Celestia felt harassed. Seriously. The least known part of being a princess was all the paperwork. Celestia’s office was crowded with stack after stack of various documents having to do with the administration of Equestria. And now… these had started to show up. In the wake of the wedding and attempted invasion by the changeling hive of Queen Chrysalis, the Royal Guard had been kept busy seeking out and rounding up changelings all over Equestria. That, though, was not the cause of the excess paperwork. Not directly anyway. The growing mountain of paper here consisted of petitions from ponies asking for amnesties for changelings. There were dozens of them, more coming every day. The Princess of the Sun sighed. There was not enough time in the day (and there was no way that a newly returned Luna would ever agree to shorten her night for the sake of finishing paperwork), but it was all still there. Paperwork. Ugh.
Her mental complaints were interrupted by a knock on the door. “What?” The princess snapped. The door was eased open by a pale blue aura and a dark blue alicorn stepped through, bearing a tray with a teapot, two cups, and Celestia’s favorite angel food cake on a platter of its own. “Sister, thy Luna hast brought thee some repast!” Celestia glanced at the clock and started. It was that time already? She and Luna had restarted an old hobby of sharing a snack just before each princess performed her duties at sundown. Luna was looking askance at her sister. “You forgot again, did you not?” Celestia sighed guiltily. “Yes.”
“Tia, you are working too hard! What in the name of Faust is all this?” Luna levitated a page off the stack nearest to her with her shimmering magic aura and read the first few lines. She glanced back up at her sister. “Tia, how many of these changeling petitions are in here?”
Celestia rubbed at her forehead with a hoof. “I do not know. I have not had time to look. Too many.”
Luna rolled her eyes at her workaholic sibling. “Sister, you have not slept in two days. Do not try and tell me otherwise; I know these things. You will wear yourself to a nub if you do not take a break. Is there any of this that you would let me take over,” she tapped the pile of petitions, “like these?”
Celestia looked confused. “But Luna, are you sure…?” She began hesitantly.
Luna quelled her by looking Celestia in the baggy eyes and interrupted. “I am not fresh from the nightmare moon thing any longer, Tia. Plus…” the blue alicorn hesitated before continuing, “I am not certain you would be the best judge for these non-hive changelings. Both you and Cadence had painful encounters with Chrysalis and her hive. I am not sure that, were I the friend of a changeling, I would trust your objectivity.”
Celestia looked scandalized, then thoughtful, then guilty. It was true; she was not inclined toward a gentle treatment of the changelings. “And you are?” the older alicorn asked.
“Moreso than you think. I did, after all, sleep through the whole incident when it all blew up. I at least have the advantage of no direct encounters with the attackers. Besides, due to what little we know of the changelings’ feeding needs, we should deal with this as quickly as possible. Not even changelings from a hostile hive should be allowed to starve.”
They were good reasons, all of them. Celestia inhaled before responding. “This seems… odd for you, Luna. I am not used to you being a voice of… mercy.”
Luna smiled in sympathy. “You taught me about the benefit of mercy, sister. Do not forget the role you played during my salvation via the elements at our old castle. I would like to apply it my way, to help some pony, or some changelings as the case would be. And who knows, these changelings could be of benefit to society in Equestria.”
Celestia sighed again before slowly nodding. This was one argument she was not about to win. Luna had always been a lover of logic puzzles, even as a foal. Celestia preferred to use her time differently. Besides, her sister had brought up good points. “All right, Lulu. If you are certain you want to take these on as part of your Night Court duties, I will let you do so. I will also notify the couriers to direct all changeling petitions to you from now on.”
“I thank you, sister, for trusting me with this.” Luna lifted the entire stack of petitions off her sister’s desk and replaced them with the cake and hot cocoa. “Now Tia, it is time we ate and spoke of naught but pleasantries.”
Interesting! And a NaNoWriMo work, as well.
One minor correction that stood out for me:
"Gentle" means kind or without force.
"Gentile" means "not Jewish."
I shall be reading with interest.
Interesting, but why is Luna saying her sister's name after nearly every of her sentences?
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I'm guessing because it was their NaNoWriMo submission.
I took part in that myself, and let me tell you, being able to pad your word count out is highly advised. There's actually a ton of cheap tricks to try to ratchet up the words like that.
Or I might be totally off base saying that. Who know?
New line for each character speaking.
Please, PLEASE, have characters say things on separate sentences. It's a chore trying to figure out who's saying what - an easy chore, but a chore whrein one slipup can completely make me lose things entirely.
Pre-dialogue: I'm not certain, but I think that this is a run-on sentence. Stahp it. I'd go with actually having Luna speak first, then placing the speech tag afterward. Or even just skipping the speech tag and describing how Luna stares at her sister.
Also, did Luna actually say 'the nightmare moon thing'? I don't know whether 'thing' in this case is Luna insulting 'nightmare moon' or is placing 'nightmare moon' in quotations, referring to that as like a noodle incident (a noodle incident that we all know, but I'm referring to how it's referred).
There are numerous other grammatical gripes that I could quibble about, but they are, in the end, just quibbles. I'll just note that this is interesting enough that I want to see what happens next - but not interesting enough that it really stands out more than the masses I browse through each day.
First attempt? Keep writing! It'll get better in time.
So far my only critique is that Celestia speaks too formally. She is more used to speaking in a common manner.
This may be a bit late, but a brief thing to note on Elizabethan English is that "thee" is the informal version of "you" while "you" originally is the formal version. When Luna switches from "thees" to "yous" it seems that she is being a bit cold to Celestia, even though the rest of her dialogue comes of as being compassionate. Still, good start.
Princess of the Sun
____________
New speaker new line.
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what's that?
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Biggest bit of advice. Never have two speakers attached to the same bit of dialog. Each Speaker gets their own line, and also, and this gets forgotten from time to time, although I haven't seen it here yet. If a speaker would have multiple paragraphs of dialog, do not use closing " marks at the end of the paragraph, but do use opening ones at the start of the new paragraph. This lets people know that a speaker is still talking. While end quote marks show the Speakers finished.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Novel_Writing_Month
A much better attempt at a first story than mine was. More well received too. I am intrigued, and shall start reading this one with close attention.
I think it is about time I knocked this off my "Read Later" pile. So far, so good!
First attempt, yet your fic shows a reaction much closer to the spirit of the show than so many other I've read.
I love that here ponies are actually keeping up the idea of Harmony instead of changing into xenophobic bastards.
And I always though Luna would be the one to advocate second chances for anyone, given what happened to her. It always makes me cringe when I see her portrayed as vengeful.
Cya
Raziel-chan
should have done by your beard Celestia.static.fjcdn.com/pictures/By_a78fa4_2337236.jpg
Consider me interested.