Not many ponies thought any of us could do much, especially myself. I was just an Earth pony, what could I do? Moon Widow was a unicorn. She had more potential than I did. But her adoptive home forbade magic. They were completely against all ponies living together in harmony. Likewise, Lovelike wasn't the best flyer for a pegasus. Her family held a respectable reputation for their involvement in Cloudsdale.
Even so, we were also the firsts of our classes to get our cutie marks.
I don't remember exactly how I got mine. I just know how much trouble it gave me. Then again, it gave all of us trouble. A lot about us did.
Moon widow had darker colors, a black mane and navy blue coat. I couldn't understand what her cutie mark meant, but I was so happy when she told me how she got it. She told me it came on a night she was searching for food. Her adoptive family rarely fed her, so this was common for me to hear. In her stroll to look for food in the Everfree forest, she always passed a giant spiderweb. She had never seen the spider, but talked about it like it was a friend closer to her than I was. She loved spiders, but I was the only one who ever knew about it. She knew she would get in trouble if her adoptive family found out, probably thinking she was insane or mentally ill for liking something dangerous. One night, the spider sat on the web. She said she found apples growing on the trees the web was in between. No matter how you treated her, she was always nice to you. She knew a lot about them too, reading about them when no one was around. I remember sneaking a few books about them to her too. Anyway, she could tell that the spider hadn't caught anything in a long time, so she knew it hadn't eaten in a while. She felt sorry for it. She used her magic to pick up some scrambling bugs and stick them to its web. She thought of it as thanking the spider for being her friend. She said that her feeding it was how she got her cutie mark: a black widow making a web over a creseant moon.
I brought her food and bandages every day since then. She had gotten beaten by her adoptive family because of what it was. They thought it had something to do with magic. In a way it did. The only thing that ever kept her from smiling was if the swelling was too bad. She said it was the magic of friendship and the web of fate that gave her reasons to smile through the pain.
I was there when Lovelike got her cutie mark. It didn't make sense to us at first because we were still so young, but we eventually figured it out. Like Moon Widow, she had always been kind to others. Naturally, not everyone was okay with different preferences. She saw that a colt she had liked liked another colt. We were still too young to really feel for or against that kind of attraction, but Lovelike sure was sad about her crush. The first thing I remember her saying when she found out was "It's okay, I'm just glad it wasn't a filly prettier than me". I don't think she knew she was pretty though. I didn't like her in that kind of way, but the dark red name was very pretty on her smoke black coat. We were at recess a few hours after she found out. She said it made her happy to see someone she liked happy. I couldn't believe it when I saw her do it, but she talked to the two colts. Every day for about a week after that, she worked hard to make them pair up.
It worked. The day he came up and thanked her, her cutie mark appeared. It was a rainbow heart. We eventually found out the rainbow was for homosexuality. Unfortunately, we found out form her parents, who were more upset with the fact it had nothing to do with flying. She slowly started caring less and less of what her parents said or thought. I was mostly grateful they never laid a hoof on her. She said it was okay that she wasn't a great flyer because it menat she could be more graceful. She said that it meant she could teach others how to be graceful to attract the ones they love.
I'm not gonna lie, their abilities to smile through everything often made me cry. It was something I always had problems with. I'd never show it to anyone though. I always wrote it down in a diary I kept hidden form my foster family. Had they seen the things I've written in it, then I know I'd never live to see Celestia's sun again.
I was the last of them to get my cutie mark. That bothered me for the longest time. Now, I understand that I needed them to help me get it and that there was nothing to be ashamed of in that. It was a red quill with a black ink scribble. I think I got it while writing something. I don't know exactly when, I wasn't always mentally present. It was how I tried to avoid my foster parents talking down to me.
Moon Widow and Lovelike weren't in the same classes, so they didn't know each other. I dubbed them both as my sisters and they accepted it. They agreed we were family more than friends. It gave us hope, even if all three of us weren't able to be together at once.
