One rainy day, Sweetie Belle is lured away from the spine-tingling, cloak-and-dagger trials and tribulations of the infamous Shadow Spade, by the only thing better than reading mysteries: living one.
Our heroine is pretty darn sure that something fishy is going on around Carousel Boutique. She's never had to help her sister with an order like this before. A dozen fancy dresses for some mystery foal, sight unseen? What's a filly to do, besides investigate? A very important commission is only the start of something so much more, as our pintsized gum(horse)shoe begins her new investigative career!
(for Estee's 'Swift Selections' contest)
Chapters (3)
Generally enjoyable. Certainly quite nice for a first story. Just a few things to bear in mind:
1. "Apple Bloom" is two words.
2. There are a few consistency issues, like whether or not Dark Feather has a cutie mark. And, of course, there's the question of whether Luna actually plans on holding court in the shape of a filly. If not, she'd better be able to resize the titular dozen.
3. You may want to consider changing this chapter's title. You're making it a bit too obvious... and it's not much of a reveal. Not an explicit one, anyway.
Still, an enjoyable read.
I wonder how she'll react upon realizing that she was talking to both princesses...
Incidentally, is this actually going to have a sequel, or did you just add that tag on the end because that's what they do at the end of mystery episodes?
Very cute, and I love your characterization of the CMC. I'm a bit less sure of the format though. The segments in Sweetie Spade's world are small and feel quite isolated. A device to minimize this effect would be to have longer scenes in that world, and then come back to Boutique wth some activity mirroring what just happened in the Sweetie Spade story.
By the way, with that chapter title the reveal is a big too obvious! I jug test changing it to something more cryptic and equally applicable to a murder mystery novel like "When in Court, dress for the part!" or such.
I love that trebuchet line. :D But geez, all those horse pun weekday names. XD
A very nice story for your first fic. I have to say I'm a tad confused by the reveal though, specifically about why the dresses are filly-sized...
This is adorable!
I'm really wondering about the filly-sized dresses, but overall, this was great fun to read. Thanks for sharing it!!