Transformation magic is a powerful, dangerous tool, a lesson Princess Celestia has taught time and time again. But when a miscalculation of her own warps her body into a new and terrible form, an avian form her oldest enemies held millennia ago, Celestia learns these dangers from an entirely new perspective. Now she must find a way to reclaim her old body and manage the killer instincts of her new one. Of course, in order to do that, she'll have to climb off her dusty old throne and make some friends with the knowledge to help her, with some prompting from the more-than-friend who sent her the spell to begin with.
Edited and proofread by the marvelous JKinsley
Covert art by the lovely Fuzzyfurvert
Chapters (6)
Ima start reading now! looks to be very promising.
Terror Bird FTW!
I don't like Twilestia so much, but you got me with these Terror birds!
Now watch as someone else finds a huge, glaring error. I don't do well with egg on my face. Would serve me right for asking for recognition on the editing front.
That aside,
Good story, and I can't wait for more.
5161786 Now if only we could generate heat somehow...
Spike doesn't believe you either, Twi.
Good start, I have been waiting to see this since you suggested the idea and it looks promising. I did enjoy the Guard in this between his calm reaction to Celestia the overgrown Gryphon to panic at Celestia the Terror Bird. Also liked how you built some of the history for the Terror Birds and briefly Spike's origins.
dang. I caught up faster than I wanted to. Well! That was awesome to read, and oh no! A cliffhanger!
(/o.o)/ ^ |___|
Terror Birds sound absolutely adorable in an equinicidal sort of way.
She was hungry... and so she ate some fish.
Bad jokes aside, I love this story :D I'm a big shipper of any kind of pairing, but Twilestia always has a particular penchant for large emotional growth in characters stemming from their former teacher-student relationship. Can't wait for your take on their growth and epic internal battle of Celestia the ruler and Celestia the Ancient Terror!
Why not a Tia-dactyl. (Pterodactyl)?
Wasn't this supposed to be Twilights Reign of Terror? I can still remember the voting. Why is it about Tia now?
5163181 I wanted to distance it from Canine Complications and let people judge this story on its own merits, so I changed characters and character arcs. This also allows for some interesting character interactions we don't often see, while Twilight transformation stories are everywhere.
5162819 Because terror birds ate horses across their history. Pterosaurs were mostly fish and insect eaters, with some eating dog-sized animals or filter feeding. Ergo, not much conflict. Also because I like terror birds better, much as I love them both.
5161961 There will be a lot more worldbuilding about dragons, terror birds and the other races of Equestria. I was thinking of putting them in the author's notes so people can skip if they like, but either way I quite enjoyed doing it and it would make the story more interesting.
5161830 We'll see further down the line how true that is...
5161740 5161766 5162662 I am pleasantly surprised by how well the idea of my little terror birds has gone over. Glad to hear you're all enjoying them
5161786
No huge glaring errors, but a couple typos in the first chapter:
Missing space
it
Twilestia... with transformation... into terrorbirds... And yet with a premise like that, no comedy tag. Huh.
Lesbian terror bird sex commences!
Or, they share a romantic dinner... eating Blueblood's body! 
I don't know whether to laugh or facepalm through the back of my head.
Eh, both.
Additional footnote: Of course, this is also the only example the authors of this book can find...
Additional footnote #2: Some ponies, however; rather than fleeing the terror birds developed some sort of bizarre desire to be messily devoured by them. Nopony stopped them from acting out their desires as it was deemed 'natural selection at work', similar to the stuffing of fireworks down one's pants and gargling wth bleach because it 'kills more germs'.
I liked that you switched it from Twilight to Celestia. Should make for an interesting story (and, as you say, Twily transformations are all over the place, while this is something rarely done). Looking forward to seeing where this goes. Good job so far with characterisations, and I haven't spotted any errors worth mentioning.
.....I get the strangest, strangest feeling that Celestia is a distinct offshoot of the Chocobo...Or perhaps the Chocobo is a distinct offshoot of Celestia, the kind Terror Bird......
5164447
Chocobos were inspired from Terror Birds. The things actually existed, apparantly. Imagine like Emus but even more evil.
naturalishistoria.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/skull-terror-bird-scientific-american.jpg
Celestia is best
ChocoboTerror Bird5164871 I know that....
I'm just hoping we can link Chocobos into this fic. Because Imagine Fluttershy and Luna with a chocobo. The adorable would be unstoppable.
5165012
I'm more of a moogle fan, myself.
You know, it's been nearly five years in the fandom and I think this is still the first time I've seen anyone use Terror Birds.
I actually had/have designs on the idea myself (though in a completely different direction), for the fic that I'll probably never write since about season one (which shows you how likely I am ever to get motivated enough to put fingers to keyboard, despite four year's worth of plot outlines and world-building). But they are a natural ancient antagonist for ponies, so it's somewhat astonishing that I've seen no-one else plumb the idea before!
You get a favourite, then, for the concept alone, and I look foward to seeing where you go with this.
I love this story. Please continue
5163792 You may have guessed a plot point, though not in the way you are thinking it will develop. I'll be sure to implement those corrections, though!
5165012 5164969 I am afraid that the most you'll get is an offhand mention. Do keep in mind that Chocobos never threaten to murder and devour anybody, so they're rather different animals.
5164871 More like imagine if velociraptors had battleaxes strapped to the front of their skulls and could run at highway speeds for extended periods of time.
