People, Princes And Ponies

Intro

My name is Scribble. My kind are called a few things; Watchers, Recorders, Authors. In your language, we prefer Scribe. The common names of individuals, such as my own, when translated in your language, have alliteration with that word, which we find pleasing. What we are are the perfect reporters, historians and makers of documentaries. We are capable of observing events throughout the omniverse without ever interfering unless we wish to. Then we usually tell our tale to a place however we see fit of another place insurmountably far away. Such is the case now.

~

Scene 0

This is Equestria. I know my target audience, so I know you know what Equestria is. Equestria has a history and this is the one I know, because I observed it. Before Equestria was made, before the Alicorn Sisters ruled all of pony kind, the equine people were ruled by the Three Kings; Tellus, Aequor and Caelum, three brothers plus their sister, Princess Flamma.

Tellus ruled the Earth Ponies and the Kingdom On The Earth, Aequor ruled the Unicorns and the Kingdom By The Sea and Caelum ruled the Pegasi and the Kingdom In The Sky. Flamma had no kingdom but her power to grow wings or a horn of fire at a whim and put them out just as easily made her welcome in every kingdom.

The three brothers were not a functional family, constantly bickering with one another. Flamma tried to keep the peace but between that and attempting to protect pony kind from outside threats as her brothers turned on one another, she failed. War was rare but not unheard of and without the unity of three tribes, pony kind suffered.

Called forth by the chaos came the demons Discord and Strife. Discord was the strongest but least malicious. He made merriment upon the Kingdoms In The Sky and By The Sea. Aequor and Caelum united themselves and their people to fight him off but he was too strong. Discord made fools of them all.

Out of these dark times stepped forth the Alicorn Sisters. With the Elements Of Harmony, they defeated Discord, and sealed him away forever. Filled with such gratitude toward the sisters, the two brothers rewarded them with nobility, making them part of the royal family and naming them Princesses. That is to say, enamored and with reciprocated feelings, they married them.

The two brothers were weary, weary of the fighting, weary of the ruling. King Aequor passed power to his wife, Princess Luna, and King Caelum to his, Princess Stella. The Kings retired then and so the Princesses took the reigns and united the two Kingdoms, beginning Equestria. The last piece lay to the south, of the Kingdom On The Earth.

King Tellus, Princess Flamma and the Earth Ponies faced Strife alone. Weaker than her brother, she was far more vile and cruel, her games were loathsome and deadly. She too fell like her brother but not without a price. Princess Flamma burned her away with her last breath, a conflagration so great that their ashes were inseparable, and so Tellus buried them both.

Having loved his sister the most, bearing witness to her final moments, her lost hit Tellus the hardest. His brothers were known as the serious kings while he was called the Merry May-King. In retirement, the other two took to jovial pursuit while he fell into a deep depression. Unable to rule his kingdom, he succeeded it to the sisters and thus Equestria was completed.

And that was how Equestria was made. As for the brothers, they remained in Equestria for some time, still technically the Kings. More informally, they became known as the Princes, the Prince of Earth, of Sea and of Sky to Tellus, Aequor and Caelum respectively. In their retirement, they took up the pursuit of travel and became seen less and less frequently as the years passed.

When Luna was sealed away on the moon and Stella took the name of Celestia, Aequor was struck with depression, Caelum felt the call of the open sky and Tellus decided he had no ties except the very ground he walked on. So the Three Princes disappeared for generations at a time. A pony of Canterlot could be born and grow old without ever laying eyes upon the Princes.

For these past generations, they have not been seen at all.

~

Scene 1

Now, I told you that story, not so much so I could tell you this one but, to provide some context for this scene and for the future as well. This scene opens up on Twilight plus guest, the two of them discussing the history of Equestria. This is particularly after Twilight read a passage covering essentially the above.

"Ya know, what really gets me is how peaceful that was," Said the guest, tracing her fingers over the words of the book. She'd stared at the pages with quiet fascination, as if expecting this further portions of Equestrian history to reveal themselves. She would have loved to have been given context to what she saw as somewhat bizarre.

"Peaceful?" The librarian pony questioned with a bit of confusion and a touch of worry. She leaned to the side to get a different angle on the book, she herself attempting in vain to see what her guest saw. She couldn't understand this bizarre point of view, "Ivian, this portion of Equestrian history is filled with chaos! I mean, with Discord and Strife wreaking havoc and everything. It's- it's not until the Royal Sisters arrive that everything calms down."

