New Blood

To say that Celestia was surprised by the story I had to tell would probably be one of the biggest understatements of the millennium. In fact, it looked like she ran through the entire gamut of emotions. Fear, mistrust, disbelief, shock, but eventually she looked down at me and declared that she could see no lies in my story. She then apologized that I had been through so much hardship and was the very first to welcome me, Stephen Waverly, to Equestria.

I’d broken down at that, and Celestia hugged me close as I finally let loose any remaining lingering emotions about my traumatic death and rebirth. She soothed me and held me as if I were her child, letting me vent my frustrations and anger. Despite that, I was still careful to only speak in Equish as I shouted into her dress.

Once I had finished, she wiped my face clean with her handkerchief, then led me to her private privy where I washed my face up. Despite feeling embarrassed at having broken down so badly in front of her, I did feel a lot better about my new life.

By the time I had stopped crying and was recovering, it was lunchtime. I had lunch with Celestia in her private dining area, which wasn’t quite like it had appeared in A Royal Problem. Instead, I was surprised to see that it was a bit plainer than that. It was smaller, domed room with windows that took in the entirety of the surroundings save for the part of the room that was built into the mountain. The wall that was built into said mountain had been left alone, and I saw why when I saw a vein of gold that ran through the center of the uneven wall. The table was directly next to the window, giving anyone sitting there a good view of the surrounding area.

It was from that vantage point that I finally got my first look of Ponyshire.

The town looked less colorful than the version I’d seen in the show. In fact, it looked more like a typical medieval town than anything else. As I looked through a spyglass at the town, Celestia gave me the rundown of the town itself.

On the northern outskirts of the town, in fact not even located within the town’s border wall, was the lord’s manor, a larger mansion surrounded by a heavily fortified stone wall. Currently, the lord was a pony named Fancy Feet, an elderly stallion who had been the lord there for at least a hundred years.

There were wheat fields located west of the manor. Three families owned the farms which grew the wheat that supplied the town. Each barn had large silos that stored the grain and mills for grinding said wheat. When I asked if there were portions of the farmlands set aside for Lord Fancy Feet, Celestia nodded and said that it was standard for every town and city within the kingdom to do so.

Directly below those fields was where I first saw Sweet Apple Acres, a massive plot of land which consisted of acres of apple trees as well as other fruits and vegetables, although the majority of the property had apple orchards.

The town itself was more or less medieval as shown in the show, albeit somewhat less colorful than in the show. Celestia pointed out the blacksmith shop (a large black building with smoke pouring from its chimney), bread and sweets shop named Sugarcube Corner (which, while it had a slightly more colorful paintjob than most other buildings, wasn’t shaped like a giant sundae), the Golden Oaks Library (which was still made out of a hollowed out living tree), the village green, (where many of the town’s festivals were celebrated), the commons area, the marketplace, a few pubs, the residential district and the stone wall and two gates, the first located at the northern portion of the town near the lord’s manor, the second to the east right near the docks on Saddle Lake near the river which led to the eastern and western oceans.

In the center of the town was the town hall, where Celestia said the town’s mayor, sheriff and the magistrate worked from. Lord Fancy Feet had elected them years ago to help him maintain order within the town as he grew on in years. As befitting its status, the hall was the largest building within the town’s walls, towering over every other building in the city and having a large clock facing each direction of the compass. Celestia said that while the town hall had places for criminals, the crime rate in Ponyshire was so low that they were hardly ever used.

After seeing this, I was hardly surprised that ponies hadn’t developed the steam locomotive. Instead, the main mode of transportation on land was still done by either walking, flying or chariots. Pegasi could still fly, however.

After learning about this, Celestia took the opportunity to teach me some ancient Equestrian history.

She explained that the mountain which Canterlot was built into, the Canterhorn, had been extremely rich in gold veins and had once been the main source of wealth of the kingdom a thousand years ago. However, after the incident with Nightmare Moon, she built Canterlot Palace on the ledge that had once been a very small mining town, moving the seat of power away from Serene Castle, the actual name of the Castle of the Two Sisters, and its neighboring city, Dawn City after both were destroyed in the hours long battle between sisters.

