Ponyfic Roundup 326: Spotlight on Twilight Sparkle of the Royal Guard

Read it Later story count: 173 (nc) 

Thanks to Lockdown III: This Time It's Snowing, I'm actually quite surprised to have got this Spotlight edition of PR published on the right day! Okay, I know it's a bit later in the day than usual, but in the circumstances I'm reasonably satisfied. As usual with this format, you get a standard one-para review up top, then a longer, spoilery-er discussion past the cut:

Twilight Sparkle of the Royal Guard by King of Beggars
Twilight, Cadance and OCs
Romance/Adventure/Alternate Universe; 80k words; Dec 2014–Mar 2015; Teen

Twilight Sparkle is the newest member of Celestia's Royal Guard. Fresh out of the Military Academy, she's ready to prove herself, but will her first assignment be too much for her to handle?

On her parents' flip of a coin, in this AU it was Shining Armor who entered Celestia's School and Twilight who joined the military. Nevertheless, Celestia still takes a close interest in Twi and so before long she's given a special mission to undertake – guarding Cadance, who has been sent on a convenient "diplomatic mission" to Saddle Arabia just before the Summer Sun Celebration. Yes, that SSC; this is a factor in the tale, though not quite how you might expect. Twilight-focused romantic adventuring inevitably brings to mind iisaw's excellent The Celestia Code series, but this is a different animal. It's a bit more cerebral and talky, more closely focused on the principal characters and lore, with less of the wild swashbuckling and world-spanning scope that iisaw's tales specialise in. The main OCs are well drawn, especially a Diamond Dog character, though him saying he finds it hard to speak Equish and then using complex idiomatic language a day or so later is niggly. The mythology and lore is nice, and the development of the TwiDance romance is pleasant and sweet without being anything especially eye-opening. The writing is fine as a rule, though occasional brief and unneeded head-hopping is a slight pain. Given there's a sequel and the author knew there would be at the time, the epilogue chapter is also too long. All in all, a solid and readable story with nice character work, a top-end three that would probably be worth a four for those who really like TwiDance. ★★★

There's a fair bit more of me waffling – spoilers ahoy! – past the break.

First, the TwiDance. As I said above, this is not really anything you won't have seen before if you're even moderately experienced in reading shipfics. Guard falls for guardee, who turns out to have known all along... yeah, not exactly original. It doesn't really need to be, though. It's cute enough if you're at least tolerant of the pairing, and it doesn't have the slightly discomfiting feel that TwiLestia does. (There is a tiny bit of TwiLuna shipteasing late on, but that feels more like Luna being mischievous than anything more serious.)

I like how Twilight is characterised in the story. She takes her duties very seriously and is a very good soldier too, partly due to her excellent command of combat magic and her ability to size up a situation quickly. When she gets those slight pangs when she hears about Shining Armor and the Elements of Harmony, I think it works – I'm glad King of Beggars didn't push that aspect too hard. I also feel Shining Armor is nicely portrayed, even though he's only a peripheral character for much of the fic. His feeling that he only lives up to his "Celestia's protégé" status through hard work rather than innate talent suits him.

Basenji, as the central OC in the story, was crucial to get right. We don't see many Diamond Dogs in central, sympathetic roles in ponyfic, but here's one that really works. When he was rescued in the desert I thought that might just be a side-quest, so to speak, but in the end his version of magic – the drumming "Ways" – is hugely important in the eventual survival of Twilight's party and the return of Great Anubis to the shadowy realm where he belongs. Even if the underground Necropolis did rather remind me of the Cat city in the first Red Dwarf novel!

Sky Chaser's death was the goriest part of the story, notwithstanding Twi's own injuries in the later fights. I'm glad KoB chose not to be too explicit with the details of the old salt's death scene or indeed the later spidery stuff, and sentimental though I might sound I'm pleased Sky Chaser was given one last meeting with Twilight via the dream world later on. Talking of which, I always suspected Luna was involved there – the dream stuff combined with the chronology of the story made that very likely – but as with much about TSotRG, that didn't harm it particularly. The scene at the end with her pretending to be the shrink and Twilight realising was great.

As I mentioned above the line, the final chapter is too long for what it is. Much too long, really. The author mentions in the final Author's Note that it was originally planned as a 4k-word epilogue, and frankly I think that would have worked somewhat better. At more than three times that length, it rather gives the impression that KoB didn't really want to leave these characters and was enjoying writing them too much to call a halt sooner. Understandable, but with a sequel already planned perhaps not the best decision.

One final thing: this is maybe the best depiction of Diamond Dog culture I've read in any ponyfic of this length, despite only two actual dogs being featured and one of those being a mere vessel for Anubis most of the time. That use of Anubis is still quite satisfying, as is the idea that a chakram would be a good weapon for a canine warrior. (Maybe an earth pony warrior, too, given how much they use their mouths!) There seems to be space left (deliberately?) for future exploration of the links that bind all magics, pony magic and dog Ways alike, so maybe the sequel has a look at that.

On the face of it, this isn't an especially remarkable story. Most of the elements are ones that have been used any number of times, the shipping is fairly predictable, the earlyish death of a secondary character who's become a friend is a common trope, the blurring of mythology and reality is an MLP speciality anyway, etc etc. What takes this tale from "okay, I guess" up to "really pretty good" is that these elements are put together to form a coherent whole, and described in language that is vivid and pacey without being overblown.

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Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: well, I don't know for sure yet, but it'll certainly be a return to the usual small collection of shorter fics.