Chapter Three: The Founding
Journal entry 1
Another project, another journal. This time the big idea came from Celestia, and what an idea it is. What a plan indeed. It is the type of plan that only the desperate or foolish would place their hopes in. While we are most definitely desperate, I can only hope we are not fools.
Last night when Starswirl stopped by to meet with us, he did so without his signature bells; his standing challenge had finally been met. Who knew it would take so long? Where have all the imaginative unicorns like Silver Spear gone?
As it turns out, there is more than one way past anti-telekinetic wards. Specifically, never using telekinesis in the first place, but rather incapacitating him, followed by simply walking up to him and removing the bells by hoof. Clover the Clever took him by surprise with her ingenuity, truly living up to her name. By using her friends’ abilities to supplement her own, she devised a way to bypass the intended test entirely. Her earth pony friend Smart Cookie’s herbal expertise allowed the cookies to quickly knock out a grown stallion. Private Pansy supplied them with an electric shock (to keep him from magically counteracting the effect) for the cookies, which was contained by a small application of binding magic. The low-level, easily broken, imbuement of loyalty could only be used to connect the electricity to the material, but not without changing its properties, so Smart Cookies’ baking expertise also played an important role.
According to Starswirl, Clover said that she’s been secretly meeting with her foalhood friends over the years. Perhaps this is a widespread phenomenon; that would make the coming process much easier.
As these three mares’ collaboration shows, the way to accomplish our goals may not be the one that is most obvious. That is what sparked Celestia’s idea. We need to think more outside the box (or as the newly elected Chancellor Pudding Head would put it, “in the chimney”). Our more standard methods of persuasion — talking, pleading, reasoning, and reprimanding — have done nothing for us but waste time. So now we will begin a more forceful approach.
As Celestia pointed out, Discord united the tribes more in a few months than we have managed to accomplish in years. Some kind of designed hardship might be able to do the same. According to Celestia, the infighting ebbed when Discord was unwittingly targeting food. This led us to the hypothesis that if we limit the food supply, the ponies will then be forced to band together for survival. What we came up with is project W.I.N.D.I.G.O.S. (Worldwide Intense Natural Diversion Inverting Gross Oppressive Speciesism) This plan takes advantage of the easy method available to us to reduce crop growth, Celestia’s aura. Varying its power is something that she has learned to do seasonally. We intend to use the lack of growth magic to our full advantage by severely limiting crop yields and slowing ponies’ metabolisms. I will then help the ponies survive the famine by drastically increasing my restorative aura to combat the negative effects of malnourishment.
I cannot imagine that this will be pleasant.
We are well aware that this process may take a long time because there will be no clear enemy to band together against. But we must take the long view, even when it is painful to watch them struggle. I will have to work hard to remember that and steel my resolve. Celestia and Starswirl think that this will work, and I can’t disagree with them, I just wish there was some other way.
But that is neither here nor there. Tomorrow we begin preparatory measures. We will begin to get the tribes used to seeing us less and spread rumors that we will be leaving to combat a dangerous foe in a distant land. Meanwhile, Starswirl will spread tales of “windigos.” It must be subtle, otherwise ponies will wonder at the strange coincidence of them “appearing” so soon after he starts speaking of them. We are only comfortable with a few offhoof comments around the right ponies, such as his new apprentice and perhaps the few ponies that are both sympathetic to our cause and in a position to do something about it later on.
Journal entry 2
Phase one is over. As of now, Celestia and I have “left to deal with a distant threat”. Now we will observe and wait to start the second stage of the plan.
Journal entry 3
Those devious unicorns. The day after we left, they put on a grand show; they went out at dawn and quite visibly lit up their horns. When they did the same at dusk, I had to force myself to not go and throttle them. So, now they’re claiming to be the ones controlling the sun and the moon. Preposterous! Even if they could compile their strength together, the range they could achieve would still be limited to that of the strongest among them. To make matters worse, they are asking for, no, demanding food from the earth ponies in return. Princess Platinum just had to make this more difficult. Now we will have to wait for this situation to calm down before we can expect them to start banding together.
Journal entry 4
The wait was longer than expected. It took till late autumn for the tensions to reach a reasonable level, and how will they notice anything odd if we start now? It would just look like an early winter. So now we must wait until mid-spring to reverse the weather. Looks like I will have plenty of time to continue my research into Celestia’s astrological powers. This might be a blessing in disguise; perhaps we won’t need to blanket the entire world if we can discover a way to make the effect more local. Time to dig out the old notes.
