//------------------------------//
// Incest, a unicorn thing? 
// Story: Unicorns 
// by Strythio 
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Stitches, more stitches! Rarity was hard at work on her latest masterpiece; a blue dress. But this was no ordinary bland dress, no far from it. This dress needed to not just be very fluid and loose, and it also needed to be incredibly durable. Her client apparently had no intentions on wearing such a monotone dress anywhere but to work, but Rarity was not going to strike her client for her tastes. Indeed, a flowing design had already begun to shake, the sleeves lacking frill, but seamlessly transitioning into the bulk.

What the customer wants, they get, with a little extra added in. Just as Rarity finished sewing up the dark blue dress and held it up for inspection, the bell over her front door rang. Since there had been no appointments scheduled for today, it could only be a filly coming home from school. 

Rarity was not one to go greet her sister, but she could hear the hoofsteps swiftly approaching. Her sister's stubby legs almost always brought amusement when she thought about her many steps just to equal the distance from the door to her sewing station. This was not a day for play though, and while Rarity pretended not to notice her sister, the distinct dropping of saddlebags and what could only be characterized as eager bouncing (either that or Sweetie Belle had very suddenly grown a few feet taller). She was approaching, and despite Rarity's business-oriented self seeking to continue inspecting the dress, her sibling-oriented half seized the opportunity created by indecision. 

"Hello Sweetie Belle, how was school today?"

"Great!" Sweetie Belle's excitement was hardly contained in her tiny little body, her green eyes practically sending waves of electricity through Rarity. Either that, or Rarity was actually eager to hear about what was so great at school. 

"And what exactly made your day so great today?"

"Ms. Cheerilee was doing history, and when she mentioned Canterlot, she also mentioned unicorn families. Rarity, are our parents siblings?"

The blue dress hit the workstation as if a cloth magnet had attracted it. Rarity turned fully to her sister, who's wide smile was instead replaced by a curious expression. This was not some attention grabbing joke, it seemed her sister was quite serious. "Sweetie Belle, of course not! Wherever did you get such a ludicrous idea-" 

"Ms. Cheerilee said that a general stereotype for unicorns is that they often breed within their own family," Sweetie explained, "She said that Canterlot is living 'proof' of it." 

"Were those her exact words?" Rarity knew that foals could be very terrible gossipers, mostly because they had a hard time recalling what was originally said in the first place. Hell, full grown mares tended to omit details when they passed information along, and they were supposed to have better retention. Then again, foal gossip tended to be more fun because of the very early spins the tellers put on it. 

"Yup." Sweetie brightened up again, her wide eyes and grin returning. It was as if they were, combined, a black hole threatening to suck any individuals unwilling to turn away into the abyss known as Sweetie Belle. It was an enchantment that Rarity had once believed to be her sister truly practicing some sort of manipulative magic. But regardless, Sweetie insisted on getting her answer. "But is that part true?" 

"Absolutely not!" Rarity was outraged at the idea that Sweetie seemed to not realize this. It was just a stereotype, akin to pegasi all being orphans and earth ponies being as bright as the rocks they dig up in the mines. Well, now that Rarity thought about it, the last one might have been a joke about crystal ponies that somehow survived their disappearance thanks to Sombra's curse, but all the same, none of those statements were universally true. They were mere jokes at best, racial jabs from the days of early Equestria lingering in the minds of modern ponies at worse.

"Are you sure? If I were a colt would you mess with me like that?" 

Rarity was not sure if she wanted to dignify that question with a response. But if she left it unanswered, there was no telling what blanks Sweetie would fill in. "Of course not! You realize the many problems caused by incest? Do you not know any better?"

Her last question should have been clearly seen as rhetorical, but Sweetie seriously seemed to scrunch up her face in thought over it. "Well, according to Cheerilee, Canterlot is living proof of it. And I think Cheerilee would know." 

