//------------------------------// // Bloodlines and the Beginning of Night // Story: Peace at Last? // by Prince_Staghorn //------------------------------// PART 2: NIGHTFALL The importance of one’s ancestry is relative. Were any pony to ask a changeling about their family history, the changeling would most likely grin and begin a long spiel tracing their ancestors all the way back to the time of Metamorphosis, and most changelings were surprised when a pony could only name recent family members and one or two more famous relatives. A good example of this was a conversation between Twilight, Octavia, and Staghorn two months before Hearth’s Warming, when Stag had listed his ancestor’s exploits, only for Twilight to say, rather embarrassed, “My great great great grandfather invented… a way for two ponies to not worry about foals when they had… relations.” Of course, some ponies had family members a little more important than the inventor of a small disposable bag of plastic, such as Octavia’s grandfather Harbinger, captain of the earth pony Royal Guard. One such mare was currently in the Everfree, where she would see an important event. … Bellatrix Lulamoon woke up in her wagon. Something… odd had woken her up, like a sort of strange sound that wasn’t really there. Trixie looked around the interior of her home, her eyes briefly resting on an ornate chest. Rising from her bed, she walked over to it. This was the only thing that had survived the Ursa minor destroying her first cart, and that was only because she had hidden it away in a safe place before entering Ponyville. She opened it, and looked at what lay within. Trixie’s magic was an anomaly for her family. It wasn’t because she was a unicorn (actually, most of her family was made up of unicorns, and she was actually related to Starswirl the Bearded on her father’s side). No, she was an anomaly for a different reason. She took her mother’s gift to her out of the box. It was a medallion with an image of the crescent moon upon it. She put it on, and recited a small phrase: “Under the moon I stand to fight, To root out evil through sheer might. Magic and steel, swords that bite By Luna’s will, and Dark of Night!” The medallion burst into a full covering of silvery armor, which perfectly molded to the contours of Trixie’s body. The transformation ended with the materialization of two slender swords. Her mother’s line was a lineage of brave unicorn warriors who carried the armor of the Lunar Champion. The medallion was passed from mother to daughter through generations. Trixie knew as many military tactics as Octavia, who could tell anypony who messed with her all three hundred fifty-six ways a cello and its bow could be used as a deadly weapon before proceeding to use fifty-six different fighting styles to incapacitate them. Trixie was actually quite skilled in swordplay, and knew all thirty-six pressure points on a pony’s body. Had she had her armor, she might actually have stood a chance at incapacitating the star bear cub (Trixie did not believe in killing except as a last resort.) Now she was known far and wide as a huge humiliation. Her mother had understood, of course, and she simply told Trixie to look towards the bright side of things. Of course, it had been a mixed message due to her mother’s usual greeting ritual of engaging her in a sword fight. Trixie almost never put the armor on anymore. Now Trixie had donned the armor because her battle instinct was tingling. There was something evil in the forest tonight, and she wanted to feel prepared. She carefully slunk out of the wagon, moving towards the sound of voices. Trixie listened intently. “Tomorrow night, we shall claim what is ours, my subjects. When the True Queen of Equestria rises, we shall go forth and wrench the crown from the current queen’s undeserving head! Her son is not to be touched! I want to kill him myself. We shall wait for our Brother to enact the ritual, and then he shall help us to receive that which was taken from us! For Equestria’s True Queen, and for the Night Eternal!” Trixie backed away, unseen. She wasn’t sure what the feminine voice had been talking about, but it hadn’t sounded good. She couldn’t stand up against the masses behind the cheer that had accompanied the end of the speech. She wisely chose to hide. Over the horizon, the sun rose on the last day of winter. … “Winter Wrap-Up, Winter Wrap-Up! Let’s finish our holiday cheer! Winter Wrap-Up, Winter Wrap-Up! ‘Cause tomorrow Spring is….” “STAG! SHUT UP!!!” Staghorn turned to see Hope. Ditzy peeked out from the cloud they had been moving. “Come on, Hope,” Stag reasoned. “Everypony else was singing it.” “When we started. TWELVE. HOURS. AGO.” Ditzy sighed. So this was the result of article 458 of the Peace Treaty, which dictated that the changelings help with the annual Winter Wrap-Up. She smiled and shook her head. They were helpful to some extent, most of them on the weather team, with a few farmers and even fewer working with the animals, and the Winter Wrap-Up was nearly over, and in record time! There was a scream of fear from near the reservoir. Hope and Stag’s eyes widened. Staghorn’s smile disappeared, and he whispered one word. “Double…” Rainbow Dash would have been proud of the speeds the two changelings and the wall-eyed pegasus reached. … Double ran along the side of the reservoir, eventually hovering over the edge. “Double!” The High-General whipped her head around at the sound of her husband’s voice. “What happened?” “Mandible fell into the water!” Stag’s pupils shrank. Changelings, with a few exceptions, could not swim for obvious reasons (the holes in their legs), and the water was still too cold for anything short of an arctic mammal or a penguin to dive in there and not catch hypothermia. In addition, the sudden shock would keep his son from changing into a pony. He would drown if somepony did not save him. Stag had already begun to change when a flash of grey dove into the water. Staghorn’s eyes widened. “Ditzy, NO! It’s too cold for you to survive!” By now, a sizable crowd had gathered, and they all gasped as the end of Ditzy’s tail disappeared. Trace came up and looked at his prince. “Sir… should I go in?” “You can’t. You don’t have any forms to withstand that cold. All we can do is wait.” He said the words in an irritated tone, the tone of a father angry at the thought of losing one of his children. “But…” “I AM YOUR PRINCE! YOU CANNOT GO IN THERE! THE WATER IS TOO COLD FOR YOU TO SURVIVE!” It hurt him to say those words, but that was the truth. … Rainbow stood up after about two minutes. “That’s it! I’m going in!” Stag was quite out of it after trying to stop her from diving in several times already. “Prince! Water! Cold!” he shouted, worried now beyond coherent sentences. It was at that point that Ditzy burst from the water, Mandible’s scruff delicately clutched in her jaws. “Mandible!” Double ran to her foal. Her horn glowed green, and then pink with collected love. It was transferred to her child, where it disappeared. Mandible coughed, and then opened his red cat-like eyes. “Mommy?” Double embraced her foal in a hug. Stag, for his part, looked at Ditzy. “How?” Ditzy looked around. “Umm… just Genetics, I guess.” The assembled ponies and changelings gave her odd looks, but they all just seemed to accept her answer. The foal was safe, so who really cared? Ditzy would get an award tomorrow, and life would return to normal. Double, Staghorn, Mandible, and even Chrysalis thanked Ditzy, and the crowd moved on until only a single yellow pegasus with a greyscale mane stood with Ditzy. Daring Do gave her sister a knowing look. “So, they don’t know about Mom yet?” Ditzy looked away. … 30 YEARS AGO… LOS PEGASUS… Ditzy laughed as her family went down to the river. She was a filly of 10, still blank-flanked, and she and her 9 year old sister Daring were just starting to become interested in their father’s line of work: he was a pegasus archeologist of the treasure-hunting kind, like Fillyana Stones in the movies. Their mother was a mechanic, as shown by her cutie mark of two crossed wrenches. Between the pair’s jobs, they could not spend much quality time with their daughters, so outings like this were treasured. Ditzy splashed into the river. It covered her head, but she was possibly the best at swimming in her class. She moved her body in an up-and-down motion like her mother had taught her. She popped her head above the surface. “Mommy, come in! The water’s real nice today!” Sea Breeze smiled. She carefully slid her blue body out from the mechanical back legs she had made for herself, and dragged her dolphin-like tail over the bank and into the water. Sea Breeze was a hippocampus, a sea pony. She had met Ditzy’s father ten years ago during one of his adventures. It had been love at first sight. Within a day, she had created a functioning pair of mechanical back legs so she could move on land. After a few months, they had gotten married, and eventually had Ditzy, and one year later, Daring. While both foals were pegasi, Daring took more after her father, and Ditzy had inherited a beautiful singing voice and a proficiency for swimming, special hairs for insulation, and waterproof oils on her wings from her mother. Mother and daughter swam together in the river. … THE PRESENT… PONYVILLE… Ditzy looked at her sister. “So how is she?” Daring smiled. “She sent you a card.” The explorer looked through her bag, and brought out a small card. It was from Saddle Arabia. Ditzy, I wish you were here! You would love it, I’m sure! The coast is beautiful, and the ponies here are very nice, as are the horses. Are my granddaughters doing alright? I miss you all dearly. I know your father would have loved to meet Dinky. I hope I can see you all again soon! Love, Mom. Ditzy smiled. It really was a good start to Spring. … MIDNIGHT… THE EVERFREE… “Spell Nexus, we’re ready when you are.” “I’ll be along shortly.” The ritual began.