Shifted Fates: Pilot

by Baroque

Rating: everyone
Tags: Other, Random, Discord, Pinkie Pie, Slice of Life, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Rainbow Dash, Comedy
Length: 2136

Equestria, but not quite as you remember it.

Ah Equestria, a wonderful land of friendship and harmony, where creatures live their lives in peace. A land filled to the brim with magic of various kinds. A land of... well, I think you get it by now.

We're all familiar with its story. From its founding by three bickering tribes all the way to its fall from grace by the hooves of a grumpy fire alicorn.

It seems like a greater force has decided to shake things up a bit. Change some things here and there. Move a couple characters over thataway, and some roles over thereaway.

Let's see what the results are, shall we?

Created based on the collection of characters from Utter Order by Tangerine Blast. You should read it!

This AU is my very first, with it predating Crucible Spark's, Tellus, and a few others I have yet to reveal to the world. This first installment is me testing the waters to see if it would fit better as an episodic series of one-shots or a proper multi-chapter story. I hope you enjoy!

Published 2024-10-22 16:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2024-10-22 16:20:01 UTC

Familiar Faces, Different Paths

In the main lounge room of Gilded Spruce Archives, a unicorn stallion could be seen pacing frantically pacing as he looked over a long list of items in his pale white magic.

The stallion was quite a bit lankier than most of his tribe. He had a grey coat, along with a black mane and tail with streaks of white.

Unlike other unicorns, his horn was colored differently to his coat. It was light blue and had slight curve to its length. On his muzzle were a pair of circular glasses, and below his chin was a goatee of the same color as his mane.

He wore a white, collared shirt with a brown coat upon it, all topped off with a purple and orange plaid bowtie around his neck.

Discord, the current bearer of the Mark of Change, personal student of the Princess of Wisdom, and intermediate chaos mage anxiously read through a list of things to prepare before the two ruling princesses of Equestria, Starlight Glimmer and Sunset Shimmer, arrived for a visit.

"Vacuumed the sofas? Check. Table all set? Check. Hot chocolate and coffee for the respective princess?"

He rushed over to the table at the center of the room and peeked into two thermoses. After seeing that both were filled with a sufficient amount of each drink, he crossed off another item off of his list.

"Check. Now all I need to do is-"

"Almost got it, Pinkie! Just a little more- woah!"

CRASH!

BOOM!

"Wow Rainbow! That was amazing!"

"That wasn't supposed to happen!"

Discord huffed, "Oh for the love of..."

The stallion stormed out of the room and made his way to the makeshift lab and workshop located in the basement. The smell of metal, welding fumes, and most recently, rocket fuel, became more apparent as he descended down the stairs.

Discord barged through the door, "Just what in Equestria are you two doing?! Can't you save these tests for later?!"

Two other individuals turned away from the charred remains what appeared to be the charred remains of a jet engine to see the newcomer.

Rainbow Dash, the brilliant yet brash engineer and inventor with eleven hard science PhDs to her name, took off her goggles and gave the mage an annoyed look.

"Yeah, yeah, we get it. 'The princesses are coming, we better not cause any trouble,' blah, blah, blah. You know they don't give a dang about decorum and stuff when it's us, right?"

Pinkie Pie, a metamorphosed changeling who had a pink carapace, light blue compound eyes, and a darker pink membranous mane nodded.

"Princess Sunset really likes Rainbow's machine-y thingies! I don't think they'd mind if we work on this while they're here!" she replied cheerfully.

Discord gave them a look, before rubbing his muzzle with a hoof and letting out a tired sigh.

"I knew she'd be a bad influence on you..." he muttered as he went back upstairs.

The mage looked back to them for moment, "At the very least, please come out when we're welcoming them."

"Okey-dokey-lokey!/Uh-huh."

After closing the door to the basement, he decided to see yet another one of his housemates. This specific housemate was probably the most unique out of the six of them.

Discord knocked on a door that lead to what should have been a solid wall.

"Twilight? Are you there? Your sisters are going to arrive soon!" he called out.

The mage felt a claw tapping on his withers and turned around to reveal the Princess of Knowledge in her full mismatched glory.

She was a creature that was referred to as a draconequus. A creature with the head of a pony, the tail of a dragon, and the body parts of pretty much everything else. Though as far as anypony knew, she was the only one of her kind, despite being directly related to the two alicorn princesses.

She truly was a wild mix of a variety of creatures. While her head did resemble that of a pony, her muzzle is just a few inches too long. Her body was elongated, just as long as her draconic tail, which gave her a rather serpentine form.

Upon her head were the horn of an ibex and an oryx on the right and left respectively. Moving down, her left arm was that of a woodpecker, and her right a dragon. Her legs appeared to be feline, with the right possessing tiger stripes, and the left possessing leopard spots. On her back were a pair of wings that seemed to belong to a griffon, with two hooked claws at the tip of its radius. The midsection of her body had bands like an armadillo, along with some plating connected to each band on her back. Her tail was long and covered by thick scales, and in the end had a row of the same hairs that made up her mane in the shape of a spade.

It didn't stop there. Protuding from her mouth was a small fang. Her eyes were mismatched, with one possessing a magenta iris around the pupil, while the other did not.

And everything was either a shade of purple, or darker purple.

Twilight Sparkle loomed over Discord with a set of books orbiting around her.

"You know you're taking this way too seriously, right? This is just an excuse for them to run off from their duties for a bit."

The mage scoffed, "Well, for you, maybe. Considering you're their sibling and all of that. But for a lowly civilian like me, having the rulers of the nation you live in come and visit your home seems like pretty big deal."

The draconequus rolled her eyes, "Fine. I'll be waiting near the door." she said before flying upwards through a wall with her books in tow.

