Yes, its me, Cromega back from the dead... for a bit. Now, I know what you are thinking... Did I fire... (Insert rest of irrelevant quote here)
Enough goofing off, let me get right to it.

Gray Cloud is a story that takes plaice in Kilala's Next Generation Universe. If you don't know what that is, the link sends you to her Deviant Art page where you can take a look at what the head cannon has. All you need to know for this story though is that Dell is the son of Applejack and Caramel, Cotton Candy is the daughter of Pinkie Pie and Pokey Pierce, Annie is the adopted daughter to Fluttershy, and Prism Bolt is the son of Rainbow Dash and Soaring. Oh, and Starburst (Not the candy) is the daughter of Twilight Sparkle and Flash Sentry (don't worry about FS here, he I've never really seen him come up. and Starburst character is good enough to make up for the hate.) You can confirm all that here.

Now, if you have not read anything related to Next Generation (No, not Star Trek silly, the ponies) then you might be lost since this story is not geared to giving you the exposition to link all that together. If you have been following Kilala's work, then you won't get confused with this story. In short, this story is made to those who have and are enjoying Kilala's head cannon.

Now for a bit of Narrative.

(Words, words words words, big words WASHING MACHINE!)

Alright so this story is quickly paced with little to no plot holes. Simply because this story does not hold a complex plot. Unless you consider a young mare having a moody day... but that isn't complex to me. (Give me a break, I live in a house full of sisters... I'm used to the moody moments by now... and the cat fights.)

Begins with Del and Prism working together in the farm, Starburst comes along, shows she is having a bad day and well... from there the story takes off in a bit of soft tone slice of life action. I found it enjoyable, so if you want to read it, go read it now because everything bellow will hold

So after we have the whole thing with Starburst getting upset with Prism and his poorly placed raincloud, which was brought to cool off Dell as he works in the orchard. She huffs off, or just trots away upset, boldly telling her friends to not give Candy any information on where she is.

Candy, taking much like her mother, is the happy counselor that makes everyone smile. And poor Star doesn't want to smile.

From scene to scene, I get a quick look into Starburst's efforts on avoiding Candy. We go into her thoughts a bit, finding out some other problems she had to help get her day going... on a not so good start. While walking through the market place, her paranoia of not wanting to smile and realizing that Candy is the only one that can make her smile, she panics and runs out of the market place and right into Annie. Annie being the nice mare she is, talks to Star and then warns her that Candy is approaching. (Little twist here. If you haven't read the story, I'm keeping this part out.)

So, I think I'll stop my summary here and dig into some issues I had with the pacing and Characterization. (Since I find that Narrative and Characterization fall hand in hand...ish.

Actually, I didn't mind the quick scene changes and tempo of the story. Most of what I had the issue for is that anyone not familiar will only get a weak feel of who the characters are. Now, I'm not saying that the characters are out of character, but more so that we the readers aren't given the full dose of what these characters have in their chemistry. Not going to lie, I was disappointed in that, however that didn't lose my joy from reading the story and getting another interpretation of how these characters react together.

So though any new reader won't get any emotion from this story, any one who is familiar with Next Generation will be able to get some enjoyment.

So with any tips I can offer for future stories to write... is to look over what others have to say on making your characters strong. Find ways and tricks to get the reader attached, even if the reader is not familiar with the head cannon.

Of course, I can't say that this story should be taken that seriously saying that it need's work for that reason. I can't even say that the story needs any kind of work to make it more presentable to public. All that is good.

I also can't say that I loved the story so much that I would recommend it to people as they ask. Even if they ask me for good stories on the Next Generation. The bland outtake on each character and their interactions don't really cut the circle and the story itself is to cookie cut to really stand out.

On the bright side, I did enjoy the conversation Starburst had with Twilight. Of course, I like it when Twilight gets motherly.

(That's my mare!)
Source

I give this story

Have a great night people
Mr. Flare

Thanks for the review, and I'm glad you found it enjoyable! I agree that I probably could have done a little better job of helping those not used to the Kilalaverse to get a better understanding of the characters.