Kindness Is Magic

by Jordan179

Chapter 1: Before Her Doom

Once upon a time, in the heroic Mandate of the Pegasi, proud Pegasus Commanders ruled all, subject only to the wise advice of the Ephors. The Commanders were brave and strong, and imposed Harmony upon all Ponies, including those cursed to dwell upon the land. To do this, they led their invincible legions down upon any who dared oppose them, and wrought such work upon the rebels that soon none dared oppose them, and all were happy under their wise dominion.

But evil creatures from out of the Cosmos looked down upon and were jealous of Pony happiness. They took chimeric forms, like unto that of Monsters made of the mismatched parts of other creatures, or worse of creatures partaking of all three Pony Kinds, winged unicorn Ponies with the noble flight of Pegasi, the devious magic of Unicorns, and the brute force of Earth Ponies. They contended over Earth and Sea and Sky, and there was great suffering, during which the world writhed in Chaos.

In the end, only two of the Chimerae remained -- two monstrous Sisters who together subdued all the world. To do this, the eldest used her unnatural Unicorn powers to dominate the Sun, so that she might bring scorching heat upon any who opposed her. The younger likewise controlled the Powers of the Moon, and all the terrors of the Night, tormenting the Pegasi until they bowed to her as their Commander. Thus, the Sisters imposed their rule upon the Pegasi, and humbled them until they were forced to pretend to equality with the lesser Kinds of Ponies.

But in time, the younger Sister became aware that she was unwanted. The Ponies admired and loved the eldest for her deceitful shining beauty, while the younger was not as beautiful, and was feared for the dark horrors of her domain. She Twisted some Ponies into bat-winged creatures who worshiped her, making them in mockery of the Pegasi, but the love of Monsters did not satisfy her evil lust for domination. More and more, she hated her elder Sister, and yearned to rule the world alone.

One day, the younger Sister defied her sibling, refusing to relinquish control of the heavens when it came time for the day. The older Sister admonished and threatened her, pointing out that if they quarreled, the true Ponies might take heart and overthrow them.

But the bitterness in the younger one's heart was such that her disguise slipped, and she stood revealed in something closer to her true form -- a horrible monster of Darkness -- Nightmare Moon! She declared that she would never let the Sun rise again!

Forced now to turn on she who had been her most valued ally, the older Sister used the most powerful weapon she possessed -- the Elements of Harmony. Employing this magic, she defeated her younger Sister, and banished her to the Moon. But in doing this, the Elements rejected the Sun Tyrant, leaving her might greatly diminished.

The Sun Tyrant now controlled both Sun and Moon, and ruled the world unchecked by her false claim to Harmony. And so her tyrannical rule has been maintained in Equestria for generations since, for none now remain strong enough to successfully oppose her. But there is a legend that one day a Pegasus will appear who shall gain strength like unto her own, and then that Pegasus shall stand before her unafraid.

(from The True Traditions of the High Mandate)

Fluttershy Wind wondered why she should think of that old, hateful legend on such a lovely morning. She knew the story only too well. Uncle Windvane would bring out and solemnly-intone it to the whole family, on the appropriate ritual occasions, and sometimes simply because he took pleasure in reading it aloud -- to remind everypony that the Pegasi should rightly rule, that they owed no allegiance to Princess Celestia for any reason save survival . And, as everypony knew, and would have known even had he not drummed it into them all, again and again, no true Pegasus ever submitted more than tactically and temporarily for any reason so craven.

No true Pegasus ...

In the end, Windvane had angrily told her that she was no true Pegasus, that she was a disgrace to the ancient and noble Wind Clan, unfit to openly claim connection to a line which stretched back, in the dim mists of antiquity, to that of Wind Whistler and Hurricane the Great, long predating the rule of the Sun Tyrant. He had banished her from their ancestral home in Cloudsdale, arranged a remittance -- so that the clan should not be shamed by the sight of one of its members starving in the streets, or worse -- on the understanding that she would speak nothing of her connections.

Or worse. The phrase had stuck in her mind, in part because at fifteen she had still been too innocent to understand what it was that Windvane was implying she might otherwise do, and had wondered what might be worse than starving in the streets, which after all sounded pretty bad. She also remembered that he'd also suggested that, if she found the burden of living rejected by her Clan too onerous, she was always welcome to choose an honorable exit.

