Author's Note

Welcome to my first story on Fimfiction! This one won't be very long. It's pretty much just world building for my upcoming story, Equestria Dawning. This story complies with Pen Stroke's Nyxverse, so keep that in mind. It also alters Luna's appearance. Other than that, it pretty much entirely follows the show canon. Just for the sake of simplicity, I'm not considering the IDW comics canon for this story, even though I consider them canon in general. I'm altering the ages of Lil Cheese and Big Sugar so that they fit into the story.

Equestria Dawning Prequel

Twilight's first order of business after her coronation was to change the royal system. No normal pony would jump to such extremes so soon after being crowned, but Twilight wasn't a normal pony. She was the Princess of Friendship and ruler of Equestria. With all the chaos leading up to the coronation, Twilight had nearly forgotten about Princess Cadence's news. She had written to Twilight, telling her she was with foal. Finally, the day after the coronation, Twilight got the news that the foal had been born. So Twilight and her friends traveled to the Crystal Empire to see the new foal. She was a hot pink filly with a purple and yellow mane. Cadence named her Skyla, and she turned out to be an alicorn as well. That was what set Twilight's plan into action. Now, back in Canterlot, Twilight stepped through a large mirror, followed by a yellow unicorn.

"I don't see what could possibly be so urgent that you needed to drag me out of class, Twilight." Sunset Shimmer said as she followed Twilight to the nearest table.

"Trust me, it's important." Twilight said. She and Sunset sat in two chairs across from each other at a small, round table. "I have a plan. I was just crowned the ruler of Equestria and I'm going to change the royal system." Sunset opened her mouth, but Twilight plowed on. "You see, Cadence had another daughter yesterday. She turned out to be an alicorn like her sister. It made me think. If more and more alicorns start to be born, on top of magically created alicorns, there will be princesses all over the place! There's no separation between minor princesses and princesses ruling a country. So I was thinking, I should create new titles for alicorns of different statuses so there's a way to tell. I also think that alicorns should have the option of being common. Not all alicorns should be destined to be royal, just like not all regular ponies should be destined to be common. Ponies who rule a large country will be Queens or Kings. So that would make myself and Cadence Queens and Shining Armor a King. Anypony who rules a smaller country or city, like Ponyville or Cloudsdale, will be a Princess or Prince, unless they choose to use the system of a small town, like the Mayor of Ponyville. Anyone set in line for a throne or a part of a royal family will also be a Princess or Prince. Those would be ponies like Flurry Heart, Skyla, and Nyx. Anyone important like an advisor or family members of royals who didn't start out as royalty will be Ladies and Lords." Twilight finally paused, and Sunset jumped in.

"I don't see how any of this concerns me." she said.

"Well, you see, I think I can safely say that ruling Equestria is going to be hard. That's why Celestia and Luna did it together. So, if you're willing to move back to Equestria, I'd like for you to be my top advisor and ruling assistant." Twilight explained. Sunset's jaw dropped.

"You....you want me to rule Equestria with you.....?" she asked. Twilight nodded.

"You have great potential. You're a natural leader, and I think you'd be a great help to me."

"I would love to be your top advisor! When can I start?" Sunset asked. She had jumped out of the chair and was bouncing on her hooves like an excited filly. Twilight laughed.

"As soon as you're ready, I'll schedule a coronation. Welcome back to Equestria, Lady Sunset Shimmer."

