A duty bound a duty fulfilled. There was an agreement between the close town of Ponyville and the nearby Cloudsdale to have a Wonderbolt take up the duties of a simple officer to boost moral. Having nopony else she believes competent enough to take up the task, Spitfire reluctantly takes up the night shift where she gets the call to investigate a supposed train accident. The report indicated a single fatality on the tracks of a train carrying coal freight near midnight.
Grumbling at the cold, she meets with the one witness and allows herself to be lead to the scene...
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Artwork done by http://spyroconspirator.deviantart.com/
Chapters (1)
Well, shit. You've got me feeling sad now.
Thanks, though. I always appreciate a good story.
4718692 Thank you for letting me know your thoughts, and I appreciate the time you took in reading this. Please, if there's any specific example that stood out to you, could you let me know? It would greatly help me to know what effects people the most in my stories.
4718744
Always happy to help.
For me, it was a combination of the personal aspects to his house (the carved desk, pictures, and journal) combined with the very realistic reactions from the characters. Spitfire's brash attitude combined with her and Redheart's "I've seen a lot of this shit." attitudes really made it feel like how they would go about the situation. Although, if I did have a complaint, it would be that Spitfire was a bit too 'cold', if you'll excuse the pun. All in all a very good story.
Sorry for any errors. My mind moves from thought to thought like a bullet train, and I'm currently typing on my phone.
Edit: Oh, and the little details! It adds to the story to hear the small things like how the trains worked!
A good start, I'd definitely like to read more.
It is an interesting concept for Wonderbolt members to take on night constable roles in local villages. It builds a unique vision that this program is apparently only enforced through Cloudsdale's governing body rather than the typical "royal decree" hand wave other authors use. What I'm trying to say and lead up to is that the imagery of a pegasus city maintaining good relations with smaller, neighbouring towns such as Ponyville nicely reflects the relationship between Spitfire and Nurse Redheart.
I like the additional tidbit about the Canterlot memorial. I felt for Spitfire then, as she was likely there fighting or wishing she was. Either way, she probably takes it personally that ponies went missing, so this case is striking a chord with her the more she goes through protocol. It will be interesting if the case brings up any other raw nerves in Spitfire.
My only criticism is to avoid making long sentences without a single comma in them. Take this with a grain of salt though, because I'm infamous for using commas where a full stop would work best. Its all a matter of how the sentence reads and flows. If it is too long it can make the passage seem clunky. I did notice that this issue almost completely vanished once the chapter passed the half way mark, so perhaps you've already sussed this.
4875589 I'm sorry I've taken this long to reply. I've not visited fim fiction in nearly a week, and I receive so little feedback that I was surprised to see a comment of this length. It was a good surprise; great is my love for those who take the time to tell me their thoughts on what they've read.
It never really came to mind the idea of the Wonderbolts being ran by just a monarchy, especially when you consider that different towns have mayors and other means of spreading rule. They would have their own programs. They would also be looked on as a sort of morale which our own Blue Angels do. The only time royalty gets involve is with some sort of executive order. Besides, a place can have much more pride and self respect if they themselves are responsible for the nurture of such a prestigious team.
And going by what I've said before, it's also great to get some unexpected feedback. The relationship I attempted with Redheart and Spitfire was one by bittersweet circumstance. They meet whenever somepony is hurt near Ponyville, and also it's possible that the nurse used whatever influence she had to keep the Wonderbolts from hurting themselves as often. They're more friends on a professional level, never really meeting outside of their work as Spitfire would have to supervise any injuries or deaths occurring during training and the like. But I do now see how it can kind of reflect the two as well.
I didn't think of that perspective of Spitfire as I was writing the memorial part. It was even kind of an afterthought that I added it to begin with. The idea was they had to go missing during the changeling attack, and I had to somehow show this without too much exposition (a photograph). The idea of her regret... That could be something I could go into in the future. Thank you for pointing that out! If she even had a fraction of the pride that Dash has (buried by her professionalism) she would have wanted to be there.
Please, if you enjoyed this story, go through my library and choose another. I don't have current plans to continue this one (as it's complete, but that could change by demand) but I have other stories that share the tone and could probably provide you with another unique perspective as you read. You would also gain my complete and genuine appreciation for your existence
I enjoyed that you put both Spitfire and Redheart actually detecting , something that several "detective/mystery" stories forgot to do.
And the melancolic atmosphere of the tale gave some enjoyable noir vibes (imagining Sptifire and Redheart as a noir detective duo now...).
I don’t really understand the story. It’s a good read but I’m sure it would be better if I wasn’t so dumb XD