Welcome to Ponyville
The first thing Moondancer noticed about the Golden Oaks library was the warmth: but this time, it wasn’t because the cold outside had gotten to her. No, this was a different type of warmth: the kind that came with good company, gentle music, and a friendly atmosphere.
Moondancer had never noticed how that sort of thing could make a room feel comfortable in quite that kind of way, but then Moondancer had never really been to a proper party before—the one she had thrown in Canterlot had hardly counted, with so few guests and, of course, with it being over before it had really started. Here, there were so many guests, ponies of all shapes and ages and sizes—she was pretty sure that she saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders running about between the legs of the adults, laughing and playing among themselves. She smiled. This was how a party should be.
“Surprise!”
Four ponies stepped out into her path, just as she was making her way over to Bon Bon (the only pony her age in the room she had recognised). It took a moment, but soon enough Moondancer found herself recognising the faces in front of her.
“Oh my gosh! Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, Minuette! What are you three doing here?” She turned to Lyra, who was standing sheepishly on the end of the line. “You had something to do with this, didn’t you?”
“Maybe,” she said, shrugging nonchalantly. “Or maybe it was just Pinkie Pie.”
“Mmm,” Moondancer replied, smirking with mirth, “I’ve heard she’s like that.”
She spent a good few minutes getting reacquainted with her old friends—especially Lemon Hearts, who had dropped out of her life even more completely than the others. She had, at least, seen Minuette and Twinkleshine in passing: at major events, or on her way to the library. It turned out that Lemon Hearts had been offered a huge career opportunity in the peak districts of Canterlot, working in the flavoured water business—not something Moondancer had ever cared much for, but she found Lemon Hearts’ enthusiasm for her work charmingly captivating.
It was only when she had finished catching up with her friends’ lives that Moondancer realised something was missing, again.
“Is, uhm…” she began, before lowering her voice and leaning to one side to mutter into Lyra’s ear. “Is Twilight around?”
Lyra had clearly seen the worry on her face, and let out a small chuckle. “Don’t worry, lovergirl,” she teased, “Twilight’s just upstairs. I think she and Rainbow Dash are talking through some things, but she said she’d be down as soon as she could be.”
Moondancer smiled at that. Maybe things wouldn’t be quite so awkward as she had feared—after all, if Twilight was making peace with Rainbow Dash, then surely she could make peace with somepony who had hardly seen her in two years.
“Hey everypony!” The entire crowd turned as one to face Pinkie Pie, who was standing on a small stage at one end of the library, a microphone in her hoof and speakers at her back. “I just wanted to say a great, warm welcome to you all! I know it’s not often we gather together as a town like this… maybe every other week or so—” even Moondancer had to chuckle along with the crowd at that one. Pinkie Pie’s determination to party away all her friends’ problems was a wonderfully predictable trait in a mare who could be so, well, unpredictable “—and I know that it’s not every week that we get a brand new friend staying in town! Now, she might only be here for a few days while her house is rebuilt up in Canterlot, but Moondancer has already become an important part of Ponyville life: Sweetie Belle tells me that she might even be a better tutor than Twilight, but don’t let the Princess hear me say that!
“This party is a Welcome to Ponyville party, and I throw enough of those for you all to know that they’re fairly standard business. But Moondancer isn’t just anypony—she’s one of Twilight’s oldest and bestest friends. And anypony who can be a bestest friend to Twilight Sparkle can, I’m sure, be a besterest friend to all of us.
“Moondancer, I know you’re not too fond of being centre stage, so I’m not going to ask you to come up and make a speech.” Moondancer laughed openly at that, and soon enough the whole town was laughing along with her. “But I’m going to say this: you are welcome here in Ponyville whenever you want to visit, and I know that there will always be a place here for you to stay whenever your normal house gets blown up, burnt down, or destroyed by a horde of giant fire ants. Welcome to Ponyville, Moondancer!”
As one, the crowd erupted into cheers, and though she wasn’t anywhere near the stage Moondancer could feel all the attention of the room on her—but it wasn’t a bad kind of attention. It was that same warmth she’d felt when she entered the library, the kind of warmth that made her feel welcome, and at home. And most importantly, it was the kind of warmth that rose to her cheeks and brought a small, quiet smile to her face—or was that her blush?
