Chapters Prologue - In the Beginning
"I-I didn't mean to!"
It was a familiar cry, made by a strangled, nasal, and above all else whiny voice. A voice that (through regular exposure) had become akin to hooves on a chalkboard to many of its owner's friends. They didn't hate him. Hate would imply genuine loathing, instead it was that nagging, tiring, kind of irritation. The kind where you damn well know the result of any action, but have to humour someone to ensure you give them the chance to (miraculously) prove you wrong.
Starswirl wasn't a particularly cruel or callous pony. Arrogant, yes. He'd admit to that. When you're a polymath advancing society in leaps and bounds it's not exactly unexpected your head would swell somewhat. He wasn't cruel though. Thus, when he discovered Stygian in his experimental time-space warp tunnel construction lab (or 'mirror room' as young Luna referred to it) surrounded by shards of his latest prototype, well, he quashed the immediate urge to render the Unicorn limb from limb. That was progress.
"I'm not mad Stygian, I'm just..." he sighed, "...confused, let us say. There are hundreds of portals within this room, vast unexplored territories, sights beyond measure, and even one to our very own moon! Yet you choose to tamper with the only thing I cared about."
Stygian paused in his fretting, head tilted in confusion.
"Wait, why a portal to the moon?"
An embarrassed cough left the Arch Mage, "It would be polite to say Princess Luna had certain 'objections' to her domain being utilised as a research and storage facility.” Starswirls face hardened, “That is neither here nor there though young Stygian, I require answers, not questions!”
The lanky stallion seemed to deflate, a downcast expression on his face.
“I merely wanted to understand the portal magic Starswirl, with it my tactics and strategies-”
“Are best served as they are!” the Unicorn snapped, his answer final. Whilst the effect was immediate, the results weren't quite what he expected. The poor youth looked less scolded and closer to tears, his gawky face a mess of emotion. Years ago he'd have scoffed and left the fool to wallow in his pity, still, those damnable sisters had rubbed off on him.
“Come now Stygian,” he said, awkwardly placing a hoof gently on his shaking comrade's withers, “I understand Magnus has made one of his delectable honey cakes let us forget all about this over a slice, eh?”
The duo carefully made their way out, thoughts of cake and ale leaving them ignorant to the scattered mirror shard's subtle glow...
Author's Note
...and so we begin!
I've had this idea rolling around for a while. Lots of short (500-1000 words) pieces, stuff that COULD be stories, or could just be cute ideas. My intent is to try and only use one character at a time, not the same again and again and again. Though certain stories may reoccur.
“Tia, can I have a word please?”
It's said with a certain hushed reverence, the kind employed when guests are over and you'd rather not air dirty laundry publicly. She's used to using it, albeit more during the work day than in those scant free hours gained in the glorious evening. A soft click of the living room door is all the chequered flag needed, however.
“Yes, sister?"
There's a pause as she considers how to word it. History has taught her well, too hard and Celestia will force her heels in, too soft and she'll be ignored. Blunt honesty it was then.
“You're taking your taste in men to all new, all bizarre, levels Tia!”
Lavender eyes roll, “So what? I like a guy on the short side with a bit of body hair, there's nothing wrong with that miss 'brooding bad boy'.
“He's a rat, Celestia.”
A theatrical gasp tells Luna all that she needs, her sister was going to milk this entire argument bone dry.
“I'll have you know Luna Selene Invictus,” a barrage of aggressive finger pokes assail her chest, “Hamato Yoshi is a wonderful man! Sure he's a bit of a goofball, and has a few...awkward traits, but what man's perfect? Especially one so diligently raising four sons.”
“I meant that he's a quite literal, five foot nothing, furry, grey, pink-tailed, anthropomorphic rodent Tia.”
“Oh.”
The silence lasts mere seconds but feels as if it bridges an eternity. Whole civilisations rise and fall during this silence. Galaxies blaze into life, only to surrender to the darkness of entropy within its confines.
“Well, that's just a health condition Luna, honestly I don't know how you can be so cruel considering our own brother-”
Rage flares into life, only to be smothered with a deep sigh, “Can we not bring Cosmos up, please?”
“Yes, well.” an awkward cough covers the faux pas “Yoshi is a perfectly normal man, health issues aside. He cooks, he cleans, he dances a mean cha-cha-"
“Don't you know it baby!” a thickly accented voice answers through the door.
“Oh. My God.” she groans, desperately wishing one of Sunset's fantastical adventures could sweep around and take her anywhere but here. Did her horse counterpart suffer from this? There'd been something about her being 'banished to the moon' if Twilight (not their Twilight but 'magical sparkly horse princess Twilight') was correct. That sounded pretty sweet right now.
“Look,” her sister begins, idly playing with those famous multi-hued tresses of hers, ”If I give you twenty bucks can we have a few hours alone? I know it's all a bit unusual, but I like him, Luna! He's fun, he makes me laugh and well...he makes me feel normal.”
