Once Upon A Time there was a land called Equestria. A beautiful land where ponies of three races, pegasi, unicorns and earth ponies flourished in sunshine and rainbows. Everyday was full of smiles and adventure for ponies of all ages, where there was no limit to the fun.
Equestria was a place of peace for those who needed it, plenty of food for all. It was a place of warmth for those lonely cold nights, with friends everywhere... but it wasn’t always like this.
There was a time, two centuries ago, known as the dark ages.
In this Equestria ponies died by the hundreds everyday, to what is now known as the Bubonic Plague. A horrible plague that killed five sixths of the entire pony population in a span of thirteen horrible years.
The Dark Ages were known for dirt roads, clothes made from potato sacks, stone huts, rotten food and that tasted like sewage. Ponies limped around on broken sticks and the few fillies and colts were locked in their room for their own protection. It was a high time for childhood rape.
But what hit the ponies of the dark ages hardest was the bubonic plague. Because of it you’d see dead ponies, of all ages, lying in the street lapping up dirt with limp tongues, the whites of their eyes staring at you. There was no proper burial after the first year, they just kept dying. Miles away you’d see pillars of smoke, wafting the stench of burnt flesh and fur in every direction.
It had snuck up on the ponies of Equestria, like a stalker in your backyard, waiting for the right time to attack. It started out small. I simple cough with a rumble in your stomach, like when you need to go to the bathroom, but that would pass.
Ring around the rosy
Then it moved on after a while and you’d feel a gripping pain in your lungs. You’d cough, a lot, and when you removed your hoof you’d see blood.
A pocket full of Posy
At this stage, near the end of the dark age, mother’s would kill their children just to spare their innocent soul from the suffering what lay ahead of them. They did it in the most humane fashion available, have the child turn around and look at something, or give him or her a task, then come from behind and slide a knife right through the lower neck and into the brain. Most mothers held their child, shushing it, thinking he or she was suffering when it really was over in a flash, no pain, no torment, just one and done.
For those mothers that couldn’t go through with it though, or those that was stricken by the plague themselves, unable to muster the strength to kill their child, a worse fate awaited them.
Ashes, Ashes.
After a month or two, the pony would feel a warmth growing in their stomach. At first it would feel pleasant, like a warm bath, or a glass of warm milk, but then it’d change. The warmth turned into burning pain, like sticking your hand in a fire for a few seconds, their fur burning off their flesh.
The few survivors remember hearing agonized screams coming from all around them.
What the ponies were feeling was their very organs dissolving. Then the cough came back. In a testimonial of one of the mothers too afraid to kill her child, it states that she saw her little filly coughing up not only blood, but her organs. She said they came up with a loud plop. She saw the pain and horror in her child’s eyes before they rolled back in her head and she fell to the ground. Dead.
We all fall down.
2
Where was Celestia? You ask. Good question. Celestia herself was on the front lines at all times, coming to aid the ponies stricken with the plague. While her magic could purify entire streams and make food pop out of nowhere, her extent of medical magic only reached as far as mending broken bones, so all she could give the ailing ponies were comforting words. She worked countless hours on a cure, or just something to ease the pain, pouring her heart, mind and soul into the task, but came out empty hooved.
She was desperate, scared. The ponies trusted her to lead them as she had for over half a millennium, but she was failing them. She’d make constant visits to the town of Ponyville, one of the few with any fillies left. Most parents were too afraid to have a child, afraid that they’d have to kill it. But there was one filly Celestia loved more than anything. The last child in the town of Ponyville named Hazel Eyes, and Celestia would visit her everyday three times a day.
Celestia herself had no reason to fear getting infected on those dirt roads, she was immortal and could not be affected by any sickness, so she’d play with Hazel, make her smile. She was the one thing Celestia really had left, and if asked today, she would agree to the thought of being a second mother to Hazel.
Hazel Eyes was born a year before the plague hit full force, and on her second birthday, her mother died to it, but Hazel was too young to remember anything. The entire town took care of her, giving her a room to stay, food to eat and a warm hug whenever she needed it, but all those only served to infect the filly.
Three years after her mother’s death, Hazel Eyes sat on the porch, a pool of her own blood sitting besides her. She had a blanket around her, yet still shook. She knew everything about the plague, its signs, its pain, all learned by watching her caregivers die off one by one. They all told her not to worry, that they couldn’t get sick because there would be no one to take care of her, but she knew it was a lie. She’d seen countless mares cough up a lung, screaming in terrified horror as their life flashed before them.
She sat on the porch, a pair of mares watching her from a distance, scared as that warm spot appeared in her tummy.