5165862 You will hopefully be pleasantly surprised by later developments in the fic, and also how well-researched on the subject I am (given I specialize in them for my studies in paleontology, which is my career path, I know themquite well).
5164044 5167449 And lastly, thank you one and all for the support and praise. I look forward to continuing this madness, which I will be working on later this weekend.
5170341
Ah! Even better!
Actually, then, you will be the person to ask: have they ever come to a concensus on which ones had arms? I saw a documentary wherein it was mentioned, but it otherwise seems a bit sketchy. I had a good look around a year or... actually, a good few years, come to think about it...! when I was adding Phorosrhacos to my D&D campaign world, as near as I could tell, it was suggesting that some species of Titanis might have had arms, but also that it had been suggested this wasn't true. If anyone would know the answer in more detail, if ought to be you, then!
5170341 ..They have very..very powerful kicks. Genetics, perhaps? And an off-hand comment would be fine..as long as it confirms that the Chocobos are a real thing in this fic.
I'm a big fanboy, but i'm not going to ask you to subvert the whole fic with an entire scene dedicated to it or anything.
5170410 It is a point of controversy amongst scientists as to whether or not they did. The reason why scientists previously believed them to have hand claws is because they have unusually strong, flexible and smooth wrist bones, which is something that is very rare in birds and is common in birds with clawed arms like hoatzins or knobs on their wingtips like steamer ducks. As such, they assumed that they were likely clawed. However, a second review later pointed out that many birds (including the closest modern relatives of the terror birds) simply have flexible wrists, and have no special claws on the wings or anything. It is worth noting, however, that none of the examples of birds lacking elongate claws are actually flightless, nor are any of them predators specializing in animals big enough that claws would be useful to them.
As a last point, (EDIT: not all, but rather) several different species of birds have wing tips that terminate in claws. It's just that only juvenile hoatzins actually have a known use for them (to my knowledge--EDIT: Ostriches and other birds which have them can use them in self-defense, so it's looking pretty likely they had some kind of potent claws on their wings) beyond potentially preening/copulation in ground birds.
All of which is to say we lack the data to say much on the matter, and the birds presented here have the claws for the sake of Rule of Cool. (EDIT: With all of this in mind, do note terror birds likely did not have highly prehensile claws like they have here, and that I did that for narrative convenience more than anything else).
(edit: For some reason it triple posted my comment. Apologies.)
5170459 I'll consider it, but it's not my first priority and I already have a few reference jokes lined up.
5170600
Right. Thank you. I sort of thought that might be the case, but it never hurts to get it from the One What Knows!
I had myself half-thought to rule-of-cool it and have some species having arms in both my D&D campaign world (for the larger ones like Titanis) and for the unlikely-to-ever-come-to-anything pony-story application (wherein the larger and nastier ones would have had them).
5170699 It is indeed a joy to rule-of-cool them. We just have to keep in mind they are animals with adaptations, fears and desires and not unstoppable juggernaughts of badass murder and mayhem.
5170788
Indeed.
That is reserved for Anomalocaris and Brontoscorpio...
First reaction: "Apparently a story about Celestia turning into a chocobo. This I have to see."
So, uh, will Spike's sleeping habits, fitness and dating prospects be important to the plot? I'm asking because that part seemed to take up an inordinate chunk of the chapter. I understand that you wanted to work in the exposition regarding the
chocobosterror birds, but it felt like a pretty roundabout way to go about it.For that matter, I wonder what the odds are of Celestia turning herself into one at the same moment Twilight read about them for, apparently, the first time.
5179307 More like Spike's being a child reaching puberty that Twilight is trying to look after is important to the plot, and this needed to be established early in the story. Spike being able to beat Twilight at Ponopoly and her being happy to let him beat her was also dwelled upon for a good deal of time, and for a similar reason (describing both Twilight's tendency to rarely spend time with Spike and her ability to make it a good time for both of them when she actually remembers she lives with another person).
As for the blatantly obvious coincidence, I did think that was a necessary weakness when writing about them but also rationalized it as being logical given that Twilight would likely stumble across them when studying obscure races of Equestria, which is what she was doing when crafting the transformation spell.
Those last few lines were really well done. Nice job.
..This made me sad at the end :c
5222070 Made me happy. The fact that it was so well written made me squee in glee and anticipation for the next chapter.
5222107 5222070 quickmeme.com/img/64/64753b2e457911650edeceef9f619c9af4897d8f9122bbea35795101eeba9566.jpg
Lesbian predatory birds? Idiocy intensifies.
5222233 Oh, how your insightful and brutally worded criticism wounds me. Now that I have encountered mindless hatred of my work I will never write again.
5222233
Hush now, homosexuality in birds is well documented.
5222580 My favourite part about this list is that it includes multiple examples both from large and flightless terrestrial birds and from the best studied of terror birds' closest modern relatives.
Basically, Tulip's most recent comment is as full of shit as always.
Yay, update!
Why have I waited to read this... Wonderful work as usual I eagerly await more! Please? Pretty please?
Goddamnit, now I want to hug the Tia-rror bird.
I wonder if Celestia is even immune to Discord's magic... hmm... what about changeling magic? Dark magic?
TIME TO EXPERIMENT!!
5223404 Go ahead. She is getting hungry.
5222892
Ha, I'll get first dibs! Granted, it comes at the expense of doing work. (And I don't get to see the highly polished version you get to)
5222580
Do... do people think homosexuality is an exclusively human trait?