She had known what that meant. The old tales told of what a greatly-dishonored Pegasus of the High Clans was expected to do. Either expiate the shame through a deed of equivalently-great glory, or drown it in her own life's blood. Sometimes both. Which struck her as reasonable, though she supposed she would always be too afraid to actually do either.

But she had not felt even slightly-dishonored by Windvane's rejection. He might value his own opinion that highly, but she did not. She had never done anything particularly brave in her own estimation; indeed, she considered herself a coward. However, she had done nothing dishonorable. She was simply herself, and she was free, and she desired life rather than death.

She had almost laughed in his face when he had tried to suggest that the Wind honor blade would be more appropriate in his keeping than in hers. His motive was transparent -- if she had felt greatly dishonored, and slain herself, then she might have done so with the blade -- and that was a priceless historical relic, forged almost fifteen hundred years ago in Derecho, at a time when the Winds had led the Imperial Guards of the vanished North-Realm. And when an honor-blade was put to its final purpose, it would be melted down and a new blade forged.

Fluttershy might have given Windvane the blade simply to stop his complaints. But that blade had been given to her by her mother Sweetwing on her fourteenth birthday, as one of Sweetwing's last acts of sanity. The blade normally passed from mother to daughter, by the matrilineage that was the only sure form of descent over any great number of generations. So it had passed to Fluttershy, and so she would keep it. She knew that her mother would never have wanted it to fall into the hands of Windvane, a brother Sweetwing had always disliked.

So she kept her Honor Blade. And had not used it, not even after the sad set of circustances that led her to discover that she was in truth unlovable. That had been but a slight dishonor, not the great sort that required ritual suicide. She was saddened to realize that she would in all likelihood never find a true mate, but such was a small thing on the scale of her life. She had her studies, and her animal friends to keep her company.

The code of the High Clans was not that of the Earth Pony gentry, who worshipped wealth and propriety, nor even that of the Unicorn aristocracy, with their subtle and centuries-long social schemes. It was a code of wind and blood, of high sky and sudden death, life lived on the edge of reflex and razor wing, even for the greatest. Fluttershy was herself a creature of the lower airs, happiest walking the woods amongst the wealth of Nature, and yet she understood this instinctively: it was part of her soul.

Even if Windvane didn't understand that, even if he thought that one couldn't be a proper Pegasus of the High Clans without wanting to compete, to fight, to think all the time on precedence and honor and blood and death. Fluttershy would rather be out among her animals, enjoying her life in the warm sunlight of late spring. Who in their right mind would want to fight when there was no need? Even the most admirable of Pegsi would rather compete in good sport, rather than harm others.

Fluttershy knew this because it was her great privilege to call the most admirable of Pegasi her oldest and dearest friend. Rainbow Dash was of common birth, but she was as athletic and magnificent, as much the ideal Pegasus, as Fluttershy herself was not nor could ever hope to be. Cerise eyes full of determination, muscles rippling on her blue barrel and thighs, rainbow mane and tail streaming in the breeze to merge with her rainbow-streaked flight trail -- she was the epitome of excellence and beauty in Fluttershy's eyes.

She was Fluttershy's oldest friend. They'd met in flight camp, twelve years ago when Fluttershy had been eight and Dashie only six. Though Fluttershy was the elder, it was Rainbow Dash who had become her protector, a situation which had not substantially changed in the ensuing years. They had grown, from little fillies to young mares, something which to Fluttershy meant in part that the stakes in the social games grew greater, and the rules by which they were played ever subtler and more complex. Fluttershy hated such social games. She always seemed to lose them, humiliatingly, and have to pay in one form or another for her losses.

Rainbow Dash played them with gusto and no strategic subtlety, though she was good enough on tactics. Aggressive and good-hearted, she just bulled her way through all opposition, trusting to her momentum to see her through the vicissitudes of life as it saw her through races and other sports. Somehow, this worked out just fine for her: Dashie was was incomparably brave and incredibly thick-skinned; an irresistible force, before which all but the most immovable objects gave way.

