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// Prologus II: Loss of Memory 
// Story: Hybridization 
// by Pleiades 
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	“Sister…”
Princess Celestia stopped before she took a sip of her soup. “Yes, Luna?” she asked.
“Do you remember what happened to the rest of us? The rest of the alicorns?”
That took the elder goddess of Equestria by surprise. “You don’t remember?” she asked.
“No…” Luna admitted, taking a sip of her own soup. “I’m afraid not…”
“Well…” Celestia began… “They spread around this world, after we created Equestria, and the alicorns, earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns.”
“Oh… they did?” Luna’s ear twitched in curiosity.
“Yes,” Celestia replied solemnly. “Why don’t you remember?”
“… I don’t know,” Luna admitted, lowering her head. “Ever since I was purified from Nightmare Moon, I’ve been… forgetting. I can’t remember stuff as well as I normally would, not as well as you or Cadence would.”
“Well, Cadence has her massive library of diaries…” Celestia rolled her eyes.
“One for each of her reincarnations,” Luna finished. “That’s one of the other things I don’t remember. Why did she choose reincarnation over immortality?”
“Because she wanted to be closer to our subjects,” Celestia reminded her. “… What do you remember?”
“I remember when I invented aspirin,” Luna instantly cheered up a little. “You recovered from that awful headache of yours in 3.14 seconds.”
“Not the worst headache I’ve ever had…” Celestia admitted. “I never found out from you. Does aspirin cure a case of the nobility?”
“I wish.”
The two sisters giggled at their own joke. “Oh, do you remember when you invented the wheel?” Celestia continued. “You were such a little filly, and you still managed to do it!
“I remember when you tried to balance on it,” Luna grinned.
“How could I forget that…?” Celestia sighed. She could still feel the pain from landing, horn first, on the ground after falling off, even after all those millennia. “What about when you invented that liquid explosive?”
“Trinitroglycerin?” Luna asked. “It was a blast.”
They had another fit of giggles from her pun. “We actually found another use for it, while you were… gone,” Celestia admitted. “Royal doctors found that it’s also a good medication for heart problems.”
Luna’s ears perked up, again. “Really?” she asked. “I always thought it was too unstable.”
“You should ask them how it works, I don’t understand half of what they say,” Celestia shook her head.
Luna, however, had begun staring at her soup. It was clear that the gears were turning in her head. “That… makes sense now…” she thought to herself. “Enzymes would catalyze the nitroglycerin and convert it to nitric oxide…”
“Um, Luna?” Celestia interjected, to which Luna finally took notice. “I don’t understand you either.”
The two princesses both laughed. “So is there anything else you managed to do with the stuff I’ve made?” Luna asked.
“Um…” Celestia began, her eyes shifting. “Actually… yes.”
Luna tilted her head. “With what?”
“… Do you remember when you created your own brand of magic?”
“Oh, yeah!” she nodded. “Lunar magic! It never caught on…”
“… It did, actually.”
Luna’s ear twitched. “It did?” she asked, confused. “But… I haven’t seen a single pony use it.”
“That’s because the ponies that use it aren’t here,” Celestia answered. “They’re far away, in Komodo City.”
“Komodo City? I haven’t seen it on a single map…”
“You won’t,” Celestia explained. “It’s a city that very few ponies that live outside of it know it even exists, because of what goes on there.”
“… What does that mean?” Luna couldn’t help but ask. “How does this connect to my lunar magic?”
“… Do you remember when you began to experiment with a pony’s… what was it, genetics?” Celestia asked.
“Yeah…” Luna lowered her head. “That was one of my biggest failures… I tried to hybridize the three ponies, hoping to be more like you.”
“Have you considered using your lunar magic to do that?”
Luna tilted her head. “… How would lunar magic help me hybridize ponies? What made you think of that?”
“… While you were gone…” Celestia lowered her head, almost in grief. “I continued some of your experiments, hoping to keep you close in some way. It’s part of why technology continued to grow while you were gone; without you, it would have stagnated.”
“… Are you going where I think you’re going?” Luna asked.
