Having my twin with me during our estrus was the best thing we could have come up with. It lessened the painful drive to get a friggin’ foal into my womb marginally, but it didn’t stop us from having sex like crazy depraved bunnies going at it as if they were about to die in the next minute or so.
And by the sweet, sexy, hot-as-fuck devil of a sister of mine, I loved every second of it. While we behaved more like rabid animals most of the time, I didn’t care so long as I had my wife acting in the same idiotic way as I did.
I still can’t believe fate brought us here together for some reason. This couldn’t possibly have been a fluke with us dropping dead seemingly at random. Something... or rather, someone (or somepony?) had brought us here, I was certain of it.
Celestia had the crazy idea of comparing our lives to one of her stupid isekai novels that she had enjoyed so much in her previous life, where some people decided to summon a hero to save the day. Yeah, right... it sure was a weird way to go about it to get your friggin’ heroes in that case. I was content with the life we had right now, even though it wasn’t perfect. I don't need to go play the hero in a battle against the pony demon lord, or whatever.
There was no need to worry about that right now, anyway. For the moment, all that really mattered was our farm, Luna, Mom, and of course, my wife. Our way of life was peaceful and I didn’t want anything to take that away from me (seriously, if there is a demon lord threatening this world, I don't want to have anything to do with them).
Sadly, even that had to come to an end. Ponies started to appear by the hundreds, all looking like they had just migrated from the other side of the world. Whatever happened between them, it seemed that there was a temporary truce between all three tribes for now. Now, whether or not it would stay that way remains to be seen, though. Tia was rather skeptical that this peace would last for long, but I had hope.
There was one downside to this, though... with the arrival of those ponies also came problems. My sisters and I couldn’t continue our farmwork without wearing cloaks to hide away our wings to avoid unwanted attention and we couldn't show our earthpony magic in an overt way. For better or worse, we had to hide who we truly are and live in constant fear of being discovered by the curious eyes of our new neighbors. While yes, we did live mostly removed from sight, that didn’t mean others couldn’t see us use our wings or earthpony magic.
That brought about the end of our own personal weather for our fields. Luna was quite mad that she couldn’t do the one thing she was at least somewhat better than us in. And without the best weather, we had to put extra work in to achieve the same results we could have gotten with the optimal conditions.
Mom started to get more paranoid again, too. She didn’t want us to get hurt by ponies finding out what we were, so she was the only one that ever talked to strangers when they came by for trading.
While we got some nice commodities like new tools for farming, candles, oil for lamps, actual cutlery, and so on, we had to give up more and more of our privacy.
Before long, ponies started to use currencies instead of trading and we learned the name of the new nation that suddenly formed around us.
This was now the land of Equestria, currently governed by a council of the former rulers of the three pony tribes. Princess Platinum had the gall to implement exorbitant high amounts of taxes on anypony living in this land and her aide, Clover the Clever, was next to useless in stopping her from doing so just after this nation was founded.
Chancellor Puddinghead (whoever his parents were must have hated him), like the buffoon that he was, had lots of crazy ideas for new laws, some of which actually made it through. It was apparently illegal now to wear a hat that was bigger than your head, for whatever reason. Of course, he was exempt from that rule. His aide, one Smart Cookie, was desperately trying to keep him from running this new nation into a state of ruin from the get-go.
And the former commander of the pegasus army, Commander Hurricane, was already doing his best at pissing off every other nation in the world. Were it not for Private Pansy (I feel sorry for her name, too), I’m sure we would have already been invaded by an opportunistic nation seeking to expand their land. Like the Griffon Empire, for example.
It was a hard transition time into this new era, for sure. My family tried its best at staying away from most of it, sometimes successfully and sometimes... not. We had to pay our fucking taxes now. Taxes! I was quite annoyed by that because it wasn’t like I hadn’t had enough of that a lifetime ago.
The thing was, there was still quite a bit of hostility between the tribes, although 'officially', there wasn’t supposed to be any animosity anymore. While it didn’t seem like it was as bad as it was a few years ago, there was still a heavy hint of prejudice in the air.
It basically boiled down to unicorns being greedy, pegasi lazy, and earthponies 'dirty' (whatever that was supposed to mean since all of them were filthy to a degree). I stayed the hell away from it, I didn’t want to get tangled up in that particularly nasty ball of retardedness. Racism was already bad enough in the history of Earth, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with this tribalism here in Equestria.
Then, there was the whole stigma behind ponies not having their, ugh, Cutie Marks. Who came up with that name, Puddinghead? While Mom didn’t have to be subjected to any ridicule because she had hers since she was ten or so, my sister and I were worried that we would be seen as freaks because we didn’t have one of these stupid pictures on our flanks.
Who needed those, anyway? I could be plenty good at anything and not need a pretty picture on my butt to tell me what I could do and what I couldn't. It seemed to me that these ponies put way too much worth on those buttmarks.
...No, I’m not jealous that I don’t have one of my own (not yet, that is). I am not. Definitely not.
Okay, maybe I am. But only because they look cute! I can't possibly call myself the Mistress of Cuteness without having achieved maximum cuteness, after all.
Then, things actually managed to get worse for some time. Apparently, this fucking impossible world was in a planetary-centered solar system. I had no idea how that worked and Celestia was just as stumped about it as I was.
So, at least now I knew why the two big burning balls of fire didn’t ever seem to change their position in relation to each other. They friggin’ orbited our own planet through the use of magic (don't ask, I've got no idea how that happened in the first place, either).
Wasn’t the sun supposed to be in the center of a solar system? I mean, it was called the solar system and not the planet system, after all. I mean, it had been a ridiculous thing people had believed on Earth ages ago, but... there was a good reason why ponies knew this was a geocentric system. And it was utterly ridiculous.
Ridiculous. Impossibly, utterly, stupidly ridiculous. That is what this was.
