Tempest has been invited to stay at Twilight's castle after several months of not very much under heavy watch in Canterlot. Keen on the idea of getting out, she accepts. The one problem: After invading, and then spending quite a bit of time away from society, everypony is a bit anxious about her presence.
Once she arrives in Ponyville, Tempest is much less sure of herself. Sure, she's out, but what now? Will she ever be able to get a meaningful place in life? And what about her lack of cutie mark?
Timeline of alterations:
2/7/2019: First published. Yay!
15/6/2020: Somewhat reworked in an attempt to continue the story. Not much happened afterwards.
9/6/2023: Progress behind the scenes. Massive reboot coming up in the vauge and distant future.
12/6/2023: All currently published chapters rewritten and new chapters on the way. Changes will be published when the story is complete.
24/9/2023: Progress is slower but the story has not been forgotten.
The content was nice, but I feel the execution needs some work.
Before delving into that, however, I'll comment on Tempest Shadow's characterization. How gentle you wrote her threw me off initially, but then I remembered that the movie itself showed a gentler side to Tempest—the fireworks scene at the end specifically springs to mind—, it just happens to be buried under the 'ragingly violent homing missile' persona she had for most of that same movie.
It was still a little strange to me to see Tempest of all ponies wondering about how to put a request "tactfully." Not a bad kind of strange, mind you. Her chuckle and cheeky "It's morning sleepyhead!" are another example I enjoyed of the softer side of her personality; incidentally, I found Twilight grabbing at Tempest's leg in her sleep as one would hug a pillow, all the while muttering “5 more minutes mummy…” very cute.
Other lines I liked were the little bit of humor with "Even upon walking in ponies had been giving her weird glances, as though she were some kind of… invader. To be completely fair, she had just invaded Canterlot and almost succeeded, but that was in the past, right? Didn’t ponies forgive and forget easy around here?" and the simple "The balcony, cold and concrete as it was, had made for a great place to sleep." I feel you missed an opportunity to call back to her living conditions as the Storm King's top officer and/or her life before she met him, but the story's not poorer without such a reference.
I also liked these two ways you used to describe Tempest getting up; "she heaved herself up" and "Tempest struggled up again."
As I mentioned, I do feel the execution needs work. There are a few punctuation and formatting mistakes here and there, although there were no spelling ones from what I've seen. On the other hand, some words were repeated in short succession, such as 'sleep' at the beginning and 'walk' as well as 'quiet' once Tempest has reached Ponyville.
What I'd call the weakest part of this chapter, however, is the line "Twilight immediately made the ‘shocked face of the year’." It's already out of place in a narration written from a generic, external point of view, but the quotation marks really drag it down a liability instead. In a more intimate point of view, Tempest's in this case, it'd work as sarcasm. It might even be a place for world- and/or character-building, for example with a reference to Twilight looking a lot less punchable than Grubber does when she's shocked.
I also suggest writing down numbers; seeing "3 days ago" or "2 hours later" instead of 'three days ago' and 'two hours later' tends to throw off readers from what I've seen.
I find the simple "Everything!" speaks volumes about the camaraderie that grew between Tempest and Starlight in the span of a "seemingly endless lecture."
The chemistry between them shines through this amusing little exchange a short while later, too;
The other side of their conversations' coin is that their dialogue sometimes reads like heads talking to each other in a void. Not always, such as at the beginning with the very nice line "Starlight took a deep breath and gave a delighted grin, obviously satisfied with how part 7xy4a of her lecture was going," but Starlight explaining her past to Tempest is practically all talking and no description, just like the other way round was in the previous chapter.
Speaking of description, I enjoyed that of their trek through the Everfree Forest. I found it nice and well-written, short as it was. It does look out of place though, since that's the only part of the entire story where the scenery is so heavily described.
There was less repetition here, with only 'swirl(y)' showing three times in as two succeeding paragraphs. "time" was misspelled in "I travelled back in tine" as well. On the other hand, I noticed you've added scene breaks since I first read this story, so kudos.
Thanks for the feedback! I'll definitely be fixing a few small things, and focusing on description more in the coming chapters