My Little Ponies Friendship Is Magic
Pony POV Series Origins Part 2
Princess Celestia
Optional-Canon
"Now hold on! How could I be that Twilight's shadow, if that fantasy age never happened and she never became an erased pony begin with?" Twilight then remembered who she was talking to and began to apologize for interrupting.
I normally love Twilight when she asks questions, but she was giving me a headache trying to explain all of this in terms that piece of meat inside her skull her soul was seated in could process. "Twilight. Try to understand. The rules of cause and effect are different outside of mortal reality. Strife still had a stone paw even though the timeline she got it in never existed. Your soul, and thus you, is a spiritual entity and not bound by what happens in that timeline once you're no longer a part of it. To sum it up, the spiritual plane is not bound by the law of conservation of matter, and once you were your own being, you were not tied to the fate of Twilight the First's soul. Otherwise you'd have been born a pony with no heart since Minty never existed... Now we have a lot of ground to cover tonight and this is still only the beginning."
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Many of the ponies of Paradise Estate had long left, allowed to start families and die of old age. The ones who remained did so either out of a sense of duty or devotion, wanting to see what new marvels the future held, or simply didn't want to leave their centuries long friends to carry the burden alone.
The 'rediscovery' of Paradise Estate and Dream Valley can be traced back to an Earth pony named Patch. When she was young ... well, imagine Rainbow Dash's taste in pranks and Pinkie Pie's wits in pulling them off. Yes, I shuddered too. She learned her lesson the hard way, eventually.
She grew up wanting to become a circus clown, but after her encounter with a ghost and later a member of my family, her desire to explore the unexplained drove her to ultimately meet the clans of 'horned ponies', 'ponies with wings', and 'underwater-ponies' and 'butterfly-ponies.' She wanted to believe.
Yes My Faithful student, a ghost, you can stop screaming 'Ghosts Don't Exist!' now and pay attention. You've personally witnessed two 'myths' come to life and saved the world from them, are ghosts really that strange?
Yes, yes one phenomena's existence does not bring about another, but you have already seen how the dead can be forced to linger in this world. Stay focused.
The circle of seven friends she was a part of would have a surprising influence on the world right up until ... the change in history showed its results. The tales of those little pony may not have involved saving the world, but they were heart-warming to see.
They were all grown mares by the time of Patch's rediscovery, having left their personal misadventures of their teenage years behind them. They had forged their own lives and had drifted apart, as foalhood friends often shall. But they were the ones Patch wanted to introduce to the ponies she alone had accepted the reality of.
Melody, a vain rock star with her heart, normally, in the right place, thought Patch had finally gone crazy.
Starlight, the little group's leader when they had all been together, wanted to see first and judge later.
Clover and Sweetheart weren't sure if they believed in 'magic ponies' or not, but they chose to hear their friend out.
Bright Eyes thought Patch had found something and was exaggerating. And Bon-Bon-
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"Bon-Bon?!"
"Yes Twilight. She was the direct ancestor of the Bon-Bon of Ponyville. Her line actually goes as far back as the First Age. She doesn't know of her long heritage though. And for the better I would say. Heritage can be a source of strength but it also a heavy mantle to carry. I speak from personal experience on that matter. It's the same with many of them.
"And yes, Clover, voted biggest klutz by her classmates, is the direct ancestor of THAT Clover The Clever. This Clover also once won two tickets to a major event but couldn't decide which friend to bring. Sound familiar? So yes, Clover The Clever did have an Earth pony in her family tree.
"It is possible you are descended from Twilight the First in body as well as spirit, your mother looks nearly identical to her, but that's just luck of the draw I suppose.
"Melody's line would eventually mix with a family of unicorns as well ... I believe I will leave it to you to guess who that you know that shares her line."
"Is anyone not of mixed heritage?"
"Twilight Sparkle, what makes you think in this day and age anypony -isn't-?
"And Patch's line for example would eventually settle and help found Trottingham. And she was the last pony anyone would think would fall in love."
"Let me guess, Pipsqueak is her descendant?"
"Yes but he looks nothing like her. And Pipsqueak's family has actually picked up a number of, interesting bloodlines over the generations."
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I'll just say this. It was a wonderful occasion. It was like a second awakening for everypony alive. The Estate ponies no longer felt lonely or isolated, and a whole new world opened up to the seven friends that eventually spread to the rest of the civilized ponies.
