//------------------------------// // Speculations // Story: Kindness and the Seed of Shadow // by Raven-Flight //------------------------------// Dear Applejack, Thank you so much for the homemade cookies! Apple-snickerdoodle is certainly not a flavor I’d ever heard of, but I must say, darling, I’m afraid you’ve quite spoiled me for anything else! I know the Apple family prefers not to share their legendary recipes, so in that case, please feel free to send more of these cookies as often as you like! I’ll be sure to share with Twilight, Spike, and Fluttershy whenever I see them. Speaking of Fluttershy, I went to take tea with her just yesterday. The poor dear has been particularly anxious lately, but she adamantly refused when I offered to stay with her for these last weeks before the foal comes. I think I will pack up a few things and go stay with her anyway—whatever she says, she really ought not to be alone at a time like this! She wouldn’t say why Discord has stopped checking in on her. Anyway, the castle gardens are coming into full bloom and will be my inspiration and source material for my next line of dresses, so really, it would be advantageous for me to stay in her little cottage for a while (especially if Discord isn’t around). She’s certain to let me stay if I frame it as her helping me instead of the other way around. Oh, but best if you keep mailing to my house anyway. I’ll still be checking in there frequently. You know, Fluttershy mentioned something yesterday about her magic as the Bearer of Kindness, and it got me to thinking: do the rest of us bearers have our own special kinds of magic too? I’ve never noticed myself physically changing according to my emotional connections like Fluttershy does, so if generosity does have its own special magic, it’s not that. On the other hoof, I haven’t really noticed anything about myself that might qualify as generosity magic. What about you? Does your honesty give you any special powers that you’ve noticed? I must say your physical strength is really quite fantastic, but do you think it exceeds the boundaries of normal pony capabilities? Just an interesting little thought for the day. Anyway, I hope you are well. Do you think I shall see you again when Fluttershy’s foal arrives? Ever yours, Rarity ~*~*~*~ Dear Rarity, I’m so glad you liked the apple-snickerdoodle cookies. I certainly trust you not to spread the recipe around if I gave it to you, but it might take me a bit to convince Granny of that. In the meantime, enjoy another batch. It’s bigger this time so you can give a whole bunch to Fluttershy. I figure she might be craving the sweets right now. I’m relieved to hear you’ll be staying with her—assuming your little plan worked, that is! But it’s awful clever and I know you have the best of intentions, so I’m sure you succeeded. Anyhow, I gave your idea of special magics some thought. I can’t say I can guess at what generosity magic might do unless it’s to make you uncommonly gorgeous and successful in all your efforts. Although—that’s certainly pretty special, but I’m not sure it’s necessarily from any highfalutin' magic. I don’t think my strength is magical either. It’s nothing too special for an earth pony, and on that matter, I think Big Mac’s got me beat. What about the others, though? For Twilight, the magic of… well, the magic of magic seems to be just extra magic. And Rainbow, maybe it’s the fancy flying? Or the abundance of self-confidence? Pinkie’s easy enough: laughter magic’s gotta have something to do with all that energy and her freakishly fast metabolism… This is all pretty entertaining to think about! You’ll most certainly see me around the time Fluttershy’s foal arrives. I’ll high-tail it over to Canterlot as fast as I can once I get the news the foal’s on its way. Looking forward to seeing you again, Applejack Fluttershy was staring at the scorch mark on her floor again when she became aware of a knocking at her door. “Fluttershy? Fluttershy! Are you alright in there?” It was Twilight’s voice. “Yes! Come on in!” She was still trying to rock herself down off the couch when Twilight and Pinkie Pie appeared in her living room. Pinkie Pie hopped over and gently pushed her back into the seat. “No need to get up for us, silly filly! You just rest, and we’ll tell you all about what we found in the Crystal Empire!” “If you want to know, that is,” Twilight added. Fluttershy looked down at her taut belly and rested her hooves on it. She wasn’t so sure anymore whether she wanted to know if her foal was going to be a shadow pony. What if if was? He or she might outlive her. He or she might be born already given over to the evil pull of its dark magic. She felt a series of little shoves and kicks under her hooves. Then her ears pricked when a new thought occurred. What if her foal was a shadow pony, and that caused complications at birth? What if the life she felt eagerly pushing at the boundaries of her womb