Author's Notes:

The Usual Disclaimer:

The following is a work of parody, and is protected as Fair Use under section 17 U.S. Code § 107 of US Copyright Law. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and all affiliated characters are property of Hasbro Inc.

I own nothing. All characters, settings and other belong to their respective owners. This is purely a fan-work with no intent towards profit, slander or harm towards the characters, settings or other, or their respective owners. If the respective owners feel that this fan-work in any way, shape or form threatens or besmirches their property, please let me know so that it be can be removed asap.

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So my plan to upload multiple chapters got derailed horribly. My deepest apologies. I blame Fallout 4, like the rest of the planet. (o≧д≦)o Dammit.

World building!

CHAPTER 36

“Hello, welcome to Sugar Cube … oh. Rainbow Dash!” Lyra waved frantically at the cyan Pegasi, who had to work her way through a throng of Ponies whom had come to the famous bakery for comfort-food and gossip, apparently in equal measure. “Can you do me a favour? I’ve got a delivery for Apple Acres, but there’s no way I can leave the counter when we’re this busy!”

“Oh yeah? That’s the cake for Applejack, right?” Rainbow half-asked, half-shouted as she finally managed to make it to the counter, ignoring the hot glares coming from the table where Carrot Top and several other sour-faced Ponies had seated themselves. “Rarity said something about that, a thank-you gift to Applejack for looking after the Cutiemark Crusaders tonight.”

“Oh man, really? Poor mare.” Lyra chuckled, awkwardly pulling the box containing the cake out from under the counter and flipping the lid open to inspect it. “Whooo, when Rarity pays you back, she pays you back. Lookit this thing!”

“Mmmm, maybe I can convince the Apples to let me stay for dinner …” Rainbow Dash agreed, hoping she wasn’t drooling as she looked at the delicious monstrosity of a cake before her. “Looks like the Cakes have outdone themselves again … uh … who’s paying for it?”

“Aaaah … according to the order, it’s added to Rarity’s tab.” Lyra said after a few moments of inspecting the cake-box. “Tell me what it tastes like, apparently there’s some real freaky ingredients in there, was giving Mr Cake all kinds of nightmares until Mrs Cake came in and took over.”

“Huh, really? Well, they’ve yet to deliver a dud, I can’t see either of the Cakes starting now.” Rainbow said after a few moments of thought, awkwardly picking up the box and half-flapping, half-walking to the door. “Tell the Cakes thanks in advance! This cake looks amazing!”

“Will do!” Lyra grinned and waved as the cyan Pegasus finally made it out into the street and took off into the air.

Unfortunately, Lyra would neglect to pass on the information until much, much later …

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“It has been far too long since I last did something like this!” Luna said giddily, wielding the hammer and nails with gleeful enthusiasm that would have made Pinkie Pie proud as the two Alicorns set about trying to put the bathroom window back into place, having used their magic to coax the pile of splintered wood from the still-unexplained incident with Trixie, Rainbow Dash and Applejack back together and into the hole in the wall, but were still left with a large hole that the old window-frame was far too small to fit.

Thus they were attempting to build a new window, a larger, rectangular window, having expanded the ‘hole’ to the required dimensions and having borrowed some building materials from the basement to make the new frame.

“Really? You mean you and Celestia used to do things like this?” Twilight asked, bemused by her lover’s attitude as the dark-blue alicorn eagerly set to putting the frame together.

“Yes really! We were far more proactive in our Ponies’ lives before they insisted on building us that horribly overwrought castle! And long before the Three Tribes came to Equestria, Celley and I lived together! Did you think we just laid down in the meadows to sleep, without a roof over our heads?” The Lunar Princess replied tartly, poking out her tongue at Twilight as the younger Mare spluttered an apology. “We lived in a small cottage we’d built with our own hooves, on a hill not too far from where … Neighyork is, actually. It was … pleasant, living with somebody who was so patient with me, teaching me how to come to terms with what …”

Twilight winced as she saw Luna’s bright, happy mood vanish behind a sombre mask as the other mare said “… with what I had become. How to wield the powers of the Moon that I had become linked to during my year-long Ascension, and how to make peace with my immortality, and the short lives of the other creatures whose world I shared.”

“I’m …sorry, Luna, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.” Twilight mumbled, awkwardly shuffling over to wrap a wing, never one of her most dexterous appendages, over Luna’s back and then hesitantly nuzzled the side of Luna’s neck when her first gesture of affection wasn’t shaken off. “It’s just I … I’m at a loss. History is something of an obsession of mine, yet I’ve never even heard of ‘Innate Magic’ applied to Earth Ponies or Pegasi before, and the Bloody Horn Rebellion sounds important, but for the life of me, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it!”

