not pretty.
  • Sharp Eye is apparently very well-read, something that Nova has a hard time believing. Sharp Eye and Twilight both chide Nova in wondering if he thought all Sharp Eye ever did was just bounty hunt and train to bounty hunt better.
  • Clover, after experiencing a Foul First Drink, discovers she has a taste for pilseners and pale ales, and can even pick out individual tastes and ingredients by the time of the castle completion celebration.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Nova does care about more than just himself and his desire to stay away from his parents. He just doesn't like to admit that he does, as Twilight and Celestia figure out.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Nova originally opts to hide in alleys as he explores Canterlot to avoid his parents, but later on, to head to the Sparkles', Twilight forces Nova to take the main roads where they would be less conspicuous by blending in with everyone else.
• Hideous Hangover Cure: Nova's dad uses one to jolt him out of his drunken stupor. The one in question is the one Brom and Eragon use in Dras'Leona in Eragon.
• High-Altitude Battle: Celestia and Nightmare Moon.
• Hint Dropping: Twilight in Chapter 5, in an attempt to get Nova to stop reading his book and explore the town with her.
• Historical In-Joke: Nova references a joke affair with Queen Elizabeak I. Queen Elizabeth I in real life was known as the "Virgin Queen."
• Holding Hands: Hooves rather than hands, but Twilight is rather fond of curling a hoof around Nova's.
• Hooked Up Afterwards: Nova thinks this of Aegis and Trixie, due to their insistence they're not on a date.
• Humble Hero: Nova just ants a normal life being left alone, free to study magic, and he also wants to avoid attracting the attention of his parents. As such, when he is seen performing acts of kindness, he is always very nonchalant about it and insists they don't mention it.
• Hypocritical Humor: Twilight Velvet whips Nova with her towel for asking "What the fuck just happened?" and tells him to watch his mouth. Before proceeding to comment that "stallions are just so damn thick sometimes."
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Nova stops holding back when it's just him and Envy alone on Nightfall.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: Nova is more than a little angry and hurt from the time he was cheated out of a position in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, especially since his special talent is magic, and with such potential, he was destined for greatness.
• I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: Nova doesn't like that Twilight truly loves him, as he initially would rather have simply stayed friends.
• I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: Nova doesn't want to risk his relationship with Twilight at first, though admits the status quo has already been demolished by Trixie's meddling.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: After spending his childhood as a "Well Done, Son" Guy, he has shades of this deep down, though Twilight brings them to the surface and it ultimately causes him to fall head over heels for her.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Nova's greatest desire is a normal life, free from running away from those chasing him, and able study magic to his heart's content.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Averted at first, but Twilight is able to make Nova realize how alone he really is, and this is one of the events that triggers him becoming much friendlier and warmer as time goes on.
• I Like My X Like I Like My Y: "I like my coffee black. Like my soul. Just kidding. Cream and two sugars. Like my soul."
• I Love the Dead: Nova is rather squicked out by the thought of it, when Comet unwittingly makes a joke about it.
• I Love You Because I Can't Control You: The main reason Ray fell for Shimmer is because Shimmer didn't let him bed her as easily as other mares. He took it as a challenge, and it slowly developed into feelings.
• I Miss Mom: Nova seems to bear very little ill will toward his mother, but it's overshadowed by his hatred for his father.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Make no mistake, Steelshod wants nothing more than to be with Clover. But he would rather Clover be happy with Nova than she be unhappy with no one by the time he loses to Nova.
• Identical Grandson: Zig-zagged.
  • Played straight with Twilight, who looks exactly like her ancestor Clover the Clever.
  • Unknown with Rarity, because although she and Princess Platinum bear great resemblance, it is never made clear if she is Rarity's ancestor.
  • Averted by Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, as Private Pansy and Commander Hurricane are referred to as male, but they both bear quite a bit of resemblance.
  • Applejack and Pinkie Pie are also stated to have some resemblance, but with a few key differences, like Applejack's colors compared to Smart Cookie's.
  • Also unknown, in a different way, is Nova's friend Aegis, because we don't know if Steelshod is his ancestor.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Steelshod is not thrilled that Clover is attracted to Nova, yet stands aside all the same. He does, however, take time to threaten Nova with this, and apparently it's a threat that Nova actually takes seriously.
• In the Back: Envy manages to stab Nova right in the back the day he's going back to meet Twilight after being in the past for 2 years.
• In the Hood: Nova's Night Apprentice/Night Master cloak has an invisibility spell activated when he puts it on.
• In Vino Veritas: Averted in Chapter 6. While Celestia brought Twilight to the castle's pub for a drink, it was as a pick-me-up after the events of the previous chapter and ensuing week. Before she interrogates Twilight about her feelings for Nova, she takes time to make sure she isn't inebriated before they speak. As well, under the influence, Clover reveals her attraction to Nova by shamelessly flirting with him.
• Inconvenient Attraction: Nova doesn't admit he loves Twilight for a solid five chapters after it happens, simply due to it meaning he's grown close to her when he's done everything he could to prevent that from happening.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: Night Light's Dad Joke.
  • Lame Pun Reaction: Nova does not take kindly to it.
• Ineffectual Loner: Nova, at first, stemming from betrayals and issues from his past. By story's end, he's made his peace with all ponies involved, and made several rather good friends.
• Infodump: Chapters 6 and 7. Backstory, backstory, backstory, with plot advancement reserved for the end of the chapter. The first three chapters do a lot of setup as well, but with a lot more actual plot advancement by comparison.
• Innocently Insensitive: Cadance, upon telling Nova about Twilight's feelings for him, cautions him to watch what he says to avoid being this.
• Insecure Love Interest:
  • Mostly averted by Twilight. Despite her neuroses and occasional freakouts, she's very comfortable being in love with Nova, and never once does it make her any less adorkable. That is, until Envy splits them apart. Once Nova is able to prove he didn't cheat, she takes it very poorly, beating herself up over it and insisting Nova deserves better than her because he came back to set things right and she wouldn't hear a word he said.
  • Played straight by Nova. Even when it's becoming clear that he's falling for Twilight, he lets his Heroic Self-Deprecation and perfectionism hamper any progress he makes in growing close to her. Comes to a head during their first date, when they're playing a game of asking questions, and he eventually can only muster "Why me?" He then spends several seconds tearing himself apart, only for Twilight to counter every point he makes.
• Insult of Endearment: While not exactly an insult, Nova called Cadance "Cadenza" just to spite her when he was younger. Even after he stops loathing her very presence, he still calls her that, but with absolutely no spite involved.
• Intangibility: The Princesses used the Elements of Harmony to curse Envy to become a living shadow, unable to affect the lives of others, after her attempted murder. However, this backfires, as Envy learns how to compose herself back into pony form and keep going, until Nova Shine I sealed her in a Soul Jar. Celestia believes it is because they misused the elements that this happened.
• Internal Reveal: When Nova informs Twilight that Envy has the Alicorn Amulet, in the rewrite. The audience saw Envy take it at the end of the previous chapter.
• Invisibility Cloak: Nova's Night Apprentice cloak, and later, his Night Master one as well.
• It Amused Me: Celestia makes Clover play a piano piece that requires 840 repetitions. Clover believes it's a lesson on focus despite dreadful monotony. It turns out Celestia had her do it for a laugh.
• It Will Never Catch On: Nova doesn't think "a casual event where two best friends hang out in a completely platonic manner" will grow on him. It does.
  • Also a Call-Forward for readers of the original version, since they are well aware that it does, indeed, grow on him.
• It's Not You, It's Me: Nova doesn't want to enter into a relationship with Twilight not because he doesn't like her, but because he isn't ready to open up to anyone. Luna finally gets him to stop denying himself what he wants.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: Nova has a very cynical view of the world, but that doesn't stop him from helping others at no personal benefit.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: For all the sarcasm and shade he's not afraid to dish out, Nova truly does want to help others when he can.
• Kansas City Shuffle:
  • Twilight lets Nova go about his ploy of rearranging her trap spells in their first duel, only to subvert it in her own way at the end.
  • Twilight and Nova "fall" for Envy's trap, only so they can get close to her and implement their own plan to take her down.
• Kick the Dog:
  • If Trixie's POV segment in Chapter 8 is anything to go by, Envy has been playing rather cruel pranks on her over the month that she has been imprisoned in the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, though other lines show that Envy has had some Pet the Dog moments as well.
