The way that today’s story examines the challenges of a long-distance relationship is something to write home about.

Distance To Be Covered
[Romance] • 9,017 words

Dash had been accepted into the Wonderbolts and was going to be living in Cloudsdale. Twilight was going to be spending much of her time in Canterlot as a new princess of Equestria. Both of their lives would be changing forever, and in very different ways, but Dash wasn’t worried. Their relationship could handle the distance, and though they were both moving away from Ponyville, the town and all their friends were still going to be there, the same as they always had been.

She knew everything was going to be all right. They were going to be able to deal with it.  She knew it was going to be fine — she was just having a hard time getting herself to feel like it was going to be.

FROM THE CURATORS: One of the many reasons this feature delighted us was how endlessly quotable its prose was.  Early lines like this one impressed Chris: “She knew just the pegasus to get that packing done — the fastest pegasus that had probably even ever existed — and that pegasus was named Future Dash. Present Dash was already flying out the door.”  “There’s some nice characterization humor here,” Chris said, “and that really buoys the whole fic.”  Closer to the end was the line that sealed Horizon’s approval: “”I’m scared, okay?’ Rainbow said, and the two of them were silent as they lay in the vast, empty sky, the aurora glimmering above them.'”  “It’s a little thing,” Horizon said, “but reinforcing the theme of the conversation with the tone of the setting is exactly the sort of attention to detail and craft that we should be rewarding.”

Little touches like those rewarded us throughout our reading, but the big things — such as the portrayal of the central TwiDash relationship — were equally powerful.  “It sold the relationship well in medias res,” Present Perfect said, and Horizon agreed: “There’s a lot of solid work here to non-intrusively set up the relationship and the characterization, as well as scenes directly showing us why the couple works together.”  For his part, Chris was impressed by “how little of the romance was gratuitous, by which I mean ‘irrelevant to the plot’ … and that is exactly what I want to see from a shipping story.”

Add all those qualities to a story that’s “wonderfully paced and closes strong,” as Horizon said, and it’s easy to see why this one was a winner.  Present Perfect expanded on that: “The ending is intense and romantic, taking Rainbow’s character heavily into account to make an emotional statement while also giving us a look at TwiDash that’s just a little outside the norm.”

Read on for our author interview, in which AcreuBall discusses uncanny Balls, Wolverine neighbors, and personal headcanon cement.
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