One Step
When Twilight was a little filly, she had many questions about the world she lived in.
Most of those were about her surroundings, ranging from basic science to advanced magical subjects, but there were a few tied to experiences unique to her from the very day she was made the princess’ own apprentice.
Where did Princess Celestia (and also Princess Luna) come from? Most ponies wouldn’t usually care for such a question because the historical context would be extremely intense for anyone that may have not had the same pleasure in delving deep into the answer of something so important for the matters of Equestria.
A little pet project that had survived years from her days of fillyhood to her actual crowning to Princess of Equestria. And as fate would have it, it was during one of her most tame days that some of her friends had found an old dusty book in the old castle in Everfree Forest, once home of the princesses.
Due to the chaotic nature of the forest, hardly a few ponies dared to wander to check the ruined castle, the place having been abandoned long before Luna even became Nightmare Moon, long before Equestria was truly unified as a Diarchy, and… Twilight was surprised all it took for this discovery was for Rainbow Dash to be coaxed into playing ‘Daring Do’ and explore the old castle.
Scootaloo just had that way of getting her role model to do ‘cool things’ that was both perplexing and amusing with how the speedster Pegasus obliged most of the time to such requests. And when Rainbow smugly came to the Friendship Castle with the book itself, Twilight felt like it was a good day to actually break away from her usual habits for this was the best addition to ancient Equestrian History.
“Is it even that important, Twi? L-Like, I am not saying I brought back a nothing hayburger, but you make it sound-”
“It is about the Princesses’ past, Dash!” The youngest magically-made Alicorn squeaked, interjecting the Element of Loyalty. “This is perhaps the most defining aspect of our history because it details the life of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna before they were even princesses - before they even started their journey of reunifying the tribes!”
Indeed the book, albeit with a premise that suggested it wouldn’t be too extensive on the earlier bits of such enormous tale, was a historical narration explaining many unanswered questions about Celestia and Luna’s past that went beyond what Luna’s diary which the Princess of the Moon had left for Twilight to shelter and, with utmost caution, turn into a historical piece itself.
She had also tried to reach out for the former princesses, but they were currently unavailable as they were too deep and too happy to enjoy their retirement away from any complications. It was, at times, vexing how Celestia would just ignore any requests that weren’t born by emergency, but she also understood that thinking of doing these chores for hundreds of years may be enough to make her dislike going back to work so suddenly and for nothing important.
The title was also tempting enough: Tales of Lord Yhwach - Father of Alicorns and founder of Equestria.
Which was already suggesting that the Princesses had a father. Someone that had either been their biological parent together with the mythological ‘Mother of All, Faust’ or actually someone that took care of them before Starswirl and taught them the ways of life during their years of formation. This was, without a doubt, the best read she had in years!
After Rainbow left to get back to her shift with the Wonderbolts, Twilight went to her study with Spike, the little drake rolling his eyes at her giddy filly-like look as she explained what got her so excited, and soon the two started the process of not only reading but also cross-examine this monumental piece of work with other authors of the time who may have some connections with this work.
If Twilight was to truly shed some light to some of the oldest eras of her home, it was best she did so in a thorough way that left nothing behind for others to question further. It was time to give an answer to all that could be answered through this piece of work.
And the Princess of Friendship was up to one of the wildest reads of her entire life.
Death is unpleasant, especially when sudden and driven by the sheer inanity of how things came crashing down.
By all means, Yhwach the Almighty, the Quincy King, remembered it all. His fight with the Shinigamis, his defeat at the hands of Kurosaki Ichigo, and the way it all brought down his chance to break the world and then bring true peace to it.
All gone, and he thought that was it - he was dead, he was gone, he was to be buried by his world’s history as a daring and bold monster that came close to succeeding in his immense goals. Only to be beaten by a young man with mixed blood and way too many misfits that decided to gang up on him on the verge of victory.
How pitiful.
That being said, Yhwach was quick to notice his ‘death’ didn’t make him vanish. Instead, he found his body had disappeared… only for him to open his eyes once more in a desolate desert in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t anywhere near where he died, nor in a realm tied to his resting place. He scrunched his nose in annoyance, frustrated that the little hope he had that somehow he had been brought back was untrue to his desires - this was an outright different landscape, and yet one with living creatures as far as he could tell.
Lifting himself off the sand before some large worms tried to devour him, Yhwach looked around, his gaze littered with golden and silver patterns all over the world - this world was large but also different compared to the one he called home.