The actual bad thing about it was the fact that those suns? They didn’t rise over the horizon on their own. Noooo, they had to be manually moved, if that wasn’t enough yet. Oh yeah, and the moon? That stupid rock didn’t move on its own like it should, either!
What was wrong with this world?!
Anyway, those little celestial objects throwing physics the middle finger had to be raised by magic. And the ones responsible for that? They were all unicorns, causing the rest of them to be massive jerks to everypony else because they had a superiority complex as high as the tallest mountain.
The problem behind this little revelation wasn’t the mindset of most unicorns, though. No... it was the order of the most powerful mages burning through the magic within ponies like cheap batteries. Because apparently, their little ritual to move the heavens wasn’t the easiest thing to do and had massive consequences on the bodies of the casters.
There was one unicorn that has been able to do this for decades now, but he was getting old by now. This Starswirl the Bearded, weird title I have to say, was in charge of the ritual and wouldn’t probably be in the position for much longer.
Most of the spells our mother taught us were actually from him, so I had some modicum of respect for that old coot. At least for now, I had no idea what he was like as a pony. For all I know, he was an arrogant bastard.
While it was nice and all that they made the celestial objects their personal playthings, they had to start getting ponies from elsewhere for their rituals so they had enough unicorns to cast the spell.
Most of them never got their magic back. A few poor unfortunate souls even lost their lives, sadly. But even if somepony was lucky enough to only lose their magic to this ritual, they were doomed to live a half-life. The magic of a pony was an intrinsically important part of their self and without it, they were next to useless.
This continued on for years, them looking for all the willing ponies first before they moved on to less-than-ideal candidates. They went through those a lot faster than they did with the volunteers. Ponies that were sick to the degree that they hadn’t much to look forward to with the rest of their lifespan, ponies that were less ‘worth’ for society as a whole, and ponies that wouldn’t be missed.
Mostly criminals, but those weren’t the only ones. Oh no... if only that was the final line they drew. No, they started to enlist the average pony because they had no other choice.
So far, they only enlisted ponies older than sixty years of age currently. I didn’t have to be worried that my sisters and I were going to be taken away and lose something that I had come to like more than I had ever appreciated my hands for.
Sadly, the same couldn’t be said for our mother.
“Stay in the house and don’t come out,” Mom said, the voice of our only parent that was left to us was quite thick with authority. I didn’t dare speak out against her, even though I really wanted to. I wanted to tell her not to go meet those guards outside of our property, but not even the slightest noise escaped my lips.
Celestia tried to argue fiercely against our mother, but Mom was having none of it. So, rather reluctantly, we continued to watch from afar as she went over to greet the stallions in golden armor.
“This really is a bad time for Luna to go through her first estrus,” I mumbled with a frown, glad ours hadn’t started yet. A few years did wonders for us in noticing when that time of the year came around for me and my sister.
“Especially now,” Tia whispered, trying to get her newest spell to work so we could listen in on the conversation being held outside of our house. It was quite fascinating how creative she could get with magic, I have to admit. Particularly in the bedroom~. “We knew that the time would come after she turned fourteen, but now? She could have picked a better time for it, seriously.”
“It’s not like we can choose when we go nuts, sister,” I chided her, and she stuck her tongue out at me. I gave it a quick lick, making her giggle back at me. She nuzzled my cheek softly and I was all too happy to return her affections.
“Now let me concentrate on this, please. This is more delicate spellwork than what you call waving your horn around, sister,” she said, making me pout. Just because I relied more on feelings than actual thought-out and calculated spells didn’t mean I was any less good at what I did.
I still wasn’t on the same level as my twin and that would probably never change with time. To be honest, I was surprised she hadn’t actually gotten her Cutie Mark for something magic-related yet. If there was anything that would warrant her getting one, it was that. She was almost like a prodigy with the arcane arts.
Now that I think about it, it was a bit ironic that I was the one that used emotions for spells and my twin was more... analytical about it. I would have thought that, what with my past profession of programming games, I would be the one to calculate my spells, instead. But I suppose magic was fundamentally different than programming, huh? If I ever get the chance to see Earth again, I would like to see how far my old field of work has advanced... maybe those 3D games were actually decent by now...
Magic... it’s still kind of hard to believe, isn’t it? A world full of wonders and the inhabitants don’t realize how extraordinary such a thing truly is. Well, some did, but considering how they find ways to be racist about it is... disappointing to say the least. While yes, magic was certainly something one could be proud of if they were proficient with it, it didn’t make one automatically better than the rest of ponykind. Flight to manipulate the weather and the connection to the earth to grow plants were equally as important.
Not one tribe of pony was better than the other, after all. Well... unless you count whatever my sisters and I were into the mix. We sort of had an advantage over every other tribe, but that just emphasized how much each tribe had its own strengths. We knew what made each tribe unique and could empathize with them.
If only they could look past their differences... but perhaps that was a futile hope on my part. I would really like to see them grow beyond their petty hatred and be the best they could be. They were capable of so much good if only they dared to reach for that happiness. Alas, they were incredibly stupid and dumb and intellectually impaired... and retardedly dumb. How can they not see past their differences and notice that we were all ponies? It doesn't make any sense to me.
As I watched my sister try to calibrate her spell just right so that we could listen in on what was going on outside of the house, I couldn’t help but admire the look of concentration in her eyes. It was almost like there was nothing that she couldn’t do and... it made me wonder a bit.
Mom was wrong to call me a prodigy because I spoke my first word so soon, my twin deserved the credit way more. My wife had found her calling in this world and I couldn’t be prouder for her.
“M-ma’... We-ee-n-’am...” a sudden noise came from the glass pane in front of us, due to Celestia calibrating her spell. Currently, it was still gibberish, which managed to make her growl out in frustration. Trying to calm her down, I draped my wing over her back in a hug.