All three of us moved away from each other once we were much older. Moon Widow moved into the Everfree Forest because that was where she considered her home. Any letter I had ever gotten form her talked about the spiders she took care of. I didn't mind it, even though anyone else would've gotten the heeby jeebies. Since she wrote with her horn, her writing was very pretty. She even made it look like spiders or little critters. The letters included little spiders and web drawings too. Those were some of my favorite parts. Other parts of her writing weren't the best, so I gave her tips when she'd ask for them. In return, she learned how to better tell me how the family of the spider that gave her her cutie mark was doing in the form of a short story instead of choppy sentences.
Lovelike left her parents at a much younger age than ponies are usually okay with. She traveled across Equestria, helping to pair people up, becoming a well-known courter. She often asked me to help her write her ads and anything else like that. My mouthwriting had gotten a lot bette,r but Lovelike's speaking was much prettier than mine as it should've been. She would send me a note of what she wanted written and I'd write it and send it back to her.
Both of them would say I should become a teacher a lot. It eventually became my profession. The thank you notes parents and fillies and colts have given me for teaching them how to write decorated the walls of my home for the longest time.
I wish I could've saved at least one of them.
Parents and and their fillies and colts knew me for more than what I could teach them. I was known to have great connections to the libraries and for teaching them how to read like I could. "It's a shame you're not a unicorn." was a common and rather unusual comment ponies gave me quite a lot. I don't know why it bothered me for them to say that to me. They said it was because they thought I would make a great magic teacher too. Growing up how I did, I always took as them saying that I wasn't good enough as just an Earth pony and that that disappointed them or made me a lesser pony. I never showed this though. It bothered me a lot more when I first started because all the pain was still fresh. Now I am able to remind myself that they don't understand and that that was why I couldn't take it as personal attacks.
I coped with it by deciding to see if I couldn't create my own spell. I didn't anticipate much. I could understand how they worked, I just couldn't actually try it out.
Moon Widow had learned magic that helped her survive in the Everfree Forest. Her most powerful spell was actually helping a spider egg that wouldn't hatch to life so it could. That was the biggest motivation for me. I was too afraid to try and summon things from the dead or anything like that. Instead, I wanted wished I could cast a spell that was like something from a filly's book I read a lot in foster care.
It was about a unicorn who was made fun of for not being good at magic. He grew lonely and learned one spell. It pulled the letters from paper! at first, it was just random word like "the" or "red". He got his cutie mark in it. It was the chinese character for "birth". Everyone made fun of him for it because they didn't know what it was or what it meant. He practiced the spell more and more. He eventually figured out that bringing certain words to life gave them different life. When he cast the spell on the word "tree", the very tree from the book grew right form the pages. Anything he brought to life form the books were always exactly how they were in the books they came from. He practiced more and more on different animals in the books.
One day, after being bullied a lot and wanting friends, he brought a male alicorn to life from a book. He didn't read the whole story. The unicorn and the alicorn were friends for a while, but it didn't last very long. The alicorn he brought to life turned out to be a villain near the end of the book. He didn't know this because he didn't read far enough into the story. The pony he brought to life started terrorising the village he lived in as the evil pony did in the book. Everyone thought the unicorn did it on purpose to get revenge. He said it wasn't, but no one believed him. He ran away to hide and cried. Once he figured out why the pony became evil, he figured out how to fix it. However, he didn't know how to undo the spell. Instead, he decided to write his own story. He wrote about a pretty alicorn girl who had the magical power to help fix what was wrong. He brought her to life and she was the prettiest pont he had ever seen. She cast the spell to turn the evil alicorn back into what he once was, nothing but a character in a book.
The village forgave him. They wanted to make the pretty alicorn into their princess. He fell in love with her and she with him. Since she was his creation, she knew all of his suffering. Since she had the power to return things to the books they were from, she undid the spells he casted and took him into her world. Together, they created their own worlds to rule together as husband and wife.
