Equinityby Ice StarChaptersTruth and Lies / Luna and CelestiaRuling / RoilingDancer / WatcherChampion / CharlatanTruth and Lies / Luna and Celestia Truth All is rotting All is crumbling Do you feel trembling? All has fallen The light is out The Pariah lives on as a hanged mare in the sky Luna When you look, Why do you choose down upon ponies, Where you see nothing but the dirt where you have fallen? Yet you have the nerve to ask, Why I look above, Where I can see all, and be alone together with the stars. Celestia Over and over a mortal is born Again and again a mortal has died Time after time (for all of them, such standard response, nearly automatic) Yet in your name, how many tears have I dried? (a single name, stricken from history, a dusty antique of a memory in my heart's attic) Lies Composed, she dons her mask Expendable is her own welfare Losing a battle within herself Expectations of any return smashed Smiling forever after Trying to fill the emptiness In denial, as always Abhorred by her own actions and the truth Cannot bear to tell any truth Acknowledge it, even No longer believes in the Harmony that she preaches Can't bear to remember any longer Hollow beneath her eternal costume Altering conventions little by little, in her forgotten name Never wanted to hurt her sister so Grooms each Faithful Student for a single empty purpose Even though it is only to reassure herself Author's Note [Revised for print on 12/20/2020] Ruling / Roiling Ruling How many more poems have to be written about a night only one remembers happening? When will the exhaustion supersede her eternal memory's power and ease the feeling that it was all last night? Can a life still be called endurance when it is without any living and merely masked suffering? How long must that pure exhaustion bloom beneath the skin until numbness sets in and truly lasts? Is living meant to gallop out of sight while the clarity of being back there again loops endlessly exponentially? When do the midnights staring at the ceiling and aching cocooned in covers become something that could bring the roof down? Roiling Consider the buffalo, who were 'civilized' at the orders of a sun in an enchanted forest Ever-driven to expand the young kingdom that she could have shared in the aftermath of war and chaos Lost were all protests to these actions, even when they came from somepony driven to silence and shadows Enough fights were had over the buffalo for sunshine to stir accusations of treason lurking within the stars Suggesting that she would deflect to an un-equine race instead of aligning with herself with The mortal species that neither was ever part of, but the eldest pretended to be among In the end, the younger was reviled without any in her defense, all her art and choices derided like smashed ornaments And this expansion came at a cost to the ponies governed by gods Bringing artists, veterans, mules, orphans, widows, and all other outcasts lower with the Ringing in of the call to imperialism in the hot summer lands Overturning buffalo ways of life nearly as old as the sisters' godly true kind Killing pony soldiers and buffalo braves alike in battles that Expanded the ranks of only souls without a defender Until some of the very last discussions they ever had were nothing but Sunlight blinded into questioning whether the darkness had any room for equinity And all this time I will be left with naught but a mind turned to examine itself and Lingering thoughts about whether there had ever been a time where Love between sisters truly lasted Dancer / Watcher Rain loosening her mane She jumps alone and splashes a whole mess of mud to wear in patches for her dance with steps meant for every puddle to squash each bit of grass stir every flower and throw her laughter past her fuzzy blue body and little wings so the sky can see her smile that dwarfs the moon but when the storm ends She will scoop up all her wonder and all her laughter to keep inside until it rains again because this little dancer is a flower that blooms best in her own way As the pitter-patter makes all mud splatter she dares not leave the shade offered to her by the branches of her tough perch knowing that below is a sea of muck in which her sister dances Refusing to risk sniffles, dirt, and mud caked into her mane of the softest pink she shivers and squeaks hugging her fluffy body to the tree's bark feeling rather mature and just a bit chilly when the rain passes she knows there will be flowers waiting just for her but for now she is the watcher above something that gives her a familiar feeling Author's Note Author's note copied over from original anthology version: This one is based off of a quote I've seen around before, and one I like quite a bit, as well as two recent pieces of filly Luna and Tia art I felt fit how I envisioned them exactly: Luna is quiet, shyer, and looks like there's something on her mind. Celestia is as elegant as a child can manage and tries her best to look pretty and be graceful. Also hecking loves flowers. Champion / CharlatanWho supports the sun? Shining soldiers marching to war whooping and filled with laughter always eager to guard villages and head to battle, never thinking of after Farmers bucking apple trees with great haste ready to tell you their pedigree goes back to the three tribes without haste Settlers plowing up old buffalo burial grounds always ready to kick at the strangest sounds Herders of sheep selling wool at the market for cheap All the many laborers who do not know green from blue Foals who eat three meals a day and always have time to