Field Notes on Alicorn-Specific Magic
Observation # 112
Thinking back on how I noticed small irregularities in the intensity of Celestia’s solar aura (Obs # 56-64), I see that this may be a possible solution to the area-of-effect problem. Tonight, I shall begin tests to see if I can replicate the phenomena in a more orderly manner. If tests are successful, I will bring up the possibility with Celestia.
The last few nights of testing have provided the results I had hoped for. It took five nights of practice, but I finally managed to concentrate my restorative magic into a much more limited area. In my morning telepathic conversation with Starswirl, he reported feeling unusually healthy and rejuvenated. This information brings with it a measure of cognitive dissonance; on one hoof, I’m glad I could make him feel better, but on the other, I’m sad that he’s getting on in the years. Meanwhile, it seems more and more likely that our connections to the heavenly bodies have granted us with negligible senescence (Obs # 76-87), both an amazing blessing and a tremendous burden.
Tomorrow I will bring these results to Celestia and see about getting her to replicate them.
Observation # 113
After a week of practice, Celestia mastered the aforementioned technique. This is great news! Our plan will work so much better with our new abilities. Now to wait for Spring to implement stage two.
Journal Entry 5
It's almost time to start the next phase. The first harvest is just coming in, but with our interference, it will also be the last. We'll both make forays out of the fortress (although, with Celestia's stylistic input, it is becoming even more palace-like) to make our own observations. We can't totally rely on Starswirl for information. After all, information is power, and for this to work we need all the advantages we can get.
Week One: Unsurprisingly, they have yet to guess that this will continue for much longer.
Week Two: Largely unchanged.
Week Three: The pegasi have taken to removing the clouds instead of bringing more; the snow was not helping the farmers much. Both they and the unicorns are still demanding food from the earth ponies, who give it grudgingly. Meanwhile, Celestia and I have taken to making as many snow-laden clouds as possible and sending them in on the wind. We reason that, the more uncomfortable they are, the more quickly this will all be over.
Week Four: As was to be expected, the unicorns turned to Starswirl to solve their problems. He gave them a perfectly reasonable method to make their token gardens produce more food: expose the crops to high concentrations of generosity-based magic. What he left out was that it would be an almost total waste; there is simply not enough growth magic to give. As a result, a few of their plants briefly flourished, but the small yield could do nothing to offset the ravenous hunger of a population. Of course they would make Starswirl shoulder most of the burden: he is the most skilled mage they have available. The strain of being forced to make it look like he’s doing something productive isn’t good for him. He’s getting older and shouldn’t be made to do this, but they seem intent on running him into the ground, claiming “Survival of all should be on the forefront of everypony’s mind.” They seem to think that he’s just being generous for them, but his sacrifice is for so much more. It’s for all ponies of the future, and it’s wearing him down. At the end of the day, he lacks the strength to contact us. I would have feared the worst, but I’ve been able to make my way into his dreams. I would typically avoid doing that, but desperate times call for desperate measures. He looks terrible, though...
I don’t know how much longer he can go on like this.
I wish I could make this easier for him, but I don’t know if I can focus the healing any more. Even if I could though, I couldn’t bring myself to leave anypony out. My heart still breaks whenever I see a foal whimpering from hunger or a mother or father give up their supper to allow their foal a few more mouthfuls.
Week Five: The unicorns' gardens are completely barren, and the pegasi are similarly out of locations to scavenge. Even the once plentiful wheat fields have withered and died. Now that they are both completely reliant on the earth ponies for food they should, if past precedent is to be trusted, begin to band together. Good thing too, keeping up this unnatural... configuration of my aura is exhausting. Even worse, the strain from all of Starswirl’s exertions has taken a serious toll on him. The situation looks... It doesn’t look good. In this, I envy Celestia and her immense strength. But the end is in sight! The tribes have called for a summit early next week.
Week Six: I can scarcely believe it! Those utter foals! The leaders of the tribes have forgone diplomacy and have decided to go it alone. This is in spite of their various advisors’ best efforts to persuade them to follow a path of unity. Now the three leaders and their advisors (sans Starswirl, for he is much too weak) are going out to search for an end to the blizzards and relentless cold. If they do make it to the edge before they see reason (a prospect that seems ever more likely) Celestia can just widen the area of effect. We have put too much into this to fail, and, despite my best efforts, the first casualties have started happening. I worry that soon Starswirl will join their number. But their sacrifices will not be in vain.
