This story is a sequel to Will of The Shadow Monarch
Following the birth of Flurry Heart and the acquisition of King Sombra's journal, Twilight Sparkle sets out on a new quest to bring the insane king's followers to justice. Her quest leads her and Fluttershy to the very edge of Equestria, to the mythical forest known as "the Ulvenweald", a place filled with deadly beasts and vegetation alike.
Can a bookworm like Twilight and a pegasus with crippling anxiety like Fluttershy overcome such a place and hunt down the mad king's loyalist? Or are they, in fact, not the hunters but the prey?
This story is a free-standing continuation of my story: Will of the Shadow Monarch. Reading that story is recommended, but not at all necessary.
This story will contain words and images. If you are allergic to such things you might want to find another story. The pictures come from Magic the Gathering and are repurposed to fit with what is written.
You asked for feed back.
I actually read this from the first week this came out but, refrained from commenting until I had read your previous work Will of The Shadow Monarch. Like the one before it this was quite thrilling to read. The two characters Twilight and Fluttershy really did work well here. Ok I'll admit it I have a soft spot for Badass Fluttershy. But seriously I can see why you used them here. I'm really glad that you allowed Fluttershy to hold her own and not have her cower in fear as so many other authors do. Twilight was, as usual, awesomeness. The ending was surprising and seams that this story is but a chapter in a much larger work.
However, unlike Will of The Shadow Monarch were Shining Armor and Cadance where in the Crystal Empire. Why was Fluttershy tagging along with Twilight? And only Fluttershy? why wasn't the rest of the group with them? I'm not saying that it was wrong just that I feel the story is missing a chapter or two. Where Twilight recruits Fluttershy and explains why the others weren't around or couldn't come. I was hoping that the previous work would have cleared it up. It did explain the antagonist (Damn they're frightening) But not where the others of the main six where. (thought that they died or something)
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Fluttershy fits with this story as she would be the only one of the mane six who knows anything about forests and wild animals. Twilight knew she would need help, and Fluttershy was the pony who could help her. As for Twilight’s other friends, there was no point in involving them here as I did not want them to be part of this story. To execute a story when all six of them would traverse the Weald would have meant this story had to vastly elongated and more developed, which was not what I had in mind. Also, Moonglint would probably need to be changed/made more powerful to compensate, and I don’t want to make her (or the other cultists) omnipotent. They are supposed to be novel ideas and powerful adversaries, but they must not be too powerful.
Finally, writing a ”recruitment chapter” felt redundant, as I would much rather focus on what the what the story is about rather than what it’s not about. I wanted this to be a relatively short novel. Details that I did not feel added to the story were scrapped.
I am not trying to disparage your feedback. But these are the thoughts that I had when writing the story. I had a clear idea of how involved and how long the story should be when I started out, and that’s what I ended up writing.
Thank you for your thoughts however. It means much to me that someone sits down and thinks about what I have written.
Another bad ending? This is starting to get tiresome.
That last chapter was wild. The chase through the woods was intense!