The Past

Green grass and olive leaves swayed peacefully in the silent breeze. Hundreds of tiny winged creatures sang a slow and relaxing daytime lullaby as the tranquility of the scene seeped in all the way to the hearts of the beholders. There they lay in the meadow, among the animals that had come out to play. For a moment the golden day was perfect, and in the fleeting instant all could be forgotten, that war had broken out throughout the world and that there was much to do, many to be found, and many more lost to the ravages of enemy after enemy.

The idea of simply isolating themselves here in this silent sanctuary until the war had ended always popped up every now and then in the minds of the Daughters. No pony would ever choose grueling war over peaceful security, after all. That realization made the war seem so much worse. There was no point to at least half of it – the internal pony – on – pony conflict. For reasons so petty so much blood had been shed. The body count would only rise, and the Daughters were constantly tested by that fact. So little was the value that life had now; that many would willingly sacrifice ten others for their own goals. Many commanders had been known to send troops to their deaths for a small plot of hill, and oftentimes for less.

Nonviolence was rare, and only two groups were known for its practice were the scholars of the Archivers and the Daughters themselves. Both would occasionally involve themselves in a scrap if necessity would require so, although the violence would be kept to a bare minimum and there would be no lethal exchange of blows, just a crippling strike, a precise spear thrust straight to the objectives. For the Archivers, this nonviolence was enforced with their own best interests in mind. A direct confrontation would crush them, so subterfuge was more recommended. But the Daughters were different. They fought in the name of Equestria, and Equestria was not a land that would be restored with bloodshed.

Still, every time that the Daughters were forced to harm, it weighed heavily on their hearts. Ponies, especially those who had not experienced a full youth, were not meant to be warriors. Only fate had determined that they be so. Something so far against their nature would slowly warp them and temper their hearts in the fires of war. And there was one who was more affected than all of them.

Twilight glanced at the missive again. She had done so every few seconds anxiously for the past four minutes, ever since it arrived. Her recently regained strength from two days of sleep was only enough to prevent her fainting in joy upon reading the very short message on it. It had little on it, barely enough to be considered a proper letter, but with enough meaning to make the entire residence buzz with anticipation.

“Coming back in three days. P.”

It had been a month and a half since Pinkie Pie had last graced the Daughter’s halls. She had left most recently in a long – term mission to recruit more allies and find the shards of the sun icon. Now she was due to return, and everypony waited eagerly.

All were gathered in the main hall of the hideout. The tables were laden with many plates of various foods in celebration of Pinkie’s relatively safe return. The hall was redecorated with balloons and streamers like the parties of older times. The decorations hadn’t been used for a long time; the grimness of the war having made parties inappropriate.

Two large doors opened, revealing a dark pink pony with a straight pink mane and blue eyes. Her expression was one of a pony who’d felt the pain of a lifetime. There were several scars on her coat, and her balloon mark showed one old burn on it. Her eyes surveyed the welcome made for her with a grim look.

“Pinkie Pie! Welcome back!” Twilight greeted warmly, with a very wide smile. Pinkie stared at her blankly, until her face lit up in recognition. As it did, her coat grew lighter and her mane puffed up, as a smile spread on her face.

“Everypony! You threw this party for me? I’m so glad! I haven’t seen everypony in so long I was just thinking we should have a party when I got back so we could talk again and have fun again!” Pinkie happily said. However, her voice was no longer as bubbly as it was in the days past, nor was her smile as wide, nor her step as bouncy. The years had been harshest on her. The intensity of the war went against her very nature, her being a creature of happiness, not one of death and despair.

While all of them had changed over the years, in none was the change as large or as drastic as it was with Pinkie. When the war first started, she remained optimistic, but each passing day taxed sapped her capacity for hope. Two years in, she fell into a very deep depression that worsened over time, until it almost caused the deaths of her friends. Seven years into the war, she had developed a very severe personality quirk that divided her in two. Her normal personality was simply a mellowed – down version of her normal self. It was her other personality that caused more complications.

Her alter – ego, the darker side of herself, could be differentiated from her normal self by some telltale signs – mainly her serious face, her darker color, and her straight mane. This side of her was the one that was cold, calculating, and remorseless. Once she had a goal while she was in this personality, it would be done – and it would be done in the most efficient way there was, even if it was the one that would harm many.

Pinkie’s unexplainable powers didn’t disappear, and they were her most valuable assets. They allowed her to take even the most stalwart defenders by surprise, and they made her capable of tackling every mission imaginable. These abilities also gave her one of the most important jobs in the organization. She was the most public face of the Daughters, from where their power came. Her demeanor, coupled with her inexplicable skills and her ability to become a seemingly polar opposite of herself was the perfect method to display the powers and the temperament of the Daughters. She was a perfect example – a cheerful and powerful ally, or a grim and even more powerful enemy. From her did Equestria first learn to fear the Daughters, and she was testament to their strength.