“I-I... d-do-o-n’t-n’t-n’t ca-aa-re... wh...” The sound came out a bit wobbly and clearer, but then it cut off again.
“Argh! Damn this spell, work already!” my sister snorted, pawing at the ground while one of her eyelids twitched.
“You can try again, dear,” I whispered comfortingly. She let out an explosive sigh, narrowing her eyes in focus. We really needed to get around to ironing that temper out of her.
Not that I couldn’t get... as angry as her at times, I suppose. Tia’s anger burned quick and hot while my own was more like a... simmering wrath that burned slowly. It doesn’t happen all that often, but I could be... terrifying... when somepony managed to earn my ire. Mostly Tia and Lulu when they were fighting over something...
Usually me, let's be honest here.
I try to keep my rage in check while my twin is more prone to act on it and get it out of her system. Maybe Tia wasn’t the only one that should get her anger under control. I don't lash out often, but it does happen. I shouldn’t worry so much about this when our mother was currently out there dealing with whatever it was that those ponies wanted...
“And I told you,” the voice of our mother finally started to come through, although it was still a bit muddled. It was better than nothing, I guess. “I have children to take care of!”
“Ma’am, we understand, but the duty to ponykind comes first,” the voice of one of the stallions came through. It sounded quite exasperated, and judging by how he held himself, he was tired of having to argue with our mother. Honestly, arguing with Mom was a futile effort and I wasn’t surprised it got on his nerves. “If we can’t continue the cycle, then your daughters won’t have a world to live in anymore.”
“I don’t want to hear what regurgitated words your ‘Princess’ has to say on this matter, you can’t force anypony to go with you,” Mom shot back, a snarl evident in her tone. “I have to provide for my daughters, they still have a lot to learn. My youngest just turned fourteen not too long ago, you can't just take me away from her.”
The guard sighed, sounding like he felt pity for our mom. “I'm sorry, Ma’am, but please just understand where we are coming from,” he said, only for Mom to snort derisively. “If we have to come back here with specific orders from Her Ladyship, we will have to take you back in shackles. Do you want your daughters to see you like that?”
“Oh, make Platinum come for me, alright,” she retorted angrily. “What has she ever done for you that you’re so loyal to her?”
“Ma’am, she is doing this for the good of this nation,” the other guard told her and I heard my sister scoff at that. I was inclined to agree with her, not at all believing those words. Maybe Mom should have dethroned Platinum's family while she was still with our grandparents, after all. That so-called 'princess' didn’t sound like the most selfless pony and I just knew she had ulterior motives behind this.
“Oh, she is doing this from the kindness of her little rotten heart, is that it? Please, don’t make me laugh,” Mom snorted and we saw her cross her forelegs through the window. “That she roped Starswirl into this little scheme of hers is...”
“Ma’am, please. Starswirl is already looking for a replacement that can continue what he does, Princess Platinum said that this is only a temporary measure,” he answered with a sigh. “But I can see you won’t come with us today, we will be back tomorrow.”
“You won’t have any luck then, either,” Mom simply said and we saw her turn around.
“Quick, shut the spell down, sister!” I said while my heart skipped a fearful beat. “Before she notices we were eavesdropping on them.”
“I’m on it, don’t push me so much!” Tia retorted, sending a quick glare towards me. I saw Mom raise an eyebrow as she saw us bickering through the window and I put on a sheepish smile, hoping to not arouse her suspicions. “There, see? No need to panic.”
“What are you two up to, now?” Mom asked us as she closed the door behind her.
“Nothing! Right, Tia?” I said, laughing awkwardly. “We were just... wondering what this was all about?”
“You don’t have to concern yourselves with that,” she told us with a scowl. “Now, I don’t see you doing anything, so why don’t you go and work on the field?”
“Do we have to?” Tia groaned, dragging herself out of the house, anyway. “It’s always work now...”
“We have to pay those taxes somehow,” Mom scolded her and before she could direct her glare my way, I scrambled to catch up after my twin. My pouty face sadly lost its effect on her years ago...
Haah. Those were the easy days.
“Luna doesn’t have to do this, why do we?” my sister mumbled dejectedly. “Can’t we have a free day from time to time, too?”
“Tia, she is in heat,” I answered her rhetorical question. “Do you want to risk her running off to get impregnated by some random stallion?”
“Don’t even start with that, Summer,” Celestia said. “I don’t want to entertain having to feed another demon spawn in this family.”
“Demon spawn?!” I asked incredulously.
“What? She eats more than both of us combined!” she shot back.
“Yeah, because we give her the food instead,” I said. “What is this about?”
“Oh, I don’t know...” she started, sniffing. “How about the fact that you coddle her so much?”
“My, my... is that jealousy I hear?” I grinned.
“No...” Celestia answered, her tone not managing to convince me.
“Aww, you are jealous!” I giggled to myself. “Of your own baby sister, no less. Oh, this is rich!”
“Fuck you,” she retorted, pouting cutely at me. “I’m not.”
“Oh, you definitely are,” I smirked. Then my muzzle got just shy of her ears so I could whisper into them with a husky voice. “And there is a spell I want you to try out... so yes, please fuck me~.”
The sight of her cloak falling off as her wings stood up stiffly delighted me to no end. My magic quickly caught the piece of cloth and I giggled as I hung it up on her horn.
“Oh, you devious little...” Celestia breathed out a shuddering breath. I bit my lip as she glowered at me from behind her cloak, forcing her wings to comply with her before somepony saw her. Then she gave me a curious, and admittedly overly lecherous, stare. “Have you actually figured it out before me?”
“My, what is this I hear? Am I a better pervert than you?” I giggled, giddy. “While I lack the methodical skill for casting spells like you, I totally outperform you when it comes to the instinctual side of magic. What can I say, this kind of spell is well outside of your reach, sister.”
