Prologue: An inner conflict
Huzzah, everypony! I´m back to business to bring you my take on Gusty´s and Grogar´s story 
.
Sorry if it took long to upload here again, but The final challenge was a lot of work and effort and I needed to take a long break from both writing and an awful schoolyear.
But before we begin this new ride, I want to say thank you for your encouragement and support throughout the course of my stories. It brings me both motivation but also acknowledgement on how to improve my stories. Never stop giving any helpful advice!
Another important thing I should mention, I headcanon Gusty as Himalayan, most specifically Sherpa. Throughout this chapter and the rest of the story, she´ll use some words from the Sherpa language. In this chapter I use:
-Apa: father
-Ama: mother
-Magaga: grandmother
-Nuru: jewel
There will also be some characters that speak other languages. I want you guys to be respectful to the languages and not make fun of them. I won´t tolerate any racist or xenophobic comments.
Without much further ado, enjoy!
The sun was rising. Everypony knew what it meant. Another exhausting day of toiling the land, planting seeds, growing crops and giving them to the emperor only to receive miserable fractions of food in return. Not to mention the payment of tremendous taxes.
So, the whole unicorn family got up from their beds, dressed up and got ready for breakfast. Well, all except one.
“Sleeping late again?” the stallion asked his wife with a smirk in his face.
The mare sighed somewhat frustrated.
“I´ll wake her up.”
As the mare left the room, the stallion and an older mare laughed softly.
“This filly. She´ll never change.” the older mare muttered playfully.
Meanwhile, the younger mare went up the wall ladder to access to the attic, in which there laid a straw bed with a sleeping filly on it. She approached her and shook her slightly.
“Gusty. Gusty.”
The filly made no movement nor noise.
“Gusty, it´s morning. Time to wake up!”
Again, no answer.
“Gusty!” she exclaimed louder while shaking her harder.
Finally, she got an answer but it wasn´t quite a comfortable one, as always. The filly smacked her mother muzzle. Her mother´s groan was what completely woke her up. The filly rubbed her eyes.
“Is it morning already?” she wondered aloud.
When she realized what she had done, she gasped horrified.
“Oh my! I´m sorry ama.” The filly apologized.
Her mom massaged her muzzle.
“It´s fine. It´s not like I´m not used to it or anything.”
Gusty blushed while giving out an apologetic smile to her mom.
“Now get dressed. We´re waiting for you for breakfast.”
“Coming!”
The filly put her dress and mantle on, climbed down the wall ladder and joined her family for breakfast.
Once they were finished, they opened their house´s door. Gusty gasped in joy and smiled when she saw that it had snowed. Giggling, she ran to it and threw herself into it. Oh, how she missed the snow. Unlike her homeland, Tambelon wasn´t a place it snowed often and when it did, it wasn´t as much as in her home, as it was between the mountains, most specifically, the Himarelayas. Nonetheless, every time it snowed, she felt like she was back there again.
Her thoughts were interrupted by her father´s voice.
“Gusty! This isn´t the time to play.” he scolded her. “You know the land doesn´t labour itself.”
“But apa! It has snowed! You know that foals can´t resist playing with the snow!” she protested.
“Once it´s the time to pay the taxes, you´ll be able to play with the snow.” her grandmother said warmly.
Gusty sighed disappointed. She knew that it would pass hours before that moment. But she also knew she had to help her grandmother. The poor mare was having trouble carrying out her duties lately, as her bones were turning more and more fragile. That was the only motivation she had to work. After all she did for her and her parents, that´s the least she could do.
“Fine...”
She joined her parents and went to the crop fields, meeting with the other unicorns to begin working.
Although she was just a foal, she worked on the fields just like an adult pony. And she wasn´t the only foal to do that. The emperor made no distinction of age and demanded everypony to work. However, he did give them permission to play when their parents were paying for taxes. It was too little playtime for a foal, but it was better than nothing.
