In Equestrian heraldry, the Kite Shield is a symbol of protection and strength, and those ponies with a kite shield cutie mark are usually honor bound to bravely protect any sapient being who may need their aid, often at great risk to their own lives.
This is the story of two ponies with such cutie marks, and what these cutie marks reveal to the other.
One pony is a gallant and brave career soldier, who has devoted his entire life to protecting Equestria from all enemies foreign and domestic.
The other is the reincarnated form of one of Equestria's greatest villains, given a second chance, now honor bound to use her power to protect the ponies she cares about.
It is a year since the events of Winter Bells and great changes are afoot this Hearth's Warming, as a newborn alicorn prince binds Twilight’s family closer than ever. And a conversation about the similar marks on their hides will give Uncle and Niece a new and better understanding of each other, and of each other's place in Equestria's emerging future.
A unofficial fan made sequel to Past Sins.
Thanks of course to Pen Stroke who created Nyx and her Universe.
Super special thanks to my tireless Editor and main(and rather heroic) proofreader Recon777 and to awesome prereading duties by Nightmare Nyx. This story is only readable thanks to their efforts . All Mistakes remain my own.
Cover image by yourstruly, Nyx's cutie mark was designed by Alexlayer.
*scratches head* some interesting stuff in this story.....
5418042 yeah a lot of exposition. This will be the first story in my own series of sequels to Past Sins. So yeah lots of worldbuilding here.
You could use 'Lunars' and 'Solars' in place of Lights and Darks. Cannot think of a replacement for Mainline though.
5418067 thought of that, But It is kind of too on point. No reason to have Night Light give a backstory about the legend if just a cursory glance at the names kind of tells you what the legend is. And there is a reason why I had Night Light dump all that exposition, so just getting rid of it wont do.
Thanks for the feedback though , and if you have any other ideas I would love to hear them.
Looks amazing
5418050 I was thinking you may want to put something in the author's notes or even the main metadata description, that this is meant to give exposition which will serve upcoming as-yet unwritten stories. That will help people understand the purpose of the exposition.
5418192 yeah I might add something to the author's notes at the bottom. have you looked at the author's note by the way?
5418197 Yes, I like the fact that you've declared the story as a work in progress. That's a good idea as well. It's always good to help the reader understand the "why" behind a few things they may find unusual about your story. All good!
i really like it hope to read more soon
5418228 thanks!
5418230 no thank u fore posting it
5418236 Thank recon777 for making it readable!
Well, that was an interesting thing. The story of the Lights and Darks was very well made. Sadly, I do not have a replacement name for Light, Dark and Mainline.
5418250 Don't be sad. Glad you are liking it so far.
Well I see the light and the darks as Nyx could be the dark part and the Light could be the alicorn foal.... Gotta have balance there you see.
5418258 Thanks!
autism to the rescue
Shining's mark is a heater shield, contrary to what every RPG ever would have you believe.
This is a kite shield:
i.imgur.com/8sO6j38.jpg
5418073 Yeah, thought of that right after I posted. The only other feedback I have is that, while it's excellently written, the dialogue feels just a little to formal. Try make seem a tad more natural.
5418555 Yeah the dialogue , especially that huge infodump that Night Light dumps on Nyx at the end, was by far the most difficult thing to write and even more difficult to edit . Basically I ended up sacrificing a bit of naturalism in other to get a lot of info out. The idea is that by " sacrificing" this story i save some future stories I plan to write were this infodump would be more unnatural and even more forced.
So Yes, basically this is the first " canon" story in a series of stories I plan to write in the " Past Sins" universe. Hence all the exposition .
Sadly what I could read felt very much simply making grabs at the previous past sins universe stories. I also agree with some of the comments I have read concerning the dialogue coming across as too formal and bland. I`m not truly satisfiesd with your response being that this "sacrifice" of the dialogue is justified because this story is going to the essentially a manual for future planned stories and it was done to catch people up to a story that is barely even beggining. Finally, I must say that when reading thoughts in a story(be they coming from the individual`s own mind or being paraphrased by the author for the readers), it always takes me out of the story when they are presented with formal words and/or in a very coherent and planned fashion. Maybe it`s me applying too much personal thought into it, but my own thoughts are rarely coherent and tend to be all ovet the place as I bring pieces together over time. Also, it feels alien when someone voices their thoughts as if talking to a very respected individial instead of in a spontaneous way(for example using formal words intead of simple words).
