Once upon a time there was a land known by its inhabitants as Equestria, home to ponykind.  Not a large, thriving country, but a small island.  In it, there is but one town, Ponyville, which is home to most ponies in Equestria. It is a small community where things like technology and money are not needed, only the friendships of one’s neighbors. Everypony in this town has a purpose and a desire to help one another.

Equestria is an island of peace and tranquility.  An island of harmony.  But, when there is a place that is so pure and naive, does there still exist darkness?  What if, among the peaceful land of Equestria, there was one that planted the seeds of turmoil.  What would happen?

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Welcome to the world of Strange, Funny, and Heartrending.  This is Equestria Island.  Past the town of Ponyville, through the Everfree Forest, and beyond Ghastly Gorge.  Inside the house of Bright Dawn lay the beginnings of this adventure. Our young, eager heroine is ready for any evil she must face.

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“Come on Twilight!  Twilight!!”  shouted a young, blue unicorn.  “Get up, you’ve been sleeping forever!”

The purple filly just made sleepy groans in response to this intrusion.

“The manticores brought their baby with them today!  Come on, let’s go play with them!”

“Triixieee!”  she finally responded to the nagging, “Go awaaayy…  I want… to sleeeep…mrrmm…”

“Fine.”  Trixie said grudgingly, “But I guess this means that SOMEPONY wants to donate their breakfast to the manticores!”

Trixie, giving up trying to get her sister out of bed, headed downstairs to find their mother and grandfather for some extra motivation.

“Mommy, Twi won’t get up and I want to go play with the manticores!”

Twilight Velvet, the two filly’s mother, just rolled her eyes.  “Oh, is she not up yet?  I swear, sometimes it seems like that girl just wants to stay in bed for the rest of her life.”  Velvet turned to the stairs and yelled at her daughter, “Breakfast is almost ready, dear, and your sister wants to play outside with you!”

Bright Dawn, Velvet’s father, chuckled to himself.  “She reminds me a lot of you when you were a little filly, although nopony could guess it from how you are now.  Sparkle!  All the food will run away if you don’t come down here!”

Meanwhile, Twilight Sparkle was shifting around in her bed, mumbling to herself in her sleep, “…Spike… stop eating… my books … for breakfast...…Breakfast!”  With the sudden realization of the fabulous meal she was missing out on, Twilight Sparkle sprung out of bed and rushed down the stairs.  “Good morning, everypony! Sorry for sleeping so la-“

“TWILIGHT!”  Trixie interrupted, “C’mon, right now, we’re going to go play with the manticores!  The baby’s probably an old granny by now, ya darn slowpoke!  Last one there’s a rotten-“

“Wait a second!”  Velvet now interrupting Trixie, “Sparkle, I won’t let you go outside with you in such a mess!  Go wash up and brush your mane.”

“But mommy, I don’t want to miss the baby manticore!” Twilight Sparkle was trying her best to make the cutest face she could to help convince her mother to let her go.

“Well, I’m sorry, but you’re not leaving this house until you freshen up.”

“But-!”

“No buts!  You are going to stay in this house for the rest of your life until you go clean yourself!  When you grow up, do you want to be the only pony in town without a family, without friends, without a future, and dried droll on your muzzle?”

“…no…”

“Good.  Now head back upstairs, ok?”

Twilight Sparkle, defeated in her efforts to remain uncleanly by her mother yet again, headed back up the steps.

Trixie was becoming rather impatient at this point and wanted the attention of her mother yet again.  “Well, the Great and Powerful Trixie shall go outside on her own!  Into the dangerous wilds of the unknown!”

Velvet just smiled at her and shoed Trixie away with her hoof.  Trixie then leaped out the door, saying something about her traveling to defeat a mythical beast terrorizing a village.

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Twilight Sparkle, know combing her mane, was thinking of what has happened in the past several days.  She, Trixie, and their mother left their home in Ponyville to visit her grandfather, Bright Dawn, who lived on the other side of Ghastly Gorge. Her grandfather was a nice old unicorn with a pinkish white coat (not unlike Twilight’s mothers), gray mane, and a cutie mark of a sun, barely peeking out from behind a hill.

Night Light, Twilight’s father, had decided to stay behind with their pet dragon, Spike, to look after the house.  She had been having a fantastic visit, but today was the last day before they had to head back to Ponyville, which was good because she was beginning to feel homesick.

Once Twilight Sparkle was done cleaning herself, she quickly went back downstairs and out the door to go play with her sister and the manticores.  She found them not far from the house where Trixie was using her magical unicorn powers to knock out one of the manticores.

“Ha ha!  Take that you vile creature! Oh, there you are Twi.” Trixie said, now noticing her sister’s presence.

“Trixie!  What have you done?!” the purple filly shrieked as she ran to the manticore’s aid, “Don’t you know that the manticores are peaceful creatures?!  Why, I don’t think that they could even hurt a mole cricket!”

Trixie just rolled over, laughing at her sister’s overreaction.  “Oh, Twi!” the azure pony giggled, “You know that she’s fine don’t you?”

“What are you- EEK!”  The manticore, who was completely unharmed, suddenly rose to its feet, which startled Twilight Sparkle.  Trixie was now laughing so much that she began to cry.