Patch got her place in the history books. And her friends were the first to step into a larger world. The ring of friendship the seven had shared in their youth was restored. Even though three of them were already married by that point, it felt good to have a reason for the seven of them to be together again.
They had lives Twilight, they never had to save the world, but they knew happiness that wasn't a one-dimensional fairy tale.
The idea of no stallions in the 'perfect world' wasn't a conscious decision. It was at the back of Starlight's subconscious when the spell was cast. Broken hearts can heal, but they will always scar. Turning every stallion in Ponyland into a mare, and making it so they had always been a mare according to the revisions to reality was never intended. Yes, yes, yes it makes no biological sense, you saw the consequences already and I have lived them.
Starlight was a good pony Twilight. She had a sense of responsibility well beyond her years as a student. Maybe she went running to her teacher rather than her mother more she should have, but she was natural and fair-hearted leader. She often became the voice of reason just her friend Sweet Heart was the voice of mercy and Bright Eyes the voice of knowledge.
So how did things change to prevent my fantasy world from becoming about? I trotted quickly down the timeline, hoping that my fantasy world would come about, only in a sustainable form. I hope I could spend my self imposed exile once more among the recreation of the world I'd loved and cherished as a mortal.
Starlight presented her idea to her leaders, it might have been a conditional monarchy, but I didn't stop to take in details. It was still approved.
The Estate ponies still gave the Rainbow of Light to the civilized ponies knowing it would do.
The plan to separate the Rainbow of Light into the foundation stones of the castles that would harmonize everypony's innermost desires were being built at key locations across the world continued on schedule.
I was beginning to get confused but also hopeful, maybe the world I lived as Star-Catcher would happen after all!
What I'm about to tell you next my faithful student will not make much sense to you, I'm sorry but it won't and the more I tell you the less it will. You said you wanted to know all of it? So I'll tell you.
The desire for a perfect world was indeed born in every pony's heart, and what defined a perfect world was much different for everypony. But it was helped along. You do not know them Twilight Sparkle, and as a mortal pony you'll never know them. But the Shadows Who Make, under the will of the Shadows Who Rule, helped along this desire, encouraged it, gave it the strength to be realized. I am not lying when I tell you would become a mad pony if I told you more of them. The Shadow Who Make even recruited us Alicorns and Draconequi to try and 'improve' the lost age by the Shadows Who Rule's design thinking it would appeal more the Shadows Who Watch, that could be called the third and a half age. The revisions they placed into the 'past' of the third age only made the contradictions build up faster.
No we are not the shadows servant per-say Twilight, nor have we ever been. And we have always been as we are now, the shadows did not 'up-lift' us to the divine. They merely acquired our assistance.
These Shadows are not the 'shadows of existence' created from ponies who light of existence has moved on Twilight, not are these shadows good or evil, and I say again, if I told you their nature, you'd go insane. Only know this universe would not exist without them.
But even with the Shadows Who Make no longer helping it along, the ponies moved towards this anyway, like a muscle memory, their hearts didn't remember a world coming to an end, only the the eons of innocence and happiness they had. And that road wouldn't be allowed again.
Destruction does not so much want to destroy as needs to destroy. It is a need that builds like a volcano. Every thread of his being demands it. After he brought annihilation to something, he became rational and reasonable, as if waking up from a dream. He didn't like it.
After the Big Bang he was quite rational and reasonable longer than any other time I could remember even though it was technically an act of creation.
The longer he held the need in, the greater the ruin he needed to bring to quench it. If not fed, the primal command could grow to where he became feral and wouldn't remember himself until he had reduced everything around him to its base atoms.
His Parents would make use of this, holding him back till his instinct grew to the level they needed it and released him in the general direction of what needed to cease to exist.
Entropy's favorite method was to trap her son in the center of a black hole with nothing to give his gift of ruin to. Nothing to clear away to make room for what came next. I know it sounds cruel, it was, you think she cared? When has anything held meaning to Entropy?
As an experiment She once keeping him contained until he built up to the point that he managed to destroy the black hole he was trapped in to finally release his need. That was the closest I'd ever seen Entropy come to being impressed.
No, Twilight, I'm positive Discord was not afflicted with a similar condition. When Discord was freed, he went to causing small bits of chaos as a test run and contemplated his grand scheme. Thanks to me he is a planner. In this omega state, Destruction couldn't even control himself let alone make any type of plan. His Parents simply pointed him in the general direction of what they wanted to no longer exist and let go of his leash.