“How was the Salty Shores? Was Fluttershy’s information still up to date?” asked Twilight, as they seated Pinkie and began the feast. Fluttershy looked worried at the sidelines, because it was possible that her information might have endangered her friend for nothing.

“It was a little outdated, by the time I got there the beachside town was already a ruin. Corpses everywhere – if they were living or undead before, it didn’t matter because they were surely dead by then. The icon fragment was still there, but to see that graveyard...” Her mane was slowly deflating as her tale unfolded.

“What about the rest of your trip? I don’t think all the four cities you passed through were the same, unless the Necruus advanced much further than we knew and much faster,” asked Twilight, in an attempt to make the report a little less grim.

“Not much better,” she replied, her mane straight. “I was able to liberate three from various other groups, but each one cost a lot of pony. I think I’m starting to get worse at this. I mean, if I wasn’t, then why are ponies starting to die even if I’m there to protect them?” She had started to tear up. “Wh – what use is a protector of Equestria who can’t even protect a single pony?”

“Come on now, sugarcube, we’re all going to have ta lose some days. I’m sure ya’ll be doin’ better in the future.” Applejack had joined the conversation, like the others, when they noticed Pinkie crying. It wasn’t a good thing for her to cry. After all, it was her very mission to make sure that ponies didn’t do so.

“What if I don’t? What if someday I end up getting more ponies killed? What if someday...” She looked at them all and started to cry openly, and her weeping made what had crossed her mind very clear. All were around her now, trying to console she who was normally the shoulder to cry on.

“Look, Pinkie, we can handle ourselves. I mean, just look at who you’re speaking to! You have, right here, THE most awesome ponies in all of Equestria! Of course, I’m the awesomest, but these guys all come in a close second. And you don’t have to worry about us getting in trouble. Sure, Derpy’s still a little clumsy, but even she can keep herself and Dinky perfectly safe.” Rainbow hovered overhead and did a few tricks to lift her spirit up. It seemed to work a bit.

“As Rainbow said, dear, we are quite capable. You won’t have to worry about us. And my masterworks at the forge will make the job much easier. So don’t you fret, dear, you have nothing to worry about.” Rarity smiled, and Pinkie’s mane was getting a little fluffy.

“I know you can.... But what about those other ponies? We’re supposed to be protecting everypony, not just us!”

“And that’s what we’re trying to do,” said Fluttershy in her quiet voice, a hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder. “But we can’t win everything, so we just have to keep trying our best to win as much as we can and save as many as we can.”

“Oh, come on! We’re supposed to be celebrating your return, not being all sad! I get it, it’s sad, but we have to try being happy at least, right?” exclaimed Sweetie Belle over the commotion of sobbing pony and somber dialogue.

“I guess you’re all right...” Pinkie sniffed, and her mane puffed up to its full volume. “Bring out the Applejack, Applejack. Let’s party!”

The ponies danced and sang around the fireplace within that abode of theirs hidden in the thick wilderness of the Everfree forest. Moments like these were what they wanted most – moments where their old selves could show up. The war had changed them all too much for their comforts, but peace would bring them back. Nothing would ever be completely the same, but it would be more or less normal then. It would be much appreciated with the way all of them had changed.

Applejack had changed from her past reassured self to a pony of doubt, and of minor lies. The war constantly tested her belief in herself, and she would lie to herself regularly – that she could continue this, that she was fine, that she was still honest. It was a necessity for her sanity, much like everything else that had changed within all of them. If she faced the truth head on, she would have lost all hope and given up entirely, even with her friends by her side. In order for this not to happen, she had blinded herself to the truth.

Rainbow Dash’s outlook on life remained the same, although she had developed a massive issue with any pony doubting her or her friends. The moment a pony would question their capabilities she would become aggressive, due to her war – spawned insecurity. In a way, it was like all of them – none of them no longer truly believed that the war would end.

Rarity put her experience in the arts to work at the forge, and her hard work put out the best equipment that the Daughters called their own. Her generosity was alive to those days. Too alive, in fact, and she attempted to help every single pony to the best of her abilities – not knowing when to stop, and every now and then going too far and hurting everypony. Well-meant were her actions even if they did do the occasional ill.

Fluttershy’s heart stayed kind even if it had grown hard, tempered in the heat of war. Her calm was easily kept and one that was hard to disturb, although it hid something behind it. Behind her kindness lay a monster of hatred – the hatred that had festered in her heart, the hatred that would never cease to tug at her. The calm she displayed was more of a defense mechanism than it was her peace of mind – she never had peace of mind. Never again since the war began, and beneath her smiles was an unrelenting struggle to keep herself in check. This state of constant unrest had also produced in her a tendency to avoid others, in order to have them avoid her monster self.

