Every now and then, there would be something that Gallus is supposed to remember that slipped through his claws. Most of the time, it isn’t anything that important such as not picking up this or that, or there was part of a long list that was given to him that didn’t quite stick. Then there were times when it was important but had unexpectedly dropped and didn’t realize it until the very last moment when he was reminded.
“Okay class, I take it that everyone’s prepared to give their presentation.”
It was that sentence that reminded him. Among the stuff that had been happening lately between reading chapters, writing essays, making projects, and such - this he had completely forgotten about. Twilight’s history class where they were meant to research a particular time period to give a lecture on. The whole idea was to give something that was surprising or unique about that period in history. And the moment that Twilight had said that sentence did he realize he had forgotten.
No, not just forgot, he didn’t do any research on his part. If he was being honest, he thought that he had more time to do it. Perhaps for another few weeks or so, he didn’t realize that it was due today.
One by one, students took turns going up to the front of the class to give out their findings while Gallus prayed to the gods that maybe, just maybe, the class would end before his name would be called. Because unlike those like Ocellus or Silverstream, he was caught completely unprepared and the last thing he wanted was to stand up there to look like an absolute idiot.
“Thank you, Yona, that was not bad,” Twilight said, “Up next is… Gallus.”
Ah, the gods would like him to suffer this day! Gulping, Gallus got out of his seat and made the slow march to the front of the class as though he was walking toward a firing squad. He weighed his options to figure out what exactly to do. Should he just admit to Twilight and the class that he didn’t do the assignment? But doing so would get him an instant failure.
“Okay Gallus, you’re covering the period between the uniting of the three pony tribes and Princess Luna’s banishment.” Twilight set the clipboard aside. “So, did you find anything interesting in your research?”
If Gallus was bluntly honest, he vaguely recalled Twilight talking about that period, however, his memory of it was fuzzy at best. There were some details he can recall but not everything. So, now standing in front of the entire class with the teacher waiting on an answer, he remembered something that Smolder often said. ‘When in doubt, wing it out.’
“Um… yeah I found out a few things here and there.” Of course, Gallus knew that what he was about to do was a gamble. A big gamble if he was caught lying. But it was either that and praying the teacher wouldn’t notice or failing the assignment. Turning to the students, he began: “I guess a good place to start is at the beginning.
“Now when the three pony tribes realized that freezing their flanks off was not preferable and working together made much more sense - the next thing they had to figure out was who’s going to rule this brand-new country. Obviously, they couldn’t just let anyone rule because all three rulers of each tribe have proven that they were too big of meanies to rule over everyone. Apparently, they were just going to battle to the death but being that they were oh just so new, they thought it would be expensive and a waste of time to have a civil war this early.
“To this, Star Swirl the Bearded had a plan - Star Swirl always had a plan. He got the three rules together for this massive party where they got them so drunk that they uh… got busy. And well, long story short, Princess Celestia and Luna were born. Of course, the three of them were pretty upset that the wizard had tricked them into a three-way, so they decided to give the foals to him to look after. Which was the start of many headaches.
“Speaking of headaches, Star Swirl’s job was to go pick out five wizards to be sacrificed to raise and lower the sun each day. At first, the unicorns that were chosen by lottery considered it a huge honor. But after a while when the chosen often went home with massive headaches and feel so weak that they couldn’t walk anymore - it became clear that raising the sun was a massive chore that no one was looking forward to it. It wasn’t until Celestia when she was just tiny was using the sun as a toy, did they realize that she was equally great and terrifying at the same time. Yes, she could raise the sun, but she was using it like a bouncing ball which was completely unfair to the timekeepers to the point that they tossed out their freshly made clocks.
“But back to who was supposed to rule Equestria. For about ten years, no one could agree on who was supposed to rule Equestria until the three rulers - Commander Hurricane, Chancellor Pudding Head, and Princess Platinum - had decided to… how should I put this - have a naughty murder party where the idea was that the last pony not being stabbed should be the ruler of Equestria and well… they all lost. However, since Celestia and Luna were technically their children - they won the crown by default. So, by the age of ten, Celestia and Luna were rules, but Star Swirl was the regent until they were old enough to rule all by themselves.
