Desserting On Dawn Review:

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Twenty-fifth Day of Winter, Caer Gallan.
Is Caer Gallan a place? A year? A month?

The dawn was obscured slightly by light cloud cover, but despite this, the dawn was bright and rosy
Double use of 'the dawn'

Noteworthy for being the dawn that the Diamond King noted as being rather auspicious, even in the midst of the most vicious winter known to antiquity.
Double use of 'note'.


Out of curiosity, have you ever taken the time to just sit and watch the dawn? Like, gotten up early, climbed the highest mountain available to you, and watched the horizon until the sun came up?

If you haven't, do so. I make it practise to do it at least once a year. It's always an absolutely beautiful experience that will stay with you for the year to come.

It was not an easy balcony to get onto, being so high up in the rafters of the solar shrine, but she'd managed to use her little curse to get up where no one could see her.
Her little what? Her wings? Why is curse singular?

After all, just because the temple guards were shivering out in the cold right now didn't mean they might not come in and patrol before the king arrived.
Fix, also oddly phrased but I'll pass it over.

The shrine was exceedingly dark, and so very cold before dawn.
Pretty sure you don't need the comma.

She pressed herself against the smoothed stone of the balcony to wait. She had to see it, at least once. And then she'd be able to tell all the fillies and all the colts back home what it was like, and she'd know, she'd really honestly know how it was done. Even if they caught her, or she was missed at breakfast, it would be worth it.
Really starting to lose track of what's going on here. From what I understand this is Celestia, breaking into some sort of temple, and she's a lowly maid who hides her wings. And yet, she has a formal breakfast proceeding and isn't particularly worried about the ramifications of being caught?

She waited. She nearly fell asleep, only her shivering and the howling of the wind outside keeping her awake.
Tenses!

When they finally began to file in, she held her breath, pressed her hooves against her mouth, and watched with wide eyes.
Rule: No commas immediately before 'and'. It's called a rolling comma or something, and it is BAD!

First Day of Order, Caer Tanlott.
A.D. 0
A.D standing for what, exactly? After Discord?

The dawn was the first normal dawn that Equestria had seen in some time, and the first to not use the ancient multi-choral sun-raising technique. Heavy chaos storms disrupted the dawn initially, but cleared up once the sun was fully visible. And if it wobbled slightly as it rose, nopony complained. Noteworthy for being the subject of Manengelo's famous painting, "Celestia Invictus".
I really think the flavour of these would change if you watched a few sunrises firsthand.

The colour breaks the horizon far before the sun itself does, spreading blue across the whole sky and igniting a bonfire of white amidst the distant mountains. The first inches of its flight are the most glorious, stabbing so sharp and so powerfully into eyes unprepared for their brilliance. Slowly, languorously, it breaches the tip of the mountains and recedes some of it's radiance within itself. Finally, by the time it has well and truly taken reign in the sky, surrounded by the clouds which are its courtiers and attendants, the sun reduces to a mere ball of fire and fades into the background.

If you're writing a story about famous sunrises you should really watch some sunrises and take detailed notes. Sunrises and sunsets are, in my opinion, all the proof I need for the existence of God.

And below them, those bold ponies with a talent for healing had begun to do their work, patching up injured ponies and doing what they could in the dark for those who'd been badly hurt or - worse - mutated.
^

"Ye did it." She started
AAAAAAAAAAAH ATTRIBUTION TAGS!

don't hit me again, i'll be good, i'll be good

You might want to look those suckers up because EqD will bounce your story for misusing them.

Also, 'ye'? Not 'Thou'?

"Let us raise the sun and let its light shineth upon our subjects, that they may rejoice, and know that order hath returned!" Our subjects? The thought hadn't occurred to her- would they want to be ruled by, well, freaks?
The whiplash between the olde timey English and the ultramodern pejorative 'freaks' actually hurt my neck. You really need to do something about that, like, as a thing.

we led them, sister, we defeated Discord itself and smote it upon the mountainside, we shall take his throne for ourselves and they will love us!"
Discord's a 'he', she even refers to him as a 'he' in the same sentence, and the LotR reference was cool the first time but not when repeated.

And that was how Celestia earned her cutie mark.
Ow. ow. The whiplash.

Um, possibly that could be a feature and not a bug here but there would need to be a framing voice/clarification of the narrator.

The trees of the forest far below rustled and shook in the night winds. After so many years, their goal of understanding the forest was finally in sight. Studying the chaos-wracked forest was dangerous, true, with so many monstrous creatures and malevolent plants within, but it might unlock secrets to helping the world run in patterns on its own again, without either constant pony maintenance or unbridled chaos. Luna herself knew best of all the magic of the forest, and she might actually be able to-
I feel like this should receive more attention. Did Discord break the world so badly that nothing works if not constantly maintained by ponies? That should be a thing.

The sun rose, as it always did, and Luna gasped in delight. "The day! Behold, the gold crossing ebony, the light brought for me... thou art, as ever, a most marvelous daybringer, Celestia! Thank you once again!"
I have a thought here, but it's complex and might work better as an essay down the road.

Every time she closed her eyes, she could see her little sister. Gleaming teeth, sharp hooves, a mane that no longer looked like the night sky but a sea of stars, armor that should have never been put back on, and hatred in her eyes. Actual hatred. Luna hadn't pulled a single punch, she hadn't shown any mercy, she'd threatened to keep her beautiful night over the land forever. She didn't want to listen, and she hadn't cared about her sister's pleas.
This, however, is a thought that I can articulate. You can not do this. You can not go through this detailed examination of the past of Equestria and not examine the motives or reasoning for Luna's fall. You can not go from 'everything is happy' to 'Celestia has won'. You can not imply that everything was perfectly happy right up until it was not. You can not absolve all parties of all guilt by not addressing the issue. You can not. I refuse. I won't allow it.

This will literally kill the fic for me. You are sidestepping the most complicated, involved, emotional and powerful character arc in the entire MLP setting. You can't do that. You just can't.


Sorry, I can't progress past this point in the review. The next chapter seems to be a thousand years in the future which means there's no prospect for a proper examination of the concept, so I'm just going to put it down.

This album; it's not my favourite musically, but narratively it's one of the best visions I've ever seen of the Celestia and Luna story. With Poise; With Anger forever changed my view of Celestia. Dawn is genuinely heartbreaking.