  • Envy recites this trope by name after verbally musing that Nova seems to just lie down and take her orders like a dog.
  Envy: Well, in that case, let's kick the dog!
• Kissing Under the Influence: Nova doesn't let Clover do it to him.
• Knight of Cerebus: Expect the humor to (mostly) vanish whenever Envy shows up.
• Lady and Knight:
  • Twilight and Nova, to an extent, made more obvious after her ascension.
  • Clover and Nova play it straighter, where she is the Lady-In-Waiting and he is Princess Luna's loyal apprentice.
  • Played absolutely straight at the end of the past arc, where the aforementioned lady ends up with the literal knight Steelshod.
• Lady-In-Waiting: It's stated and then shown that Princess Platinum rewarded Clover for her heroism by elevating her to this position for her.
• Lady Killer In Love: Ray, once he met Shimmer, to the point where he couldn't bring himself to chase other mares.
• Language of Magic: The verbal precursor that Princess Luna uses to comedic effect on Nova and Twilight in Chapter 8, as well as the language of magic used to arrange traps and other enchantments.
• Large Ham:
  • Nova really loves his theatrics.
    • Beware the Silly Ones: But when he decides to be serious, you'd better run.
  • Also, Trixie by virtue of being a showpony.
  • Princess Luna, as per usual, with the ROYAL CANTERLOT VOICE (which Celestia also uses at a couple of points, and Nova is able to tap into at one point).
• Last Kiss: Nova and Clover share one before he activates his Time Stasis trap to return to his own time.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Literally.
  “Well, obviously,” Nova commented dryly, glancing at the wall with the hearth, the wall with the door, and the wall with the window as he attempted to organize his thought. “The stallion likes the mare, the mare likes the stallion. The mare is open about it, the stallion keeps it to himself, leading to all this unnecessary drama and tension. Really, this story just writes itself, doesn’t it?” he asked, leaning on the fourth wall.
• Lemony Narrator: While not nearly as wacky as the Trope Namer, the story's narrator is prone to making snark-tastic observations and comments about the goings-on in the story, especially if it's from Nova's point-of-view.
• Let's Wait a While: Twilight puts the question to Nova, and Nova's response amounts to this, just due to their positions of influence, the possibility of scandal, Nova's horrid luck, and the fact that like it or not, they're looked up to by foals, which Nova seems to really take seriously.
• Like a Son to Me: Luna's relationship with Nova goes far beyond mere teacher-student. Their relationship is very close to parent-child, seen as such by both parties.
• Like Cannot Cut Like: One of the rules of magic.
  • The First Fundamental Law is that, no matter how powerful one source is compared to the other, magic cannot pierce or go through magic through natural means. Magic can push other magic back, but it can't go through other magic. Given the author's attempt at having magic operate under quantum physics, it's justified In-Universe by magic automatically snapping to particle state when interacting with other magic. However, enter the magi-gun, which somehow manages to force magic into wave state when around other magic, making all forms of magical shields useless, and it's treated as such a dangerous weapon that the protagonist resolves to have it destroyed when its usefulness has run out.
  • It explores the ramifications of this trope a bit, as well. Enchanted clothing by default comes with spell-shielding (though there are specific enchantments that give its article more energy to repel magical attacks, given that magic particles annihilate each other on contact), enchantments have to constantly be repaired after every run-in with magic, and ponies can't teleport through shields, but can teleport around them if it isn't a full encasement.
• Literal-Minded: Zig-zagged. Clover is savvy enough to recognize figures of speech and does not react to Nova's joking. However, Princess Celestia makes her play a music piece on a piano that requires her to repeat it 840 times. She makes it to around 330 before Celestia comes back in and laughs her head off that Clover followed her instructions so literally.
• Living Lie Detector: Anyone who has basic energy-sensing, apparently. A being who lies generates a physical reaction that causes a change in the energy the body is giving off, referred to as "the telltale flareup," that an energy-senser can detect. But it's not infallible. If someone knows what to shield, then there's no telling whether or not they're lying, but the presence of shielding magic makes it suspicious all the same.
• Living Shadow: Envy, the result of the Elements of Harmony cursing her to live in shadow form. Unfortunately, through sheer willpower, she can reform into a normal flesh-and-blood form as well.
• Loner-Turned-Friend: Nova starts out alone and closed off, but Twilight consistently finds a way past his shell and they very quickly become close friends. Eventually, this goes even deeper and they fall in love.
• Longing Look: Steelshod does this at several points out of his deep affection for Clover, but most notably is when Nova suggests he go comfort Clover himself and Steel can't help but stare after her to the point where even Nova feels bad for him.
• Lotus Position: Nova has Twilight sit in this as he helps her discover how to sense energy, emphasizing how she can let her mind drift and focus on the magical energy around her. Beyond that, it doesn't have any particular magical connection.
• Love Confession: Four total times.
  • Aborted Declaration of Love: Twilight tries to hype herself into confessing to Nova multiple times, but it fails each time until Chapter 7.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: Three of them.
    • First, when Twilight tells Nova she loves him for the first time, while she is expressing her concern about Nova refusing to allow himself to forgive Tantalus Lulamoon. Nova doesn't take it well, going into a full-blown panic attack.
    • Second, immediately before Nova is sent back in time, as he attempts to say farewell to Twilight.
    • Finally, Nova and Clover to each other on Nova's final night.
  • Love Confessor: Twilight confessing her love for Nova to Princess Celestia.
  • Played totally straight by Nova in Chapter 11, when he finally admits to Twilight why he came back instead of continuing to stay away.
• Love Dodecahedron: Nova and Steelshod love Clover, who only loves Nova. Summer Blossom also loves Nova. Shimmer Silvermane is also in the mix, but her's is less love and more lust.
• Love Epiphany: Ray pokes and prods and digs at Nova, who's in an inconsolable state in Chapter 10, all so he can get Nova to finally realize and admit that he's fallen head over hooves for Twilight. He succeeds, and this inspires Nova to finally go and set things right in Ponyville.
• Love Informant: Cadance. She tells Nova that she managed to get Twilight to confess her feelings for Nova to her, and then tells him about them as part of an If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her... threat.
• Love Is in the Air: Shimmer Silvermane uses a special scent-producing magic to muddle thoughts and convince stallions to do what she wants. Fittingly named Seduction Scent. Nova manages to make himself immune.
• Love Makes You Evil: Summer Blossom's love for Nova and her (wrong) belief that Clover used dishonest methods to win his heart ultimately drives her to try to kill Clover while she sleeps. This leads to her becoming Envy.
• Love Triangle: One-sided, but Steelshod pines after Clover, who pines after Nova, who has feelings for Clover but doesn't act on them till the end.
• Mage Tower: Star Swirl has one at the very northern edge of Everfree when he takes residence. In present day, it's fallen to ruin and its purpose is speculated to be a tower meant to keep an eye on Sombra's northern empire, which is partly true.
• Magic A Is Magic A: Depends on whether or not you're reading the older or newer chapters.
  • Zig-zagged in the older chapters. They make references to fundamental laws of magic, one of which is that magic can't go through other magic, but it sometimes lapses.
  • Played straight rather well in the rewrite. Magic sticks to the rules as discussed by Twilight, Nova, and co.
• Magical Guardian: Cadance was responsible for keeping Twilight safe until she became Celestia's student, and Nova safe while he was on the run.
• Magitek: Lots. A television, a magi-gun, computers...
• The Main Characters Do Everything: As noted before, the Princesses mostly stay out of the way and let Nova and Twilight (and whoever they invite along) handle everything to do with Envy's scheme. Until Envy goes after Luna directly on Nightfall and at the end, where they step in to make sure everyone survives relatively unharmed.
• The Matchmaker: Celestia, to Luna's irritation.
• Meaningful Echo: In Chapter 9, Twilight very firmly drills into Nova exactly why she chose to date him, when Nova is feeling more self-loathy than usual. Come chapter 11, when Twilight herself starts to tear herself apart because she would rather have been right about Nova cheating on her than allow him to prove himself innocent, he gives her the exact same lecture. They even start the same way.