However, aside from this vein that ran through the palace, the mines had finally run dry about a hundred years ago and had been long abandoned. Now, according to Celestia, the majority of Equestria’s wealth came from mines in the neighboring Foal Mountain, one of the richest sources of gems and gold in the country.

After the most informative meal, she summoned a chariot for me and sent me back home, but not before she promised that she would see me again. The way she said it made me a bit suspicious, but I suppressed it. I did ask, however, if I could see Shadow, Frostfall and Anna Belle again. She promised me that they’d be allowed to visit weekly.

Sunny was so relieved that I was okay after I returned, but was upset with me about using magic like that without proper training. I took the scolding, which amused me since she was also hugging me close as she chewed me out. Afterwards, she said that the Princess herself had promised to send a tutor of magic to help train me to better control my magic.

For the next six months, I received a visitor every Moonday, a unicorn mare named Aura Blossom. She was at least in her mid twenties, with light sky blue and cloud white striped mane and tail and a light green fur coat. She would normally wear a dark purple robe with gold fringe. I later learned that this was what the Canterlot branch of the Academy of the Arcane wore.

Aura was a strict teacher, always insisting on sticking to a schedule despite my advanced knowledge of magic. She was aware of my unusual ability to channel my magic through my hands instead of my horn, but despite that she insisted that I should attempt to learn to control magic through my horn just in case. However, in those three months, I was never able to figure out the trick despite every trick Aura knew. Finally, she’d taken me to the Canterlot branch of the Academy of the Arcane where she said that one of the more experienced mages there would give me a thorough examination.

Unlike Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, the Academy of the Arcane was a location where Mages of the realm spent years studying magic and attempting to develop newer and better ways to utilize it. I got the impression that they were pretty much the equivalent of scientific researchers back on Earth, constantly developing and improving technology. The Academy was also a school that taught advanced magic to those lucky few who passed the entrance exams to enter.

The building itself was located on a raised part of the cliff, separate from the city itself. It was a large cylindrical stone tower with four smaller towers connected to the main tower. Each of the smaller towers faced the four directions of the compass. The entire facility was surrounded by a large stone wall with six small watchtowers located at equidistant points within the wall. Each one possessed a large crystal at the top of said watchtowers which could be used to erect a magical protective shield around the Academy in case of an emergency.

Inside, I was reminded more of a monastery than anything, since the ponies there, all unicorns, wore pretty much the same type of robes that Aura did. Most were the purple with gold fringe, but I did see mages wearing two other colors. The first variant was a royal blue with silver fringe while the third was a dark evergreen with bronze fringe. I later would learn that the purple robed ones were the most advanced and knowledgeable mages at the Academy. All teachers wore purple robes. The blue robed mages were students in upper level classes, and the dark evergreen robed mages were students in the beginning Academy classes.

Aura took me to a large circular room in the East Tower where an older pony mage physician named Onyx Bolt placed me in the center of the room. He made his magic flow through a carved runic magic circle in the room, illuminating the room with purple magic. I took note of the clearly English lettering in the magic circle, however I saw some slight spelling errors within them. Ones that I couldn’t really tell them about mostly because I still wanted to keep that bit of information to myself at the time.

The physician performed a thorough examination on what he called my thaumatic pathways, finding that while mostly the same, I had an extra set that ran from my horn to each of my fingers. In simplistic terms, since he only saw me as a child, he said that my magic veins were bigger than average and I had more than the average pony. The largest were, according to him, from my anima to my horn, then from my horns to my fingers. I had a feeling that whatever had happened to me was a rare thing since he seemed extremely shocked by it and whispered a few things to Aura. When I asked if I’d ever be able to use just my horn for magical casting, Onyx told me that it was possible with training, but even he wasn’t sure. After that, Aura told me that she still wanted me to practice using just my horn for at least an hour a day, but at the same time she began moving a little bit faster through her curriculum.

On Enddays during those same six months I would always get visits from Anna Belle, Shadow and Frostfall, always accompanied by at least one of their parents. We would spend time either playing in the orphanage’s yard or going out into Canterlot for some fun. I met all of their parents during those months.