While she helped her grandmother to pick up the crops, Gusty stared at the long distance, where the pegasi were working on the other crop field, which was separated by a fence.
“Magaga.” Gusty called to her grandmother.
“Hm?” the older mare raised her head.
“Why is there a fence between us and the pegasi?”
“Well, I am not to answer that question. It was the emperor who decided that.” she replied while putting Gusty´s crop on her basket, seeing she was distracted looking at the pegasi. “But the thing is that we don´t like each other very much, so the more we stay away from them the better. And the same goes for earth ponies.”
“Earth ponies?”
“Ponies without horns or wings. You´ve never seen one because they are farther from our work field, unlike the pegasi.”
“Oh.”
As they conversed, they walked around while picking up more crops. They stopped when they arrived to what they called `the cursed spot´, since nothing of what they planted there ever grew. Gusty´s grandmother sighed sadly.
“Another day without fruits from there. I don´t know why we bother checking here.”
They were about to leave but Gusty came up with an idea. She groaned until she ignited her horn and started conjuring up an unstable gust of wind she couldn´t control very well. Though not too strong, it did have potential to destroy small crops.
“Gusty no!”
Unfortunately, before she could stop it Gusty ended up destroying some crops. The unicorns around gasped.
“Oh no not again!” a mare exclaimed.
Ponies turned their heads to Gusty and glared at her. The filly laughed nervously before hiding behind her grandmother, as they started walking towards her.
“YOU! WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO LEARN?!” a stallion yelled at her as she got closer to her.
He forcefully took Gusty by her foreleg, but she held on to her grandma.
“What are you doing?!” the elderly mare asked upset.
“I´m going to teach her a lesson!”
“You´re not touching my granddaughter! Teaching her a lesson is not your task. It´s ours.”
“Then why does she keep messing up, huh?!” another mare yelled. “From the day you came here she´s been bringing nothing but disgrace by destroying our crops.”
“And what´s worse she´s been using her magic! She´s been breaking the rules and we´re covering her up! But not today.”
Gusty and her grandmother gasped horrified as they knew what he meant.
“No. No please!” Gusty yelled.
“We´ve already had enough mercy!”
“Be reasonable, please. She´s just a filly.” her grandmother said in her defence.
“Shut up, you old mare!” a young colt said to show off.
“You can see freakiness runs in this family.” a filly whispered to him.
Without expecting it, Gusty knocked the two of them to the ground.
“DON´T YOU DARE INSULT MY MAGAGA LIKE THAT!”
“Get away from my children you little monster!” their mother pushed her to the ground.
The foals raspberried at her while hiding behind their mother. Furious, Gusty got on four legs and ran to them but was stopped by her parents.
“Hey, hey, what´s going on here?” her father asked upset.
“Your daughter knocked my children to the ground!”
“Because they insulted magaga!” Gusty justified herself.
“I don´t care! Have some control over your child!”
“No need to. I´ll tell the soldiers and they´ll deal with her.” the stallion that threatened them before told them.
“Whoah! You´re not giving our daughter to the soldiers!” Gusty´s mother complained.
“How else will stop doing things wrong, huh?”
“Please, try to understand. We might have been here for a few months, but she´s still getting used to the norms in here.”
“Plus, she doesn´t mean any harm. She´s just a filly who tries to help her own way.”
“Hey what´s going on here?!” a new voice joined the conversation.
Everypony widened their eyes. The Troggles, aka the emperor´s soldiers, had come to intervene.
“Why aren´t you working?!” the troggle continued.
The stallion was dying to tell them about Gusty, but her parents were begging for mercy with their eyes. Frustrated, he sighed.
“Sorry sir, the old mare fell over and we came to help her. We were going back to work.”
The troggles raised their eyebrows, looked at each other and nodded.
“Very well. But it better not happen again! Understood?”
Everypony nodded their heads.
“NOW GET BACK TO WORK!”