Fluttershy's only other good friend, Rarity Belle, was almost Dashie's opposite. Rarity was subtle, sophisticated, a social schemer and natural charmer who employed a combination of briliance, hard work, shrewdness and downright niceness to climb the status ladder. Rarity had met Fluttershy almost ten years ago, soon after Fluttershy had literally fallen to earth near Ponyville and discovered she loved living down on the ground.

Like Rainbow Dash, Rarity was two years younger than Fluttershy. Like Rainbow Dash, it was the younger Rarity who had taken Fluttershy under her wing. Or, rather, under her horn, since Rarity was a Unicorn.

Ambitious, beautiful and manipulative, Rarity by all the rules of drama should have been a heartless, shallow creature who was only pretending to like Fluttershy in the hope of getting an introduction into Pegasus Society. And it was quite true, as Fluttershy later realized, that Rarity had initially been drawn to her obviously-aristocratic manner -- something which Fluttershy could not help but reveal to a perceptive Pony such as Rarity in a dozen little ways. When Rarity realized just how little Fluttershy cared for her old world, the world of the High Clans, she should have dropped Fluttershy like a hot potato.

Instead, Rarity remained her friend, taking her under her (figurative) wing and teaching her how to reach out to other Ponies. Not that Fluttershy ever would reach out to other Ponies -- she knew that she was barely even a proper Pegasus, neither brave nor strong, neither admirable nor loveable. She tried to tell Rarity this, but the white Unicorn simply laughed and told her that she was and always would be her dear friend. Fluttershy was astonished that Rarity could accept a freak like herself.

More of a freak than even her friends realized, in fact ... but she did not like to think of what she had discovered about herself six years ago on that menhir-crowned hill out in the Badlands, leered down upon by that tunnel-riddled mesa, that mesa crawling with monsters. Shapeshifting monsters like great black-carapaced insects in equoid forms that flew and buzzed and spoke into her mind and told her she was no true Pegasus at all, but really one of them.

Fluttershy knew she was cursed, living on borrowed time, before one of the many terrifying truths she concealed from the world caught up with and destroyed her. But in the meantime, she tried her best to enjoy her life, living with her animals, enjoying their love, and spending time with her two best friends, Rainbow Dash and Rarity Belle. It was not a bad life, not a bad way to spend the interval she had until her invitable doom. There were no grand joys for her, but there were quiet little pleasures, and to her surprise she became mostly happy in it.

Days passed, blended into weeks, into months. She became used to Ponyville, to her friends and life there. Slowly, her fears began to fade: her fears of being abused by bullies, cast out by other Pegasi, eaten by Dragons. She fed on the love of her animals without harming them, and began to hope that she was simply different due to her birth, maybe not even a real monster at all. The memory of the mesa in the Badlands, the menhir-crowned hill, the terrible voice of Chrysalis that had spoken into her very soul -- became but a bad dream, a nightmare fantasy, irrelevant to her waking life in the real world.

She still knew that she was cowardly and freakish and unloveable, not a proper Pegasus -- but did she really have to be? The most amazing Pegasus of all, Rainbow Dash, was her loyal friend and protector. Beautiful and kind Rarity took hours out of her busy days to talk to her, comfort her, teach her how to pretend to be normal. And if the lesson that Nosey had taught her -- that she was unloveable -- remained seared into her soul, she didn't have to think about it too often. She was afraid of most other Ponies anyway. Her life did not need real romantic, or even crassly sexual love in it. She could be happy simply tasting the love of her animals.

She did not know it, she might have denied it had one told her, but Fluttershy was in fact slowly, gradually healing from the shocks and insults she had suffered. Her hair grew long and luxurious, her legs lengthened, her features lost their last baby-fat and became fine and aristocratic. She was still incredibly, painfully shy, so she shrank from them, but she began to attract admiring gazes. She would definitely have denied this, but she was in fact becoming achingly, heart-breakingly beautiful, something Rainbow Dash sometimes saw with pangs of impossible longing, and Rarity Belle perceived with an almost professional satisfaction.

So went the course of Fluttershy Wind's slow recovery.

