Midnight at the Blackbriar Opera: A Shadowtrot Tale

by brokenimage321

>PROLOGUE.TXT

And, almost without anyone noticing, magic went out of the world.

By the time of the Schism, it was already on its way out. Myth and legend had spoken of dozens of Alicorns and Draconequi, but, by the time it all fell apart, only two remained: the Sun Queen and the Moon Queen. The rest had died, or run off, or Alicorns-know-what else. Unicorns had become more scarce, too, not to mention Pegasi, with more and more of them being born as Earth Ponies every year. There had been much hoof-wringing on this point, but no one seemed to complain when the monsters disappeared, either; most seemed to assume that the Royal Guard was finally doing its job. In either case, ponies were discovering, more and more, that it wasn’t the end of the world if it didn’t rain at exactly the right time. They discovered, too, that just about anything a unicorn could do, electricity and gears could do just as well, if not better. It had long been whispered, by many ponies, but the special magic that kept Equestria moving was well and truly dying.

But the final nail in the coffin was a pony named Star-Crossed. He was a scientist--an astronomer, to be specific. He wasn’t the most famous, or even most skilled, astronomer of his time, but he was the most careful: he had been working on a project for years, a project he would tell no one about, a project so secretive that he almost burned his notes a half-dozen times. But, finally, he published his work: Equestria, he said, traveled around the sun, and not vice-versa. That meant that it was not the Alicorns that moved the sun, it was physics. Cross had proved, in no uncertain terms, and with dozens of carefully-researched examples, that, aside from traditions dating back to time immemorial, there was no real reason to keep the Alicorns around.

Word of Cross’s work spread like wildfire. There were riots in Phillydelphia, in Seaddle, in Canterlot. Printers’ shops, with every copy of Cross’s work, were burned. Cross himself was tried and executed for libel, treason, and blasphemy. But, within just a few years, more and more scientists began to confirm his work: the Alicorns were no longer needed.

And so, they disappeared.

No one could say just when it happened. One morning, they were just--gone. No one could say where they went--or, indeed, as the years rolled on, if they ever had really existed.

But still, the world turned. And, as time went on, the gears grew more complex, the electricity grew stronger. Buildings grew taller, cities more dense, and ponies grew ever more powerful. Before too many years passed, it seemed that they had found a new magic all their own, even as the magic their ancestors had known was fast fading into barely-remembered myth.

And then, one fateful day, it all came roaring back.

Comments

[nemryn]

Huh, okay, that's an interesting inversion of the Shadowrun setup, I wonder where-- whoa wait

[Xzrea]

Looks like you highlighted some words in italic, but then applied italic to whole text - and now words previously italicized are not.

[brokenimage321]

9555846
That's actually intentional, believe it or not. The italics are intended to set this first section apart from the remainder of the story.