• Medals for Everyone: Twilight gets promoted to Prime Magus (and then becomes a princess not long after), Aegis gets a promotion, Nova is offered a new position to work for, and everything ends rather well... until the story ends with a glowing Soul Jar in the rubble of Everfree.
• Medium Awareness:
  • Nova displays quite a bit, referencing "the backstory part of the chapter" at one point, and even commenting about the original version of certain chapters that had been replaced and rewritten.
  • Several ponies in the interlude, but it gets Handwaved due to the chapter not being canon (except when it is).
• Messy Male, Fancy Female:
  • Nova is described as having an unkempt mane and tail, and his designs in the audio drama show him with rather messy hair all around. Twilight, in contrast, is no different from her show self, with neat bangs and a perfectly straightened tail. In the past, this continues with Clover, given she is identical to Twilight.
  • Sharp Eye as well has rather wild hair, and is paired with Fluttershy, whose mane and tail are considerably neater.
• Milestone Celebration:
  • The Interlude, which is a 5-year Anniversary Celebration chapter.
  • The new Chapter 16 "Time Flies" was released on the story's 10th anniversary and includes a short blurb of Quantum Bit thanking the readers.
• Mind-Control Eyes: In Chapter 22, everyone Envy is controlling has their eyes turn red.
• Minored In Ass Kicking: Nova didn't learn any combat-oriented spells at first, and once he does know them, he prefers to try to talk down his foe, but he still can and will take you to school if a fight gets going.
• Mistaken for Cheating: How Envy manages to drive Twilight and Nova apart, through the use of magic and catching Nova in a moment with his guard down.
• Mood Killer: At one point, Nova and Clover are having themselves a moment, but Nova ruins it with a poorly-timed comment, which infuriates her. It's made up for moments later, though.
• Mood Whiplash: Chapter 11's rewrite goes from a serious scene where Twilight and Nova finally meet again and she throws fire at him, to a sillier scene with Luna that gets more serious, but then goes right back to another serious scene with Nova and Twilight.
• Motor Mouth: Pinkie, as usual. One scene in particular has Applejack be forced to put up with her just to keep Nova and Twilight's date free from Pinkie shenanigans, and Pinkie going into long-winded recitations of extremely long words drives her up the wall.
• Mr. Exposition: It always seems to be Celestia (and sometimes Luna) who give off great Infodumps.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Nova gets angry a lot in the earlier chapters, and he resorts to alcoholism when he's particularly down in the dumps.
• Muggle and Magical Love Triangle: Steelshod isn't any slouch in the magical department, but he's much less competent than Nova Shine as they both go for Clover.
• Mundane Utility: Nova's cape comes with powers of invisibility, teleportation, spell-shielding, and a few other unspecified perks. While he does use it in combat, Nova likes to use it to teleport between Twilight's library to his house in Neighton to save six hours round-trip of hiking.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: How Summer Blossom plans to "rescue" Nova from Clover's (nonexistent) Seduction Scent.
• Mysterious Mercenary Pursuer: Sharp Eye, at first. He's portrayed as a mysterious bounty hunter chasing after Nova, only for Nova to throw him up into the sky and lock him in a dumpster. Then Nova learns all he's doing is keeping an eye on him from afar and keeps him around. After that, they start to get to know each other, and Sharp Eye turns into a steadfast friend.

N-R

• Named After Somebody Famous: Nova Shine is named after the patriarch of the Novus clan, Nova Shine I. Nova Shine I is actually named after Nova, due to the current Nova having traveled back in time and fallen in love with Clover, who became Nova Shine I's mother.
• Nerd Action Hero: Nova is intelligent, dorky, and capable of tearing you a new one if you piss him off.
• Nerf: Believe it or not, it happened in the rewrite. Nova's energy-sensing got brought down in the rewrite. Originally, it was a bit of a Story-Breaker Power, making him easily able to detect someone lying, or using magic, laying traps, etc. It still allows him to do all of that, but now it's a lot more like a supernatural form of eyesight that can even be temporarily blinded with an intense enough burst of magic close enough, and mostly keeps Nova from seeing everything coming before it does.
• Nervous Wreck: Nova. He suffers a panic attack when he and Twilight kiss, hyperventilates when Twilight reveals she has fallen in love with him, and gets very hung up whenever the subject of his parents comes up, due to ten years' worth of fleeing from said parents and a desire not to let himself grow close to anyone (or anyone to him either) due to having had his trust broken in the past. Twilight as well, but to a much lesser extent.
• Never Filled Out Official Paperwork: Nova Shine verbally disowns himself from the Novus family after a particularly testy reunion with his parents, with whom he already had an extremely frigid relationship. However, he never filed proper severance paperwork with the Royal Legal Department, as his father brings up, which means that legally, Nova Shine is still a member of the Novus family. They end up making their amends, and Nova never files for familial separation.
• Nice to the Waiter: Nova doesn't just toss a few bits to the homeless pony he finds huddling near his favorite pub; he buys them an apartment for a few months. And if Cadance is to be believed, this is one of several instances, due to Nova having a soft spot for homeless ponies.
• Night and Day Duo: Nova and Twilight respectively, since their mentors are the Lunar and Solar Princesses themselves, It even extends to their personalities, where Nova is colder and tries to stick to logic rather than let emotion in, where Twilight is much warmer and more readily embraces her emotions, yet doesn't slouch when it comes to her own smarts. Clover takes Twilight's place come the past arc, but then the onis switch.
• No OSHA Compliance: Nova even alludes to the trope as they explore the crumbling Everfree Vaults, though he noted that there could have been enchantments and other magical safeguards to offset the lack of physical edge protectors.
• No-Sell: In one chapter, a guard threateningly thrusts his halberd toward Nova in an attempt to make him flinch and shut up. Nova does neither of these things.
• Noodle Incident: Nova once somehow managed to get his house floating upside-down on a cloud. No one knows who or what caused this.
• Not a Date:
  • Twilight is rather forward about insisting their night out in Trottingham is a date, but Nova is not. It is then dubbed a casual event where two best friends can hang out in a completely platonic manner. A couple of chapters later, when they actually do decide to go on a date, Nova refers to it as such again just to troll Twilight a bit.
  • Aegis insists that he and Trixie aren't going on a date after Twilight's coronation.
• The Not-Love Interest: Trixie to Nova. They are old friends, tease each other instantly on meeting and in their second encounter, and Nova seems dead set on rescuing her when Envy takes over. However, they have no romantic interest in each other, and Trixie is more than happy to see Nova and Twilight together.
• Not So Above It All: She hides it well, but Nova notices that the stone-faced Clover the Clever allows herself a tiny moment of glee when she learns that all of her competition for the position of "Faithful Student" failed.
• Oblivious to Love: Nova, at first. It takes Cadance explicitly telling him that Twilight likes him to get him to notice that she acts rather bashfully around him on occasion.
• Obsessed with Perfect Attendance: When Nova, Twilight, and Aegis are accosted by Sharp Eye in Chapter 2 and Nova runs for it, Twilight internally laments the loss of her perfect record of punctual attendance.
• Odd Friendship: Almost referenced by name. In the epilogue, it's mentioned that Large Ham Narcissist and massive showpony Trixie hit it off with the subtle Deadpan Snarker Aegis. Come the sequel, they've become a couple.
• Offscreen Karma: Abacus Cinch got instantly fired and ended up in total disrepute after word spread that she was the one who screwed Nova in his backstory.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: How exactly does Ray stop himself from crashing after literally diving into the Everfree Vaults in the finale?
• Offscreen Villainy: We don't get to see Envy take control of all the townsponies of Neighton.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. More than one Shimmer is running around, albeit separated by over a thousand years. Nova Shine is also directly named after the patriarch of his clan who, it turns out, is named after him, who is one of the most powerful historical magical figures in history, on the level of Star Swirl the Bearded. This causes current Nova no shortage of consternation and self-esteem issues.
• Only in It for the Money: As part of his Jerkass act, Nova makes it seem as though the only reason he even took up the Trading Day job was because of this.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Twilight never swears. The two times she has done so far have been when she was petrified with fear, and when she was livid with Nova. The former case was rather mild (she just asked "what the hell is going on"), but the latter case had her using the colorful swearing of Equestria ("feathering" and "peeved', namely) to express her discontent. Nova is almost shocked speechless when she does.