5419328
Well, to be fair, the ideas explored here are not meant to go off the beaten path of Past Sins, really. It is a very thin, very dense slice of life story of pure exposition and character interaction. It's not meant to really delve into new areas aside from the hints which were presented via Equestrian political history. Those things aren't even Past Sins related, and could exist entirely separate. Maybe what you're seeing is that it is similar to Winter Bells in the setting. Of course, that was intentional as the author wanted to take Cadence's pregnancy which was announced at the very end of Winter Bells and show the fans what the results of that were. Also, Winter Bells repairs the relationship between Shining and Nyx, but never really explores it, so what you'll find here (in the next chapter which isn't edited yet) is that there is some meaningful bonding between those two.
Because this story is so brief in terms of its own timeline, not a whole lot of events happen. The result of this is that the author has chosen to spend his words on density of interaction, explaining the traditions and rituals of these characters, and also drop some hints as to the headcanon through which his further stories will be presented. I don't know anything about the future planned stories, but there does seem to be a fair bit to work with in the idea that Twilight's parents are somehow tied in with this ancient mysterious lineage which is mentioned in this chapter. This could, of course, be taken in many directions, and I like the idea of merging that headcanon in with the Past Sins universe.
I'd say that there needs to be a separation of these two concepts. It is true that the author intends to use much of the expository dialogue as the basis for future stories. It is also true that he has spent the bulk of his time and energy on developing this headcanon. So to give come context to his statement about it being a "sacrifice" in that sense, what it really means is that he spent less time refining the dialog than refining the headcanon and exposition. Time was a seriously limiting factor on this project, with the intention of publishing by Christmas (the analog to Hearth's Warming).
Eh, well this is just the author's personality, let me assure you. I've gotten to know him fairly well over the last 3-4 months since he's also prereading my story, and I can vouch that this particular fellow is highly detail oriented and formal. So you're just seeing that come through in the writing. I hear it's rather challenging sometimes to force your characters to behave and dialogue in ways other than what you yourself do. That's okay, but it's understandable if this puts some people off. This isn't a lengthy enough story where that becomes a huge issue probably. It's not like he's writing a 250,000 word Fallout Equestria side-fic or anything.
5419328
i will be the first to agree that the dialogue in the last half of this chapter is rather stilted. I assure you it gets better in the next two chapters where there will be less dialogue and more action. However I kind of want to point out two reasons why it was next to impossible to make this language less formal. Don't think Recon and I were not aware of this issue. We tried to resolve it but we ended up hitting two main limitations.
1. Clarity. " when in doubt err towards clarity" is one of the maxims of good writing and judicious editing.Your own though ts are rarely coherent and all over the place. So are mine, so are everyones as far as I can tell. Nyx in this story is the equivalent of an 11 or 12 year old human girl. I can only imagine what the stream of her thoughts is. But this is not a psychological monogram. This is an attempt at telling a narrative. A narrative in which I am trying to convey a lot of dense information. To convey this information in a way that mimicked the thought pattern of a confused little girl would render the story totally illegible. I mean those few things i tried explicitly to add dynamism, such as narrative asides in the midst of conversations , were already confusing enough. Imagine if I tried to depict the actual confusion a fifth grade girl would experience in this situation. All you would get is a headache. So yes, if every piece of this converation seems calculated it is because it was in fact meticulously worked out. There is no other way to clearly convey this information.
2. Myself and My past. So as Recon777 points out, i tend to be very formal in my speech, but this is maximized by the fact that English is not my native language. Now I have been officially bilingual since I was five, and as I child I read voluminously, and most of those books were in English. But the language In which I spoke to my family and socialized with my friends was Spanish. I read in English, My higher education took place in English, and I work in the United States in a job in English, that is as verbal as it gets, but the conversation in this story, had it happened in my life, would have taken place in Spanish. In other words the language of family and emotions for me , is Spanish, as opposed to my academic and professional life, which takes place in English.
