An Earthling Earth Pony at Celestia's School of Magic: Year One

November 8th, 2058

I was doing my best to keep away from the windows and not look out them as the train sped down the track. Bright sat next to me, looking out eagerly, as did Summer, who was sitting directly across from him.

“Alright, students! We’ll be coming to our destination soon. Please, exit quickly and orderly when we arrive,” Sweetie Belle called out. “This train station isn’t like Ponyville’s, the Crystal Empire’s, or Manehatten’s. This is primarily a shipping station. We don’t want to be in the way of the workers as they try to load their good ls onto the train. Can anypony tell me what goods Mountainshade is known for?”

“Lumber?” a student from one of the other first year classes suggested.

Sweetie Belle shook her head. “I can see where you would think that, but these woods are actually protected. Anypony else have any ideas?”

“Glowmoss,” Hannah said confidently.

Sweetie Belle smiled. “That is indeed one of the major exports. There are two more. Anypony else?”

“Iron and high-quality gemstones,” Hail said.

“Iron is indeed one, but the gemstones here are normally low quality—not something that would be in demand,” Sweetie Belle replied. “Can anypony come up with the third?”

Quiet stretched out over several seconds. Apparently nobody knew what the third export could be.

“The answer is marble,” Sweetie Belle informed us.

“What’s glowmoss?” I whispered to Hannah.

“Exactly what you think it is with that name. It is moss that glows in the dark,” Hannah explained. “People like to use it in street lights since it is more efficient than someone coming out and lighting each light individually and Equestria doesn’t have an electric power grid to support electric street lights. Some people also use it to light there home, as an alternative to candles or lanterns. It comes in a variety of colors. You can keep it alive in most conditions, but to get it to grow in the first place you have to grow it somewhere without sunlight—sunlight stunts its growth. I’m guessing glowmoss farming is pretty profitable.”

“Oh,” I replied. The explanation made sense.

Sunlight suddenly flooded through the windows, despite it being close to sunset. I rushed a look and was relieved to see that we had exited the forest. We were slowing down as we entered a town with a large mountain in the background. The buildings were all plain stone with windows and doors chiseled out. Moss grew around the windowsills and doorways, encircling each one. The area was fairly hilly, and the majority of the buildings looked like they were regular houses with small gardens growing on the hills beside them. There were a few larger buildings close to the train station that I guessed with warehouses. The roads were all paved and there were even paved walkways going up to each house. A larger road cut straight through the middle of the town towards the mountain.

“This is supposed to be a city?” Prim asked in disbelief. “This hovel barely qualifies as a village. It is just a few scant houses.”

“This is the outskirts,” Sweetie Belle informed her. “The primary city is in the mountain.”

In the mountain, not on the mountain?

“We have to go into some dirty and dank cave?!” Prim asked in disbelief.

Sweetie Belle scowled. “Please do not voice such opinions to any of the residents here. That would be ride and give our school a bad reputation with the locals. This is the largest city between Canterlot and the Crystal Empire. Almost eight thousand ponies call this place home. You may find that it is a lot more pleasant than a dirty and dank cave.”

“Yes, dear sister. It is best not to insult potential future business partners,” Red said.

The train came to a stop and Scootaloo stood up. “Okay, everypony, let’s get moving. We don’t want to miss the sunset!”

What was special about the sunset?

We all carefully left our seats, grabbed our saddlebags, and walked single file to the exit doors. When we got outside there were plenty of earth ponies moving wagon cargo to the back cars of the train. Most of the wagons had sealed crates, but there were a few metal wagons that were hauling large blocks of stone. The train dock was large, larger than even Ponyville or Canterlot’s, so we weren’t really in their way.

We all milled snout once we were off the train, with no immediate direction from the CMC founders. What were we-

The sun set behind the tree line, and there was an immediate change in the environment. Along the sides of each paved area, moss started to glow with a soft blue light. Around each windowsill and doorway the moss lit up in a variety of colors. Every color of the rainbow was represented in the moss. I saw one house that actually had six different colors around their doorway, making a rainbow. There were even a few garden areas that were ringed by the moss.

“Wow, that’s pretty,” Summer breathed.

“Yes, maybe,” Prim said grudgingly. “In a quaint, rural, sort of way.”

Sweetie Belle walked a short distance onto the main path and turned and looked at us. “There we are. We can see the glowmoss in full effect. It gives a certain charm to this area, especially since they don’t bottle it like it normally would when we see it in our street lights. I think it gives off a much more dramatic effect this way. Now that we’ve seen that, we can make our way to the mountain and find our lodgings.”