“… Eighteen years before you were purified, I received a letter from Komodo University,” Celestia continued. “It took nearly a millennium, and a large part of the treasury funds, but… we succeeded.”
Luna’s eyes widened. “On September 16… the first hybrid pony, Concordia, was born.” Celestia finished.
“Yippee!” Luna instantly shot into the air, nearly knocking over the table. Celestia recoiled a little; she didn’t expect Luna to be that happy. “I can’t believe it! Hybrids! Yes! YES!”
“Luna…” Celestia tried to calm her down. “You might want to go visit Komodo University. It might spur your memory.”
“I’m going right now!” Luna promptly declared.
She instantly zoomed up to her sister, and planted a large kiss on her cheek. In surprise, Celestia’s wings raised upwards, her blush showing through her white coat. In almost the same instant, Luna had shot out of the dining room door. Celestia sighed. “Oh, Luna.”

Celestia creaked open her little sister’s door to see her quickly packing what few things she had; spare shoes, a couple of pieces of formalwear… “Luna?” Celestia said.
Luna stopped quickly. “Is something wrong, sister?” she asked.
“Komodo’s up north, pretty close to the Crystal Empire,” Celestia explained. “You might want to get a parka; I’ve already tried staying up there for a few months. I came home with pneumonia.”
Luna took a quick look at what she packed. She quickly dived back in, and tossed out a couple of jackets and other winter gear. “There is something wrong, though…” Celestia began, again.
Luna stuck her head out of her spacious closet. “What is it now?”
“Technically, the hybrids are your creations,” Celestia warned. “I’ve always considered them yours. But they might not be who you expect them to be. You haven’t seen a single one in Canterlot, or anywhere outside Komodo City, because Equestria isn’t ready for them yet.”
Luna came out, curious. “They also… hold a secret that would throw Equestria into chaos, were it to be revealed,” Celestia continued.
“So... what is it?” Luna asked.
“Even I don’t know,” Celestia admitted. “I was only told that they managed to do something, but the pony who wrote me the letter refused to say what it was, in fear of his letter being intercepted.”
“But that isn’t a problem anymore,” Luna retorted. “The last time a letter was intercepted magically was 1034 years ago.”
“He still didn’t want to take the chance. He said it was something that even he shouldn’t have clearance to witness. Only four ponies know the secret, and none of them have clearance that deep.”
“… How deep exactly?”
“… Level 20, he says.”
Luna’s jaw dropped. “Only we can know secrets that secure…” she breathed. “What’s his level?”
“I think his was level 18…”
Luna sighed. “Who exactly is he?”
Celestia sat down. “He is Night Flash, chief geneticist of Komodo University.”
“So that explains why he’s so high up on the chain…” Luna said to herself. “I should go meet him.”
“I’ll inform him of your visit,” Celestia said. “Just… be careful.”
“I’ll be alright, sister,” Luna tried to reassure her. “I may have been trapped in the moon for a thousand years, but I have learned some tricks for adapting quickly to new ponies. But… why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?”
Celestia lowered her head again. It was clear that spilling the beans was taking a small toll on her emotionally. “… I didn’t think you were ready,” she finally admitted. “You haven’t even adjusted to the political atmosphere yet.”
“And something tells me I don’t want to,” Luna shook her head. “Not without inventing a cure for the nobility.”
Celestia smiled. “With your memory loss, however, it’s important you know. While you are gone, I will rule the Night Court for you. I want you to focus on your journey, and not on what is going on in Canterlot. With a situation like this, I am sure even the nobility will understand.”
Luna, smiling, nodded. “Thank you, Celestia.”
The last coat drifted into Luna’s waiting suitcase. “Goodbye,” she said as she spread her wings, picking up her luggage, and leapt into the sky…
Suddenly, however, she felt something tug on her tail. “Whoa!” she gasped as she flopped onto her carpet, with a thud.
“Luna… You might want to sleep tonight,” Celestia suggested. “It might be the last time you sleep in your bed for a long time.”
Luna turned back to Celestia, a look of embarrassment on her face. “But first…” Celestia changed the subject. “Shall we get back to dinner?”