"Yes, I know, and that surprises me," Ivian explain, "The, well, the interaction? The transfer of power between the Sisters and the Brothers. The brothers, who by all accounts are similar beings to the Queens, just give up their power. When Oberron united Sapistan and, uh, wrested, took, the rulership of humans from the Queens, it was a bloody conflict. It was, well, Oberron who brought chaos, for a short while."

Ivian was a winged woman. Not a mare, but a woman, a human woman, except for the fact she had wings. She was a harpy, here the human equivalent of a pegasus. If she were to stand and so were Twilight, she would be twice the height of the pony. She was plump, pear shaped, possessing pale yellow hair that hung low between pale silvery wings.

Twilight's face scrunched up and paled. She showed worry, fear, revulsion. The thought of a ruler purposefully bringing suffering to their people, or a would-be ruler warring for power. It reminded her too much of the King Sombra, "Why would Oberron do that?"

"Oh?" Ivian breathed deeply, turning away from Twilight to stare off into space. She was collecting her thoughts, feeling distinctly uneasy. In her home, explaining this history to young humans was easy, but this adult pony seemed to be more innocent than even a child to her. "The Queens were tyrants. Queen Mab was the worst, being actively... malevolent. Titania tried to be good, so the stories say. She would rule with compassion at times, but at others with.... fury. And they hated each other, were constantly at war with each other. Not a one of their wars equalled the Unification War but added all up they would drown it... drown it in bodies. If they were allowed to continue, it would only be worse."

Ivian looked to the side at Twilight and felt her stomach flop. The little pony was hardly quivering or crying, but she was obviously unsettled. Ivian didn't quite know what to say. Well, she did but she wanted to say something better. The only platitude she had was, "It was worth it though. The long term, uh, short term loss was- well... Once the Queens were overthrown and Sapistan unified, was unified, peace has reigned- we have been at peace ever since."

"I guess," Twilight pretended to agree, unable to gainsay someone on their own history. She was downcast, looking so sad, pangs of sympathy that the humans had to suffer a horrific history.

Ivian looked away, sniffing, thinking. She felt so very awkward now. She rattled her mind to try to think of something to change the subject. Something did come to her, something not to abrupt a change, "So, yes, tell me, what were the Three Kings like?"

Twilight immediately perked, her mind allowed to ponder on something less violence prone than humanity. "Well, historical accounts-"

Ivian leaned in to listen intently, glad her new friend in this land was no longer in distress over her history lecture. Briefly then, she pondered on her family, and how they might be handling Ponyville and its people.

~

Scene 2

Which is a perfect seque into just that. There are a couple possible relatives that could be explored at that time, so let's go with her son. He was over at the school then, being young enough to still attend. The whole class of foals stared in rapt attention at him, being a strange and fascinating creature.

"Class, I'd like you to meet Freydolf!" Ms. Cheerilee stood with him, introducing the boy, although he hardly seemed a colt's age to the eyes of foal who had little knowledge on humans. Thing was, he was tall, standing head to head with Cheerilee. "He comes all the way from Sapistan and he'll be joining you in class from now on!"

Outcries, questioning, murmuring. It amounted to a couple things. What is he? A few foals knew precisely what a human was and a few had absolutely no idea. Most had a vague notion without exact details. Really, how old was he? He was huge! Isn't he an adult stallion? Man. Whatever. A few more observant and intelligent foals noted that of course he was tall, he stood on his hind legs. That's why minotaurs are so big, right?

This is ignoring that most of a minotaur's mass and indeed height is in their oddly proportioned torsos. Minotaurs are that big simply because they are. For humans though, they would be on the right track.

"-on his hind legs, see?" Applebloom explained to her friends, the pair called Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, "That's why minotaurs are so big, ya know?" Thereby demonstrating to us that she was not wholly informed on minotaur physiology but quite immediately observant on what was in front of her. This was the same intelligence that made her capable of building a fully functional catapult, but not consider why you shouldn't build a catapult, let alone fire yourself from it while indoors.

Cutie Mark Crusaders: Siege Catapult Operators was an abysmal failure, by the way.

Freydolf bristled and twitched under the attention. His feathers rustled. He would have frowned but he was already frowning. Scowling would also be an accurate description. This was a boy quite self-absorbed in his own seriousness and dignity. That image was being battered as he was gawked at like a caged animal, making his normaly pale skin become red with embarasement.