“I … cannot tell you everything, Twilight. My sister explained why she felt she had to erase or alter some parts of the nation’s history when I questioned several … inconsistencies during my convalescence in Canterlot, but even I am not aware of all her alterations to the records.” Luna sighed and leaned into Twilight’s embrace, reciprocating the wing-embrace. “And I am concerned that if I tell you what I know, you may come to falsely believe Celestia has done all of this for malicious purposes. While she is frustratingly … I don’t think Equestrian has the words to accurately describe how aggravating my sister’s manipulations can be when she hasn’t, or won’t, informed you on what their ultimate purpose is, but in all the millennia I have know her and called her my sister, I have never known Celestia to ever seek power for her own sake, or simply for the sake of power. Every action, every plan, every move has always been to end the fighting and bring peace and prosperity to as many lives as possible.”

“What I think I can tell you, without derailing whatever plan Celestia has in the works, is the story of the Bloody Horn Rebellion, and given how it is also the source of at least half of the problem with your new ‘house-guest’, I suspect Celestia will not mind my telling it to you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Somewhere towards the beginning of the second millennium of Celestia’s life, your people, the Three Tribes, came down over the Dragonspine Mountains that cut the northlands in two. It was … a terrible time. The Tribes fought each other viciously, wielding their Innate Magics with cruelty against each other and against any other people that was unfortunate enough to get caught in their path, and in their wake brought the magical plague known as the Windigos.

In their unending fury and spite, the Tribes ruined every fertile field they came across, razed the forests with their skirmishes and fouled every source of water with the dead from their constant running battles, and what little that could sustain life was soon locked in unnatural ice by the Windigos, forcing the Tribes, and the native species of the land, to migrate ever south.

I … will not go into depth about how Celestia and I helped the Tribes stop the fighting right now, that story alone would keep us talking for several hours at least and the charming little story you have about Clover the Clever, Smart Cookie and Private Pansy is just that, a story, but the path to peace was not easy, and it took several centuries before the final barriers of hatred and jealousy between the Tribes was finally broken.

That was the creation of the Succuponies, wasn’t it? You said their curse on our species forced the survivors to sire mostly female offspring.

Yes, but that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, if you’ll pardon such an old and racist saying. By the time the Coven had come into power and turned themselves and their followers into the demon-kind we call Succuponies, all but the most isolationist and hostile communities allowed inter-Tribe marriages and Herds, if not celebrated them as … as representations of my Sister and I.

Huh-whu?

While I am Thestral, or ‘Bat-Ponies’ if you prefer, I manifested my horn during my Ascension, but before that time I had been born with feathered wings, considered an ill-omen at the time by my people. But to the Tribes, both Celestia and I were considered Gods, and the fact that we embodied traits of all three ‘races’, they also considered our message of peace and tolerance a divine message too. And the Ponies irritatingly refused to acknowledge my poor Thestrals as equals to the point Celestia and I spent a great deal of time and effort stopping the bigots from rumor-mongering that Thestrals were brutal cannibals or blood-sucking demons!

Wait, you were born with feathered wings? What? Go back, I want to know about …

My history, and the ancient ways of the Thestrals, would take even longer to explain that the Bloody Horn Rebellion! Do not be greedy, Twilight, you will pry all my secrets out of me eventually! Although I shall require many sacrifices of cookies and belly-rubs first

… Just the belly? Not a little bit lowe~

BE-HAVE! Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the Bloody Horn Rebellion. Hmmm. Well, suffice to say, close to the end of her third millennium, which by the current calendar would have marked nearly seven hundreds years since Equestria was founded, Celestia found herself dealing with the unwanted worship of a nation. I was, I’m sorry to say, jealous of the adoration and slavish worship of my sister, given that as the ‘Goddess of the Moon’, I was considered the protector of dreams and the ‘bedroom arts’ at best, at worst a monster that Celestia kept chained and close to her to protect ‘her children’. A jealousy that helped create cracks in my mind that the Nightmare Spirit was able to use to invade and infect me centuries later.

The worship of Celestia had reached such a level that one of the largest and most influential cults on the continent, the Sisterhood of Celestia, were attempting to go to war with each other, because some claimed she had been born an Earth Pony, or a Pegasi, or a Unicorn, and thus belonged first to their Tribe and favoured them most of all. Despite the fact that Celestia spent a great deal of time trying to explain she was most certainly not descended from any of the Three Tribes and was most certainly not a ‘God’ in any way, shape or form, the various factions of the Sisterhood of Celestia were on the verge of undoing hundreds of years of peace and progress with their rabble-rousing and politicking. I can still recall the disaster where three armies of Ponies, under the command of the most militant groups within the Sisterhood met in the meadows of the mountains of Canterlot to finally have it out when Celestia and I showed up to put a stop to their folly once and for all...