  • When Nova first reads the contents of Clover the Clever's diary and finds an encrypted passage of text, and then discovers that Nova Shine I's diary is entirely encrypted the same way, he suddenly becomes single-mindedly obsessed with cracking the encryption, to the point where he becomes a total zombie, shuts himself away, and doesn't even snark back at ponies when presented the opportunity. Everyone around him notices the sudden change in mood.
  • Clover the Clever speaks without using contractions and is always cold and dispassionate. The one moment she lets the facade slip is when Nova goes off to confront Silas Silverblood, at which even Nova pauses to consider the gravity of the situation. Later on, on the battlements of the Castle of the Two Sisters, Clover finally drops her guard and speaks and acts like a normal pony to highlight how heartrending the moment she wants so badly to marry Nova Shine but can't is.
• Open the Door and See All the People: At one point in the first chapter, Nova opens his door to find not a bunch of people, but rather, Princess Luna standing on his doorstep. He reacts exactly the same way regardless.
• Orphaned Punchline: Aegis gets teleported in front of Celestia and Luna in the middle of telling a story.
  Aegis: —and so I told her ‘Who the buck do you think I am? Princess... Celestia...?' Oh bollocks, I'm in trouble, aren't I?
• Pair the Smart Ones: If you hadn't guessed already, Nova and Twilight end up together.
• Pals with Jesus: Nova has Princess Luna as a magical teacher, Princess Celestia as a friend, Princess Cadance as a surrogate sister, and by the end, Princess Twilight Sparkle as a fiancee.
• Papa Wolf: Night Light, when it turns out that Twilight got accosted by a bounty hunter, very nearly assaults one of the most influential and accomplished magic users in Equestria completely on his own when it turns out said magical master was behind it.
• Parental Neglect: Ray and Shimmer to Nova, though it's implied Shimmer didn't want to neglect him but didn't know what to do.
• Parental Substitute: Nova makes it no secret he sees Luna like the mother he never had.
• Peace Conference: The Principality of Equestria facilitates these between the Earth Ponies and Pegasi in the past, with Nova serving as mediator, before eventually going to represent Equestria itself to the Unicorn Kingdom.
• The Perfectionist: Nova, at first. He's immensely self-critical of how he was able to match Twilight Sparkle's spells during their first assessment but not the ease at which she could cast them, punishes himself for yelling at Twilight after she pushed his buttons one too many times, exiles himself to her basement for a whole week after he failed to make peace with his parents, and won't even talk to her during that time.
• Personal Raincloud: After the disasters in Chapter 4, Skeletor sticks one over his head.
• Pet the Dog: Even with Trixie being her prisoner, Envy seems to want to reward her for being a compliant captive even though she's been playing pranks of a Kick the Dog nature.
• Pie in the Face: Rarity's Hearths Warming present to Nova.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Red rather than pink, but Nova serves as the blue to many mares' red as far as magical resonances are concerned. Twilight's magical resonance is a bright magenta like in the show, Clover's is pale pink, Trixie's is the pink that it has been in the show to play it straight, and Envy's is straight red.
• Plagued by Nightmares: The story opens with the titular trio all experiencing these over an extended period. The first chunk of the story is devoted to them finding out what the dreams mean and who is causing them. Nova Shine two years older, after an expedition into the past, is causing them as a warning because he knows it gets the events of the story moving.
• Poke in the Third Eye: During their duel, Twilight is able to subvert Nova's energy-sensing by simply letting loose an intense blast of magic to overwhelm his sense and leave him blind in that regard.
• Polyamory: Jokingly suggested by Nova to Clover, that they form a herd with Summer.
• Pony Popsicle: In a non-ice way. Nova freezes himself with time stasis to wait to return to his own time.
• Power Nullifier:
  • There is a stone known as inmanipulon that magic is 100% ineffective against, as it absorbs magical energy. Apparently it's exceedingly rare and expensive, in no small part because it's only found close to the frozen wastes of Dream Valley, but even in small quantities, it can prevent an energy-sensor like Nova from seeing anything on the other side of it. To date, it has been seen being used to protect the diaries of previous Night Apprentices and Faithful Students with Tantalus' help, and apparently Queen Chrysalis' throne is made from the stuff.
  • Star Swirl knows of a spell that can neutralize the intangibility of monsters like ghosts or creatures of shadow. Nova learns it and uses it to create an amulet that can force Envy into a physical form so that she can be hurt and can't heal herself.
• Pragmatic Villainy: For all her moments of pettiness, Envy never does evil for evil's sake. Trixie is treated well in captivity, because Envy needs her alive and well. She also doesn't steal food when she could have, but pays for it, since thieves attract suspicion.
• Pretentious Latin Motto: The Novus clan has "Ex stellae, magicae. Ex magicae, lux." (From stars, magic. From magic, light.) Nova even refers to the trope almost word-for-word.
  Nova:: My family's pretty damn pretentious, aren't they?
• Priceless Ming Vase: Not priceless, or a Ming vase for that matter, but Sweetie Belle does accidentally break a vase of Rarity's, and Rarity holds Nova at fault for it.
• Produce Pelting: Trixie gets hit with a tomato in Chapter 4.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Used by Twilight in Chapter 9 to try and charm Nova into telling her what his surprise is. Nova seems affected at first, but ultimately doesn't spill.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Sombra's game, before Nova's intervention, was to instigate a pony-changeling war, let the war end with one side's victory at great cost, and then sweep in and conquer all of Equestria. The war would eventually come to pass, but Nova was able to delay it so that Sombra couldn't profit off of it.
• Rage Breaking Point: Three instances in the first half thus far for Nova.
  • Cadance refusing to back down from lecturing him, leading to him just screaming at her.
  • Twilight continuing to ask how it was that he lived in so many different places and did some level of university magic, until he yells at her too.
  • His parents setting him off by focusing on Nova's accolades and titles when they meet again for the first time in ten years, rather than asking about his experiences, though Nova comes into the meeting already primed to explode.
• Real Dreams are Weirder: Nova gets both a strange, random dream, followed immediately by a plot-relevant vision in Chapter 5. The strange dream is full of Shout Outs, such as a guard's armor being painted with hot rod flames and bunnies, and is purportedly serenaded with Luna and Celestia playing a set of bagpipes and a vuvuzela respectively.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: Nova starts off hating Cadance, his father, Tantalus Lulamoon, and a whole host of other ponies who were either in some way responsible for his future being snatched away, or for meddling in his life. Over time, he comes to let go of his resentment toward all of them.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Summer Blossom's eyes change to red after she tries to commit murder.
• Red Herring: Nova's parents are played up to be the villains up until about halfway through Chapter 3, after which it shifts to Envy. Shimmer Silvermane also qualifies, as she exists solely to make the readers/viewers think she will become Envy.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Nova's inner mental selves Logic and Emotion love to comment on certain situations. Sometimes Snark also shows up.
• Redundant Romance Attempt: Nova Shine and Twilight Sparkle have already gotten each other's attention, they just want to look nice to each other. Twilight goes on a spa day with Rarity, and Nova (on a suggestion from Spike) decides to grow a mustache with Spell 25. It goes very, very wrong. When they finally meet up, Twilight fixes Nova's mistakes by changing him back basically to him as he was, and Nova simply messes up Twilight's mane to make it more natural to her.
• Reference Overdosed: The Shout-Out entry got so long, a page for it was made. And this is without the times artists reference things in the audio drama.
• Related in the Adaptation: Twilight and Trixie, distantly, both being distant descendants of Star Swirl the Bearded and Nova Shine I.
• Relationship Sabotage: Envy to Nova and Twilight during their date, for the purpose of separating them so she can kill them easier. She disguises herself as Rarity and plays on Twilight's jealousy by making it seem as though Nova is meeting up with her mid-date for an affair in an alleyway and gets them caught. It works, until Nova is finally able to set the record straight.
• Relationship Upgrade: Nova and Twilight become an Official Couple in Chapter 11 after several chapters dancing around each other. Everything after that involves dealing with Envy.
• Renaissance Man: Nova displays an aptitude for magic, music, theatrics, diplomacy, and different schools of learning.
• The Reveal:
  • Summer Blossom was standing in the door to the stairs. Summer Blossom was the pony who would become Envy.
  • In the Epilogue, we find out that Aegis, without the uniformity enchantment on his armor covering it up, looks exactly like Steelshod.
