Forging Hope

Forging Hope

By Marching Thunder

Chapter 1

Canterlot

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In the deepest sanctum of Canterlot Castle, Princess Celestia sat before a series of massive tomes, tracking her way through a maze of lines that tracked out a path of a certain pony's family tree. The white alicorn's face was a study in concentration as she worked her way across page after page of genealogy, poorly kept by lax bureaucratic ponies.

“Why haven’t I ever forced a reform of this part of the government? Their record keeping truly is terrible...” she thought.

Eventually though, she found what she needed; the name and last known address of the only current descendent of a certain lavender unicorn who she had cared for oh so much. She and Luna had already located the other five ponies that were at the end of their family trees and made preparations to bring them to Canterlot.

She was brought out of her work by the gental click of the door to her chambers as they were opened to admit somepony entrance. Turning to look, she found the midnight blue form of her sister Luna waiting patiently to be acknowledged just inside the doorway. The look Celestia gave her was apparently enough acknowledgement as Luna began speaking.

"Any luck finding Twilight Sparkle's descendant, sister?" she asked.

"Yes, actually," Celestia replied warmly, her face assuming its standard poker mask as she continued speaking. "I just found her actually, her name is Midnight Dawn and she is still residing in Ponyvillie." At the very end of the sentence a small smile quirked the edges of Celestia's mouth.

At that statement, Luna cocked an eyebrow at her sister and dead panned, saying, "You're kidding... You're kidding, right? You're telling me Twilight's one and only descendent is your current protégée?"

"The very same," Celestia replied with a tired grin, "It would seem fate has a strange sense of synchronicity, little sister."

"So it would seem," Luna agreed with a nod before leaving.

Once her sister was gone Celestia thought about the day she had taken Midnight Dawn as her protégée. Ever since she had trained Twilight, Celestia had begun attending the tests of every unicorn entering her school of magic to select a protégée. While none she had seen were as strong as Twilight, many were still capable enough causing her to train them. The idea that a unicorn could come along like Twilight with the ability to do so much good and not reach their potential had worried her, which was why she looked for protégées. Sadly she only was able to find suitable candidates every sixty years or so, but that hadn't hurt exactly.

Then Midnight had come along.

She had as much raw power as Twilight Sparkle did and maybe more, but so little control the concept of 'practice' was foreign to her as even basic telekinesis went awry under her command.

Midnight's practical exam had been to grow a small tree rather than hatch a dragon because cooling relations between the dragons and ponies had lead to fewer eggs for exams.

In the end Midnight had had to grow a tree, and what a tree it was.

Despite her protests to not do so, she had taken the exam and tried to grow the tree from a mere seed. The spell began simple enough, but quickly went out of control, the tree that Midnight had been attempting to grow quickly sprouting and then spreading out like a weed as it subsumed the very stonework of the castle with Midnight's magic feeding it like a super powered fertilizer.

By the time Celestia had arrived, hardly a minute into the debacle, nearly the entire tower was gone, replaced by the tree that had consumed it. To it's credit the tree did not cause any real harm, instead it had replaced the stone, forming itself into a perfect organic replica of the tower.

Inside the Princess had found four frightened examiners, and Midnight pass out on the floor crying from having put out so much magical energy. When Midnight had recovered, Celestia had taken her as her new protégée and started the long process of training her.

Fourteen years later, Midnight had left Celestia tutelage with the Princess's blessing and traveled Equestria and abroad before coming to to live in the town of Ponyvillie.

When she thought more about it, Celestia couldn't help but chuckle, even if dark times were ahead, fate had a certain sense of irony to it. Satisfied she regained her composure and called for a guard.

Tomorrow the summons would go out and the six elements of Harmony would be gathered together.