My (sadly failed for personal reasons) entry for the RariDash Four R's of Spring contest (link).
Rainbow Dash and Rarity have always been high-flying ponies, with big dreams and ambitions that they've finally managed to achieve through support from their friends - and from each other. Their relationship has bloomed from disinterest to friendship to romantic, and they've ridden the bumps along the way. But now it seems that with their jam-packed schedules and hectic careers they never get to spend any time together, and both secretly fear that their love is fading.
At first, Rainbow Dash's solution is simple. A week long vacation in a secluded lodge on the outskirts of a Caneighdian village, giving them time to relax and rekindle the fire that used to be so prominent in their relationship.
It turns out, this holiday will teach them more about themselves and each other than they could ever dream of.
A tale of love and determination, and quite a lot of crude humor and sex. As life goes.
Proofreading, editing and awesomeness provided by The Princess Rarity. You're a great friend, dear.
Cover art is by wizardglitter on deviantArt and is used with their permission.
Fitting and inspirational music for those of you who like to listen to music while reading: Forgive and Forget by You Me At Six.
A note on the universe:
While this is not an alternate universe the telephone has been invented by now and so the ponies do have mobile phones, or at least telephones in their houses.
psst hon you might wanna place the spaces between your sentences so it doesn't look like a wall of text i thought you would have figured that one out on your own but yeah spaces are cool you should do that anywho this story is awesome and so are you mwah~
this was rather good, either as a first chapter to things or as a oneshot which you placed in that section so I assume that things are meant to be left off this way. The it stands now, it is a good end without giving away what happens, letting readers fill in the blanks. Personally I think that they would have an awkward time to begin with, but then they would recapture that spark they had back in the beginning, at least that is what hope.
-GWG-
4391645 Don't worry, it will be.
This should be hordes.
I assume this is slang for "the papers", but it isn't a slang I've ever seen used in the show. Certainly not something that Rarity or Rainbow Dash would say.
I don't think this was quite what you meant for her to say, and it sounds really weird. Did you mean "also"?
I'm not sure that "observed" here is really the best word to use, not because it is totally wrong, just... kind of telly and not really that punchy.
This line felt pointless and out of place, and honestly out of character for Rarity.
You tense shifted here.
The "you know" here feels off.
This... didn't really do it for me. Also, the whole thing didn't quite feel like a Rainbow Dash thought process.
This is a total dissimile. Tranquility is by definition, well, tranquil. A tidal wave is the opposite of tranquil. Tranquility washing over you works. And describing tranquility as overwhelming is, again, rather weird.
And indeed, the rest didn't really do it for me either. It felt like it was trying way too hard, which is bad - there's nothing wrong with doing epic metaphors or what have you, but when you have a huge explosion at the end it has to be earned and it has to flow naturally from the rest of the story. And this didn't. It stuck out like a sore thumb. The prose in the rest of it didn't really end up flowing into this in a natural way, so when I start getting to the flowery language (roundabouts the windows to the soul bit) it just kind of strikes me as out of place. The fireworks metaphor works okay for Rainbow Dash, but the whole section at the end feels overwrought to me.
Overall, the story was okay but it didn't wow me. The overall structure was reasonable, and it is a decent enough idea for a story, though, as you noted, the story isn't finished as-is so it is hard to say whether or not it all ends up paying off in the end. The prose was serviceable - a bit weak in places, and never really extraordinary, but it does its job and doesn't end up pulling too much attention to itself mostly (except at the end, as I noted).
The single biggest issue for me, though, is that it didn't actually end up making me really care. Like, I get that they're upset, but the story didn't suck me in quite enough to really involve me in their struggle. It tried, but it felt like it just kept not doing so, like it was letting me down every time it tried to pull me in. Too mundane? Perhaps. Or maybe it is simply that we get thrown into a fight without really having the opportunity to care about the relationship, and the story never quite gets there in terms of making me want them to succeed.
D'aaaawwww
Cancelled. . . . .
well it was still a good read regardless.