She goes to retort, but visions of the bi-monthly magical disasters force her mouth closed. She still had paperwork to deal with regarding the sentient pizza monster in the cafeteria on her desk. When did things get so out of hand again?
Her sigh of defeat is the only honest answer she can give Celestia.
“Sure, just stay safe ok?”
A crash signifies her sister's paramour, the short, tubby, rodent somehow having crawled through the vents and across the ceiling, only to fail at the last minute. His broken form nestled neatly between to the two, a crooked smile on that not-quite-rat-yet-not-quite-man face.
“Do not worry Blue Celestia” he warbles, a spindly thumbs up in her general direction, “Hamato Yoshi is a man of honour, style, and taste.”
The hideously dated spandex jumpsuit killed the last two, so she'd just have to take his word when it came to 'honour'. A warning never hurt though in her experience.
Glaring , she engaged in what her students called ''the nightmare face'. "If anything happens to my sister Yoshi, I'll hunt you down and send you to a place so bad you'll wish you were in hell."
Equestria had dungeons right? Sure, the technicolour population and infrequent musical numbers weren't exactly menacing, but they had to have some form of punishment, they couldn't be that sweet, surely?
"Duly noted Blue Celestia."
Author's Note
Why yes, Celestia is indeed dating Master Splinter of Teenage Ninja Turtles fame, specifically the 'Rise' version, whom is much more...human? Flawed perhaps may be the better term. He's a lazy oddball, with a surprisingly tragic past and stands out very much compared to his other counterparts (all of whom just tend to be rather bland wisdom machines), he's still a decent father and ninja sensei of course.
Cosmos is the unused villain of the MLP movie, the twins long-lost brother. He's rather mangled, missing several limbs and with a distinctively evil design around him. I love the idea of him being in EQG.
Applejack hates pig blood
Faith was a peculiar thing to Applejack. Oh, she understood it in theory . The whole unwavering, undying, belief thing? Sure. The sun will rise, apples ripen, Big Mac being monosyllabic. Nice, reliable constants in this topsy turvy world of theirs.
God though? That was a mite trickier.
The existence of Equestria and its requisite accessories (magic, monsters and spontaneous musical numbers) raised questions, sure. After all, if man was made in his own image then who made Equestria? Certainly not the big man, not unless he had a few things he really needed to get off his chest. Then there were her parents. That preacher had said it was 'all part of gods plan', but to eight-year-old Applejack, that just sounded like a poor excuse. Either God was a bastard or his plans desperately needed some revision. Period.
Her newest evidence tipped the balance more toward 'bastard'.
She'd never really gotten to know her cousin. Well, a distant cousin. Some kind of cockamamie 'triple removed on your mothers' side' bull hockey. Blood was blood though. Vague memories of an early Apple family reunion revealed a quiet, introverted girl, fearful of even a leaf's fall. Kinda reminded her of Twilight in a way. If only she'd known then...
“C-cousin Applejack?” the voice was weak, exhausted. Watery eyes flutter open briefly, dark hair framing the pale face.
Surfacing from her memory deep dive she reached a calloused hand out, gently squeezing the smaller girl's shoulder. A brief spike of panic reared as the hospital gown rubbed against unseen bandages, yet the girl's silence (and lack of a spreading crimson stain) was all the affirmation she needed. Damn super strength was making her paranoid.
“S'all right sugarcube, just rest. You've had a real rough couple of days.”
The smaller girl nods, sliding back into unconsciousness with medicated ease. It was astounding that she'd made it to the acres honestly. A week of non-stop trekking coupled with her injuries...well it'd have killed anyone else, and what injuries they were! The stab wound on her shoulder had barely missed an artery, was badly infected, and would probably impede 'future motor control' if the fancy doctors looking her over were right. Then came the bruising. Half healed on her arrival, it didn't take Granny Smith long to notice a pattern. Great-great grandpa Crab Apple had been a master when it came to 'correcting' wayward kids, or so she said.
Fists that could shatter steel tighten. It'd be oh so easy to wring that woman's neck. Toss her around like a rag doll. Break her. That wasn't right though, wasn't why she'd got these powers. Wouldn't help her cousin none either. She didn't know if it was the same for the rest of the girls, but being tied to the element of honesty gave her a certain perspective, vengeance was hollow.
No, Margaret White's fate wasn't in Applejack's hands. Carrie White though? She'd damn well do everything in her power to keep this wayward Apple safe from the monster pretending to be a mother.
Now that? That she had faith in.
Author's Note
A crossover with Stephen Kings Carrie seems a bit odd, but at its core it's a tale about a teenage girl struggling with growing up (just a more twisted and tragic coming-of-age story) which kind of fits the EQG Narrative imo. Especially taking into account Carrie White being a friendless loner.
Carrie here is a kind of AU fusion of various elements, both from the book and various forms of media. Though appearance wise she leans more towards the 2002 TV movie's gaunt, brunette.