It was believed to be a creation story in a far away land. I wouldn't be surprised with how much hope it gave me that anyone could be loved. It made me want to learn magic myself too.
I brought the notebook, pencil and pencil sharpener Moon Widow gave me, just like she said to. I didn't want to use them. She made the pencil and notebook herself. I was amazed. I didn't want to use them. The pencil sharpener I was more okay with because it was baught, but it was still a gift form her.
The notebook was small to be portable, but thick to hold a ton of writing. The cover looked like the red quill of my cutie mark making hers out of writing. The Spider was "Moon", distorted to look like the spider. The moon was the word "Widow", distorted to look like the moon of her cutie mark. The covers were the same dark blue or her coat. The crumply yellow ribbon in the spine was supposed to be like my curly blonde mane.
The pencil was made from lead and wood she had found or made herself with alchemic magic and telekinisis to carve it into shape. It was hard to tell what was the lead and what was the wood since they were both black to be like her mane.
She sent them to me because she wanted me to visit her. We made plans for me to try writing a spell for her to use since she could actually use magic. She said the notebook and pencil were for notes and the spell itself, but also because she figured I'd get story ideas from what I'd find in the forest.
She was right.
It took me twice as long to get to where she lived because I had to stop and write down what I saw so often. I'm glad she wasn't upset about that by the time I got there.
It had been years since I saw her in person. Her hair had gotten longer and she looked so much more like a mare. It made me feel a little embarrassed that I still looked a lot like a pony. Other ponies probably would've been scared to look at her. Spiders weaved in and out of her mane, but she was okay with this. She had a necklace with a moonstone in it. The oval stone stood out in the silver chain.
"Did you have fun on your way here?" she asked me.
I laughed. "Yes, I did."
"Don't fret. I know we can make something."
I nodded and smiled.
"I'm amazed." I said. "You look so much happier now."
"I am. I can cast as much magic as I want without them yelling at me or hurting me for it. The spiders here are my friends and family. Not saying thaht you aren't, but you know what I mean, right?"
"Of course."
"I may not be an alicorn princess, but to them, I am still their guardian. Not every guardian is loved or accepted for what they do, but that doesn't make them any less important to the world."
I smiled.
She showed me to her home, a small cottage made from wood and enchanted spider webs that made everything silk inside. I loved it there. Everything was so comfortable. It was something neither of us were used to.
In the candlelight we worked, I could see the scars she had received from the beatings when she got her cutie mark. It saddened me. She liked one of them, it was a scar that went across the cutie mark on the right one because it looked like a cloud moving over the moon.
Something Lovelike often mentioned as a little side note with the caligraphy she'd request was that she wanted me to visit her some time so she could hook me up with someone. I'm sure she knew I wasn't into mares, but that wasn't why I declined every time she brought it up. I just didn't want to find my certain special somepony. My love was in helping others. That was enough for me. She knew that, but that never stopped her from wanting me to try. I guess it was part of who she was because that was what her special talent was.
In between teaching, I took time visiting Moon Widow for the spell and Lovelike. I was happy to have my friends back in my life, but it would've been a lot easier if they were closer. Moon Widow had casted spells on the both of us to allow us to walk on clouds so we could both visit her. Well, for me it was visiting and meet in person for Moon Widow.
Moon Widow was perfectly okay with spiders being her companions. Even so, she was okay with meeting people I said would like her. She was a bit sad when I told her to take the spiders out of her mane and tail before we went, but she didn't throw a fit thank Celestia.
Moon Widow and I were impressed. Lovelike had a small place rented out to network ponies. Photos and short success stories decorated the walls. Lovelike herself had grown out her mane and tail. Her mane and coat looked a lot healthier than before, peobably because she was no longer stressed from her parents. While we were there catching up or introducing ourselves, at least two colts and a bisexual mare tried hitting on her. Neither Moon Widow or myself were surprised if she was the prettiest and most grateful mare there. She had no idea that she was. It was part of her job to be an example to her clients and all, but she was the main attraction! Moonlight didn't say it to Lovelike's face, but she told me later she kind of wished she was a colt. It made me laugh. I don't know how well they'd get along with such differences, but I was so grateful we were all okay with being sisters.