Soon enough, the crowd’s attention dispersed, and everypony went back to the conversations and games that they had been enjoying before Pinkie’s impromptu speech. But Moondancer couldn’t quite let herself get lost again in the conversation with her old friends—something Pinkie had said was looping over and over in her head, like a stuck record.
She’s one of Twilight’s oldest and bestest friends.
Sure, she’d known Twilight for most of her life, and certainly she’d been one of the first ponies to call herself Twilight’s friend, but would Twilight really see it that way? When they were younger, Moondancer was sure that she had been nothing but an annoyance to her, pestering her with facts and figures in any attempt to prove that she was good enough, that Twilight could be her friend. And that wasn’t “bestest friend” behaviour.
She’s one of Twilight’s oldest and bestest friends.
Her friendship with Twilight wasn’t a force of magical power that had saved the nation time after time. Her friendship with Twilight wasn’t the kind of friendship that could withstand anything, face any trial, weather any storm… she had proven that, by walking out on Twilight, on all of her friends, over one simple mistake. And that wasn’t “bestest friend” behaviour.
She’s one of Twilight’s oldest and bestest friends.
Heck, Moondancer hadn’t even known what friendship really was until a few days ago, and even now she was still struggling to really understand it properly. She could hardly be considered one of Twilight’s oldest and bestest friends if she hadn’t even known how to be a friend in the first place. She had thought that friendship was formed from one-upmanship and displays of cleverness… and that wasn’t “bestest friend” behaviour.
Psst.
Moondancer turned around, only to find an image of Pinkie Pie reflected in the bowl of punch behind her. Her brow furrowed, and she opened her mouth to ask a question, but before she could say anything the image-Pinkie spoke again in a hoarse whisper:
Twilight told me that herself. I wasn’t just making it up. Trust me!
And with that, Pinkie ducked out of the punch bowl and Moondancer was left wondering whether she was seeing things. She glanced around the room, her eyes scanning the crowds for a sign of the excitable party pony, and was surprised to find her standing halfway across the library, a blindfold tied around her eyes and a bat clamped between her teeth, swinging joyfully at a bright pinata that hung from the ceiling.
Moondancer had no idea how Pinkie had done that, and started to wonder if maybe “Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie” really was a valid explanation for these things. That such a thought was starting to make sense to her was… worrying, to say the least.
It was then that Moondancer’s eyes fell upon a pony who could only be Rainbow Dash.
A bright, striped mane in all the colours of the rainbow, disheveled and unruly, falling around her neck untidily; a sky blue coat and magenta eyes that were turned down to the ground, her lips twisted in a mockery of a smile. Rainbow Dash walked through the crowd with a melancholy expression, the ponies around parting to let her through. It wasn’t until Pinkie had spotted her, and dashed across the room to try to cheer her up, the Rainbow Dash showed any sign of noticing her surroundings—and ti was then that she lashed out at Pinkie, shoving her out of her path with a huff.
The crowd stiffened, but nopony said anything.
It was the bystander effect, Moondancer realised. Every pony in the crowd was standing there hoping that somepony else would be the first to act, that even though they were upset and offended by Rainbow’s actions that they still thought it was none of their business to interfere. Moondancer remembered reading about how this effect had been exploited in the South Zebrican courtrooms as few as forty years ago to create…
No. She wasn’t going to let the research she had done distract her. This time, it was time to act.
“Hey, you.” She sounded a lot more confident than she was—Rainbow looked like quite an athletic mare, and she certainly didn’t think anypony would put bets on her to win in a fight. She hoped with every inch of her being that this wouldn’t come to violence. “Oi, Rainbow Dash.”
“What do you want?”
She hadn’t even realised that she was walking over to the rainbow-maned mare until she found herself mere inches from her face—she had been so focused on staying calm she hadn’t even realised that she was putting herself in danger. But that was okay. Nobody shoved Pinkie Pie.
“I want you to be more considerate, that’s all.” Moondancer nodded towards Pinkie. “You nearly knocked Pinkie Pie over!”
Rainbow’s face seemed to scrunch up: her lips began to quiver and her eyes were shut tight, small dimples forming on her cheeks. She nodded, and muttered “sorry”, before pushing her way past Moondancer to the door. Only, as Moondancer turned to watch her go, Rainbow practically kicked herself around with all the speed she could manage and swung a forehoof at Moondancer, her teeth clenched and her eyes red with tears and anger.
And Moondancer ducked.
