FiSA: Side Stories and Notes

by Cordial Nova

10 The Noble and Ancient House of Pants

The distant ancestor of Fancy Pants (one Cargo Pants) and the rest of the aforementioned Noble and Ancient House of Pants was a humble if prosperous tailor whose opening of his stores and warehouse to clothe ponies for free during a certain ancient killing winter incident - no, the other one - saved a lot of lives.

While some nobles of more exalted (or at least more warlike) ancestry may snicker about this where the Diarchy is unlikely to overhear, the ennoblement of the Pants' came as no surprise whatsoever to those paying attention to what Princess Celestia actually values.

(Said Other Killing Winter Incident, in this case, was a side-effect of the disappearance of the Crystal Empire, which pulled the central core out from the thaumaturgic infrastructure that held the bitter cold of the north back behind the Crystal Mountains. And gales of snow and ice swept down near-instantly, forcing everyone in Equestria's northern belt to decamp suddenly southward or else freeze to death.

In the modern era, there are exactly two cities in that region: the returned Crystal Empire - which did not repower said infrastructure due to it being about 1,500 years behind on maintenance and the returned crystal ponies having lots of other things to fix first - and Stalliongrad, which persisted as an industrial and mining center due to (a) access to coal, (b) mighty feats of earth pony engineering, and (c) sheer undiluted stubbornness. No-one stands fast and refuses to move like a Stalliongrader who's been told that he must.)

Comments

[Cordial Nova]

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9470564

For reference: let me just take a moment to say that there's a reason buried in the backstory as to why these caribou were the way they were, and it's one which rather precludes the existence of any but the smallest quantum of innocents, even among their children.

But to say more would be to wander deep into spoiler territory.

[FanOfMostEverything]

The question is whether Quibble is a member of House Pants. And if so, how well regarded he is by other members of the family.