Twilight & her Foalsitter

by Dangerous_Creature

Part 4: Epilogue

Part 4

The next morning was clear and a little bit chilly, though not unpleasantly so. The cobblestones of Canterlot were still wet from the previous night's rain storm. Ponies were busy sweeping & readying their store fronts for business. Many of them waved to Cadance but all she had time to do was wave back. She'd have loved to stop and chat but the teenager had a destination, a mission and a strict timetable in which to accomplish it.

She took a deep breath and rang the bell at Twilight Velvet & Night Light's front door. As she waited the butterflies returned to Cadance's stomach...she gulped nervously & second guessed her willingness to face the adults she had failed so miserably the night before. But the pink filly stood her ground and the door opened.
"Good morning, Cadance" said Twilight Velvet, but no smile or cheer accompanied the greeting.
"Good morning, Professor Velvet" the teen answered. She decided not to waste time on forced pleasantries or small talk, getting right to the point; "I've...I've come to apologize about last night. You trusted me & I really let you down. I just want you and Professor Night Light to know how deeply sorry I am."
Still wearing a dour expression the older mare replied "My husband is at the University, he had a morning class to teach. I'll certainly tell him you came by and convey your message."
"Thank you Ma'am" Cadance reached under her wing and pulled out an envelope. "I gave your letter to my parents last night as you instructed...this is from my mother. She would have sent it by post but I asked to deliver it myself and she gave permission...provided I'm back home in a half-hour."
Twilight Velvet accepted the envelope with her magic but did not open it. "I see. Were your parents upset?"
"Well," confessed the blushing filly, "they certainly weren't happy with me." It was then that Cadance noticed a small purple form hiding behind her mother's legs. "I'd also like to apologize to Twilight Sparkle...with your permission, ma'am." The mother nodded and took a half step to the side, allowing her filly to come forward to the door.
"Hi Cadance" she said meekly.
"Twily, I'm so sorry about last night. I allowed you to fall into terrible danger because I wasn't doing my job properly. I..."
The purple unicorn filly cut her off "But Cadance, it wasn't your fault! I did something dangerous & stupid & didn't think and it's all my fault! I feel awful that you got in trouble!"
"You shouldn't feel bad for me, Twilight" the foal sitter assured her "all the trouble I got into I deserve."
Twilight Sparkle was about to object but her mother cut in to put a stop to the two fillies' debate about fault. "You both made mistakes last night...you both share part of the blame...and we're just thankful nothing worse happened. I trust both of you will take the opportunity to learn from this."
"Yes ma'am" both younger ponies answered in unison.
Twilight Sparkle piped up "We're just finishing breakfast...can you stay and have some tea? Can Cadance stay, Mom?"
But Cadance quickly cut her off; "No, I'm sorry, Twily. I have to go. I'm grounded for a very long time...I had to ask my mother for special permission to come deliver her letter and I'm sure she's watching the clock. I'll get in even more trouble if I dilly-dally."
"Awww" muttered Twilight, but then she leaned forward and admitted to Cadance in a not-so-quiet whisper "Mommy gave me a spanking with the hairbrush last night."
"I'm sorry to hear that" Cadance replied sympathetically, and added "I got my bottom whipped last night too."
The little filly's eyes grew wide with surprise, and she flopped backward onto her rump. "But...but...you're a teenager! You're practically a grown up mare!"
"Well, I was beginning to think so too" answered Cadance, her cheeks turning crimson "but my daddy proved me wrong last night." That caused both fillies to giggle.
"After you're done being grounded, you're gonna be my foalsitter again, aren't you?"
Cadance recoiled a bit, and sucked in air through her clenched teeth. "Umm, I really don't know about that, Twily. I made a really big mistake last night and if your parents decide they would rather trust somepony else I don't blame them a bit...and we both have to accept their decision even if it doesn't make us happy, understand?"

Before her foal could answer Twilight Velvet replied "That is something my husband & I will discuss, but I see no reason why you can't regain our trust, Cadance. Perhaps asking you to foal-sit at night was too big a step, but when the time comes we will consider calling on you to watch Twilight during the daytime. As I said, we must discuss it as a family."
Twilight Sparkle clapped her two front hooves together in excitement, but then switched to an expression of alarm. "Don't ask Shining Armor what he thinks...he's being a big meanie and blaming Cadance for everything!"
Looking down at her daughter with a stern visage Twilight Velvet said "Your brother loves you very much and we will absolutely consider his feelings, but he does not get a vote. Your father & I will ultimately make the decision." The purple filly looked a bit crestfallen, but her mother ameliorated her dismay by adding "We will take your feelings into account as well, Twilight."
"Is Shining Armor home right now, ma'am?" asked Cadance, nervously. "I really feel I should apologize to him too."
"My son is visiting his uncle today. He has a meeting with a Lieutenant of the Royal Guard on Monday and his uncle...an ex-soldier himself...is coaching him a bit in advance of his interview."
"Oh that's wonderful!" Cadance exclaimed, "I know how much he wants to go to the Military Academy, I hope this all works out for him!"
Twilight Velvet softened her voice and advised the younger mare "Shining is still rather upset about last night. It's best if you give him some time & space. Young stallions can be hot blooded and he's no exception. Save your apology for when he's ready to hear it...you two are good friends and I'm sure you will be again."
"Yes ma'am. Thank you" Cadance replied. Just then a nearby bell tower rang to announce the 9 o'clock hour. "I really have to get back home. Again, Professor Velvet, I'm so sorry about what..."
Twilight Velvet put her hoof up to stop the younger mare. "Yes, thank you. I appreciate your sentiment but there's only so many times I can hear 'I'm sorry'. Now it's up to you to decide how you handle responsibility in the future." She turned to her daughter and added "Both of you."

