A Silver Lining
Chapter 4 – A Silver Lining
The doors to the school opened up as a herd of fillies and colts of different types, ages, and colors poured out of the class. All were excited to return home, or play with friends. All, that is, except for one pony. Sweetie Belle was the last pony to leave the school, her head down as she tried to hold back the tears. She didn’t want to look at any of her classmates as she left despite the fact that she knew that they were all thinking or maybe talking about what happened in class. Acknowledging them would mean acknowledging what happened and even the slightest note of concern or mentioning of what happened would add to her depressed state that she was in.
“Hey Sweetie Belle,” the familiar voice of Scootaloo said near her. The unicorn turned to the source of the voice to see her friends Scootaloo and Apple Bloom standing there.
“Oh hi you two,” she said happy that her friends were there but still depressed as even they brought up the memories of the horrific day.
“Are you ok?” Apple Bloom asked knowing the answer akready.
“Oh, yeah, I’m ok,” Sweetie Belle said although deep down she was not ok, nor did she think that her friends actually thought she was ok either.
“That Diamond Tiara is such a jerk,” Scootaloo said with a growl, “She should be glad that I didn’t pound her.”
“Yeah, and in front of Twilight and Cheerilee too,” Apple Bloom added, “That’s a new low for even her.”
The more they talked about it, the more that Sweetie Belle felt the weight of her sadness add more to her already strained state.
“So are you ready to go,” Scootaloo suddenly said which brought the white unicorn out of her depression.
“Huh?” Sweetie Belle said.
“I said are you ready to go to the clubhouse?” Scootaloo added clearly wanting to get to the task at hand in finding their cutie marks rather than staying around.
“Yeah, we have to think about what else we can do to get our cutie marks,” Apple Bloom added.
Sweetie Belle thought about it for a moment. Part of her wanted to be with her friends, those who were always there for her through good times and bad. But then she knew that if she went with the fellow Crusaders to the clubhouse, they would be talking about Diamond Tiara, and Sweetie Belle couldn’t bear any more hearing about that!
“Actually I think I’m going to home,” Sweetie Belle said to her friends, turning towards her place.
“What?” the two said in surprise at their friend’s decision.
“Sweetie Belle you were all excited earlier on about Crusading afterwards,” Apple Bloom said looking at the unicorn.
“Yeah, why the change?” Apple Bloom said.
“I’m just not up to it right now,” Sweetie Belle responding flatly, "Maybe tomorrow."
“It must have been Diamond Tiara,” Scootaloo said whispering to Apple Bloom.
“Oh,” Apple Bloom said before turning to Sweetie Belle, “You sure you don’t want to come with us?”
“Nah, you two go on without me. I’ll see you in school tomorrow.”
The two Crusaders could only shrug as their friend preferred to be alone rather than in the company of the others. The Crusaders had always been an inseparable team, the three doing practically everything together. The only time when they weren’t a group was when they were at home at night or that they were with their friends.
“Alright then,” Apple Bloom said, “Ah’ guess we’ll see you later.”
“Yeah, see you in school tomorrow,” Scootaloo said as her ears drooped from the fact that she would be without one of her friends.
Sweetie Belle watched as her two friends grew smaller as they walked down the road until they disappeared from view. As the white unicorn turned and made her slow journey home, the memories came back like a tidal wave.
“Why did Diamond Tiara do that,” Sweetie Belle said as tears began to well up in her mind, “I can so do magic. It’s like Twilight said, everypony knows magic! Oh who am I kidding! I can’t do magic! I can’t even lift something with my magic. I’m just a blank flank with no magic and that’s all I’ll ever be!”
With that the filly began to cry uncontrollably, not caring who saw. She then felt a caring hoof placed on her shoulder. She looked up to see Twilight Sparkle looking down on her. She was surprised to see the Princess standing there before her. It was as if she was waiting for the filly to get out of class to talk to her.
“Sweetie Belle, please don’t cry,” Twilight said, “I know how bad you must feel being bullied like that.”
“No, you don’t,” Sweetie Belle replied in a frustrated huff, “You were always good at magic and I can’t do anything with it! And you probably didn’t meet a bully like that when you were in school.”
“Remember when I told you how I got my cutie mark,” Twilight said trying to calm the frustrated filly down.
“Yeah?”
“Well I may have wanted to study magic, but I sure wasn’t the best at it as a filly your age. There were many other ponies who could cast better spells. Even worse, growing up in Canterlot where there are many unicorns meant that fillies and colts would pick on me for not being good at magic. The point is though that even though you feel bad now, things change. They did for me, in a really big way, and they’ll change for you too.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t help me now with not being able to use magic.”
