Six Diamonds
Stardust sat on a bench next to Trixie, Starlight was standing up in front of them thinking. A while ago Stardust had explained the situation.
“So you’re telling me that this filly came from another world, possibly one full of reptiles, to save ours? And she needs you to help her because of some magical bond? This world is being threatened by a creature named as Dark Matter?”
Trixie nodded to confirm.
”Do you know where to go?” The purple unicorn asked.
Stardust shrugged. Everyone looked at the Pegasus filly for what she was going to say.
“Well... we actually need to collect six diamonds!”
Starlight gasped happily, “Oh sure! Where are they and what do they look like?”
Stardust shrugged, “No clue, for both. But could have been a lot worse!”
Starlight groaned, “Not even one?”
Stardust shook her head, “I was told a hint for the first one would come to me in a dream”
Trixie groaned and almost fell from the bench, “And why me!? This is like... something Twilight would have to do!”
Her friend nodded, “Now it’s your responsibility, you were chosen for this. Meaning you need to save Equestria with Stardust... I know you can do this”
Starlight assured her friend, she happily put a hoof on hers, “You wouldn’t be selected if you weren’t able”
Stardust looked at Trixie, “This whole situation could be worse!”.
Trixie didn’t really know what to reply with, Starlight soon did ask a question.
“What do you know about these Six Diamonds?” she asked, hoping it would help a bit.
The filly didn’t even know, she shook her head in response, Trixie sighed.
“I really hope we find them in time,” Trixie sighed she gasped when she noticed a clock, “Oh! I have to get my show ready!”
Trixie hurried to get her wagon buckled on her and trotted over to where she was going to set up the stage, Stardust followed her of course.
✨��✨
Where Trixie was going to do her show was in a nice patch of grass near Twilight’s castle, she put up the stage and got it ready. Stardust soon walked out the door of her wagon while wearing Trixie’s outfit, which were way too big.
The hat was nearly covering her whole head and the cape looked like she was about to trip over it, which she did, she rag-dolled down the stairs and onto her face.
Stardust was unharmed through, she got up and looked around. The hat made it, so she couldn’t really see.
“So this is what you’ll wear?” She asked, muffled under the hat.
Trixie looked at Stardust, a little annoyed, but she did give a bit of a chuckle. Stardust waddled around a little, trying to not trip.
Trixie used her magic to take her outfit from Stardust, she put them on the ground and the filly looked at it amused.
“Stars! You wear stars!” She exclaimed in delight.
The blue unicorn nodded. Stardust then went and immediately put her hoof on Trixie’s flank, she flinched and stepped away in shock.
The filly cheered with glee, “There’s a star on your butt!”
Trixie gasped as if she just said something offensive, “Excuse me!? That is my cutiemark!”
”Cutiemark?” Stardust asked, “What does it do?” She then looked at her own flank to see it was blank.
Trixie smiled, “They resemble a pony’s special talent...” She explained as she went into her wagon.
“You’ll find that... umm, Fluttershy has three butterflies, because she’s great with animals,”
She continued explaining as took a chest out from her wagon with her magic.
“Pinkie has balloons because she is great with parties, and as for me,” Trixie explained as she opened a chest and got out a few magic show props.
“I do great and powerful magic shows!” She called out proudly.
Stardust watched with awe, “How do I get mine!? What will it be!?” She asked with excitement.
“That’s something you’ll need to discover yourself, you need to discover your talent and... then... poof!, it appears,” Trixie explained.
Stardust gasped in disgust, “Like a magic trick!?”
“Uh...” Trixie stared at the filly, “No... well, unless your talent is like mine, with I highly doubt...”
Stardust looked at her flank again. The unicorn shrugged.
“But the Cutiemark Crusaders might be able to help you find it...”
”Who are they?” Stardust asked as she got up.
“Applebloom... Sweetie Belle and uhm... some orange pegasus who can’t fly... yet” Trixie explained
She looked at Stardust, “You’re welcome to go look for them, I’ll just set this all up,” the unicorn said as she pointed to her stage.