Cursing, Rainbow Dash spread her wings, and turned from a punch into a launch—tightly curving in the air, she streaked out the door leaving a trail of multi-coloured cloud behind her that slowly evaporated, like hot breath in cold air.Moondancer frowned, shut the door behind her, and carefully turned around to face the crowd.
Everypony was staring. Silence had rolled over the room—even the Cutie Mark Crusaders were still. Moondancer bit her lip nervously, waiting for somepony to say something, but the silence continued. Nopony seemed quite sure how to react.
And then, Pinkie Pie whooped into the air, cheering out as loudly as she could, and the crowd collapsed into applause. Hooves stomped on floorboards, ponies were cheering, somepony—she suspected Lyra—whistled. And none of the noise or the cheering mattered, because Moondancer’s eyes had found Twilight Sparkle, standing at the far end of the room, smiling wryly at her.
In that moment, Moondancer wanted to grin wider than she had ever grinned before, and she wanted to run across the room in a gallop and throw herself into Twilight’s embrace and to press her lips firmly on Twilight’s… But instead, she simply smiled, and nodded, and walked calmly through the crowd, who were slowly beginning to disperse once more back into their smaller groups.
“Hey you,” Twilight said, her eyes shining with amusement.
“Hi,” Moondancer said, breathlessly. She took a moment to calm herself, willing the blood not to rush to her cheeks as she found herself once more caught up in Twilight’s beauty. “I, uh, take it your talk with Rainbow Dash didn’t go that well?”
Twilight shrugged. “She, uh… yeah. She didn’t take what I had to say all that well. I’m sorry you had to meet her like this—she really is a great friend, most of the time.”
“I’m sure she is,” Moondancer said, strangely finding herself believing it. But maybe it wasn’t so strange after all—it would be quite improper for the Princess of Friendship to have such a poor friend so close to her. “But nopony shoves Pinkie Pie like that.”
Twilight smiled then, properly, not the kind of small smile that had previously been playing with the edges of her lips, but a real, proper, full smile that lit up her face like a sunrise lighting the sky. But it didn’t quite reach her eyes—in her eyes, there was the slightest shine of fear.
Broaching the silence once more, Moondancer said, “I suppose we need to have a talk, too?” She bit her lip, anxiously awaiting Twilight’s response.
The princess nodded, and gestured towards the staircase with a bob of her head. Swallowing, Moondancer trudged towards the stairs and began to climb, hearing Twilight's hoofsteps following close behind her. She was in no rush to reach the top.
And still the top came: the stairwell opened out into a surprisingly large room, bookshelves lining the walls, a roaring fire in the fireplace and a large, clear window that looked up to the sky, the bright moonlight shining down through it. It left a small oval pool of white light on the floor, just next to a seat, which Moondancer trotted to and promptly sat down on.
Then she stood up—she was too nervous to sit, or to stay still. As Twilight stepped out from the stairwell, Moondancer found herself pacing back and forth through the puddle of moonlight.
“So…”
“… yeah,” Moondancer finished, not quite content to let the silence hang between them. She was too nervous for silence—she just wanted to hear whatever it was Twilight had to say, and then maybe go back to Canterlot. A few nights away would be good for her, surely.
“Back in Sugarcube Corner… did you mean that?”
Moondancer wasn’t quite sure what to say, so she said: “Yes.” And then, just like that, the words came to her, and she let them tumble straight from her mouth.
“I’m in love with you, Twilight. I have been for years and I didn’t even realise it until today, but I love you. You’re smart and funny and pretty and I just want to lie beside you and read, or talk, or hold you tight and every time you walk into the room I can’t take my eyes off you…”
“I turned Rainbow Dash down,” Twilight said, absently. “She asked me if I wanted to go out with her and I said ‘no.’ And I told her why.”
Moondancer swallowed. “And why was that?”
“I said there was somepony else,” Twilight said, simply. “I told her that there was a mare in the room downstairs who I wanted to share my future with. And it’s funny, because a month ago I wouldn’t have known that I could want to be with somepony else—I’d always thought that when Rainbow Dash finally made her move, I’d just say yes, and that would be it.
“But then you came into the library,” Twilight’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Then I saw you again and I remembered. I remembered every day of my fillyhood, at school, just knowing that you’d be there without me even having to think about it. You were always there for me, Moondancer, even if I didn’t realise it at the time. And I just left you behind.” Twilight's face contorted in disgust, her lips twisting into a mocking grimace. “Some Princess of Friendship I am.”
