This story is a sequel to A Simple Question
Sunburst has been dating Shining and Cadance for a while now, and while things have been going great, he can't help but feel left out when the royal couple sometimes goes on private trips to the countryside without him.
But this time is different: Shining and Cadance have asked him to join them, and he leaps at the offer.
Turns out they have something very special planned.
Written as my March Patreon goal! If you'd like to influence my monthly Patreon projects, don't be afraid to join for as little as $1 per month at this link.
Proofread by, you guessed it, the man, the myth, the legend, Undome Tinwe.
The cover art is done by the ever fantastic Pastal-Pony-Pictures. She draws some really cute horses and its an honour to be able to use her art. The specific picture can be found here.
This was incredibly cute and cozy. It's so nice to see good fluff that explores a relationship dynamic and shows you how it would work out. I find those insights fascinating and also holy crap Sunburst is adorable.
... Okay, this phrasing took me out of the story for a moment, or at least made me pause. Might want to go with conservative instead of republican. Equestria and the Empire are, at best, constitutional monarchies
THIS TRAIN EMPTY
YEET
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In the context of the setting, wouldn't republicans be anything but conservative, seeing that they oppose monarchies and both Equestria and the Crystal Empire have been ruled by princesses for millenia? For Shining and Cadance, they might as well be anarchists. But I can see how the word choice would throw off a modern reader, especially if they live in the US.
I suppose that Equestria and the Crystal Empire are technically principalities, but the res publica doesn't care about that. Argh, another rabbit hole - why is a tiny city-state ruled by a princess an "empire"?
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Exactly my point.
I suspect our good Gara might have let a wee bit of political shine through
And it should also be of note that no royal in the aforementioned monarchies are expected to actually do anything.
D'aww... i love it!
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Awww thanks Mel, thank you for the help with making this one fantastic.
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Woke Monarchist Club is where it's at.
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Thank you so much!
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nothing's more subtle than launching your BF out of a moving train.
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Maybe it used to be much bigger, with many cities across the Frozen North. Each protected by a citadel similar to the remaining one, but acting as receiver for the Crystal Heart's power instead of a transmitter. They all died or were abandoned when the power cut off.
I'm a little surprised this isn't a clopfic.
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I'd imagine though that Celestia and crew had long ago set things up, and things seem to run pretty well on their own. I suspect the Princess's, while revered and venerated, are more titular heads then anything. Not that they can't or aren't allowed to be in charge (where does a alicorn sit? Wherever the fuck the power cosmic uberpony wants)
Also am I being downvoted? Random lady who didn't like my joke on his other story, is that you?
This has been an absolutely lovely read! Keep up the good work!!!
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I'll adopt that as my headcanon.
Pure fluff, which is exactly what is called for sometimes.
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They’re using Republican in the literal sense, they want less monarchy and more, you know, republic. I thought it was clever.
Good god, this was so adorable.
A good depiction of a polyamorous relationship.
Gotta love that prank. Stoned Sunburst is best Sunburst. (Stoned-burst? Sun-stoned?)
This felt like two different stories that got mashed together. One was a NSFW-esque romantic comedy with a lot of lewd dialogue and really clear build-up and the other was a SFW proposal romance about a fun vacation. Because the story came across like this, it made it feel hard to read. I really wanted to see where you took the relationship between these three from the previous story, but a lot of the scenes felt like they belonged in a totally different version and it was rather alienating as a reader. The casual dialogue here felt like overkill compared to The Perfect Present and there were some times where I had a hard time connecting these depictions back to the characters of Shining Armor and Cadance.
I really wanted to be more invested in their trip and the behind-the-scenes moments of the trio's lives, but it felt like every time that was going to happen for Shiny and Cady, the scene switched up to bawdy humor again. By the end, I was still wanting a lot more while feeling like I also hadn't gotten to read what the summary/half the in-text content promised. Sunburst had a good arc throughout this story and seeing him being included and trying new things was a blast, but towards the end (and this is more of a pet peeve) I would have wished that he got to voice more of his thoughts before accepting Cadance and Shining's proposal.
I'd love to see a wedding follow-up because you've still established that there's something precious about these three. Also, family fluff with Flurry's second dad would be a delight. I still enjoyed your unique plot idea, relationship with these three, and a peek into the ups and downs of the characters' lives that the reader did get to learn about. The potential for Crystal Empire political headcanon that was teased is also interesting. But the focus still felt really jumbled and that, in the end, a somewhat incomplete version of two stories was presented.
"Cadance snickered. “Babe, you can’t just drop something like that in your nerd voice. What are we supposed to do, not believe you?”"
I'm not gonna lie, I've abused my nerd voice like this myself in the past...
I love how flustered poor Sunburst gets.