To my surprise, Moon Widow was better with magic than I thought. Likewise, Lovelike was better at flying than she thought. I did feel a little jealous for being an Earth pony, but I did my best not to let that take over me.
Moon Widow made friends with Lovelike, learning more about how to be graceful. You could've almost mistaken them for flirting with each other at times. MoonWidow said it was because she realised how left out she was from other ponies. She claimed it didn't bother her much, but I knew better. Why else would she be so apt to learn how to impress others? She also said it was so she could come off as a much more elegant guardian of the spiders, but I still knew better. I knew elegance wouldn't matter to others if nopony would be around to see it. I kept my mouth shut and enjoyed them getting along.
In between lessons, Moon, Lovelike and I worked on creating spells. Lovelike had eventually grown curious, wanting to see if Moon could help with spells to improve her class. She wanted to know if there were any spells that could help with making a pony learn things like self-control or whatever. It was harder to work with since she was a pegasus and couldn't teach magic herself. Even so, it eventually became something we all did together.
"I just wish I really could make you two my real sisters like how the unicorn made his wife."Lovelike said. "I know we probably can't, but maybe find a way to make us somehow connected or something. Not actually of course, but a way to connect us in ways family would be connected."
"Hey, that's not a bad idea." Moon said.
"I wonder if we can see if it's anything like the spell in the story with the unicorn who could bring words from books to life." I said.
"Yeah, maybe something like from Moon's egg hatching spell."
"Did the book ever say how he did it?"
"I can reread it. Maybe we'll find something. If not, I'm sure we'll think of something."
It was something we did together. It was something I enjoyed doing and I'm sure they did too. We were already more of sisters than friends as it was. I can't believe that that wasn't enough for us.
After a lot of talking, we came up with something. The most difficult part of it was the fact that Lovelike didn't want to go to Moon's cottege. She was too afraid of the spiders, even though Moon kept assuring her they wouldn't bother her and they'd listen to Moon's wish for them not to. Luckily, that didn't come between them. Even so, Moon casting spells to allow us to walk on clouds so we could go up to cloudsdale was sometimes tiring. Again, luckily, it didn't get between them.
The story of the unicorn who could bring words from books to life was the inspiration. Moon's spell to hatch dead eggs and cloud-walking were part of it.
The paper the original spell was on is long gone now and I don't remember it exactly, but it's better that way.
We met near the library, which was down the road from my own home. It was late at night because we didn't have time to do it during the day. We weren't sure if it was going to end up causing a lot of noise or bright lights, but we were too excited to care at the time.
Moon casted the spell. It wasn't as bright as we expected. TO our surprise, it was a dark greenish blue glitter instead of a bright shimmer or glow like her other spells were. The words lifted off the page I wrote the spell on exactly how I had imagined it to look form the story. I was a little sad that the paper was blank form there though. The words had doubled and wrapped around my friends, surrounding them until I couldn't see them.
Once they faded, we were all amazed at what we saw.
Moon had pegasus wings. They looked pretty normal, but the bone structure was more like a bat's. They had feathers like they should have, but they still seemed odd.
Lovelike had a unicorn horn. It also didn't look right. It curved upwards slightly and it didn't have ridges like a normal unicorn horn would.
After calming down from cheering or dancing a bit, they relized how strange the new features were. They didn't seem worried though, so I was happy. They had eventually noticed that I did stay the same. I was a little disappointed, but I tried my best not to show it. The thing I was most disappointed about was the fact that they both also got taller anyway.
It was too late at night to do anything to celebrate. We all also had our own plans for the next morning we needed sleep for. With that, we agreed to celebrate the next time we could meet and parted.
I still couldn't get over the fact they ended up becoming even taller than me than before.
