Changeling Fate

by Nightmare Rift

Chapter 12: History Book

Night Crystal’s POV:
Two months after Nightmare Night, I finally decide to hole myself up in my house and read the history book that Twilight gave me about Sombra and the War of Crystal. For the last two months I have mainly been reading in Twilight’s library, or helping Zecora. I was also in charge of the castle for a few days while Twilight went off to help a friend named Sunset Shimmer in the other world, known as the human world. Whatever that is, even Celestia does not know what the other world is, only Twilight does. So I guess that was fun, staying in Twilight’s castle. However, I must read and learn what everypony thinks of Sombra, probably a monster.

As I begin to read, I can’t help but cringe at the major inaccuracies of the book. In the book, Sombra is portrayed as evil, heartless, and unfair to all of his soldiers, Changelings, Umbrum, and Crystal ponies. He was seen as a ruler who forced children into the war, saying that he would kill their parents if they didn’t help. The book mentioned that he had many deserters because he was unkind to his soldiers. The war was fought between Sombra and the Two Sisters, each side with plenty of soldiers. One side were ponies, the other side Changelings, Umbrum, and the enslaved Crystal ponies. Sombra’s forces were losing, and that was when Celestia and Luna took up arms as they realized that the war needed to stop sooner rather than later to prevent anymore bloodshed. The war ended with Celestia and Luna killing Sombra and left all of his soldiers unharmed.

However, the entire opposite side is true, as I remember everything like it was yesterday. I am the last surviving Changeling that was actually working during the War of Crystal. Every Changeling today had relatives and old family members in the war, but are now dead, except me. It is the same with the Crystal ponies and the Umbrum. Well, lets just say that once Sombra died, they no longer existed. Sombra was the most kind hearted pony ever. We never had a single deserter, and the Crystal ponies weren’t enslaved. The Crystal ponies loved Sombra’s reign. They were allowed to live in peace, and only had to provide food for the troops. The Changelings and Umbrum were the only ones actually fighting. The 26 Changeling children that were alive had the option to help or live their normal lives. I was the only child that helped out in the war. The other 25 stayed normal. However, every single one of them had both of their parents killed by Celestia and Luna. They all went into pony foster homes around Equestria. However, all but one of them ended up starving themselves to death. They were so unhappy and felt betrayed by Celestia and Luna. The one that didn’t starve himself instead made a huge spectacle out of it. He was put into a foster home with Celestia and he ended up jumping off the palace roof right down into the center of Canterlot while Celestia was gone one day. Anyway, I am getting off topic.

When Sombra was killed, a sadness came over the Crystal ponies. They only turned crystal again when Cadence and Shining Armor started ruling about two years ago. We would have won the war had Celestia and Luna waited just a little bit longer to take up arms. We were winning when they did so, they thought it was the only way their reign could continue. Had Sombra won, he would have let all of the ponies keep their lives and only Celestia and Luna would have been imprisoned. Raising the sun and moon every day would then be Sombra’s job until he found a queen, and teach her how to do it. Instead, Celestia and Luna killed Sombra and most of his subjects, and the rest were allowed to live peacefully. Too many killed in the war, too many children orphaned, too many deaths happened at their hooves, too much of everything. I still, to this day, hate Celestia and Luna for what they did, but I think I forgave Luna after a while. After all, she was exposed to the influence of dark magic more than Celestia, which probably helped fuel her transformation into Nightmare Moon. Sombra predicted that something would tear the Two Sisters apart. I just never thought that it would be Luna turning into a creature of darkness due to being power hungry. I don’t blame Cadence at all because she wasn’t involved in the war; she was still very young at the time. I mostly blame Celestia. I don’t think she ever truly felt bad for her actions during or after the war. However, I need my plan to take into account that all of the Alicorns keep their titles, and I need to let myself be a worthy opponent that could overthrow them, but still keep in good graces with them. Basically make myself like Discord, still causing issues, but reformed from actual villainy. However, unlike Discord, the Elements of Harmony won’t work against me. A small advantage of being a Changeling.

I guess the only thing that the book had correct was why the war started. It wasn’t Sombra, Celestia, or Luna that started it. A high ranking crystal pony and a royal guard were the reason. They started an argument about military and which land was better. Eventually it turned into all out war because they each took military action against each other without authorization from the leaders. So, that is how we ended up with the War of Crystal, all over a silly argument, costing the lives of hundreds of royal guards, Changelings, and Umbrum; but also the life of somepony I grew to love more than I planned.