Who knows how many years it might have taken, had her comfortable, safe little world not ended forever for her on June 21st, YOH 1500, when an emissary from Canterlot came upon her in the midst of her band practice?

Comments

[A British Gentleman]

I suddenly find myself very curious to find out how Windvane responded to the news that Fluttershy had bonded to the Element of Kindness and used it to defeat Nightmare Moon. I suspect it would be very interesting to see...

[DreadedCandiru2]

Hmm. I wonder how she'd talk down Stupidlight Dimmer.

[i_am_the_jam]

Let's see where this goes...

"Year of Harmony"? Odd, in "Testing, Testing, 1 2 3", Twilight referred to the period after Nightmare Moon to be called "Year of Celestial Peace".

Or, "Anno Pax Celestia"

[FanOfMostEverything]

Ooh, another story written in Fluttervision. This should be interesting. Not much to it beyond a portrait of the protagonist as a young mare, but I look forward to seeing where it goes from here.

[Filraen]

Wait, Fluttershy is a changeling in this fic?

Nothing wrong with that as an idea, but since it's part of the premise I'd have expected a mention in the description and an AU tag.

Right or wrong (because I could have misread, I'm just waiting up from an afternoon nap) I'll be following this story.

[Jordan179]

6677439

I assume there's more than one chronological system. "Year of Harmony" dates back to the defeat of Discord, and becomes popular again after Luna's return.

[Jordan179]

6677537

Fluttershy's half-Changeling in the Shadow Wars Story Verse. This not only doesn't contradict anything ever shown in vanilla-canon, but explains several things about Fluttershy, such as her possession of The Stare and her tendency to surround herself with loving animals.

[Filraen]

6677545 (I'll ignore the fact Fluttershy being half-changeling already contradicts canon)

Is this story part of that Shadow Wars Story Verse? Because, again, that's something it's usually placed in the description.

[joeyjumper94]

6676738 probably they'd be very jealous that she is connected to the most powerful magic known

[Jordan179]

6677604

Actually, canon never identifies any of Fluttershy's kin. Though her behavior makes it obvious that she's an eccentric aristocrat of some kind. There is also nothing in canon to contradict her being half-Changeling. She doesn't know how to Shift, and her base form is in any case the cute yellow-and-pink pegasus mare you all know and love.

She was raised by Ponies, and her cultural assumptions are entirely Pony -- from her POV, Chrysalis is a terrible monster telling her to look at the Tomato in the Mirror. Fluttershy is about as happy about this as is the typical Cthulhu Mythos narrator who discovers he's won the Secretly a Deep One lottery.

Everything I write in any of the MLP generation fanfic worlds is part of the Shadow Wars Story Verse. Some of it is simply set in secondary worldlines, such as the one Dr. Astrid Lucy Glammer accidentally created by dropping Charlie Yu through an experimental spacetime portal into Equestria.

[A British Gentleman]

6677622

The glorious thing here is that technically, Fluttershy has now accomplished everything he believes a great pegasus should: she has shown irrefutable courage, wielded a legendary 'weapon', defeated a great enemy and, through her deeds, bought great honor to her House. Or she would, if he would own up to her kinship. I suspect that, in the spectacularly unlikely event that Ill Wind had wielded an Element in such a manner, he would crow about how it proves the superiority of his kin.

He can't chaim it at all, though, because it's Fluttershy. Fluttershy, who he cast out and rejected, and who would openly laugh at him were she not too shy and polite. Which means he now has to do a lot of mental gymnastics to convince himself and others that she is not at all what the evidence suggests she is: a hero and an example to other pegasi.

He might even try to claim Rainbow, who is, after all, an exemplary specimen of pegasus kind, probably even in his eyes (lack of fantastic racism not withstanding). Rainbow, I suspect, would want nothing to do with him; his rejection of Fluttershy would make him mud in her eyes regardless of any other considerations.

[Filraen]

6677635 I guess we'll have to agree to disagree in the AU side (your reply could be a case for something not impossible, but it isn't to make it canon: I'm missing the eexistence of canon-confirmed half-changelings and the existence of canon confirmed (half-)changelings whose natural forms aren't black). And I think it's better to keep the differences that way, because I'm not against your setting (AU for me, not for you) in this story and this first chapter was enjoyable, and it wouldn't do to have the comments section devolve in an "AU or not" discussion only.