• Ridiculously Long-lived Family Name: While ponies usually don't use last names, there are a few exceptions, such as Twilight Sparkle, whose distant ancestor Starlight Sparkle is the matriarch of the Sparkle family and was born close to 1000 years prior to when the fic takes place. In addition, slightly enforced by the various noble unicorn houses that have been around for 1,200+ years, such as the Novus family and the Lulamoon family. Sometimes members of the family do take on the family name as a surname, such as Comet Novus (Starlight Sparkle's father) or Ray Novus (protagonist Nova Shine's father) or most members of the Lulamoon including Trixie, her father Tantalus, and the clan matriarch Lucia.
• Rich Bitch: Shimmer Silvermane flaunts her wealth and uses it to make Summer Blossom's life miserable. When Nova doesn't take up her offer to work for her (or sleep with her), she makes it her personal mission to annoy and torment them, even following them to Everfree just as an act of petty revenge.
• Rocky Roll Call: Between Nova, Twilight, Trixie, and Spike in Chapter 4. Everyone calls out everyone else's name until Spike puts a bow on the whole thing by shouting "Spike!" at the end in a Shout-Out to Shrek 2.
• Romantic Ribbing: Nova Shine and Twilight Sparkle banter their days away. Nova in general is The Gadfly, but Twilight can dish out as well (such as "admitting" that her favorite soccer team just happens to be Nova's favorite team's arch-rivals to see his reaction).
• Royal "We": Luna, as usual. Celestia uses it briefly too. Nova is only confused the first time. By the time Nova ends up in the past, both Celestia and Luna use it.
• Rump Roast: More like "Boiled Back." Nova tried to wake himself up from his early-morning half-awake mode by turning the water as hot as it would go. The next we see of him is him sprinting out of his house with steam issuing from his back.
• Running Gag:
  • "A casual event where two best friends can hang out in a completely platonic manner."
  • Whenever Twilight and Nova are around a collection of books that one of them owns and it's not a serious moment, expect Nova to rearrange them to Twilight's irritation.
  • Calling down meteors from the sky as a means for showing magical power. No one ever does it, but it constantly gets brought up.
• Rushed Inverted Reading: After enduring constant teasing from her dad in Chapter 3, Twilight slams a book onto the dinner table to hide her face, barely trying to pass it off as her reading. Nova notices and teases her about the fact that it is upside-down.

S-Z

• Sadistic Choice: Envy gives one to Nova in the climax. Either shoot Trixie with his magi-gun and maybe kill Envy, or shoot through Twilight to hit Envy and most likely kill her. If he tries to not play her game, she kills them both. However, Twilight is able to distract Envy long enough to escape her clutches, making his choice a lot easier.
• Sarcastic Devotee: Aegis to Nova, and Nova to Princess Luna.
• Secret-Keeper: Ray Novus, Night Light, Shining Armor, and Princess Celestia are all in on Tantalus Lulamoon's plan to use an underground mafia family as a front to hide the diaries of the Night Apprentices and Faithful Students. Aegis joins in, though he's none too pleased about it.
• Secret Underground Passage:
  • Tantalus Lulamoon has one in his house that leads to the Canterlot Underground.
    • The Canterlot Underground is implied to have several at different places in Canterlot.
  • Lord Silverblood had one build into his manor in Canterlot to allow him to get into the crystal caves without going through the regular cave he said was shallower than it actually was.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • Nova will occasionally make an off-hand comment about himself from time to time.
  • Nova also occasionally comments about the story and author. See Leaning on the Fourth Wall above.
• Self-Imposed Exile: Nova Shine and Twilight Sparkle are being told the story about Nova's namesake, Nova Shine I, and they are informed that Nova Shine I blamed himself for Envy's creation and exiled himself from Equestria the very day she attempted to take Clover the Clever's life. In actuality, it was because he was actually the present-day Nova Shine, and he was freezing himself in stasis so he could return to his own time in the present.
• Self-Punishment Over Failure: Nova Shine is prone to this whenever he feels he's made a mistake. At one point, he loses his cool and screams at Twilight for attempting to pry into his private life, but then spends the rest of the afternoon confined to his room rather than sight-seeing. In another moment, he and his father fail to make amends and he ends the night by losing his cool with them as well, but then spends the next week in a self-imposed exile in Twilight's basement.
• Sensory Overload: An effective way at neutralizing energy-sensing is shown to be simply letting loose an intense but harmless bit of magic so that it temporarily blinds the one doing the sensing. Both Twilight and Envy use this to their advantage.
• Sequel Hook: The vial is glowing at the end, hinting at Envy's survival, and that business with Sombra hasn't been wrapped up yet. A sequel was, indeed, released, though it was ultimately cancelled, but not before a second one was announced and eventually released.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: Nova and Clover confess their feelings, climb into bed and... present!Nova interrupts the tale to assure Twilight that it was 100% chaste.
• Shapeshifting Seducer: Zig-zagged and weaponized. Envy, possessing Trixie, shifts into Rarity to make it seem like Nova is cheating on Twilight with her to split them apart and make it easier to kill both of them alone rather than together. It succeeds in driving them apart for a bit, but fails in the end because Trixie intervenes from within, and Nova is able to show Twilight the truth eventually. Other than that, whenever Envy flirts with Nova, she never transforms and only does it to get under his skin.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Nova's reflexive shout at Aegis every time Aegis teases him about it.
  • Played with in the past, Nova is quite adamantly refusing to give into Clover's advances, but apparently Clover told Star Swirl that they were in a relationship, leading to no shortage of irritation on Nova's part when he has to set the record straight.
  • Inverted in the Epilogue, Aegis insists he is not going on a date with Trixie.
• Shed the Family Name: At one point, Nova disowns himself from his family.
• Sherlock Scan: Subverted. Nova is able to deduce that Applejack is an avid player of Buckball based on some really obscure surrounding evidence in the West Orchard clearing they are practicing in, such as the lingering apple smell on the target. And then he reveals that Applejack left a buckball behind a tree, so that's how he knew.
• Ship Tease:
  • Nova and Twilight start off subtly with some small moments like Twilight wondering why she's feeling flustered after Nova compliments her, but it soon develops into a full relationship.
  • Fluttershy and Sharp Eye comes in the Interlude.
  • Aegis/Trixie, which only happens right at the end.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Celestia is well aware of how the many different pairings of students ended up in terms of romance, and implies she may or may not have used it in such a way at one point or another.
  • Bellatrix, Twilight Velvet, Tantalus, and Shimmer all conspired to patch the relationship between Shimmer and Ray back together after what Ray did.
  • Trixie, when not being controlled by Envy, seems to enjoy pushing Nova and Twilight together in her own antagonistic way.
  Trixie: Just balls up and ask her out already!
• Shout-Out: Holy hell are there shout-outs. Especially in the rewritten chapters. Between the audio drama and rewritten chapters, it got to the point it needed its own page.
• Shown Their Work: The Playfair cipher Nova uses in Chapter 12? Perfectly accurate, with the extra row and column of characters. Comparing the old version (a mere encryption) to the new version shows just how much Rytex actually learned about cryptography between the time of the original run and the rewrite.
• Shrug of God: Invoked. Envy notes that the stance of the Interlude chapter ("It's not canon except for when it is") is basically this, so that if Rytex wants to make it canon, he can, but if not, he doesn't have to.
• Sleep Cute: Celestia and Luna seem to think so, the few times they scryed Nova and Twilight and found them asleep together on a train or some other place.
• Sliding Scale of Fourth Wall Hardness: Roughly semi-permeable. Pinkie Pie is as aware as ever in her few appearances, Nova shows some Medium Awareness and at one point even literally leans on the fourth wall, but everyone else is blissfully unaware as ever. Except in the Interlude, where everyone seems aware of the fourth wall, but the chapter is not canon unless it is.
• The Slow Path: Subverted, as Nova does wait the full 1,250-ish years to return to his own time, but he does so by putting himself in Time Stasis.
• Smart Ponies Play Chess: The opening of Chapter 16 has Nova and Celestia playing a game of chess, though the moves quickly mirror the conversation over Nova's love life, with advances, checks, and defenses, and one hell of a double-meaning when Celestia topples his king with a punctuated "Mate."