Anna Belle’s father was a dark brown furred holstaur male named McAngus with a few small patches of fur on his hands and arms that looked like they’d been burned away. Of course, when I learned that he worked in his own blacksmith shop, the burns made sense. McAngus had what I felt would be considered an Irish accent. He was a fun loving guy, always cracking wise and never seeming to care what others thought of him. I could see a lot of where Anna Belle got her personality from. His shop was actually one of the more popular ones in Canterlot, and I managed to visit there one Moonday after my lessons with Aura. There, I saw that despite his goofy personality he was incredibly serious when it came to his job. I later learned that he and his fiancée at the time Buttercup moved from their own small island nation of Steerland for better opportunities in Equestria, and for the most part they had both gotten what they came for.

Frostfall’s parents, Maple and Barley, were both castle servants as well. Maple, Frostfall’s mother, had light gray fur and hair which was normally tied back into either a bun or a simple ponytail. She had dark evergreen colored eyes and small yellow ramlike horns on the side of her head. I saw immediately where Frostfall got a lot of her looks from. Maple was a kindhearted woman but it was clear she had her priorities in order and wasn’t afraid to scold her daughter or any of us if we did anything naughty. She worked as another maid in the palace. Barley, Frostfall’s father, had dark brown fur and hair. He had yellow eyes and a black pair of ram’s horns which were larger than his wife’s. Barley was a castle cook, and whenever he brought palace leftovers for us whenever it was his turn to babysit me and my new friends I always saw why. His culinary skills could probably have impressed Gordon Ramsay.

Shadow Hunt’s parents, both eutherians, were the strictest out of all the parents. His mother, Astra Breeze, had dark purple fur with silky smooth black mane and tail and slitted amber eyes. She was a part of the Night Guard who patrolled Canterlot Palace and the city during the night. Her cutie mark was of a field of about five stars and some stylized breeze blowing through said starfield. His father, Crimson Comet, true to his name, had dark crimson fur, with a black and dark gray mane that somewhat reminded me of Spitfire’s own. His tail was the same color but it was fairly short. Like his wife, he was a part of the Night Guard. They didn’t babysit us much, but whenever they did the visits were shorter than most and we never went anywhere. They were fairly cranky from being tired, but I could tell they were trying their best. They definitely loved their son in their own way.

This newfound attention from the outsiders got me teased more by the other foals my age at the orphanage, but I didn’t really pay attention to them. The older foals for the most part just left well enough alone and some even scolded the foals my age for teasing me. Still, the names for me stuck. Cow lover, sheep lover, bat pony lover, magic freak etc. were just some of the names I was given by them.

The months rolled by, and thanks to Aura’s own tutoring instead of self learning, I began getting much better with my magic. In a month, I managed to learn how to better channel my magic so that I could use it more efficiently. I learned how to better control my telekinesis so it didn’t use up my magic fast. I also expanded my magical repertoire by learning some simple transfiguration spells. I even managed to find a way to teleport, although I could only go from one end of the yard to the other.

My friendships with the three children grew over the months. Anna Belle was ecstatic when she heard that one of my toys had a name nearly identical to hers. I would have given the toy to her easily had Sunny not told me that the dolls were from my mother.

It was also during those six months that Sunny finally told me about my mother. Her name was Golden Sparks, and she was, like me, a unicorn. She had arrived on the night of my birth in labor and seriously abused. To my horror, I learned that she was only fifteen when she had me. She’d refused to say who the father was, but Sunny, who had helped deliver me, got the impression that she was afraid of him. All I had to remember her by was a description of her. Sunny said she was a sky blue mare with dark blue and white mane and tail and deep orange eyes. I was told that luckily before she finally succumbed to her wounds and childbirth she managed to see me and gave me my name. Apparently one of my ancestors was from Stalliongrad, which was Threia’s (the name of the world where Equestria was located) equivalent of Russia.

With my exposure to the outside world, I learned something that threw me for a loop: the level of technological development of this Equestria was nowhere near the level of the one I’d seen in the show. There was no electricity, everything was powered by either coal or magic, with many of the lamps being fueled by oil. I found it hard to believe that ponies would use whale oil, so I did a little bit of research in secret. I discovered that there were many different oils used, such as sesame oil and live oil, but there were two that were common in Equestria.

