Rainbow Dash was an only child living in Cloudsdale with her parents. She loved to zip around recklessly, and would often get admonished for knocking things down or crashing into walls in her mad flights. "Be careful, honey! You'll hurt yourself if you keep this up!"
In an attempt to quell some of her energy and teach her how to fly more precisely, her tired parents sent her to a flight camp. She was small for her age, with striking multicolored hair and an attitude, so of course she attracted bullies, big colts who didn't like that a little filly was faster than them. She showed them, though, she showed them up, she beat them fair and square in a straight 100 meter fly track already.
So they moved on to a different target. A gangly yellow filly with puffy pink hair who Rainbow had seen struggle to get off the ground, who had such weak wing-flaps that she never placed in races. The colts advanced on her as she tried to reach a cloud-hoop, laughing and mocking, and the filly fell back to the cloud island, stammering, unable to defend herself.
Rainbow Dash wouldn't take this. She galloped to the filly's defense, put her small body between them and her. "Leave her alone!"
"Ooh, what're you gonna do, Rainbow Crash?" one of the bullies taunted, a cruel nickname she had been given for her tendancy to slam into things in her speed.
"Keep makin' fun of her and find out!"
"You think you're such a big shot?" The other one, Dumbbell, maybe, asked, wings flaring. "Why don't you prove it?"
Everyone knew Rainbow Dash was one of the fastest fliers at camp. It was purposeful, then, that Hoops and Dumbbell chose a course with tight turns and sharp corners, things that slowed her down, or could even cause her to wipe out. But Rainbow didn't back down from the challenge. She could do this. She could finally show up these bullies one final time.
The flag waved, signalling GO. Rainbow Dash shot off like a bullet, passing her competitors immediately. But the turns did slow her down, significantly. She swerved too late and slammed into a cloud pillar. She swerved too early and had to redirect herself. She was being passed by the others, but she knew she could make up the time at the last stretch of the race, a straight nosedive far below the camp and then all the way back up to the finish line.
She caught up to Hoops, unable to pass him until she dove. The wind rushed against her face so aggressively that she squeezed her eyes closed. There was pressure at her hooves and face as she flapped her wings faster and faster, and then something snapped like a string and she opened her eyes to a circular rainbow, flaring out into the air, sending shockwaves through the sky, propelling her ever faster towards the ground.
Another wave of something rippled through her, and then panic set in as she saw the grass below. She was going too fast. She couldn't pull up in time. She braked as hard as she could, her wings out to her sides, but it was too late.
Fluttershy had never been a particularly good flyer. She started flying late - her younger brother was in the air before she was - so her parents enrolled her in flight camp to hopefully improve her ability. And maybe to make a friend too, that wasn't just the toys she talked to.
Maybe she had made one. The rainbow-maned filly that had stood up for her, that was now standing on a strip of cloud, the starting line for a race.
Fluttershy held the flag in her mouth, trying to keep herself aloft with gentle wingbeats as the filly with a rainbow mane and two colts pawed at the clouds. Readying herself, she tossed her head, waving the checkered flag and signalling the start of the race. Immediately, three ponies whizzed past her, and her wings failed her. She tumbled downwards, trying to catch herself on unsteady feathers, trying to catch a breeze.
She wasn't falling full speed towards the ground, moreso fluttering downwards like a leaf, but she couldn't get enough strength under her wingbeats to get back to the clouds. She descended so far that eventually birds started flying past her, then a swarm of butterflies. They tickled her coat and delighted her with their many colors and gentle flaps. She laughed as they passed her by, following them, gliding all the way down into a forest.
Pinkie Pie grew up in a large family with three other sisters, Limestone, Maud, and Marble Pie. Her family valued hard work and dedication, as they lived on a rock farm. Rock farming was difficult work, and Pinkie often struggled to get her work done and would still be doing her chores by the time the rest of her family was indoors resting.