Some energy akin to Reiatsu was dominant over some basic natural laws and elements such as Gravity and the Clouds. As he flew around, his face showing no sign of interest, he decided to cut the chase and just find the strongest around and question them for answers on his whereabouts and perhaps take over this pitiful place for himself and then, hopefully, find a way to finish his deed against that brat Kurosaki.
On his journey, he saw many unexpected sights. He saw creatures of mythological descent, both invented and also extinct, that wandered the land and held civilized affairs against all past interactions Yhwach had with those in his original world. It was a bit puzzling, but it added more questions for him to demand answers to. His flight was not as long as he had expected, but he found himself before a scene.
A picnic, which he unwittingly interrupted. Three creatures of equine connotation, two young ones and an older one, all females and all bearing peculiar details such as horns of unicorns and wings of pegasi. A curious sight, but it was perhaps their essence that baffled him as even the young children bore powers that could easily outmatch most of his former subordinates. It was the eldest, the one bearing the white-furred red-maned small horse - pony that proved to be a threat.
With a single word, the eldest had the two children rush away, moving to stand between him and them. How motherly of her, but he had all the reasons to be on his guard even as she spoke with him with genuine interest to avoid a confrontation.
“I suggest you cease with this violent intent. I can sense it, you wish to inflict harm and dominate but you will not find any victory here.”
It was a good enough provocation and a clash ensued. But while this usually led to extensive destruction, for his opponent was nothing to scoff at, he ended up actually drawing with the one known as Queen Faust of Skyros.
Their skirmish was lengthy, but her ‘magic’ proved to be far beyond his reach with his abilities. She could actually use a powerful spell to suppress his Almighty Form, which made the confrontation far more difficult than it should have been. In the end, three hours later, both fighters were exhausted and Yhwach was unable to hold back a smile. The tense awareness he found his match in this land filled him with a peculiar degree of glee that made him now reluctant to prolong this fight.
“T-Truce?”
He could also hear it in her voice - she was tired just as much as he was, and while such a sudden display of violence would make two individuals hate each other, this proved to be the stepping stone of a long-standing bond of friendship between the two. For an exiled Queen found a friend in an exiled King. And through this friendship fate itself changed for Equus as a whole.
Yhwach was taken in as a ‘ward’ to Queen Faust, and he learned of her history just as he told her of his. Once the ruler of lands held in the sky, the realm of Skyros, home of Alicorns, fell to the cursed existence of devious beings among them. Alicorns themselves were deemed above and beyond what most ponies could achieve, and some used those powers to try and gain control.
A civil war came and went, with the end result of massive losses on both sides and the fall of Skyros upon the seas to be swallowed by the ocean as a whole. Of the survivors known, Faust had taken in young Celestia and Luna of the House of Bright and Shade. Both claimed to be sisters to one another, and wards of the Queen without Lands.
These little ponies were meant to be the ‘future’ of their dying realm to bring a new kingdom upon the ‘Land of Mortals.’ But not until they were old enough to achieve such grand duty, for now they were little children with little understanding on how to handle the world beyond theirs - the bubble which covered the land currently ruled by Faust, in the wild and away from hostile creatures.
“Why are they chosen but not you?” Yhwach questioned, aware that, before him, not only stood a mighty warrior queen but also someone blessed with immortality.
This question came to be answered only after they both were alone and the two young ‘fated rulers’ were away to play by the garden. For the news that Yhwach was given made such unexpected friendship even more relevant - for it wasn’t bound to last.
“I am not… long for this world.”
This admission stunned Yhwach for he had long been told that magic was something he couldn’t truly see for he wasn’t a magical being. And as he tried to think of this as something tied to that - to magic and the sheer insanity behind its potential - he was given another bitter reason to be worried.
“A curse was inflicted upon me before Skyros died. One that is eating at my magical core, one that can’t be cured. Had I been able to endure it, to overcome it, I would have taken it upon myself to unify the tribes and then make the foals my own heirs. They would have not to shed blood by their own hooves, but… I am not going to be able to outlast the curse for long enough to achieve such a goal. And if I was to start a potential conflict or a lengthy process of diplomatic unity, I would not be able to see the end of it. No, it has to be them for my death would only sully their chances of success.”
Yhwach nodded in agreement. A leader has to be there from beginning to end of a monumental process. To claim a kingdom out of this land, it was right for the younger alicorns to do so, but as he got to see both Celestia and Luna at work in their studies, he knew these two needed to be pushed harder.
