The Curious Genealogy of Twilight Sparkle
"Ooh, what's this?" said Pinkie Pie, looking at a blank spot in the scroll. Picking it up, she started to carry the scroll to Twilight, and promptly tripped over it. Undeterred by her self-induced slip, she rolled the scroll up, and walked it to Twilight.
"What's wrong Pinkie?" asked Twilight, hearing her friend's confusion.
"I found a few blank spaces in your family tree, Twilight," Pinkie said in her cheeriest voice.
"Aaaaaand that's a good thing?" asked Twilight confusedly. She never really could parse the pink party pony's odd speech patterns.
"Oh no, not at all! But now that we've found 'em, we can fix 'em!" she said, reassuring her purple friend. "Then, we can figure out who your great, great, great, great... (43 greats, and two breaths later) grandparents are!" She took the scroll and unrolled it to its full length, which terminated outside the door, uncomfortably close to the main road. She then pointed at the offending spaces above Stone Wall and Flower Power.
"Well, that is strange," said Twilight, now standing very, very close to the main thoroughfare. Her mind ran through a list of all the possible repositories of information when the pony next to her said something. Not hearing her, she asked, "Say that again Pinkie?"
"Well, you could always ask Princess Celestia!" said Pinkie, an idea forming in her head.
Twilight facehoofed. "Pinkie, Princess Celestia is one of the rulers of Equestria. She doesn't have time for silly genealogical questions. Besides, it is highly unlikely that she knew every single one of my ancestors personally."
"Well, yeah, but she might be able give us a hint. Ooh, or maybe some cupcakes! " Pinkie said quite enthusiastically.
"I suppose it wouldn't hurt," said a defeated Twilight. "Besides, I haven't written to the Princess in a month. Now's as good a time as any." She rolled the scroll back up and headed inside the library.
Dear Princess Celestia,
My friend Pinkie Pie, while helping me map out my family tree, ran into a couple of blank spaces. She suggested writing to you about this. I hope you can help with this quandary.
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle
Three days later...
Twilight had gotten a reply from the Princess a few days ago. The letter said that she would love to help her with her genealogical issue. Twilight practically sang with glee at that. The trip was uneventful, save for the flock of birds that decided to roost on the roof, slowing things down a fair bit...
When they touched down, Twilight bid the two guards goodbye, and also asked them to say hello to her brother. She entered the grand foyer. Quickly, she climbed the stairs to the second level, then headed north, to the south tower switchback. Finally, after twenty minutes of climbing, she reached the top of the tower. She then had a small coughing fit. "Princess Celestia, I'm here!" then came another rather loud series of retching coughs.
Princess Celestia quickly opened the doors to her office/bedchamber, and walked over to Twilight. "Oh dear. Twilight, are you alright? Should I send down for a bottle of medicine?" she asked, much like a doting mother would.
"No, no, I'm fine, really," she said in between coughs. "It's been a while since I've had to climb that many steps, is all." She walked into the great chamber, and set her bags down by the oak desk. It had been a while since she'd been there (by her estimate 5 months, 29 days, and 5 hours give or take 5 minutes).
"So, who are we missing?" asked the Princess, curiosity shining through her laid back demeanor.
"That's the problem, I can't find them either," said Twilight.
"I'm sure we can find them in the archives. What are the names of their descendants?" Celestia asked, by this time letting curiosity get the better of her.
"I believe they were named Flower Power and Stone Wall," Twilight said in a slightly confused tone.
Princess Celestia heard these names, and froze. She asked, "Are you sure?" Twilight nodded in the affirmative. She began to laugh. So loudly, the walls rattled. "Oh, I'd always wondered where those two had gone," she said when she'd calmed down. She grabbed a handkerchief with her magic, and wiped a stray tear from here eye.
"Did you know them well?" asked Twilight, now even more confused. Admittedly that was not difficult to do when it came to social interactions.
"You could say that, yes," came the Princess' rather sheepish reply. "Considering two of their parents were Luna's and my foals, we had better." She looked over at Twilight, and found her faceplanted. Her eyes were solid blue with white text scrolling across them.
