Equestria Divided: Split Melodies

Chapter 1, Prologue

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15 YEARS PRIOR…

Equestria lost her rulers. Nopony knows how, and no creature knows why. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna just appeared to have vanished without a trace that day. Because it happened during the day, and because the princesses used to control the sun and the moon, the night didn't fall that evening. Equestria was stuck in a permanent noon. If nothing was to be done, the land would dry and burn, slowly killing the ponies and other creatures from thirst and overbearing heat.

The six bearers of the Elements of Harmony—Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy—had a meeting in Canterlot Castle. The objective was to solve all the issues that came with the princesses’ disappearance, including how the celestial bodies would regain their cycle and who would rule the land. That meeting lasted over 72 hours including a few short breaks to sleep, which would have equated to 3 whole days, but they had stopped counting the days by that point.

At first, there was a lot of panic in the meeting room, and a lot of chaos. Despite Twilight and Applejack's best efforts to calm their friends’ nerves, they were less and less able to bring back order as the hours passed, as they themselves were losing hope. Rarity fought hard not to faint and Fluttershy was whimpering in tears. The only pony who managed to keep on a smile was Pinkie Pie, which irritated Rainbow Dash.

After too many distasteful jokes from Pinkie made in an attempt to bring up the mood, Dash snapped and hit her in the face. The scene left everypony in a state of shock, from Pinkie to the other Element bearers who witnessed the kick to even Dash herself, who was terrified of her own display of violence. They all stared at each other in silence, then Twilight thought it a good idea to put an end to the meeting for the time being.

The next 2 hours, Twilight Sparkle paced around in the hallways of Canterlot Castle, thinking about the situation, and thinking about what had happened at the end of the meeting. For some reason, it made her think about the classic Hearth's Warming story, the one on the Unification of Equestria. The one with the windigos, which had threatened to engulf Equestria in eternal winter…

Then suddenly, against all odds, Twilight came up with an idea; one that would solve both the temperature problem and the leadership problem. She wanted to dismiss that idea as soon as her mind came up with it, but the more she thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea. Or at least, it seemed like there weren't any better options, and with time running out, they had to do something, anything to save Equestria as soon as possible.

Even if it meant losing her friends.

After a good 8 hours of desperately needed sleep, the Element bearers woke and reunited back in the meeting room. There was an awkward silence at first, and a visible look of shame in Rainbow Dash's eyes. Then Twilight broke the silence. She claimed to have come up with a way to turn a pony into an alicorn; one powerful enough to move the sun and moon again. She said that the process would be difficult and dangerous, and that she needed one of her friends to accept acting as a test subject.

In reality, Twilight did have theories on how to turn somepony into an alicorn, but only vague theories. She had absolutely no idea whether or not it would work, or if the test subject would even survive, but that wasn't the plan anyway. The plan was to create conflict.

Much to everypony's surprise, Pinkie Pie was the one to accept being tested on, even though the risks had been made very clear by Twilight. Pinkie didn't volunteer with a smile on her face, but she did volunteer. Maybe she wanted to end her days after Rainbow Dash's hit, on top of everything that had happened recently. Maybe she actually believed that Twilight would succeed in transforming her.

Nevertheless, the look on Pinkie's face as she volunteered broke Twilight's heart and nearly made her give up her stupid gambit. But Twilight Sparkle kept on a straight face and carried on with her plan. She spent the following 200 hours working on Pinkie Pie's unconscious body in the basement of Canterlot Castle. She tried everything she thought had the slightest possibility to work to make her immortal. Despite knowing deep down that she would never be able to make Pinkie an alicorn, Twilight still genuinely tried. And she genuinely cried when Pinkie's body vanished after a test went wrong. Pinkie had most likely been disintegrated by the overload of mana pumped into her.

At that point, Twilight knew she couldn't go back anymore. She was already broken. It had already cost her everything dear to her heart. Her plan had to continue.

Twilight Sparkle claimed to continue doing her experiments in the castle's basement, that she was advancing slowly but surely on Pinkie Pie's transformation into an alicorn. In truth, Twilight spent her time in the basement creating a character for herself. A new personality who would lead a secluded part of Equestria with cruelness and resentment. A unicorn supremacist with a profound, unjustified hatred for pegasi and earth ponies. A fake fanatic of Celestia and Luna who would use their image for her own benefit. Someone that her friends would never approve of…

She became “Archmagister Twilight Sparkle”.

Unbeknownst to her very own friends, Twilight, alongside a large group of unicorns she had rallied to her side, led a coup to take over Canterlot. And she succeeded. All the non-unicorns had to flee, lest they be executed. All the unicorns who protested were either banished from Canterlot or taken prisoner. It was during the confusion of the coup that the other 4 Element bearers learned about Pinkie Pie's passing.

Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy managed to escape Canterlot. They reunited in a meadow miles away from the city. They needed to select a new leader among themselves, since Twilight had betrayed them. At first, Applejack thought she could fit the role, as she always was the most decisive pony in the group beside Twilight. But as she came up with ideas and shared them with her friends, said friends didn't agree with most of these. Rarity was especially horrified when Applejack proposed to cut the horn of every unicorn.

They all thought that Applejack was out of her mind.

And so Applejack went back to her farm in Ponyville and founded House Earthborn, a community of earth ponies with heavy military forces who would cut the horns of every unicorn. Applejack became “Supreme Commander Applejack” and based her politics on absolute honesty and truth from her subjects.

When Rarity proposed to be the leader, Rainbow Dash immediately argued against it. She said that Rarity had no qualities that would make her a good leader.

And so Rarity, vexed by her friend's hateful words, moved to live in Manehattan. Through years of blackmail, sweet talk, and manipulation, she became “Mistress Rarity”, the leader of the city of Manehattan, which became the settlement of House Whitegold, her faction. She based her politics on a social survival of the fittest system.

Fluttershy was very disappointed in Rainbow Dash's unkind remarks to Rarity, but Dash didn't care at that point. She had already lost 4 of her best friends, so losing a 5th one didn't matter. The two went their separate ways.

Rainbow Dash went back to her home in Cloudsdale. There, she founded House Stormwing, a faction inspired by the pre-unification era pegasi. That is, a ruthless, military-based regime. Rainbow Dash herself was its leader, and she gave herself the title “Force Commander Supreme Rainbow Dash”. She based her politics on absolute loyalty and harshly punished any backstabber.

Fluttershy went to the Everfree Forest, where all of her animal friends lived. She founded House Everfree, and was titled their leader: “Lady Fluttershy”. Her objective was to expand the Everfree Forest all over Equestria, no matter what other civilisations had to say about it. She based her politics on kindness, but had zero tolerance for those who hurt her animals.

And with that, it was done. As the windigos covered the land of Equestria under a layer of cold clouds that balanced the temperature back to a liveable lukewarm, Twilight Sparkle sighed. She had done it. She had saved Equestria. And now Twilight was alone.

She was the leader of House Moon-and-Star: Archmagister Twilight Sparkle.

The melodies were split, and Harmony was no more.

Author's Note

As for all of my stories, don't expect consistant chapter releases. I generally prefer taking my time when I write these things.

This first chapter is really just an introduction to the general setting and background. I wrote it as straight to the point as possible, loosely inspired by the way Norse sagas were written.