In the wake of a joyful wedding between his best friend White Lance and his beautiful new wife, former guard captain Shining Armour receives another reason to celebrate: the Deer of the forest realm of Cervidas want peace after nearly four decades of hostility, and the Crystal Prince and Princess will act as Equestria's emissaries.
But as the pony ambassadors arrive in the Deer capital of Concordia, a brilliant villain awaits - harbouring a cruel secret that could lead to the destruction of not just Equestria, but half the known world. Shining Armour and Princess Cadence will face their greatest challenge yet in the cold snowlands of Cervidas...
Chapters (4)
Oh hey, it's this story! I've honestly been wondering when this was going to be posted up. Glad to finally see it.
~SolidFire
Cool story, so far!
Well, this is good. I'll be keeping track as this goes along.
On behalf of Author's Helping Authors, I'm here with your review, just as we discussed over PM. I'm sorry it took me so long to get to it (at least it took me longer than I had originally intended to).
I've just read through everything that you've posted here thus far, and I must say you have quite the entertaining tale here! I've taken a particular interest to the 'voice' you've been writing in and your approach to narrative descriptions, as it reminds me of a great meaning other fantasy writers in terms of it's philosophy of detail and style. Not many writers have an eye or hear like that.
I don't feel too right listing three pros and three cons, as I'm sensing that there's a lot more of the story that's left to be posted, so instead I'm going to do a very basic version of the pros and cons.
Aside from the 'voice', I'd like to count the characters among the pros. There's a lot of chemistry between Cadence, Shining, and White Lance, so it's a real delight seeing them interact with each other.
I say 'I'd like' because in addition to the occasional point of view slip and missing punctuation, their characterization is also a weakness that I feel could use some revisiting. The Kiss of Winter was very clearly inspired by Star Trek: Nemesis, which in itself isn't a crime as we all take inspiration from the stories around us, and I wouldn't have known except for one detail: the speech Shining Armor gives at the wedding. By clinging onto the material that inspired this work I feel you passed up a huge opportunity to get really give us, the readers, a solid introduction to just who your interpretation of Shining Armor is. The speech he gave at the wedding was Captain Picard's speech from Riker's wedding, and let me remind you just who Captain Picard was: he was more or less the Philosopher King of the Enterprise. He was not only a military man, but Starfleet's go-to man for diplomatic missions because he was just that good under pressure during big important speeches. That speech we see during White Lance's wedding was written by that man's character, not the Shining Armor who was moved to shaking at the thought of public speaking.
The best moments of this fic, I feel, come during chapter two, when I felt that you really gave the characters the chance to be themselves and play off each other's personalities. I want more moments like that, and I felt that Shining Armor's speech would benefit greatly by reflecting more of the unicorn frightened by duties such as speech-giving that is, and less of the Captain Picard that he's not.
Anyway, I hope that helps and have an excellent day!
What is Aralana? A shadow spirit?