• Smells Sexy:
  • The Seduction Scent magic that Shimmer Silvermane attempts to use on Nova is described as smelling like many things that he holds dear, namely books, lavender (Twilight), and the metallic edge of magic.
  • The "liquid love" that the Grey Monarch gives to Nova is described as smelling like a great many things Nova Shine holds dear. It also smells of lavender, matching Twilight and Clover, of the hops he would smell in beer, of a mown lawn, and many other things. The taste is also said to bring back fond memories as well.
• Smug Snake: Silas Silverblood, who seems absolutely assured of his victory before he battles Nova. Nova finds the battle challenging, but far from difficult.
• Snark Knight: Nova, full stop.
• Sneeze Cut: Pinkie notes that she often sneezes when someone far away is talking about her.
• Snow Means Love: Nova's and Twilight's first casual event where two best friends can hang out in a completely platonic manner takes place in gentle snowfall on a Trottingham evening. This also marks the night when Nova falls head over heels for Twilight.
• Snowball Fight: Between the Council of Gentlestallions and all the schoolfoals in Chapter 20.
• So Much for Stealth: Nova and Clover's sneaking around the crystal caves comes to an end when they happen upon a number of Silas Silverblood's goons abusing an enslaved Princess Chrysalis.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Nova is a rather mild case, since he's usually limited to being sarcastic and biting, but when he and his father finally make their amends, he becomes less bitter (though he's no less sarcastic).
• Spam Attack:
  • Sensing the duel is starting to get away from him, Silverblood attempts to simply fire off every spell he could think of to try and overwhelm Nova, only to make no progress beyond tiring himself out.
  • To Nova's chagrin, Steelshod managed to modify Starfall, adding explosive properties to each individual star, which he then proceeded to shoot by the hundreds. In the original version of Chapter 16, Steelshod also banned trap spells from their duel because of Nova's fondness for using them.
• Spanner in the Works: Nova completely upends Sombra's and Silverblood's plan to cause a war between changelings and ponies in the short term. The war still happens in the distant future, but Nova's intervention prevented Sombra from profiting off of it.
• Spider-Sense: Nova's energy-sensing serves to help him detect multiple magical attacks before they happen.
• Spit Take: Summer manages to get one out of Nova Shine by commenting that Clover told her he wants to form a menage-a-trois with the two of them. She then milks the moment for all it's worth.
• Spock Speak: Clover, in the rewritten chapters. Her voice is absolutely dispassionate and devoid of contractions, and she's much closer to the trope namer in characterization than she was in the original chapters. The first time she uses a contraction is when she is legitimately terrified of what Silas Silverblood could do to Nova, and Nova even notes just how distressed she is, in contrast to mere moments before. She also uses plenty of them when she's drunk. Finally, on his final night, after Nova has just won a duel over her hoof in marriage, in her giddiness that he won and her sadness that he is going away, she finally completely drops her guard and speaks with him like a normal pony.
• Stable Time Loop: Nova's delighted that he manages to make one. His own name. He was supposedly named after one of Equestria's magical pioneers, but it turned out said pioneer was Clover the Clever's son, and he was in turn named after Nova.
• Stage Dad: Sort of. Through a combination of parental neglect, misunderstandings, and bad timing, Nova's opinion of his father is that this was all he wanted of him, and if he wasn't going to be successful, he believed Ray wanted nothing to do with him.
• Stalker with a Crush: Shimmer does not take Nova turning her down well and constantly tails him, showing up at inconvenient moments to harass him and his friends.
• Stalker without a Crush: Steelshod. While he does have strong romantic feelings for Clover, his following of her is revealed to be more to do with his job as her personal bodyguard and a desire to protect her with his life than anything else.
• Stellar Name:
  • Nova Shine Novus, a Nova being a star which suddenly burns bright and then fades back to a normal level.
  • Ray Novus, as in a ray of light, which fits with the Pretentious Latin Motto.
  • Bellatrix Lulamoon, named after a star in the Orion constellation.
• Stepford Smiler: Nova tries his hand at this in Chapter 15. It doesn't work for very long.
• Stepford Snarker: Nova's modus operandi when it comes to dealing with uncomfortable topics.
• Still Got It: Celestia is more than a bit pleased she's still good at flustering people with implications by the epilogue.
• Stock Visual Metaphors: In Chapter 7, Nova finds himself standing in the shadow of a statue of Nova Shine I, his namesake and idol.
• The Strategist:
  • Nova, who will often utilize trap spells to maneuver his opponents where he wants them. That said, even though he's an excellent strategist, he notes that he's ironically not that great at chess (although that being said, he held his own against Celestia in a friendly game).
  • Sombra, who came dangerously close to pitting all four pony nations and the Changelings against each other in a war, after which he would come in, clean up, and rule a continent. It takes Nova's intervention to thwart him, though the Grey Monarch notes that really, he's only delaying the inevitable.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Generally, Nova serves as the wise guy when around Twilight or Aegis, and especially Clover. Occasionally, he'll switch roles with them, but mostly he's the more goofy of the pair.
• Stuffed Into A Trash Can: Sharp Eye is locked in a dumpster by Nova to get him off of Nova's trail in Chapter 2.
• Stupid Sexy Friend: Starting in Chapter 5, Nova becomes very attracted to Twilight, though he has no idea how to react to the feelings and constantly tries to convince himself he's not. This even leads to a moment in Chapter 8 where he catches Twilight emerging from a shower, notes that she's cute, and then mentally chastises himself for thinking like that by quoting the trope near-verbatim.
  She’s cute when she gets out of the shower, he thought, before he shook his head to clear that one away. Stupid, sexy Twilight.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Nova is a Deadpan Snarker and Troll under normal circumstances, but when ponies like Twilight can dig beneath the surface, they find that deep down, he's really rather sweet.
• Super-Senses: Nova's energy sensing, which allows him to sense anything that gives off any sort of chemical or arcane energy. It's stated to be an ability anyone can learn, but not many choose to. It can even be used to detect when someone is lying (to a degree), and he's able to tell someone is following him from the air very quickly, and that the same pony is in a compartment next to them on a train. Nova compares it to having another set of eyes, which can be blinded by powerful flashes of energy, among other things, and we see that it is far from infallible.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: When Nova is soliciting help from Rarity to put together a date for Twilight, he confides that he and Twilight had kissed in the past, but that it wasn't some magical and transformative experience for him (even though it was). Rarity wonders if it was because the kiss was too inexperienced. Nova is about to answer honestly (he had a panic attack in the middle of it), but then just goes with that.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: When Celestia taps into pure sun magic, her eyes start to glow with the sheer intensity of the power she's channeling. Once she uses up all the magic she borrowed, her eyes go back to normal. It also makes her hair go from pink and inanimate to multicolored and wavy, like the show.
• Switching P.O.V.: While the story centers around Nova and Twilight, and most of the time things are seen through their eyes, we'll occasionally see things from Celestia's POV, or Spike's, or Rarity's, and so on.
• Take That!:
  • Twilight Sparkle hates The Twilight Saga.
  • Nova thinks Twilight becoming an Alicorn is a stupid idea.
  • Twilight also does not believe Harry Trotter and the Cursed Foal should be considered canon.
• Taken for Granite: Apparently Sharp Eye ran into the cockatrice from "Stare Master" when hunting Fluttershy's missing chicken Elizabeak. Said cockatrice is now spending its days as one of Zecora's garden ornaments. Sharp Eye's wing had a delayed petrification too, but a gold needle fixed that.
• Taking Advantage of Generosity: Nova even says it to Twilight's face to explain why he thinks him staying at her library is the best course of action, though it's not in any malicious sense. Quite the contrary, he pays rent to live in her basement.
• Taking You with Me: Envy tries this at the very end. It almost succeeds.
• Talent vs. Training: Nova finds himself against opponents with raw magical power multiple times, such as Envy, Silas Silverblood, or even Nightmare Moon. He does have raw magical talent, but as his training increases, he becomes far more competent as a mage, until he is able to hold his own, and sometimes even trounce opponents far more powerful or talented than him purely through cleverness and quick thinking.
• Talking in Bed: Night Light and Twilight Velvet in Chapter 3.
• Talking to the Dead: Nova to Clover's and Steelshod's graves.
• Tears of Joy:
  • Ray, when he and Shimmer make their amends and she forgives him.