They made it out. The bullheadedness of Commander Hurricane, Princess Platinum, and Chancellor Pudding Head would put any minotaur to shame. How they made it despite Hurricane's compulsion to destroy every cloud, Platinum's general aversion to dirtying herself, and Pudding Head's often circular route will forever be a mystery; they only seemed to make progress when we weren't looking. When it became apparent that they would make it out, both Celestia and I decided to forgo all subtlety; she went out and started to make a massive blizzard, one for the record books, while I stayed here to come up with scare tactic spells... I'm thinking that rapid spontaneous generation of ice and ghostly apparitions should force them to work together. If this doesn't work, I fear that all we have lost will be for nothing.
Journal entry 6
I don’t know what happened, but I am eternally grateful. Just as all hope seemed lost and it seemed that we had utterly failed ponykind, Clover's magic blazed to life and banished my enchantments. Simultaneously, from far in the north came a tremendously powerful wave of an unidentified type of magic. While I am proud to see my pupil's student becoming so adept, I sincerely doubt that it was her magic that so rapidly changed the mindset of her superiors. No, that change, I believe, is thanks to the mysterious other magic — not that we will tell them that.
It appears that I now know what my next project will be.
First we must get the ponies back on their hooves. The six of them have taken to calling the new land Equestria, not terribly original, but infinitely better than Dirtville. They have already started migrating the tribes there. Meanwhile, Celestia has been relaxing her control of the temperature as more and more ponies arrive. Only once the vast majority of them have been relocated we will “come back” because Celestia says we need to wait before they see us again or suspicion might be raised.
“Three cheers for Celestia, The Golden Light, The Fabulous Dawn, The Life Giver, and Mistress of the Sun!”
“Hip Hip Hooray! Hip Hip Hooray!Hip Hip Hooray!”
“Three cheers for Luna, The Soothing Balm, The Weaver of Dreams, and The Mistress of the Moon!”
“Hip Hip Hooray! Hip Hip Hooray! Hip Hip Hooray!”
The six mares responsible for the formation of the fledgling country, Equestria, all approached the two sisters and bowed low. Starswirl was conspicuously absent. The journey had taken a toll on him, and his health was in a sorry state. For most ponies though, the absence of one old stallion was not enough to dampen their jubilation.
Princess Platinum, the mare primarily responsible for the celebration, began her speech.
"Lady Celestia, Lady Luna, allow me to formally welcome you to our new land. We—" she gestured to the other five mares with her "—are in agreement that you, both of you, displayed the foresight and knowledge we lacked.” She sighed, ears turning back. “Therefore, we have unanimously agreed that you should be our leaders.”
Clover the Clever stepped forward, shooting a glare to Platinum. “We have recently come to realize that it is only through tolerance and friendship that we can continue and prosper. I am deeply ashamed that it took a threat as dire as the Windigos to make us—” she rolled her eyes at Princess Platinum, and Celestia had to stifle a chuckle “—realize the error of our ways.”
Then Chancellor Pudding Head took over. “Yuperooni! You two were all like, ‘You ponies need to work together!’ And we were like, ‘No way, earth ponies can go it alone!’ But, turns out we couldn’t. My bad.” With a bounce, she returned to her spot.
Smart Cookie made her way to the front. “What Ah believe our Chancellor means is that if we had simply listened to what y’all said in the first place, we would’ve never been in such a fine mess. We feel that with your great wisdom and foresight, you two’d be the best leaders we could hope for.”
Commander Hurricane glumly hovered up to say her piece. “Um, yeah, so we welcome your benevolent rule, which I’m sure will be awesome. Because you’re awesome and stuff. So I’ll step down from command and let you take over ’cuz that’s the right thing to do.” She settled back to the ground with a huff, looking away.
All too soon, it was Private Pansy’s time to speak. It took her several shaky steps to make it into position to address the soon to be Princesses, and when she opened her mouth, nothing more than a small “Eep” escaped.
“Don’t be afraid, my little pony. You have nothing to fear.”
