Ink Blot's Unassorted Encyclopedia of Absolutely Everything

by Nevlamas

History of Equestria: The Elements of Harmony

This article covers the Elements' historical discovery. For their actual nature, please consult article #8: The Elements of Harmony

-Ink Blot

Several years after earning their Marks, the siblings grew restless. The mystery surrounding them was still not solved, despite all the efforts of their teachers and mentors. Adolescents naturally search for their true selves – but in their case, no one could show them the answer. Eventually, Celestia had had enough. On her twentieth birthday, she proclaimed that she would no longer subject herself to the useless investigations of wizards and scholars. Instead, she retreated from the outer world to go on a journey in search for herself. As her new hideout, she chose an abandoned unicorn castle in the outer fringes of the Everfree Forest and as ever, her younger siblings followed. A number of earth walker settlements agreed to see to them in their exile, restoring the castle to some of its former glory and keeping the alicorns safe and fed.

And there they remained for more than a year. While history is quite well informed about what they did on the outside – meditations mostly, discussions, research and a lot of travelling up and down the Everfree Forest – the essence of that year will be forever out of reach for us; we simply cannot hope to understand the way an alicorn perceives the world. However they might have done it, the siblings each traced back the magic that had made them. Piece by piece, they understood what the world was really made of. In the end, they found out who they were: they discovered the Elements of Harmony. All this time, each of them had been carrying two of these virtues in their heart, no more, no less. They defined their being and personalities. The siblings understood that the Elements were not traits of the alicorns, but that instead the alicorns were impersonations of the Elements. Celestia, the leader of the three, found in her heart Loyalty and Honesty. Luna, the graceful maiden, proved generous and kind. And Melody… Melody, the enfant terrible, saw in himself what would become his undoing: Laughter and Magic.

The three of them returned to Canterlot. Realizing their own nature had obviously done wonders to their confidence, as all reports of that time agree on the boldness with which they acted then. Celestia declared herself and her siblings the rightful rulers of Equestria, and brought forth six tokens to strengthen their claim: the Elements of Harmony themselves, crystallized into gemstones. Those stones had been enchanted by the alicorns to serve as direct links to their respective Elements, making each of them a unique kind of spell focus and a link to nearly boundless power – if the wielder knew how to access it. Which, at that time, only the siblings did.

The unicorns were the first to bend their knees, and unsurprisingly so. There were two things that the people of Canterlot respected: arcane knowledge and arcane power. The alicorns had been born with the latter, and now had earned the former. They were the ones teaching their mentors about the Elements of Harmony now. In a few short months, they had learned more than the rest of society in decades. Equestrians began to understand the world around them. Canterlot accepted the alicorns as their prince and princesses.

The earth walkers were just as easily convinced. They had long abandoned any kind of central government, but after only a few visits of Prince Melody, they decided that they’d like those new leaders. In particular, they were enthralled by the alicorns’ connection to Harmony. They remembered the old Speaker Smart Cookie, and the Fires of Friendship she had helped to ignite. They took the appearance of Celestia and her siblings as a sign of the Elements’ rising strength, and were more than willing to submit.

It was the pegasi who offered the most resistance. They had forged what they considered an alliance with earth walkers and unicorns but remained warriors to the core: proud of their traditions, fierce in their beliefs and not willing to bow to anyone. Two generations would pass until Cloudsdale officially acknowledged the alicorns as rulers of Equestria.

But in the end, there was no one left who questioned the rightful rulership of the siblings. Now at last were the three races truly unified – bound together by Harmony.