The shining princess of the sun, the one and only Celestia. In Canterlot she sits, bathing Equestria in light, both literal and metaphorical. Her kindness is infinite, and she always seems to have a serene smile upon her face that could put even a raging manticore into a happy stupor.
But the guards of Canterlot Castle know different. They've seen that smile, a finely crafted mask honed by centuries of rule, crack and show the sorrow and guilt hidden deep within. Years of observation and accumulated knowledge have led them to one vexing conclusion: this only happens when it rains. But why?
The wind knows the truth; the wind remembers.
Humanized characters
Chapters (1)
Overall, this was a very well-written story. Your prose, your pacing, and your tone were all very good. The skyborn/magicborn thing was a bit weird and threw me off a bit, but that's a minor issue. My only complaint would be about the fact that this ends on a cliffhanger and doesn't really give a satisfying conclusion to the drama. You present this big mystery that could have been drastically expanded upon, but then you just end the story without any attempt at explanation. It ends up feeling a bit too mystery box-ish, which is never a good road to go down. Granted, the 99% of the story prior to that was good, but it sort of retroactively deflates it all with the way you ended it.
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Ha, I actually agree. To be completely transparent, this was a story fragment that had been sitting in my computer for a year or two that I pulled out and decided to expand upon. A lot of the weirdness was me trying to interpret whatever the me of the past was trying to do in this piece.
I will say that the ending is definitely rushed. I think that this was originally supposed to be a longer, multi-chapter piece, but I couldn't remember where I was going with it and decided to create a substitute ending that is, admittedly, the written equivalent of going to a firework's show that just ends up being one dude setting of a single roman candle.