“Then… Give me a second to remember…” Gallus paused to look over at Twilight. Surely at this point, she would have called him out for lying but instead, Twilight was jotting down notes. “So, uh…” Gallus cleared his throat. “Anyway, what happened next was that between the ages of ten to eighteen, Star Swirl thought it best that to prepare the princesses, they should be given a small plot of land where they could learn how to rule. Complete with a castle in the middle of nowhere with peasants to rule over while Star Swirl gave them pointers.”
One of the students raised a hoof, “How were they?”
“At first? Well… From what I could get… They clearly needed work. It’s said that before they could rule, Celestia and Luna were given a place to test run their skills. In the middle of the Everfree Forest where they build their castle. And from there, Star Swirl had to intervene many, many times. In fact, at one point Star Swirl had to come in because they forced the peasants to dress up like chess pieces to play multiple games of chess. Luna was accused by her sister of cheating and the peasants couldn’t go because they were busy being the pieces. It wasn’t until someone who acted as the knight that got off the board found the opportunity to send a message through carrier pigeon begging him to make it stop. And another time, the siblings had gotten into a prank war to the point it escalated where they set out booby traps all over the castle and the poor staff was caught in the crossfire where, again, they had to tell Star Swirl.
“So, it’s no wonder why Star Swirl had formed the Pillars of Equestria, really. Most of us think of them as these early defenders of a young Equestria. While that was… partly true. Really, Star Swirl needed someone to foalsit these chaotic alicorns while he acted as regent. Which is kinda funny if you think about it. That he got so fed up with being called down to whatever mischief that the sisters were doing that he formed the Pillars to act as glorified foalsitters. Well, you needed to be when you have ponies that could control the Sun and Moon itself. However, this didn’t last long when Stygian turned evil and threatened to cast all the world in darkness forever, so they had to seal him away to limbo - taking all of them with ‘em.
“With Star Swirl suddenly disappearing along with their glorified foalsitters, Celestia and Luna were pretty much forced to grow up rather quickly. As you would when you’re suddenly the de-facto leaders of a brand-new kingdom with half a dozen villains wanting to destroy, invade, or want to wipe you off the map. Because apparently, between the ages of sixteen to twenty, not only they must figure out how to run a kingdom; but not only were they having to take up the responsibility of looking after three recently united pony tribes with whatever bickering that came to them (Celestia at one point wrote that she felt like an Agony Ann than an actual leader); but suddenly, they must deal with all kinds of threats.
“There was Tirek that want to vacuum all of Equestria’s magic which he almost came close to doing the first time if it wasn’t for his brother. When he was tossed into Tartarus, basically becoming a freshly blacken marshmallow, the sister sighed a huge sigh of relief and thought that something like this would never happen again - something else did.
“Discord came into the world from…. I can’t really find where exactly he’s from. There were rumors that he was the mad creation of Star Swirls. Others say he’s the leftover Eldritch abomination that threatens to send all the world into madness and the only relief ponies would get was to sacrifice their beloved rubber duckies and cans of tuna fish to him. But honestly, I don’t think even the historians have any idea where he came from… I doubt even Discord knows where he came from. But regardless, he was turning all of Equestria into Picasso’s worst possible nightmare made real so the ponies came up to the princesses forcing them to fix something that no one can.
“As it so happens, they found a tree of harmony that was conveniently located right underneath their home. Why neither of them had noticed this before? That is hard to say as, again, I couldn’t find any records on this. But what is known is that Celestia and Luna plucked the fruits of Harmony from the tree that turned into gems, went up to Discord as he ate or planted Plunder seeds, and basically told Discord to taste the rainbow. Soon after what could be the world’s very first pride parade of lights, Discord turned into stone. So, to celebrate, the sisters placed him in their garden where birds would get to leave their droppings on ‘em for many years to come. And once again, they too sighed in relief saying that something like this would never happen again.
