Rainbow Dash has been leading a happy life. She and all her friends have even become alicorns, all except for one, the one she cares about most.
Rarity has been with Rainbow Dash for a long time, a life time in fact. Now her life is coming to an end, she feels like her age creeping up on her and no matter what her wife says, she knows how old she looks. Dash is determined to find a way to restore Rarity to the mare she once was, and a mythical fountain in the Everfree forest may be her only hope.
No matter what dangers stand in her way she will fight them off for the one she loves, but as the ponies journey into the forest, they find a creature who will not go down so easily.
This is my entry into the four R's competition
Cover art: I'm looking for cover art, if you or someone you know has something cool I'd really appreciate the use of it
Ohh at last!
Congrats on writing your first story!
Old Rarity makes her second appearance since putting your hoof down.
It's a little heartbreaking to see her like this, not just because she lost her youth and three cats, but much more so because she seems so convinced that she does not deserve to spend the last few days of her life taking up a mere fraction of the infinity of days that Rainbow Dash will have forever.
This made me laugh.
I got most of these, but I don't know where the Belle came from.
Pinkie! We need a mic drop!
i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/8136526848/h7720FF22/
Thank you.
When you said everypony is an alicorn, this is not what I expected, but I am so glad you went there.
I love the Trix/Dash/Twi interactions here.
Oh come on, Twilight, by my count we have at least 6 alicorns right there in Ponyville to help out. What could possibly be so dangerous?
Everytime Rainbow Dash talks to another from the Manesix at this point I'm waiting to find out who you paired them up with. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie? D'awww.
I gotta admit I was expecting AJ.
Which reminds me, between RariDash, Twixie, and PinkieShy... where does that leave Applejack?
Rarity is surprisingly cool with being tied up and 'kidnapped' in her sleep. Makes you wonder if Rainbow Dash has done this sort of thing before in some form or another. They have been together for a very long time at this point.
Sudden bombshell as we are told Celestia has been missing for a while, and this thing might have eaten her. That was one creepy scene. Good thing Creature got caught completely off guard.
I got really worried at the end there. The description Rainbow translated sounded more like the place was designed for a mortal+immortal lovers to die together. Good thing I was wrong. It was a very moving ending, I wasn't sure what was going to happen while RD cried about her selfishness in forcing this on Rarity.
Fortunately it was a happy ending.
This was a lot fun to read. I was not sure how serious I could take a story with an (almost) all alicorn cast at first. But I think you did a good job in making it work. I look forward to seeing what else you write!
Course since this is your first story there is some room for improvement, particularly in some technical aspects.
The main issue appears to be punctuation.
Now there are a couple things I noticed while reading which I decided to write down. Hopefully it will help you.
This section seems written in present tense, while the rest of the story takes place in past tense?
Though I would not put it past Rarity to refer to herself as an old crown, I think you meant crone.
You appear to forget punctuation at the end of dialogue almost systematically.
Also, I am not sure if it is usually appropriate to use a ',' before starting dialogue. Unless you start with the said tag like in the first sentence up there.
Since we're on dialogue, you sometimes have two separate speakers in the same paragraph:
This might be okay to make an exception for, since it's that short.
In these two cases it actually is fine, but you're missing an enter in the middle of both paragraphs.
Here for example, I do not think you are meant to use the comma, but a period, after smile.
While we are here, unless Twi has been blind till recently she probably meant to add a 'you' in there.
Presumably you meant peck (a kiss).
Wherever.
Needed. Liked.
Missing words. "Didn't mean to" ?
This might need to be "Vile" ?
Heard.
Missing a word. "take all the time you need" perhaps?
Also, the last period is outside the quotation.
4415480 Hey Crowscrowcrow glad to see you liked the story, thanks for favouriting
for some reason I've been unable to contact you, I can't comment on your story and I'm not sure if you received my PMs 'cause I actually asked if you wanted to be a prereader.
The 'Belle' in Dash's name comes from her marriage to Rarity, I'm not sure about this myself but I've seen a bunch of other writers say her name is Rarity Belle, so I figured I'd roll with that.
I hoped people would like the Trix/Dash/Twi interactions, at first I was unsure but since you like it I guess it's good.
I kind of surprised myself with the lack of Applejack, but as you know I have several stories in my head, most of which involve her as a prominent character, first I just gotta get past the ones that don't involve her, which is this one and the first prequel, but after that I hope to do something with AJ
I knew punctuation would be my main problem, I looked up the proper use of apostraphes so I think those are fine (for the most part), but I knew my use of commas would need improving
thanks for pointing out the little mistakes (not sarcasism, I really appreciate it), I intend to fix those when I'm back from TAFE in a few hours.
Always nice talking to ya mate
4416569
Oh horsefeathers!
I don't know how on earth it happened, but you were blocked!
The best I can guess at is that I must have miss-clicked once when I hit the follow button at the time.
I'm so sorry about that.
This is the first time I have come across the idea of Rarity Belle, but then I have not read many Rarity stories. Makes sense when you put it like that though.
Well, we'll just consider these warm-ups for the real apple flavored dish then won't we?
Nice talking to you, again.
I think the biggest problem with this story was setting it off in the future and putting in too many extraneous details. When you set a story in the future, you are always taking a big risk with a disconnect between the reader and the setting.
One of the major attractions of fanfiction is that we know the characters to some extent beforehand. When we set something off in the distant future, we end up with the problem where the characters are more divergent from what we know them as today. The more different the characters are, the less recognizable they are, and the more they just become OCs. If they aren't much like they are today, then it makes things hard on the audience.