He was quite pale, a contrast to his tanned mother. Besides his skin, he was very yellow, not a pale silvery yellow but a lemony yellow. That is, his eyes, his hair, his wings. All of those things were yellow. It was a running theme with him, that color.

It was one colt who finally raised his hoof in question. Cheerilee both identified him and permitted him to ask his question with a "Snips."

"Hey, how come you stand on your back legs?"

Freydolf would have scowled in confusion but as noted he was already scowling in general. As such, his scowl merely became a confused one. "Back legs?" Also, in case you were wondering, all that scowling DID make him look like a prat. His mother thought it was adorable but then she did fall in love with his father's sneer.

Here, Cheerilee jumped in, just eager to teach. Expanding young minds with knowledge was how she got her sick kicks. "You see, Snips, like minotaurs, humans are what are called 'bipeds', meaning they stand on two legs instead of four. We ponies, along with griffons, are 'quadrupeds'. Minotaurs and humans call their backs legs just 'legs', and front legs are 'arms', which are then soley used for what we normally use our front legs in part for."

The awful disgusting thrill of education rushed through Cheerilee's body. She could not, would not, stop exposing these young innocent minds to the full force of enlightenment. She bent her head low to indicate the end of his arms, "Now see how Freydolf has a great deal more joints on his arms then ponies, especially here at the end. This is called a 'hand' and these things are called 'fingers'. Their use is greater manual dexterity, for what we need to use our mouths and tongue for."

Freydolf absolutely had to drop the scowl right then. Before, it was becoming deeper and redder as Cheerilee really began to put him on display with her impromptu anatomy lesson. He was thoroughly embarassed but unwilling to speak up about it, therefore his opinion didn't matter. However, when Cheerilee explained what they had to use instead of fingers, his face slackened into a gape of pure confusion. They used their mouths and their tongues as fingers?

"What?" He said, way too quietly to be heard.

"Miss Cheerilee!" Called Peppermint Twist, waving her hand eagerly. Well, it was more like "Mith Cheerilee!" But I refuse to transcribe her lisp, you're just going to have to imagine it. "Where is Sapistan?"

Cheerilee looked at her with stark confusion, matching Freydolf's own over the whole 'tongue-finger' revelation, becuase she didn't know what "Thapithtan" even was. She quickly caught on and brightened up though. Filled with that horrifying giddy sensation of teaching, Cheerilee nabbed a globe to display in on her desk. She spun that thing hard and then struck it unneringly right on Freydolf's homeland, stopping the globe dead.

"Sapistan exists on the other side of the World! In fact, it lays on the exact opposite side of Equestria! It means that the straightest and shortest route for Freydolf's family would have been to dig straight down and emerge right out of the ground! Of course, they didn't do that."

Everyone imagined it though. Except for Sweetie Bell, who raised her hoof with a much more important question in mind, "What kind of name is 'Freydolf'?"

Feeling insulted, Freydolf glared at the filly and she returned it with blank confusion. Freydolf was the master of glaring and feeling insulted and Sweetie Bell was his equal in the area of blank confusion. Both expressions clashed in epic battle but neither could win out.

"Humans names are like that, Sweetie Bell," Cheerilee said, "Humans create meaningless words for names."

"Freydolf means me," The boy corrected. He said with a little anger in his tone, but Cheerilee brushed it off because she is a bucking professional.

"Exactly! Previously meaningless, by human understanding the new word has the meaning of that human's unique identity. 'Freydolf' means 'Freydolf'."

The foals mulled this over while the child mulled on something else. He observed what he knew about pony names and came to something equivalent, "Sun Feather." He then looked up and repeated that loudly.

"Excuse me?" Cheerilee asked him.

"My title, every human has one. They sound like pony names, I think. Mine is 'Sun Feather'."

"Oh, can we call you that?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"You may not," Freydolf barely didn't snarl. He immediately regretted telling them his title because he actually hated it. It's full expression was "With Beautiful Feathers That Shine As The Sun." It was not only the title of a child, it was the title of a girl-child, and Freydolf was a man's man, or so he would like to think.

"Who talks like that?" That mocking drawl was Silver Spoon, getting a "Yeah!" of agreement from Diamond Tiara. This earned an even sharper glare from Freydolf than what he levelled at Sweetie Bell but Silver Spoon was a grand master of mocking apathy with Diamond Tiara to back her up. Freydolf turned away in defeat.