“Twilight—”
“Please, Moondancer, I’m nearly done,” Twilight said, her voice soft and placating. “The fact is, this last week, I’ve come to see you as a close friend in just a matter of days, and I’m already struggling to imagine what life in Ponyville will be like when you leave. And sometimes, when I’m lying in bed at night, staring up at the sky through my window because I can’t sleep… sometimes I think how nice it would be to have you there. Just, there, beside me, and dammit, Moondancer, could you just shut up and kiss me already before I start rambling?”
“… you want me to kiss you?!” Moondancer asked, breathlessly. Twilight, biting her lip, nodded.
“Hey girls! Just wanted to make sure you knew that we were starting Pin the Tail on the Po—” Twilight and Moondancer snapped their heads to see Pinkie’s head poking around the stairwell, her eyes wide and her mouth forming a round ‘O’ of surprise.After a moment, she chuckled awkwardly to herself. “I’ll, uh, just leave you two to it…” she said, backing away slowly and disappearing down the stairwell. For a moment, Moondancer and Twilight sat, frozen, before turning to face one another.
Moondancer couldn’t help it—she burst out laughing, and soon enough she was curled up against Twilight and the two of them were just laughing into each other, shaking and rocking and laughing and holding each other close.
“... I love you, Twilight,” Moondancer said softly, as the laughter subsided and the two mares simply lay, sprawled on the floor, curled up in each other’s legs. For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of their breathing, and the soft, slow thud-thud of their hearts against each other’s chests.
And then:
“I love you, too.”
And as Moondancer closed her eyes, a small smile resting peacefully on her lips, she felt the lightest of touches brushing against her back, and the warm feeling of a wing pulling her tightly into Twilight’s embrace.The End
Not very much to say here as concluding remarks. This was, after all, a fic I wrote in just 24 hours for charity. No doubt within a day I'll have a blog post up detailing lessons I've learned from this insane exercise in speed-writing and apologising for the horrific typos I have unleashed upon the internet.
I really just want to take a moment at the end of the fic here to thank you, dear reader, for making it this far, and sticking with me through this fic. I didn't plan any of it, really—I had some vague outlines in my head (scenes and ideas I wanted to use, and the ship of TwiDancer was a must) but nothing beyond that, so that I even managed to write a half-coherent story this long is something I'm rather proud of! I hope you've enjoyed it, for all its flaws.
One last time, I'm going to point you in the direction of my donations page. This fic was written to raise money for a wonderful charity, BBC Children in Need, who do amazing work. The fundraiser's still open 
(Also, I'll probably talk more about this in a blog post, but I really wanted to apologise for the treatment of Rainbow Dash in this final chapter. It was rushed and lazy, and I ran out of time to redeem her in the epilogue I'd hoped I'd write. I felt that was a really important one to mention, because it's the sort of thing people might get upset about! After all, I do kinda ship TwiDash. I can understand your concerns 
)
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This is a crazy amount of words to have written in 24 hours. You sir are a champion of some sort.
Quill Scratch 4 ever
...well, I've gone and set 'em up for ya'. Knock 'em over.
That's more words than I write in 3 months. :cries:
(sigh) Your mistake wasn't writing this in 24 hours. That's a great, if insane, exercise, and what came of it, on its own merits, is solidly above average. Good on you and your charity stuff.
No, no. Your mistake was posting this straight out, instead of stepping back from it and asking what you could to do to make this story the best it could be. Because, while, yes, a series of events and circumstances and asides and even some character introspection all do happen and in the end coalesce into a conclusion... even though there is a "story" here... just my gosh this is the clunkiest and least fulfilling progression I've seen in some time on this site.
Amongst stories that try, anyway. If nothing else, I can't say this fic doesn't try.
But it wouldn't have even taken all that much to knock this out of "B+ for Effort" territory. In summary ranking of things that worked best for me:
The backdrop with Lyra providing perspective to Moondancer through the fic was the one part of this story that was utterly fantastic, so it's a good thing it makes up the bulk of this. Your Lyra sings--she's laid back and has a nice head on her shoulders that appreciates beauty in simplicity, almost by necessity, yet has clarity beyond her station. She makes an excellent foil for Moondancer. Unfortunately, even with this backdrop's volume it gets dragged down by pretty much everything else.