So one thing I have noticed, In American and European business executives working in Latin America whose Language is English or German or something like that, but who have gained fluency in Spanish through academic study of the language is the following curious phenomenon: While their Spanish is precise and correct, to a person who grew up speaking Spanish, the Spanish spoken by these foreigners often seems overly formal and somewhat archaic. I think this is precisely what you are detecting in me. My English appears overly formal and archaic to you, because I employ English in academic and professional pursuits, but not in emotional,social or family pursuits. So when I portray family scenes in English, you experience someone using formal professional English to refer to informal situations. After all, that is the only type of English I am truly comfortable in.
one very last comment :
Again probably cultural. In Latin American culture, especially in old fashioned families that either are or pretend to be " upper class" ( such as happens to be the case with my own family) It is expected that young people speak to their older family members in as formal, respectful, and non- slangy a language as possible. So the polite thing to do for a well bred young girl would be to speak to her grandfather in the most formal way she could, to show off how well her parents are raising her. In Nyx's case this is further compounded by the fact that she takes great joy and pride in the etiquette lessons she gets from Rarity. In other words her grandfather IS a " very respected individual" and thus she will make a point of addressing him in the way one addresses a very respected individual which as a family elder, is of course precisely what he is!
I will always remember when a friend of mine in HS , here in the USA once talked to someone on the cell phone referring to him as " dude." when he told me it was his father i almost fell backward. I could not fathom and( still cannot) the idea of referring to anyone like a father mother uncle aunt or grandparent with a slang term !
I like where this story is going. Some of it felt a little off, though I can't say I could have done it any better. It seems like a difficult storyline to word properly.
Still I love the idea of this story and desperately hope that you update in the near future.
I wish you the best of luck, hope you had a merry christmas and wishing you a happy new year.
I like where this story is going. Some of it felt a little off, though I can't say I could have done it any better. It seems like a difficult storyline to word properly.
Still I love the idea of this story and desperately hope that you update in the near future.
I wish you the best of luck, hope you had a merry christmas and wishing you a happy new year.
Just stumbled onto this, and I must say that I like where it is going, and I love love love the worldbuilding going on here.
Also, would Primes do as a substitute for Mainlines?
5488553 Thank you for the comment. Yeah the worldbuilding in many ways is one of the reasons this story exists. Dont get me wrong, there will definitely be the discussion of the two cutie marks. And a meet cute between Nyx and the baby ( what you thought I was building that up so it went nowhere?) But much of this story exists to set up the backgrund world for a future story I have in the works.
Though it might be a year or so off in the works, since while I have a basic Idea ( Nyx as a student at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns) and a very well developed setting and world ( as should be clear by now) I still do not have one of those.. what do you call them... oh yes, a plot.
Oh and I'll think about "primes".
5491772 I'd love to see that discussion when it comes, though the meet-cute is still satisfying. That sounds awesome as all get out; and yeah, the worldbuilding is easier and more fun for me than writing plot too.
Did Nyx's disguise change, or is it just me?
5524914 I hope not? it is meant to be the same one described in Winter Bells.
5525298
It's been a while since I read Winter bells, so maybe it changed after Past Sins. I thought it originally was a vest and glasses that changed how her eyes appeared.
5525369 right. but after the events of
she got a new disguise since the old disguise would not have fooled anyone anymore.
5525596
ahh, that explains it
How did I miss this? This will be recitified!!
And I am back, I love how this is going so far.
Nyx's refusal of the throne feels less like "Wahhhh, I don't like this idea" and more like what a normal filly who has a big path ahead goes through. I alo love how you are looking over the lines and the use of ascencion. Although, I must wonder if MMC had happened yet, since Pen Stroke mentioned that in the timeline, the rest of season 3 happened after Winter Bells.
5609489 I decided for this story to postergate tiwlight's ascension. This story is meant to be a prequel to an eventual longer story set during Nyx's time as a student at Celestia's school for Gifgted Unicorns. though no ETA exists for that story yet.
This story will be fnished however. There are two more chapters. I haven't worked on them too much because I have spent most of my ponytime helping recon777 with his story, but rest assured this story will be completed.
AS for Nyx, the way I see her, her deepest emotional desire ( apart from protecting the ponies she cares about) is to live as normal a life as possible. She knows full well this is in essence impossible, but as much as she can, she will always try to live as normal and low profile a life as she possibly can.
5610946
Hmmm, an interesting approach. I woul love to see how she can hanle this, especially since she has to realize that her mother is a bearer of harmony, her mom's friends are bearers, she is an alicorn, and is going to be in Celestia's school. To quote Sabrina's da from teenage witch.
"That ship has sailed."
EEEEE! Can't wait
I love it and can hardly wait for more!
5637504 thanks. there will be more. I promise. No ETA yet but there are two more chapters to this story.