"For a millennia-old princess, she can be quite a hooffull..." Discord grumbled before making his way to the entrance as well.

As he approached the entrance to the Archives, he saw his last two housemates sitting on a bench. One of them held a large book in his magic, while the other was listening intently.

It was Professor Grogar, a ram historian hailing from the distant nation of Tambelon, and his number one donkey assistant, Bray. The old ram seemed to be rambling on about some random subject he had read in the book to his assistant, who enjoys listening to his employer's long tangents.

The two looked up to the mage who had just arrived.

Grogar closed the book with a thud! and gently placed it into one of his bags on the floor.

"Ah, Discord my friend! All done with the preparations, I see."

Bray waved a hoof, "Hello, Mister Discord!"

The stallion nodded, "It's all perfect." he paused, "Well... as perfect as the lounge room could be for the princesses."

The assistant gave him a smile, "Aw, you don't need to worry too much! You know they don't mind it."

Grogar nodded in agreement, "Indeed. While they may be the ancient rulers of this nation, they are still merely ponies at the end of the day. I'm sure living the life of a ruler can get rather monotonous after a few thousand years."

Rainbow and Pinkie finally arrived as well, and the young inventor decided to continue the historian's argument.

"Yeah. Twilight said they're just visiting to take a breather after that whole incident with Sendak. I don't think making everything all fancy will help."

Off to the side, the chimeric princess dismissed her books with a snap of her digits and flew over to the group.

"You really do need to calm down, Discord. I know my sisters, and they definitely won't care wether everything is up to a standard or not."

Pinkie hopped over to her caretaker with a buzz of her wings and pulled him into a one-legged hug, "Don't worry, DD! Remember back in Canterlot, when Princess Starlight came by your lab?"

"Um, yes?"

"And she said she liked the 'lived-in vibe' it had? Despite everything being super messy?"

"I don't think I know what you're getting at, Pinkie."

The changeling giggled, "What I'm trying to say, is that they won't care if everything's perfect or not, silly!" she completed with a boop.

As Pinkie retracted her hoof, Discord saw the smiles his friends gave him. He looked towards the door for a moment before taking a calming breath.

"Alright, alright. I get it, I've been rather..."

"Stressed?" Grogar offered.

"Anxious?" Twilight suggested.

"Looney?" Rainbow added with a snicker.

The mage gave her a deadpan look and shook his head with a sigh.

"I know I've been rather pushy lately, and I would like to sincerely apologize for dragging you all along on this, hm, misguided endeavor of mine."

The Princess of Knowledge raised a claw, "Your concerns are justified. It's not everyday those two come by, especially to a place like this. Anycreature with at least a concept of etiquette would be pretty stressed if they knew their nation's leaders were visiting."

Discord shrugged, "I suppose-"

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, which was followed by it being slowly opened.

Not long after, the head of two ponies peeked inside, with one on top of the other.

Princesses Starlight and Sunset gave the group an amused smile as they saw the confused reactions given to them.

Starlight opened the door fully, allowing both royals to enter.

The Princess of Wisdom was quite a ways taller compared to her subjects. She had a light lilac coat with a flowing purple mane and tail with a single streak of cyan at the center. Wisps and sparks of magic could be seen moving through each strand. She wore silver regalia with a peytral and crown that held deep purple gems cut into the shape of four-pointed stars.

The Princess of Action stood proudly beside her sister. She was a few inches taller than her sibling, with a slightly more athletic build due to her role. She had a bright amber coat with a red mane and tail that had a yellow streak going right through the center. Compared to Starlight, both her mane and tail flowed more akin to fire, with wisps of her red magic emerging near the tips. She wore onyx colored regalia that appeared more like armor, with orange gems cut in the shape of the sun adorning her peytral and crown-helm.

"Hello there, everycreature! I'm so sorry for being so late. Somepony misplaced their shoes." Princess Starlight said while giving her sister a glare.

Princess Sunset rolled her eyes, "Whatever. We're here now, aren't we?" she turned to the unicorn stallion of the group, "So, you got any ideas on things to do, Discord?"

Rainbow flew up in front of her with an excited look on her face, "Oh! I've got a couple of new prototypes for V4.0!"

The Princess of Action seemed intrigued, "Really? Alright, lead the way, Dr. Dash."

The engineer blushed, "Don't... don't call me that, please."

Pinkie chuckled at her friend's predicament, "She gets all embarrassed when others call her with the title!"

The group of three continued to converse as they disappeared into the basement, leaving the rest behind.

Grogar pulled out his book and flipped through it before stopping and showing it to Princess Starlight.

"I believe Bray and I have discovered a way to decipher those ancient gargoyle kite schematics you gifted us, your highness. This could be revolutionary!"

Bray raised a hoof, "And we even made a few rough diagrams for the first three models!"

The Princess of Wisdom perked up, "That's great news! Maybe we can talk about it over a cup of hot cocoa?"

The historian nodded, "Oh, definitely! Let's go, princess. The lounge room is quite nearby."

As the second group departed, Discord was left alone with the Princess of Knowledge.

Twilight gave the mage a confident grin, "As I told you, everything will be just fine."

Discord returned his own smile and looked back at the direction the two groups left in.

"I suppose so."

Author's Note

This story is primarily filled with character descriptions, I know. But that's pretty much its main goal.

I'm setting up to see if the characters can be easily described through my writing, and it seems like most of them are pretty complete except for Twilight, I might post a blog post with a drawing of her in the future.

Do you think this AU works better as a series of random one-shots or as a multi-chapter story? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

Corrections and criticisms are more than welcome, I can't improve without those now, can I?
Have a good existence!
:)

"Remembered forever, the land of Equestria"