Cadance gave Twilight Sparkle a hug before leaving, and the little filly told her "I'll miss you...come back and see me as soon as you're allowed!" Cadance promised to do so.
After saying goodbye the pink alicorn trotted back home by the most direct path. Though she faced a month of confinement...straight to school, straight home after that, no socializing with her friends on weekends...Cadance felt happy and light on her hooves. The previous night's incident had been awful, perhaps the worst night of her life, but she resolved that she would learn from it. She would regain the respect of her parents, she would regain the trust of Twilight's family and she would regain Shining Armor's friendship. Of these things she was certain and the feeling of optimism put a spring in her step that she hadn't felt for a long time. The morning air was crisp and clear and perfumed with the aroma of newly cut flowers. To Princess Cadance it all combined to make up the feeling of a fresh start.

END

Comments

[RandomHamster33]

Very nice job!

[KrishnaKarnak]

A very sweet read it overall. I think you handled Cadance's father really well. I'm no fan of caning, but you made it a believable punishment for a royal family.

I loved reading everything Twily said, she sounded perpetually hyper and matched her excitement at the end of her cutie mark story. Poor thing, though, thought the hairbrush would be a shade too intense for her age (she didn't sound that much older than 7-8), although I would not disagree given the severity of the incident.

I'm sure you'll regain Shining Armor's trust, Cadance. Just a feeling!

Looking forward to more.

[Isseus]

A very likable read. The story was well put together and you really put a lot of effort into building the setting before plunging into the events. Someone else might have done this in half as many words and I think they would have been wrong in doing so.

One thing I really must confess though: Using an ampersand instead of 'and' is really, REALLY, annoying. It really detracted from your story and made you come off as a lot more amateurish than what your narrative really was. You have a nice, flowing style, but you could gain a lot from giving your text maybe one more proofreading pass before publishing. I spotted a few typos and incorrect verb forms, for example 'It was rare that Night Light ever rose his voice to his son' should be 'raised'. Something rises, but something is raised. Your line breaks were also off because you seemed to use them in the middle of a scene to signify a change in perspective. You really should stick to one perspective throughout a scene because it immerses the reader more. If you really want to tell how the characters think, show it through their actions, not as inner monologue or exposition. Heck, keeping to a perspective almost FORCES you into showing and not telling. You also had several mixups on whether to capitalize titles.

The fact that Twilight got a spanking with a hairbrush was quite a fair punishment for what she did. What I did find to detract from the story was that Twily's mother seemed to give her the spanking out of anger. You also switched perspective when you mentioned how Twilight dreaded she might be getting a spanking. The reader hadn't been told beforehand that she had been spanked, so it was meta-knowledge from the original description and the chapter warning. You might have had Twily comment on it earlier. Compared to how things were with Cady, it was clear she was going to get spanked as soon as she begged her mother not to tell him.

But seriously? An Ottoman couch? How... cliché.

Nitpicks aside, like KK said, your Twilight was superb. Cadance has a lot more subdued persona in the series, so she is hard to write. I would have preferred you give her a little more personality, but how to do that? Can't really help there. The ones who really took the cake in this story? Shining Armor and his dad. Perfect characterization and realistic responses from both of them about the events. Knowing what kind of a character Shiny grows up to be, I couldn't have imagined him having any other kind of father than what you wrote. You also used OC's perfectly as in them not being part of the story, but bringing out the main characters and advancing the plot.

All in all, I really like your writing and hope to see more of it. I'm pretty saddened that this only has so little reads.

[CarcinoGeneticist]

This story came recommended to me by Isseus, and I pretty much agree with everything he said, really solid characterization and a really high-quality story that absolutely has my upvote.

A couple of criticisms I personally want to add/emphasize though.