When the troggles were out of their sights, Gusty´s family sighed in relief.
“Thank you so much.” Gusty´s father said with all gratefulness.
“The next time she uses her magic, I´ll tell them. You understand?”
The two parents looked down.
“Yes sir.” her mother muttered.
Everypony went back to work. The aftermath of the incident was awful for Gusty. She could sense how they were frowning at her or staring at her with disgust whenever she came close to them. She even heard a mean conversation about her between a group of fillies.
“What a weirdo.”
“I´m not playing with her ever, you girls?”
The fillies shook her heads on agreement.
“Besides we would lose in relay races since she can´t run fast.”
“Or we´d end up in the air, do you imagine?”
The fillies laughed. Gusty´s ears dropped. Her heart was aching from those comments. Foals back home also said things like that or laughed at her for her problems. But at least she wasn´t demonized there. In here, ponies truly believed she was nothing but a monster that brought disgrace.
Finally, after so many hours of work, the time to pay taxes came, which meant that it was playtime for foals. Though initially excited to play with the snow, Gusty wasn´t looking forward to it now.
Instead of going with the other foals, Gusty approached her parents.
“Ama, apa. Can I go home?”
The two unicorns looked at each other.
“But I thought you wanted to play with the snow.” her mother said.
“I know, but now… I want to be alone.”
The parents sighed.
“Ok, you can.” her father accepted.
With her head down, Gusty headed home.
“Keep an eye on her, ok ama?” the stallion said on her mother´s ear.
The grandmother nodded.
Gusty was lying on her straw bed, waiting for the ground to swallow her. She sighed sadly.
Her grandmother walked to the attic´s wall ladder. She sat down in front of her.
“How are you feeling my little nuru?”
“I´m not in the mood to talk. Go away please.”
“Such a shame. I wanted to share with you some oranges I kept for us.”
And just like that, Gusty climbed down the wall ladder.
“Can I have some?”
As the two ponies were eating oranges together, Gusty looked at her grandma and looked down at her orange, thinking on which the right words were to apologize.
“Magaga.”
“Yes, my little nuru?”
“I´m sorry for the mess I caused on the crop fields. I shouldn´t have used my magic.”
The old mare sighed.
“It´s not that you did something wrong by using your magic. Well, you destroyed some crops because you still can´t control very well, still there´s nothing wrong with your magic. But you know you can´t use your magic unless it´s for work purposes. It is forbidden, remember?”
“But I don´t get it. What about the talents our cutie marks represent?”
“The emperor doesn´t want unicorns to use them.”
“But why?”
“He thinks it´s bad if we use them.”
“But if the emperor wouldn´t want it, why are you teaching me?”
“Because you still don´t understand the meaning behind your wind, and if you don´t, you´ll never know who you are and what´s your purpose. The emperor might take away from us many things but there´s only one thing he can´t take away from you.” she put her hoof on Gusty´s chest. “Your identity.”
“But I´m a lost cause. Every time I use my wind, I mess up. I only bring disgrace.”
“Nonsense. You can do beautiful things with your wind. You might still struggle with it but believe me: it will bring happiness.”
“I don´t believe you.”
The grandmother raised her eyebrow. She took a moment to make her granddaughter believe she could do things right and beautiful. She came up with an idea.
“Take my hooves.”
“What?”
“Just do as I say.”
Gusty blinked confused but obeyed.
“Ok.”
“Now close your eye and take a deep breath.”
Gusty took a breath quickly.
“Slowly. Otherwise this won´t work.”
Gusty bit her lip.
“First let the air out, obviously.” her grandma said playfully.
Gusty exhaled abruptly.
“Let´s begin again.”
“Ok.”
“Breath in. Breath out.”
This time Gusty got the order right.
“Very well. I want you to keep on breathing while imagining the water flowing on a crystalline river.”
“How many times do I have to repeat this?” Gusty asked with one eye open.
