Hey! It looks like you're new here. You might want to check out the introduction.
Show rules for this event
Her Sister's Keeper
Limestone's diary,
5/27/87
We held the funeral today. A few ponies from town showed up—apparently Pinkie had spent the last month making friends with the baker, Hot Cross, and his family—but only Ma, Pa, Marble and I stayed until the end. Maud left halfway through without telling anyone. Figures.
I just can't believe Pinkie's gone. I can still remember the squeak she made when the rock hit her; it sounded like the beginning of a laugh, cut short. And to think: just a month after she saw that wonderful rainbow! So sad. My tears are staining the page. Truly, we will keep her memory in our hearts forever.
Luckily, things seem like they'll be getting back to normal soon. After all, harvest starts tomorrow, and no amount of tears will
Limestone felt a pair of hooves on her torso. A second later, she went flying across the room and crashed into a bookshelf. She tried to stand, but her assailant pinned her against the wall before she could even take a breath.
Hooves wrapped around Limestone's throat, Maud said, "What did you do?"
A jolt of fear shot up Limestone's spine, but she squashed it. "I didn't do anything. Get away from—"
Maud's grip tightened. "You told everypony that it was a freak accident. That a rock fell and cracked her skull when the two of you were out moving rocks in South Field." Leaning into Limestone, Maud whispered, "Where does a rock fall from in the middle of an open field?"
"There's loads of hills in South Field."
"Hills of dirt. None with rocks big enough to kill a filly."
Limestone scoffed. "Little fillies are fragile. Maybe Pinkie should have seen it coming with that freaky super-sense of hers."
Maud blinked. "Do you think this is funny?"
"No," said Limestone with a scowl. "Unlike you, I didn't think having a mentally ill sister was something to smile about."
"Mentally ill," Maud repeated.
"You know what I'm talking about. Pinkie wasn't normal. She was broken," Limestone said. "She's been broken since she was born, and that rainbow-thing finally made her contagious. She was gonna ruin the farm! Her and her stupid parties—"
"So you killed her?" Maud asked, louder than Limestone had ever heard her.
"I didn't do anything!"
Maud pressed down on Limestone's throat, harder and harder until Limestone could only sputter for breath. Limestone flailed at her sister, slamming her hooves hard against Maud's barrel, but Maud didn't let up. It took a glob of spit straight into Maud's eyes for Limestone to escape.
With a shout, Limestone leaped forward and tackled Maud to the ground. The two rolled across the floor until they hit Limestone's desk. Limestone pinned Maud to the floor and punched her in the snout.
Maud panted. "You—you—"
"I saved the farm!" Limestone seethed. "All Pinkie did was planning parties, right up until the end. Not helping, just planning, planning, distracting everypony! It's been nothing but confetti and balloons, ever since that rainbow flew by. We weren't gonna finish the harvest! No harvest means no money, and no money means we starve! You get that, Sis?"
"I'm going to tell," Maud said. "You're not getting away with this."
"Ma is barely hanging on as is," Limestone said. "We'll all get over Pinkie. But if you tell them what really happened... you wanna tear us apart for good?"
Maud swallowed. "No."
"So keep quiet." Limestone stood up, letting Maud tend to her bleeding nose. "Just go hug Ma and cry into her dress, or whatever it is you do." Sighing, Limestone picked up her diary, which had fallen to the floor during their fight. "And get over it. We're gonna need all the hooves we can get for the harvest tomorrow."
Maud took a deep breath. "You just wasted four."
Limestone paused, then muttered, "Like she would have helped anyway."
Silence filled the room. Without another word, Maud picked herself up and left the room, hanging her head.
Limestone realized she was shaking. Swiping her dry tongue around her dry mouth, Limestone sat down and flipped her diary back open.
I'm sorry about what happened. I am. But at least now Pinkie can be happy in Heaven. She can party all day long, while everypony else makes themselves useful. That's all I want.
Limestone shut her diary. As she locked it away, she gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the ringing in her head; a squeak, like the beginning of a laugh, cut short.
The impact of Pinkie’s untimely death is rather lessened by the “So sad.” It feels excessively maudlin, especially given the comment about tears on the page. All the more so when coming from Limestone. I know, she’s young and vulnerable, but it still disrupts the mood for me.
Or it could’ve been entirely intentional, deliberately overplaying it for plausible deniability. Given that, nice work. Disturbing subject matter, and the prompt connection is tangential at best, but nice work.
Or it could’ve been entirely intentional, deliberately overplaying it for plausible deniability. Given that, nice work. Disturbing subject matter, and the prompt connection is tangential at best, but nice work.
Well, this was darker than expected. Limestone has been taken to a horrible extreme, and I guess that's the primary conceit here. There's more backstory than actual story here… Maud is just confirming what she already suspected and Limestone has no change, so I question the presence of much arc. While that arc isn't exactly the point, I feel that this presentation brings down the effect somewhat. Rather want to see how Marble fits into this, but I can well understand why she would be cut here.
Heavy-handed in places, but still good… and that 'you just wasted four' line and immediate response is perfect.
Heavy-handed in places, but still good… and that 'you just wasted four' line and immediate response is perfect.
I'd have liked this story better if Maud hadn't figured it out, and the reader was allowed to figure it out only at the end of the story. As is, I was too involved with wondering why Maud reacted as she did to focus on the main point. Also, as is, Limestone had to get very defensive, which makes it too hard for you to write it as being at all sympathetic to Limestone. I think it would've been stronger if we could see Limestone as actually believing what she said, and being torn up about it. As is, it isn't believable, either that Limestone really would've killed her, or that Maud would let her get away with it.