Encouraged by the calming words, Pansy gulped and in a wavering voice said, “I... We all would like for you to find it in your hearts to take the responsibility of running the country. We’re willing to accept any terms you might, uh, impose.” She gulped. “That is if you want to...”
Princess Platinum stepped up and actually helped the nervous pegasus back to her place before finishing her speech.
“My associates and I feel that you showed you would stand up for ponies everywhere, regardless of tribe, during the time of Discord. After that, you tried to show us the right path, but in our stubbornness we ignored you. We beg for forgiveness and ask: will you stand up for us now and guide us to a brighter future?”
Two ponies of each tribe processed out from the sides of the crowd. Slowly, the pair of unicorns brought the tiaras while the pegasi carried the gold and ebony shoes balanced in a line across their spread wings. The heavy torques were borne by the stout earth ponies.
While they were coming, Celestia flicked her eyes to her sister then quickly up. Nopony else would think anything of it, but Luna understood exactly what her sister wanted. Her horn’s brief glow went largely unnoticed, as most ponies were focused entirely on Celestia.
[Yes, Celly?]
[Do you think we should? This might be our best chance.]
[Are you really considering turning down a coronation?]
[No... I just feel like we don’t really deserve this, after we caused so much pain and suffering.]
[You can’t let all our hard work go to waste. As distasteful and heartbreaking as it was, this is what it has bought for us. Everypony’s sacrifices] especially Starswirl’s she added, but only to herself [need to be made worthwhile.]
[Oh, I will. I will do better for them. And I will make this worth it.]
Luna let the spell slip away; the last pair had arrived. The silence from the gathered ponies was an oppressive weight, one Luna could not gather the nerve to overcome. But Celestia played on the silence, letting the tension build. Just before the crowd’s nervous energy boiled over, she lit up her horn, and her thunderous tone carried both authority and warmth but none of the doubt she had been expressing just moments before.
“I accept this great responsibility that you have offered me, and I pledge to provide for and protect all ponies in my care. I will strive to be worthy of the trust you place in me. Let us now build our country to be a paradise for all, a land with ample food and where predation is something no pony need fear.” At that a hint of steel crept into her voice.
The applause was absolutely deafening. The wild cheers and stamping of hooves from the gathered ponies rocked the valley. For several minutes the jubilation precluded any attempt at conversation, not that anypony felt particularly inclined to talk when there was so much merrymaking to do. Eventually the revelry drew to a close, in part due to the desire to hear what Luna had to say, but largely because their legs and throats had become exhausted.
Celestia turned to Luna, “So, my sister, what do you say?” At that, the rest of the throng grew quiet.
“I, too, accept. I wish for all ponies everywhere to be safe and want for nothing more than to do what they love. I feel greatly honored that you would find us to be worthy of your trust and respect. I shall endeavor to be there for you whenever you are in need. May this be the beginning of a joyful era.”
Again, applause resounded through the valley. For a few minutes, Luna was able to drink in the adoration of the crowd. Eventually though, the already spent ponies’ cheers came to a ragged end.
[If only Mom and Dad could see us now...] Luna thought to her sister.
[What would they think? Their girls can control the sun and moon and now run an entire country.] Celestia raised an eyebrow. [And speaking of seeing, how did you amplify your voice? I didn’t see you use magic.]
[I was actually wondering about why you used unicorn magic. Voice amplification is essentially air manipulation, so I figured I’d use pegasus magic.]
[Never really thought of it that way... Oh look, here comes Princess Platinum again.]
“Ahem. Now that you are the true royalty, I implore you for a dispensation,” she said and took a deep breath. “I would greatly appreciate you allowing me and my kin to retain our titles. It would be most generous of you, and we would be forever in your debt.”
Celestia held her head high, looking down at the former princess. “Platinum, I am less than impressed with many of your past actions.” Platinum gulped. Looking her in the eye, Celestia’s tone softened. “But recently you have begun to make up for all that. I will give you this request. Be sure to use it to make a fresh start.”
“Oh, but of course. You’ll see,” she said with a nod, stamping a hoof.
“See to it that you do.”
“Yes, my Queen.”
Celestia’s eyes widened at that. “Oh, no. Simply ‘Princess’ will be fine. Right?” She looked over at Luna.
“Yes, that sounds alright to me, and there can’t be two queens. Besides, everypony knows that Queens are the evil ones.”
