Luster Dawn is a unicorn filly enrolled at Princess Twilight's School for Gifted Unicorns. After only a year, in which she displayed her exemplary use of magic and expertise at fostering friendships, it would come only as a surprise to her that Princess Twilight Sparkle would offer her the role of being her personal student. Whilst such a thing should have been an honour for the young filly, she can't help but let the stress of carrying such a title weigh heavy on her haunches.
Fortunately, her mother, who isn't the best when it comes to all things emotional, is there to lend her a hoof.
Cover Art Source
THIS WAS A COMMISSION
A big thank you to Ice Star for both commissioning and proof-reading this fic. Additional thanks to Pre-reader 63.546 for pointing out several glaring issues, all of which are now (hopefully) fixed.
Featured 11/03/2020 (03/10/2020 for Americans.) Thank you so much everybody. 
Massive thanks to StraightToThePointStudios for the audio reading, which you can find [HERE]
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Jackelope writing a feels story?
Unheard of!
That wholesome story being one of the best reads I have had in a while?
Obviously!
That was very sweet. I love these Cozy redemption stories. And your idea of how Luster Dawn's name came about was very well-written.
Wow, Cozy as Luster's mom? That was a surprise. I was sure it was Starlight for a while since the mother was talking about being Twilight's pupil. Ah well, nice read I say.
Interesting twist
That was not the twist I would have predicted.
10125204
Character tags are your friends. :p
This was really heart-warming. I adored the subtle interaction between the pair's dialogue, and the believable take on learning to love.
Though, I believe the big words were overdone in the beginning. It came off like it was forced in where a simple word would suffice. It is all for the sake of word flow.
Either way, despite this, as you said, not being your usual shtick, I believe you should write more stories along this line. You have a knack for it from what I've just read.
10125198
Thank you, however, the idea wasn't mine, it was the commissioners. I'm glad you liked it though, that pleases me immensely and you have my gratitude.
10125204
Thanks a ton!
10125360
Yeah, sorry. Big words are essentially me being nervous as a writer. I believe on some level subconsciously I believe I can elevate the overall quality just by forcing in some unnecessary syllables. When I gain more confidence in the work as I write it that tends to dissipate on its own.
All that aside, I take your compliments to heart. I'm glad it was believable and heartwarming. I may write more stories as sweet as this one for catharsis. Thank you for reading.
So this was certainly different, but in a good way. I like this concept.
10125155
I can do you one better:
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Wow... This, to me, is one of the best positive outcomes for Cozy Glow. I'd dare say that it makes a lot of sense and shows how cozy came to better understand her emotions.
The way she referred to Luster as the start of a new day was so heartwarming. I would imagine that Cozy would truly come to reform once she was faced with the untainted love of a foal who had come from within her vile self. This truly would be quite a moment as, I'd think, Cozy would want to hold Luster for hours-and-hours as she experienced emotions that she never knew she could genuinely have.
I can see Twilight visiting her in the hospital and finding Cozy so lost in the miracle she had brought into the world. Twilight would have a word with Luster's father and hear of how quiet Cozy had been since being able to hold her foal. Twilight would consider this, quietly excuse herself, and write a report on her findings of what she experienced.
Pregnant Cozy may have still had a bit of a 'chip on her shoulder'. However it is kind of akin to friendship. Sometimes you have to give it time to show you how great it can be. Once Luster made her way from within Cozy into her mother's hooves, Ms. Glow may have finally genuinely got the idea of love and friendship being unconditional and a two-way street.
I have no doubt that cozy would have been quite a chore to reform. Her attitude would largely be feeling that Twilight is looking to make herself look good and how Ms. Sparkle simply was treating her as a 'pet project'. Cozy was so used to manipulating and being manipulated that she'd not ever see Twilight's efforts for anything more.