“So, how does it work?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Desire for the outcome, lust for the act, love for the sensation, and determination so one can decide if it actually does what it naturally can or just imitate the real deal. Sadly, it works only on others and not the caster,” I explained, smiling proudly. “Let me tell you, that mouse was so mad at me for experimenting on it.”
“I love you so much right now,” Celestia whispered excitedly. “Although I’m pretty sure it will take me a few years to get that mix of feelings down for me to cast it. So there is no risk for... that?”
“Not if we don’t want to~. And it’s probably for the best like this,” I answered, nodding. Celestia embraced me in a crushing hug, shaking me around like an excited filly. “A-air! Ugh..”
She set me sheepishly back down on the ground as she rubbed the back of her head. “Sorry,” she said, giving me a peck on the cheek. “You’re going to love it, I promise.”
“Yeah, well... be gentle, okay?” I asked her demurely, scuffing my hoof on the ground. Tia gave me a small nuzzle reassuringly, murmuring her agreement and telling me that it would be a first for her, too. “But I think we should wait until, you know...”
“I agree,” Tia said. “Now, let’s get this work done before Mom comes out to yell at us to stop standing around while doing nothing.”
That was what we did and the day went over quickly after that. The only other ‘exciting’ thing that happened that day was us delivering Luna’s meal up to her room. Our little sister didn't even notice us opening the door to her bedroom and shoving it in.
I had to drag a snickering Tia away as the moans and shrieks of our little sister made me blush. Sometimes, I really do hate my wife.
Anyway, just as the guards had announced the day before, they returned, and this time, they didn’t take no for an answer. It was actually kinda badass seeing Mom beat up more than fifteen ponies all at once, but even she couldn’t fight on forever against multiple opponents at her age. Both my sister and I wanted to help her out, but a barrier kept us from coming out to assist her. Not even our teleport spells were of any use as the entire house seemed to have gone into lock-down mode.
Mom really doesn’t want them to find out what tribe of pony we are, huh? Sometimes her paranoia was warranted, though. It was sort of excessive that Platinum sent so many ponies to apprehend our mother and I couldn't fathom why she would. It made no sense...
Unless she knew from which family our mother hailed from. A royal would recognize the name of one of their nobles, wouldn't they? Platinum must know Mom belonged to the House of Luna and considering the relationship between Mom's parents and the royal family, it was no wonder she was so cautious.
We had to watch on sadly as our mother was carted off to who knows where. Celestia had long since stopped trying to force the door open with her hind legs in order to try and break Mom’s spell on the house.
Tia ran out as soon as the damn barrier dropped, discarding her cloak and taking to the skies to try and catch up to our mother. I did my best to keep up with her, trying to tell her to slow down a little bit. She didn’t listen to me, though.
Some of the ponies below stared up at us in surprise and I had to bite back a fearful whinny. Yeah... that was something that took me by surprise, unprepared for the alien sound leaving my throat for the first time I made it. Celestia was laughing at me for weeks afterward, at least until I managed to make her do the sound, too.
It also managed to make her perverted side extremely aroused, but that wasn’t really important right now, I told myself. I had to try and get my sister back home before too many ponies noticed that something wasn’t quite right with the winged unicorns ripping through the sky.
We really do need a better word for our specific pony tribe, don't we?
“Tia, please! My sides are aching already...” I wheezed out, rasping in a breath with difficulty. I haven’t used my wings for this long before and I was kinda out of practice (neither do I ever fly this fast, for that matter). Damn these ponies for forcing us to hide away a part of ourselves. My sister was doing her best at destroying all our efforts, though.
At my desperate cry, she let go of her maddened pursuit, trying to find the pegasus carriage that held our mother prisoner. This Princess Platinum chick just couldn’t take a no, could she? She had just managed to piss off two extremely powerful siblings, not to mention what Luna might do when she found out they abducted our mother.
Where are civil rights when you need them, for fuck’s sake?! This was so unfair to us and our mother, I wanted to set the forest and the small village on fire in my own rage. I suppressed my pyromaniacal urges, though. It would do nopony any good if I let it out on innocents that had nothing to do with this.
I would give Platinum a thorough tongue-lashing if I ever met her, though. She wasn’t safe from the wrath of my sister or myself, that much was for certain. I don’t care if she was royalty, she friggin’ deserved it. And perhaps this Starswirl guy, too. It depends on how involved he is with this whole abduction business.
“Can you see them anywhere?” Celestia asked me, her breathing also quite winded. Not as much as mine, though. “Please, we can’t abandon her now! Not like Dad...”
“I’m sorry, sister,” I cried, sniffling. “But she probably tried to stop us from doing something stupid. You know, like going after her?”
“I don’t care about that, Summer! She is our mother, for Christ’s sake!” she shouted angrily, blue flames licking parts of her hooves and wings. Oh dear, she really was mad right now. I ignored the flash of light in the distance in favor of calming my sister down. It didn't match the color of our mother's magic, anyway, so I doubt she somehow managed to escape. “If I get my hooves on that bitch, I'll..!”
“Please, calm down!” I said, trying to reach a hoof out to her. She swatted my appendage away from her, though, snorting heavily. Her wild eyes scanned every part of the horizon, not giving up on finding our mother. “Sister, stop!”
“And then what?! Do you want me to leave her to their mercy, Summer?!” she retorted furiously. “You know what happens to those ponies in that ritual! Why are you trying to stop me?!”
“Because you’re causing a scene, you idiot!” I shouted back at her, tears streaming down from the sides of my head. “Have you ever considered for one second what you have just done?!”
“What?” Tia asked, looking confused back at me. Then she took notice of the pegasi staying a safe distance away from us, gaping openly at the fiery inferno lighting up my wife in a bright blaze. “Oh...”
“Yeah, ‘Oh’ isn’t even doing it justice, sister,” I told her while wiping away my tears. “This was what Mom wanted to prevent by making us stay away from her! Now we have to come up with a solution to this problem, so please, let us go back home before more ponies see us.”
