MLP: FiM - Without Magic Part 87

Over the last year I've had a lot of comments from people asking why Luna hasn't intervened in the ongoing Twilight\Celestia saga. Of course, as the writer, I've know exactly why, but I haven't been able to say too much as I didn't want to introduce spoilers. Let's just say, it's been hard getting to this page without explaining things directly. Particularly when some of the people commenting have been somewhat aggressive in their criticism of Luna\the way that I'm portraying Luna.

Well, we're here now, so I can give an explanation.

There are two reasons why Luna hasn't intervened directly. Either to turn Twilight back, or to take Celestia to task over how much Twilight is suffering.

The first of these reasons was covered all the way back on pages 38 - 44. Luna felt that she was being forced to choose between her loyalty to Twilight and her loyalty to her sister, and that either choice could potentially lead her to become Nightmare Moon again.

The second of these reasons is covered here. In simple terms, Luna knows that Twilight has invested a lot in finding out what makes her special outside of magic, and if Celestia\Luna were to turn her back into a Unicorn before she discovered it, Twilight would believe that she had failed in the task, and that she had been restored because Celestia thought that she couldn't couldn't do it.

Given the way that Twilight looks up to Celestia as a mentor, and how she constantly seeks her approval, Twilight would likely see failing in a task that Celestia had set her as being tantamount to failing Celestia herself.

If you notice any errors\mistakes here, please report them on my profile page. It looks silly having comments pointing out errors still hanging around long after I've corrected them.

Luna's eyes were a total pain to draw. Particularly keeping them looking consistent between frames. Don't expect me to start drawing everypony's eyes like this.

If you're wondering what the reference to Custard in Applejack's letter is about, it's something that was originally scripted to happen about 3 pages before this (One of the trigger events to Spike writing to Celestia), but which is now happening afterwards because of the new page (because I was getting tired of people complaining about Celestia not getting involved and brought that page forward a couple of months).

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Standard Components

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