Hope you make more chapters soon
6592811 there will be more chapters, they are drafted out already. Unfortunatelyt i cant really predict when soon will be though.
Pedantic review, go!
'Members' needs an apostrophe, as it is possessive.
That's a lot of description about the exact type of snow...more than I would recommend, anyway. If that's a style thing, that's fine, but it does slow things down.
'Flurries' should be singular, unless there are multiple different snowstorms.
'Ponylengths' is an odd unit of measurement. Are you sure about using it? I'd just go with the metric system, but that's a personal preference thing...hmmm. I'll ask the writer's group, see what they think.
(...results were inconclusive. Most said either 'do whatever' or 'use the metric system')
How important is this OC going to be, to get a big chunk of exposition like that?
I personally find that particular little meta reference somewhat suspension-of-disbelief-breaking. That doesn't mean you shouldn't use it, though, as long as you can justify it.
I'd recommend using a different descriptor for Twilight. Her magical strength is not immediately apparent by looking at her, and a description should normally be used to paint a scene. If for whatever reason you want to emphasize Twi's power, then a physical description followed by a comment in prose on how it 'belies her true strength' or something like that would work better, I think.
This could be put more concisely, I think. Perhaps 'moon-embossed kite shield cutie mark'?
Holy Mother of Exposition, Batmare!
In all seriousness, Twilight is speaking as if Nyx doesn't know any of these things.
I'd recommend using 'about' instead there.
Bleh. There's quite a bit I don't like about this sentence, so I'll go through it slowly.
I do like this bit. Twi being sad about not having academic colleagues at the age of eleven amuses me.
'well' should be removed. It could be made grammatically correct with another comma, but that would make the whole sentence read horribly.
I don't see the relationship between Twilight and Celestia as being familial, particularly not so early after Twi earned her cutie mark. Pseudo-maternal later on, perhaps, but not so soon.
Besides, as Nyx will immediately point out, just because someone is family doesn't mean they can't be an academic correspondent. It seems odd that Twilight would think that.
Lastly, the use - or lack thereof- of contractions. Just having read this chapter, it seems that you rarely if ever use contractions, which has the unfortunate effect of making a fair amount of the dialogue pretty clunky, like here.
Behold, a restructured sentence!
"When I was your age, I didn't have any academic correspondents at all! Well, apart from Celestia, but she didn't count because she was my teacher anyway."
That's an objectively better sentence, but it doesn't lead into what you want the characters to be talking about, which is Nyx's insecurity about meeting Shining, Cadence and their new foal. It needs fine-tuning either way, I suppose.
'Interrupted' doesn't need to be capitalised.
I appreciate that you've written Nyx so she isn't just a helpless woobie, but instead actually displays some intelligence as well as being touchy about things she'd be touchy about. There's disappointingly little of that around.
A minor nitpick: Cadence could never have hoped to challenge Nyx directly during that timeframe - Nyx would have just crushed Cadence and any army Cadence could bring to bear with overwhelming magical power.
Comma after 'that'
I'd advise you to avoid spelling laughter out in dialogue, lest your characters sound deranged. 'Twilight laughed woodenly' works better.
Alright, this bit needs some cleanup.
Firstly, 'yet' is used twice in one sentence, which is something to be avoided. The first 'yet' could be replaced with a comma after 'elegent' and then 'if'.
Secondly, two Nyx-es in three words is jarring. I'd look for a way to rephrase that.
Thirdly, that unnecessary 'looking'
It's unnecessary.
Your prose is rather purple, which isn't a bad thing - lots of description can be a wonderful way of immersing your readers when done well, but it has to flow well, and the best way to make purple prose flow better is to remove unnecessary words. This particular sentence works just as well without that word and is on the lengthy side anyway, so I think it should be chopped.
In fact, that would be my advice for improving at writing generally - focus on the basis of capitalisation and punctuation, and look through your own work for words that don't add much or aren't needed. Look for ways of explaining things more concisely.
As an example, look at this phrase:
First, look at how necessary it is to the chapter. If you feel that it adds something to the tone or characterisation then it can be forgiven for not moving the scene forward. If it doesn't, then chop.
Next, look for ways it could be better stated. Be aware that your prose tends to run on the expository side, and look for ways of saying more with less.
I'd say that this phrase adds something to Nyx's characterisation, so it should be kept. I do think, however that it might be better put, like so:
Alright? I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have to the best of my abilities, and the writer's group is there if you want some other opinions.