The filly shook her head, “No! I don’t trust them”
“I really don’t want to say this, but... they’re not that hard to get along with”
Trixie sighed and then groaned “Unless you’re a travelling performer who boasted and told a story about banishing an Ursa Minor.” She continued to rant, “Then you get a soul sucking amulet to get stronger than another pony who humiliated and ruined your reputation across the land! But it takes full control of you, so you end up enslaving that very same village!” The unicorn ranted.
Stardust only stared at her, “That all seemed... oddly specific...”
Trixie nodded, “It is...”
The filly stepped back, “So... I think I’m gonna explore...”
The unicorn sighed happily, “If you’re interested in coming, then my show will start at sundown...”
Stardust nodded and ran towards Ponyville.
After a content sigh, the unicorn noted, “Finally, peace and quiet...”
✨��✨
Stardust trotted through the village, hoping not to draw much attention to herself. Of course, she failed when a pink pony approached her and gasped happily. She grabbed the innocent filly and happily ran to a bakery while speaking quickly.
“Ohmigosh! You must be new! I’ve never seen you before, so you must be new! I must throw a party! Have you met everyone yet!? You have to meet Twilight! She’s one of my best friends!”
The filly could not even say a word while she was seated at a table at Sugarcube Corner. Then a chocolate cupcake on a plate was put in front of her.
“I hope chocolate is your favourite! It’s your welcome to Ponyville cake! I hope you like it!” The pink pony spoke so fast. Stardust saw that on her flank there were three balloons.
“Pinkie Pie?” Stardust asked.
Once again, the pink pony gasped, “Ohmigosh! You know my name! What are you!? A spy?”
Pinkie stared at Stardust then started to laugh, “I’m just kidding!”
Stardust slowly took a bite from the cupcake, it was so fluffy and soft. The strong chocolate taste stayed in her mouth, she favoured the few moments.
Then Pinkie Pie started to invade personal space, “Do you like it!? I hope you like it!”
The filly nodded, “Yeah, it’s tasty, but I have to go!”
Pinkie gasped, “What!? But you just got here!”, she was ignored by Stardust, but suddenly appeared in front of her when she approached the door.
“Please! We only have just started becoming friends!” She then gasped, “Wait! Maybe I can go with you!”
Stardust started to think, “Well, I am looking for the um... Cutiemark Crusaders...” Stardust replied with a slight smile.
Pinkie replied with excitement, “Ooooooooh! I know where they are! Lemme take you!”
The next thing Stardust knew was she was on Pinkie Pie’s back while the pony was speeding through the village. Scared, the filly was holding on her mane for dear life! With her hooves... Stardust didn’t understand how, but she was. She had lots to learn about this world.
✨��✨
Soon enough, Pinkie Stopped at a large tree in a ginormous orchard of apple trees. In front of them was a ramp that led up to a treehouse in a tree. Pinkie jumped happily, causing Stardust to fall off, she was unharmed through.
“Here we are! The CMC clubhouse!” Pinkie joyfully explained to the filly.
Stardust looked at it, she slowly walked up the ramp and knocked on the door. She felt nervous, she felt like the situation was for doing, what was going to come?
Stardust had a noise of relief when three fillies opened the door, they happily invited her inside. The white unicorn filly, with a pink curly mane and tail with light purple curls, was the first to introduce herself.
“Hey there! My name‘s Sweetie Belle!” She said in a very happy voice that squeaked.
Scootaloo, an orange pegasus did a cool pose, “The names Scootaloo!”
Finally, the yellow earth pony filly with a red mane. Decorated with a pink bow in it spoke with a country accent, “And ah’m Applebloom,”
”We’re the Cutiemark Crusaders!” The three said has they shared a high five.
Stardust stepped back a little nervous, “Um... Trixie said that you guys could possibly help with my Cutiemark?”
The three gasped in shock, “Did she say, Trixie!?” Scootaloo asked.