Applebloom stepped up next to her and looked back at us. “Follow close!”

We walked down the main road going towards the mountain. There were a surprising number of earth ponies going about their days, despite it being after sundown. The road to the mountain was broad, and we had to all step to one side more than once as earth ponies pulled heavy looking wagons loaded with crates or stone towards the warehouses near the train station. Ponies were active at their houses, tending their hillside gardens, watering the moss that adorned their doorways and windowsills, talking with neighbors, and we even passed a bunch of younger foals playing ball. There were also ponies with saddlebags going to and from the mountain along the same path as us, and those returning always seemed to have plenty of groceries in their bags. They were polite and friendly, greeting us as we passed or waving, although none stopped to speak with our teachers. It felt very odd seeing so many ponies up and about after sundown. Anywhere else you would see some, but most ponies tended to retreat home after dark, aside from the nocturnal tribe who were so few in number that you rarely saw them anyway. We hadn’t seen any of that web-winged tribe as of yet, despite this supposedly being their largest settlement.

As we got close the mountain, the road opened up into a large plaza. There were earth ponies setting up stalls. Just now setting up stalls? It seemed like it would be time for them to closing down their stalls for the day.

At the end of the plaza was a massive entrance into the mountain. There were mining tracks that exited out the sides of the mountain next to it, and ponies unloading the contents onto carts. There must have been fires burning somewhere just inside the entrance because I could see flicker of the light. The most striking thing were two massive statues that stood just outside the entrance. There was a statue of Celestia and a statue of Luna but unlike any statues of them I had ever seen. The statues’ bases were covered with moss—a midnight blue moss for Luna’s and a bright golden moss for Celestia’s. That wasn’t the most striking thing about them. Both statues depicted the princesses in full battle armor, and both seemed to be snarling down towards those who were going to pass through the mountain entrance.

Sweetie Belle signaled us to stop.

“As you can see, ponies here work on a very different schedule,” Sweetie Belle said with a grin. “This is first and foremost a night pony settlement, and their day is just beginning. Some of them may be coming out very soon to frequent the market here, assist with transport of goods, or just visit friends. The earth ponies don’t have a full nocturnal schedule, but the do tend to begin and end their days much later. The two tribes work in concert to mine the mountain for resources and grow the highly valuable glowmoss.”

“What’s with the statues?” a student from one of the other first year classes asked. “The princesses look so mean.”

Sweetie Belle frowned at the towering statues. “This settlement doesn’t date back that far, but this entire region was once the Kingdom of the Night. The only capital ruins are only a short distance from here, and are currently being…well, they are try to make them habitable again, though that is a big undertaking that may take generations and only recently started. The Kingdom of the Night was conquered by Equestria after a terrible and bloody war, and the natives likewise see the princesses as conquerors, not the peace-loving ponies we know and love. Those statues reflect the princesses the night ponies ancestors knew, the ponies that mercilessly put most of their population to the sword.”

“The princesses would never do such a thing!” another student cried out.

Sweetie Belle shook her head. “It was a long time ago. The Kingdom of the Night started that war, but they underestimated the capabilities of our princesses to defend their subjects and take the war to the night ponies. The old night pony mobility was proud and arrogant and refused to surrender, and the common pony living on the area only understood that they were being invaded and they needed to defend their homes. If none of you is very familiar with night ponies, one thing you should learn is that they are fighters, and they can and will lay down their lives to protect others. They didn’t understand the meaning of the word surrender back then, even when it was clear they were hopelessly outmatched. It was a slaughter.”

“The princesses would never do that,” the student insisted.

Sweetie Belle sighed and hung her head. “I’m sorry, but it is true. In the old capital thousands upon thousands of bodies still litter the ground where they fell in combat, skeletons at least, even after all this time. The old capital isn’t just a huge complex of underground buildings, it is effectively a tomb. For a long time, ponies couldn’t even safely enter the capital, because the collective mind magic of the fallen night ponies created something dark and evil that roamed those halls. It was finally conquered some moons ago, but ponies still fear going there. If you are unsure what to do when you graduate and want to earn some good money, the excavation lead is always hiring help…although most end up quitting the job after a single season. The work of reassembling the skeletons and trying to identify them for final burial is ghastly and morbid. I did a single-season tour as a worker for the excavation; I’ve seen what is there. I will never go back down there; it is too horrible.”