The mare had probably not even been to Canterlot outside of field trips. Rarity attempted to calm herself. This kind of racial stereotyping was still surviving it seemed, despite the fact that it had been nearly a thousand plus years since the three pony races had come together. Then again, if they were surviving still, they were as jokes, not as facts. And Cheerilee had apparently made the difference unclear in class. 

"I think I need to have a word with Ms. Cheerilee." Rarity did not intend on chewing her out, but she needed to confirm whether Sweetie was reporting this accurately or not. While it sounds like something that might accompany a history course, subliminal messaging was always a present threat in the system. Of course, Rarity looked back to the dress that she had been working on. 

No matter how twisted the local school system was, she could not just allow her work to go unfinished before taking care of this business. "After a few more stitches..."







Since Rarity knew as much about where Cheerilee lived as the next pony, the first place she went was to the schoolhouse, a hour or two after Sweetie had dropped the shell regarding what she had learned today in class. Perhaps out of dumb luck, or the fact that the sun was beginning to set, Cheerilee just so happened to be at the front door, checking it. Either she was locking up for the day or she was trying to make sure that the door was still locked. Burglary in Ponyville was very uncommon, but sometimes it never hurt to check, especially after a grading period was closing. It was only a year ago that a certain filly had been found hiring ponies to steal her schoolwork, alter the grade, and then replace it as if nothing had been tampered with.

"Ms. Cheerilee!" Rarity both greeted and waved, catching the mare's attention almost immediately. 

"Oh hi Rarity!" Cheerilee smiled and waved back, and after a gentle tug on the door, walked down the path to meet Rarity halfway. "What brings you by?"

"Sweetie Belle came home from school today and asked whether our parents are siblings or not." Rarity did not beat around the bush, for although she had put some of the finishing touches on the dress, an artist's work was never done until the product left the workshop. 

"Oh really?" Cheerilee seemed surprised by this, "I figured that the answer would be something she already knows." 

Rarity was not sure if she should be offended or only more inquisitive. After all, assuming that foals knew anything about anything could be a very dangerous thought process. Still, Rarity chose to be the latter, as the former would only draw out the less than noble part of her.  "And why would she be asking such a question in the first place?" 

"Today we went over the pre-Great War era," Cheerilee explained, "One of the highlights was on some of the stereotypes that developed during that time period that persist to this day, such as the one about unicorns being avid believers in incest to preserve nobility." 

"Go on." Rarity wanted to hear more about this lesson from the mare's mouth, particularly if she was going to explain to Sweetie where she had went wrong in her assumptions. To her knowledge, these kinds of statements went back much further than the pre-Great War, so the question now was whether Sweetie Belle had had gone wrong in what she took from the lesson or if Cheerilee had been wrong in how she presented it.

"Unicorns are notorious for being very family conscious in ways almost polar opposite to pegasi. If no suitable lines were found, then they tended to just breed within the family on a second cousin basis." 

"That is hardly sibling-tier incest." It seems that Sweetie had extrapolated just a tad. Rarity should have known better than to jump to conclusions. "And how is Canterlot living proof?"

"Well, Canterlot does not have a significant amount of immigration according to the recent census, and yet, its population stays rather steady if not slowly creeping upward," Cheerilee explained with a sly smile, "A possible explanation is that either the unicorns in Canterlot do not accurately report immigrants from other parts of Equestria, or they simply mate with each other, which after nearly eight hundred years would result in almost guaranteed incest with whomever they chose as a mate, presuming that mate were also native to the city." And so Cheerilee laughed, as if this completely explained away why she used Canterlot, one of the few unicorn dominated cities to ever exist in Equestria, as a prime example of incest among unicorns.

"I do not think that is how pony genetics work." Rarity laughed along, all the while trying to make her point. "Why, the most recent royal wedding had not a drop of incest in it." Unless you counted Twilight's over-protectiveness of her brother, but that was completely platonic, and had more to do with "Cadence's" presumed attitude during the pre-wedding process. Which, by all account, was not exactly unusual for Canterlot elite, and Twilight should have expected at least that much during the stress of the preparations. Of course, it did turn out that "Cadence" was in fact Queen Chrysalis, but even still, Twilight's concerns were not present because she was jealous or anything. In hindsight, everything made perfect sense.