Isseus touched on this a bit but I want to stress it a lot more pointedly: the formatting of your line breaks and paragraph breaks was VERY inconsistent and it was VERY distracting for me. You can't seem to decide whether you want to leave a blank line between paragraphs or not, and jump back and forth from one to the other constantly, and that's a problem. Particularly when you still indent a line even after a full blank line between paragraphs. It's either one or the other, but never both. For reference, in print publishing, the commonly accepted standard is to indent with no blank lines for each paragraph, while with online/digital publishing the common standard is to have a full blank line and no indent for each paragraph. i don't personally mind it either way, but whichever you do choose you should be consistent about it across the whole fic.

(as a side note to this, I'm sure you know this rule as well, but you had one case of two different speakers in the same paragraph in the midst of the scene between Cadence and her father, which is a no-no.)

Secondly, this is partly a matter of personal preference, but I found your chapter breaks both unnecessary and poorly placed. I personally would have let this whole thing be a single-chapter oneshot. I understand the mindset/fear that people are put off by walls of words, but that's something I've never bought into. This is a tight-knit short-story, even if it is 14k words long, and short-stories generally aren't broken up into chapters. And what really emphasizes this to me is that the places where you have snipped the fic into chapters don't feel like the end of a chapter. They feel like normal scene changes that you just happened to arbitrarily snip the fic at, and it really shows.

(also what Isseus said about ampersands. It's one thing if they're part of a proper name, like in the name of a law firm partnership or something, but in general prose, and especially in spoken dialogue, it's really really bad.)

Obviously though these criticisms are all purely technical stuff. Your plot and characterization, as I mentioned, were spot-on. I think there was maybe one thing in the entire story I would have written differently, and that would be to make Night Light's dialogue with his son following the accident a tad bit less stiff and formal.

(well, okay, two things: I would have had Shiny and Cadence make amends before the fic ended as well, I realize he was angry but a lot of the stuff he said to her was really not okay and to close the fic without resolving that matter was disappointing.)

So yeah, really enjoyable fic. I know it sounds like I did little else but rip into it, but I criticize because I love. I don't make effort like this for fics that are just generally awful. So take these comments to heart and use it to make yourself better, because you're already quite good, and you definitely deserve more attention for this piece.

Cheers,
--CG

[Dangerous_Creature]

3002247>>3002588
Thanks to both of you for such thorough & insightful critique...it's very useful. Some of the points you made are likely due to my unfamiliarity with FimFiction's formatting; I write offline then copy & paste my stories so the site's text handler twists things up a bit.

I'll send you each a message addressing your specific points. Again, thanks for the feedback. Hopefully I'll have some new stuff soon.

[Starsword]

4602269 I agree with you 100%. The punishments in this story were highly excessive. In fact, I would go so far as to say it was abuse.

[zener]

i love it she edded it like i do i say a 3 start for you!

[Silverhoof the unicorn]

not to be a nitpicker, but i couldn't help but notice in the first part/section, you used the term "three thousand degrees kelvin." this would have been correct term for Celsius or Fahrenheit, however when one uses kelvin, they don't say degrees before it. It would just be "three thousand kelvin"....dear goddess my inner twilight just came out

[Necron Lord]

i would love to see an aftermath chapter or sequel to this story.

[Star-Corrsin]

This was a good story and I hope you the best of luck on any other stories your working with.

[LavendarRegards]

This story is good story. I think the pacing and characterization are well done.

[marinus18]

10200034
I do think a small punishment was in order but just a token punishment. Like 5 soft spanks and that's it. Just enough to make it very clear Velvet is displeased but no more than that.
With Cadance I do think she should indeed have gotten a punishment. She was entrusted with someone's else's child and she failed. But I think a 5 minute hairbrushing would be sufficient. The cane should only be very very severe cases. Like if Cadance had intentionally harmed somepony or did something especially hideous or dangerous.

10494901
Because they need comfort with parents so harsh. I actually mind Cadance's punishment more than Twilight's because of that cane which leaves deep welts for days and her being grounded for a month. I think it would do her good to be grounded so that she has more time to think about it but that should be something like 3 days to maybe a week at most.
Grounding them for an entire month does nothing but severely harm their social life.

[BirdsBooksBrownies]

I've got some mixed feelings about this story.

On one hand I get why Mrs. Velvet reacted the way she did, but seeing how scared Twilight was from the incident alone was probably punishment enough. In my scant knowledge of child care I've heard that one should ideally never punish when upset, as it increases the risk of taking one's fear out on the recipient rather than merely punishing for the behavior. I'd say that Mrs. Velvet was walking a fine line here.

I'm not totally for or against spanking, but I do believe that it should only ever be for super serious things like this. I recall hearing a grouchy parent one time on the city bus telling their kid that if they didn't hush up they'd whoop their behind.

Being both a big brother and rather curious person I can also sort of understand Shining, Cadence, and Twilight's behavior. I've done my own fair share of incredibly bad and stupid things and some of which still haunt me to this very day 15+ years later.