She couldn’t help it that she didn’t like rock farm work. She didn’t like the feel of the stony ground or the smell of dust, she would rather be inside coloring with her sisters or cooking with her mother or doing anything besides her chores. She liked to cook. She liked to eat, too. Her mother would tell her that the meals she made were cooked with love and that’s why they tasted so good, and Pinkie tried really hard to make things with love, too.
One day, she got particularly behind on her work, digging at the hard ground with her hooves while she could smell dinner from the farmhouse, and getting frustrated. She approached the door and opened it gingerly. Igneous Rock, her father, looked up from his rocking chair.
“Done your work, Pinkie Pie?”
“Can I finish the rest later? I want to help mama make dinner. I can finish the rest after dinner!”
“I don’t like you working after dark. Hurry and finish your chores now.”
Pinkie pouted, but closed the door and trotted back to her row of half-buried stones, looking up at the sky and trying to think of a daydream.
Applejack lived on Sweet Apple Acres, Ponyville’s best orchard, with her grandmother, older brother, and baby sister, but unlike Granny Smith and Big Macintosh, Applejack still didn’t have a cutie mark. She worked on the farm diligently, did everything she was told, loved the taste of the apples they grew there, didn’t know what else her destiny could possibly be.
A small seed of doubt festered in her. Could it be that this wasn’t her destiny? That it was somewhere else she was supposed to be?
Granny Smith told her she had family in Manehattan. Maybe she was meant to be a big city pony.
Reluctantly, Granny Smith allowed Applejack to visit them - they would have to hire help while she was gone, because one old lady and a colt couldn’t work the whole orchard on their lonesome, but she could go. Excitedly, Applejack set off for the city with a map and a dream.
It was the first time Applejack had been so far from home by herself, but she’d always been independent and competent. She could take the train by herself! She could even go to Manehattan by herself!
Manehattan was overwhelming, packed with more ponies than she’d ever seen, crammed with buildings and lights and skyscrapers, and it took her asking for directions from an annoyed pedestrian to finally find her Aunt and Uncle Orange’s place. They let her have her own room all to herself, with fancy curtains and decorations, and Aunt Orange brushed her hair smooth and washed it with fancy soap, but out the window the city noise continued all night, and she missed her little Apple family. She took up sewing, a hobby she’d learned from Granny Smith, to pass the time in her room with no chores to do.
Still, Applejack could feel that she would find her destiny here. There was something pulling at her about this place, she could feel it in her bones.
Rarity was a Ponyville filly, nopony fancy, but she had big dreams. She loved to paint her hooves and fuss her hair until it was curly and pretty, and she often looked up at the sky while she was walking, lost in thought until she bumped into someone.
She was brimming with ideas for what her special talent could be. She could be a manedresser, she could work at the Ponyville Spa that she loved to visit when her parents had the time to take her, she could be an artist or a designer or a doctor or a photographer or maybe even a powerful unicorn sorcerer who looked at the stars and saw prophecies!
There were infinite possibilities, and her parents encouraged her, telling her she could be anything she put her mind to. Rarity could be anypony she wanted to be.
She did have… a problem, though. One wrench in her flights of fancy. Maybe she couldn’t be a powerful unicorn sorcerer, because her magic didn’t work. Or, well, it did, but it didn’t do what she wanted. She could light her horn sure enough, whenever she wanted, but no matter how many books she read or magic tutors she was given, whenever she tried to cast a spell, nothing would happen. It baffled unicorns around her - if she was magicless, she wouldn’t be able to light her horn. Rarity’s horn was a glorified glowstick, only able to shine with magic that could never be cast.
Because of this, Rarity learned to do many things the ‘earth pony way’, writing and picking things up with her hooves. But her parents were still supportive, trying to research what could be up with their daughter, and encouraging her that even if she couldn’t use magic, she could still be anything she wanted to be.
Rarity thought this was a fine compromise. Even if ‘wizard’ was off the table, there were infinite other things to be.