“But would you know it, right up north, all was not well with the Crystal Empire which is so small that Luna once wrote in her diary: ‘Until Sombra, I had no idea it was there. Even when shown a map and pointed out, we needed a magnifying glass just to see it.’ But who is Sombra? From what sources there could be found, Sombra was a goth boy who was picked on for being black. He hated this so much that he invented a thing called slavery where he chained ponies into a gigantic chain gang to… I don’t know, march around in circles while Sombra lusted over crystals. But the ponies enslaved didn’t like walking around with a heavy chain all the time, so they send a letter asking for help. But when Celestia and Luna got there, Sombra clearly saw that he was outmatched so, like a sore loser, decided that if he can’t have it, no one can so he let the ‘We-swear-we’re-an-empire’ sink into the snow where no one could it. While this was disappointing for the sisters, they could count their blessings to say that at least no one got hurt and something like this would never happen again.
“By then, most of the world-ending threats started to die down so Celestia and Luna could finally get to do what they were meant to do - by telling others what they should be doing. So, from there, the sisters saw that ruling a country would be too messy to deal with it all in one go. Especially when peasants and nobles alike keep coming to them all the time with disputes, he-said-she-said arguments, and a billion other things. So they divided up the workload. Celestia would get the day shift while Luna do the night. For a while, things went pretty well. Actually… perhaps a little too well because Celestia got good at the whole social skills thing that ponies everywhere declared her as the best thing since… wait, was sliced bread a thing at that time? Well point being, she was seen as the best thing ever. And Luna got to be the sad second child that no one remembers existing despite putting all the work and effort behind the scenes to make sure that things run smoothly but never gets so much as a thank you… Sheesh, no wonder why tried to overthrow Celestia.
“However, her plan to become the sole rule of Equestria backfired because Celestia remembered those shiny Elements laying around and send her to the Moon as the ultimate time out - and the rest is history!” Nervously, he glanced over at Twilight. He expected that surely, after coming up with all that half-remembered and mostly made-up history that he would be called out on it. Gallus even expected someone intelligent like Ocellus to raise her hoof to say something along the lines that what he said probably wasn’t close to being accurate.
Twilight, however, applauded, “That was not bad, Gallus! I’ve learned so much.”
“You’ve got to be kidding…”
“What was that?”
“I mean… really, I thought you would already know some of this stuff.”
“Somewhat, yes. But there were so many details I’ve never heard of that now makes complete sense!” Twilight held up her clipboard. “The pony rules had a three-way that made the royal sisters. The castle in the middle of a dangerous forest was meant to be a prototype kingdom. Star Swirl was a regent. Oh! And Sombra inventing the concept of slavery, just… who knew! You’ve got to show me where you got your sources from.”
Gallus laughed nervously, “Sure uh… so was it good enough?”
Twilight nodded, “I can safely say you’ve passed. Good job! For a time period that’s so little known, it’s almost as if I was transported back in time just listening to you.”
“Great… so, can I sit back down now?”
Later that evening, Luna entered Celestia’s chambers. Apparently, Twilight had sent a letter that she felt her younger sister should look at. When Luna entered, she found the solar Dietrich giggling.
“I take it that Twilight had sent something amusing?”
Celestia nodded, handing the letter over to her. “Take a moment and read this. This is both hilarious and fascinating at the same time.”
Taking the letter in her aura, Luna scanned through its contents… Then stopped. Read it again. And then checked it once more to see if what she was reading was indeed correct. “This is… is this real?”
“All from a presentation from one of her classes that a student gave. At first, she was impressed by it but later turned out that her student made up his lecture because he didn’t know his history presentation was due that day. But really,” Celestia giggled, “I find it more hilarious that she thinks that most of it were false. If her student really made it up on the spot, he came very close to what really happened.”
“Indeed… Star Swirl being regent… our prank war… even how we were… conceived. It’s like this Gallus was there with us.”
“You know what we ought to do? We should invite Twilight and her student for lunch one of these days and tell them what really happen just to see the look on their faces.”
Luna reread the letter once more. “There is one detail that Gallus did get wrong, or at least, never come to mind when he was ‘making it up,’ Sombra did not invent the goth phase. As I recall, you did it as an April fools prank.”
(I don’t know how else to end it so…)
The End.
