Epilogue
Celestia watched as Twilight galloped off to retrieve the promised papers. She continued to smile for several seconds after her student disappeared before saying, "You can come out now."
A sparkling blue cloud flowed out from the shadows behind one of the exhibits. It coalesced into the tall, dignified form of the Princess of the Night. Luna cocked an eyebrow.
"Are We truly so predictable, my sister?"
"Only to us," Celestia said, automatically mirroring her sister's manner of speaking. She was still staring intently at the newly recovered paintings. Luna followed her gaze and chuckled.
"Ah, Starswirl's piece. You have a fine pupil indeed if she could track it across the centuries."
"Don't play coy," Celestia snapped. "Some of these pieces are by some of the greatest artists in Equestrian history. They are priceless. Whoever had them would not have given them up willingly. Twilight would not have gone alone and if she had tried to use the Guard then Shining Armor would have told me. Where did she find them?"
Luna looked at her hooves, uncharacteristically abashed. "Sister, please understand—"
"WHERE?!" Celestia demanded, breaking into the Royal Canterlot Voice for the second time that century.
Luna shrank back for a moment before meekly saying, "There were these pirates..."
"Pirates," Celestia said flatly. "And you let my student risk herself for paint on canvas."
"She was in no danger!" Luna insisted. "Even without my support she could have handled them easily. She is a prodigy bar none, as you well know. Starswirl himself would have envied her talents."
"That is beside the point," Celestia said. There was a tremor in her voice that Luna hadn't heard since the night they had reconciled. "She's far too precious to risk over a relic."
Luna walked over and laid a wing across her sister's back. Celestia flinched, and Luna spotted tears in her eyes before she turned her head away.
"You know as well as I do that she did not go seeking them for their own sake."
Celestia gave a muffled sob. "If something had happened to her trying to please me..."
"It didn't," Luna reminded her. "Though we do have some new plants being transplanted into the castle gardens now."
Celestia couldn't help but laugh at that. She turned back to Luna. Luna nuzzled her comfortingly. Once Celestia regained control of her face she turned her attention back to the painting of her younger self seated at a feasting table and holding her indignant looking sister in a headlock while administering an enthusiastic noogie. The smile came back.
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That last paragraph had me like
rs1ci.memecdn.com/60/4603060.gif
That's... actually kinda bittersweet. I didn't know what you were going with before, but that last paragraph told me everything. They're more like family photos than works of art, and that Twilight went through all the trouble of finding so many that were lost over the years...
She REALLY wants to be the Princess of Books, huh?
This ending made the entire thing fluffy.
4981370 Starswirl actually was an accomplished painter and they were mixed with other, less personally important pieces by famous dead artists but yeah, basically.
Loved it. Never mind the three idiot down votes. Your story was well written, if a bit short. Well done!
The pirates got turned to plants? Seems a bit extreme.
4981667 Only some of them
4990277 They've been circulating through the private collections of some extremely rich ponies. It's known happen in real life. Only Interpol is generally less scary than the immortal princess controls the sun.
4992742 Man, I wish I could say that was totally wrong, but death of the author.
4981370 And not just family mementos but very specifically mementos of the time before things went to hell with Luna. Also known as the single most painful experience of Celestia's life which she probably never completely got over.
4981407
So he's basically the pony Da Vinci?
4995976 Pretty much, yeah
4998911
*takes notes*
Vampire changelings, you say?
4998911
Or I can just be a really awesome writer.
4998911
Even easier method.
1) Write porn.
2) Add it to every group that will take it.
Boom, featured.
5000345 Then why don't people like my erotic Walker: Texas Ranger/My Little Pony crossover fanfic?
5000382
I seriously thought that was a joke until I noticed it in your stories bar.
5000419
Well I mean it's only erotic in that Walker has sex with ponies, spends most of the story naked and also I describe his penis constant loving detail.
Haw! Nice ending!
~Skeeter The Lurker
5003202 Oh, hey. Don't I have you added on Skype for some reason?
One Shot Reviews has read and graded.