And there was Twilight, who seemed the closest to her normal self – minus the obsession with order. An observer might even say that she had matured and grown in a positive way since the war began. That observer would find out that that was not the case. Within her room was a wardrobe which was in actuality a cleverly disguised doorway to her private space. In that space laid a few things. First, that which would most likely be noticed – was a shrine dedicated to Princess Celestia. In her absence Twilight had begun to regard her as an even more important pony than before, elevating her to deity status, in an attempt to justify her faith in the kind mentor even through her disappearance. A side – effect of this was her tendency to snap in anger if any of the others questioned whether bringing back the princesses would really work as well as they hoped.

Another noticeable feature of the room would be the bookshelf, innocuous in appearance yet malignant in content. All of the books there were tomes of ageless forbidden knowledge. Spells to control minds and hearts, enchantments to resurrect the dead in a manner similar to that of the Necruus, and magic to summon horrors beyond pony comprehension. These were only some of what was stored there, and even if it would be rationalized as a necessity of the war, some were so harmful on such a large scale – like the incantation to drain the years left in a creature’s life and take it for your own – that they were better off lost to the ages. Knowledge was power, and power corrupted. It was a question of how much Twilight had been affected, not whether or not she was.

The other thing that indicated any form of instability was one that was easily missed. It was very small – just a plain, simple, leather - bound diary. It was where her obsession with order now hid, mixed with her dabbling in ancient magic. In it she detailed what her friends were thinking whenever she had interactions with them, and notes on how to subtly manipulate them into doing things she had in mind. Yes, they were for the greater good in the end, but the means – silent psychic manipulation – were unnecessary, at the very least.

All of these changes had started long ago, back on that fateful day that the war began. How heavily it weighed on all of their memories. Try as they might, it would always keep coming back.

“THE PRINCESSES ARE GONE!” screamed a royal attendant, bursting into the courtyard, inciting panic in the crowd. “I’ve checked every single corner of the castle, and they’re nowhere to be found! I... Thought you should know,” she continued before collapsing into an unconscious, scared heap face – first into the floor.

An unspoken, synchronized countdown began among the attendees of the Day Court. There was a muted chorus of “3, 2, 1,” followed by a very loud chorus of panicked screams. Many approached the unconscious pony attempting to get more answers, which she failed to supply due to her lack of knowledge on the matter and the small fact that she was unconscious and thus incapable of answering in the first place.

The news spread like wildfire, and within a day all of Equestria knew it. None doubted that they were alive as that was hinted at by the skies retaining their order and their motions. Where they were remained another matter entirely, a matter that turned the country lawless faster than parasprites in an apple orchard. A week after the news reached the edges of the land, many factions had sprouted up. The most prominent during this time was the fledgling Horncaste that brought down non – unicorns from Canterlot in a hail of magical firepower. They were led by the much misguided Blueblood who shared their blind arrogance and insatiable thirst for power. Their coup d’etat was fast and violent. Eighteen hours from the conception of the Horncaste, Canterlot had become a pure unicorn – only city.

Just as the other pony races had created their own factions in order to reclaim the seat of power from the unicorns, Equestria fell under attack from its enemies who had no doubt heard of the absence of the two princesses. From the cold northern lands came the undead Necruus, unstoppable in their advance by the few unprepared frontier towns. News of them made its way to the bigger cities who were able to sufficiently defend against the onslaught. The advance halted, but the cost was great. More than fifty cities were lost to them.

At the same time, the mystical Deeryads brought their magic to bear on the defenses in the west of Equestria, their forest homes having been burnt down by the awakening of dragons all over the world. The primal magic they employed took many more casualties, and left behind cities shattered into pieces as the very ground quaked and the skies struck down with lightning.

Suffice it to say that by the time all ponies were over the panic and in fighting form, Equestria was fragmented and its population was reduced to a scant half. Battered and bloodied, Equestrian morale was so low that the only reason they kept fighting was the cruelty of the fate that would await those who fell in battle. It was worse than death, for the Necruus would turn corpses into members of their ranks, and the Deeryads used their enemies for rituals to ancient deities. Even falling to fellow ponies usually was a dark fate – survival through slavery or death at the executioner’s hooves.

So it was that Equestria never again knew peace. Happiness was replaced by ever – worsening despair. Even the skies seemed to grow mournful, although this was mostly due to the pegasi being forced into battle instead of tending the weather. The neglected skies led to a drop in the food productivity of the farms, which, coupled with the strained relations of the tribes, became yet another conflict in the chain that simply did not want to end.

No, it would end. Soon. The Daughters would make sure of that. It was their vow, and as they drank to their temporary reunification, that vow only grew stronger. They would not forget the past. They would carry it and its memories to the future, until the day the fighting would end.