Twilight Sparkle lived a happy life in Canterlot, the city of the Princess, with her parents and older brother. They were a perfect Canterlot family - a unicorn family, the daughter a scholar and the son a guard. Twilight was always invested in her books and magic, so her parents decided to enroll her in the prestigious School for Gifted Unicorns, overseen by Celestia herself.
Twilight idolized the princess, and was nervous for her entrance exam, but showed up all the same, trotting into the checker-floored room, shrinking under the gaze of the three testers, her parents watching from the sidelines as a dragon egg in a nest of hay was wheeled into the room.
A dragon egg. Twilight's heart pounded. She hadn't done as much research as she should have about dragons. The instruction on the side of the wheelbarrow said to crack it open. Hatch the egg.
So she took a deep breath and tried to summon her magic.
Nothing happened. It kept slipping away from her hold and fizzling out; she couldn't calm her nerves and focus, the testers stared her down impassively, she was out of breath, it was all going wrong -
Two things happened in one moment.
Rainbow Dash broke the sound barrier and performed a sonic rainboom that sent a shockwave and a rainbow across Equestria.
The shock of magic and light activated Twilight Sparkle’s magic in flash of raw power. Her eyes turned white and she saw into the future, a vision, a split second of a spell, and it burst from her horn involuntarily. A second ripple of magic echoed across the land like the Rainboom’s aftershock, so subtle nopony noticed it.
Six ponies got their cutie marks simultaneously, but something was different.
Rainbow Dash’s wings faltered. She couldn’t stop herself or pull up in time, and crashed into the forest below, trailing a streak of rainbow all the way down. Injured and stunned from the impact, she lay there completely silent, adrenaline still pumping through her.
Slowly, animals approached her still body, and she stared at them as they sat around her, seeking her body heat. Birds began to sing overhead, squirrels sniffed at her scraped hooves.
When the shock wore off, she began to cry from the pain of crashing - she was already bruising, and both her wings were twisted at odd angles, but the animals still stayed next to her despite the noise she was making, even pressing against her to comfort her. While she lay with them, sniffling, three butterflies appeared on her flank with a shimmer of white light.
A search party from Ponyville arrived, wondering why a rainbow was pointing into the nearby forest. When they found the injured filly, they took her to the Ponyville hospital immediately to patch her up, and contacted her parents about the incident.
Fluttershy giggled at the butterfly swarm as it passed her by, leading her to glide into Ponyville all the way down from Cloudsdale. When she put her hooves on the ground, a beautiful rainbow shone across the sky, and, already in a good mood from the tickly butterflies, laughed aloud from pure joy, not knowing Rainbow Dash had crashed. As she giggled, three balloons faded into her fur, calling her to her destiny.
The filly explored Ponyville for a while, stopping by a confectionery called Sugarcube Corner because of the balloons tied up near the entrance, wondering if it could be tied to her new cutie mark in some way. She tried a sample of their sweets and then asked them if they had a way of contacting her parents - She was definitely not a good enough flyer to get all the way back up to Cloudsdale. The owners - the Cakes were their names - told the filly to stay here while they told the weather pegasi that she had gotten lost.
Pinkie Pie was still staring up at the sky when she saw it - a rainbow that stretched across the whole sky, growing bigger and brighter; she went to call her family to come see it, but by the time she got to the door it had faded away. Filled with wonder, she finished her work as quickly as she could and then ran inside, brimming with feelings she couldn’t express with words. She told her sisters about the rainbow she had seen, but they didn’t understand just from a description.
She paced restlessly, needing to show them what it was like somehow, without words, and found herself walking around the kitchen that still smelled like dinner.
She leafed through her mother’s cookbook until she found a recipe, stayed in the kitchen until the oven finally dinged, and she brought the tray out to the living room to share with her family.
“Made with love,” she said as she placed the cupcakes down on the table, swirled with rainbow frosting. As she saw her family eat them and try to taste the beautiful sight, her heart filled with love her family, love for creating, love for good food that could bring people together, and three apples appeared with a flash on her flank. Pinkie and her sisters all got up and ran around in excitement, high on sugar, playing tag around the living room.