Here, we had the problem where we had Princess Trixie (apparently with Twilight), Fluttershy and Pinkie as immortals as well, Celestia missing.... it all is thrown in there, but there's no real substance to it. This disconnects the reader from the story.
Ultimately, when you tell a story, everything in it should be relevant to the story you're telling. Trixie's presence, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie being together, Celestia going missing (which we only hear about towards the end for no real reason)...
There's no point to it. It doesn't add to the core story, which is about Rainbow Dash pushing to save Rarity's life.
There's nothing wrong with setting a story in the future, but when you do it, you need to keep the scope fairly narrow, or else you run the risk of losing the audience and making them feel disconnected. Narrowing the scope of your story - sticking to what matters - helps in cases like this. A lot of the scenes felt fairly pointless, in the end - the core of the story was Rainbow Dash trying to save Rarity.
The second problem was that the conflict was pretty weak. Rarity didn't really do much to push back against Rainbow Dash; she thought she was going to get aruged with, and instead... nothing. No payoff. It just felt kind of pointless to include that if she wasn't going to push back against it. The creature itself was the main "villain" but even there it just kind of was there - it didn't really feel all that engaging as a threat.
The net result of these two things was that I never really felt connected to the story.
4416620 I know what you mean, these were my two biggest concerns with the story, that's why I felt a prequel is necessary, in that I plan to come back to the present and provide a little background and substance to the parts that seem like they're just kind of there
4416600 accidence happen, just as long as I can talk to you now then it's all good
Indeed, the apple flavored dish is on it's way
nice talking to you mate
4416654
Well, here's the question you need to ask yourself when you include something in a story:
Why is it there?
What purpose does the conversation with Fluttershy serve? How does it further the plot? I don't even know why this scene is there, because it didn't really feel like it furthered the story at all and felt redundant.
Princess Celestia being offed by the thing was, apparently, meant to make the creature feel like more of a threat... but the creature just didn't seem "worthy" of offing such a character, and moreover, the fact that it was mentioned at the last minute really kind of hurt it. If Twilight had said that the Everfree was dangerous, and foreshadowed the danger more, it might have worked better.
Trixie's inclusion also confused me; if Rainbow Dash had simply gotten the book or stolen the book, it might have worked better. Trixie didn't feel very much like Trixie, but moreover, she didn't serve much point to the story you were trying to tell, which was Rainbow Dash feeling like she had to do it alone. She did do something (Rainbow Dash got the book from her) but she also expanded the scope of the story and was just something which felt a bit thrown in, rather than being a necessary part of a story.
It is not always best to tell a story with the minimum number of characters, but when you're telling a short story, particularly a short story where we're thrown in at the deep end, minimizing the cast is often wise as it helps keep the reader from getting confused, and helps keep them focused on target rather than making them ask questions the story isn't meant to answer.
4416600 hey crowscrowcrow I just remembered there was something I wanted to say to you a bit back but couldn't because of the accidental blockage
anyway just wanted to say congratulations on writing over 50 chapters for Trixie's Forest Retreat, I love that story
on an unrelated note I was wondering about what groups to add my story to, for example, twixie and pinkieshy are present but not prominent so is it still appropriate to add my stories to those groups or is that just going to be an annoying mislead to those groups?
4418431
Thank you
It feels kind of crazy heh.
As for groups.
Unless they are prominent it is probably not appropriate to add to a group dedicated to them.
That said, the exact rules vary from group to group so there could be groups that are okay with it. I just would not count on it.
4419107 yeah I think it would really depend on group I guess, after all the Raridash group has a section called, 'Raridash as a secondary aspect' but I haven't seen this type of folder in other groups, so I guess I hold off on that.
anyway how your story going? you usually update Wednesday right, so is 53 coming tomorrow?
4419123
Exactly. I think you will find that over time you stumble across groups you did not even know existed that fit the story as well. Sometimes because other people add the story to their group even.
As far as I know there is absolutely nothing prohibiting late group additions so do not worry about it too much.
Yes, Wednesday and weekends. 53 is about half way done, but I've been preocccupied, working with an editor to make the early chapters proper English.
4419158 as far as am concerned it was all proper English, but we both know I'm not the best in that area
I look forward to your next chapter mate
4419182
Practice makes paranoid.
I look forward to seeing you again now that you have a voice again.
I also cant wait to see what you will do next for your story.
Ah btw, i did not get the pm, but i'd be happy to proofread in the future.
4419199 PARANOID!? who said I'm paranoid? are they in the house? are they behind now as I type this message?
heh heh, anyway, putting my mild insanity away for a second, I've began working on the next story. Like I said it will be called Celestial Swan Song, I'll send you a message when I'm satisfied, so god knows when
After that I think I'll break away from this series for a bit and try something else, see how I feel
Vastly underrated story. I quite liked it, though some explanation to everything would be great in a prequel! Raridash is my favorite paring and I like how you portrayed them. I look forward to seeing more from you!
4448879 awww, thank you so much, that comment really gave me a smile like this
. I'm working on the prequel now, hopefully it'll be out later this week, Crowscrowcrow will be editing so with any luck the next one will be even better.
Also, thanks for the favourite and the follow, I will try not to disappoint
Not bad, a bit chunky in spots, some typos, and the occasional tense slip, but it was enjoyable. I would be curious about what foolish chance Twilight/Trixie got involved in, and I need to agree that Celestia's passing was a bit out of left field. Still, interesting. Thumbs up.
So emotional
So emotional
So emotional
6156049 I hope you found it enjoyably emotional, mate