flickered out like a candle flame as soon as it was free of her? The thought of it dying—even though this foal would remind her for the rest of her life about the horrific experience that brought about its existence, that difficult reminder would be nothing to the pain of a precious life created and lost before it even got started. If there was anything at all that might endanger her foal, Fluttershy would need to know about it. “Yes. Please tell me,” she sighed at last. Twilight and Pinkie Pie sat themselves on either side of her on the couch, and then Twilight retrieved a scroll crammed with scrawled writing from her saddlebag. “Alright,” Twilight began. “It turns out that what we were thinking was right. Shadow ponies are not a biologically-distinct species.” “They’re all undead unicorns!” Pinkie Pie interrupted. Fluttershy felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe there wouldn’t be problems with her foal after all. It might turn out to be just like any other unicorn, or perhaps pegasus. “...Yes, undead unicorns.” Twilight made a face like she thought she could have made a more tactful description, but she went on. “The first shadow ponies were a group of unicorns that hid from society and practiced dark magic, hoping to use it to attain immortality. In allowing the dark magic to overtake and kill their bodies, they transformed into shadow ponies and succeeded in their goal. Partly, at least. What they gained was conditional immortality, meaning they wouldn’t age and die, but they could still be weakened and even killed.” “They had gained power unlike any pony had ever had!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, launching into her Dramatic Story voice. “But they knew they were trapped! There in their secret underground fortress, they were brimming with power, but if they tried to leave, they would be hunted down and punished—or worse! Even with all their dangerous magic, they would be vastly outnumbered on the surface world. There were only two choices: either persuade Equestria to reverse its judgment on dark magic and live in peace but be unable to flex their abilities, or increase their numbers and take Equestria by force!” Pinkie Pie lowered her head, flattened her ears, and rubbed her front hooves together. “But dark magic had taken over their very blood,” she rumbled ominously, “and what do you think they chose? Peace? Or Power?” Fluttershy shuddered. Sensing her unease, Twilight rested a hoof on her shoulder. “They didn’t succeed. Pinkie found a volume of lab notes from when the shadow ponies were still working out what it meant to be a shadow pony. They tried ponynapping different races of ponies and forcing them to turn shadow like them. Only unicorns ever survived the transformation, but unicorns were also the most likely to be able to resist the dark magic and fight back.” Fluttershy curled into herself as much as her swollen belly would let her. “You mean they killed earth ponies and pegasi?” she whispered. Twilight nodded. “Would… I have died? I mean everything, my spirit too?” At that question, Pinkie Pie leaned over and wrapped Fluttershy in a hug. “I don’t think so,” Twilight offered. “Because of your kindness magic. You would have been the first non-unicorn shadow pony in history if S—” Fluttershy flinched. “—If he had had his way.” Twilight now leaned down and hugged Fluttershy from the other side, so the pegasus was wrapped in friends all the way around. “But that’s all behind us now,” Twilight cooed. The trio sat in quiet stillness for a few moments. Eventually, Fluttershy relaxed her muscles and broke the silence. “So… What does all this mean for my foal?” Twilight backed out of the embrace. “Well, when the shadow ponies realized trying to transform adult ponies wasn’t working—” “They tried to make foals!” Pinkie Pie finished. “They tried,” Twilight emphasized, “But it wasn’t very successful. By that time, they had done enough kidnapping that the Crystal Empire was aware of their existence. Princess Amore created the Crystal Heart and started the tradition of the Crystal Faire, and the shadow pony colony was beginning to weaken. They tried to breed among themselves but discovered that it took an immense amount of dark magic from the parents—an amount that most individuals no longer had. Apparently, they even tried reproducing with non-shadow ponies, to no success. The lab notes describe how non-shadow mares lacked the dark magic for shadow seed to survive in their wombs. And whether the father was a shadow pony or not, none of the shadow mares had enough dark magic to survive the pregnancy.” “None except their queen!” Pinkie interjected. “She had collected all of the biggest and purest crystals she could find and cast a spell on them that made them capable of capturing ambient dark magic! Because of those crystals, she became the most powerful shadow pony of them all, and she had enough dark magic to bring a pregnancy to