Applejack was staring out at the late afternoon sky when it appeared, shining multicolored in the blue, and suddenly felt a pull deep in her hooves and bones. She had to follow. It had to be her destiny. She ran out of the house and down the busy Manehattan street until she reached the city limits.
She ran until she reached a rocky gorge, and the tug in her hooves became stronger. She began to sense things deep in the earth, almost as if she could see the shining gemstones through the layers of sediment or hear them chime and twinkle, calling to her. She could feel everything under the ground. One boulder in the gorge called to her above the others, and she approached it, feeling her hooves nearly buzz.
This had to be it. She kicked the boulder and it split down the middle, revealing the crystalline blue geode inside. At the same moment, three blue gems sparkled onto her, emblazoned in her fur.
The walk back was slower - she had brought gemstones with her, and the whole time she walked she could feel things under the ground - caves and rocks and more gemstones and deposits of quartz or underground water - and kept getting distracted by them.
When she got home, she looked upon her stash of multicolored gems and recalled the rainbow she had seen. She could recreate it. She began sewing a hanging curtain using the gems, and hung it in her window to see the sun shine through them and create a sparkling display on the wall behind her.
Rarity was awestruck by the rainbow she witnessed appear in the sky. Involuntarily, her horn lit up, shining with blue light once again, but this time, she felt a pull in the base of her horn, and sparking at the tip, and she couldn’t get the magic to fade out and go away. The clouds above her started to swirl like a tornado, and the weather ponies were forced to land. Rarity cried out, not knowing what was happening to her as the wind kept picking up.
And then, the rainbow faded, and Rarity’s magic flickered away, and the sky grew still again. She heaved in a breath, suddenly exhausted. The weather ponies approached her, asked her what she’d done, and she had no answers for them, but their questions were cut off as a symbol appeared on her flank, a cloud with a tricolored lightning bolt streaking down.
It seemed that none of Rarity’s ideas for her destiny had come to pass. She had no idea what the mark on her even meant.
But she might be able to work with it.
Twilight Sparkle’s vision faded in an instant, but her horn was still crackling with magic. Nearly convulsing from the amount of magic she was harnessing, she blasted it towards the dragon egg and stumbled backwards, but still more was pouring from her. Purple magic swirled around the room, picking up the testers and transforming her parents into plants. The egg broke open and the dragon within it was supersized in an instant. She lifted herself off the ground, fear overtaking her as she couldn’t stop what was happening.
And then Celestia was there. The princess, in the room, seeing what she had done. The white alicorn placed a hoof on the filly’s shoulder, and seemed to suck out all the terror from Twilight’s body. Her magic faded. She loosed her hold on the testers, her parents, the dragon egg, and the room became normal once again.
“Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia began, looking down at the unicorn.
“I-I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean–”
“You have a very special gift,” the princess continued gently, her mane flowing like water. “I don’t think I’ve ever come across a unicorn with your raw ability.” She stared out the window at the sky, across Canterlot and down below it to the rest of Equestria, pondering what had happened. “But you need to learn to tame these abilities through focused study.”
“Huh?” Twilight stammered out.
“Twilight Sparkle, I’d like to make you my own personal protege here at the school.”
“Huh??” Twilight repeated, barely able to process the fact that the princess was here, talking to her in person, much less that she had just offered to tutor her personally.
“Well?” Celestia asked, a small smirk on her lips.
Twilight looked back at her parents, who nodded enthusiastically. “Yes!” she finally managed.
“One other thing, Twilight.”
“More?” the filly blurted out, tired from the exertion of the magic. The princess pointed with one shoed hoof at Twilight’s thigh, where a magenta star surrounded by white sparkles had appeared.
She really couldn’t believe the day she was having.
Rainbow Dash’s wings healed, but the doctors told her she would never fly as fast as she used to. This suited her just fine, as she developed serious anxiety of flying after her traumatic crash. She lived with her parents for a few more years, but Cloudsdale made her uneasy, and her cutiemark called to her - the animals weren’t here in the clouds.