play Mages in stone towers teaching the approved magic the ones who frown when you ask a question, considering it tragic The weather-making pegasi crafting each cloud to fill a row and who are quick to bed once the sky has lost its sunny glow The pony whose ambitions consist of blood family and would never stray from the wants of the community Anypony and everypony who keeps to the law without doubt who stick to their species and all else in the Equestrian way, never to act out Those are the ponies that see the sun goddess as their champion the ones who hold kotowing to the majority are the way to make a halcyon Who supports the night? Battered veterans whose ailments are regarded as vexing and unsightly who pray for the souls of those who are forgotten when the stars shine brightly The rogue apothecary who tends to the crippled and nervous with glee only to never demand a fee Newcomer ponies and other species alike from the lands to the south who hold dear the foreign words that come out of their mouth Buffalo mourning more than lost land and pains of the soul who read stars and fires as they shelter their calves from ponies so cruel Sheep and cows that cannot voice a want to be more than a pony's tenant while in their dreams, they bring to life stories of roaming the continent The artist whose passion is to go against the grain and is reviled as gloomy and a freak for capturing all the colors of the rain Foals who know they are not loved by anypony far or near and all of those mortals, young or old, whose way of being is deemed too queer Prodigies in magic whose gifts are pure curiosity, unusual and whose talent shines while untaught and who are feared and shunned for this, finding their relationships with others are fraught The blind little filly high in the clouds who pioneered unique snowflakes with love and care for everycreature who held to quality over quantity, everywhere Those who dream of families not bound by either blood, lust, or convention and whose ideas of love are a more awe-inspiring invention Everycreature who has ever found themselves alone against a crowd for speaking the truth and for their bravery, being, or form were deemed uncouth Those who know that good and the law are not always on the same side and for their innocent peculiarities are forced to hide Everycreature whose only crime is not being like all others wishes that they could call the night the mother of all mothers For those who are without the language to say that equinity is not skin-deep but is defined by what is underneath the silent and shadowy goddess next to the princess-regnant represents an unarticulated hiraeth In this age long-forgotten when any slight suggestion to consider the night and those like her was partisan hooves were quick to point at the dissent — goddess or mortal — and deem them society's charlatan
Truth and Lies / Luna and Celestia Truth All is rotting All is crumbling Do you feel trembling? All has fallen The light is out The Pariah lives on as a hanged mare in the sky Luna When you look, Why do you choose down upon ponies, Where you see nothing but the dirt where you have fallen? Yet you have the nerve to ask, Why I look above, Where I can see all, and be alone together with the stars. Celestia Over and over a mortal is born Again and again a mortal has died Time after time (for all of them, such standard response, nearly automatic) Yet in your name, how many tears have I dried? (a single name, stricken from history, a dusty antique of a memory in my heart's attic) Lies Composed, she dons her mask Expendable is her own welfare Losing a battle within herself Expectations of any return smashed Smiling forever after Trying to fill the emptiness In denial, as always Abhorred by her own actions and the truth Cannot bear to tell any truth Acknowledge it, even No longer believes in the Harmony that she preaches Can't bear to remember any longer Hollow beneath her eternal costume Altering conventions little by little, in her forgotten name Never wanted to hurt her sister so Grooms each Faithful Student for a single empty purpose Even though it is only to reassure herself Author's Note [Revised for print on 12/20/2020]
Ruling / Roiling Ruling How many more poems have to be written about a night only one remembers happening? When will the exhaustion supersede her eternal memory's power and ease the feeling that it was all last night? Can a life still be called endurance when it is without any living and merely masked suffering? How long must that pure exhaustion bloom beneath the skin until numbness sets in and truly lasts? Is living meant to gallop out of sight while the clarity of being back there again loops endlessly exponentially? When do the midnights staring at the ceiling and aching cocooned in covers become something that could bring the roof down? Roiling Consider the buffalo, who were 'civilized' at the orders of a sun in an enchanted forest Ever-driven to expand the young kingdom that she could have shared in the aftermath of war and chaos Lost were all protests to these actions, even when they came from somepony driven to silence and shadows Enough fights were had over the buffalo for sunshine to stir accusations of treason lurking within the stars Suggesting that she would deflect to an un-equine race instead of aligning with herself with The mortal species that neither was ever part of, but the eldest pretended to be among In the end, the younger was reviled without any in her defense, all her art and choices derided like smashed ornaments And this expansion came at a cost to the ponies governed by gods Bringing artists, veterans, mules, orphans, widows, and all other outcasts lower with the Ringing in of the call to imperialism in the hot summer lands Overturning buffalo ways of life nearly as old as the sisters' godly true kind Killing pony soldiers and buffalo braves alike in battles that Expanded the ranks of only souls without a defender Until some of the very last discussions they ever had were nothing but Sunlight blinded into questioning whether the darkness had any room for equinity And all this time I will be left with naught but a mind turned to examine itself and Lingering thoughts about whether there had ever been a time where Love between sisters truly lasted
