Chapter 1 (to be revised)
Chapter 1:
Things Change.
“Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing"
- Thomas Huxley
This is how the world has always been, hasn't it? From the dawn of ponykind, the oppressed and the oppressors, the powerful taking power from the powerless. It is all the same throughout history.
Because power is key, isn't it? The more power and influence one has the more power and influence one can use to sway others to support them. That is how a governing body works, and corruption is only par for course in the hands of a leader, because if you say no to some oily business' support, then they just ask the next in line...
I am getting distracted though, which is what I intended I guess. Recounting all that we have been through, trying to word it all correctly.
It just had to be me, didn't it?
Here goes nothing...
My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I don't know how the world came to be how it is. Some say that it just happened naturally, over time through whatever propaganda ponies wanted to hear, through targeting pony's fears and dislikes in not only the world but themselves. Manipulated and warped perfectly, like some sort of sinister conductor guiding an innocent orchestra.
Others seem to think that it just all changed. Just as a fad comes in this crazy ideal arrived, but left such a lasting mark in the ecstasy of its arrival that it never actually ended.
I personally believe the former, but it doesn't matter if the outcome is so clearly the same.
I was born in to this world where we are expected to follow a set routine and never to step out of line. You risk to lose everything if you dare to do anything radical. You were shunned from friendship circles for waxing philosophical, sacked from jobs for ever giving an unexpected suggestion, and kicked out of home over what literature you put on the coffee table.
Millions happily lived this life though, moving ever to the next high they could reach. The newest drugs, the next paycheck, the fanciest entertainment system, life endangering activities... The list never ends, and nopony ever stops moving.
My mother Twilight Velvet, bless her heart, she saw what the world truly was. She showed me and my brother why ponies did the things they did. Everypony in a perpetual state of only ever thinking about themselves, yet always worrying how others see them, and Celestia forbid they seem too intelligent or creative.
It is quite self-destructive when you think about it.
But my sweet mother made sure that I could do what I wish as I grew up in this amateur writer's dystopia. So, when she asked me what I would really like to do when no one was looking I did not hesitate with my answer.
"I want to learn everything." I said, with all the conviction a five-year-old could muster when talking about a subject they had no chance of understanding the gravity of.
And so my sweet mother would sneak me old books that I would hide under my bed, subjects ranging from physics to philosophy, from poems to adventure novels, from art theory to my personal favourite, magic theory, and I would read as much as I could whenever I was able. I never did get many friends because of the things I would sometimes say, but it mattered little to me. I had my family and my books so I was happy.
This lasted for some time too. I learned to hide what I truly knew to those I was forced to interact with, and I spent every other waking moment with me, myself and my books.
My life was my own and it was pretty perfect, and little happens for a long time.
Fast forward closer to present day and I am by myself in the Canterlot apartment I share with my parents just simply reading, as I always do. I am a young adult at this point and my parents don't mind one bit that I am still here and not living the "high" life like every one else my age.
Then there is a knock on the door.
I put my book face-down on my bed and I make my way out of my room and down to our front door.
I open it and before me is a deep blue mare in an officer's uniform, with a spiked up light grey mane that has a single white stripe down its length. She is looking at me with a disgusted look on her face, and a slightly sad angle to her ears.
"Umm," She greets me so eloquently. "So we were called to a disturbance and, well..." A second passes.
"Well what?" I ask as my patience is tested. I have a book waiting for me.
"We uhh... how do I put this?" A small pause as she genuinely looks thoughtful for a small while. "Found your parents."
Venom laces my voice, "I didn't realise they were lost. This better not be a waste of my time."
"Yeah, but uhh, this time they are like... dead." Fear's cold grip seizes my heart and plants my rear where I was standing. She said the last word as casually as if she were ordering food.
"We found them," She continues rolling her head slightly and looking past me "like a few blocks up and they were like, in an alley all beaten up and well... dead." another pause as she locks eyes with mine. "They had this book with them. We think that is how they got themselves beaten up." She places a thick tome at my fore-hooves.