So she moved to Ponyville, on the outskirts of town in an empty cottage, by the forest she’d fallen in, where the animals were. She kept her hooves firmly on the ground, and took care of the animals around her house. She bought as many books and encyclopedias on forest animals as she could get her hooves on, read voraciously about the woodland critters that she could communicate with.
She took care of all her animals, but formed a special bond with a green tortoise named Tank that she sometimes used as a headrest while she read, leaning on his shell as they cuddled on her couch together.
Rainbow Dash became a veterinarian, inspired by the doctors that had healed her, and with the ability to ask the animals what was wrong and her countless books on animal care, became a pretty damn good one at that. Eventually, word got around - the reclusive pegasus on the edge of town is who you go see if you’re having animal problems or need a petsitter.
Fluttershy loved Ponyville, and frequently asked her parents to take her there for little day-trips with her brother. She never really talked to anypony, but the residents still recognized the pink-haired filly whenever she visited, especially the Cakes, who would always offer her and her parents free samples whenever they stopped by Sugarcube Corner. Some of her happiest memories were days with her family in Ponyville, walking in the sun and smelling the flowers.
So when she decided to move out, she chose Ponyville as her destination, and contacted the Cakes, who had become almost like her aunt and uncle, asking if she could potentially have room and work at Sugarcube Corner until she found her true calling - the meaning of the balloons on her flanks still eluded her. The Cakes of course said yes, and Fluttershy made extra money on the side by foalsitting, because, as it turned out, Fluttershy was a very good foalsitter. Her social anxiety didn’t flare up around younger children, and she was able to keep them entertained and cared for for hours until their parents returned.
She felt fulfilled, like she’d never need anything more out of life, and then realized this was it - making ponies happy. That was what her talent was. When she told the Cakes, they told her about a birthday coming up that they were planning a party for at Sugarcube Corner, that she should show up and see if she would like to be an entertainer.
The prospect of being surrounded by so many ponies intimidated her, but she made it to the party, and, although she stuck close to the Cakes and awkwardly avoided other adults, the fillies and colts at the party were delighted by the balloon animals she made for them and happily played pin the tail on the pony with her. From then, the children of Ponyville began to adore the pegasus, despite their parents’ bemusement.
She can be found around Sugarcube Corner handing out little party favors or balloon animals to little ponies that ask for them, and always has a kind word to brighten their day along with it.
Pinkie Pie’s apple cutiemark surprised her parents - the rest of her family had rock-based marks - and surprised Pinkie, too, who expected maybe a pie or cupcake, something more generic related to the food she loved to make for her family. In an effort to try and find out what it meant, she retraced her hoofsteps. There were apple slices on the cupcake frosting, to represent the crisp blue of the cold sky she had seen the rainbow in.
She traced them to Sweet Apple Acres. The name rang a bell. Weren't their families related somewhere distantly? Or maybe the Apples and the Pies just had a long history of doing business with each other... it was something like that, some way their families were tied together. Baking confections wasn’t a particularly useful talent to have on a rock farm, so soon after, she moved to Ponyville, found Sweet Apple Acres, and apprenticed there. The family was more than happy to take her, to fill in for the absence of a filly named Applejack.
Granny Smith was chatty, and the baby foal was noisy, but Big Mac reminded her of her sisters, a serious, quiet, hard worker that she did farm chores with. Pinkie didn’t say much, but when she talked, ponies tended to listen. She had a surprisingly high-pitched, sweet voice that rang out like a bell. The Apple Family and their regular clients began to know her for her fair judgements and always speaking her mind. She had strong opinions and wasn’t afraid to share them, but tended to be right, or at least unbiased. She has grown into an amazing baker and of course, her favorite things to make are with apples.
Applejack continued to pursue her hobby of sewing, rather than give up on it to simply pursue gems like the three on her flank. Instead, she used her ability to sense gemstones to dig them up and incorporate them into the simple garments she had begun to make. When she finally made something of good enough quality to pass her Aunt Orange’s quality test and wear out on the town, a smooth dress with tiny gem fragments incorporated in to make the fabric shine like a night sky full of stars, ponies began to talk about the young filly’s talent and sense of style.
