I would love to say that I handled the reporters quite well. I would love to say that I don’t have to deal with them again. However, if I did, I would be a liar. Reporters would swarm me whenever I leave the castle. It came to the point where my foster mother had to assign a few guards to me to guard me from them. Thankfully, I don’t have to leave the castle to keep in touch with my friends in Ponyville thanks to a spell that I’m learning. However, the spell takes a lot out of me whenever I cast it. Because of this, I’m predicting that it’ll be a couple of months before I can cast it without any problems.
“Ok, lets try this again,” my foster mother started. We’ve been at this for a few hours, with each attempt ending in failure or burnt scrolls. First, I imagined the target, my foster mother. Next, I started to pour magic into the scroll while casting the spell at the same time. The end result was, unfortunately, a burnt scroll, which was confirmed when I got no message back. Sighing, I got another scroll and continued to practice. Five more attempts later, I finally got a message back.
‘I got it’ was all it said.
Smiling to myself, I whispered “Yes” before fainting from exhaustion.
I took a look around me and saw a city made from crystals. As I was about to go explore, something picked me up off the ground and held me close. As I struggled to get out, I could hear familiar voices yelling to let me go before everything melted into shadows.
What I saw next nearly drove me to tears. It was something I wished I never had to relive again. I saw myself walking through the castle like I usually did in the morning when I was ambushed by several nobles.
“Let's see you mother protect you now,” one of the nobles said. I suddenly felt a huge burst of pain flare through my wings as they were ripped off, blood pouring out of the wounds left behind. I kept shouting for them to stop but to no avail. After a few minutes of torture, I notice Blueblood trot up to me.
“You don’t deserve to be a princess,” he said before raising a knife to stab me. With tears flowing down my face, I closed my eyes and braced for the pain.
“Sunny?” A regal sounding voice said.
Opening my eyes, I noticed that Blueblood was gone, along with the rest of the scene. While I looked around in confusion, I heard the soft sound of wings flapping and a soft ‘thud’ behind me. Turning around, I was greeted with the sight of Aunt Luna. Still crying, I buried my head into her fur while Luna stroked my mane.
“It’s ok,” she tried to reassure me, “it was only a nightmare.” Her attempts to soothe me were in vain as all it did was cause me to cry even harder. Five minutes of crying and attempts to soothe my terror later, I finally stopped crying.
“T-thank you, Luna,” I managed after I calmed down enough, T-thank you for coming when you did.”
“Tis-It’s no problem,” she corrected herself, “If it meant to save you, I would of gone to tartarus and back.,” she said with a smile. It was so infectious it caused me to forget the nightmare for a moment, long enough to smile.
“Once again, thank you,” I thanked once again, “Now that I know it was a dream, I can take it from here.” Sadly, I didn’t have time to mess around in my dream because it started to fade.
“Ugh, why did I have to wake up now?” I complained to myself after I shot up into a sitting position.
“And let you still experience that nightmare?” a voice said, “Why would I do that to my own niece?”
“Good morning, Aunt Luna,” I greeted while I tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes. When I finally did, I noticed that I was in a hospital room...again. “Ok, what happened this time?” I asked bluntly.
“Magic exhaustion,” my aunt explained, “You overdid it when you was practicing that spell. You weren’t even due to wake for another five days while you recovered.” Suddenly, the memories came flooding back to me, though if I wasn’t due to wake for another five days then it must’ve been bad
“How long was I out for?” I asked with curiosity.
“Almost a week.”
“A week?!” I yelled while trying to get up, only to be held down by my aunt’s magic.
“None of that,” she scolded, “You still need your rest, and you know it.”
“Yes Aunt Luna,” I sighed in defeat, knowing that she was right. I just rested back unto my stomach as I watched her leave the room.
For the next few hours, I tried to get back to sleep, but my body just refused to sleep. I would’ve used my magic to get one of the many books in my room, but I was under strict orders not to use my magic until I fully recovered. So I just laid there, doing nothing, for three long hours. Just when I thought that nothing exciting will happen, the door opened up to reveal six familiar mares and my mom.
“Hey....” I said in a bored voice.
“What’s wrong?” Pinkie asked, of course she would.
“Nothing, just bored,” I sighed.
“Couldn’t you use your magic?” I just shook my head.
“See this ring on my horn? The doctors put it on there because I kept using my magic,” I explained, “It prevents me from using my magic.”
“Why would they do that?” Fluttershy asked.
“That is because she is supposed to be resting,” my mom said, shooting a stern look my way, “After all, she is suffering from magic exhaustion still. Also, even though you have the intact mind of an adult, you act like a filly that is easily bored. Maybe I should treat you like one?” she mused. I instantly paled at the thought. That was not a good sign that she was having those thoughts. “If I catch you doing anything that can land you in the hospital, I will make sure you’ll never leave the castle when I’m not around to keep an eye on you. Do. You. Understand. Me?” she said in a stern voice that honestly scared me. Glupping, I nodded vigorously, fear clearly in my eyes.
Twilight decided at that moment to step in, “Princess, you need to give Sunny a break, after all, she has been through a lot as of late.”
Releasing a sigh, my mom said, “I suppose you’re right, but my notion still stands.”
