Foreword/Prelogue but technically both
Hi. I’m PrancePranceRevolution. Or Horseman, if your eyesight is so much better than mine you can read the text on my profile pic.
Before you, is a project. One that very well may lie incomplete forever, either through a lack of remembering or sheer lack of wilfulness. One that, very possibly, could fail. Badly. It might end up the most horrendous failure of writing you will have had to suffer through. Otherwise, it’ll turn out swell; amazingly swell, or simply amazing. I’m still debating about that.
There’s actually a certain duality, possibly even tri-ality (totally not made-up word) that this foreword serves. The following passage in italics, which I’ve dubbed the ‘pre-logue’ as it isn’t the story yet not the prologue, is only 656 words in length, thereby not allowed to be published. That’s reason 1. Number 2 is the irking urge I’ve felt to explain what this is all about, something that I’ll get into more detail later. Behind door number 3 is………well………
Boredom. I came up with this idea, and am expanding on this idea, due to the very simple fact I have nothing better to do (to a degree). There is no secret message (or is there?) to be had or whatever with this story. Sheer boredom led to a question, those led to more questions, and relatively soon I’ve got the idea of a fanfic, the one you are reading the foreword for even.
So yeah. No Cow Level, or layer, to be found guys. (Or was it even real in the first place?)
ANYWAY LATER
To the part which actually has relevance, the ‘what da feq is this about’ question’s answer!
My reason I will very shamefully admit is that, well, I’m a friggin’ major fan of Fallout: Equestria (LITTLEPIPXVELVET REMEDY FUR LIF), and at some point considered fanfiction for it. That idea though, struck a ‘shouldn’t do that’ cord with me, for I shalt never desecrate the holy scripture of Littlepip’s adventures with my sacrilegiously poultry work. And stuff.
So, that concept in the trash, I asked myself “what do I do with these ideas now?”
Well, you’re looking at it. The ideas, characters and what-have-you within these pages might very well seem a little off compared to the world I’ve put them in. If you payed attention to the previous paragraph, then you’d kinda understand why.
To an extent though, at roughly a ratio of for every one event that happens designed to occur in Fallout: Equestria are two more original ideas intended completely for this story, I’ve started new. Basically, new floorboards, new carpet, and new walls, but same ‘air’, so to speak.
Now, the basis of this story, the part I’m sure you only read this for, comes without question as an Alternate Universe. One where, in my variation of Discord’s loss of power, Celestia and Luna failed. You’ll find out why………eventually.
Mostly, I’m taking this as an exercise in world building. So by all means, tell me what parts are ‘off’ and what’s spot on. Help me make this better. I’m really curious to see how far I can, without a pre-reader or whatever, get with this story. That, and other fanfics that I’ve written (non-MLP stuff and I assure you far worse) have never been………styled like this. I’m trying this out much in the same way a guy who’s mildly driven a car before would decide to take a helicopter across the pacific. This could fail, or could be awesome. Plus, as an added difficulty to this foray into the unknown, I’ve never written anything ‘dark’ before! This ought to be fun!
To say something Rainbow Dash might say; “gotta try it at least once.”
And this, Mares and Stallions, is the end result of me doing the My Little Pony equivalent of YOLO.
Enjoy this. I know I am, hahaha……….
What are decisions?
Are they, paradoxically, irrelevant and important? But a paradox does not exist; it is a concept. An idea existing only to cause innovation and headaches. Yet decisions certainly aren’t concepts; we feel the consequences for our actions most assuredly. How could what simultaneously doesn’t exist and does affect us?
Textbook definitions provide an answer, but my experiences have provided another.
It is an illusion; fore illusions know no boundary of reality like we do. We, ponies, and I, as an Alicorn, have never truly chosen. We made ourselves believe that fate does not bind us to a purpose; that which we only exist to do. Our Cutie marks which we have so brazenly took as the first step down our own path; have always in fact been the signature of fate. Have always told us ‘you are mine’, not ‘we are our own’.
And now a, excuse the Prance, bastardisation of Cutie Marks exists, ironically meaning the same yet doing differently. The images represent what can never do under penalty of unending agony. That which we love most is taken from us. In my case, I can no longer think of my sister without my hide turning to a hotter, more painful flame than the sun I am banished to. Loving my sister is my………’Chaos’ mark, I believe he called it. And it is the one thing that even as an Alicorn I cannot do. Yet another matter where I have no choice.
I am inscribing this with precision thought impossible on a comet that will soon land approximately just outside of Ponyville, more than likely dead centre in the Everfree forest.
Please, I ask that if any pony reads my last words; never repeat them. Do not preserve them. I do not wish to be remembered for what I did, and more so for what I didn’t. My sister deserves that honour. I do not.
However, heed this last message. My belief that choice is inconsequential may be, in fact, wrong. Not a certainty, but it is a possibility.
When I betrayed my sister, the act of which I feel too much shame to ever repeat aloud, I felt something……… dispel. (No word could do more than crudely summarise what I felt.) I believe it was the string of fate. It mattered little when I was defeated by Discord, and matters little now, however………if the possibility remains that defying even our purpose exists, it is to be known; to be told as a fact of hope for the rest of Ponykind to rally behind. To believe in.
My name is Celestia, the princess who committed the gravest sin, who betrayed her sister, with the best of intention. I am proud to say that I am sister to Luna, the princess who snores adorably and has incredibly soft fur, who is more than likely fighting for the greater good, even as these words are embedded. We never chose to become the leaders of a rebellion, let alone a failing one. We never chose our lives to become as they did.
And as with many things involving fate, they ended not as we intended.
Inscribing these rambling which undoubtedly will never be seen soothes my mind, even though the magic reserves that should have let me exist on the sun without being incinerated for a thousand years have dwindled to minutes before I ironically experience the power of true Sunfire. Mere minutes to repent for every single mistake. I feel it is not long enough.
It is time, regardless of my protests, to test truly how ‘impervious’, as many who died following me believed, an Alicorn’s body is.
Luna, I l-----
-Words On A Rock, Currently Unseen By Anypony In A Thousand Years, In The Everfree Forest