His indignation came out of one fact: His father talked like that. Of course, his uncles and aunt made fun of him for it, but his mother found it adorable.

As Cheerilee defused the situation by telling Freydolf to sit down, assigning him next to Sweetie Bell, Freydolf's mind drifted over two things. First, those chairs were surprisingly comfortable. You would think ponies had completely different seating arrangement, but apparently not. Second, he wondered about his family too, once again allowing me to seque over to one of them.

~

Scene 3

Three humans explored the town. Well, 'explored' is the wrong word. They got up to the main part of it and one of them raised his arms up to stop the rest dead in their tracks.

"Hold on!" Is what he said, crouching low with his arms up high at an angle, barring his companion's direct passage through. He had an absolutely serious expression, he eye balled every last living creature there in the town square, milling about, minding their own business and occasionally staring right the Tart' at those three strange creatures, especially the wierd one staring at them.

There is a pause as this man just carefully observed his particular discovery. I could condense it and skip over to its end, or even describe it in excruciating detail, but I'd actually like to take this moment to describe who and what these people are. They are, of course, Freydolf's uncles and aunt, although only two of them are by blood. Not that a one of them was married.

Freydolf's uncle by blood was Vinten, the stopping and staring one, his father's brother. Taller than the rest, straight black hair, yellow eyes, pale skin, skinny and pointy. He was the model of an elf, except he had the audacity to be a dwarf, the human's equivalent to the earth pony. His stare was a leering one, more creepy than it had any right to be.

Araji was the proper model of a dwarf sans the beard; short, stocky and generally square shaped. He had one of those flat expressions, set between apathy and disapproval, you can't read his poker face. His hair, a dark, dark purple, naturally grew in porcupine-like quills, giving the impression that he might toss his head aside and impale someone.

Saufier was the woman, the proper model of she-dwarf, as short and well muscled as Araji. She was the opposite of Vinten, having then the audacity to be an elf. Her pointed ears marked her as the human equivalent of a unicorn. She was Ivian's sister, as dark skinned as her but with hair that matched the skin, growing like a spherical bush.

Saufier just grinned, more amused by Vinten's actions or actually anticipant of the results. She was well acquainted with the wierdness stemming from the dwarf and took glee from the chaos that resulted. She bent low, close to his ear and whispered, "So... what?"

"Don't you guys see it?" Vinten asked, looking at them with inspiration gleaming like a far away nova in his eyes.

"I suppose we don't," Araji's tone was flat, his glare straight ahead and going on forever.

"Okay, fine, if y'all're gonna be so slow, I'll lay it out to you," He huffed, annoyed that only he could share in his genius, "So, I'm vaguely familiar with pony physiology. Enough to know about their sexual dimorphism-" Vinten glanced at Araji when he violent cleared his throat, "-outwardly visible differences between boys and girls."

"And what do you see?" Saufier asked, actually turning to look at the milling ponies.

"Girls," Araji growled, his eyes following something only he could see, "Girls everywhere."

"You saw it too? Yeah, Saufi, there ain't nothin' but girls here." He said, and the admittance of this fact finally causing a note of sheer amazement to enter his smarmy tone. He uncrouched, more because his legs were getting tired, and the three now stood to the side just... talking.

"Nothing wrong with girls," Saufier decided to defend her sex because her sex included her number one favorite person.

Saufier is her own number one favorite person.

"Nothing wrong with boys either," Vinten's sex also included his number one favorite person, "It's just strange is all. Why the misproportion?" Araji cleared his throat. "Why the... um... why the Tart don't you just learn what I'm saying, Araji?"

"So yeah, you see alot of girly ponies," Saufier surmised, "Hey, I'm just sayin', what with none of them having boobs and all, what if you're seeing some really pretty boys? Ehh, colts?"

"I thought so to-"

"Hey," Araji interupted. He lifted one hand and pointed with the force of the final judgement, "That one has boobs."

Vinten and Saufier did follow his point, looking to gaze on a blue-maned and tan-furred mare, -bouncing- on by. Once pointed out to them, they briefly became glued to the sight, forgetting just everything. It was only until she disappeared from sight, and Araji's hand dropped, did Saufier and Vinten regain any coherency in thought.

"Well, okay, that was a thing," Saufier said.

