Storms and shadows

by Shadow Firetail

The terror in the storm

During the first few years after being able to stay in Ponyville, Twilight became the proud owner of the Ponyville Public Library. This made Twilight very excited because she was now able to share the joy of reading with other ponies. One fine example is with Rainbow Dash and the stories of Daring Do. Now as the years past, Twilight began to get restless. So Twilight finally decided on taking a nice long vacation. As Twilight said her goodbyes and got on the train heading for Canterlot, strange and malicious looking storm clouds began to form out of thin air. Twilight dismissed this as a freak occurence and went on her way to see her brother, Shining Armor and her sister in-law Cadence. This would be the first time in a few years that she would be able to see them since the wedding. When Shining Armor recieved the letter telling of Twilight's impending visit, he grew so excited that he lept for joy. Shining Armor kept it a secret as to surprise Cadence. When Twilight finally arrived at the Palace, she headed straight to Princess Celestia to ask about the unnerving storm clouds. While she was conversing with Celestia, the rain began to fall like thick sheets of mist. If you looked outside, the rain would obscure your vision at about ten feet. This left Twilight with a strange uneasiness that made her feel a might uncomfortable. When Twilight was done talking with Celestia, she went to go find her brother and her sister in-law. When she finally found her brother, he told her that they had a surprise for her; but they first had to meet up with Cadence. The pair found Cadence at a bakery in Canterlot, the finest to be procise. Waiting giddily with anxiousness the surprise was about to be shared with her. When Cadence turned around and saw Twilight standing there, she had the largest grin across her face. Her grin was one to make the sun come out from behind the clouds. It was Shining Armor who told Twilight the big surprise, he said" Twilight, you are going to be an aunt". Twilight smiled and said congrat but that was as far as she got before she feinted. This made Shining Armor worry because this was the first time she ever feinted. Shining Armor picked up Twilight with a levitation spell and created a force field to keep them from getting wet. He carried her all the way back to the castle and then to the hospital wing. When Celestia heard about Twilight, she rushed there as fast as she could and Luna tagged along. When Twilight woke up, it was three days later. Twilight's stomach began to growl protesting the extended wait for food and the sound echoed off the corridors of the hospital wing. During the three days that Twilight was unconscious, it never stopped raining. Twilight went to look for Celestia and found her in her favorite garden. When Celestia saw Twilight and looked into her eyes, Twilight noticed that Celestia had been weeping for several hours judging by how red her eyes were. This was the first time Twilight had seen Celestia so distressed and it broke her heart knowing that she couldn't do anything about it. Twilight cradled Celestia's head in her hooves and began to sing her a lullaby to help her relax and possibly sleep. Luna walked into see how her sister was doing. She saw Celestia sleeping in Twilight's arms and asked what was going on. Twilight told her " I went looking for Celestia and found her here in her favorite spot in the entire garden. When she looked at me, I noticed that she has been weeping for several hours. I took her head in my hooves and began to sing a magical lullaby to make her rest and relax" Luna thanked Twilight for helping out Celestia. Celestia woke up with a new aura about her that made her usually gleaming and sparkling coat and mane look as grey and dreary as the sky. After a few hours of talking, Celestia went back to her room to get what appeared to be some much needed rest. Celestia did not wake up until ten o' clock in the morning. The Princess looked like a million dollars once she found a peaceful sleep. The days were getting shorter and darker. Celestia, Luna, and Twilight all agreed that the storm was unnatural and erie. It made everyponies' mane stand on end. They believe that it is an omen of bad things to come.

That night while everypony was sleeping, Twilight had a vision filled with terrifying animals which made her wake up making a blood curdling scream, when the two princesses arrived they noticed that Twilight was levitating in a sphere ofraw power. They eventually got Twilight to relax and tell them what she saw, the terrors that she saw were frightening enough to change Twight's mane and coat from blue and purple into a neutral grey color. Twilight had learned that she formed a forcefield ball of defensive magic to cocoon her for lack of a better term. The princesses saw this and tried to calm her down and they succeeded after awhile.

Twilight awoke from her dream to the sound of the voice of Celestia calling her name. Celestia, Luna, and Twilight decided to have a meeting in Celestia's private chambers to discuss the contents of Twilight's vision without hinderance. Twilight told them of creatures that called themselves the shadow hunters. These creatures could not fly or walk as other creatures could, this is what made them so dangerous. They were dangerous because nopony could see them coming or defend themselves against them. Their return meant very bad news for the citizens of Equestria. Life back in Ponyville seemed to be the same as usual except for the ponies. All their coats and manes were changing into duller shades and their moods were somewhat mellow and less lively. The colorand behavioral patterns were drastically affected by this enchanted storm.

This storm has been going on for nearly a week and the violet lightning was abit unnerving for the townsponies. They were beginning to be very very alarmed and were overly cautious.

Comments

[Gray Matter]

Hmmm. I'll start this off by saying that this is a definite improvement from your last story, your sentence structure has improved, and this is a considerably long chapter compared to your last story, but there are still a few problems that need addressing after looking at this chapter.

1. You really need to fix that wall of text, remember the enter button is your friend in writing, don't neglect it. Even though you have used it and indented some parts, it is still annoying to look at, find a good balance. That could make it much easier to read. Also, remember to leave a line in between paragraphs!

2. There are some parts that are still worded weirdly, while they may not be wrong in a grammatical sense, you can make them much easier by using different words and so on.
Example - "Twilight noticed that Celestia had been weeping for several hours judging by how red her eyes were."
You could change the word "red" to bloodshot.

3. Make sure to stick to one tense,
"This storm has been going on for nearly a week and the violet lightning was abit unnerving"
The tense is present in the beginning of this sentence, but the story thus far was in the past, also, you spelt "a bit" like "abit" This could be a typo but be sure to get a pre-reader to help you with these types of mistakes, it can help a lot when you miss some typos.

4. Once again, this seems rushed, you cover large expanses of time with barely any descriptions, remember, take your time, and explain things thoroughly, it may be easier to just go through the story like this, but to the reader, it isn't very appealing.

5. This is me making a point on a creature you touched on briefly, and that's what's irritating, you briefly touched on it. Here's the description -
"These creatures could not fly or walk as other creatures could, this is what made them so dangerous. They were dangerous because nopony could see them coming or defend themselves against them."
Now this description is... It's lacking, you state that the fact that they can not fly nor walk is what makes them dangerous, yet it doesn't make much sense, how do they move? Now leaving this up to my imagination, from this description and the name "Shadow hunters." I deduce that their method of travel is through the shadows, but you should explain this, not leave it up to the reader to guess after hearing about it. After thinking about it, I can make out what you're trying to say (Hopefully) and I guess that since these monsters attack from the shadows, then they are practically invisible, that's what makes them so dangerous, because you can't defend from it, if you can't see it.

6. Now onto the only use of these quotation marks, or speech marks in this chapter. The sentence is this.
Twilight told her " I went looking for Celestia and found her here in her favorite spot in the entire garden. When she looked at me, I noticed that she has been weeping for several hours. I took her head in my hooves and began to sing a magical lullaby to make her rest and relax"
Now... This for one, doesn't seem like anything anyone would say, it also explains what we had just read moments ago.

Right... That's that, I hope you take my suggestions into consideration at the very least, and I hope you also use them to improve. Now once again I suggest that you get a pre-reader for this, other than that, you can just ask me for more help, I'll continue reading this to see if I spot anything else worth noting, but other than that, just keep practicing.

I'm out.