“Okay...” she muttered, ashamed. Her ears were splayed back in a way that made her look like a kicked puppy. “I’m sorry, sister.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me, Tia,” I said gently, sniffling with a sad smile on my face. “Mom is going to be so mad when she comes back.”
“If she comes back,” my twin said bitterly. I wanted to tell her that there was no way Mom would die from this, but then again... she was already a shell of her former self... only continuing to live on for my sisters' and my own sake. There was the very real possibility that losing this last part of herself, the magic holding her like a crutch, would bring her toppling down.
And I feared my sister was right about that. Sometimes, there was this mysterious sense that she had, telling her when something was about to happen. Normally, it was just a sense of something small transpiring and she couldn’t tell exactly what it would be that would happen. But then, there were the rare few cases where she prevented something that could have hurt us. All of this started after our sixteenth birthday and now that we were twenty, she started to get slightly better at it.
I, on the other hoof, sometimes had a feeling I understood what the animals around me were feeling. It was a jarring experience the first time I felt it. I just had this 'sense' that the bird was happy as it caught a worm. Or that little mouse that I used for my small experiment.
That mouse was really weirded out by my spell. I tried apologizing to it and it actually felt like it accepted my apology (only begrudgingly, at that).
I don’t think this was something normal ponies could do. Mom certainly never mentioned having experienced anything like what we were telling her about. I had no idea if this was something specific to the tribe my sisters and I belonged to or not.
For now, it certainly seemed like it. It just reaffirmed the belief our dad held that we would never get to experience an ordinary life. I really missed him, despite inheriting his damn pink hair. Even Tia hated how glaringly pink it was.
Then again, my sister and I were actually glad we had something to remember him by. The same could be true for Luna if our mother... left us... just as suddenly as Dad did. I don’t look forward to telling her that Mom could potentially be gone for good, too.
Something about this world just wanted me to lose my family members, didn’t it? Fat chance I would let it take my sisters away from me, too. Not Luna, and definitely not my wife. I already thought I had lost her once, not again.
A few days later, Luna was finally able to leave her own room and she was happy to be let out. Not that that happiness lasted for very long, though. We had to lock her away in the training room as we told her the news and she accused us of abandoning our mother, all the while throwing things at us in anger.
Celestia was all too happy to enter a fight with her, both of them slinging around spells like there was no tomorrow. I tried to stop their fight, throwing up two separate bubble shields around them, but sadly, those got quickly destroyed, much to my dismay.
It was when they started to rip each other’s feathers out that I had enough and teleported them into the middle of the forest with me. If they wanted to make me mad, they had managed it.
And I was a terrifying force to deal with when mad. Especially when I used my trump card. My little gravity field forced both of them to the ground and I let my magefire circle around them. They couldn’t get out even if they tried.
“Stop this at once!” I growled at them, my eyes narrowed and I extended my wings in a threatening manner. “None of this helps our situation. We have to hope Mom comes back, and if not, then we have to figure out what to do with the ponies knowing about us!”
“Let me out, Summer!” Celestia grunted, snorting like a wild animal. “I will teach this naughty filly a lesson for accusing us of abandoning Mother!”
“You let those ponies take Mom away from us!” Luna shot back. “Don’t deny it, sister!”
“Didn’t I tell you to stop?” I asked, my voice low. Both of their eyes shrunk to pinpricks. Good, they knew what was about to come. Nopony stood a chance against my true might.
“Come on, sister! We can talk about this?” Luna laughed nervously, but I didn’t care anymore. They didn’t want to talk before and they certainly wouldn’t now.
“Summer, don’t do this, I beg you!” Tia whined. I raised a skeptical brow at her. Then, the gravity well started to increase tenfold under them, beginning to crush them cruelly and I levitated two loose leaves from the ground, growling with rage. I was this close to letting loose and beating some sense into them, but I had a better idea. An idea that was perhaps even crueler, but they had asked for it. It's time for me to play dirty.
There will be no mercy.
The tickle apocalypse was swift. It was relentless. It. Was. Glorious!
I didn’t stop until I had them apologizing to each other and even then, I continued on until they begged me for release. I wasn't in the mood to be merciful, and until they couldn't breathe any longer, I would torture them to teach them a lesson. These were hard times and required equally hard decisions. Cooperation was a must if we wanted to make it through them and I would be hard-pressed to let my family tear each other apart. What was left of it, that is.
Once everything had calmed down enough from the heightened emotional stress, I gave them a few minutes of rest so they could recover from my ultimate trump card against naughty sisters™. After they caught their breath, we started to debate about what we should do next. We had to come up with something, and the faster we did so, the better. The secret was practically not so secret anymore, meaning we would either have to deal with the ponies coming for us... or run away.
Obviously, I voted for the ‘run away and hide’ option. There was no way I was going to deal with strangers on the lookout for us. Who knows what their intentions are? I certainly wasn't going to trust anyone offering us 'candy'. Neither did my sisters, so we unanimously agreed on that part. We were still iffy about the details, though.
Celestia wanted to observe our house for a few days to see what would happen while Luna just wanted to take our stuff and find a new place to live far away from Equestria. And I just wanted my mother back with us, have the secret still be undiscovered, and have Equestria accept homosexuality while we are at it, but we couldn’t get what we wanted, now could we?
No, that would be too easy. The universe wasn’t that kind to us, after all. As we reluctantly went with Tia’s plan (I really can't say no to her, can I?), we saw those guards return a couple of days later.
And our mother wasn’t with them.
Fear gripped my heart like a vice and I had to stop both a raging Celestia and Luna from going over to them to burn them into a crisp. Or dismember them and feed them to the wolves. Or increase gravity to the point of creating a miniature black hole, sucking them into it. Never before have I felt hatred in my two lives. Well, not the true kind of hatred where you hated someone’s gut so much you wanted to make them evaporate with your gaze alone.