Applebloom looked at Stardust, “Uh... excuse us for ah’ sec!”.
The three fillies huddled together and whispered, Stardust only heard a few things like.
“But Trixie is nice now,”
“But this filly is blank flank, we are supposed to help,”
”We really shouldn’t hold grudges, besides, this filly isn’t Trixie,”
Stardust wondered what they were talking about, did Trixie upset them in the past?
Soon the three fillies perked their heads up, Applebloom walked to some paper and a clip board, holding a pencil in her mouth she wrote a few things.
The yellow filly soon spoke, “We will help you!”
Sweetie Belle nodded, “We already have a few ideas!”
Scootaloo then added, “But what do you like to do?”
Stardust explained, “Pranking others... my ukulele... music...” The three crusaders nodded.
“Well, let’s get started!” Sweetie Belle said.
“We forgot to ask! What’s your name?” Scootaloo asked.
Stardust replied happily, “Stardust!”.
Appleloom nodded, “Well Stardust, we’re gonna help you find your mark!”
The unicorn filly started to sing, the others tapped their hooves in beat.
“Like a racer at the starting line
You're chomping at the bit”
Scootaloo was the next to sing
“You are here to find your purpose
And a place you really fit”
Then Applebloom sung.
“And until you find your place in life
You're never gonna quit”
Then together.
“We can help you find the purpose in your life”
Stardust happily sung her own parts
“A dragon mixes determination
With winged pony’s might
When I finally find my talent
Then my cutie mark's in sight
Optimism, I won't let you down
I've just begun to fight
CMC’s gonna help me find the purpose in my life”
The trio did multiple things as they helped Stardust find her mark.
“Got a job that's just no fun?
Call on me, I'll get it done”
Stardust helped Zecora with a mix in her cauldron.
“Zebra’s mix stuck and needs a push?
I'm who's gonna show it who’s boss”
But then the mixture spewed into the zebra’s face.
“Help you teach dragon facts”
Stardust was on a ladder and grabbed a dragon book for someone in the library who couldn’t reach but dropped it onto them.
“Lost the hope?, here’s Stardust!”
At least she helped wash a baby dragon alright
“Cleaning scales? Do it without fail,
Raring to go, ready to not bail!”
The CMC stayed optimistic as they watched the disasters
“That's the spirit
You ought to see what you do best
Try it all, pick your fave
And leave behind the rest”
Stardust excitedly reared happily.
“I'll try anything
To get my cutie mark
Keep up with me, fillies
We're just getting our start”
Stardust helped Fluttershy with her animals.
“Rock your little animals to sleep”
She sang while rocking them too fast
“Or leading your sheep”
The sheep ran away immediately
“I can help you find your lost toad “
She didn’t notice the toad on her back as she looked under a bush
“Walk Dogs 'cross the street”
The dogs ran away chasing a cat.
“I'll say my mark is a must
Earning It's really one big feat”
The three were a little nervous,
“Can we help her find the purpose in her life?”
But Stardust continued trying
“Cheer you if you're feeling low
Plant your flowers, help it grow”
At least the gardening wasn't too bad...
”Sing almost weekly?
Or making a song on ukulele”
She failed to even strum on the instrument thanks to her hooves.
“Make those cookies as fast as lightning”
While grabbing burnt Cookies out the oven.
The trio was sure that this was the worst yet.
“She's bad at so much, it's frightening
Cutie Mark Crusaders,
I think we've got a problem!”
Sweetie Belle had an idea for Stardust.
“Make a dress”
But Stardust ended up having fabric and ribbon all messed up around the room
”Or sell apples across the town”
Stardust really couldn’t help herself from eating some.
“Need some help?
You know for my mark, I’m not going down
CMCs, you're gonna help me find my purpose
The purpose in my life!
In my life!”
The four fillies stood in the middle of the village. They still had ideas, but they also had doubt.
“Well... I don’t think Rarity is happy about the mess we made,” Sweetie Belle replied, a little apologetic.
