Rabbit's Cornucopia

by TDR

All the Weyrs of Equestria

The history books call it 'thread'.

A rather innocent sounding name to a threat that wiped out empires and claimed more lives than anything else in the world.

No pony knew what it was, nor why it fell from the sky like rain devouring everything organic that it touched. No one can even recall when the first fall was, not even Princess Celestia knew when it started.

All any pony really knew was that when the thread came, it needed to be destroyed utterly. If the slightest sliver of that silvery mass remained intact it could decimate crops.

Attacking it with weapons was far too dangerous as often the very act of striking it would require you to get close enough for the thread's random thrashing to ensnare and devour you. Magic as well was practically useless the thread gleefully gulped up the magic as if it was alive and grew even larger.

Only three things could kill thread with one hundred percent success.

Thread could be drowned.

The silver ribbons that fell into a large enough body of water swelled up and dissolved into nothing after a short time submerged in water. Due to this many of the sea dwelling races secluded themselves away from the land dwellers, simply so they would not need to share any of the risk of combating the thread.
This was perhaps for the best as Seaponies were unable to use the other two methods of dealing with thread.

The second way was created by an earth pony. A mix of certain plants and stones created a flame that burned constantly and completely until all fuel was consumed, the heat and ferocity of this alchemical fire burned thread to ashes in moments. A number of small machines and specially created devices were made for earth ponies and pegasi to utilize these packs. Granted these too were only safe to use once the thread had already landed as the fire would not burn hot enough to be deployed in the air. The items were mostly used by the ground crews in cleaning up what the third way to destroy thread missed.

The third and most reliable way was Dragon fire.

In times long before Celestia, a pact was made with the wild dragons of the world. The great beasts themselves could battle the thread, but they had no defenses against it. Their thick scales were devoured just as quickly as anything else, they also could not maintain the flames long with out a steady supply of a gem called tinder stone.

The ancient ponies came to an agreement with the dragons of old and they were provided with a large selection of dragon eggs. Young unicorn ponies would use their magic to try an hatch one of these eggs. If the foals magic and the innate magic of the dragon whelp meshed then the dragonling would hatch and bond with the unicorn who woke it.

From that point on the pair underwent training together, teaching them about their bond, to be as one mind and body in their fight. The unicorn fed the dragon tinder stone and made short teleport jumps to get out of tight situations, if by chance the thread caught the dragon the unicorn could teleport them away where the cold between the teleport jumps would kill off the thread in a few heartbeats. Though the level of risk with those sort of jumps saw many a rookie never return.

This continued until the events of a thousand years ago. Princess C'lestia and her sister Princess L'na had made pacts of their own with dragon gods riding into combat with the thread along with all the other dragon riders.

In one of the last falls of the cycle tragady struck.

Princess C'lestia's dragon, Ice Wind, was struck in the face by thread and devoured faster than the Princess could teleport them away. The Princess went into shock at the death of her bonded dragon and vanished with a flash as the ropes of thread reached for her.

Moments later C'lestia reappeared though with out her mount, her face a mess of blood and muscle where the thread had taken her eyes and scarred her face and horn.

L'na was quick to rescue her sister and bring her for medical attention though the damage was done. Princess C'lestia was blinded and with her dragon dead she fell into a shocked depression that none could rouse her from.

L'na rose to new heights of rage at her sisters injury and tore into the last few falls with a fervor that earned her the title of Nightmare, from many of the other riders. She and her dragon Crescent, gathered a massive army of riders from all the weyrs, leaving only a small contingent behind she set out to find the source of the thread, which she believed came from the silver moon that hung in the sky. The cycles began and ended when the moon's strange orbit drew to it's closest point to the planet every six hundred years.

Of the four hundred dragon riders who left with Princess L'na only twenty four returned claiming the Princess had gone mad and was actually planning to go to the moon itself and destroy the thread there.

L'na never returned and C'lestia was forced to push past her grief to take over her royal duties she had left as well as her sisters. The princess also removed the honorific from her own name, feeling she no longer deserved it if she could not fly against thread. She took to simply trying to nurse the thread ravenged land land back to recovery all the while mourning her sister.

That was over a thousand years ago. Celestia's rule, while never challenged was often undermined. Her adherence to the old ways of things had turned many of the nobles against her. Her insistence on the bonding ritual for any able unicorns was largely ignored and many of the dragon eggs lay untouched in storage within the castle, waiting for their bonded unicorn to come and wake them.

Thread fall which was predicted every six hundred years was four hundred years late. Thus undermining her authority further.

Even Celestia could not deny the possibility that perhaps her sister had succeed and there would be no more falls.

The dragon riders now were a shadow of their former selves. The fortresses in the mountains where the dragon riders resided the weyrs were all but abandoned with only the Canterlot weyr remaining, as it was the seat of Equestria's faded power.

Many old traditions were abandoned, much of the old training was forgotten. The ritual was barely preformed save by the occasional young noble who simply wished to up their station with the least effort and earn an honorific.

There are a few families however who still followed the traditions despite the ridicule of others. The Kaisurs, the Shimmers, and the Sparkles.

The eldest of the Sparkles, Sh'ning preformed the ritual and became bonded with a blue dragon. He sought training though abandoned it to take a position in the Royal guard, rapidly climbing it's ranks along side his dragon Silverclaw.

The youngest Tw'light also completed the ritual after a strange explosion in the sky set off her power, the egg all but erupting outward as the dragonling hatched.

To the surprise of those watching the test and to the princess herself the small purple and green dragon was male something that didn't happen often when the partner was female. The dragon was also of an unusual size and was born without wings. Something which was again odd but not unheard of, as S'nset of the Shimmer's Dragon Cinder had only grown wings after her first molt.

To Tw'light none of this mattered to her in the slightest. Her lavender eyes were locked in wonder with the little dragons green ones. A smile crossing her face as the little dragon gnawed on it's own tail.

“He says his name is Spike” Tw'light giggled excitedly.

TDR
Presents

All the Weyrs of Equestria.

Based on MLP and the Dragon Riders of Pern saga by Anne McCaffrey

Author's Note:

This is an old story tangent i revisited when clearing out my computer. Unlike some of the others this is a complete prologue so i could post it. Though i have no idea where i was going with this to tell the truth.

I do know that at one point Spike would have a thing with sunsets dragon and Sunset and Twi would hook up.

rarity would become a rider later, and the others were mostly ground crew background friends of twi. Twi managed to get together to teleport to go back and find out what happened to luna only to find the princess was sitting with ehr army at the end of the last thread fall still pissed that her sister was injured , the warrior haveing no clue what to do. She of course and her army follow twilight back to the future in a wild teleport jump to bring a full set of dragons from the past to fight the thread. The plot was going to follow the first book pretty closely and i think that was why i was going to drop it. It was less a new story and more a rip off by the end.

Comments

[Zibrony]

Never read the books this was based on.... But I do pretty much like what this was.

[A.P.O.N.I.]

Nice touch with the princesses' names. David Silver is doing a bit on threadfall in Equestria here.