This got me very close to that feeling, but I had to stay strong. If not for Celestia, then for Luna. She was a heartbroken mess like us. One of us had to keep this family together, though. Besides, I couldn't go around creating a black hole because I was grieving, I wasn't a monster that kills for revenge.
Mom was already old, that much we were aware of. Ten or twenty years and she would have been gone, either way. Ponies had a great life expectancy here in this world even in what seemed to be like the equivalent of the middle ages. Something about a healthier lifestyle, I’m sure. Or magic was just that much of a game changer, I guess.
That doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t have been grateful to have her with us for the next odd few years, though. Alas, we would have had to come to terms with it sooner or later, anyway. And while the loss of our father had hurt just as much, it was still hurting us to this day even, we learned how to cope with it already.
We... would just have to cope with this, too. How hard could it be? All alone, without anypony to teach us... guide us... s-support us... I... f-fuck, I can’t do this. This was exactly what I feared most since having lost my old family. While Catherine was still here with me, we had left everyone behind on Earth. And now, we had lost the two figures that had raised us since we had to wear diapers and nurse from the teats of a mare that was at first just a replacement for what we had lost. Not that we actually thought of Mom as a replacement for that long (if at all).
Both of whom we had learned to love with our whole hearts, having embraced them as family. And we would never see them again. They weren't perfect, but they were our parents.
We didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to them...
We could only rely on each other from now on. And we weren’t exactly the most mature bunch, even though we were mentally older than our physical bodies.
Well, at least Celestia and I were older than we appeared. While Luna acted quite mature for her age at times, she also had the tendency to goof around like a little foal. She was still a teenager, after all. Not that we were better in that regard, sometimes.
What? I was a programmer for an indie games company in my last life, I never grew up in the first place. Sue me. And considering Tia made racing her career... she never grew up, either.
So, during the night, we packed up everything worth something to us, mainly food, blankets, and the few memorabilia we had of our parents. We filled a whole cart full of all the things we wanted to take with us and then we set out to find a new place to live. A clearing in the forest would do, one where we could hopefully live undisturbed by civilization.
If Mom didn’t want us to risk our lives for xenophobic idiots, we would honor her last wishes for as long as we could. Her memory deserved nothing less.
That also meant building a new house with all of the wards we could muster up that Mom had taught us over the last couple of years. While we weren’t exactly on the same level of spellcraft as her, we managed to at least safeguard ourselves from most threats.
We were experts in building homes by now, so the task was literally done within a few days. It helped that we had a lot of resources to work with, mainly our magic. And we didn’t actually need such a big house like before, we did kinda want to be hard to find.
At least we had gotten Mom to write down most of her spellwork so she wouldn’t forget it somehow. It was no problem to replicate what we had in our old homes.
That also included a safe room for us to lock ourselves away during estrus, much to Luna’s annoyance. I didn’t want her to run off and find the first available partner, though. So I just told her to deal with it like a big pony, because the alternative was worse.
Regrettably, all thoughts of sexytime between me and Celestia were put on hold for the foreseeable future. Luna was already suspicious of us about something that we kept from her (the relationship going on between us, duh), we didn’t need to add fuel to the fire.
But, as it turns out, we shouldn’t have bothered with trying to hide away again...
“You’re not that hard to track down, little filly,” a voice startled me as I sleepily left the bedroom to start the day, going for the 'bathroom' so I could wash myself for some modicum of hygiene. I let out a shriek in fear, bolting back under the covers of our shared bed, managing to wake up my twin in the process.
“Summer?” she groggily asked, lifting the blanket tiredly up with one of her wings. “What’s going on with you?”
“B-b-b-bur... B-burglar!” I squeaked out, shaking like a leaf. That brought her to full wakefulness very fast, an angry grimace starting to replace her confused expression. Like an avenging angel, Celestia leaped out of bed while some type of offensive spell was already lighting up her horn.
“Begone, foul intruder!” she shouted, almost ripping the door out of its hinges as she went to confront whoever was foolish enough to break into our home. The noise startled my little sister out of her sleep, an alarmed gaze upon her face. She almost fell out of our bed, but she too was out the door a moment later with murder on her expression visible.
I heard the beam attack of my lover splash against what I thought must have been a very powerful shield spell if it could hold up to her assault, judging by the sounds alone.
The sounds of futile attempts to get to the supposed burglar continued on for a little while until one of my sisters must have noticed this wasn’t working as expected, so they stopped their current approach to do something different.
Crackling flames tried to eat away at the magical defense of the stallion within our home next, only for them to get extinguished a moment later.
“Hmm. That's mildly impressive, I have to say," the voice of the elderly stallion commented, not in the slightest bit worried for his safety. "Now that you know you won't get anywhere with this and that I mean you no harm, there's no need to keep on doing this, is there?"
"I'm not done yet!" Celestia snorted angrily and I heard the tell-tale sound of her most powerful spell charging up. "Let's see you block this, old fart. Luna, now!"
Right as Celestia said that, I heard her shoot a highly concentrated laser at the shield in an attempt to break it through power alone and our little sister followed it up with her go-to spell for combat: a salvo of arcane missiles specialized in breaking through shields due to multiple attack vectors seeking out the weakness in the opponent's defense. And yet, from the sound of it, neither spell seemed to work.
"Are we quite done, yet?” the elderly voice asked. "I commend your fighting spirit, but it is completely unnecessary, I assure you."
“Then what do you want from us?!” Celestia asked, snorting skeptically. Seeing that the situation was about to de-escalate, I chanced a peek out further from underneath the covers, trying to see what the intruder looked like. All I could see was the soft glow of a shield and the threatening stance my sister had taken on for intimidation purposes. Slowly, I dared to leave the safe confines of our bed, trudging carefully to the open doorway.