Remember, Twilight, back in those days that Alicorns were considered living divinities to the point where either my sister or I simply flying over a Pony was considered a blessing or an omen that they were destined for greatness if our shadow touched them. So when we showed up in a thunderous display of magic meant to cow the idiots before they started fighting, it instead had the opposite effect. The Priestesses went mad in ecstasy at being ‘visited’ by the Goddess and her … ‘Sister’, and screamed at their followers to hop to it, the chosen race would annihilate the ‘heretics’ in full view of their ‘Goddess’.

Auuuungh …

Hmm, you really are my sister’s favourite student, for that is the exact same noise she makes in private when exposed to the mindless stupidity of the Ponies she rules over. Needless to say, it took my sister and I several seconds to realize our plan to stun the Ponies using a grandiose display to take advantage of their … foolishness … had backfired in the worst possible way, and Celestia panicked as she saw thousands of Ponies charging each other with the intent to kill one another.

My poor sister. All those centuries herding Ponies towards civilized behaviour and trying to erase the brutish cultural norms that their long exile and constant blood-feuds had etched into their social structures, and then they end up using her as the reason, the excuse, to go back to those old ways … well, let’s just say that while Celestia tends to be one of the most placid and pacifistic of the Immortals, if my sister loses her composure she has the potential to be one of the most effective, and hilarious, forces of destruction the world has ever know once her control slips. She landed smack-dab in the middle of the charging armies with such force she caused the very earth to ripple outwards, which knocked the Earth Ponies and Unicorns off their hooves, and the pressure-wave from her rapid descent and impact sent the Pegasi tumbling down to the ground.

With thousands of Ponies lying prostrate before her, the self-proclaimed ‘Priestesses’ staring at her in rapture and the power of the Sun radiating from her like a golden aura that bathed the land and sky in molten gold, my sister looked upon her Ponies and said …

…What? WHAT? You can’t keep me waiting!

It’s just … it’s a little …

TELL MEEEEEEEEEEE!

“WHAT THE BUCKING BUCK DO YOU ALL THINK YOU’RE BUCKING DOING?”

… Celestia swore? That’s … impossible. Blasphemous even, if you’ll pardon the irony, Luna. The one time I swore she marched me down to the Royal Baths and scrubbed my mouth out with soap, in full view of several maid-Ponies, and gave me the longest lecture of my life about Mares and having a civilized tongue in my head.

Truly? Dare I ask what you said?

I’d … rather not say. Just thinking about the words still makes me remember the taste of soap …

Humph, spoilsport. Still, in all the millennia I have known my sister, I have seen her lose her temper in such a manner only a small number of times, and you must remember Twilight, that while I may have the occasional lapse into accidentally using the Royal Canterlot Voice, Celestia is the one who taught me, and as you know, her power is … extremely potent, especially considering she is the physical aspect of the Sun. Without the proper foci and the right emotional control, it is very difficult for Celestia to wield all of her power without causing immeasurable harm to the planet.

So when stressed beyond belief and outraged at the arrogance and insufferable ego of the Sisterhood attempting to use her name as the instrument to goad her Ponies back into their blood-feuds, Celestia may have used more power than she intended. The very force of her words picked up the closest Ponies to her and threw them back through the air by several yards, at least, if I recall correctly, and rolled those further back along the ground like the Neighponese roll their sushi. Needless to say, the bulk of the Three Armies were ‘stunned’ in every sense of the word and were thus very, ah, receptive to Celestia’s less-than-diplomatic rant about how idiotic they were and how pointless their dispute was, because she valued every Pony, regardless of Tribe, equally and without concern for bloodline or pedigree.

Unfortunately, the more … devoted … members of the Three Armies, and the Sisterhood Priestesses themselves, were utterly devastated at being humiliated so and insisted they had to leave Equestria to ‘atone’ for what they had done even after Celestia forced them to take tea with herself and had me witness their reluctant agreement to a pact of non-aggression. And they sought to take only Ponies of their Tribes with them, and though my sister and I tried desperately to stop them spreading their poison further, we could not curb their efforts entirely. A sizeable chunk of Equestria’s population who could not believe that Celestia would not favour their Tribe above all others followed these errant Priestesses, and helped found independent nations comprised entirely of their own Tribe.

Thus, the Earth Pony ‘Sisterhood’ went to the north and the east, eventually creating their own nation of Stalliongrad. The Pegasi ‘Sisterhood’ flew over the ocean to the south, bumped into the natives of Down-Unda and fled to the a nearby chain of islands after being forced to attend the endless feasts called ‘Barh-bhees’ the locals constantly hold, and haven’t come down from their volcanic homes since. And the Unicorn faction of the ‘Sisterhood’ went to the far, far eash, eventually forming several unique nations of their own that have risen and fallen, merged and been shattered by civil war, and one of the oldest and most storied of those nations is …

Neighpone? Are you telling me that country was founded by religious exiles? How does this help with Trixie’s, uh, condition?