Applebloom agreed, “Well, the mess Stardust made”.
Scootaloo gasped, “I got it!, I’ll be right back!”.
The orange pegasus trotted away somewhere, the two looked at each other.
Sweetie Belle had a look at the list, “Hmmm, we haven’t tried stargazing yet... but we have to wait for nighttime”
“We haven’t tried this either!” Scootaloo rushed over in her scooter, she was wearing a helmet and going really fast.
She came to a halt when she arrived at the three fillies.
“Your scooter?” Asked Applebloom.
Scootaloo nodded, “Yeah! I think she’ll be great at it!”.
Applebloom wasn’t really sure, “Are you sure?”
But scootaloo nodded in agreement.
Scootaloo got off her scooter and put a helmet on Stardust. The filly got onto the scooter, Scootaloo help her with what position to be when while explaining.
“You just needed to use your wings!” She explained, “Just flap them!”
Stardust nodded in agreement. The filly fluttered her wings making the scooter move, she fluttered so hard that she made it go really fast.
Sweetie Belle and Applebloom looked at Scootaloo who looked a little embarrassed.
“I wasn’t expecting her to go that fast!...” The three fillies gave chase, but Stardust was going too fast for them to keep up.
There was a wooden plank that was leaning on a crate acting like a ramp, Stardust went flying from it and crashed into a barrel of grape juice.
“Stardust!” Sweetie Belle called out as the three ran over, “Are you okay!?”
Stardust nodded in agreement. She was just soaked in grape juice, but fine, she actually found it funny and giggled a little.
“Maybe I should have warned you...” Scootaloo admitted
Her friends nodded in agreement.
Stardust smiled, “Could have been worse”
A blue pegaus with rainbow mane and tail flew over, a little concerned.
Scootaloo gasped with excitement, “Hey Rainbow Dash,” Applebloom and Sweetie Belle greeted at the same time.
Stardust only replied with, “Candy mane”
Rainbow Dash looked at the four fillies, “Is everypony okay?”.
The fillies nodded, “Wait, you must be Stardust! Stal- I mean, I was told about you! You’re going on an awesome adventure! That’s so awesome!”
The fillies looked at the checklist, “We’re trying to get her cutiemark” Applebloom explained.
Rainbow Dash had an idea, “Maybe your mark is weather related! How would you feel if the one and only Rainbow Dash showed you how it’s done!?” She asked with excitement before flying away in a dash.
The three fillies looked at Stardust, wondering why she didn’t follow.
Rainbow Dash sped back a little confused, “Uh... in case I wasn’t clear enough... you have to follow me...” Stardust stared at her.
“Does it look like I can fly?” She replied, “I can’t fly, I never was able to!” Rainbow Dash looked at Stardust’s wings.
“They don’t look damaged...” she replied.
”Back home, I was never able to fly, so why should I be able to fly as a pegasus?” Stardust replied.
Rainbow Dash landed on the floor, “It’s worth a try”
Stardust shook her head, “Besides, not once I’ve seen Scootaloo fly and seeing how our wings are similar in size I don’t think I can fly”
Scootaloo sighed at what Stardust said. It was harsh but she decided to let it go.
Rainbow Dash replied with, “Well... Scootaloo might fly one day, but she might not, we don’t know... us pegasi wings are powered by magic”
Stardust looked at her wings and listened to Rainbow Dash.
“Now just copy me,” the pegasus explained as she spread her wings out.
Stardust copied what she was doing. Wings were out, and she flapped them to lift herself in the sky, but fell back to the ground.
“Eh...” Rainbow Dash noticed, “It might take a bit of practice, it took Twilight weeks to get used to hers”.
Rainbow Dash started to laugh when she remembered all the times Twilight crashed while learning to use her wings. Stardust saw the sun was going to go down soon.
“I gotta go,” then she gasped, “Maybe I have a similar Cutiemark to whom I share that bond with!” She noted as she trotted away happily.