  • Nova, when he and his father make their peace, as well as when he finally realizes he loves Twilight.
  • Aegis teases Nova about it during Twilight's coronation, though Nova doesn't seem remotely embarrassed.
• The Tease: Shimmer Novus in her youth. She knew Ray was attracted to her and would constantly lead him on, and then shoot him down, until finally they ended up dating and married.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Trixie and Twilight in Chapter 5, who constantly bicker and gripe at each other, culminating in Nova just magically carrying them both to the Vaults himself because they couldn't stop insulting each other..
• Teleport Cloak: Nova's Night Master cloak allows him to "tag" a temporary location, so he can teleport to a more permanent fixed location and back. He mostly uses it to teleport between his house in Neighton and the Golden Oaks library in Ponyville, since a round-trip hike would be six hours long.
• Temple of Doom: The Everfree Vaults, built to look and function like a Pegasi temple, but used for banking. All of the still-functional traps and mechanisms are Hand Waved with magic.
• Tempting Fate: After sending Nova back in time, Twilight outright says she doesn't think there will be any trouble on the road to Neighton for future!Nova as he returns. Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash breaks right in through the front door, proclaiming that they have particularly bad trouble.
• Theme Naming:
  • The Novus family all have some reference to light or stars in their names (Ray, Shimmer, Nova Shine, Comet, Sunbeam).
  • The Lulamoon family (and predecessors) are named after celestial bodies. Tantalus is an asteroid, Bellatrix is a star in the belt of Orion, Lucia is an asteroid, Bacchus is an asteroid, Star Swirl...
• There Are No Coincidences: Ray does not believe in the existence of luck, and tells Sharp Eye he believes he was led to Nova for a reason, rather than randomly hearing Twilight call after him.
• Think Nothing of It: Nova makes sure to impress upon Homen Hearth and Lightning Lance to keep Nova's deed to themselves.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: "We got you, you little bitch."
• This Is Reality: Twilight makes sure to remind Nova that he isn't going to master a spell in only a day, noting that "This isn't some story, this is real life." It is then used for Nova to note that in the original version of the chapter, that's exactly what he did.
• The Three Faces of Adam:
  • Nova Shine fills the place of the Hunter, easily. A large part of the story is him trying to find himself and a purpose in his life. As the story goes on, he slowly transitions into becoming a Lord.
  • Aegis and Sharp Eye serve as Lords, with each one balancing their chosen career paths and their interactions with Nova over the course of the story, for good or ill.
  • Tantalus and Ray both fill in as the Prophet, both seeking reconciliation with those around them but otherwise serving as help to Nova and Twilight.
• The Three Faces of Eve:
  • Of the mares in Nova's life:
    • Trixie in the present and Shimmer Silvermane in the past are both the Seductress. Trixie is very outgoing and as much of a braggart as ever. Shimmer is a literal seductress who attempts to sway Nova with mind control magic and her own sexual appeal, but Nova doesn't bite.
    • Twilight and Summer Blossom are the Wife. Summer is a down-to-earth, level-headed mare, and Twilight is ever the devoted student and librarian.
    • Clover the Clever is the Child. At least, at first. When first met, she stays away from romance and sexuality entirely, though she is far from naive; she simply regards them as distractions.
  • Of the princesses:
    • Cadance is the Wife, being supportive of Nova and helping him to try and overcome his (many) issues, as well as actively trying to ensure that Nova's and Twilight's relationship works out for both of them.
    • Celestia is the Seductress. While she's often reserved and plays things close to the chest, it's far more apparent when Nova is in the past, where Celestia is an extremely mischievous mare who isn't afraid to make suggestive comments to fluster others around her.
    • Luna is the clear Child. She is always bright and cheerful whenever she's around, though she isn't afraid to be a stern teacher whenever Nova needs it.
• A Threesome Is Hot: Nova jokes about Twilight supposedly asking Applejack for one. Applejack isn't amused and bucks him in the face. Nova also jokes about forming a herd with both Summer Blossom and Clover the Clever, which flusters Clover.
• Through His Stomach: Nova is positively floored by how good Twilight Velvet's cooking is, and even entertains the thought of marrying Twilight Sparkle just to experience Velvet's cooking from time to time.
• Throw the Book at Them: Twilight smacks Spike with a book for saying "No shit," even though he has no idea it's a bad word.
• Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Nova to Silverblood, Steelshod to Nova.
• Time Travel: A significant portion of the second act of the story is spent in the past.
• Time-Travel Romance: Nova and Clover
• Title Drop: In Chapter 5.
  They strode forward, up the steps, and the apprentice, the student, and the charlatan entered the Everfree Vaults.
• Took a Level in Badass: Between Chapter 2 and 8, Nova demonstrates that his ability to use utility magic for his odd jobs is rather good, but his combat is woeful (he is only barely able to ward off Envy just due to the sheer intensity of the raw, uncontrolled burst he lets loose in Chapter 5). Come a few months of training, some time travel, and Chapter 14, he decimates a group of ponies and even takes down a unicorn lord who is no slouch in the magic department himself, making it look easy.
• Training Montage: As much of one a literary work can have. Chapter 8 features several short paragraphs spanning different days, detailing Nova's progress learning the energy beam and shield spells.
• Trap Is the Only Option: In the climax, Envy successfully abducts every Neighton townspony to the Everfree Vaults. Nova and Twilight are forced to spring the trap they know is present, as Envy will kill the townsponies if they don't.
• Trickster Mentor: Celestia to Clover, full stop. She pranks Clover by making her play "Vexations", a piece that requires 840 repetitions, which Clover takes at face value. She's copying an exercise Luna had Nova do, where Nova played the third movement from "Moonlight Sonata". Clover decides it's a lesson in keeping focus despite a dreadfully-monotonous task, but it turns out Celestia did it for her own amusement. However, Clover does remark that her fine control over magic has improved dramatically because of the exercise.
• Troll:
  • Nova. He switches Twilight's sequential books to alphabetical order just to get her to talk to him (and rearranges alphabetical encyclopedias to spell TWI'S A DORK in Chapter 8), and puts Balanced Budget off balance by implying he should be careful around Twilight or else be banished/put in prison/put in prison in place he's banished to.
    • At one point in Episode 2 of the audio drama, a shot with Nova's face even features a trollface in the corner when he's teasing Princess Luna.
    • He seems to go out of his way to irritate Twilight in Chapter 8. He manages to get Twilight speaking in conversational iambic pentameter, does the standard "No I'm not" argument to Twilight's "Yes you are" when she insists he's being immature, and at one point, he gives her some hell about the "casual event where two best friends can hang out in a completely platonic manner."
  • Aegis enjoys getting a rise out of Nova. He's first introduced scaring Nova into thinking he was going to get arrested.
    • He and Nova even combine their powers, on occasion.
    Twilight: It's an entirely different kind of pay structure altogether.
    *beat*
    Nova and Aegis: It's an entirely different kind of pay structure.
  • Celestia, too. She constantly makes suggestive implications to Nova, Twilight, and Luna in an attempt to get them flustered, though it never works with Nova. Apparently, by the epilogue, she's still got it after managing to fluster Twilight.
  • Twilight isn't above some moments herself, though it's nowhere near as frequent. At one point on their first date, when Nova asks if she's a fan of a particular hoofball team, she takes some time to think about it, and then replies "Trottenham," who are arch-rivals to Nova's beloved Arsenal, just to see how Nova reacts.
• Unbroken Vigil:
  • After Nova becomes violently ill and faints following his victory over Silas Silverblood, Clover stays by his bedside for the next few hours until he comes to.
  • After Nova is found unconscious at the edge of the San Palomino Desert, Clover and Summer stay by his side until he wakes up, trading places to allow for the other to do their duties.
• Undying Loyalty:
  • Twilight to Celestia, as usual. She doesn't exactly enter enthusiastically into the agreement to look into their nightmares without telling their teachers.
  • Nova eventually grows to have this toward Luna and Celestia both.
• The Unsmile: At one point, when Clover smiles, Nova notes that it had the same effect as splitting granite. However, that smile was noted as being particularly forced. Clover's genuine smiles awaken feelings for her within Nova.
• The Usurper: According to Celestia and Luna, Sombra emerged as king of the Crystal Empire after the chaos of a coup thrown by the Crystal Empire's nobles.