TwiOS has crashed. If the problem persists, hugs and comforting words may be required. Reboot in safe mode? Y/N
One forced head shake "No", and one packet of smelling salts later...
"My Sister says thou hast found our foal's descendants, Twilight Sparkle," said Luna. She was still groggy, but was surprisingly quick on the uptake for someone just waking up. "Pray tell, who are they?"
"Apparently from Flower Power's line came my mother: Twilight Velvet; and from Stone Wall's line came my father: Night Light," said the now very nervous unicorn. She braced herself for the inevitable.
"OH, MOST GLORIOUS OF DAYS!" bellowed the Lunar Princess. She scooped Twilight up, into a hug that would have crushed the little unicorn had she not prepared for such occasions.
"I suppose it is, your majesty" squeaked a rather blue-looking Twilight. Luna let Twilight go from her hypoxia inducing hug, upon which Twilight gasped and coughed for a minute or so. "Although how you're related to my ancestors Stone Wall and Flower Power still eludes me." Now she was very confused, which never led to anything good.
A sly smile parked itself upon Celestia's face. "Do you really want to know that?" she asked, wiggling her eyebrows. She heard a sputtering sound. Twilight thought.... then suffered another Blue-Screen event.
the next morning...
"Sister, she is waking," said one voice.
"Shh. Don't scare her, Lulu. She's on edge already," said another. This voice was more gentle on her ears.
Twilight sat up. Her head was not happy with her at all, what with all the smacking it into stone floors yesterday. "I'm up, I'm up!" Her eyes suddenly focused. Instead of her parents, were the Solar and Lunar Princesses. She scrambled to get up, but only managed to tie herself into a tangled mess of sheets. "What happened?" she asked, memories still fuzzy.
"Twilight dear, you hit your head on the floor after I made a rather bad joke," said Celestia. She looked toward her faithful student sheepishly. "I apologize for any trauma and will gladly pay for a doctor,-" she paused "-or therapist should you request one."
"No. No, I'm fine. Although, I am curious about how you and Princess Luna had children," said Twilight, curiosity prevailing against her desire for sleep.
"We suppose it is time for a 'History Lesson', as they say," said Princess Luna awkwardly. "In olden times, it was traditional for Our little ponies to wish upon the moon for one's heart's desire." She took a sip of water from a glass had she summoned into existence. "One mare named Dusk Spinner wanted more than anything in the world, a spouse who would love her as she could love them. I capitalized upon this ambiguous phrasing, for I was looking for somepony to love as well. In order to have a child we had a doctor collect one of her egg cells, then combined it with some of my, what is the term the medical community uses these days?"
"Genetic material," Twilight piped up.
"Thank you. Anyway, she carried to term, and little Starry Sky, your father's stalwart ancestor came to be." At that, a little tear of joy formed in her eye.
"Lulu, are you crying?" asked her sister, little smile adorning her alabaster face.
"No. Your eyes play tricks. We merely have a little bit of dust in Our eye." She gave her best look of exasperation, but it faltered.
"Sure," the Solar Princess deadpanned. "Anyway, I had a similar idea. However, it did not involve wishes, or the sun. It did however, involve a mare. In this case, a surrogate mother, since the stress of ruling would unfortunately have affected my ability to carry the child." She looked at Twilight for a second, then smiled. "My child's name was Posey. She loved nature, so I had the gardens commissioned for her. The plaque has since been removed, but I remember every one of her hiding spots."
"Thank you for those wonderful stories, Your Majesties," Twilight said, bowing. She then trotted off. One minute later, she came back in. "I'm not related to Blueblood, am I?"
"No, dear. His family just has a misprinted copy they've passed down through the ages. I've been trying to get that fixed," replied Celestia, small grin on her face.
Author's Note
(don't) like it? tell me why in the comments.
Notes on the Royal Daughters: Starry Sky was a tactically brilliant dark-grey unicorn roughly the size of Big Mac, and capable of taking down an intruder with a one-inch-"punch", which was why she (almost always) guarded the throne. Posey was a pegasus (obviously), who had a rather special connection to plants, a light golden coat, purple eyes, and a blood-red tail and mane (inherited from her genetic father), along with a love of pranks (can you guess who she got that from?).