//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: Seeing the Light // by Animalman57 //------------------------------// A long time ago, in the land that would one day be known as Equestria, a war was raged between bug-like creatures called changelings and the ponies that lived there. The changeling's queen, Chrysalis, refused to surrender to what, to her, was simply food. Changelings feed on love, and this land had more love than anywhere else she's ever been, so conquering it would give them more food than they could ever eat. She was a cruel queen, even to her own subjects, forcing them to battle under the false pretense that changelings can only take love by force. Unfortunately for the queen, her rule would not last. One changeling, Thorax, found out that they didn't have to drain love by force, but instead share it. As he never wanted to fight in the first place, he made an alliance with the ponies. Once the other changelings heard of this development, they, not wanting to follow in their queen due to her being a tyrant of a ruler, joined Thorax's side and made him their king. The queen was overthrown, banished and left alone to live out the rest of her days alone and starving. She vowed revenge, though she honestly didn't know how. Several hundred years later, after Equestria had been established, the Pegasus Kingdom was excited by the news that the King and Queen, Whisper Willow and Gentle Heart, were expecting their first child. Whisper and Gentle were beyond overjoyed by the news themselves and couldn't wait for their foal to be born. The news soon reached the starving Chrysalis and she thought that now it'd been long enough that most ponies had forgotten of her existence, she could sneak into Equestria and properly plot her vengeance. Still, not wanting to be caught, she disguised herself, using her changeling powers of shapeshifting, into a pony with a long black cloak. Soon, the foal was born. She was a filly with a buttery yellow coat, a soft pink mane and tail, and shimmering teal eyes. Even as a newborn, her mane and tail were long, long enough for her mane to nearly cover her eye. The King and Queen were beyond in love with their daughter. They held a ceremony to showcase their pride and joy to the world, announcing her to the world as Fluttershy, Princess of Kindness. Upon attending the ceremony, the disguised ex-queen felt a strong surge of love, more than any she ever felt before, coming from the tiny filly. It seemed impossible, but the princess had the purest heart, unable to be corrupted by hate, and had what seemed to be an unlimited supply of unconditional love available to all she could give it to, and only as a filly. Chrysalis realized that if she could just steal some of that love, she could gain enough power to rival the legendary Princess Celestia herself. Who needed an army when she could take on the mighty Princess Celestia and win on her own? She had to have this filly's love, no matter the cost. Later that night, Chrysalis flew to the castle disguised as a fly and snuck into the bedroom window where the king, queen, and princess were sleeping. The princess was peacefully sleeping in a golden baby crib, wrapped in a pink blanket. Chrysalis quickly turned back into herself once verifying that the king and queen were asleep, though wearing the cloak that was on her pony disguise, and she tried to steal her love but found that she was unable to get as much as she hoped from a single feeding. The princess' heart, while flowing with nothing but love, only gave small douses when she tried to steal her power by force like she usually does. Her magic was being boosted, but not as much as she initially presumed. This is problematic, she thought. While this filly was her best chance of gaining the kingdom of Equestria, she couldn't get enough of her power in one single sitting to make her unstoppable. So she did what she saw as the best option, steal the filly. Sure, she hated kids, but what else was she to do, just leave her biggest source of power behind and continue to starve? Whisper Willow and Gentle Heart woke up to the sound of their baby crying and woke up, seeing a mysterious cloaked figure fly out the window with their crying daughter in its hoof. They were devastated. They asked everyone they could to search high and low for the kidnapped princess. Celestia even said she'd help find the young princess. But they couldn't find her and the king and queen's hearts broke at the idea that their daughter was lost forever. Not wanting to give up hope, they started a tradition where, every year on Fluttershy's birthday, they send dozens of sky lanterns with patterns of butterflies on them in the hopes that their daughter would see them and come home. The reason they couldn't find Princess Fluttershy was because Chrysalis had taken her to a rundown tower, hidden by a waterfall. Chrysalis planned to raise the princess as her daughter and keep her until she was strong enough to take over, then kill her when the princess' usefulness has run out. She knew that it'd be unlikely to convince the filly that a changeling was her mother, so she used her shapeshifting powers to turn herself into a pony, a different form from the one she used to sneak into Equestria. Her new form was a tall slender unicorn mare with a dark crimson red mane and tail and a dark brown coat. The only give away for her true form was her eyes being the same shade of green. She also changed Fluttershy's name to Posey to keep her true identity away from her and spent years feeding the child lies about the outside world and making it seem terrifying. As a result, the filly became shy and anxious and promised to stay in the tower for the rest of her life. Every day, Chrysalis tried stealing more of her love, but only got a small boost of power each time she tried. She soon found that the most effective way of boosting her power was stealing it while the princess sang. It still wasn't as much as she wanted, but she grew stronger faster than before, so she adjusted her plan slightly. Every day, she'd try to convince her 'daughter' to sing with her, and although Posey was nervous about her singing voice, she'd usually sing eventually to please her. Though the little pegasus loved her 'mother' and was frightened by the outside world, she was also fascinated by it, and often stared out the window in the castle to view the big, bright and beautiful world. As she grew older, she only hoped that one day, she'd be able to head out on her own, see the world, and maybe even check out those lights that seem to go off every year on her birthday.