"Well, to be fair Rarity, Shining Armor did take Princess Cadence as his wife, and she is hardly a native to Canterlot let the newspapers tell it. As I said in class, it is just a stereotype." Cheerilee continued to laugh, even as Rarity stopped laughing.

"So, why are you even planting these ideas into your students' little heads?" Rarity inquired, "If they are untrue and rather slanderous almost to the point of a criminal offense." 

"It is just a joke Rarity." Cheerilee by now had stopped laughing, and seemed to be catching on that the reason for Rarity's visit had been less about catching up and more about critiquing her teaching methods. "Such jokes help history sections pass by just a little quicker." 

"A joke that clearly is being believed." Or at least, being believed by Sweetie Belle. She was not the brightest horn in the school, but if she actually had some doubts regarding her own family tree, there was no telling what the other foals, who have probably only seen ten unicorns together in one spot at any one time in their entire lifetimes, were thinking. With that in mind, they could all be going home professing to their guardians about the incest of unicorns. Applejack might reprimand Applebloom, but then again, she just might not, especially if she were to secretly believe it herself.

"If Sweetie Belle is taking it for more than it is, then the fault is less with the lesson and more with the proper teachers of unicorn heritage." Cheerilee seemed to take an edge in her tone here, as if she was the one offended by this conversation. " I have as of now not had any other complaints regarding this lesson." 

"How many unicorns are there in the class?" Rarity challenged, "I do not intend to put this down to race, but only a unicorn-" 

"Would complain about the racial stereotyping of unicorns?" Cheerilee frowned. "Rarity, that is nonsense. You have friends from all three races, and I am sure you know that they would neither stand for nor promote such thing." 

"Then why are you?" By Rarity's logic, from what Cheerilee just professed about the lesson, she was encouraging the idea that unicorns commonly practice incest. She had also used Canterlot as an example, where it just so happened, by coincidence, to be very likely to be true. Okay, maybe it was outright true, but unicorns outside of Canterlot had neither rhyme nor reason to even consider such a thing.

Cheerilee brought a hoof to her head. There seemed to be a disconnect somewhere in this conversation; one of them was not comprehending the other properly. "Rarity, it is just a joke, meant to ease the students into the first Great War section of our textbook. I see no pegasi complaining about broken families nor earth ponies coming forth about their intelligence being related to the food they grow." 

Cheerilee made a point there. Maybe Rarity was over-reacting just a little here. Applejack surely would have barged straight to the schoolhouse if she thought that Cheerilee was insinuating that earth ponies were all rather dim-witted. Rarity should have went to her first, since she too had a family member who was attending the school here.

"I will have to beg for your pardon Cheerilee, I fear I may have overreacted." Rarity tried to chuckle a bit to ease the tension. "Sweetie probably just took the wrong things from your lesson." 

"No worries Rarity, but I think you might need to educate Sweetie on the nuances of unicorn history." Cheerilee began walking past Rarity at this point, clearly eager to now be on her way. It seemed that she had held back a more biting remark out of professionalism. "She is coming of age you know." 

While that was true, Rarity did not exactly have time for lessons with her sister. To be frank, she hardly had time for her own luxuries, let alone properly teaching Sweetie Belle about the pegasi and the griffons. 

Strange really, how did that expression come about? Now that Rarity thought about it, when had she received a talk on those matters? It had been years no doubt, but surely she knew far more about the practical uses of the saying than where the saying may have actually came from.

Rarity waved Cheerilee off, and assumed from the lack of a return wave that she had probably irritated the instructor more than she had let on. Professionalism, Rarity had to admit, had been lacking somewhat on her part there near the end. But now that she knew the problem, or had some idea of it, then how was she going to fix it? 