There's a lot of unnecessary words and somewhat overly-long sentences here, as I've already said. That's not a major flaw, but rather something you'll get better at managing with time, practice and lots of objective editing of your own work.
Oh, and kudos on fantastic Nyx characterisation! Seriously, well done. That was exceptional.
I would use 'Besides' there instead.
As another example of parts that could be cut down, these lines are unnecessary. Readers can infer from the tone of the previous paragraph how Nyx feels about this issue, and unless it isn't evident you should avoid explaining how a character feels, and if you do it should be more interesting than 'Nyx felt bad' or 'Nyx wanted to cry'.
Rather than 'made her feel like crying', I'd recommend something a little more metaphorical.
This holds true for describing a character's emotional state in prose as well. Saying "Nyx was sad" or "Nyx wanted to cry" isn't very engaging.
Comma after 'rugged'
This part is in serious need of cutting down. What do you think can be chopped?
Much as I appreciate you portraying Nyx as intelligent, it feels off that she'd discover that her cousin is an alicorn and immediately jump to talking about their shared traits and possible future relationship. A simple exclamation of amazement would be simpler and feel more natural.
I'd recommend using just italics rather than bold, underline and italics in order to signify emphasis. All three look weird.
Comma after 'oh'
Good attention to detail! I'd forgotten about that exchange.
'Alicorn' probably shouldn't be capitalised.
There's a double-space after 'ramifications'
'Ramifications' shouldn't be capitalised.
Unnecessary space after the first 'that'
As I said before, the italicized, emboldened, underlined text is distracting.
A semicolon should be used instead of a colon.
Avoid using more than one question mark.
Oh, and this whole section could be improved by splitting it into three sentences, like so:
Comma after 'wait'
Avoid using multiple punctuation marks.
That's not why she gave up the throne. Nyx would be fine in a position of authority, provided it was one she earned, commanding ponies who respected her.
Interesting. What would these ponies think of Nightmare Moon, then?
'Blown' is missing an L
Comma after 'Moon'.
Also, he's speaking to Nightmare Moon. Talk about rude!
There's any number of reasons for that, most of which have nothing to do with what he goes on to talk about.
Chop 'fascinated'.
Okay. And that's chapter one.
This was a mixed bag. There's a lot of unnecessarily purple prose, and quite a bit of the dialogue is rather clunky. On the other hand, the worldbuilding is solid and the characterisation of Nyx and Twilight is excellent. Others have already talked about the expository nature of this piece, so I'll leave that particular aspect alone for now.
Oh, and if you don't want this big chunk of stuff all over your nice neat comments section, I'll edit it down and transfer it to a PM.
6929246
I am going to go through your comments later but I want to address three of your comments here, mostly because I want to explain why I will not be taking your advice on those three comments.
1. The purple unicorn of considerable power. This is just there so that the audience knows it is Twilight without me saying Twilight. I am not trying to make an observation about how she is stronger than she looks just tried to say something that would make the reader go " twilight".
2. Celestia being like family. The entire point of this sentence was to set up Nyx's crack that Shining Armor actually is family. So if Twilight does not refer to Celestia as like family, there is no point for this sentence to exist. You may think the joke is lame and the story is better off without it, and you may be right, but the most important part of this sentence is that Twilight refer to Celestia as " like family" without that the sentence has no reason to exist. I do see what you mean by the sentence being awkwardly structured and will work on that.
3. HAHAHAHA! Yes the point of it being in all caps spelled out and with an accent mark is precisely so she sounds like she is cracking. She did not laugh " woodenly" in fact it was exactly the opposite, the laugh came out much louder and more emotional than Twilight intended. The intent here is to show that Twilight, while trying to provide a reassuring facade to Nyx, is internally herself very nervous about the situation.
None of this of course means that I will not pay close attention to the rest of your comments, and I do thank you for the detail.
8145025
Amen.
I'm pretty sure that Nyx's disguise didn't include turning her coat white. Was that a mistake or a change purposely done for the story?
10442635
Oh it is absolutely Canon! Its From Pen Strokes First Sequel to Past Sins, " Winter Bells" Chapter Two "
( Italics Added)
10444034
I forgot about the disguise for Winter Bells.
I was only thinking about the glasses for her dragon eyes and the vest to cover her wings.
I completely for got about disguises they wore when they went to visit Canterlot and avoid the press.