This is charming. I'd like to see more SoL Comedies like this. It is tagged Random, but it never flies off the rails into the absurd and the ponies are never out of character (though they do spend a lot of time at the extremes of their personalities). The author is a bit demanding of the reader, with exposition being suddenly dropped in through the dialogue. You have to pay attention; skim this story and you'll be lost. But that's hardly a hardship, this is a quick read. Short though it is I wouldn't add anything. This story is tight. I like the snappy pace. A few lines of telly exposition might give it more clarity and make it easier on the reader. But that would also cost the story its charm.
Overall rating: 85%.
RECOMMENDED.
5009012
Who're you?!
5009140 Sorry, see this group.
5003300
I think you do...?
I've, like, 900 for some bizarre reason so it's quite possible.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Double spaces, man. Use 'em.
Silly, kinda dumb, but not bad at all. It could have used a better introduction, but meh.
5621408 What?
5621668
"What" what?
The story was entertaining, don't get me wrong, but it took me about a third of the story to actually understand what Celestia and Twilight were speaking of. Once it clicked, everything was fine, but the reader shouldn't have to wait for things to click.
5621680
The double spaces thing
5621686
Oh.
Oooooooh.
My bad.
Basically, I look at your story and it's a wall of text. Nobody likes a wall of text. It promotes skimming (which for this story would be a bad idea) and can also make it harder to keep track of individual paragraphs. Simply apply a space between paragraphs and the story will be far more legible.
5621705
It is? Because it has indents and all, and when I look at it on the site I see the space between paragraphs twice as wide as between sentences.
And yeah, I can see that being an issue with the introduction, but I'm a big believer in starting right in the middle of the action and a lot of the time that's the trade off. I've read too much Dresden Files.
5621783
Then there must be something wrong on my side. There are indents, true, but there's no space between paragraphs. None whatsoever. Nothing but texttextextextextextextextextextextext. It looks horrible. What's weird is that no other stories I read suffer from this issue. Maybe the internet simply doesn't like the story. Because, y'know, it's the internet, and the internet's jerky sometimes.
Starting in the action is fine. Starting in the action without at least setting the scene via that action is not.
5621836
Yeah, true. Honestly I still have no idea what this of all stories was the first thing I wrote to make the featured list. I literally wrote the first part in under an hour and added the second chapter on later as an afterthought.
5621861
So it goes. My two biggest hits were much the same way and dominated the Feature Box for a week each, while the stories I work long and hard on go relatively unnoticed.
...
Well, that's how it used to be. I've reached that point where people are finally paying attention to my writing. Usually.
5810727
To make sure Celestia wouldn't be anywhere near the library when he pulled the heist.
Also presumably he didn't want Canterlot to be eaten by zombies.
Nice story. Short, sweet, and pleasant.
The Lupin reference made me smile.
I'm going to go against consensus and say that the first chapter stands better on its own. The second chapter adds several new threads (Twilight fighting pirates, an implied Twilestia crush, and ponies being permanently turned into plants without trial), which don't go anywhere because this is the end of the piece. As far as I can tell, you wanted to fill in a perceived plot hole (the fact that the paintings' current owners wouldn't want to give them up), but the second chapter doesn't really answer that (pirates fence or ransom loot and spend the proceeds, rather than holding on to it for multiple lifetimes), and there are other options available (the first chapter even implies that Twilight and Daring Do teamed up to recover the objects from some forgotten ruin that used to be the thief's hide-out).
That said, I enjoyed the first chapter quite a bit; well done.
6629061 No one seems to recognize Lupin. It's sad.
Been awhile since I wrote this, but I can clarify that the pirates hadn't been holding onto it for multiple generations. It and other stolen historic works of art had been circulating throughout that time and they were just the ones currently holding it after having robbed whichever rich collector had most recently bought or stolen it. Note: They didn't actually know what they had.
Also the only ponies permanently turned into plants were polymorphed in self-defense and I'm sure Twilight will get around to fixing them eventually.
i figured that was a reference to something, but...
8413743
I did. It's the second chapter.
Thats... haha holy shit. Lost classic of the ages, painted by a master magician! And he chose to immprtalize that. Honestly I can 100% understand why he would, too- it humanizes them.
Fun reread alass the YouTube link is broken.
Thanks again.