There sat a very old stallion on one of the chairs in our living room, staring back at us as if nothing was wrong with this picture. He had a long white beard and piercing blue eyes, wearing a ridiculous hat with bells and a cape that looked more like a blanket than something a wizard would wear. It was also decorated with little golden bells, giving it a slightly ridiculous look.
...I didn't know ponies could have beards. Huh.
The old stallion cleared his throat while standing up from his seat at the table before he transitioned over to a small bow towards us. “I am here to ask for your help,” he said. His tone was of the wise wizard type of quality one would have heard in a lot of fantasy films back on Earth. He certainly had the aloofness of one, being unconcerned by my sisters' power and hostility. “I’m terribly sorry for startling your sister, dear. I was told I lack... tact. But let's not linger on that, shall we? My name is Starswirl the Bearded, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“And what makes you think we would give you our help?” Luna asked, snorting. “All you ponies have ever done was bicker among yourself, letting hatred guide your hooves. It caused our father to die at the hooves of raiders and now you dare come here asking for our help after you took our mother away from us, as well?”
“I... well, yes...” Starswirl coughed awkwardly into his hoof. “I suppose I chose a bad time to visit, didn't I? While it seems unfortunate you have lost so much over the past conflict, and now with these desperate times calling for ponies to lend their magic to a cause that should have been handled by the Mage Order, I ask you to not forsake this world entirely. I am sincerely sorry for my own failings, I wish I could have done more to prevent all of this.”
“And why should we accept your offer of an apology?” Celestia asked, still staring angrily at him. I came over to her and nuzzled the side of her head, giving her a pleading gaze. This was exactly what we always advocated against. Hatred had started this cycle, we shouldn’t continue it. I had also felt my rage flare up at his... nerve... for asking us so casually, but I would never let my feelings get out of hoof because of that. I couldn't allow my wrath to control me. After all, we were better than that.
“Perhaps we should hear him out?” I asked, uncertainly. We could do at least that much, right? If this cycle of hatred and mistrust kept going on like this, nothing would ever change. I knew that much for sure. Somepony has to look past their misgivings first for it to stop and I... I'd like to give him that chance.
I had high hopes that he wouldn't abuse our trust and I was always of the opinion that a little bit of kindness could go a long way. If we continue to hold the death of our parents against these ponies, we would never get over this. I don't want to hold a grudge. Not against ponies that had nothing to do with this.
Not on purpose, that is...
Platinum, though? She could burn in hell for all I care. Knowing me, though? I would offer her a chance, anyway. The only thing she did was to use excessive numbers to force our mother to go with them. She couldn't have known it would lead to her death, not that I think Platinum of all ponies cared about a few casualties here and there.
What she didn't know, though, was that House Luna didn't die with our mother. If that was her goal, she was in for a very rude awakening. We would stand tall with our heads held high, and when she makes a mistake... we would be there to show her how much of a failure she truly was.
“I can’t believe this. You know what these ponies did to our mother, Summer!” Tia snarled, growling in the direction of the old pony standing in the middle of the room. “He is the reason she had to die! Can’t you see that?!”
“Yes, I know...” I said meekly, looking down and away from her. “But I don't think it was his fault, he couldn't have known. At least, I think so. Mom was powerful despite... despite how fragile her heart was."
Starswirl shook his head, a 'dead' look in his tired eyes. He must feel so guilty... "I only heard there had been an accident. I'm sorry, my dear."
"Right," I muttered, thinking. An 'accident', sure. That's what they told him, huh? I guess he truly was in the dark about this. Platinum can't be that heartless to talk about the passing of a pony as an 'accident', could she?
"I'll give you 'accident', you shitty old..!" Tia snarled, about to attack him again. If I had not intervened by holding her back, that is. Luna was giving me an incredulous look, but I ignored her in favor of calming my upset sister down and making sure Tia wouldn't murder a pony in a misguided attempt at revenge. "Let go of me, Summer! I... he's..!"—she snorted wildly in my hug, trying to break free (though I suspect she had long since lost the fight in her because, if she wanted, she could have easily shoved me away)—" He took Mom away from us..."
I smiled sadly at her and nuzzled her tears away. "Hey... it's alright. I'm here for you, it's going to be alright. Shh..." I whispered, stroking her back slowly as she struggled to keep her sobs in. "I know it hurts, Tia. I really do, but we can't take it out on him just because we feel like hitting something in anger. Please, calm down. He came here in good faith seeking out help, shouldn’t we at least show a little bit of kindness in return? Shouldn't we be willing to forgive? He's willing to offer us his condolences and make it up to us in whatever way he can, doesn't that mean anything to you?”
“Summer, you and your fucking bleeding heart! Look at that old geezer and tell me he is truly sorry for what his ineptitude has caused! I don't believe a word he says! He probably wants to use us as mana batteries next,” she shot back with a scowl, sniffing up her tears before she forced me to look at the stallion that seemed to look totally indifferent to what was going on at first glance.
What I saw in his piercing blue eyes wasn’t a coldhearted monster, though. No. It was somepony that tried their very best to keep everything they loved and held dear from shattering into pieces. In him, I saw a pony that desperately sought a solution, a pony willing to sacrifice their own well-being to save the world he loved. And he mourned every loss along the way.
This tiredness in his eyes... the way his slightly slouched posture screamed of resignation, the wrinkles showing through his gray fur, and the exhaustion of holding the weight of the world on his shoulders... he really just wants to help, doesn't he? And then... there was also the pain hidden behind his tired eyes.
“So much pain...” I whispered, tears trickling down my face as I beheld him. He was quite startled as he saw me weep for somepony that was, for all intents and purposes, a total stranger to me. “Why do you take on this heavy burden upon your own shoulders for so long?”