The first commonly used was something called camphine, which the book I read said was made by distilling turpentine with quicklime. The second was gem oil, which was made by crushing certain gems up into a fine powder, which itself was then treated by a certain spell which changed the powder into an oil. The book went into details about how certain gems, once crushed, would emit different colors. For example, emeralds made lamps glow green, sapphires made them glow blue, ruby’s made them red etc. The cheapest oil made from gems was actually garnet oil, which didn’t affect the color of the flame itself. With how common garnets were it made for a convenient source of oil.

There were other sources of light, too. The lamps on the street utilized a rarer form of crystal which absorbed sunlight during the day and slowly released it over the course of the night. I was surprised to see that despite their glow at night being a warm white glow, the crystals themselves were actually a deep crimson when viewed during daytime hours. I later learned that they were called aed gems and were only used in public lighting fixtures in the major cities and towns due to how hard it was to find them.

Stoves were pretty much either wood stoves or a primitive (by my human reckoning) version of a gas stove, the latter of which was also used to heat homes during the winter. Controlling the temperature of the stove was impossible with wood stoves, but it was somewhat possible with the gas stoves thanks to the use of dials which allowed for control over the amount of gas that was let through. However, since there were no ways to detect leaks, inspections had to be done on places where there were gas stoves at regular intervals.

Summer turned to autumn, and I participated in my very first Nightmare Night in Canterlot. On the very night, Hærfest 31st, I went out with my new friends and escorted by Buttercup and McAngus. It was similar to how it was shown in the show, children going to various houses in the city and saying the incantation “Nightmare Night! What a fright! Give us something sweet to bite!” Candy wasn’t the only thing that were given out that night. Some families didn’t just give us candy but also gave out small hot disposable beverage cups full of hot spiced cinnamon cider or hot chocolate to help stave off the cold. The candies we got were almost all handmade and wrapped in thin paper to preserve them. We got caramels, sugar drops, licorice, small sticky buns or donuts, dehydrated sweetened fruits, small chocolates in various shapes, and more. During Nightmare Night I learned that candy was once used in medicine.

Despite not living in a world that had undergone any kind of industrial revolution, the candies and sweets made were actually quite delicious. Even those that were clearly bought were tastier than candies I’d had back on Earth. Either that, or my taste buds were different in this new body of mine. I took advantage of my child metabolism and indulged in the demolishing of my new hoard of candy within the next week.

The weather got colder once again and the Canterlot weather team guided the first snow clouds over the city earlier than they did elsewhere. By the second week of Forstbyn, the roofs, streets and trees of Canterlot were coated in white, with more falling daily. Chimney sweeps were out and about almost every day, most of them being pegasi but I did see a couple of unicorns.

With the onset of wintery weather, Aura redirected my training to focus more on magic that dealt with the cold, such as making ice walls or blocks. She explained that this was the magic used to make the blocks of ice for the ice boxes that had been out for twenty or so years. The orphanage had a large one that had been donated to them about a year before I was born by one of the nicer rich ponies who’d adopted someone from the orphanage. It was one of the deluxe double door versions and could store plenty of food and beverages within.

The reason she wanted me to do it during the winter was because thanks to the lower temperatures, casting any kind of cold magic was easier. Once I got the hang of it, Aura said that I was to keep practicing it for at least fifteen to thirty minutes a day, especially with the onset of warmer weather in the oncoming months.

She not only taught me about ice magic, but she also told me that for homework I was to continue practicing my other magic, especially fire magic which she’d begun teaching me in the summer. She said that practicing during the winter months would do for my fire magic what practicing ice magic would do in the summer months. When I compared it to exercise, Aura nodded and said that was fairly accurate.

And she was right. Practicing fire magic during snowy and cold weather was harder than it was in the summer, especially during the windier days. However, the practice I endured paid off because it grew easier to generate a flame above my hands as the days passed.

Finally it was Hearth’s Warming season once again. The lamps in the houses were changed to be either green or red or a combination of festive colors. Small artificial candles that had many different oils within were placed on trees. Either that, or some of the richer ponies would string smaller white or multicolored versions of the solar powered gems on their trees and place them next to one of their windows. In the center of the city, right in the main square, the Canterlot Hearth’s Warming tree was placed and lit in a grand ceremony. Celestia herself even attended and lit the tree with her magic.