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Btw, I think this is great so far.
I'm enjoying this so far! It's cute and engaging.
Some tips before I forget:
You're quite a bit heavy on your comma usage where often it would read smoother as separated sentences. I have this problem too, I love commas. One thing I do to remedy this is try reading everything out loud. If you ever find yourself running out of breath or sounding unnatural before you reach the end of a sentence, that's a pretty good indicator that you should split it into separate sentences.
There are the occasional typos. They're not super distracting for the most part, but unfortunately it is the kind of thing that will often scare readers away because it doesn't seem professional. It's tedious, but rereading and triple checking always helps. Reading out loud actually helps in spotting typos too.
Liking the story!
11232933
Okay! And thanks for reading
Since you asked for some constructive criticism, I've summarised some of my gripes with it when reading the first two chapters.
I'll start with the story aspects, and I'll get more technical.
For one, Stardust keeps dropping hints at her backstory, but no one at all is picking up on them. That strikes me as odd. For instance, when she said she couldn't fly in her old home, I would have expected someone to comment on that, and not just move on and pretend like she hadn't said it. I would have expected the characters to question things like why she couldn't fly—was it due to a lack of wings, or did she have wings but they weren't functional?
Additionally, a lot of the details of meeting half of Ponyville is just swept under the rug or brushed over. There's a new filly in town that no one knows, and somehow everyone just goes "oh, okay". I get that it's in part due to Starlight talking to the others off-screen, but it still feels jarring. Stardust, too, gets used to this new environment way too quickly. One scene she shouts, "No! I don't trust them!' and the next there's not a hint of that distrust left.
I get that you didn't want to bog down the story with a chapter full of fluff about the MC meeting everyone in Ponyville, only for her to leave town the next day, but then why put in those scenes in the first place? You could have just skipped ahead to Trixie and Stardust leaving Ponyville, then have a short summary of what happened during the time between her arrival and departure.
On a similar note, I like the idea of the song scene, but I don't think it works out all that well. In the show, montages like that work because it's a visual medium. In written fiction, you have to use other tricks. If you want to emulate what the show does, you could use horizontal rules to split the mini-scenes from each other. If you're feeling daring, you could try to make it flow in a single scene spanning multiple hours, and leaning into the spacetime-bending power of pony songs. That, however, is a pretty daunting task and would be difficult to execute properly.
I could also ask why Stardust wants a cutie mark this badly, given that this is her first exposure to pony culture, but I feel like that might be nitpicking.
Okay, onto the prose and grammar. They're quite rough. Sentence structure is, more often than not, messy, chaotic, and hard to follow. Specifically, it doesn't strike me as intentionally hard to follow. Chapter 2 was a bit better in that regard, but both chapters are quite rough in that regard.
Then, there's the misuse of commas. There are a few instances where there shouldn't be a comma, but you still put one. There are other sentences that should be separated by a full stop but are connected with a comma (which plays into the confusing sentence structure).
For example:
Here it should either be something like "[...], who appeared to be fixing [...]", or "[...]. It seemed like she was fixing [...]".
On another note, word choice is sometimes odd. In that same example sentence, "fixing something up by sewing" doesn't flow very well. There are other ways to say the same thing without being jarring. For instance, "It seemed like she was patching up a piece of cloth." or "mending a piece of cloth".
This might seem like a nitpick, but for many readers, prose like that just pulls you out of the story for a brief moment, and those add up. There are other things I've noticed, but posting all of them here would be quite overwhelming.
My gut tells me there's something interesting in this story, but so far you haven't really managed to pull my attention in. This might be due to me finding adventure fics very hit or miss, though. So far, it strikes me as a standard "collect the X McGuffins to save the world" kind of plot. I might try to read a few more chapters, but I can't guarantee anything.
Finally, I hope none of this comes across as rude or mean-spirited. I'm really just trying to get you some constructive criticism, as requested. Say, how much time do you usually spend on editing a chapter after you've written it? Compared to how much time you spend writing.