The Moonlight plot at the core of this was... passable. The reasoning for Moondancer's love worked out all right for me. Her "realization" does seem a little forced, especially in the part where she's blurting it all out to Lyra, but it's not egregious or anything.
Twi's part in the romance doesn't work quite as well though, since we haven't been following her all story. Their interactions work out well enough, but her confession at the end really feels just as much something something put in there expressly to tie up some plot ends as it feels natural.
Pinkie is Pinkie. She's a little Flanderized here, but it's not like this is the S5 Pinkie episode or anything. She's still charming. Moving on.
Moondancer herself is... okay, I'll say it. I can't stand this Moondancer. However, this one I chalk up to personal taste so I can't put it too far down the critique scale. What irks me about this Moonie though is that she takes, at minimum, three to five long paragraphs to have any singular thought about anything. Twilight, Lyra, a building, a pie on the table, everything she comes across is a dissertation. Following this Moondancer in a story is like sitting in a Queensbound New York train during evening rush hour. Start for a bit, stoooooooooop for way too long. While it's defendable as a character quirk of someone this nerdy, I personally can't stand it. Especially since her dialogue is so sharp and quick in comparison AND I LOVE THAT WHY COULDN'T YOU MAKE THE REST OF HER LIKE THAT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
And finally we get to the plot with Rainbow Dash. I'll let the militant TwiDashers and RD fans rip you to shreds on that one--I am neither.
However, I hate unexplained romantic emotions involving canon characters cropping up in fic. Sudden Rainbow crushing on Twilight without any explanation outside for "she just does". Wheee. Great. Still, I was willing to handwave it and originally did. Unfortunately this subplot gets... kneecapped, for the lack of a better term, multiple times. Every time something emotionally significant was about to happen regarding that subplot you cut away to somepony else, or you just abort the sequence of events entirely. The result is that Rainbow looks like a clingy, selfish dick. But not in the lovable way like she is on the show.
Finally, this needs an Alternate Universe tag like whoa.
This could have been fantastic. Instead it's a cautionary tale of the power of editing and polish. It has all the pieces, but lacks the direction, clarity of purpose or mastery of context to make it really work. And thus my search for a well-done happy Moonlight continues.
6316073 First off, thank you so much for the time and effort you've taken to provide this feedback.
Secondly: yeah. Trust me, I've described this fic as "a trainwreck" on multiple occasions this far. You're spot-on with all of those points! But at the end of the day, the challenge I set myself was to write a fic in 24 hours, as long as I could make it, and post it to fimfiction unedited. This isn't even a first draft! But at the same time, it wasn't the purpose of this exercise. And I couldn't bring myself to edit it, when I'd promised everyone that I wouldn't, even if I thought the resulting story was terrible.
I'll keep all those points in mind in future, though. Since this is about as close as you can get to my raw, natural approach to writing, every hint at what areas I need to focus on will help me a lot when it comes to stories that I... uhm... actually try for quality with
Thanks again
Shouldn't this be labelled Alternate Universe?
6316073
I agree that the story is pretty good and has some flaws. Personally, I kind of liked the characterization of Moondancer (and Lyra -- she's much more believable when she's not depicted as human obsessed or crazy) even if it was perhaps spread on a bit too thick. I also think she could use some differentiation from Twilight. They seem a bit too similar as characters (at least their earlier selves) and it's hard to ditch the feeling of Moondancer as Twilight 1.0 and Princess Twilight Sparkle as Twilight 2.0.
I totally agree on the Rainbow Dash bit. Unfortunately it's just as bad with Moondancer. This could be a much better story if their respective selves and feelings could be developed/shown to the reader within the story itself. Moondancer's attraction and 'love' (i'm being just a tad harsh on that) seem believable (if a bit overdone) and Rainbow Dash's interest plausible, however poorly developed, but I'd pin the obvious issue on Twilight's behavior. It's the kind of thing that I'd expect to develop over a week or two at least. Twilight's had very little exposure to Moondancer for several years at least (I don't recall if it was mentioned how many) and so could plausibly have forgotten her altogether at least in the sense of not thinking about her except on a rare occasion. It comes on too heavily as Twilight blowing Dash off despite the implied ongoing relationship. That doesn't really make sense in context. Why would she "drop" a pony she's been seeing for a while to suddenly hook up with an old "friend" (they didn't exactly depart on best terms -- Twilight totally ditched her birthday party without even asking Celestia). Personally I think that Moondancer leaving early for Canterlot would have made sense (i.e. too much tension, probably inescapable, in Ponyville) and provided one possible direction to take things. I just don't think Moondancer, as is, could have been that nonchalant at a party under those circumstances. Dash's reaction at the end suggests that she's really worked up over it, so it can't have been just a close friendship thing with Twilight.