• Vertical Kidnapping: Rather than up, Princess Platinum was kidnapped downward from her bedroom to be held captive in the crystal caves under Canterlot.
• Villainesses Want Heroes: Envy is not at all shy that she has a thing for Nova, especially during Chapter 18 after The Reveal.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • Lord Silverblood, seeing himself beaten by Nova, resorts to Black Magic in a final attempt to defeat him.
  • Envy, in a last-ditch effort to kill Nova, Twilight, and Trixie, self-triggers a Fissure trap in an attempt to collapse the Everfree Vaults and bury them all.
• Villainous Crush: Envy has a certain fascination with Nova that carries over from her time crushing on him as Summer Blossom.
• Violent Glaswegian: Star Swirl the Bearded, while not overly violent or belligerent, is incredibly grouchy and is described as having a voice that reminded Nova of an angry Trotscolt. Downplayed in the revised version, where it's clearly part of his disguise as a bald pegasus, though he does still have a faint Trottish accent in his voice in later appearances.
• Virtual Soundtrack: Rytex uses a lot of Kingdom Hearts music to add to moments. In the original versions, he used a version of "U.N. Owen Was Her?" and the victory fanfare from Pokémon Stadium for the duel with Captain Steelshod. In the rewrites, those moments were replaced with a boss theme and the victory fanfare from Octopath Traveler 2 and one Kingdom Hearts song was replaced with one of the boss themes from the first Octopath Traveler. Due to copyright reasons, this will be averted in the audio drama. All music will be composed by Truesailorcomet.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Nova and Aegis, Nova and Twilight, Nova and Trixie, and eventually, Nova and Steelshod. Basically, Nova's friendships are built upon mutual insults.
• Wandering Wizard: Nova Shine is a downplayed example of this. He calls himself a magical mercenary and journeys from town to town making ends meet by performing magical odd jobs for random citizens. He only moves to avoid his parents discovering where he is, and only does so every few months (if not years), rather than every few days or weeks.
• Was Once A Pony: Envy, before she gave into hate. The Elements of Harmony were what did the transforming, though.
• Waxing Lyrical: Nova and Applejack in Chapter 8. Their exchange matches the G1 song "Who's A Silly Pony?"
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Nova has some severe inadequacy issues with his father, believing his dad never thought of him as an adequate heir, which led to him running away. This turns out to be misguided as Ray really was extremely proud of him, but the circumstances of his neglect aren't elaborated on.
• Well, This Is Not That Trope: One of the opening likes of Chapter 7, describing the few buildings in Canterlot Nova has good memories of as he stands outside of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.
• Wham Episode: Being a story-driven fic, every chapter in some way alters things, though there are several moments that hit particularly hard.
  • Chapter 5 - Nova starts to fall in love with Twilight, and Envy makes her first appearance, nearly killing both of them.
  • Chapter 9 - Envy succeeds in driving Nova and Twilight apart.
  • Chapter 11 - Nova and Twilight reconcile and go through a Relationship Upgrade. Envy finds Zecora and does something to her, and then takes possession of the Alicorn Amulet.
  • Chapter 12 - Nova discovers that he and Nova Shine I are the same pony, thanks to having invented the encryption and enciphering method used in Nova Shine I's diary, and recognizing it on sight. He goes back in time, but then his older self is brought in wounded by Envy drops the internal bombshell that she has found and taken the Alicorn Amulet for herself, and that he's the one who's responsible for her existence.
  • Chapter 17 - Nova and Clover finally confess their feelings for each other, and Summer Blossom is revealed to be the one who becomes Envy.
  • Chapter 18 - Just about everything. It's Nightfall, Nova and Comet Novus take on Envy, Celestia takes on Nightmare Moon, Nova takes on Envy solo for the first time and absolutely destroys her, Nova temporarily becomes a bearer for the Elements of Loyalty and Magic, and serves as a temporary vessel for the Consciousness of Magic, and they all work to seal Nightmare Moon in the moon with the elements.
  • Chapter 19 - Nova graduates and becomes the Night Master, and we find out the Princesses were guiding him toward becoming a Prince, which he rejects and storms off.
  • Chapter 20 - Envy initiates her endgame by kidnapping every single townspony in Neighton and holding them hostage.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: In Chapter 6, Nova seeks Princess Luna's medical expertise regarding the strange jitters he feels in his gut every time he's around Twilight that started after their night in Trottingham, and he refuses to simply accept that he's fallen in love as an answer. He doesn't even know how to react when Twilight confesses she truly loves him just one chapter later.
• When She Smiles: When Nova sees Clover give him her first genuine smile, coupled with being cast in a gorgeous sunset, he falls for her just as he did for Twilight.
• Who's on First?: Nova and Owliscious, naturally. Though Twilight seems to understand Owliscious enough to know that the owl is honestly asking "Who?" just to mess with Nova.
• Wizard Beard: Zig-zagged by Star Swirl the Bearded. Throughout the canon series, he's portrayed as having a really lengthy beard, but here, it's played with.
  • In the original version of the story, subverted. He's got a rather short one, though it's implied he grows into the famous one later. Despite Star Swirl's irritation at Nova's expectations, he's also never referred to as Star Swirl the Bearded at that point in time, either, but only as Lord Star Swirl.
  • In the revised version, he actually does have his beard, but while attempting to travel in a way that wouldn't arouse suspicion, he disguises himself as a bald pegasus. However, when he takes off his disguise, his beard is a few inches long, but not the magnificent one Nova was expecting.
• Woman Scorned: What prompts Summer Blossom to attempt to murder Clover and become Envy.
• World of Snark: Everyone gets one or two cheeky quips at everyone else at some point in the fic.
• Wretched Hive: The Canterlot Underground, in the old version. Just looking around makes Nova queasy. The new version doesn't see them go anywhere outside of Tantalus Lulamoon's little section.
• Wrong Bathroom Incident: Early in the story, Nova Shine is trying to find Twilight at the Sparkles' residence, and being an energy sensor, he can feel two similar-feeling energies behind different doors. He checks one of them, only to dash out in embarrassment when he discovers it's Night Light sitting on the toilet.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Twilight, in one memorable instance, thinks that because the Everfree Vaults go down a full 1000 vaults, the one they seek must be at the very bottom "because that's how this thing works." Turns out, they only need to go roughly 11% of the way down.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Celestia knows a spell called Hyperbolic Time, in which time within the area of the spell moves many times faster than time outside it. She uses it so that she, Comet, and Nova can all rest and recuperate before their final battle with Nightmare Moon.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: A significant portion of the first few chapters feature Luna and Twilight trying their darndest to get Nova to realize this. Even after finding out he's an Alpha+ unicorn, he never really seems to get it until after he returns from the past, and even then he refuses point-blank to believe that he is anywhere near Twilight's level in magic when Luna believes wholeheartedly she wouldn't stand a chance in a duel before her ascension.
• You Fight Like a Cow: Nova's and Steelshod's duel is full of trading barbs about each other's dueling prowess. Nova notes that both of them are intentionally being overly showy and talkative because they're putting on a show for the crowd.
• You Just Told Me: Twilight is able to deduce that Nova has been keeping himself closed off even from friends by suggesting he had kept Aegis at a metaphorical arm's length for some time. Nova suspiciously asks if she's been following him, and she happily informs him that his response has told her all she needs to know.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Nova has times where he snaps somewhat harmlessly at other ponies, merely by shouting at them, but if someone really manages to get under his skin, he may subconsciously tap into his magic and completely wreck the room you happen to be standing in.
  • Over time, this evolves into more of Tranquil Fury, but Envy manages to bring the explosive rage back out by pressing the right buttons.
• Your Eyes Can Deceive You: Nova covers his eyes when training to hone his own sense without visual input, and when teaching Twilight how to use energy sensing, he has her shut her eyes so she can focus on the sensations of magic intensity increasing and decreasing, rather than trick herself into thinking she felt it by watching Nova's magic with her eyes.
• You're Not My Father: Nova, to Ray.
  Nova: I'd rather be a bastard than be your son.

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Nova: A sequel, a rewrite, and now a TV Tropes page? We really are going up in the world, aren't we?
Twilight: TV Tropes? I've never heard of it.
Nova: Well, if you value your free time, stay away.

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