On Enede twenty fifth, I woke to find that I had three extra presents underneath the orphanage’s tree, each from my three new friends. I got a warm wool sweater from Frostfall, and in the note that came with it she said that she spun the wool and knitted this herself out of her own wool. It was evergreen with a red and green striped tree on the front. Anna Belle got me some toy building blocks designed so you could create your very own castle, and Shadow got me a really well crafted wooden sword, much like the ones he would bring during our play sessions.

Of course, I got my orphanage gift as well, a good number of bits, a set of winter and summer clothes and a toy. That year I received a small unicorn pony soldier action figure with detachable sword, spear and shield. Ironically enough, the guard had similar coloring to how I remembered Shining Armor looking in the show.

It was a couple of days before the new year where I received a most unusual visitor once again…

“Hellooo? Hellooooo?” The Royal Guardspony Blazing Armor, a white furred unicorn with dark purple mane and tail, wandered through the apparently abandoned castle. He’d been heading back to Forgeston Fortress after spending a week of his vacation with his family in Frostbite Falls. He was one of the guards that had been assigned to this border fortress three years ago after his training in Canterlot was complete. He was a competent soldier, but was also young and inexperienced in any kind of actual combat. Of course, his training officer, Captain Swift Runner, had drilled into his head and the heads of all the other trainees that while a soldier or guard might hope for peace in their time, they should never lower their guard and always maintain vigilance and training.

Those words came back to his mind as Blazing wandered through the empty fortress. Everywhere he looked, he couldn’t see a sign of any struggle or a quick abandonment. In fact, it looked as if things were going on as normal. There was food in the soldier’s cafeteria, all warm still as if it was just served. He saw half written letters and reports in other areas of the castle, the quill pens dropped nearby.

“Is anypony here!? If this is a joke on the new guy, it isn’t funny anymore!” Blazing said, clutching his sword and shield close to him. All that he got in response was the sound of the wind from the cliffs surrounding the fortress.

He continued looking around, trying to find a sign of anything like a fight. However, he saw nothing. Even the prisoners in the small dungeon were gone, their trays of food all left half eaten. He figured then that this must have happened only an hour ago. As he wandered through the empty fortress, he thought back to noon. He had been on the road still with the fortress in sight, but he’d stopped to take a quick meal break. For the most part, his eyes had been locked on his home. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary. He hadn’t heard any strange sounds on the wind or seen anything unusual, which frustrated him all the more.

He walked down to the mage’s work station, hoping that Glittering Stone, the fortress’ resident magic expert, might have left some kind of clue. As he opened the door to her work place, the familiar smell of potions, incense and musty books. The entire place was dark save for a few candles lit on the table and a bright blue orb that hung from the ceiling. Her chair was pushed back as if she’d vanished while she’d been sitting there. There were a few books opened on the desk, which in itself wasn’t abnormal.

He moved over to look at the contents of the books on the table and frowned when he saw that the book on the left was just some botany book. The book in the center looked more promising since the title was Rain Song’s Potions, but he quickly remembered that the aforementioned pony had traveled to the zebra lands and studied their craft before returning. Nothing about those potions could have caused whatever happened. The same thing with the third book, which was another potion book.

Aside from that, he saw a stone bowl on the table with a dark purple liquid inside. Besides it there were a few vials of different colored potion bottles, each with the stoppers off. And that set off alarm bells in his head. He knew Glittering Stone well and knew that the moment she poured anything out of a vial, she would immediately close it. They had been set down, that he could tell based off of how they were in order of size in front of him, but the stoppers themselves were just sitting on the table in front of their various vials.

The door behind him was thrown open even more, slamming into the wall moments later. Whirling around, sword and shield at the ready, he prepared to face whatever was out there, but when he saw nothing, he slowly approached the door. Shaking, the poor guardspony looked out carefully, clutching his weapon tightly enough that his knuckles began getting white. However he saw nothing. Breathing a small sigh of relief, he began to pull the door shut, only to remember that the door was extremely heavy and thick. Not even the wind could move it like that.

He stopped, released the door handle and tried to act all casual as he ‘looked’ around the place once more. All the while he thought he could feel the presence of something inside the room with him. Forcing himself to relax was even more stressful for him than anything else. The place was deathly silent.

That was until something dripped onto his shoulder.

He froze, petrified. However, he remembered his training and let the tension out as he slowly moved his hand to his shoulder. He felt something slimy on his shoulder, which made him shudder involuntarily.