She saw Celestia trot up at her usual time and ran to her throwing the blanket to the wind. Kill me, she shouted, Kill me because I don’t want to go through what the others did.
Celestia only stared at Hazel, eyes fixed on the trembling foal. She remembered times when fillies played out in the open grass, blue skies as far as the eye can see, now, now they ask for a quick and painless death.
She took the foal in her arms and Hazel cried.
The mares watched on as Celestia considered her options. Either she killed her now or she died from the plague. From under her grasp, Hazel begged, saying that none of the other mares would do it.
But Celestia saw how scared she was. Soon those cries would grow into screams of agony and she’d blindly stare at her, begging for death.
Celestia snapped her neck.
Quick and Painless. The two mares gasped, but didn’t intervene. Celestia was stronger than they’d ever be.
She let the dead body fall to the dirt floor, tears streaming from eyes that thought they knew pain. This was the last straw. She had tried to find a cure without resorting to such extreme measures, but it was too late.
Celestia returned to her castle, carrying Hazel on her back to be buried in the royal cemetery. She’d have to dig up one of the old graves, but she was in control so she did what she must.
Afterwards she roamed her land looking for an uninfected couple. She found it in the form of rock farmers. The Agate Rock Farm to be specific. There, she took the couple back to the castle and forced them to have a baby.
Nine months later, a young filly named Pac Agate came into the world.
Celestia delved into Tarmogoyf, A dark and forbidden book that hosed powerful magicks with even more powerful consequences. Over the nine month pregnancy, she learned to cast the mind meld spell, and when she kissed Pac on the forehead, she rewired her tiny brain in such that she’d become the last hope for ponykind.
Pac lived in the castle, but never interacted with others outside her family and Celestia, and when approached by another healthy filly, she grew cold, focusing on finding a solution over playing a pointless game.
Celestia was unnerved by Pac’s behavior, anything to save her ponies, but at the same time, Pac interested her. From birth, Celestia knew exactly what her cutie mark would be, and, low and behold, when it came, she was right
After four long years of hearing ponies screaming at night, Pac found an answer.
Well, an answer, not a cure, she had figured that the infection came from rats, but not as Celestia had once thought. Instead of the rats themselves, the bubonic plague came from the mites on the rat’s back.
Immediately Celestia dispatched the few fire mages she had left to burn all the land in an unspecified massacre, not caring if the measures were extreme or if what was left of her counsel disagreed. They hurt her ponies, her family, and she’d get her revenge with a mass extinction.
For weeks, It was like the sun never set. Bright flames rose and murdered the night. Celestia gave everypony in the castle a veil to put over their bed and an eye cover just so they could get some sleep.
When the flames died Celestia, had the toughest decision in her over two thousand year lifespan to make.
Killing the rats didn’t kill the plague that had already infected the countless ponies. Like with Hazel, Celestia had to decide whether or not to send out her army and kill everyone infected. Pac told her that there was no cure for the bubonic plague, or if there was one that it’d take her three years, at least, to find it, and by then, everypony would have died.
Celestia took three full hours alone, then ate a meal with Pac. Even in such high stress times she still found a way to spend some of it with her. After a total of three days, Celestia came to the same conclusion.
She sent all of her guard except for an elite few to every city in Equestria, there they murdered everyone, sick or not, no chances were taken. Quick and Painless. Then, when everything was said and done, the guards were told to commit ritual suicide, eliminating all chance of bringing the plague back with them.
Over the next four years, Pac made the cure and gave it to every living pony in the castle, including herself, even though she never came in contact with it.
Throughout those years Celestia barricaded herself in her room, giving complete control of the recovery to her council, with orders to Pac to bring any disagreement to her, personally. She was only pony allowed into her room. Celestia became a second mother to her and in turn, she became a daughter to Celestia. The two shared the burden of all those lost souls, and celebrated each new one.
Eventually it came time for Pac herself to reproduce, and Celestia gave her her choice of the three best males left in the kingdom. When she chose, and the deed was done, something tragic and unexpected happened.
A week after confirming Pac’s pregnancy, the male died. She did an autopsy and found nothing particularly wrong. Then when the baby came, tragedy struck again. The baby was a male and died two days later from suffocation.
Pac was heart broken, and for good reason, but after a year of grieving, she did it again, and if that baby came out a male, our story would have never happened. The mate died again a week after conception, but a healthy filly was born.
After reading up some more, Celestia decided to mind meld Pac’s filly as well. At the time, her world could use as many good doctors as it could get.
3
That was two hundred years ago, and our story begins five years before the thousandth Summer Sun Celebration, with the last of the Agate lineage.
The last to house what Celestia now called the Agate Curse, and the last remaining link to Pac Agate, the filly who singled handedly saved the entire pony race.