“Until you feel calm. Now being all over again.”
“Ok.”
“Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
“Fine…”
Gusty closed her eyes again and breathed in and out slowly while picturing the crystalline river her grandma said. She imagined it flowing it through snowy mountains on a windy day. The image brought a smile to her face.
After a minute or two Gusty opened her eyes.
“How are you feeling?”
“Very calm.” Gusty replied with a chuckle.
“Great! Now remember the melody spell I taught you?”
Gusty gasped.
“You want me to play a melody with the wind?”
Her grandmother nodded.
“I don´t know…” Gusty grabbed her mane.
“You can breathe deeply while doing so.”
Gusty looked from side to side skeptical.
“Trust me.”
Gusty gulped, breathed in and out, and closed her eyes. She ignited her horn and created a soft gust of wind that played a beautiful and nostalgic melody. Her grandmother smiled while Gusty´s face went from an expression of insecurity to relaxing and calm smile.
When she was over, Gusty opened her eyes.
“It was short but that´s what came to my mind.”
“Maybe. But you played it beautifully.”
“I did? I didn´t mess up?”
“Nope.”
Gusty laughed slightly.
“Now tell me, do you mess everything up?”
“Well… not everything.” Gusty answered with a shy smile.
Her grandmother rolled her eyes playfully. Though still insecure, it was a small step for her little granddaughter. They hugged together while giggling.
Years had passed by since that moment. There she was. An adult unicorn looking at the ceiling on a stormy night while remembering some memories instead of sleeping and having the same conflict as a filly: Was her magic a blessing or a curse?
So many things had happened throughout those years. And many of them weren´t pretty. But no matter how much it had changed, there was a thing that still didn´t know what her purpose was.
Gusty hadn´t been able to explore and experiment enough with her wind to understand its meaning and thus she didn´t know who she was yet. But there was a time in which she could.
She grabbed the phoenix feather she wore around her neck. It reminded her of an amazing pony she knew. A pony who accepted her and loved her, like her family. Unfortunately, those ponies weren´t around her anymore. Once again, she had to face a world that didn´t accept her. But she wasn´t completely alone.
“Mother?”
A high-pitched voice made her come back to reality. She saw both of her daughters, Celestia and Luna, on the door.
“Sorry to wake you up.” Luna apologized.
“No darling. You didn´t wake me up.” Gusty reassured her.
“Did the storm wake you up too?” Celestia asked.
“Not really. I was just… thinking. What about you two? You can´t sleep?”
“I could because when the storm began, I was asleep. But then Luna woke me up because she´s afraid of storms like me and now I can´t sleep.” Celestia said as she glared at Luna. The other filly looked away.
Gusty left out a small chuckle.
“Wanna sleep with mama?”
The two fillies nodded their heads energetically and got on the bed with her. A thunder came in and the they grabbed their mom but her calming presence and smile told them they were safe. And her daughters´ presence told Gusty she still was loved. Since everything that troubled them was solved, the three ponies fell into a peaceful sleep.
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Wow! What a back story! it's no fun being the underdog who's despised by everypony nice work on the languages. By the way what was the song Gusty played? Was it something like Lugia's song from Pokemon?
Do we get to find out what the real Grogar feels about Discord's actions in season nine in this story?
Brilliant start of a prequal story! I look forward to more!
10904714
It was`Path of the wind´ by Joe Hisaihi from My Neighbour Totoro
10904729
No, because it´s set in an alterante universe where Grogar was real, like my other stories.
10904735
Thank you
10905473
Oh! Okay
Great start to a story that takes place before any of the events of G4 MLP but in your universe!!!
Sad that Gusty was looked down upon. However, everypony's just acting like that because of their fear of the Father of Monsters!!!
Good ending to this chapter where we see Celestia and Luna!!! Can't wait to see more of "Gusty the Great"!!! Keep going with this story!!!
10906463
Thank you