Taking the chance, he quickly looked up at the ceiling, where he saw-

“Vladímir, sweetie?”

I jumped in alarm at having my solo playtime interrupted. I was sitting in my room, my toy blocks set up to look similar to Minas Tirith. My toy doll, Blazing Armor, was in my hand and holding onto the sword and shield attachments. “Huh? Wha-? Oh, Sunny? What is it?” I asked as I put my toy down. It was snowing heavily outside, and that mixed with the winds left very few options for playing or practicing magic outside. Apparently the Canterlot and Ponyshire weather team had missed a couple snow days, so they were trying to make up for it with this blizzard. The city was closed for the most part, with posters having gone up suggesting that anyone going out should only do so when it was necessary.

It was Enede twenty ninth, only a few more days until the new year celebration. Since I had no friends at the orphanage I resorted to playing with my toys. It was a really fun distraction and helped stimulate my creative juices and kept me entertained since I didn’t want to give away that I could read at a higher level than I appeared.

“Sorry to interrupt your playtime, sweetie, but you have a visitor,” Sunny said. She looked a bit nervous now, fiddling with her fingers anxiously.

This was a red flag for me. Usually whenever I got a visitor she was never this nervous. She had been a bit nervous when Aura visited with a note from Celestia saying that she was my magic tutor, but afterwards she settled down. I put Blazing down and stood. “Who is it?” I asked.

“Um…you should see for yourself, sweetie,” Sunny said, pushing the door open. “They’re in the office, waiting for you.”

I raised an eyebrow as I stood. “Alright, I’m coming,” I said as I walked out of my room.

Sunny closed the door, then began walking down the hallway towards her office. I followed behind her, thinking about who the visitor could possibly be. Of course, the answer seemed pretty obvious, but I wondered what this particular pony wanted with me.

Sunny led me to her office, where I saw a tall pony with wings sitting in a chair near the fireplace. The pony was wearing a thick white cloak with some gold fringe, and there was a hood over their head. Sunny looked between me and the visitor. “Ah…well, I’ll take my leave,” she said, grabbing a key from the desk, quickly retreating and locking herself out of the office.

This just left me with the not so mysterious pony. I looked over at the hooded pony, crossed my arms, and dropped my childish persona. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Princess Celestia?”

The figure sitting at the fire slowly raised their hands to their hood and removed it, letting the rainbow colored mane and horn loose. She turned to me, her magenta eyes filled with a new sense of warmth. Not that she hadn’t shown genuine concern and warmth for me before, but this seemed different. “Vladímir, my young stallion, it’s been too long since we’ve seen each other. Or do you prefer the name Stephen?”

“Vladímir works for now,” I said.

She nodded and gestured for me to join her at the other chair. Curious as to her purpose here in seeing me, I walked up and sat, facing her smiling face. Unlike before, there seemed to be a joy there, a joy that didn’t seem to want to be restrained. “I’m so glad to see you again,” she said.

The way she said it was a bit worrying. Instinctively I moved away from her. “Um, same to you,” I said.

Noticing my frown, Celestia gave me a sheepish look. “Ah, forgive me. I guess you noticed that I’m more than glad to see you.”

“I did notice,” I said with a small smile. “I take it there’s a reason why you’re excited?”

Celestia nodded fast, then stopped, cleared her throat, and reached into a bag that was leaning against her chair. Reaching into it, she brought out a portfolio made out of some shiny black material, opened it and retrieved some papers from it. Then she lifted her horn and cast some sort of spell. Immediately the sound from the outside of the room went completely silent, even the sound of the wind against the window. She cleared her throat and looked at me. “How much did this entertainment show about mine or my sister’s past?”

“Nothing much,” I replied. “Only that you defeated the god of chaos using the Elements of Harmony, discovered the Tree of Harmony in the ravine next to Serene Castle, and the incident with Nightmare Moon.”

“That’s all you saw? Nothing about our family or our lives before becoming rulers of Equestria?” Celestia asked.

“There are comics and books that tell more, but people back on Earth debated a lot on whether those were canon or not, so it’s hard to say,” I explained.

“So you never heard about my brother?”

I froze. Wait, Celestia and Luna have a brother? I thought with surprise. “Um…I’ve never heard about you and Luna having a brother,” I admitted.