Dancer / Watcher Rain loosening her mane She jumps alone and splashes a whole mess of mud to wear in patches for her dance with steps meant for every puddle to squash each bit of grass stir every flower and throw her laughter past her fuzzy blue body and little wings so the sky can see her smile that dwarfs the moon but when the storm ends She will scoop up all her wonder and all her laughter to keep inside until it rains again because this little dancer is a flower that blooms best in her own way As the pitter-patter makes all mud splatter she dares not leave the shade offered to her by the branches of her tough perch knowing that below is a sea of muck in which her sister dances Refusing to risk sniffles, dirt, and mud caked into her mane of the softest pink she shivers and squeaks hugging her fluffy body to the tree's bark feeling rather mature and just a bit chilly when the rain passes she knows there will be flowers waiting just for her but for now she is the watcher above something that gives her a familiar feeling Author's Note Author's note copied over from original anthology version: This one is based off of a quote I've seen around before, and one I like quite a bit, as well as two recent pieces of filly Luna and Tia art I felt fit how I envisioned them exactly: Luna is quiet, shyer, and looks like there's something on her mind. Celestia is as elegant as a child can manage and tries her best to look pretty and be graceful. Also hecking loves flowers.
Champion / CharlatanWho supports the sun? Shining soldiers marching to war whooping and filled with laughter always eager to guard villages and head to battle, never thinking of after Farmers bucking apple trees with great haste ready to tell you their pedigree goes back to the three tribes without haste Settlers plowing up old buffalo burial grounds always ready to kick at the strangest sounds Herders of sheep selling wool at the market for cheap All the many laborers who do not know green from blue Foals who eat three meals a day and always have time to play Mages in stone towers teaching the approved magic the ones who frown when you ask a question, considering it tragic The weather-making pegasi crafting each cloud to fill a row and who are quick to bed once the sky has lost its sunny glow The pony whose ambitions consist of blood family and would never stray from the wants of the community Anypony and everypony who keeps to the law without doubt who stick to their species and all else in the Equestrian way, never to act out Those are the ponies that see the sun goddess as their champion the ones who hold kotowing to the majority are the way to make a halcyon Who supports the night? Battered veterans whose ailments are regarded as vexing and unsightly who pray for the souls of those who are forgotten when the stars shine brightly The rogue apothecary who tends to the crippled and nervous with glee only to never demand a fee Newcomer ponies and other species alike from the lands to the south who hold dear the foreign words that come out of their mouth Buffalo mourning more than lost land and pains of the soul who read stars and fires as they shelter their calves from ponies so cruel Sheep and cows that cannot voice a want to be more than a pony's tenant while in their dreams, they bring to life stories of roaming the continent The artist whose passion is to go against the grain and is reviled as gloomy and a freak for capturing all the colors of the rain Foals who know they are not loved by anypony far or near and all of those mortals, young or old, whose way of being is deemed too queer Prodigies in magic whose gifts are pure curiosity, unusual and whose talent shines while untaught and who are feared and shunned for this, finding their relationships with others are fraught The blind little filly high in the clouds who pioneered unique snowflakes with love and care for everycreature who held to quality over quantity, everywhere Those who dream of families not bound by either blood, lust, or convention and whose ideas of love are a more awe-inspiring invention Everycreature who has ever found themselves alone against a crowd for speaking the truth and for their bravery, being, or form were deemed uncouth Those who know that good and the law are not always on the same side and for their innocent peculiarities are forced to hide Everycreature whose only crime is not being like all others wishes that they could call the night the mother of all mothers For those who are without the language to say that equinity is not skin-deep but is defined by what is underneath the silent and shadowy goddess next to the princess-regnant represents an unarticulated hiraeth In this age long-forgotten when any slight suggestion to consider the night and those like her was partisan hooves were quick to point at the dissent — goddess or mortal — and deem them society's charlatan