They felt bad for me. They decided to work together to find a way to make me an alicorn too. I was excited, even though I should have been questioning why nothing happened to me and why their wings and horn didn't look right. It was selfish and ignorant of all of us, especially myself, but of course, that didn't occur to us.
Lovelike and Moon spent more time together than ever before. This didn't bother me one bit because I had no idea if the change affected them or not. Moon Widow taught Lovelike about magic until she learned how to cast spells that made her courting business boom. Lovelike taught Moon Widow how to fly, Moon eventually surpassing her speed and wing strength.
Less than a month had passed since we tried the spell. They had almost become princesses of their own talents.
When they needed each other's help less and less, they spent less and less time with each other, applying what they have learned to their worlds and making themselves busier all the time. What was I busy with? I was busy not asking them of their progress, spending time with them and instead teaching my students that the story I loved shows that it was the ultimate reference for happiness.
Any time I had asked either or pony how they were coming along with making me an alicorn too, they would forget to mention each other. I eventually wrote to them both to explain. To my ignorant surprise, they admitted that they haven't spoken to each other in a while.
I couldn't understand why they would drift apart. They had excuses from "she thinks she's better than me" to "she became arrogant" or "I have no idea". Not sure what to believe, I decided to check it out.
Since I couldn't cast the spell to allow myself to walk on clouds myself, Moon Widow was the first one of the two I had to talk to.
At first, I didn't think I was at the right place. The cottage had been transformed into a small castle in the middle of the Everfree forst. It was made from stone and everything was lined with silk. It was located high up on the edge of the mountainside. There was no path to get to it, though her spiders could easily climb up the side to get to it.
"Moon Widow!" I called.
She flew down with a sharp dive. Moonstones were embedded into silver-colored slippers and crown. they matched the necklace I remember her having for the longest time. Spiders still moved throughout her mane and tail, but it had been dolled up. She really looked like a princess.
"It's been a while." she said to me. "How have you been?"
"I wanted to know what happened between you and Lovelike?"
"Lovelike? She was kind and even pretty at first, but then she started becoming more snooty. She became uglier the more arrrogant she became. I couldn't take it. She didn't think a high class pony such as an alicorn should associate with dirt in the forest. Fine, I'll be the princess of the woods."
"I don't understand. All the ever wanted was to make everypony happy. I've never heard her saying anything bad to anyone like that."
"She's only getting so much more attention because she's an alicorn now. If you ask me, she doesn't deserve the horn she has."
"But I thought she was your sister. Our sister."
"Family is who's there for you, just like we said a long time ago when got our cutie marks. She no longer deserves the title of 'sister' if she's acting like this."
I didn't want to ask, fearing the answer, but I had to ask if I wanted to try and fix this. "I know you may hate her, but I need to go see her. Could you please cast the cloud-walking spell?"
"No. Somepony like her is best out of your life. I'm sorry, but maybe it's best that you didn't get wings, that way, you're more free from her."
Moon Widow flew off back to her castle. I ran off as fast as I could, choking back any anxiety I had.
I was lucky enough to find Lovelike while she was on the ground. She was visiting to make a showing at the business she had down here. She had two whole buildings dedicated to her work; ne for the land ponies and another for the cloudsdale. What I didn't know was that she had the colts and bisexual or lesbian mares that admired her serve her in her own personal wing of the cloudsdale business. She had become the most talked about courter. She had learned magic that would perfect looks and train ponies into proper behavior. With the right amount of bits, a pony could even get her to force another pony to love them. Once I found out about this, I began wondering how many of her admirers were enchanted to love her.
"Lovelike, I need to talk to you." I insisted when I ran up to her. She had gold and pearl princess jewelry and slippers. I could tell she had a want it need it spell menat to attract those who like females for her. I was very grateful I was into colts at that moment. At the same time, I was upset she did it instead of allowing the sweetness she used to have to attract attention and affection.