Bright Dawn, hearing the commotion, headed outside to see what was going on.

“What’s going on out her girls?  Having fun I hope!”

Trixie tried to explain what had happened, but she could hardly make anything out because of her laughter.  Twilight Sparkle was just sitting on the ground, blushing out of embarrassment, but giving a smile as well.

“Hey, Twilight!”  Trixie finally managed to squeak out “How about you try using your magic on the manticore?”

Twilight’s face suddenly turned into one of shock and terror.  “T-t-trixie!  You know that I have problems with magic!  At least, I’m nowhere as good as you are.”

“Oh, come now Sparkle.  I’m sure you’re magical abilities aren’t that bad.”  Bright Dawn said, now coming closer to Twilight “Show you’re old grandpa all that you’ve got!”

Twilight Sparkle now stood up and took aim at the manticore.  She focused with all of her might on her horn as it began glowing with energy.  As she was about to unleash her spell, the energy from her horn made a pop and vanished.  Her spell had failed.  Twilight Sparkle felt like crying.

Velvet, who was watching these events from the house, came galloping out to calm her daughter down.

“Oh, don’t worry about it sweetie.  Everything will be alright.”  She said, nuzzling her crying daughter.

“Yes Sparkle,” Bright Dawn added, “things like this take time.  Sure Trixie got the hang of it right quick, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get it, eventually.”

Velvet stared at her father disapprovingly.

“I’m just sayin’!”

Trixie, somewhat annoyed that the attention wasn’t on her again, was about to make a scene, but she decided not to.  Seeing Twilight Sparkle like this made her wish she wasn’t so great and powerful.  And a show-off.

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With all this excitement dying down, the ponies returned to the house and finally got the chance to eat their breakfast.  With Twilight Sparkle now calm, the four of them talked with each other as they ate.  Well, Trixie spoke as she ate.

“… and then, the giant bat swooped down to attack me!  Luckily, I managed to cast a spell that blinded the creature and it flew straight into the wall!” Trixie stated with food flying from her mouth.

“That’s nice dear.”  Velvet said, only half listening.  “How about you, Sparkle.  What was your favorite part of this little get away?”

“Well…” Twilight thought to herself, “Grandpa did have some books that we don’t have back in Ponyville.  Those were pretty nice I guess.”

“Sparkle,” her mother said, “you really should stop reading books all the time.  The most valuable things that you’ll ever learn are going to be out in the real world.  And you sure won’t make any new friends if you just study all day.”

Twilight just stared at her plate and thought quietly to herself.  

Never liking these awkward silences, Bright Dawn spoke up.  “Oh wow, Velvet, you've outdone yourself, these salads are delicious!”

“Yeah Mom!  These are awesome!” said Trixie, “What do you put in them?”

Velvet smiled.  “Oh, nothing special.  Well, I do like to throw in some sunflowers in there.  You know how much I love sunflowers, right Dad!”

Bright Dawn laughed, “Oh, yes.  You get that from me.”

After a little bit more silence, Twilight Sparkle finally spoke up.  “Hey, Mom?  Are you going to be around to make us salads forever?”

Velvet looked at her daughter for a bit before responding.  “...well dear, I certainly hope so! I guess that just depends on if you're going to eat it!”

“I'll eat it!” exclaimed Trixie

“Yeah!  Me too.” Twilight followed

“Thank you, girls.” Velvet said with a bright smile, “Now, hurry and finish up, I'm going to step outside for a minute.”

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Twilight Velvet opened the door to the cabin, carrying a pen and paper with her magic.  She sat down on the porch and began to right a letter to her husband.

Hey there Honey,

We’ve had a wonderful time here at my father’s place.    Twilight Sparkle and Trixie are as energetic as ever, running around the mountains.  Though, I did have to pry Sparkle away from those books.  You would think her cutie mark would be a book, what with all the reading she does.  Maybe that magic symbol was just a fluke.

I feel bad for that poor filly of ours.  Trixie can use magic like nopony’s business, but she has trouble with even the simplest spells.  Luckily though, Trixie doesn’t always show off to her.  I’ve even seen her help Sparkle practice her magic a few times.  I’m sure they’re close to a breakthrough.

I had forgotten how nice and refreshing the mountain air is.  You’re always working so hard all the time back in Ponyville, so I really wish you could have been here to take in this air.  I’m sure the town won’t fall apart with you not there, so next time we’ll come up as a family.  We could even bring Spike along.

Well, the girls and I are heading back soon, though my father wishes we could stay a little while longer.  I’ll make you your favorite salad when I get back, if you’d like… but none of those Hay Fries!  I keep telling you that those things can’t be good for you!  Hope you get this letter soon!

Your Little Pony,

Twilight Velvet

Now finished writing her letter, Velvet whistled to call a nearby bird, which was trained to deliver mail.  She rolled up her letter, gave it to the bird, and watched it fly away.

As Velvet was about to turn back inside, she saw a strange object floating in the sky out of the corner of her eye.  She couldn’t figure out what it was before it went out of site, but it looked… odd.

“…What in Equestria was that?”