The act of destroying himself over and over had long since become flavorless and hollow. And now destruction had to take place for the timeline to be able to rebuild over the ashes in a way that would not cause its demise.
And I saw him appear, as a spirit, above where the awakening of the spell to change the world was about to take place as it sampled the inner desires of every pony alive.
His eyes were solid glowing red, he was frothing at the mouth, he roared like a wild animal. The ponies didn't hear him of course. They were busy celebrating the new world they were about to create, the remaining neigh-sayers resigned to the end.
"DESSTROY!" Only I heard him almost intelligibly gargle from his throat.
His eyes focused on the gathering dreams and fantasies directly below him.
I knew better than to try to speak to him, knew better than to reason with an atom bomb. I would've had better luck convincing a Nightmare to stop its rampage. I tried anyway.
"DESTRUCTION! DON'T! PLEASE!"
"BREAK! EEVEERYTHING!"
And in the blink of an eye, a stable, honestly beautiful civilization modeled in honor of a hero from another world, came crashing down. The Second Age ended, and I beheld the new 'Third Age' that you know as the time of the three tribes.
The magical backlash from the conflicting dreams and fantasies triggered even greater reactions from the amount of magic stored within the castles.
The castles exploded, annihilating themselves and reducing everything around them to rubble, any life that wasn't destroyed in their range was twisted, and the mental backwash from the union that would have created their dream world and given them near identical personalities caused many ponies be brain damaged or left with amnesia.
Starlight was killed, having been right underneath Destruction when it happened.
Destruction shook his head as the dust settled and held a gorilla hand to his head and said, "Man, what a trip." He looked around at the annihilation he had caused. Seeing it for the first time he said, "Now that's just messed up." He returned to his family's domain before I could speak with him. I was too busy beholding this ruin in broken shock.
The world was left so broken that history became myths and legends.
Bright Eyes couldn't even remember own name after the blast, and was taken kept care of by her husband until she fully recovered a decade later.
Clover, in an inversion of her bad luck, was left completely untouched by sheer good fortune of not being near any of the castles and her simple desires and wishes. She and her family survived countless disasters that would have surely killed other ponies until she died of old age.
Sweetheart, whether she wanted to be or not, being a doctor, spent the rest of her days caring for the ponies who had been left broken in what little ways she could in an equally broken world. The Hearts have remained a steady line of doctors ever since.
Melody found the world no longer cared for musicians or entertainment, not that it mattered, the smoke and trauma she suffered left her a mute. But her mind was still sharp and her own, and she never let her husband forget.
Bon-Bon, in a world that no longer needed fashion models or chefs, wrote down all that had happened and all she had experienced. Sadly her books would be lost to time and fade as literacy among Earth ponies dropped and pegasi and unicorns lost interest in any records but their own.
Patch was on Paradise Estate which at the time that was spared the destruction, she was determined to wander the world the rest of her days vowing not to rest until she found all of her friends, refusing to believe Starlight could be dead.
In that quest Patch met an elderly and incredibly powerful magician named The Moochick, part of a forgotten species. He had lived since before the first age, and my brother Mortis could be kept at bay no longer for him. He was the one who had kept the Rainbow of Light before giving it to the ponies of Dream Valley. I am not surprised you haven't heard of him Twilight, he was perfectly happy to keep to himself and supposedly stay out of history's way. But it didn't stop him from helping the Dream Valley ponies again and again. He also had a rabbit familiar whose personality I'm sure you'd recognize.
On his death bed Moochick made a request of Patch. "As long as you're trotting about my dear, would you be a dear and bringing the seven pieces of the rainbow of light back together please?" He said it like he was asking her to fetch him some tea.
Patch would have been more interested in reuniting with her friends, but even she wouldn't turn down an old man's dying wish.
Oh she did typical things then, crossed vast wastelands, righted a couple wrongs along the way, started a few myths, toppled some random tin bullies who were trying to use the individual pieces like they were scepters. Each degenerating town she'd start with the same question, "Have you seen Starlight?"
The Rainbow of Light had been in the possession of the Paradise ponies for so long that it still supported their life forces, since the Rainbow wasn't destroyed, merely divided up.
