Star-Crossed

Almost a century ago, a pregnant horse in a stable on a farm outside Nashville had run away due to improper care by her owner. Upon doing so, she stumbled upon a corporate toxic waste dump. The toxins radiating from the dump were not enough to kill the mother, but the extremely underdeveloped foals she carried were put at severe risk of birth defects. By the time the horse's owner found the pregnant horse, she was already deep into labor. The owner was trained well enough to know how to help the mother deliver, yet was completely unprepared for what came next. The horse had given birth to three triplets. However, these three horses were nothing like any horses that had ever previously existed on this planet. First of all, they were much smaller than normal horses were as infants, only about the size of a newborn human. Secondly, they had particularly distinctive features. One triplet had a horn projecting out of his forehead, another had wings on her back, and the third had unusually bulky legs. Finally, the most overwhelming difference that made everyone who saw it immediately question their vision of reality was the fact that they were pastel-colored and looked almost cartoon-like, despite the fact that cartoon characters did not yet exist at this time. It is rumored that upon seeing these creatures, the stable owner suffered heart failure and died before he hit the ground, but the story is too far out if date that nobody knows for certain how he died.

The mother, with her mutated foals following, found her way back to the stable, and she raised them for the first few days of their life. The family of the deceased stable owner came from the other side of the country to help keep the stable running. They were also shocked to see the strange new foals that the proud horse mother had brought. The father of the family, a biologist at a university, was intrigued by these animals, and wanted to take them to the lab to study them. The rest of his family did not support this idea, but the father put down an iron fist and an eventual compromise was reached, in which the father would only take one foal. He chose the red-coated stallion with the horn, as he wanted to know why the horn was there. He nicknamed this stallion Prometheus, after a Titan from Green mythology.

After ten years of studying this new creature, the man came to the conclusion that Prometheus was a horse (or, due to his small size, a pony) on the outside, but had the mental capabilities and aspirations of a human. The man was able to teach Prometheus how to speak phonetic English, as well as read, write, and perform basic arithmetic. The man's most interesting discovery was the strange chemical makeup of the horn, which produced an almost-radioactive aura. He found that it could transmit waves enabling the pony to perform levitation of other objects. He eventually published his discoveries, and the media quickly stormed in and made Prometheus known worldwide.

In the meantime, the ponies back at the farm had already multiplied into a full community of self-sufficient intelligent beings. As people began to find out about this new village, some began to get worrisome, fearing that their powers could be used against humanity for villainous purposes. These people demanded that the "mutant freaks" be treated as such. However, others argued that the ponies were fully intelligent beings, and therefore should be given full rights. Arguments, fights, and the occasional hate crime ravished the country like mold, and all the while the ponies were multiplying rapidly. Fifty years after the birth of Prometheus and his siblings, the ponies were granted citizenship, yet with restricted rights. At this tune, they had already adapted well enough to understand human society and function in it. However, many of them were still dissatisfied that they were separated completely from humans and forced to do one job and one job only, which was being a horse. This went on for another fifty years, until the great wind of social change blew in and the ponies were finally granted full citizenship. The first ponies began seeking employment, voting, and buying homes. It was a glorious day for their supporters, yet a day that lives in infamy to those who oppose.

And it was hard to find people who opposed more strongly to pony freedom than the parents of a girl named Giselle Davis. Although she didn't realize it at the time, little Giselle would play a crucial role in changing the world.