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In the years that followed, a surprising amount of weddings occurred. The first, maybe six or so months after the coronation, was the wedding of Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich. Of all of her friends, Twilight thought for sure that Rarity would be the first to get married. The next and most surprising wedding was a year later, and it was that of Applejack and Rainbow Dash. Rainbow had recently been made new captain of the Wonderbolts, and she now spent half of her time in Cloudsdale and half at Sweet Apple Acres. It was nearly two years before the next weddings. They were a week apart, and were the wedding of Rarity and Prince Blueblood, and Twilight's own wedding, to Flash Sentry. By the time Twilight's wedding came around, she had begun to physically mature past the point of a normal pony. She was now close in size to Cadence, or at least, the size she had been. Cadence herself was now nearly as tall as Celestia. At Twilight's wedding, she learned that Luna had been married nearly three years ago to a bat pony and now had a newborn filly called Moonlight Eclipse. A few days after the wedding, Twilight visisted the Crystal Empire, and she noticed something strange. Even after nearly four years, Flurry Heart had stayed pretty much the same size. She was still half the size of an average school age pony, despite her gigantic wings. It encouraged Twilight to start a study on alicorn's aging and genetics, monitoring Nyx, Skyla, Flurry Heart, and Moonlight. She had noticed the same aging pattern with Nyx, who was still very small for her age, about a head shorter than the other ponies her age. It was a regular source of teasing, along with her strange eyes, which had caused Nyx to drop out of the School for Gifted Unicorns and transfer to The School of Friendship instead. She had struggled to make friends even there, but she managed to befriend a lavender Hippogriff named Star Wing. One day, about a month after the wedding, Twilight started to feel off. She had a strange feeling she knew what was wrong, but she still did a spell anyway. Sure enough, she was with foal. At that exact, wrong moment, Nyx burst into the library. She had abandoned her disguise long ago, so her wings and dragon eyes were always visible, and her hair flowed free without the headband.

"Hey Mom! I came to ask you if.... What is that?" She caught sight of the book, and Twilight slammed it shut, but not before Nyx saw the spell she had performed. "Is there something you need to tell me?" Nyx asked warily.

"I just completed the spell, so you would've found out soon, I just wanted time to figure out how to tell you." Twilight said.

"So, the spell was right." Nyx said. "You're with foal?"

"I am." Twilight held her breath, terrified of how Nyx might react. There was a beat, then Nyx shot up into the air.

"OH MY CELESTIA THIS IS SO AMAZING!" she shouted. "I'M GOING TO BE A BIG SISTER!" She swooped down and tackled Twilight into a hug, knocking them both over. "Oops, I guess I should be more careful." Nyx said. Twilight just laughed. She was so relieved that Nyx was happy with the news. Now she just had to tell Flash.

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Flash took the news as well as Nyx, but of course, he went right into overprotective guard mode. He spent day and night guarding Twilight, telling her to relax and be careful when she so much as walked for too long. It became very annoying, but Twilight knew he only had her best interests at heart. After nearly a year, the foal was finally born. It was a filly, and, not entirely to Twilight's surprise, she was an alicorn. She had Twilight's exact coat color, and her mane was the same blue as Flash's, with streaks of pink and purple. It was much wilder than Twilight's neat bangs or even Flash's jagged mane. They decided to name her Midnight Sparkle. Nyx absolutely loved Midnight. She found her tiny horn the most adorable thing ever, and her wings were the size of an average newborn filly, not oversized like Flurry's. Twilight's friends also adored Midnight, and Fluttershy came with the news that she was now dating Wonderbolts member Soarin. A recent wing injury had forced him to retire from the Wonderbolts. In fact, he could barely fly anymore. He moved to Ponyville, and Fluttershy had been very kind to him. They had been growing close lately. All of her friends were thrilled with the news. That was several years ago. Midnight was now school age. Twilight was sorting through the list of this semester's applicants for the School of Gifted Unicorns, adding Midnight's name to the accepted students, when the throne room doors opened. Rainbow Dash flew in, with Applejack following on hoof.

"Hey Twilight!" Applejack said. "Sorry to barge in on ya without warnin', but we got somethin' to ask ya if you ain't too busy."

"It's great to see you two!" Twilight smiled. "I'm not too busy. What do you want to ask?"

"Well, we've been talking about foals lately." Rainbow said, landing next to Applejack. "Obviously, we can't exactly have a foal, and with Pinkie expecting one herself..."

"Wait, PINKIE'S EXPECTING A FOAL!?" Twilight shrieked. Rainbow smacked her forehead with her hoof.

"I wasn't supposed to say that. Pinkie was going to come here and tell you herself." she sighed.

"That's such amazing news!" Twilight flapped her wings excitedly without taking off.

"But anyway, back to what we was talkin' about." Applejack said. "We were wonderin' if there's maybe any way for ya to do a spell that could create a foal, like, maybe with our DNA?" Twilight froze. Rainbow flew up to her and waved a hoof in front of her face.

"Did we break you?" she asked. Twilight shook her head.

"No that's just....I've never even considered that I could create a foal before. I think I'll need to do some research before I can give you an answer. You're welcome to stay here at the castle while you wait. It may take me a few days."

"I s'ppose we can stay 'ere." Applejack said.