Lightbulb, and Rarity had an idea that just might work. Especially considering the context of the situation. She would just get Twilight, a native to Canterlot, to explain the whole ordeal to Sweetie Belle. She spent much of her time at the library, so all she needed to do really was to drop Sweetie off for a day or two, and Twilight could sort all of this out.

Rarity smiled to herself and began trotting towards the library. Yes, once this matter was out of her mane, she could carry on with her work without having to worry about Sweetie Belle being misinformed. Granted, the time she was taking now out to find Sweetie a teacher could have very well been spent teaching her, but Rarity's mind was already made up. She was on her way to Twilight's house to get her to properly educated Sweetie Belle about unicorn relationships.







The town library also served as the home of the town's resident alicorn princess. What a weird concept that was when it was a new thing. Hardly anypony treated the place any differently, there was no extra security, and for the most part, Twilight kept a relatively low profile. The weirdest part was that, in truth, a very important pony was living in the town library. And she actually seemed to thrive no less among the shelves and shelves of books.

Not surprisingly, when Rarity knocked on the front door Spike answered, and did his usual bit of love-struck staring before asking, "Hey Rarity, what brings you by?"

"Is Twilight home? We need to have a quick chat." 

Spike swung open the door, and lead the way into the library. "You're just in time, Sweetie Belle just stopped by about ten minutes ago." 

Really? If Sweetie was going to go to Twilight directly, Rarity could have just went back to her dress and forgotten about the whole thing. But that was not important: what was important was that Sweetie be taught the proper familial relations between unicorns. 

At the far end of the library, near a shelf stacked as high as it many counterparts, Twilight had a chalkboard, some chalk, and a very attentive filly at her command. The floor was cleared and clean, likely through the diligent efforts of Spike, and one could hardly tell that the library went through a messy period on a monthly if not weekly basis. It seemed that just as Rarity was approaching the miniature classroom, Twilight had been in the middle of her lesson.

"And so, while incest can lead to rather terrible birth defects, morally, there is nothing wrong with the act itself." 

Rarity's ears might would have left her head had they not been attached.  Did she just hear Twilight state that there was nothing morally wrong with incest? Had her faith been placed in the boiling kettle? Did the gossip of Twilight loving her brother romantically have a drop of truth in it? Say it was not so! "Twilight darling, what are you teaching?"

Sweetie turned in her chair to see Rarity, a wide smile on her face. And of course that enchanted look again. "Hi Rarity! After you left I came here to learn more about unicorn incest. Did you know that it is actually pretty acceptable-" 

"Sweetie, I said that it was neither encouraged nor taboo," Twilight clarified, "I never stated that it was 'pretty' acceptable." 

Rarity laughed to herself, imagining that this is how Cheerilee might would have reacted. Granted, saying that it was "morally" accepted was actually not that great of a leap from saying that it was "pretty" acceptable. However, having learned before about jumping to conclusions, Rarity decided that she would hear out the remainder of the message before making any sort of judgement. "Well Twilight, I had just come by to ask you to help me with this very thing. Please, continue." 

Sweetie turned and Twilight resumed levitation of the piece of chalk. Now that Rarity looked at it, it looked like a very complicated, and quite intertwined, family tree was on the board. The names were written too small to actually read from a distance, but Rarity assumed that it was a look at Twilight's family tree. Either that or a family tree of Canterlot, which would probably not look very differently truth be told.

"Incest is said to have originated in the pegacorns back before the advent of the alicorn. Since a pegacorn with any of the three races resulted in one of the three races and not another pegacorn, the only way for pegacorns to get more pegacorns at birth was to mate with other pegacorns. So many of them were killed off during the early days of the Ponin Empire that technically only direct descendents of Celestia or Luna have any chance of birthing a pegacorn, and even then, the odds are incredibly slim. Unicorns tried for a few generations, but only worsened the issue because they constantly diluted the blood with more unicorn blood." 

Rarity found herself seated next to Sweetie Belle, oddly paying some attention to this lesson. The idea of a difference between pegacorn and alicorn intrigued her.