Even with Twilight’s intervention, I was still shaking so much in fear that I could tear down a house as if I was a earthquake. I was so scared of my own mother that I ended up hiding under the covers like a scared foal. Only my tail was visible.
“Now look what you did,” Fluttershy said in a stern voice. Coming over to the side of the bed, she lifted the blanket to see me still shaking in fear. She then proceeded to try and calm me down, which worked to an extent, as I stopped shaking in fear. However, I still refused to come out from my soft hideaway.
When she asked why, all I would say was, “Not until she leaves.” My mom took the hint and left.
“She’s gone,” Fluttershy whispered to me, then with a warm smile she said, “You can come out now.”
Slowly, I made my way out from underneath the covers and saw that she was right. So I just rested on my stomach. Pinkie, being the mare that she is, tried to immediately cheer me up, an action that was mimicked by my other friends. However, no matter what they tried, they couldn’t get my spirits up.
A couple hours of futile attempts to cheer me up later, a doctor told my friends that I needed to get some rest if I was going to get better. This, in turn, got them to ask if they could stay with me through my recovery. The doctor, surprisingly, said yes! The reason? Because they were my closest friends, despite my (apparent) age. After getting everypony set up with sleeping bags, we all hit the hay for the night so I can get the much needed sleep that I was pulled from earlier today.
Sorry I didn't get to this earlier. It's been a busy week for me. Anyway, as usual, I won't nitpick about small grammar errors. I'll just get into story concerns, mainly.
Rest, Recovery, and Memories
I'll start out with the beginning of the chapter. Basically, I felt the fourth-wall-breaking was unnecessary. It didn't add to the story and was confusing to read. I can't speak for everyone about that; I myself never really liked breaking the fourth wall. There are ways to introduce such things and have it seem natural. Here, though, it just came out of nowhere.
I'm interested in seeing how that dream plays into the story. I trust you by now to know that you have a plan for it, so I'm eager to see where that goes.
Next up is Sunny's mastery of parkour (which shouldn't be capitalized, by the way). I know several months went by, but I'm fairly certain it takes more than that to master something as physically precise and as mentally focused as parkour. Oddly enough, in the very next section, we get a mention that she's never run on a wall before. If she's mastered parkour, which is implied by the preceding section, wall-running should be no problem. Lastly, why does she want to practice parkour? How does it bear into the story. I'm sure it'll be important later, but why does she want to practice in the first place? This scene also leads into my next concern.
How does Sunny get taken out by crates, of all things? I understand the first crate crushing her wing. After that, though, I'd expect her to be on high alert, using magic to shield herself from more crates, especially since she was expecting it to happen.
Lastly, we have the scene in the hospital. It didn't really feel emotional enough. Sunny was informed that she may never be able to fly again. Sure, we're given a sentence where she's depressed, but then her mind goes back to parkour, of all things, and whether she should continue performing it. The way the paragraph was flowing, it seemed like Sunny was more worried about her parkour than the potential loss of flight.
Conclusion
Overall, it was a so-so chapter. The emotion at the end could use some work, though I'm very interested in exploring the dream and the nobles' actual feelings for Sunny. I wish the reason for Sunny's practice of parkour was explained, and I'd avoid breaking the fourth wall. There's a time and a place for it, but this was neither. That last one is a personal opinion, though, so it's pretty much the one criticism, in my opinion, that you could ignore without overall hurting the story (though, again, it takes finesse to break the fourth wall and have it seem natural).
At any rate, I look forward to the next chapter.
6749632
For the explanation for the parkour, it's because I have a scene planned where sunny has to flee without the ability to fly through some...rather wild terrain.
6802994 While that isn't a problem, we also need to know why Sunny herself wants to learn parkour. She doesn't know that the scene you have in mind is coming. Why did she want to learn in the first place?
6803458 Remember her getting captured? Twice?
It'll be explained later, but she's being cautious, as her wings were constrained last time she was captured. She's learning parkour in case she needs to get away but is not able to make use of her wings.
Okay, you've rewritten "Rest, Recovery, and Memories". Let's give it a look. As usual, I suggest running this through an editor. I'll be going over the story elements.
Rest, Recovery, and Memories (Rewritten)
I'm glad to see you removed the fourth-wall-breaking. The story seemed more natural this way.
The dream is largely the same, which is fine. I really liked reading it in the first place. Again, I'm eager to see how it pans out.
You seem to be taking things far more slowly, which is very good. You're giving time for these elements you cut from this chapter to more naturally enter the story. We even got a bit of character development in that both Twilight and Fluttershy spoke sternly to Celestia, of all ponies. While it seemed a bit out of character, I'm willing to roll with it.
Sunny being terrified of her mother interested me. It seemed almost an irrational fear. That isn't a criticism, by the way. I'm looking forward to seeing where that goes, if it does go anywhere.
You've also removed the crate scene and the parkour bit. I'm not sure if we'll be seeing them again, but I'm glad you cut them from this chapter to spend more time on the hospital scene.
Conclusion
This was a pretty short review, but it was for a rewrite, after all. I think I hit all the important parts. If you feel I missed something, please let me know. I'm willing to answer questions and give my opinions on whatever you want to ask about.
Looking forward to the next chapter.