"I can't wait till tomorrow... Not being able to do any magic stuff is really boring."
"From what I've heard it described, I can easily understand. Almost like if us pegasi are told to not move..." Sunny smiled. "It only ends with us in a different spot and, likely, something knocked over."
"Heh. Lemme guess: The wind pushed it over?"
Sunny giggled. "Learning quickly..." Note to self: don't tell her about broken horns.
After a few seconds, Aqua questioned, "You know what happened yesterday, yeah?"
"Only brief notes. You're suffering from magical overexertion, your chest hurts, and you need to stay in bed, missy."
"Yeah, yeah... But, you got it. Raven, my tutor, was showing me a spell at my request. The spell was supposed to let you 'see' your own, or another's flow of magic. I saw it used by a doctor I met about a week back, so I asked about it. She showed it to me and then later tried it on me, but I think something went wrong."
Sunny hummed to herself in thought. Is she lacking in magic? That spell shouldn't cause this much harm, even if one party lacked mana.
"My leading guess is that I just have very little mana capacity... Though that doesn't really explain why the doctor's cast didn't have the same effect..."
"Not unless Raven Inkwell had drastically more mana than the said doctor." Sunny stopped her eyes from rising. Shouln't have said that...
"It's entirely possible... Actually, that makes a lot of sense. She is in the school that literally has 'Gifted Unicorns' in the name..." Aqua continued barely loud enough for Sunny to hear, "Though I'm also in that school, so I don't know what that says."
Sunny released a sigh. She didn't notice. "As you go higher in that school, students' skill and mana capacity multiply. It's easily possible that she has more mana than a doctor. A majority of alumni are researchers in the magical field, after all." Thank Fate for Shimmering...
"You got an opinion 'bout the school? That sigh meant something, I'm sure."
Sunny giggled. "I'm sorry. I forget who I'm talking to. No, the school is fine... It's actually one of the reasons I'm in Canterlot."
Aqua smiled as she interjected, "Oh?"
Grinning, sunny continued, "I did teach you a little of magic..."
"Oh! Wait, I suppose I should've asked this like a month ago but, are you a teacher there?"
"You could say that."
Aqua adopted an accent Sunny had never heard before. "Well, Iii'm sorry for not realising your greatness, dear princess."
Sunny struck a pose and also spoke with a fake accent. "Finally, somepony who learns..." I may not be affected normally, but this filly cannot be good for my heart.
One second of silence before they both broke out in giggles. As they winded down, Sunny laid down around Aqua and laid a wing on her."You know Sunny, I used to do that all the time with my old friends... From before. Used to do voices all the time. I'm... I'm actually surprised it hasn't come up yet. I used to generally do it with everyone but, that's probably changed to just close friends I guess..."
Sunny looked down at the blue filly under her wing. Aqua was smiling a bittersweet smile. She almost always... Sunny ruffled Aqua's hair with her wing and whispered into her ear. "Aqua. You're destined for greatness. I can tell."
"Heh. Thanks. I don't know if that's true, myself, but thanks nonetheless... It's just fun to be sad sometimes." Aqua quieted, "Well, fun probably isn't the correct word to use..."
"I understand... In our lives, there's-"
A loud wooden thunk made them both jump. Looking over, the door was open and standing there was Cotton.
"I got the food!"
Aqua began, "Cotton, you don't gotta slam the door. I can hear you walking from down the hall."
"Watch your tone, missy. Are you calling me fat?"
"Not yet, but if you keep making a major deal out of food, you might become a little on the heavier side."
Cotton had walked over and laid down their lunch on the bedside table before poking Aqua in the side.
"Hey!"
"Are you sure I'm the one that's a little heavy?"
"It's normal for children to be a little fat! It's so they have extra energy to run around and grow."
"I don't see you running around a lot."
"Well, I-..." Aqua harrumphed as Cotton and Sunny giggled.
Sunny had been watching with a smile but interjected when she saw her chance, "Well if you two are done calling each other fat, would you like to begin eating?"
Both Aqua and Cotton faced each other. "Truce 'till the traitor is dealt with?"
"Truce." They both turned to Sunny.
Sunny began to sweat. "Oh, dear."
11424767
I'd like to ask what about the story you consider weak. Writing style, plot (or lack thereof), dialogue, a general sense of what's happening in each moment, or something else entirely. How do you think I could improve?
Also, it's annoyingly hard to write something like this without it coming across as sassy.
Take your time. It doesn't have to be fast or perfect.
Oh! I'm happy to see another chapter in this story. I do love the livelyness of your conversations. Your wording leads to nice visualizations of the scene, and the characters feel genuinely kind. The story is progressing at a great pacing, and there are quite a few nuggets of information I can't wait to see expounded upon. You've crafted a story that whatever the time or mood I'm in I can settle down and read, so thank you for your work.
11431381
I'm very happy to hear this.
I'm pretty certain I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again: I'm a major fan of environmental storytelling. Exposition is a sin. When writing, I try to create realistic characters over most other things. Humans don't naturally give exposition in a cut-and-dry format, so I avoid that as much as possible. People do recite and explain things, however. I'm definitely leaving little chunks of foreshadowing here and there leading towards things to come, and I'm glad they aren't falling completely flat.
This is a slice-of-life story and I will continue with that in mind. But conflict will appear in time. And life rarely tolerates peace.
I'm not sure you had sunny actually say anything that would let slip she's the princess.
11431470
There was one thing Sunny didn't mean to reveal. It's very subtle.
11431475
I'll admit I'm a little confused as to what you mean.
...
Right as I wrote that out, I realised. I'm a little blind sometimes.
Heh...
So was she hoping she didn’t notice that she knew Raven’s last name?
Congratz, ya got featured! 11/23/2022
11431470
The amount of mana, if I have to guess most unicorns have around average mana or and least a sjmilar enough amount that there's not a drastical amount more, doctors also probably have to have alot of mana themselves as you wouldn't want them to fizzle out during an operation, not many unicorns are that powerful...
11431613
How is that related to my comment?
11431470
I think she was just sassing her rather than telling her she was a princess for real.
11431677
The only people with such a large mana pool would likely be the princess and twilight, I doubt anyone else would come close. So for anyone with that knowledge they would have been able to guess that it's celestia.
11431990
But it was raven inkwell, who is what the fandom made up for the position of Celestia's secretary, who cast the spell.
11431997
Oh ok, I'm getting the names mixed up then... ignore me.
11431998
I mean, Celestia's disguise is a pegasus, here, so unless I've got the timeline wrong, and the author turned raven into Luna's disguise in this fic, it wasn't an alicorn who did it.
11431574
:)
11431575
Thanks to y'all..
11431912
Exactly. The problem with Aqua's use of an actual flashbang is her established good hearing. Even if she were to use the bang part of it, it would likely cause major damage to her as well unless her ears are fully blocked from the sound. Thus, if she could simply use the flash part, she should be good to go. In theory, at least. And no plan ever survives contact with the enemy.
11431999
Wow, that's a fairly large discussion.
As for the timeline, there hasn't been concrete evidence towards where in the timeline, or even if it's a different one. Same with if anyone is using a disguise or who they are if they are.
What did she not notice exactly?
11660930
I believe its her use of ravens full name
Aqua never spoke Raven's last name