"So if you mated with a future nephew, would that make a pegacorn?" Sweetie inquired, "Since your brother married an alicorn?"

"Alicorns are made, not born," Twilight corrected, "They are not really the same as pegacorns, but no, that would not work either. I would have to mate with another alicorn in order to get a pegacorn." 

"So if you had the opportunity, would you mate with your alicorn brother in order to spawn a pegacorn?" Rarity's attention nagged at her to return to her shop, but she needed to see just what Sweetie would be getting out of these lessons. And of course she just had to know whether Twilight would romp her brother if she got the chance.

Twilight blushed very briefly before laughing. "Of course not, he's my brother whether he's an alicorn or not." 

That brief, but oh so present pause was just a second too much for Rarity, and apparently, it was also too much for Sweetie. "But incest is not taboo in unicorn society, and you both would have started out as unicorns," Sweetie challenged, "I mean, it is not like another stallion has a remote shot of becoming a princess anytime soon, and just imagine all the pegacorns you two could have!" 

"But then they would have to mate with their children in order to create more pegacorns," Rarity reminded Sweetie, "Or their children would have to mate with their cousins, but they would only get cousins if Celestia and Luna got involved, in which case they might as well just alicornize any pony they want in order to get more pegacorns-" 

"Okay, moving on." Twilight tapped at the chalkboard with quite the force, bits of chalk breaking off from impact. "Alicorns and pegacorns are not the same thing, and the mystery of which came first is hotly debated." 

"I am pretty sure pegacorns came first," Rarity offered, "They sound like just a combination between pegasi and unicorn with just the right touch to show both traits." 

"I think alicorns came first, and their children were pegacorns," Sweetie countered, "If pegacorns could be made like that, then wouldn't there be a pegacorn or two out there by now that is not an alicorn?"

"If you two want to debate whether pegacorns or alicorns came first, be my guest, but the focus is on unicorn incest, acceptance of which derived from the need for pegacorns to interbreed in order to procreate one another." Twilight attempted to return the discussion back to the main topic, but the main question had already been answered, somewhat. Once derailed by the conductor, the train of commentary that followed would all boil down to the matter of debate on which had come first: pegacorns or alicorns. 

"Maybe the right combination has not been found yet." Rarity could feel herself slipping further and further into this debate, and closer and closer to the dress being finished whether she liked it or not. "Do you have any idea how complicated pony genetics are?" 

"So Cheerilee was right!" Sweetie jumped from her chair, as if her discovery was about to change the world for the better. " Unicorns do accept incest!" 

"Cheerilee brought up a stereotype that unicorns frequently practice it, not that they accept it or not accept it!" Rarity was now on her hooves in a flurry, "Sweetie Belle, can you make up your mind which it is that you heard?" 

Because technically, if Twilight was to be believed, unicorns in Canterlot truly did accept incest. And thus, Cheerilee would have been largely correct in what she was saying, even if her intention had been to pass it off as a joke and not a universal truth. Using Canterlot as an example would have been justified, and Rarity would look even more the fool in not knowing that, despite the fact that she has gone to Canterlot, the fact that she herself was a grown unicorn, and that had interacted with the elite of unicorn society. 

Wait, wait a minute. Was Rarity really getting herself worked up over this? If Cheerilee was right and she already had apologized for her behavior, then all she needed to do was set Sweetie Belle straight. Upon this realization, Rarity seemed to have either missed or ignored Sweetie's response to her previous question and instead jumped straight to another question. "Twilight, are your parents remotely related to each other?"

Twilight's face scrunched up for a moment, the question likely taking her just as off guard as it had taken Rarity. The reason was likely different, since the discussion already was incest among unicorns, but the direction was the same. After reviewing the tree that she had drawn up on the chalkboard, Twilight would look back to Rarity with a quizically expression. 

"No. Come to think of it, they are not even related by fifth cousin tier. My father's side seems to run well with Canterlot norms, but my mother's side is kind of out there in comparison." 