Celestia was a natural leader when it came to handling documents and upholding the image of a regal being, but Luna stood out as a people- ponies’ mare. She was socially geared to be savvy, quick on her hooves to spot topics that can be conversed over and others that should be avoided. It had impressed me, but… there was more that could be achieved.
“And do you think you are the one that can achieve this?” Faust had asked, her tone teasing him in a way only close friends would.
It made him smile like a madman, which only entitled him to be quite extreme in his methods all the while limiting the ways he handled these two. Had they been part of his Quincies, he would have been harsher, but he knew better than to draw the ire of his most recent friends and worked a compromise with the way he took care of those two.
Celestia’s affinity with the sun made fire and light-based attacks which saw immense explosive capacity essential to her expertise, which is where he trained her the most, fetching books that could aid them both in this task. Luna was also trained, but while her sister had the propensity of a frontline fighter, the younger Alicorn was too fragile to handle direct confrontations and her magical intensity made her viable for subterfuge, the use of shades and darkness in moderation, and the use of spells meant to actually trick and ensnare with the right manipulation.
Their potential was admirable, which is why he invested much of his time making sure they didn’t skirt around their exercises. They proved to be worthy of the pain to achieve great heights at such a young age, for they were already quite powerful by the time they were twelve and ten respectively.
As two years went by and the two Alicorns came to respect the Almighty as their teacher and something of a father, Faust passed away. From a smiling and healthy alicorn, the mare found her life force depleting together with her mana core. Death claimed her by the winter, for her body turned out to be too weak to endure the cold despite efforts to keep her warm.
A grave was established, with the young alicorns bawling their eyes over it while Yhwach stood watch and judged the situation he was now in. At this point, he didn’t have other goals for this lofty one of allowing the two ‘foals’ to acquire rulership felt far more interesting than anything else offered by the land.
After the funeral, with their minds made about Faust’s last wish to be achieved, Celestia and Luna were put to a test: they needed to defeat the draconequus that had been terrorizing the tribes.
He had a form of ‘loose union’ for the former realms, Chaos his affinity as he rejected the idea to be either a king and to claim proper borders to his domain. And with such an opportunity opening a path to immediate diplomatic success in becoming the rulers of the land, Celestia and Luna were tasked with the deed of killing Discord. But, as one would expect, they were all unprepared for the confrontation.
They were toyed around for Chaos magic proved to be above regular Alicorn’s feats, with both Celestia and Luna coming back home bruised and with low morale, but also a message of ‘gloating’ that made Yhwach step in for the humiliating attack on his image.
Differently from the clash between the Alicorns, the Draconequus actually found a match in Yhwach as their skirmish saw them ravage the entire region west of modern-day Equestria. What now is called the Badlands was entirely set ablaze and torn apart by one of the biggest fights the planet had ever seen, with Dragons flocking to witness the confrontation and, once the fight was over, claim the land as theirs for it was ideal for their own nests.
Despite his best efforts, Yhwach found Discord difficult to actually wound, but while he hadn’t found a good way to shield his Almighty form from being suppressed, he found ways to harness his Reiatsu to successfully damage his foe and force the Draconequus to retreat the moment he got too wounded from the conflict.
With both efforts finding failure, Celestia and Luna got to work to find an alternative solution. Perusing Faust’s old library, they came to find about the Tree of Harmony, an old relic of bygone eras which preceded the disunity of the tribes and was considered the only counter to Chaos itself.
A journey was entrusted to the two sisters, for Yhwach understood that they were meant to be the ones to acquire the ‘power Chaos could not match’. He had been tempted to join them due to fears of Discord taking steps to actually stop them, but the Almighty realized that this wouldn’t be the case if he kept out of this journey.
Discord was, as one would expect of a chaotic monster, taking this like a game, and he knew that Yhwach was the ‘most concerning element’ for this situation. So, if Yhwach kept away from directly exposing himself for tricks and ambushes, Discord would keep away from actively stopping the Alicorn sisters. And while this game was a test of patience for Yhwach considering the taunting coming from the ugly creature, it also ended up becoming a stepping stone for both his apprentices.
Celestia and Luna managed to harness the power of Harmony through six gems called the ‘Elements of Harmony’. With their combined powers they were able to successfully seal Discord into a statue and stop his reign of terror for good. Celestia and Luna were seen as heroes and the future of unity among the tribes…
But while they found glory and a high reputation through this deed, they also found the paranoia and the enmity of the restored rulers of those lands who were not as keen to speak of unifying their tribes as earnestly as the two Alicorns were keen to see through.
