Took a break from [i]Fight Club[/i] to read this.  It's a pro-fic that's really about getting inside the narrating character's head.  (1st person present-ish.  It switches over to past and second person as well.)

It's also almost entirely told through action and fragmented thought, not characters sitting around and monologuing.  Stuff like

==
Me, with my punched-out eyes and dried blood in big black crusty stains on my pants, I'm saying HELLO to everybody at work.  Hello!  Look at me.  HELLO!  I am so ZEN.  This is BLOOD.  This is NOTHING.  Hello.  Everything is nothing, and it's so cool to be ENLIGHTENED.  Like me.

Sigh.

Look.  Outside the window.  A bird.

My boss asked if the blood was my blood.

The bird flies downwind.  I'm writing a little haiku in my head.

Without just one nest
A bird can call the world home
Life is your career

I'm counting on my fingers: five, seven, five.

The blood, is it mine?

Yeah, I say.  Some of it.

This is a wrong answer.
==

My point is that even this extremely experimental narration near its most experimental in an extremely experimental, symbolic story has to play by the rules: Feed the imagination.  Show characters' struggles.  Waste the readers' time well.

This excerpt holds the readers with the striking image of the main character, which has been stripped down to its most important detail: the dried blood.  His struggle is for "peace" or "enlightenment," but he pursues it with tragically ironic violence.  Weighing each word, Palahniuk crafts the narration with the economy of haiku.

-

The fundamental flaw in the first chapter is it presents Celestia's in a huge angst-dump.  It's thought with nothing to imagine, conclusion with nothing to discover, and verbiage with far more length than it warrants.  And yet, not all is lost.  You have many good concepts for a story

>But I used to be like that too, where simple actions and uncontrolled emotions could manifest in the world around me.  I've hurt ponies before, completely on accident.  And no one called me out on it.  No one criticized me.  I received no punishment.  Simply because of who I am.

I'd read that, if you'd imagine and show it, if you'd only make it real to me.  And you have the beginnings of that skill as well.

>"It's that time again, isn't it..." Celestia thought to herself, sighing and hanging her head as she stepped down off her golden throne, and made her way down the red carpet that ran through the middle of the room, her mane flowing out behind her as usual, the gorgeous colors of it matched by the brilliant light streaming in through the stained glass windows, filtered into all sorts of stunning hues which shone on the polished marble floor.

//
edit

[i]It's that time again, isn't it?[/i]  Celestia descended from her golden throne, sighing and hanging her head, and made her way along the red carpet that divided the room.  Her mane flowed behind her, its colors matching the brilliant light that streamed through the stained glass, acquired its hues, and shone from the polished marble floor.

direct thought: changed to italics (the standard style around here) and eliminated unneeded tag.

descended: precise word

descended / sighing order: The progressive form suggests simultaneous action, so I kept it, but raised "as she stepped" to the main verb.  Another possibility was
Celestia sighed and hung her head as she descended from her golden throne, making
but I don't think that's as strong.

divided: precise word

Her mane flowed: examining something new?  Sentence long enough?  Long way between modifier "her mane flowing" and principal "Celestia"?  Any one is good reason for a fresh sentence.

as usual: doesn't add anything

its colors: "gorgeous" requires an observer and distracts from the description. Save such modifiers for when the narrator is adopting a character's viewpoint.
its: "its colors ... their hues" contrasts better than "the colors ... the hues" whole

that streamed: "matching ... streaming" would sound like they both describe "her mane's colors"  I can go into detail about exactly what's confusing about the sentence starting from "the gorgeous colors ..." if you like.  (I might anyway; it's a good lesson)

streamed, acquired, shone: using parallel form (all active past verbs) highlights that all three describe "light."  Unfortunately, I'm not sure how logical the sequence is.

shone from: implies reflection and lets the reader imagine where they end up (I see the colors projected upon Celly's coat)

//

Reading this, I saw a metaphor of light as water, so here's a more aggressive revision, how I'd like treat my own fic.

[i]It's that time again, isn't it?[/i]  Celestia descended from her golden throne, sighing and hanging her head, and set out along the red carpet that divided the room.  Her mane rippled in her wake, its pastels a pale complement to the vivid hues that streamed from the stained glass and pooled upon the polished marble floor.

//

I did that with tricks I just recently picked up from Cook's [i]Line by Line[/i], trick's I am just beginning to practice.  They can be learned, and I'm planning on starting a discussion thread soon-ish, once I have a better grasp myself.


Anyway, that was a lot more review than I planned to write.  I'd suggest the biggest goals for further improvement would be

a) Break up your descriptive paragraphs and sentences.  Both are too long.
b) Focus on making your syntax clearer.  I don't know where the free resources are yet, but the big techniques are parallel construction and placing modifiers.
c) Focus in on intimate, concrete moments.  This story is very big as it is and needs to tell the reader things more than show to get its message across.  Smaller moments are better for practice

// Okay, one more example.

So I need to show that Dash has this concept:

Flutters was... special.  She didn't take anypony's side if she could help it - Dash could swear she'd take everypony's side if she could manage it.  The only pony she wouldn't fight for... was Fluttershy.  So, Dash did.

Yeah, can't just drop that into narration.  So, I invent a vignette:

Scene: Pegasus foal variation of King of the Hill.  "Boss of the Thunderhead."  Start on a flat cloud, push each other off, last one wins.  Flutters convinces Dash  to ally with a wussy OC colt and gang up on the strongest first.  Strategy works, and they're the only three left.  Flutters suddenly betrays Dash, then lets herself lose to wussycolt.  Explains to Dash later that wussy was getting teased earlier and needed a victory.  And Dash "would probably forgive me for losing, if it was to do the right thing.  You're grumpy, but nice."

There.  Pony Hunger Games.  Now I just need to write it.

Keep your muse on the look out for how to illustrate big ideas with little stories like that.

And now it's late and I am well and truly done.