"Maybe one of them immigrated to Canterlot?" Sweetie suggested eagerly, as if this explained some deep-seated truth. "Your father might be a Canterlot native, and your mother might have come from somplace else." 

"That hardly fits with continuity," Twilight pondered aloud, tapping her chin with a hoof, "On record, neither of them have ever lived anywhere but Canterlot." 

"What if there are two main family lines in Canterlot?" Rarity suggested, "It would certainly explain how there can be a blood nephew many times removed to the princesses when neither sister claim him as their own." 

"Well, a unicorn outside of Canterlot would need someone on the inside to get relations," Spike pointed out, "Pretending that they have lived there all along and happen to be a relative would be an easy way to do it. How would they prove you wrong?" 

"If that were true, then technically the idea of unicorn incest would be a complete and utter myth," Twilight mused, "And that it's acceptance came about as the acceptance of adopting into your family in order to get more unicorns living in Canterlot and not outside." 

"Back to the original question, do Canterlot unicorn accept true incest?" Rarity had had about enough of the new findings, and simply wanted an answer at this point. "It is not really incest at all if the ponies are not actually related by blood, and are only written as such." 

"I guess not." Twilight seemed to accept this conclusion before clearing the chalkboard. "I guess that throws that out the window." 

"But hold on, how would unicorns get away with fudging the family trees that much?" Sweetie stood up and walked up to Twilight, insisting that her inquiry be answered with that gaze of hers. "Wouldn't Celestia stop them?"

"Well Sweetie, I doubt the Princess really has time to keep up with all of that." Rarity would use her magic to pull Sweetie away, guiding her towards the door. "We should be going. We can discuss this more on our way home." 

Sweetie attempted to protest, but there would be no protesting to be had. Rarity was glad that that had gotten settled and that, in fact, Cheerilee was indeed spouting a joke that was misinterpreted as fact, and her example regarding Canterlot was false only out of ignorance. She would have to let Sweetie Belle point that out in class, if she so had the nerve. 










As the door closed behind her guests, Twilight let out a sigh. It was not of relife, but of exasperation. Why would unicorns in Canterlot rather put on the impression that they were commiting incest when they were instead just consolidating the unicorn race in Canterlot? Surely that would be less scandalous. 

Then again, focusing all of one race into the capital of the country might would prove scandalous if it were to cause problems. After all, other than perhaps a few exceptions such as the royal guard, unicorns practically made up Canterlot. Surrounded, daily, by unicorns, Celestia's decisions over the years might very well reflect the will of unicorns more than the remainder of the country, hence her need to at times get away in order to find out what the ponies want. 

Or, unicorns elaborately crafted this scheme so that it would be next to impossible to discern true incest from record incest. 

"Twilight, something wrong?" Spike's voice cut through the mental fog like a beam of lights, hardly holding Twilight's attention for long. What had her parents taught her about incest? Hardly anything really. It was not something commonly spoken about in their household, and not even Cadence brought it up in her various discussions regarding the pegasi and the griffons. Considering that Sweetie seemed to be staying with Rarity on a more permanent basis, it was no wonder that the filly was so inquisitive. 

Not like she had an older brother to mess with, just for the sake of understanding some things. Twilight cringed, and shook her head clear. Maybe it was better that she didn't. 

Spike may have called to her again that day, many times actually, but his voice again did not cut through the fog that was her mind. For the remainder of the afternoon she would ponder on this matter. And for the remainder of the afternoon, she would reflect on the need for a foalsitter when she had two parents and an older brother to watch after her. Her mind would wander through all of the books she had looked up on mating, and how she attempted to demonstrate her knowledge to her amused foalsitter. 

Most importantly, her mind wandered into whether or not Cadence and Shining Armor ever had such dilemmas. By the setting of the sun, few answers had come, but many melancholic flashbacks had. 

So that night, Twilight decided to pen a letter to Cadence and Shining Armor. Both were older, and may soon have a foal of their own. It seemed worth popping the question now rather than later: 

"Is true incest accepted by unicorn society as a whole?"