The pieces Patch found also found began extending her life so she'd live long enough to complete her quest. But extending was all the incomplete pieces could do as her mane began to slowly gray. But even after a pony's normal life span she'd just tell herself, she convinced herself, one all seven pieces were back together, she'd find Starlight.
Her last quest took her into the city of shadows, Tambelon during one of its five year cycles aligned with this world. Discord's magic, that of the third age, and mine, kept Grogar's city from materializing into your reality Twilight. In that dark age, that wasn't an option. The Paradise ponies had beaten the old fiend back each five hundred years his city had appeared before. Grogar had intended to use the piece of the Rainbow of Light as an anchor to keep himself and his city in your world irrevocably.
Patch managed to steal it back and Tambelon and its master returned to its own empty world, but she walked with a limp for what was left of her life. Yes my student, one aging Earth Pony managed to steal from a dark lord and lived to tell of it.
The Earth Pony who had in her love of finding the impossible set everything in motion, restored the Rainbow of Light to its whole form.
And nopony would bother to even write her name down in the surviving history books.
The Rainbow of Light whole, Patch had limped back to Paradise Estate, being greeted by the fantastic ponies she had reintroduced to the world so long ago.
The moment she dropped it into their watch hooves, she felt a pain in her chest, but her mind was taken off when she heard some pony behind her.
"Hey Patch, what's shakin'?"
Patch turned around, shocked and delighted at who she saw. "Starlight! You're alive! Is it you? It is you!" Starlight didn't look as when Patch last saw her alive, but as the teenage pony she had forged a friendship with.
Patch didn't question, she just ran up and hugged her long lost friend. "I never stopped believing."
"About time you showed up. We couldn't start this party without you," Said Melody out of nowhere, also looking as she did when she had put together her highschool band.
"What party?" Patch asked completely innocent, feeling better than she had in decades.
"Patch? Hey Patch get up!" Said Paradise pony named Posey.
Patched turned around at the sound, and saw her elderly worn out body on the grass in front of the gathered Paradise ponies. "Huh?!"
Patch's other friends appeared around her. Sweet Heart put a hoof on her shoulder, "Patch, it's okay, you've done enough, you can rest now."
Patch ignored her and trotted to the gathering ponies, "Posey? What's going on! I'm right here!"
They didn't hear her. Patch put her hoof on Posey's shoulder, it went through it.
"No . . . no way, I'm-I'm-" Patch whispered.
One of the unicorns began sending electric jolts through Patch's body, but it remained lifeless.
Melody snorted, "And you sure took your sweet time getting around to it. We were all waiting just for you."
The unicorns and pegasi began nuzzling Patch's body as they wept.
"Now be nice." Bon-Bon smiled and nuzzled the tomboy. "We know you had some important things to do before you could go with us. So we chose to simply wait for you."
Patch fell to her knees. "But-but I finally finished."
"And you're free now." Starlight whispered looking her in the eyes. "Think you're ready for one more adventure?"
Patch sulked, realizing she was the age again when gags were her life and the unknown was her passion. Her rose one eyebrow at at her circle of friends. "Is there room for a clown where... where we're headed?"
"I promise there is Patch." Starlight nodded vigorously.
"Alright." Patch smiled. "Let's go."
And I knew absolutely none of this. I let time flow normally for me, I didn't want to see how things would progress. I lay in my spot sobbing for days. The words 'Not fair' and 'Not right' mumbling out of my muzzle every so often. Many came to think the spot I inhabited was haunted. I sulked there for who knows how long.
And the rest you know as history Twilight Sparkle.
A broken filly I trotted along the line of time, casually observing as ponies were born, lived, and died, many not knowing their own history, then no pony did. If the imperfect world my spoiled heart had seen before was a dystopia, this was Pony Hell.
The tribes rebuilt along racial lines. You think Paradise Estate would be a light in the darkness, a reserve for the world to rebuild itself to be sane again.
It didn't happen.
Strife made sure they were busy with random monsters spawned form the magical blast while the tribes struggled. Discord, now filled with a desire only I had seen in its full horrid glory, gladly helped her. The hippocampi and Flutterponies closed their borders and went into hiding to save what they could of their own culture.
I saw the one light of the world closed off from all sides, I saw two tribes hide themselves and three more form what could only be described as a mockery of harmony.
My hiding spot had become just another place lost in time. I wept for the world that never was.
I was tired of hiding. I returned home.