This is definitely one of the best reformation stories I've had the pleasure of reading. Very well done. :)
When I laid my eyes upon reading this and a certain other person did as well, we just had to give this fanfic a reading! By God, it was more than worth it! Such sweetness and compassion shown to make this what it is, ooh! So divive! I hope ya didn't mind that we made a little reading on this!
Audio Linky!: https://youtu.be/L8I-g1PVyI4
(We don't mean to offend anyone with this comment!)
Not a bad story, but there's an overload on the Lavender Unicorn Syndrome (the filly, the purple alicorn, etc) but not bad overall. I knew her mom had to be someone we knew, but it was a good choice to make it Cozy.
The prose here was incredibly frustrating, to a point where I really did not want to keep reading after just a couple of paragraphs. If I were to summarize my concerns with it, I'd say it's bloated and meandering--there are times where it straight-up says the same thing twice, and there are times where it feels like a sentence started as one thing but then became a different thing partway through, and as a whole it's just a lot more complicated than I think it needs to be.
So there were things like this:
Where I think what you're trying to say is something like "One might expect a young filly to be in such position because of a tantrum," but the wording makes it a lot more ambiguous. Because you say the "cause for doing so" might be the result of a tantrum--which makes me picture, like, she had a tantrum and, I dunno, knocked over a glass of water or something, and that's why she's there, because of the thing she did during her tantrum.
Furthermore, I feel like there's a mismatch of tone there? When you said she "hid her face," that honestly suggested to me that she was more embarrassed or sad or something along those lines, which makes a tantrum a jarring comparison.
And this:
Is just straight-up redundant--"it was for those reasons" and "that was why" in the same sentence.
Compared to the rest of the quoted bits, my gripe here is minor, but I think it's overall indicative of how I feel about this story's prose: why not say "foals" intead of "examples of a foal" here? You're using four words where one would do the job just fine.
Then this bit seems like it switches structure or something partway through:
"An exemplar of both" makes me think you're going to list two nouns--maybe she's an exemplar of talent and charm, let's say. But that's not what happens. You say she's an exemplar of "her skill of magic" (Which is a really weird thing to say someone's an exemplar of), and also an exemplar of "relatively unmatched in her kind and caring candor," which doesn't make sense at all.
Hopefully those examples serve to get my point across. This could have been streamlined and simplified a lot, and I think it'd benefit greatly from it.
10126535
Firstly, thank you for the input. Considering my typical publications I don't often receive critique to this extent. When I've released a SFW story I often receive a tidbit or hint that helps me with my writing.
My tendency to overcomplicate my writing unnecessarily is a fault, one for which I apologize. I know it's because I lack confidence, so I added complexity to artificially make the work look better in my own eyes not necessarily in the eyes of the reader - apologies once again. Simplifying my work would naturally repair the other issues. My last fic taught me proper grammar, now you and two others have highlighted the issues of my redundancy and purposeless - oh look, there I go making the same point twice
But yes - message received friend. I'll be cautious next time and try to be more confident about what I write.
Thank you
10125853
This is amazing! I can't wait to hear it. I'll chuck you in the long description when I'm on my desktop
10126155
Another thing I need to improve is this. I either use a name far too often or I just describe what they look like. I need to stop being afraid of he and she
I'm still on the 'Starlight is the mother' boat, but your choice works for what you're going for. Thumbs up.
This so wholesome and feely.
Great job lad, great job
Excellent work Jackelope! I very much enjoyed reading this story.
As Ice Star said (10125155) "A magnificent writing".
Good story! This way of the character creation look really interesting!
Huh. Cozy and Luster. That's new
A very well-written story with a very interesting concept. I loved everything about it.
I prefer to think that Luster Dawn is a daughter of Sunburst and Starlight Glimmer, but the concept of Cozy Glow's redemption through love and parenthood is much more cute and heartwarming.
This is really cute. I thought the big reveal was going to be Diamond Tiara at first. I really would like some more stories focusing on Luster Dawn and what the future could entail.
Okay, this is officially my favorite take on Luster's parents.