"I guess I'd better get to work." Twilight said.

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"Alright, I think we're ready." Twilight said. She had an elaborate set up spread in front of herself, Applejack, and Rainbow. She led Applejack to a flat, purplish blue stone. She levitated a needle from next to the stone and pricked Applejack's foreleg. A drop of blood dripped onto the stone. She repeated the same process with Rainbow. Twilight levitated the stone and the seven others around it and began the spell. They swirled around in the air. A light grew brighter and brighter until, with a bright flash, the stones vanished. In their place, a tiny filly drifted to the floor. She was a pegasus. Her coat was orange like Applejack's, and her mane was rainbow striped. Rainbow's jaw dropped.

"It worked! It really worked!" she said. Applejack stepped forward and picked up the filly. She blinked open large, green eyes.

"Do you have any ideas for names?" Twilight asked.

"We talked about it yesterday. We decided that we're going to call her Zap Apple." Rainbow said. Twilight beamed.

"What a perfect name! Now, how about we go back to Ponyville together? I have a certain pink mare to congratulate."

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The years passed. Twilight grew taller until she resembled Celestia. Her hair was now very long and flowed with magic. About three years after creating Zap Apple, Twilight had a colt, Bolt Sentry. He was a pegasus like his father. Pinkie's foal was also a colt. They named him Lil Cheese. Around the time of Bolt's birth, Rarity had a unicorn filly who she named Diamond Quartz. Roughly two or so years later, Fluttershy had a filly, Wind Flower. Having foals kept her friends very busy. So busy, in fact, that they no longer had time to teach at the School of Friendship. Rainbow Dash and Rarity had left several years ago, but it had taken until now for the rest of Twilight's friends to retire from the school to focus on their primary jobs and their foals. Twilight, Starlight, and Sunburst had many discussions, and many meetings with applicants, before hiring a new set of teachers. From the applicants, they selected Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Ocellus, Sandbar, Silverstream, Smolder, Yona, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, and Dinky Hooves. The new staff was very eager to start their jobs. Without the School of Friendship to focus on, Twilight's friends had more time to focus on their primary jobs. Rainbow Dash was the captain of the Wonderbolts, Applejack ran Sweet Apple Acres, Carousel Boutique had become the most popular clothing store in Equestria, and Rarity had moved to Manehatten, Fluttershy was still running her animal sanctuary, and Pinkie Pie's party planning skills were so in demand that she spent most of her time traveling around Equestria planning parties. One day, Twilight was in the library when Nyx entered.

"I have something to ask you." Nyx said. Twilight looked up from her reading.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Well, I want to truly follow my calling." Nyx explained. "I want to enter soldier training." Twilight hesitated.

"What brought this on?" Twilight asked.

"Well, my cutie mark symbolizes protecting others. I decided that now that I'm old enough to join the Canterlot army, I want to follow the calling of my cutie mark."

"I suppose that's reasonable." Twilight said. "But are you sure this is what you really want to do?"

"I'm positive." Nyx said. "This is what I'm meant to do."

"If you're positive, then I guess you can enter training." Twilight sighed. Nyx flung her wings around Twilight, then flew out of the library.

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"I have called you all here for a very important reason." Twilight said. Her friends were gathered around her in the Canterlot throne room, along with Spike and Sunset Shimmer. "I think that it was a nice idea to continue without the Elements of Harmony, but it just isn't working. Equestria has become accustomed to relying on artifacts. It's starting to affect our magic. So I recreated the Elements with some alterations." Twilight opened a pouch next to her and levitated out nine gemstones.

"You didn't tell us about this sooner?" Rarity asked.

"I needed to make them right away. You could only get here so soon. These are called the Elements of Integrity. There are the Elements of Generosity, Honesty, Laughter, Kindness, Loyalty, Magic, Forgiveness, Unity, and Love. These Elements are all equal. They aren't reliant on one Element, like how the Elements of Harmony were connected by the Element of Magic. Each Element is equally important. But the problem is, because we were bonded to the Elements of Harmony, we cannot be bonded to the Elements of Integrity. They will need an entirely new set of bearers. But luckily for us, I know just the pony to find new bearers."

"Who is it?" Fluttershy asked. Twilight smiled.

"I recently sent her to Ponyville to make friends. Remember? My top student, Luster Dawn."