I don't think Maud skipping half the funeral was in character, even if you were using it as foreshadowing.
It's difficult for me to imagine somepony Limestone's age committing murder. It's true she has a sense of responsibility toward the farm, but as a pre-mark filly?
In the end this feels like sadbad for the sake of sadbad, and while it is compelling and realistic, it isn't my cup of tea. I'm left without much of a message other than "everything is terrible", a-la True Detective Season 2. Literature needs to make me think, not just make me feel bad and helpless.
If you worked something into it like Bad Horse suggested >>Bad Horse it would make this worth reading. Although on my part it isn't the believability that bothers me, but "what are you actually trying to say".
It's difficult for me to imagine somepony Limestone's age committing murder. It's true she has a sense of responsibility toward the farm, but as a pre-mark filly?
In the end this feels like sadbad for the sake of sadbad, and while it is compelling and realistic, it isn't my cup of tea. I'm left without much of a message other than "everything is terrible", a-la True Detective Season 2. Literature needs to make me think, not just make me feel bad and helpless.
If you worked something into it like Bad Horse suggested >>Bad Horse it would make this worth reading. Although on my part it isn't the believability that bothers me, but "what are you actually trying to say".
I'm partly with Trick here. One of Pinkie's sisters committing murder just because Pinkie ceased to work at the farm seems improbable, bordering to completely impossible. Besides, if a young Maud is smart enough to reason out the real death of Pinkie, I don't see how her parents did not the same.
Would Limestome also confess all the story in a diary her parents are likely to find sooner or later?
I like dark stories, so I cannot pan this one completely. But the premises it is built on are too flimsy for me to enjoy it completely.
Would Limestome also confess all the story in a diary her parents are likely to find sooner or later?
I like dark stories, so I cannot pan this one completely. But the premises it is built on are too flimsy for me to enjoy it completely.
To be honest, it's very hard to go straight for the gut like this in a minific. Others have already covered why the premise of the story feels odd, so I'll focus on the execution.
You're using a fight scene to add emotional weight to the dialogue that the sisters are having, which is a perfectly good method of adding intensity to a conflict. However, the key behind making a scene like this work is putting emotional weight behind the fight. Unfortunately, the action reads pretty dryly—it comes across a bit like a list of things that's happening. Try varying sentence length and structure a bit to make the action feel like it's flowing rather than broken up into individual motions.
Another worth noting is that the whole motivation behind Limestone's actions is that she wants to protect the farm, but we never really get any sense of how important the farm is to her. It's obviously implied that it means a great deal to her, but not being able to explore her attachment to the farm (that clearly outweighs her attachment to her family) makes it hard to emphasize with her.
I'd hate to stifle ambition, but minifics do tend to work a little better with conflicts on a smaller emotional scale. That isn't to say that all minifics need to be substanceless fluff, but the fact that you have so little time to get your reader invested really limits the scope of your emotional payoff. And, of course, character death already comes with its own host of hurdles to overcome.
In the end, this might be a case of biting off a bit more than you can chew in the restraints of a competition like this.
You're using a fight scene to add emotional weight to the dialogue that the sisters are having, which is a perfectly good method of adding intensity to a conflict. However, the key behind making a scene like this work is putting emotional weight behind the fight. Unfortunately, the action reads pretty dryly—it comes across a bit like a list of things that's happening. Try varying sentence length and structure a bit to make the action feel like it's flowing rather than broken up into individual motions.
Another worth noting is that the whole motivation behind Limestone's actions is that she wants to protect the farm, but we never really get any sense of how important the farm is to her. It's obviously implied that it means a great deal to her, but not being able to explore her attachment to the farm (that clearly outweighs her attachment to her family) makes it hard to emphasize with her.
I'd hate to stifle ambition, but minifics do tend to work a little better with conflicts on a smaller emotional scale. That isn't to say that all minifics need to be substanceless fluff, but the fact that you have so little time to get your reader invested really limits the scope of your emotional payoff. And, of course, character death already comes with its own host of hurdles to overcome.
In the end, this might be a case of biting off a bit more than you can chew in the restraints of a competition like this.
I think this story could actually work if, and I've said something similar to this in other opinions, if it didn't have to be 750 words max. This is the kind of story that, regardless of how you start it, needs a bit more time to build up. Whether the focus is on Maud figuring out who did it or the killer who is driven to do it, there needed to be a longer focused build up to the act.
Even so, I think it would be neat if a longer version of this was written.
Even so, I think it would be neat if a longer version of this was written.
Hmm. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of 'alternate timeline' stories, or really 'dark' stories to begin with-- I'm of the terribly boring opinion that a work should be able to fit into the main 'canon.' (Maybe with a little bit of willing suspension of disbelief, but still).
... I do kind of like the idea of Maud going on a grim revenge rampage, however. Hm.
... I do kind of like the idea of Maud going on a grim revenge rampage, however. Hm.
Got a fair bit of mood whiplash from this one. I dunno if this idea is actually too large for a minific or not, but the way it's presented here.... it really doesn't seem to fit. I'd like to prescribe more words, but there may indeed be a way to do this more elegantly in the same amount of space? I just don't see it myself.
Oh, and for a bit I was wondering if this was a sequel to that one pinkie-is-a-changeling fic that TQ wrote. That would have been interesting.
I did like the stinger at the end, but I really felt disconnected from the rest of this, although the mechanics here are very solid.
Oh, and for a bit I was wondering if this was a sequel to that one pinkie-is-a-changeling fic that TQ wrote. That would have been interesting.
I did like the stinger at the end, but I really felt disconnected from the rest of this, although the mechanics here are very solid.