My eyes are already closed as I begin to shake with rage and anguish. She words it as if it was their fault.
I look up at her with a face etched with anger, she looks truly bored. "Okay, done my job." She says and just walks away. I follow her with my eyes as she leaves, up until she is out of sight.
I slam the door and stare at it for a moment, right eye twitching.
My whole body tenses and I throw a hoof through the dry-wall with a scream. The scream ends in a pained sob and I roll up in to a miserable ball in the entrance. I stay there for what feels like an hour before I move again.
Everything is a blur as I make my way back to my room and in to my bed. I pull myself in my duvet leaving only a hole for breathing.
I cry,
and wail,
and scream...
My brother comes in some time later and joins me...
Time passes, but nothing is ever the same.
I moved in with my brother and his marefriend/my old foalsitter that week and things get easier.
I brought all my books with me of course, but I cannot get myself to enjoy any of them. I don't touch that book, but I brought it with me anyway. Sometimes I take it out and stare at it, other times I cannot help but scream at it's existence.
More time passes and things eventually get easy enough if I just don't think about it too hard. It doesn't help that some nights I hear my brother's cries through the walls.
But, through it all, we cope somehow, we go out and enjoy some things as a group sometimes even. The Joy helps my brother the most. He has some whenever he gets too down about it; even I have some sometimes, but never too much. Mum never liked the stuff very much.
Almost a year passes and it eventually becomes apparent that I cannot mooch of my brother and old foalsitter forever, though they would never outright admit it to me, I could tell they wanted more freedom.
I am sitting there reading a book, "The Complete Collection of E. A. Pone's Poems and Works". I hear giggling from the other side of the front door, clearly my brother's marefriend Cadence.
"Oh, Mr Shining Armour. If you keep that up I might just pounce you here."
"Ohh, tempting. But let's find somewhere comfortable shall we?"
More giggles from Cadence as I hear the door unlock and swing open. I look up at them from my book, they hold a somewhat straight face but are both blushing furiously.
"Hey Twily, big day. Me and Cadance are gonna have a nap. Bye." The door to their bedroom is closing before the sentence is even finished.
"Okay." I reply trying to hide my grimace. Thank Celestia for earplugs.
I take the infinitive and prepare some funds and find myself a small apartment with cheap rent down in Ponyville, a small farming town nestled in prairie-lands south of the Everfree. And when the fateful day comes, they are both there.
"Travel safe." My brother says as we stand on the platform, train pulling in as he speaks. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
I chuckle at my brother's antics, "Only if you can promise the same to me." I say in reply, a smile on my face.
"Make sure you visit often too!" Cadance adds, before pulling me in to loving hug "But only if you can afford it okay? No noble sacrificing like this one here okay?" she says jabbing a hoof in my brother's direction.
I laugh a bit, "Sure thing Cadance. I will be sure to." I say and then pull away from the hug. "Thank you both for everything. I must get going."
"It was our pleasure sis. Travel safe." My brother says with a loving smile.
"You already said that!" I say as I move to the train.
"Bye!" they both call as I step on to the train.
"Farewell!" I call back from the doorway waving. I soon quickly move to the only remaining seat in the car, across from an alabaster mare with amethyst mane and tail. I seat myself and sit my suitcase beside me. Soon enough the mare notices me, and I immediately regret where I decided to sit.
"Darling!" she calls to me, just like many famous Vid-Panel actresses have been doing recently. "What is that mane style? That is not one of today's styles at all!"
Celestia save me.
Author's Note
Thank you so much for reading!
This will be a very intermittent project of mine, and I am certainly not a quick writer in any capacity so there will be big delays between chapers, but if my muse cooperates sometimes there may be small ones. This story is also subject to both major and minor edits depending on how it feels to read personally. I wouldn't want to read something too slow or too disjointed, so I will make sure not to write that way myself. Do not expect consistency in uploads!
Please, point out any inconsistencies or errors to me if you find any.