"Finally ready for me to find you a husband?" she asked me.
"No, I--."
"I'm sure I could find you a fine stallion. Would you rather a unicorn? A pegasus? Surely you wouldn't wnat an Earth pony."
"What's wrong with being an Earth pony?"
"Nothing at all, I just assume you would want your foals to have diversity. As an alicorn, I have the greatest potential."
I wanted to buck her for what she said, but I didn't. "Listen Lovelike, I wanted to know what happened between you and Moon--."
"That fowl thing? Let her live in the dirt. She didn't want to listen to me when I said it was wrong for an Alicorn to stoop down to such a thing."
"But she's your sister, isn't she? That's why we cast the spell in the firts place, so we could all be!"
"Family is who's there for you, just like we said a long time ago when got our cutie marks. She no longer deserves the title of 'sister' if she refuses to make herself a proper princess. Somepony like her is best out of your life. I'm sorry, but maybe it's best that you didn't get a horn, that way, you won't get hot-headed with power and scare everypony away from you."
I ran away as fast as I could. I didn't want her to see me breaking down and crying.
I wrote about how I really felt until I had stopped crying. It was hard to do because I couldn't use magic to write. The tears ripped down the pencil from my writing with my mouth. I didn't care, it didn't write in the notebook Moon Widow made for me. It was just on some old paper I had around.
I had calmed down a lot by then. I was able to rationalise better. I reread the ending of that story, enjoying the dream of a happier ending upon the creation of an alicorn. The wish to create the spell that unicorn did came back, just as it did every single time I read it.
It was then when I got the crazy idea of how to fix everything.
Moon Widow and Lovelike didn't seem to care that I talked to the other so long as I didn't join the other's side to harm them. The hatred they had for each other had only gotten worse as I worked hard to fix this on my own.
It was a crazy idea, but Lovelike had given me a feather. She considered it a gift to show I was good enough for such a blessing. Moon Widow was kind enough to share a bottle of ink she had enchanted as I had requested. My excuse was that I wanted it to bring my poetry to life so all could understand how much the princess of the forest should be respected.
On my way home with the ink, I heard a loud crash. I sat the bottle on the ground and looked for the source. It was in the everfree forest. Out of it flew two alicorns. Both had begun fighting, destroying each other's homes and were now aiming to end the other.
I wanted to cry, but I knew I couldn't until I at least tried to wrong the right.
Crashes sounded. Ponies rand around screaming. The two alicorns shouted insults at each other. Everything grew warmer. My home had caught fire in the midst of their battle, burning all the thank you notes fillies, colts and their parents had written me.
Something I had learned was that to be able to write a spell was partially to be able to write poetry. It was theriputic. It was the answer. It was the end.
I still cry at the memory of Moon Widow trying to smile through the swelling and bruises. I still remember Lovelike's frown after her parents yelled at her for what her cutie mark was.
I never fully liked the way mine looked with my mane and coat's colors, but now I really hated it. The more I hated it, the more grateful I was that I was just an Earth pony.
Years after enchanting them with the combined magic, I had discovered why I didn't become an Alicorn; whoever created what part of the spell could not be affected by it. Since I wrote it, I couldn't write my own reality to it. I could, however, write theirs. Moon Widow's wings could not be graceful and Lovelike's horn brought on greed.
That day, I knew enough about it to fix the problem, not undo it. Each had become characters in two separate legends I had written.
Moon Widow became the legendary princess of the forest. The extra eyes in which her spiders had allowed her to see into every world and watch every world spiders were apart of, be it nightmares, dreams, her world or mine. that way, I could say hello to every spider I saw to say it to Moon Widow.
Lovelike was the princess of the beautiful things within every heart of forbidden love, showing herself in the rainbow, red or smoke black of the cutie mark of their adopted foals. Every time I aided those who had unaccepted love, I was saying hello to her.
In my new home, their legends, written in the enchanted ink and feather were tucked inside the notebook I never wrote in again.
