//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: The Best of All Possible Worlds // by McPoodle //------------------------------// Equestria is surely the best of all possible worlds, Blue Belle thought happily to herself. We are blessed by the wise leadership of our Princess; the unicorns rule in her name, the pegasi keep Equestria in line by order of the unicorns, and the earth ponies serve and feed their superiors. Lady Blue Belle, age ten, was, in her own opinion, very close to the top of the Great Chain of Being that kept the world from tumbling into anarchy. She was the lone and beloved daughter of Prince Blueblood the Fifteenth. Like all members of her clan, she got her magic-related cutie mark at an abnormally young age. In addition she was abnormally tall, with an abnormally brilliant white coat, an abnormally beautiful blonde mane...and an abnormally swelled head. There were no unicorns more important than the Bluebloods, Blue Belle knew, and even Princess Celestia bowed to the current Prince’s great wisdom in most matters, or so her father told her. As a result, Lady Belle expected to have her way at all times. And at the moment what she wanted was not to have her line of sight of the Summer Sun Celebration ruined by a creature that was not only not a unicorn, but not even a pony. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Not so long ago, there was a Summer Sun Celebration in the capital city of Canterlot that would be remembered for decades to come as the beginning of a great storm of troubles that descended upon Equestria and its neighbors. The prime viewing spot for the Celebration, then as now, was the second-story patio of the Peaches and Cream Confectionary. And sitting at the prime spots at the front of that patio, waiting for the central moment of the celebration to start, were a young donkey named Genevieve and her best friend, a unicorn colt named Zody. Genevieve wore a conical paper hat with the words “Happy Birthday!” written on them in the Equine script. She was wearing this hat because she had just turned ten years of age. She looked like...well, I suppose she looked like your average donkey jenny—the historical record contains no descriptions or drawings of her. This was despite the fact that her father served in Princess Celestia’s cabinet. Zody was also ten years old. He had a pale blue coat and a darker blue mane. We know what he looked like because there is a portrait of him and his extended family hanging to this day on a second-floor hallway of Sparkle Hall. Zody’s full name, you see, was Zodiacal Light Sparkle. His mother was Eveningstar Sparkle, the Royal Astronomer as well as the Royal Translator, and his aunt was Morningstar Sparkle, the Royal Historian. Arranged around Genevieve were a large rectangular pad of paper and a number of small buckets filled with different colors of powdered chalk. With her attention focused on the bandstand below her, the donkey dipped a forehoof into a bucket of brown dust and then carefully applied it to the paper, creating the form of the platform. The edge of her hoof was then gently used to create texture. In a few minutes, the only thing missing from this portrait of the Raising of the Sun Ceremony was the Princess herself. The colt looked on with awe. The scene below had been perfectly rendered. The unicorn especially marveled at the way the proud royal guards were drawn, with their cheekbones subtly emphasized. It was like suddenly seeing what a pony looked like to a non-pony. Zody looked over at Genevieve with admiration at her artistic ability, and perhaps a little something else in addition to that, but nothing he would admit to out loud, because all colts knew that all fillies were yucky. This is the scene that was interrupted by the entrance of Blueblood’s daughter. “Zody!” exclaimed Blue Belle gaily, as she roughly shoved her way between the unicorn and the donkey. “Why weren’t you with me at the gala last night?” Zody frowned. “I turned you down, Belle,” he told her. “I was going to spend the night with Genevieve and her friends...but my mom needed me to help with some calculations.” “Oh don’t be silly,” laughed Blue Belle. “Donkeys don’t have friends.” Zody got in Blue Belle’s face. “I’m her friend,” he told her. “Hey, I’m right here,” said Genevieve. She was ignored. “She’s your project,” Blue Belle corrected him. “Your way of proving to yourself that you’re not as awful as the other Sparkles. But this is really getting ridiculous—I only had to give some gladiolas to a starving pegasus family to get over that particular obligation.” “Don’t gladiolas make a pegasus’ wings