The blade was a paradoxical thing, sixteen-year-old Blueblood found. It was hideously ugly, a huge slab of dark iron, thirty-five inches long before you even got to the hilt. Not only that, there had been zero finesse in its design. Just a burning need to make something big, crude, and heavy. All the better to batter whatever poor fool managed to get in your way. No, Blueblood decided, this was not a thing for elegance or chivalry.
Yet despite all this, the damnable thing was sitting pride of place in the family parlour, reverently held in glass on a velvet pillow. Guests would be discretely shuttled here, small talk shifted to history and family, then inevitably 'Oh did you know my ancestor used this very sword at Waterloo? '. It was all rather vulgar, especially considering the other (superior) relics they had on hand. Of course, there was one more reason for Blueblood to hate the 1796 heavy cavalry sword, a much more pertinent reason than it being the crown jewel in his parent's kingdom.
It was haunted.
Silence blankets the classroom, Crystal prep takes pop quizzes rather seriously and Blueblood is thankful for the quiet. Math was difficult at the best of times, whilst whatever inane ramblings his fellow students engaged in would most definitely make the climb from 'c minus' to 'b plus' impossible. That (in his own humble opinion) was unacceptable.
“Bloody hell lad, your Pa must be pissing gold if he's ready to waste it on sending a stuffed shirt like you to school!”
Then there was....it. Six foot tall, with an angular, tanned face and long black hair, a deep scar proudly displayed on its right cheek added a rogueish charm to the figure's raggedy appearance. That was despite how the rough wound pulled at its right eye, giving the thing's face a mocking expression when relaxed. Of course, Blueblood was never quite sure when the ghost wasn't mocking him, to be honest.
“Quiet,” he whispers, black ink dancing across the page as formulae after formulae were tested and then rejected in equal measure. Calculus, why did it have to be calculus?
It had been there for three months now, not as a floating apparition of terror or campfire tale. No, just an eternally griping Englishman. A coarse one at that if its tone and foul language said anything, not to mention the accent. The spectre's dress sense didn't do much to dispel any notion of roughness either, a hodgepodge of military uniforms all dating around the second war of independence.
“Christ, to think I killed all those bloody French for it to end like this?!”
An idle thought in the first week had suggested something rather unpleasant. It (and everything the spook suggested) were refuted with typical Blueblood swagger and statesman-like diplomacy though. There was no way he was related to that thing after all. No, ridiculous, impossible. The Blueblood lineage may have only reasserted its natural dominance at the end of the nineteenth century, but his ancestors most definitely had more poise and...decency, yes decency, than this ectoplasmic stalker.
It was probably some ruffian run-through on the way back from battle, maybe a deserter? Yes, definitely some misbegotten soul haunting the weapon of its killer. It made as much sense as anything did these days. The friendship games (in retrospect) were certainly an eye-opener...
“You need to carry the three,” it grunts, hand momentarily phasing through hardwood before dirty fingernails point towards the offending problem.
A delicate eyebrow raises, fountain pen halting in its excursions.
“I may not have a fancy education like you lad, but practical experience teaches a man.” It looks away, almost wistful for a moment before returning with a hard glare.
“Really now?” the youth's sarcastic voice little more than an exhale.
No one noticed the empty chair next to Blueblood squeak, a phantom weight manifesting suddenly as his personal heckler took a seat.
“Ran a farm for twenty years, book-keeping weren't great but did the job,” it picked at some unseen, unfathomable, spectral morsel in a mouth full of surprisingly good teeth for a ghost. “Colonel in the British army if that helps, twenty-two years.”
As numbers and dates began to add up, a visible sweat appeared on the teen despite the expensive air conditioning Crystal prep insisted was necessary for every room.
“Joined up about your age, maybe a bit younger?” blue eyes inspect the youth, “You ever think about enlisting?”
Shoulder-length blond hair shifts, a perfect, expensive , styling ruined with only the lightest of shakes. Fragile, gossamer, just like his rapidly burning worldview.
“W-who are you?”
Ice cold fingers capture his hand in a loose shake, it's brief and awkward thanks to the ever-present teacher and students, but the sentiment is clear.
“Names Sharpe, Richard Sharpe. Good to see you're willing to listen now, eh lad.”
Author's Note
Blueblood, the rich, vain, entitled, pompous jackass related to nigh-immortal badass Col Richard Sharpe of the 95th Rifles?
Sure, why not?
Canonically speaking, Sharpe's common law wife is a French Viscountess (despite her title being abolished, it's still a notable thing for social climbers), his daughter marries an unnamed British aristocrat and he himself is adorned with the Order of Saint Vladimir (2nd class) which ironically gives him rights of Russian hereditary nobility. I could easily see an American family with means digging up historical nuggets like that (and Sharpe's own incredible military service) and parading it around.
For those curious, Blueblood is descended from Sharpe's son, Patrick Lassan. Thus making his families myths hilariously full of shit.