term.” “...But,” Twilight started again, “none of the shadow stallions had enough magic left to donate seed. The queen ponynapped a non-shadow unicorn for the sire. The records don’t say what happened to him, but the first foal was born to the shadow colony, and they hailed him as the savior of their kind. The colt had a living body, so he was not yet a shadow pony, but dark magic was fused to him and it would grow as he did. The Crystal Heart did not affect him at first, so the colony sent him to the surface to find and destroy it in order to save their conditionally-immortal lives.” Fluttershy was transfixed by the story, but she snapped back to the present when Pinkie Pie whispered “that was Sombra.” The foal in Fluttershy’s womb suddenly kicked hard and the mare’s heart started pounding. Twilight, wrapped up in the story herself, didn’t notice Fluttershy’s descent into anxiety. “Sombra eventually succeeded in destroying the Heart, as you know, but by the time he did, it was too late for his colony. Just like that, Sombra went from being the first shadow pony foal to the last shadow pony alive.” When Twilight finished, Fluttershy was crying. The alicorn flinched as she realized she had just spoken the trigger word twice after Pinkie Pie had used it, and now their friend was caught in a panic. Pinkie Pie was already squeezing Fluttershy in a tight embrace, so Twilight got up to fetch some soothing stimulants. She put Fluttershy’s kettle on the stove and walked out to the garden while the water heated. In just a couple of minutes, Twilight returned to her friends on the couch with a bouquet of lavender and a cup of chamomile tea. The floral scents of both, along with Pinkie Pie’s gentle shoulder massage, helped break Fluttershy from her thought spiral and ease her back into reality. By the time she got to the bottom of the cup of tea, Fluttershy had calmed back into her normal self. “So,” she breathed at last, “my foal will be the second shadow foal ever born.” Twilight nodded, and Fluttershy cautiously went on. “And I have more dark magic in me right now than any of those weakened shadow mares who failed to deliver their foals?” Stiffening, Twilight nodded again. “Then why am I not a shadow pony right now?” The alicorn lifted a hoof to her chin and thought about it. “Maybe it’s because you have magic that only five other creatures in the whole world have right now.” Fluttershy nodded. “My element magic. It balances the dark magic. But my foal—what defense will it have against its dark magic?” Twilight bit her lip and didn’t answer, so Pinkie Pie piped up. “You could take your foal to live in the Crystal Empire...” “But the Crystal Heart will attack when he or she gets older!” “I don’t have any easy answers,” Twilight sighed. “This is only the second shadow foal in history. There’s just too much we don’t know. But you’re a pegasus! With any luck, your foal will be a pegasus too and won’t be able to generate its own dark magic. The threat of becoming a shadow pony will be gone as soon as the foal is born.” “Yes,” Fluttershy agreed. “And if it’s not a pegasus?” “I don’t know. We’ll all pitch in to train it in the ways of harmony as well as we can, and then pray for the best. I’ll search for a spell that might be able to safely detach the dark magic from your foal’s body if necessary, but that kind of thing has never been done before. It will be difficult. Everything about this is difficult. But you’ll be surrounded at all times by friends who will do everything they can to help you bear it! Right, Pinkie?” “Right,” nodded the mare, just as another knock sounded on Fluttershy’s front door. “I’ll get it!” Pinkie Pie jumped up, and in a moment, Twilight and Fluttershy could hear a distant “Rarity! Come on in!” “Is everything alright, Fluttershy?” asked the unicorn as she followed Pinkie Pie into the living room. “I think so. Twilight and Pinkie Pie were just telling me everything they learned about shadow ponies and my foal.” “Oh? Well, you’ll have to tell me all about it! I came over in the hopes that you would let me stay here for a little while. The castle gardens are so lovely at this time of year that they’ve inspired my next line of dresses, and I thought it might help my work if I could live right in the middle of my inspiration—just for a little while. What do you say? Would you give an old friend shelter in these trying times?” Rarity lifted her hoof to her forehead to exaggerate her mock desperation, but a gleam of humor shone in her eyes. “Of course! I would be happy to have you!” Twilight and Pinkie Pie simultaneously beamed at Rarity, understanding the hidden intention behind her request. Fluttershy would have a close and capable watch until the time came for the foal to arrive. With that, the friends all exchanged a few words of greeting and Twilight and Pinkie Pie said their goodbyes, leaving Fluttershy alone with Rarity to process all she had just learned about her foal.