As Applejack grew in Manehattan, she became more conscious of the problems in her city, and began to make blankets and coats for the homeless or poor, to hand out on cold days to those in need. She also continued to make simple articles of clothing for herself and her aunt and uncle until Aunt Orange suggested she make a business out of it and sell the clothes she makes.
And so Applejack did just that. On the outskirts of Manehattan, near the mountains where she could go to find gems, she set up a small shop with funding from the Oranges and began to sell dresses embedded with small gemstones and gave out free blankets to anyone who asked, even if they seemed well off. She made enough money back, as her garments were rather expensive due to having crystals in them.
Every so often, she visits Sweet Apple Acres to see how her family are doing, and was surprised to find a strong pink pony with straight magenta hair filling in for her on the farm, getting along with Applejack’s siblings as if she were a part of the Apple family herself.
In Manehattan, she stays out of the limelight despite being a fairly popular and trendsetting designer, and truly does prefer her days in Ponyville, quiet and peaceful compared to the bustling city.
After the Rainboom, her magic got a jumpstart and it finally began to do things. Unfortunately, those things often got her in trouble.
It took a surprisingly long time to identify what was wrong with Rarity’s magic, what the matter was, when she would try to use magic outdoors and the weather would fluctuate, why the clouds would evaporate or it would start to snow in the middle of summer.
Rarity was born with pegasus magic, but no wings to channel it with. She was often admonished by the Ponyville weather team, who tried as best they could to teach her how to channel pegasus magic using her horn, and she got a better handle on how to manipulate the weather. She loved how the clouds looked, and would absently swirl them around in the sky when on duty. Although it caused strange patches of shade, people recognized and enjoyed the beautiful patterns and cloud structures that occurred when rarity controlled the skies. she still sometimes gets in trouble for big displays and so will almost always have a cloud or two floating around her she can absently shape into things, like a piece of clay. She will openly talk about her strange magic and how she had to learn her own way to cast ‘spells’, and a few studies have been done on her incorrect magic. She even met princess Celestia once. She works in Ponyville as a ‘weather pegasus’ and despite her difficulties, thinks she’s one of the most unique ponies in all of Equestria.
She could be anything she wanted, and she was indeed a Rarity.
Twilight Sparkle was Celestia’s prestigious apprentice, a powerful unicorn scholar… though you would be forgiven if you don’t know what she looked like. She never left her suite in Canterlot, a library filled to the brim with knowledge. She was always accompanied by a small purple dragon named Spike, the very same one she’d hatched in the entrance exam, and her only true friend aside from the Princess herself.
Twilight studied magic daily, working on refining her skills and gaining new information, but never doing anything more.
Her destiny was magic. The star on her flank reminded her of that fact.
But Celestia… seemed to disagree. She pushed Twilight to try new things, even though Twilight was happy where she was, almost like Celestia was trying to get Twilight a second cutiemark. Eventually, she urged her to move out of Canterlot. Twilight was shaken, fearing that the Princess didn’t want her anymore, but Celestia assured her that was not so, asking her to write letters.
And so Twilight traveled to the place Celestia had arranged for her to stay, a small town called Ponyville with an old library inside an old tree that was begging for a librarian to fix it up.
Twilight relished the task, getting to work as soon as she moved in, bringing her entire collection with her to add to the library as well. Her and Spike worked tirelessly to clean out the cobwebs and prune the branches and sort the shelves, and she eagerly wrote to Celestia that she had completely refurbished the library. Celestia responded, asking her if she’d met any of the residents yet. As if she was a foal that needed to say hello to the neighbors.
However, the neighbors seemed to come to her. Despite Twilight Sparkle’s attempts to ignore the knocks on the door, the ponies in this town seemed undeterred.
A few days into her stay, there was a knock at the door.
