The Night's Stars Chapter 44 Preview/Teaser · 7:16pm Jul 1st, 2021
The tentative release date for The Night’s Stars chapter 44, “A Delayed Hearthswarming Part 1” is in one week, on 7/8/21, at ~5 P.M. E.S.T.
It’s been a while since I’ve published a chapter. If I remember correctly, I did edits to this chapter three months ago but I held off since the Part 2 was unedited, and it still is, but I believe three weeks should be adequate time to get around to that so that I don’t leave you all hanging on a two-parter. 
Anyway, as a quick update, I have around 21 chapters drafted, of which about 20 need edits to varying degrees. My prereader has managed to get back to me with overall feedback so I have notes on that for going over individual chapters in more detail. I think I’m going to need to draft a couple of chapters in between chapters I have drafted, so that’ll be... in all honesty, frustrating, as I’m not confident I can make it work well, but we’ll see.
The arc I was worried about may not be as big of a problem as I was afraid it would be, but considering the plan I had in mind before it, this arc threw a wrench in things. Still, I believe I can make that work well. I am, however, less confident that I will finish the story this year now. There’s a lot of work to be done. We’ll see.
Without further ado, presented below are a few excerpts from A Delayed Hearthswarming Part 1.
Yes! That was a good question to start with. 'I'm her student and she has a crush on me. My teacher has a crush on me.' She regretted that, for the slightest moment, the thought entered her mind, 'What would have happened if Princess Celestia had a crush on me?'
She turned away from Cadance again. ‘Perhaps the changeling Queen intended for this to distract me... Perhaps that is why she was so blunt in pushing for me to tell Twilight...’ She grimaced at the thought. "I should have waited until after we had... dealt with the changelings." She studied the wall, though there was nothing to see, then turned back to Cadance. "I do not know what to do. I do not know what I am doing. I do not have experience with this, Cadance."
"You're anxious and worried," Cadance calmly finished for her.
She let go of her lip. All things considered? "Yes."
"She is too," Cadance murmured. Twilight looked back up at Cadance. "She's afraid you’ll reject her."
Twilight felt her brow pull down at that. "I know she's afraid of that..." she said softly.
"But it is your choice, Twilight," Cadance pointed out. "If you don't want to, then don't. Lying to her will only hurt her more."
Author's Note:
Draft finished(?) 2/18/20.
The chapter has been waiting for almost 17 months. I don’t know what that says but it makes me feel... something. I suppose I’ve waited a long time to get this out, and you’ve all been waiting a while too...
Anyway, leave your questions and comments below if you want.
Dang it's been a hot minute since we've gotten our Night's Stars fix... But I'm glad to hear that'll be fixed in about a week. Also, as per usual, I'm amazed as to how far ahead you've drafted.
Nice, can't wait!
Looking forward to it!