I think it has the foundation to be a good story, but the hasty ending is really poor writing. It's just a wholly inadequate conclusion to the set up. You can always write an alternate ending and treat the end her as the start to a new story (i.e. leave this as is and write more). All that needs to be done is to clip before the party or even not have Twilight and Moondancer meet that night.
so love this is there going to be a sequel
Well, having reached the end of the fic, there are three things you could improve on.
1) Do some copy editing beforehand. Yes, this was a 24-hour effort, but nothing says you couldn't have edited it thereafter presumably before posting it, instead of as-is with warts and all.
2) Most of the ponies in this fic are very believable. Lyra Heartstrings is believable. She knows what Moondancer was like, so she doesn't begrudge her for only showing up out of the blue after her house gets wrecked, looking for a place to stay, and she does a decent job helping Moondancer out of her shell. Moondancer as a character is a flawed protagonist, which makes her a fascinating work in progress to watch. She's a trainwreck at times, but genuinely getting better at others. Rainbow Dash, in her few scenes, is very believable, finally working up the courage to confess, only to get in a depressive funk and lash out when she's shot down. Twilight Sparkle, however? Yeah, she needs at least a few more scenes to reconcile her sudden (re)ignition of feelings for Moondancer.
3) Damnit, we need Spike in here, pronto! Poor guy, he was actually going to go to Moondancer's party before Twilight blocked him from doing so.
Otherwise, it was a fairly enjoyable read, as noted in the comments in the previous chapter and most of point 2.
Firstly, congratulations on writing a 29,000+ word story in a single day. That is impressive! Secondly, regardless of how it came about, the story itself is rather enjoyable. Some folks here mention the ending, that Twilight's realization seems rushed, but I can honestly say from personal experience that there are a few people in my life for whom, if they revealed to me that they loved me/missed me/cared for me, those long dormant feelings I thought had died would re-emerge; I would feel just as I did all those years ago, when things were fresh, and life was new.
Well done, Quill Scratch!
P.S. If it's not too much to ask, I hope to see a longer, more thoughtful sequel.
This is an amazing story with some terrible flaws. You are well aware of the flaws reading what you have said about this story so I wont say more than yes you are right in that it could so very much benefit from not having its last chapter or two be rushed by a time limit. That said however the first six chapters are down right wonderful showing an insight into the intellectual type of introversion second to none and I do my best to keep up on such things. You, through Moondancer, seem to know that particular aspect of personality so well I have to ask: Are you yourself a intellectual type introvert? I know I have never identified so strongly with the thought processes of a character in any story I have read and that alone means the characterization in this story is simply masterful. Thank you for writing it and hopefully some day you might choose to revisit this idea or very story when you are free to work on it at your own pace. Oh! and congratulations I 'm amazed that you manged to write nearly 30k words in 24 hrs and for a such a good cause too. Kudos.
I have read this just after you posted this and im going back to see if there is anything Id like to reread and I read this title as
"There's More to Life than Books and Cleavers" so yeah... I thought that I misread it the first time...
You wrote this in 24 hours?
Excuse me while I rethink my life.
A shame there wasn't time to give Dash a better resolution, but this was still some fantastic nerdshipping, especially given the tight timeframe. I'm glad I finally read it.
Wish there was a way that rainbow could of been apart of that
8841987
That still wouldn't be FINGERS! Why do they have the sentiment of not being able to put your finger on something!? I could go back to that Gift Horse comment from Pre-Ascension Twily for more arguable material.....
At least you realize the issue with Dash, because that was my biggest complaint. The love triangle casts her as villain, because we're supposed to be rooting for Moondancer to get what she wants, and it's not that she takes a swing at Moony that bothered me so much as Pinkie leading everyone in cheering Dash's "defeat".
That aside, this was good MoonLight shipping. :)
Sucks to be Rainbow. Also I’d think more ponies would be concerned that she took a swing at someone.
I'm not jealous that you wrote a story this good and satisfying in 24 hours...Nope, not jealous at all.