For while the fight against Discord had been a test of patience for Yhwach, it was now the girls’ turn to face a similar enough test when it came to balancing their goals to the stability of each tribe.
For the notion of creating a more equal union of ponies turned out to be far more difficult for them to deal with than any previous troubles.
By the time Twilight was over with this first reading, she found herself pulling away with her lips shutting air from leaving her lungs. It was like she had gone for a deep dive in the deepest ocean ever, and she found herself baffled by what she had found. This ‘Father of Alicorns’ was a mentor of sorts for Celestia and Luna, with this ‘Yhwach’ being seen as an equal of Discord by pure ‘pseudo-magical’ might. The mention of this ‘Reiatsu’, a more spiritual form of magic compared to what Unicorns and Alicorns could harness, was quite similar to what some Kirin were able to use in Kiria.
Which is why, without hesitation, Twilight sent a letter to Autumn Blaze, hoping that her knowledge may be essential in adding more context to that peculiar element of the narration. That being said, the text added up some important context to the overall tale behind Celestia and Luna’s journey to stop Discord.
The mentions of Skyros also matched some theories where Alicorns were originally born from a land beyond Celestia and also explained the most recent discoveries some seapony-led expeditions have made of some ancient Equestrian-like structures lingering the bottom of the known ocean.
She had never found a conclusive answer from Celestia for she always skirted around the topic with her usual ‘I do not remember’ or ‘it has been a long time, but this is my home now’ answers which were meant to deflect and leave her confused at best and annoyed at worst.
Still, the current princess of Equestria had always wondered where the natural-born alicorns came from, and found the idea of financing these expeditions even more essential for it may lead to some important additions to ancient history. If not for the original tribes, then for the ‘forgotten tribe’ of Alicorns.
Twilight still felt a bit unsure on why Celestia never brought it up, but perhaps it was due to the subject tying up with the mythical Queen Faust’s death and how it affected her and Luna. This actually made Twilight unwilling to probe the two about this detail, knowing it was best to speak with them directly rather than limit such interaction to just letters.
What actually got Twilight’s full interest was, however, Yhwach’s fight with both Faust and Discord. Faust was deemed to be above both Celestia and Luna at their peak, with Yhwach’s own flaw being a lack of protection from this land’s magic. At the same time, he struggled with Discord’s own unusual brand of chaos.
While she couldn’t draw a proper estimation, she could tell that Yhwach was to be seen as someone that could actually match in power with Grogar at that point, the most dangerous entity that has ever wandered these lands and had caused issues for the pre-Tribal era. And, considering the visible extent of damage enforced on the modern Badlands destroying what luscious forests may have existed there, she knew that the sheer scale of powers had to be far greater than the one she had to exhibit against Tirek.
Looking back at those descriptions and her own experience, now it was fair to make a very awkward assumption. By her own analysis, it was also fair to say that neither Celestia nor Luna had ever ‘peaked’ in terms of potential. Which is why now Twilight understood their mysterious comments on her ‘having a chance to be better than them’ back during her coronation.
For Twilight Sparkle wasn’t sitting on the hoofsteps of the two princesses, but also of the last Queen of Skyros. And that made her both proud and nervous, for she never considered herself someone that could achieve such a milestone at this young age. With that piece of knowledge in mind, Twilight still decided to take a break after this first lecture. It was fair to say that she really wanted to dive back in once again as soon as possible, but she had some other questions she doubted this book would answer at this point in time, the one on top of all being: what happened to Yhwach?
Indeed, considering the lack of such an entity through the last few years if not centuries, she had to wonder what happened to this tall bipedal creature which, going by the book’s description, appeared to be like a human in the realm where Sunset Shimmer lived. There had been enough circumstances demanding ‘higher forces’ to intervene that it felt very odd that he never once came looking to give them a hand.
She resolved to send Sunset a letter asking her for her own thoughts on the matter, also another for Fluttershy to ask Discord what he knew as he definitely knew who Yhwach was, and… Twilight also decided to personally check the castle of the two sisters.
There had to be more in that place - more that had been forgotten and ignored which may shed some light on the truth behind Yhwach’s disappearance and why no one involved with him ever brings him up in conversations, even in times of need. Twilight had a feeling it was going to be a hurdle, but it wasn’t the first time she had to do something like this.
Just not to the extent she wound up delving deep in the old castle itself, sitting alone and in the darkness of bygone days of good and warm memories.