seize up in mid-flight?” asked Genevieve. “Who asked for your opinion, creature?” Blue Belle hissed. “Hey!” Zody exclaimed. “She has every right to be here. Her father is a government minister, and today’s her birthday.” “Her father,” Blue Belle said in exasperation, “is the Court Jester. The Court Jester is always a donkey. And nopony ever listens to him. As for this ridiculous birthday business...” She used her horn’s magic to levitate a blue satchel bag off from around Genevieve’s neck. “Hey!” exclaimed Genevieve, jumping after it. She was easily held in place with the unicorn filly’s magic. “I assume this is the present you wasted on her?” Blue Belle asked Zody. She turned the satchel around and saw that there was an image embroidered on the front, depicting a pencil drawing a map of Equestria, which she took personal offence to. “Is this a cutie mark?” she demanded. “It’s the mark she deserves,” Zody explained proudly. “She’s the best artist her age I’ve ever met. Nightingale told us once that she thought Genevieve here could probably draw anything in Equestria, and that’s when I realized that that would be the perfect cutie mark for her.” “She doesn’t deserve a cutie mark!” screamed Blue Belle, as she ripped the design out of the bag, destroying it. “You have no right...” Zody began feebly. “I AM A BLUEBLOOD!” the unicorn filly proclaimed. “You are merely a Sparkle.” Pointing at the jenny, she concluded, “And that is NOTHING!” “I have an audience with the Princess,” said Genevieve, holding back tears. “I’m going to tell Her what you did!” Blue Belle stretched her neck to look around the donkey and examine her creation, and for a moment was taken aback. “Did you get that audience with the Princess to show Her your drawing of the Raising of the Sun ceremony?” Blue Belle asked. “Yes...” Genevieve hesitantly replied. “I’ll tell Her that it’s a fake,” said Blue Belle with a sneer. “You’re going to trace the Princess in from one of Her standard portraits.” “I’m going to draw Her today.” Blue Belle shook her head. “You stupid little donkey,” she told her. “Nopony is allowed to look at the Princess during the Raising of the Sun.” “That’s not what my father told me,” Genevieve said proudly. “He said that the Princess wants Her subjects to look. She does the one raising in public so that the whole of Equestria can celebrate with Her the beginning of another year.” “But...but...” Blue Belle sputtered. Daddy is never wrong! she thought. And he never looks! If the donkey was right, that meant that Blue Belle and her father were making fools of themselves, year after year. And nopony made a fool of the Bluebloods and got away with it! Blue Belle’s eyes hardened. “You think you’re going to give the Princess a drawing?” she asked with utter disdain. FWOOF! “What drawing?” Genevieve looked back, to find that her incomplete painting had been magically incinerated. At this, she turned and launched herself at Blue Belle. “It’s Her!” All eyes turned to the platform, where Princess Celestia had delicately walked out and looked expectantly over the crowd of hundreds of waiting ponies. “Let the sun...rise!” she cried out happily, opening her wings and springing upwards. For a moment, she was suspended in front of the golden frame, and in that moment the sun leapt dramatically into the sky. She looked out at the multitude of her ponies... ...and found them all with their foreheads pressed reverently to the ground, a few of them weeping at the glory they did not feel themselves worthy to witness. It was the same way it was every single year. No matter how many times she asked them to, none of her ponies would look at her. In years past, only her jester Gordon and his daughter Genevieve would share this moment with her. Right now, Gordon was sitting over on one balcony with an expression of simple happiness, while Genevieve was on another balcony...busy trying to rearrange Lady Blue Belle’s facial anatomy. Celestia landed, hard, on the railing of that balcony. The donkey and the unicorn looked up at her in shock. “I expect both of you at my court first thing tomorrow morning, with a good explanation of what just happened,” she said coldly, before turning and flying back down to her stunned guards. She turned to take one last sad view of her subjects, and froze. They were all terrified of her. Every last one of them were acting as if they expected her to obliterate the entire square, just because she caught a couple of fillies being fillies. Surrounded on all sides by ponies, Celestia felt like she was all alone. And that is a very dangerous place for the most powerful being in the world to be.