She grabbed a small portrait out of the bag and handed it to me. I took it gently and looked at it. The unicorn pony I saw looking back at me was a tall and handsome young looking stallion with a somewhat long and wavy blonde mane, dark brown eyes and a light cream colored coat of fur. Since it was a portrait that only went to his chest like most medieval looking portraits, I saw that this stallion was wearing a dark green coat that wouldn’t have looked out of place in said medieval times. There was a four pointed gold star with a circle around it on the left part of his chest. Written on the frame was one name: ECLIPSE.

Immediately I remembered what I’d heard Celestia say after I’d woken six months ago. Looking up at Celestia, I held up the portrait and handed it back to her. “This is your brother? Eclipse?”

She nodded sadly as she took the portrait back and put it back into her bag. “He was my youngest brother. I was the oldest, Luna was the middle child and Eclipse was the baby,” she explained. “He was pretty talented with magic like me and my sister, but he never seemed to want to pursue it as much. If he had, there’s a chance he would have become a prince of Equestria.” She sighed and looked up at the portrait of Canterlot directly above the fireplace. “He was rather wild as a foal, always getting into trouble and hurting himself whenever he spent time with his friends.”

“Aren’t all younger siblings like that?” I said in an attempt to make a joke.

Celestia giggled slightly. “Indeed they are. But he changed after he met a mare named Diamond Facet. He became instantly smitten with her and tried winning her over, but she wouldn’t have any of it once she saw who he was. The poor stallion was depressed for days. Mother and Father tried to reassure him but he was inconsolable. It wasn’t until Luna gave him a stern talking to that he really tried to change. The change was astounding, but it didn’t take place overnight. He had trouble trying to change. When he spoke to Diamond again, she rejected him again because she did not want a stallion who would change for her. She wanted a stallion who would change for himself only.”

“Ouch. Rejected twice by the same girl. That sucks,” I said.

“If I infer your meaning right, then yes, it did suck for him,” Celestia said with a sigh. “He reverted to his old self almost immediately and nearly got in trouble with the law. We had a family intervention for him and told him how his actions weren’t only hurting those around him, but himself as well. The poor stallion was in tears all the while and apologizing over and over again. Mother and Father also apologized because they blamed themselves for not giving him the attention he needed. After that, he slowly began trying to change once more, and a year later he was the kindest and most loving pony I’d met. That was when he met another mare named Lilac Love. I think you can guess what happened next.”

“He fell for her?” I asked.

She nodded. “Only this time, this Lilac gave him a chance. He courted her according to the traditions at the time, and two years after they started seeing each other my family and I were attending his wedding. I have never seen such a happy couple.” She smiled, looking as if she was watching a memory play in her mind’s eyes as she continued. “It wasn’t long after they were married that my sister and I became the Princesses of Equestria. We had Serene Castle built and invited Eclipse and his wife to join us. But he refused.”

“Really? How come?” I asked.

“He said that he wanted to live a normal life with his wife and foals,” Celestia replied. “He did say that he wasn’t cutting off contact with us, just that he wanted to live without the pressures of life in a palace. He had three foals, two older mares and a young stallion, just like our own family.” I saw a tear fall.

“Princess? Are you okay?” I asked.

She wiped her eyes with a handkerchief and sniffed. “Forgive me, I miss him so. Him and his wife and foals. But back to the topic at hand.” She pulled out a few old looking papers from the portfolio and lay them down on her lap. “Before he passed away, Eclipse asked us for a favor. He asked that we look after his family, and for eight hundred years we kept that promise. We kept tabs on them, making sure they were safe.”

I raised an eyebrow. I almost said that sort of thing was a bit excessive but bit my tongue. “I’m guessing something happened?”

“Indeed. Two things as a matter of fact. We lost track of one family after they disappeared suddenly,” she said. “After that, a group known as the Order of the Sun found the rest of my family and…and…” I could feel the air in the room get warmer as the fire flared up considerably. Her magenta eyes briefly flashed yellow.

“I get the picture,” I said in understanding.

She exhaled and the temperature returned to normal. “We tried finding that family who went missing, but they had vanished so completely that we couldn’t find them. I’d all but lost hope when I met you.”