“Well I was talking to your sister today about you and we have come to an agreement. How would you like to learn magic from me?”
Sweetie Belle’s eyes immediately brightened up at the words of Twilight Sparkle’s request. It was like a dream, but the filly knew that this wasn’t something she would wake up from as if it never happened. This was really happening to her!
“Y…you mean it? You want to be my magic teacher?”
“Of course I do! Now of course your school work comes first as does anything with Rarity, but I think on the weekends you can come to the library and I will teach you a few things, just to get you started.”
“Like teleporting ?”
“Maybe not that advanced at the start, but so that you’ll be up to the same level of the other unicorns in class.”
“Oh thank you,” Sweetie Belle said giving Twilight a hug, “You won’t regret this I promise.”
“You’re welcome Sweetie Belle. Now I’m sure you want to tell the news to Rarity.”
“Oh yeah,” Sweetie Belle said as she galloped towards the Carousel Boutique, excited to meet Rarity. Twilight merely smiled, wondering how she would teach this filly magic. It was a twist of fate that the lavender Princess, who was taught herself by Princess Celestia, to now teach another pony what she knew. Granted she didn’t see Sweetie Belle as her protégé, but it was nevertheless a great experience to be able to help the filly learn.
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And then part 3 is where she shows them all MUA HA HA HA HA?
Aw... Sweetie Belle's gonna learn magic from Twilight! That's so cute!
3224355 and then promptly blows the doors to Hell right off their hinges, while trying to pick up a piece of paper
all love the Sweetie
nice chapter looking forward to more
3224392
So am I!
3224240 I'd love to see her stick to Diamond Tiara.
I'll show you what REAL magic is!
3224603 sour-belle
See, I love the theme of the story. Sweetie learning magic and her getting a cutie mark are probably my two favourite specific topics to write about in this fandom, which is why I'm looking forward with what is to come.
There are some critiques I will offer however:
-The dialogue sequence between the crusaders could use a bit of work. Consider getting rid of a few of the attributions and have the characters express themselves with actions instead. Not every line of dialogue needs an 'X said/asked/replied.' after it. You can use an action such as instead of:
You could say write it out like:
'Sweetie Belle turned away from her two friends. "Actually, I think I'm going to go home."'
Having actions take the place of the attributions can help out a lot. I was beginning to get annoyed by the line after line of 'X said' variations. While it's important to know who is talking, it's also important not to repeat too much.
-Another point, in the dialogue, is the punctuation. When they are asking questions, put the question marks down.
Example:
With this one you need a question mark in place of the comma. And I think I spotted this problem more than once. The question mark in this case is treated grammatically as a comma in the whole of the sentence, but it replaces the comma.
-Another thing that slightly irked me:
Apple Bloom talks twice in a row in two separate paragraphs. Now, I imagine that Scootaloo was saying one of these lines instead of Apple Bloom.
And I think I'll stop pointing out more errors there. As I said: I like the story and its potential, but the errors are a bit distracting. (If I didn't like the story I wouldn't offer this much critique)
Thanks for writing,
~SilentBelle.
Twilight to do list: one going vist the school. Check. Two tell Sweetie Bell I will teacher some magic. Check. Three give Diamond Tiara to the diamond dogs after using the magical pool Pinkie found on her. Working on that right now.
3226024
See, I guess I was raised in the older school of writing where a person only put a comma in a dialogue area rather than a question mark like you described. It is hard for me as well to do more than three ponies in a conversation, but I'm trying to fix that as well.
3227912 Even in older works, like Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, they used question marks. Though they often didn't include many colourful attributions, and just stuck with saying stuff like 'he said.' even after a question mark.
I understand how tough it can be to not have dialogue fully under control though. Highschool never taught me the nuances of dialogue (I wish they had). I honestly had huge problems with my dialogue when I started writing and felt too intimidated to write conversations with more than 2 characters. It just takes a bunch of practice and understanding the characters you are working with, then the scene will practically write itself. If you ever have any questions, feel free to ask me and I'll do my best to give a satisfactory answer. The worst that can happen is I say, "I don't know." There's also EZN's guide in the FAQ section of this site, it's quite comprehensive. And never be afraid to type a question into google.
Just make sure that you fix the mistakes that are pointed out, that's the best way to learn not to make the same mistake again.
Diamond Tiara: "Why should I? You're just a dumb blank flank born in a town of hicks, my daddy owns this town, and he owns you!"
Diamond Tiara: