//------------------------------// // (1st) Blood and Secrets // Story: Dimensional Clash // by BloodHive1998 //------------------------------// Twilight and Tranquil stopped when they got to the borders of the Blood Empire. "Why is it called the Blood Empire?" Twilight asked. "Don't ask me, I've only heard it in passing." Tranquil said. "And yet you're how old?" Tranquil thought about it and did the math in her head for a few minutes. "Too old to count, I've been around for as long as the Tree of Harmony has, and it began growing about three thousand years after the world began, so I'm older than even Discord." "That's interesting." an alicorn said as she came up and smiled, revealing razor sharp teeth. "who are you?" Tranquil asked while Twilight tried to comprehend the site of a pony with teeth built for tearing meat. "I'm Princess Blood Flame." Blood Flame said. Blood Flame's coat was red. Her mane and tail were light blue and parted at the back to fall on either side of her head. Her eyes were a similar red to her coat. Her cutie mark was of a fireball angled downward with a drop of blood in the center of the ball of fire. With her was a guard in armor with a bright red coat, black mane similarly styled to Fluttershy's, slitted pupils with blood red eyes, and what was likely a a shooting star with a faintly seen blood trail as a cutie mark. "Nice to meet you Princess Blood Flame." Tranquil said with a bow. "I'm surprised with both of you, normally, when a pony sees my teeth, they scream and run." "I'm a being that exists solely to protect the Elements of Harmony and the Tree of Harmony. Trust me, a pony with teeth like yours is nothing compared to some of the things I've seen, and I think you broke Twilight." Tranquil motioned absently towards Twilight, who was now starting to find her voice. "B-but that's not possible, how can you have teeth like that, it's unnatural." Twilight said. "And I'm not? Twilight, this is Princess Blood Flame, I'm assuming that she's the one you need to talk to." Tranquil said. "Yea." Twilight regained her composure shockingly fast. "So which of you is the one I'm meant to talk to, I thought Celestia only sent one pony?" Blood Flame asked. "That would be me, I'm Princess Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship." "I'm Tranquil Wind, guardian of harmony, so I guess you could say I'm the Princess of Harmony." Tranquil said as the four started heading for a castle. "Nice to meet both of you. I'm Princess Blood Flame, Princess of the Blood Empire and Princess of Fear." Blood Flame said. "Again nice to meet you, may I ask the reason for the Empire's name?" Tranquil asked. "Maybe later." After a few minutes of walking, the group got to the castle and then to Blood Flame's personal chambers. "Star Chaser, guard the door and do not allow dad in, not even if he issues a royal command. You're my guard now and thus do not serve him" Blood Flame said. "Yes Princess." the pony guard that had been with her since she met Twilight and Tranquil said as she headed out the door. "Okay onto business. I'm requesting these peace negotiations behind my father's back and you are not to talk to him about it. I'm getting this over with now before I become ruler." Blood Flame said. "Understandable Princess, shall we begin?" Twilight asked. "Never be formal around me, I despise formality." "Okay Blood Flame, so should I ask some questions to get to understand your kingdom better?" "That'd be nice." "why are your teeth like that?" "The Blood Empire consist only of razorcorns, I know it's a terrible name, they are a sub-race to unicorns and carnivorous by nature. I intend to change the term used for them, practically like every ruler before me." "Okay, so why is the Blood empire named so?" Blood Flame sighed. "you wont like the answer. The Empire was once known for it's peacefulness, then Celestia attacked. She considered us evil for our carnivorous nature and pony blood, she said we were demons and that we would forever be reminded of the blood we shed to survive. She put a curse on the empire that made blood a guarantied factor in our cutie marks. As you know, a cutie mark defines who somepony is, and back then ponies thought that they would be punished if they didn't live up to their cutie marks, this lead the empire to spiral into darkness and become vicious, feral creatures. The mere thought of ever becoming anything else was unheard of. some time after the curse was placed, a pony of the empire chose their own path and ignored the blood related towards their cutie mark, they lived a perfect life and brought the entire empire into an uproar. We were finally free of ourselves, but we never forgot what Celestia did to us. We changed the Empire's Name to what it is today. The blood represents both the blood on our cutie marks, and the blood of the one that spiraled us into madness." Twilight stared at Blood Flame with absolute shock. "You've got to be lying, Celestia woul-" Tranquil wind cut her off. "I wouldn't be so sure about that. Tia has been known to be a bit paranoid at times. I've never know Celestia to just randomly curse an entire kingdom, but then again, I was only around if she needed me." Tranquil said. "So... can we move onto something more interesting, and bring back less terrible memories?" Blood Flame asked. "Yea, let's." Twilight said. After about three hours, the two had finished talking about how Blood Flame intended to improve the relations of hers and Twilight's Kingdom, though she made it very clear that she was not going to talk about peace with Canterlot until Celestia was no longer in power. "So... tell me a bit about yourself Twilight?" Blood Flame asked. "Well... I'm the Element of Magic. I'm the former student to Celestia, though not anymore since I became a princess. My kingdom use to be the small town of Ponyville." Twilight started. "You mean Ponyville, as in the town next to the Everfree Forest, even closer than our own kingdom." Blood Flame was rather interested in the idea. "Actually, The Friendship Rainbow Kingdom is technically part of the Everfree Forest, at least it is since it became a kingdom." "The Friendship Rainbow Kingdom?" "Yea, it's the name I chose after my castle grew in Ponyville." "Grew?" "It was created from a strange box at the base of the Tree of Harmony." "The Seed of Harmony, it's the tree's way of thanking those that save it and holds pure Harmony magic." Tranquil said. "Harmony Magic?" "The Elements of Harmony, when used, are using Harmony Magic, the same magic I use, the only magic that matches it in power is the evil Chaos Magic. Discord was created from a unicorn attempting Chaos magic and is the embodiment of Chaos Magic, any unicorn or alicorn that tries Chaos Magic becomes corrupted and basically becomes either Discord or a female version of him, depending on the gender. Many unicorns have attempted to overpower the corruptive nature of Chaos magic, even unicorns of legend, but all of them have failed." "Harmony Magic?" Blood Flame asked, apparently having been distracted. In response, Tranquil's horn lit up in a rainbow colored magic. "Harmony magic works to repair order, while Chaos magic works to destroy it." "Oh, I guess that makes sense. You're turn." "My story is longer than Discord, Celestia, and Luna's combined, but I'll just mention the highlights. I started my existence within the Tree of Harmony as it's guardian. Every time the Elements are chosen and brought together, I wait until they use them for the first time, then it's usually a month before I show up, I take the form of the pony that's the element of Magic, just with their main mane color and coat color swapped, my cutie mark is always a hexagram with the element of magic at the top, the other element's symbols change based on the ponies cutie marks or in the, case of changelings, their hive symbol. I have thousands of centuries worth of knowledge and a direct connection to the elements. Any current element of harmony is able to call on me for assistance and I'll show up to aid them. Ponies are naturally harmonic around me because of the aura the flows from me at all times." "So the Elements of Harmony are always races of ponies?" "Yea, it's because all pony races have the strongest magic." "Wait, but changelings aren't ponies." Twilight intervened. "Actually they are. Changelings are a sub-race to alicorns, just as bat-ponies are a sub-race to pegasi." "That makes sense." Twilight lowered her voice as she began mentally analyzing some situation from the past. "If bat-ponies are a sub-race to pegasi then that would explain why exposure to my magic and the vampire fruit bats caused Fluttershy to become a bat-pony." "Wait... what did you just say?" "A few weeks ago, Applejack had a vampire fruit bat infestation. When I tried to fix it with my magic, I turned Fluttershy into a vampire fruit bat/pony hybrid, I was able to fix it luckily." "Are you sure that you turned Fluttershy back?" "Of course I did, magic fixes everything." Tranquil sighed at the comment. "Twilight, there are lessons I have to teach, one of them is that magic doesn't fix everything. Another is that magic, no mater what, can never change an element of harmony's appearance or personality, they have to already exist within the element bearer." "What do you mean?" "When you cast whatever spell you used to stop the vampire fruit bats, which I'm assuming would be a desire spell, sure you put the desire to act like a vampire fruit bat into Fluttershy, but the only way her appearance would have changed would be if bat-pony blood was already in her. All you really would have done would be awakening that side of her, which hopefully wont be found out by the bat-ponies, otherwise Fluttershy and her parents, as well as anypony associated with her, would be in danger." "WHAT! How come?" "Bat-ponies don't usually like 'normal' ponies, and most bat ponies would kill all associated with a batponiy/normal pony hybrid." Twilight began repeating 'ohno' over and over again as she thought about all the possible outcomes to Fluttershy's apparent heritage. "Is she usually like this?" Blood flame asked. "Beats me, I've only been around her for a total of six hours." "Really, but she's certainly used her element more than that." "She has, but when Discord got free he corrupted the element bearers and briefly severed them from their element, this meant I had to wait for them to fully reconnect with their elements. After another hour of talking, Twilight came to her senses and rushed Tranquil out so they could get to the Bat Empire.