I'm Not Your Sister

This little one-shot started when I was watching the FiM premier again, and I realized how odd it was that everypony, even Twilight, seemed so surprised that Celestia and Luna were sisters. I mean, Twilight had just read that Nightmare Moon was the sister of the unicorn who rose the sun, and the existence of Nightmare Night proves that everypony else should at least have a basic idea of who Nightmare Moon is (even if Pinkie Pie couldn't guess). It seemed odd. I thought to myself, "What if she isn't Nightmare Moon's sister. What if everyone's assumptions are wrong and alicorns are really just mortal ponies like everypony else?" At that point I started writing, relying on a lot of reaction comedy--a bit British, really, with Celestia explaining things like they were normal and expected and Luna being completely floored by each revelation. Then I thought of Luna's design change while I was in the middle of it, and how Nightmare Moon nor Luna when she first appeared in episode 2 spoke in any way like in Luna Eclipsed, and that gave me a new idea, which turned the story remarkably macabre at the end (I also had to edit Luna's CV speech patterns for the first part, which probably ruined a bit of the comedic aspect). Basically, this was just a little exercise in working through some of the minor inconsistencies of the show involving the princesses in the most over the top manner possible. I've seen stories that have the two passing on their powers before, but everyone still tends to treat them as undeniably long-lived and super powerful. Hopefully, even though this was a bit of a lark on my part, it will inspire someone who may want to work with this kind of idea in the future. Obviously, this pretty much exists in an entirely different continuity from my other stories.

P.S. I think my favorite part of doing this was drawing Stallestia. Still came out rather good looking in spite of being obviously on the masculine side.