“Speaking of evil... Now we face the arduous task of managing a new country's bureaucracy.”
“My Princesses, if I may.” Platinum waited until they nodded for her to continue. “You may want to adopt the tradition of hearing petitioners, and what better time to start than now?”
Luna looked at Celestia and shrugged.
“That sounds like a marvelous idea. I suppose we should get started then. There are a lot of ponies here and I don’t feel like adding more hours to the day would be very appropriate.”
Clover the Clever stepped forward, head bowed. “Princesses, I would like to offer my help with this undertaking. While I’ve never organized such a massive group before, I would gladly try to lighten the load for you, weeding out the less important requests and making sure everypony arrives in an orderly fashion.”
“Your help would be greatly appreciated. Form them into two lines please,” Celestia said, looking out over the crowd. “We want to help to as many of them as possible.”
For the rest of the day, the two newly royal alicorn sisters received an endless stream of petitions and requests. Land usage was decided on, acreage was allotted, disagreements were settled, foals received blessings, and even a few marriages were held. During their break for lunch, Luna remarked that more than half of the appeals she had heard would have never come up if they had a basic set of codified laws.
Once the day was done and Luna’s moon shone forth, most of the ponies left in the lines returned to their homes, many of which were still unfinished. Once the last few stragglers had been satisfied, Celestia and Luna, who were mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted, flew lazily home to their castle.
As they arrived, Luna yawned loudly and said, “We still don’t know what that magical emanation was. How long do you suppose setting up a country will take?”
“I have no idea. But I’ll tell you what: if you can think of some laws while you search for whatever caused it, I’ll hold down the fort, so to speak.”
“I can do that, I’ve only got a vague idea of where to look...”
“North?”
“North. So I should have plenty of time to think.” I just hope that I can keep my mind occupied...
“Sounds like a plan. Oh, and good night.”
“Thank you. I do try. Sleep well.”
Celestia went straight to her bed and fell blissfully asleep. Luna though, first went to Starswirl’s old quarters. He was occupying them once more, this time as an invalid rather than one of the world’s primer magic users. She opened the door and was quietly greeted by his wife, Eveningwatch, and his daughter, Crepuscular Glimmer, who was by now a young mare. They ushered Luna into the room and over to his bed.
“He said to congratulate you on the plan succeeding, whatever that means.” Eveningwatch whispered.
He didn’t even tell his family. He put so much of his life into this, and they don’t even know why he’s like this now, not really. Luan blinked back tears, looking at him on his bed. Starswirl lay on his bed, lightly dozing. There was a crack on his horn that ran nearly its entire length, and his once dark green coat was streaked with silver. This just isn’t right, she thought as she came closer to him.
He woke up at Luna’s soft approach. “Luna, you didn’t need to see me. You’ve got a country to run and many other important duties to do in the morning, do you not?”
The soft protests from her friend only made Luna wish for the past more; his once strong voice was a dry rasp.
“Celestia will be taking care of that for the time being. I need to find out what the outpouring of magic from a few weeks back was.”
“You don’t mean the one from my student, do you? No. No, I can tell you don’t. You mean the other one. How I wish I could see what it was...”
“Don’t strain yourself. You’ve done more than enough, given more than your all. Even your family has payed the price. This...” She swallowed and took a deep breath. “This isn’t fair to either of you,” Luna said, gathering Starswirl’s wife and daughter under her wings, “and it feels wrong to not let you know why your husband, your father, is in this condition.” Feeling Glimmer shaking against her side, Luna leaned down to nuzzle the filly, shushing her softly.
From her other side came Eveningwatch’s voice, hard and brittle. “Luna— Princess Luna, what are you talking about? Are you saying that this... this could have been prevented?”
Starswirl nodded at first, and his wife took in a sharp breath. Then he stopped and started shaking it instead. He motioned to Luna, and she began to tell them about Celestia’s dream for a paradise for all ponies, and how, despite their best efforts, it wouldn’t come together. Then she told them how the three of them had taken it upon themselves to make sure it did, no matter what.
She begged his and his family’s forgiveness for their success demanding Starswirl give so much, and when they granted it, it felt like a weight had been lifted from her heart. They assured her that they understood this must remain a secret; luckily they could see how that information could bring the fledgling nation down.
By then Starswirl was once more asleep, and Luna left quietly to get a few hours of rest herself, leaving him with his family.