“My dear, somepony has to,” he said, looking down. His voice barely reached above a whisper and... it sounded quite lonely, too. He must have lost somepony close to him in his duty to uphold the order of the world, doesn't he? Somepony he loved. “If not for me, countless more would have already given their lives to this doomed cause. I’ve done my best to take on as much of the burden as I could, but without the rest of my colleagues? I fear we will not have much time before even I can’t continue on with this. I need your help. Please, I implore you... hear me out. I would be forever grateful if you could do at least that much.”
I shifted on my hooves, looking at Tia and Lulu to get a feel for their thoughts. Neither seemed to be willing to trust the stallion. It hurt my heart to see them so bitter and mistrustful. This wasn't them. I don't want to see them become like Mom...
Turning back to Starswirl, I fidgeted with my wings. One of us has to take the first step, and if it has to be me that does so, then so be it. “What do you need us to do?” I asked, wanting to know what we could do that others could not. Although, I might have an idea regarding that...
“I think you know quite well what it is that I want to ask of you. This nation needs ponies like you, not those fools blathering in their seats, talking over each other all day long,” he smiled sadly. “I can't also foalsit a bunch of petty leaders to make sure there is a nation left to be saved. I wouldn’t have come had I not heard the rumors. You truly are magnificent beings, aren’t you?”
I blushed, scuffing the ground with my hoof. “I... that's exaggerating it a little bit, isn't it?" I mumbled, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. "I'm sure there are more ponies like us out there. We don’t really know a lot about our tribe, to be honest. We can't be the only ones, right?”
“As far as I know, you are unique. I suppose we will have to find out in due time,” he said, nodding slightly in thought. “I apologize for asking you so brazenly to help a nation that has caused so much suffering for you, but I don't have many options available to me. All I ask is that you think this over and perhaps accompany me to the capital?”
“And why would we want to do that?” Luna asked warily. “What purpose would that serve us but bring up painful memories?”
“To show you what it is that I keep fighting for, my dear,” Starswirl told us. “And perhaps show you that I do not mean you any harm. Not all ponies are bad, you know. I hope you realize that you three could become a symbol for ponykind. We are in desperate need of unity, something that could unite all three tribes in harmony. And from what observations I have made on your particular tribe of ponies, I assume you are a combination of all three tribes?”
“Well, yes...” I answered. “But wouldn’t ponies fear us? We are different from them, after all. Mother always believed we would be ostracized for what we are...”
“Do you think so, too?” he asked me and I fidgeted uncomfortably, unsure. The other pony tribes haven't given me much confidence to think that it wasn't the case. I knew racism was hard to snuff out, and if they were even remotely conservative enough, it would take a long time before a true change in opinions and views could be observed.
A long time where ponies could resent us for being different than them.
“Well... ponies already find a ton of ways to hate each other for even the slightest differences,” I argued, purely basing my opinion on what I knew from humanity. “And the tribalism that had led to the great winter? We represent all that they fear in others, hatred would be a natural response to that.”
“Now, now. You are quite mistaken, my dear. Do you want to know what I think?” he smiled in his typically wizened old wizard kind of way and I glanced at Tia. My sister still looked skeptical and more like she wanted to tell him flat-out 'no'. She really wasn't liking where this was going, was she? Not that I could blame her, it did start to sound a bit scary. It was a lot of responsibility, wasn't it? “I think ponies would look to you and see somepony representing a part of their tribe in a pony that has all three characteristics. All three tribes, unified by that which is all three of them at the same time. Do you see?”
“You can’t possibly be asking us to lead a nation! We don't know anything about leading a nation, much less about being a symbol of ponykind,” Celestia said, scowling incredulously. Starswirl merely chuckled at her answer, shaking his head slowly.
“No, my dear,” he retorted. “I’m not asking you to do that. I couldn’t even do something like that, to begin with. All I could do would be to try and convince the ponies of this land to accept you as their leaders. A leader is only a leader as long as their followers stand by them, after all.”
“That still doesn’t make us qualified for such a task,” Luna shot back in a deadpan.
“No, I suppose it does not...” he agreed. “But all great leaders have to start out somewhere, right?”
“That might be true, but I still don’t think my sisters and I would be all that good at it,” I said morosely, feeling like it was going to be a massive undertaking to even entertain this ridiculous idea. The responsibility was just too much. Like... “What if we make mistakes and cause a war? What if those ponies in charge resent us because we took their position away from them as their new leaders? What if the current leaders try to get rid of us? And what about everypony else, what would they think of us? They don’t even know us.”
“A great many fears for something that is only a possibility,” he laughed. “Don’t wallow in the ‘What if?’ and instead think of ‘What can we do to make life better?’. Focus on that and I can tell you will make great leaders with a little bit of training in the more mundane tasks that such a position would require.”
“Can we... think about this?” I asked, not sure how to feel about his arguments. I mean... he was kinda right. A leader that doesn’t want to be one would make for the best one, right? We don’t want to be in that position, but maybe we could make this world a bit more bearable to live in if we were.
To guide all the little ponies in this land towards a brighter future... that is what he wanted us to do, and if we can accomplish that in some small way by simply being a symbol, what else could we do for these ponies?
They deserved to have a unified banner to stand behind, a literal embodiment of harmony between all three tribes. Somepony leading them that wouldn’t let the difference between tribes cloud their judgment, like the current ruling body.
And it would allow us to take revenge on Platinum. Since she took our mother away from us, we would take away her position as ruler of this nation in return. Something that our mother had been trained to do in the first place by her own parents, but we wouldn’t have to do it in a violent fashion.
No. All we have to do is to just ask the ponies to follow us instead and they would jump at the opportunity of a pony that represented the very ideal Equestria was founded upon.
Harmony.
Love. Generosity. Kindness... loyalty, honesty... even laughter. Those were all ideals that were important to me and I have no doubt my sisters would think so, too. So... why not think about this over a couple of nights, discuss this among us, and then decide? And in the meantime, we could observe what Starswirl wanted to show us.
It was time we stopped hiding.