I think you might be shocked to know most countries that exist now are founded by exiles from oher nations that have long been lost to the dust of history, dear Twilight. Their version of the story is that the Sun-Goddess, perhaps the most venerated Deity in their pantheon, tasked them with finding perfection and what they call ‘The True Path’. Honestly, I would not hesitate to say they are one of the most advanced and beautiful cultures I have ever encountered, if only their … dislike of the other Tribes were not so advanced. Ponies who are not born Unicorn in Neighpone were not very well treated, to the point Celestia actively had to lean on them to stop some of their Empresses forcing their people to abort and smothering non-Unicorn children and instead foster them out to other lands.

That’s ….

Horrific? Believe me, dear Twilight, I have seen atrocitries and acts of cruelty that have sickened me to my core perpetuated by all three Tribes, and many nations and races, over my long, long life, so I can assure you the Neighponese are not alone in having a dark and bloody history, nor are they amongst the worst. It is why that despite all her subterfuge and irritatingly high-hoofed ideology, I still stand with my Sister’s methods, because without her and her machinations to try and help all living things embrace the tenets of Harmony, I can honestly say we’d still be in an era where might made right and mob-rule was the law.

So, the Bloody Horn Rebellion was about the Three Tribes going to war over who they thought Celestia loved more? That’s … insane! Completely illogical!

You say that because you were born in an era of peace, plenty and great knowledge, Twilight, and such thinking is foreign to you. In those days, while many races had a strong grasp of magic and used it to great effect to expand their territories and crush their enemies, magical advances outside of warfare were few and far between and considered unnecessary by the leaders of that era. And in truth, the Rebellion started long before then when Sisterhood Priestesses of the Earth and Pegasi factions started cutting the horns off their Unicorn rivals as punishment for their ‘blasphemies’. The retaliations were just as bloody and gruesome, but those first acts were what cemented the name, at least to Celestia and myself.

So how does that help us understand Trixie and her little friend? Or her partial transformation?

Part of the problem we will likely face, Twilight, is that the Ponies of Neighpone, Stalliongrad and the Maredrid Isles are isolated and tend to either kill or ostracize Ponies outside of the dominant Tribe despite all of Celestia’s efforts, which while horrific, has also ‘purified’ their bloodlines for the most part, meaning they are closer to the ‘old’ bloodlines of the original Three Tribes. It could be that the mingling of the Tribes and the dilution of their unique traits into the harmonious whole we have today also weakened any resistance to the demonic taint that now affects Trixie.

In short, I fear that to truly understand her resistance to the transformation process, we may need to seek out a purebred, or nearly so, Neighponese Pony to reach a proper comparison. And as wonderfully accepting and open as Ponyville is, I have noticed a distinct lack of Neighponese Ponies here.

And you were saying that the current Empress has … designs on me?

You are the student of their most venerated 'God', Celestia herself, and you display their most valued traits, a vast source of personal magic and a connection to one of the ancient Noble Bloodlines that survived the trek over the Dragonspine Mountains. You are her personal student no less, and the only one who has also Ascended to Immortality. Believe me when I say that the letters requesting you visit their nation went from politely eager to almost forceful upon your recovering the Elements of Harmony, and Celestia turned pink upon reading the first letter from the Neighponese Empress upon your Ascension, Twilight, and refused to allow anypony, even myself, to read it afterwards. To have you owe her a favour would be dangerous, dear Twilight, especially if the Empress insists on repayment and threatens diplomatic consequences if you fail to repay it. And given your status as the paragon of Harmony and Friendship? It would be a disaster.

And yet, if we cannot find a Neighponese Pony in Equestria who might be discreet enough for our purposes and share the same … attribute … as Trixied to use as a comparison for your tests, we may need to seek out the Neighponese Embassy for aid, and that will likely have far-reaching implications, especially given the current Empress’s obsessive focus on your status, and now your Immortality. Any expression of interest in the particulars of this mess, even if we state clearly that it is to help a Pony in dire straights, could be turned into a diplomatic mess if the Empress desires a … closer … relationship with the newest Princess.

… Why is everypony after my plot? Before I got these wings and became a Princess, nobody ever said boo about wanting to date me or … or any of the other stuff!

I think that it is more that you were blissfully oblivious, judging from what your friends have told me. For which I am profoundly grateful, if I may be so bold.

Oh, now who has to behave?

You, because I think Spike has been listening on the other side of the door for the past few minutes.

Whu-what?

Ah … hey? Do I need to fetch you two a coathanger?

SPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKE!