Next up, "Guarded Emotions" by Alabenson. https://www.fimfiction.net/story/323465/guarded-emotions

Considering each chapter is rather long, I decided to read two chapters of this story to get a good feel for it.

Now, the idea of Twilight having a bodyguard makes me chuckle a bit. The reason being, the show doesn't exactly paint the guards in the best of light. We've had attacks from Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra, Tirek and Starlight Glimmer. None of which the guards caused any real help with. So this is kind of like a running joke. Anyway, this is just idle prattle, I've stalled long enough.

This story has a rather unique idea and does a pretty good job in doing it too. One thing I should point out at the beginning is that the characterization of each one of the mane six is...well, in one word...flawless. I can really see these characters acting and thinking as they do. It's one of the best portrayals I've seen. Also, seeing Moonwhisper slowly open up is done really well, as you can see the effects the others are having on him.

Now the flow of the story is pretty good, it's not in a hurry to get on with the plot, but is a little on the slow side. This isn't a problem in and of itself, but I'll get to that a little later.

The descriptions are quite impressive, not only for the scenes, but for the characters as well. This helps bring the story to life. But at times, this story can go overboard in describing things. While good descriptions can bring a story to life, they can also bog it down if there is too much. Too much of anything is bad really.

With the slightly slow story flow (Try saying that five times fast) combined with occasionally going overboard on descriptions, it makes a noticeable problem. At times, the story may feel dry. But still, so far the positives do outweigh the negatives in the first chapter. Then I turned to the second chapter. This not only had the positives and negatives of the first chapter, but a few other slights as well.

It gets repetitive. Most of chapter two follows this pattern:

*Twilight plays chess with Moonwhisper and gets him to open up a bit.
*Applejack has an encounter with Moonwhisper
*Pinkie comes by near the end of the scene, spying on Moonwhisper

*Twilight plays chess with Moonwhisper and gets him to open up a bit.
*Rainbow Dash has an encounter with Moonwhisper
*Pinkie comes by near the end of the scene, spying on Moonwhisper

*Twilight plays chess with Moonwhisper and gets him to open up a bit.
*Rarity has an encounter with Moonwhisper
*Pinkie comes by near the end of the scene, spying on Moonwhisper

*Twilight plays chess with Moonwhisper and gets him to open up a bit.
*Fluttershy has an encounter with Moonwhisper
*Pinkie comes by near the end of the scene, spying on Moonwhisper

You see where this starts to become a problem?

Near the end of chapter two, we receive a battle with a wyvern. Finally! Something to shake all of this up. But I feel the battle scene could have been handled better.

For one, it's all narration, large chunks of it at that. It would have been better to get someone's perspective during the battle, ideally Moonwhisper.

Having a battle like this mostly being related to us via narration gives sort of a detached feel. Especially since the story went out of its way to switch its character perspective multiple times.

It's also very much stretching my suspension of disbelief. Now, this guy is one of the best guards in Equestria, so I've no problem believing he can take on several timberwolves and only receive light injuries. But you'd be extremely hard pressed to get me to believe he could single-handedly slay a wyvern.

All in all, from what I've read, this story still seems worth a read. I'm a rather surprised that it doesn't have more fans to be honest. It's likely that the problems of being a little dry and repeating itself caused readers to drop off early. Still a good story though.

Guarded Emotions: 78/100
It's like digging for gold. Be patient and you'll find it.

First off, I can definitely understand your criticisms regarding some of the overuse of descriptions, especially in the first chapter where, looking back on it, my prose could get a little purple. That's an area that I've been trying to improve on and I do think I've gotten better about it. Similarly, I will admit that I do have a tendency to meander a bit in my writing.

That being said, a few of the criticisms you brought up regarding the second chapter were actually conscious choices on my part. Part of the issue in chapter two was the fact that I was trying to establish a) Twilight's mounting frustrations with trying to establish a rapport with him (building up over the multiple chess scenes), b) how the other members of the Mane 6 felt towards Moonwhisper and why (hence the intervening vignettes where they interacted with him individually) and c) a showcase of what Moonwhisper was capable of. The scene with the wyvern in particular was supposed to grab the reader's attention by having Moonwhisper display abilities beyond what one would normally expect of a guard (the story does provide some explanation as to how he pulled that off in the next chapter). Now, I will admit that there might have been a way to handle that scene a little better, but I was somewhat constrained by the fact that I didn't want to show anything from Moonwhisper's perspective until the last chapter. I don't want to say exactly why since it would spoil a good chunk of the story, but I will say that I didn't want the audience to get a glimpse into Moonwhisper's head until Twilight did so herself.

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I can understand some of those choices in chapter two being deliberately made. While you did accomplish what you set out to do in the repetition part, you may have been overly ambitious trying to kill three birds with one stone and ended up mixing the bad with the good.

Like I said, you did sort of grab the reader's attention with the battle with the wyvern. And I do understand you wanting to save Moonwhisper's perspective for something big. (I saw the big events when skimming over the rest of the story before the review) However, I think you were putting the cart before the horse in this matter. What I mean is, deciding to go with a narration of the battle, instead of it being his experience did water the excitement down. I understand why you did it, but there are still negative consequences. If the readers don't like chapter 2, they may not get to chapter 3. To say nothing of the last chapter. It's like saving food for a party no one will attend.