I felt a chill go down my back at the immediate implications. “What are you saying?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

She held up a new batch of papers, these looking a lot newer than the others. “I played on a hunch. You look so much like Eclipse did at your age that I wanted to see if I was right. I searched for your mother’s origins, but until a week ago the ponies I had assigned to the case couldn’t find anything. Then, a week ago, we found something, an old arrest warrant for one Steel Vision in Stalliongrad for the assault and…well…”

“You can say it, Princess,” I said. “I’m older than I look, remember?”

“Right, forgive me,” she said, “sometimes it’s hard for me to remember that when I’m looking at you. Well, to put it bluntly, Steel Vision was arrested for the assault and rape of a young teenage mare from Stalliongrad. A mare named Golden Sparks.”

My eyes went wide. “Whoa, I’m a rape baby?”

Celestia gave me a sorrowful look. “It would seem so,” she said apologetically. “I am very sorry.”

“It’s alright,” I said softly before shaking my head and getting back on topic. “Just to be sure, though, it was the same Golden Sparks, right?” I asked.

“We double checked, and yes it was the same one,” Celestia said. “We traced her back to an old family who had been living in Stalliongrad for a few hundred years. Their roots were traced back to a family who moved there a little less than three hundred years ago. Half of them changed their names, but the other half kept it. The portraits of their ancestors matched the ones we have of them here.”

“Are you saying that you found my real family?” I asked.

“Yes, but we found them too late,” Celestia said. “Somepony else got to them first. They were all killed four years ago. All we found was an abandoned mansion and a will written by your grandfather that states that when Golden or any foal she bears comes of age, the entire property and its assets would be given to her or her foal. Meaning you, now, since there is nopony else left. You are the last of the family line.”

“And…Steel? What about him?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to know.

Celestia’s eyes darkened. “I had him executed.”

The way she said that sent more shivers down my spine. The look of pure revulsion on her face terrified me more than anything I’d ever seen on Earth or on Threia. “I see,” I said as calmly as I could. “So…if I’m reading into this right, I am a descendant of Eclipse?”

As quickly as it came, her eyes brightened and she turned to me. “Yes. Yes you are,” she said with that same happy look in her eyes. “You’re my nephew!” In a blur of motion, she stood and rushed to me, lifting me in her magic and wrapping her arms around me, holding me close in her admittedly warm embrace.

It was all happening so fast that I had to take the time to process just what was happening. I’m a nephew to the princess of all ponies? But the only pony who was related to Celestia was that Blueblood pony, right? Unless…wait, am I really Blueblood?! It would make sense since I look like him, but…seriously, what?!

Celestia put me down after a while. Seeing the shock on my face, she knelt and put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m…I’m sorry, I got a bit over excited,” she said sheepishly. “I’m just so relieved to have found a member of my family.”

“But Princess, I’m not exactly…well, I have the soul of a human inside me, for lack of a better word,” I said.

“That doesn’t matter to me,” she said warmly as she pulled me closer. “Pony or human, you’re family now. That’s all that matters.”

There was something in her voice that gave me all the reassurance I needed. I was still a bit nervous, but a lot of that seemed to vanish with her words and more vanished when she wrapped her arms around me. I actually hugged her back and we remained like that for a few minutes before I decided to ask, “So…what exactly does this mean now? Are you going to adopt me or something?”

Celestia nodded and released me once more. “Yes I will, but not right away. There are some things I need to take care of, but by next month I’ll have everything set up so that you can finally move into your new home in Canterlot Palace.”

I nodded. “Wow…it’s all happening so fast…” I said.

“I’m sorry about that,” Celestia said gently as she lifted my chin to face her, “but I promise that I will make this transition as easy as possible. That is…if you want to be?”

I was conflicted for a few seconds. After all, I still felt like an adult despite being a child currently. However, I realized that not only would I be living in a nicer place but more importantly I’d be close to my new friends and we could spend more time together. That, and it would be nice to have a family again, I thought. However, before I could answer, I had one burning question. “Before I answer, I have something to ask.”

“Go ahead,” Celestia said.

“I know that there’s a tradition of renaming orphans, so I was wondering what you’d rename me?”

Celestia took on a thoughtful look, then smiled after a few moments. “Renaming you would be essential, I think. I might have a good name for you. How does the name Blueblood sound?”