"A pair of 'em," Vinten added. He rapidly blinked to drive the images off. He even did the thing where he'd raise his hands up to his temple and squeeze his eyes shut, focusing his will. "Alright, thaaat aside, I did consider the possibility of a village full of pretty boys. However, conveniently, you might notice that ponies don't wear clothes."

"And now I'm never going to stop noticing that."

"So yeah, I thought they might be boys too, so I checked the plumbing."

"Well, I NEVER!" This was a third party, not one of the humans. It was, in fact, a pony, the only one in town who would say 'I never' with total seriousness. Classy-lady Rarity stomped on over to the trio, glaring up at beings twice her height with the full force of indignation at her back, " Did I hear you right, you hairless barbarian? You've been looking under our tails!"

Rarity's accusation elicited several gasps from surrounding ponies, who turned to stare at Vinten with shock and horror. One pink and green mare even raised her hoof at him, standing on her hind legs to briefly declare, "Shock and horror!"

Then she fainted.

Vinten's eyes dodged between the fainted mare, the other ponies, his friends and finally at Rarity. His eyes were wide in surprise and anxiety, or shock and horror. "That's a thing?"

"Apparently, that's a thing," Araji answered unhelpfully, in a bland tone.

~

Scene 4

The novelty of the human's presence in the classroom wore off to a degree, except for one particularly humorous moment where Freydolf tried to write with his mouth. The only foals still paying close attention to him were the ones hoping to get their cutie marks in human studies. Once Cheerilee released those poor innocent younglings from her foul grip of education, Freydolf found himself dealing with the Cutie Mark Crusaders (Human Experts) on his way home.

"What is Sapistan like?" "Can you fly?" "What kinda critters do you got over there?" "Does it have a lot of humans?" "How fast can you fly?" "And what kinda crops do y'all grow?" "Are there any ponies?" "I bet you can't fly as fast as Rainbow Dash!" "Cause I know a thing or two 'bout critters and crops."

There are stories told among the humans of warriors in the throes of the berserkergang. Of a fury so great that it granted them a moment of sublime enlightenment into the secrets of ultimate violence. Freydolf would exagerate, saying that he thought these fillies were going to send him into one of these legendary furies.

The truth was, as annoying as the fillies were becoming, Freydolf suffered from the same lack of social grace as most berserker warriors. So, even another child could've dealt with the onslaught of questions, even revelled in being the center of attention, Freydolf's shyness and patience were not at all equipped to deal with this properly.

"AAA- Enough! Shut up!" He rounded on the fillies, towering over them, "Fates, you three are annoying!" The three backed away from the boy, shock, worry and fear written on their faces, "The- the three most annoying things I've ever met! Always, always talking! Always asking questions! Just- just shut up! And leave me alone!"

Now, what Freydolf expected was them to round on back with insults and counters themselves. Then they'd have a back and forth argument until one of them got fed up and went away, and then Freydolf would have no friends again. Or they'd skip right to the last part and go.

What he didn't expect, was that they'd apologize.

"Well, gee, I guess we were bein' a might nosey," Applebloom said, scuffing the dirt with her hooves.

"We're sorry!" Sweetie Belle intoned, looking down cast. She'd glance between her friends, "Right girls?"

Scootaloo nodded and raised a hoof up of surrender herself, "Yeah, man, you're right, I guess we should cool off."

At that moment, something inside of Freydolf died. It was the proverbial wind behind his metaphorical sails. His self-righteous indignation washed out of him, leaving him feeling empty, an emptiness ripe for being flooded with guilt. Made to feel like a right fool, Freydolf covered his eyes in embarasement and sighed audibly.

"Okay, okay... I'm sorry too. I... shouldn't have called you annoying. I just... just... ahhhh... I dunno."

"Well shucks, that's okay! We all make mistakes," Applebloom wisdomed beyond her years, reaching up to pat Freydolf on the hip.

"I made five this morning!" Sweetie Belle cheerfully chipped in.

Scootaloo cast a worried and confused glance at her. Quickly glossing over the inanity that is Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo offered her raised hoof as a stretched, "So, hey, friends?"

Freydolf actually paused, staring at the hoof like it were a mysterious and possibly damning letter, but just as possibly blessing. Knocking aside caution for the fillies' anxiously grinning faces, he took Scootaloo's hoof in hand and shook it, "Friends."

And something bloomed inside of Freydolf, something magical.

(It's the magic of friendship.)

Now on a lot more amicable terms, the four youngsters walked toward town together. That's where they'd start to hear the yelling.