Not exactly a great endorsement for the excavation efforts.

“The history of the War of the Night will be taught in your history class, even if you did not learn it in primary school, and the previous administration did not teach about it,” Sweetie Belle announced. “There were no good guys in that war, only villains, victims, and those that tried to do their best in a complex situation where there were no positive outcomes. We say that the future will be filled with situations we’ll have to make hard choices, but there were situations in the past that we have collectively chosen to forget where we also had to make hard choices. Whether we made the right or wrong ones is worth debating. We need to study that history all the more now so we can learn from it and do better.”

I looked at the statues again. On a second viewing, maybe they didn’t seem so much protectors, but more like monsters standing watch outside the city. Was that how the night ponies view led the princesses? Were the princesses monsters always watching them for any sign of wrongdoing? Did the night ponies expect any misdeed would bring down the wrath of Celestia and Luna? Were the statues a warning to the night ponies and not anyone visiting?

“I’m starting to understand why you kirin hid rather than risk the same thing happening to them,” Hannah whispered to Summer. Summer said nothing. She just gulped as she stared at the statues. The other students all shared looks of unease as they gazed at the frightening depictions of their benevolent rulers.

While our teachers let this all sink in, the night pony locals started to emerge from the mountain. Most seemed to be carrying saddlebags l, and a few paused briefly to look at us, follow our gaze, then quickly divert their eyes from the statues. These ponies had to pass between those statues every day, and they didn’t even seem to want to look at them.

While most of the night ponies that emerged from the mountain were various dark shades of fur, one emerged who was pearly white with a pink mane. She instantly caught everyone in the class’s attention since a night pony who had so bright of coloring was an extreme oddity. She looked at our class before smiling and waving.

“Welcome to Mountainshade!” the mare loudly greeted us. “Please, come under the mountain and see the bounties of those who never abandoned their mountain home!”

Sweetie Belle gave the mare a short bow before standing up straight. “Greetings, Lorekeeper of the Mountain. I feel as if my students are in for a bit of a culture shock. Try not to yell them too many scary stories.”

The mare laughed out loud. “Not too many, but just enough. Come! We recently opened our second proper hotel since you were here last, much bigger than the first that you stayed at, and we have rooms ready for all of you there. We hope you give it a good review as we continue to try to open our doors to the rest of Equestria.” She suddenly seemed to notice Summer. “What’s this? An antlered one?”

“A kirin,” Sweetie Belle explained. “Those of you secluded to the mountain may not be familiar with them. Back when the antler tribe still existed, before the unicorns split off from it, a portion of the tribe was caught in Grogar’s wild magic along with some dragons, so the kirin tribe was born, fully pony and fully dragon.”

The mare looked at Summer with consideration. “The fusion of creatures during that era is well-known, for we still must deal with the terrors of chimera, manticores, bugbears, timberwolves, changelings, and more that long ago drove us from the primordial plains to safety of the ancient mountains. It is not shocking that ponies were caught up in the magic as well, as we were already changed many times over by the magic of that era, hence the formation of our many ancestral tribes from the proto-ponies that came before. We even have long suspected that changelings were an early such fusion of ponies and insects, though we do not know if it is true. (our kind didn’t do any record keeping back then beyond what was spoken back in those days, and long memories of the past could be forgotten in a monster’s stomach if the wrong pony fell prey to them. Perhaps our ancestors knew of kirin, but we have long since forgotten. Still, we bid you welcome, lost cousin of antler tribe descent. I hope your closer cousins, the unicorns, treat you well.”

Summer blinked. “Um, thank you, Miss Lorekeeper, ma’am. You seem to know a lot about really old history.”

The mare laughed again. “Not as much as I would like. I am merely the keeper of our oral tradition, and oral history tends to get fudgy on the details. It is like speaking of a dream. There is a sense of what happened, but you never can be fully sure. Still, it is our heritage, and being perfect about the details is not as important as maintaining the memory. We remember much the other tribes have forgotten because we don’t bother with the specifics. Just like a dream, details are easy to forget. Focus on specifics too much and you may forget it all.”

Comparing things to dreams, that sounded pretty standard night-ponish to me, even if this pony looked a bit different than was typical of that tribe. They might have given her the position she held just because she stood out so much. What would that have been like, being marked from birth to be special just because of the color of your fur? Did she accept it or resent it? Maybe I was speculating too much and it wasn’t like that at all.

Scootaloo signaled us with a wing. “Let’s get moving. I’m ready for a good meal after that long train ride.”