Everything I write in any of the MLP generation fanfic worlds is part of the Shadow Wars Story Verse...

How I was supposed to know that?

[Jordan179]

6677701

Well, the SWSV assumes that Changelings are just modified Flutter Ponies, so there's no particular reason they couldn't interbreed. In fact, that's a secondary reason the Changelings assume the form of the lovers or spouses of other Ponies -- genetic diversity.

[Filraen]

6677707 Exactly: your explanation works in your verse, not in canon. Which is fine, as this story is set in your 'verse, where your explanation is valid.

[Jordan179]

6677740

Real eusocial insects have only one breeder and a variant recombination system so that they are all three-quarter sisters of each other (a degree of kinship unattainable by mammals). I'm guessing that Discord couldn't Twist the Flutter Ponies enough to give the Changelings a fully-insectoid reproductive system, and what they actually do is closer to naked mole rats, only as their Hives are more populous than naked mole rat warrens, there are numerous breeding females with the dominant one being the Queen and the only one who can produce other breeders, the Princesses. Most female Changelings are, however, sterile -- though any Changeling can, with enough love, be "promoted" to Princess, and a Princess-less Hive will select the dominant Princess to become the new Queen. Hence, you can't wipe out a Changeling Hive by assassinating its Royals, though you can hurt it badly.

[Foxfire74]

/skims physicist's name

!

/rereads

!!

Nice.

[Ardashir]

Great opening there with a somewhat different view of Celly and Luna. Makes me wonder if there are similar versions among equally xenophobic unicorns and Earth ponies. Not to mention how Fluttershy, raised on those stories of the wicked tyrannical Princesses, felt when she heard the lupine Creation Myth from Ardi which paints pegasi as being only slightly less monstrous than the Princesses.

Good piece of work here setting up Fluttershy's background, as well as hinting at what we can expect from the story ahead.

[eraser]

6677767 (I've read it in a review of "The Future is Wild", the part about hive-like burrowing birds.) Right now there are eusocial birds that have only one fertile female in the flock, the rest become barren from the stress. When the queen dies, her replacement becomes fertile. I'm not sure if there are known mammals with similar organization, but it is entirely possible.

[Jordan179]

7004224

Among my Changelings, the Royals (Queen and Princesses) are fertile, the other castes are not. The Queen can bear members of all castes including Royals, but Princesses can only bear members of non-Royal castes. There are also the possibilities of ultra-high-caste male Royals ("Kings" and "Princes") but they are much less common: most Hives don't have any.

Caste membership is partially genetic and partially epigenetic. A Changeling can in time through diet (both psychic and material) and training be "promoted." This is rarely more than one caste in lifetime. The caste right below the Royals is what might be termed "Professional," but is better known as "Infiltrator" because that's what Ponies encountered them doing before the Reconciliation. This includes not only literal Infiltrators, but also Commanders, Scientists, Engineers, Doctors and the like.

Below the Professionals are the Warriors and Workers. Technically these are more or less equal castes, but Warriors require more resources to raise, and in war are more important.

A typical Age of Hiding Hive has about 85% (or more) Workers, 10% (or less) Warriors, 4% Professionals, and 1% (or less) Royals. Larger elite groups can only be supported by active raiding and conquest, which is dangerous.

A Hive attempting aggresive expansion (like that of Queen Chrysalis) would have a much higher percentage of Warriors and Elites. This is not sustainable save through plunder. Long before the attack on Canterlot, Chrysalis had logistically-committed herself to the attack.

In the Age of Reconciliation, the Changelings became much richer in resources through open trade with other Kinds. Consequently, the ratio of Royals and Professionals to Workers increased greatly. Warrior production also increased for the Shadow Wars, but afterward dropped as Warriors were now needed merely for security purpose, and as a military export (mecenaries). Also, the subcastes of Workers and Warriors bred and trained were much more elite and specialized ones, and enjoyed much higher standards of living, than had the Changelings during the Hiding.

[Star Blazer]

Seems intresting; can't wait for more!