Final Fantasy: Equine Quest

"Press Start"

When we went to career fairs in foal school, I never would have guessed that I would have grown up to be a knight of the Celestian Order. Sure, a lot of my friends went gallivanting around on "adventures" in the Marshlands. They spent their time scaring turtles and whatnot, but that just wasn't for me. I wanted to finish my education and move out to the country. I wanted to start a living tilling black land earth. It seemed that life had other ideas and it was announced not ten minutes after I had graduated that the marshlands were being invaded by Basilisks. Being the younger stallion that I was, I took this as a personal affront and joined the standing militia to rid our land of those beasts.

I became rather adept at dispatching my foes. As luck would have it, somepony who knew somepony up the chain of command recommended me to the knights. It didn't help that I earned my cutie mark by defending some of the more attractive mares in my class from an errant drunk. The Brass interpreted my crossed swords as excellence in combat instead of excellence in the defense of others. Needless to say at this point, when I expressed my disinterest my loyalties were questioned and family harassed, so I chomped the bit and began my training.

It became blatantly obvious after i joined the knights that they were much more than glorified bodyguards. The Celestian Knights are keepers of ancient knowledge. The shelves of the libraries are filled to capacity and well guarded because the librarians are all knights that are retired or are recovering from minor wounds. They stressed the importance of preserving all forms of accumulated knowledge and teaching it to the newer generations, even those that are less desirable. There was even a restricted section that was locked by Luna herself.

What they teach you in History class is sufficient for the general populace, but every squire in the Celestian order is taught a slightly different version of events. About a millennium ago, a Draconequus named Discord began wreaking terror on the ponies of the world. It was all harmless at first, candy clouds that precipitated Gummy-ade, corn randomly popping off its cob, and every now and then somepony's hat would turn into a baked ham. Unfortunately, the frequency and intensity of the events started to increase while the terrain began to warp from such anomalies. The rivers turned to milkshakes and the vegetation bore fruit of candy canes and water balloons.

As more of the population started experiencing food shortages and property damage, pressures rose for Discord to be dealt with. Luna's older sister Celestia responded by appointing an envoy to speak with Discord. It was pretty obvious that he was in no mood to stop his mayhem when the pony returned covered in snake skin and wearing a very silly looking top-hat. Luna and Celestia went to speak with Discord themselves, but after a rather tense few sentences, Discord turned some of Celestia's mane into cotton candy and a fight broke out. Long story short: Discord tried to turn them into stone, Celestia shielded Luna, Luna could not revert her sister's form, went mad with grief, and killed Discord. I know it's unthinkable, and Luna still regrets how she handled the situation to this day, but actions taken cannot be undone.

After what happened to Discord, the world returned to a stable but unfamiliar shape. However, the weather became increasingly difficult to deal with. Some of the more remote areas of the world soon became twisted and the once peaceful animals became violent. Luna had her top scientists research this bizarre change but they gave up and said it was magic. The world's most powerful magicians were then gathered and they came to one conclusion: Discord had only lost his body and was now an entity in the atmosphere and the earth.

So i guess you can't really kill the embodiment of chaos, but Luna sure did try everything in her power to remove his influence, all to no avail though. The weather got worse and the monsters grew in number. Because of all this turmoil, many groups of ponies seceded from the alliance and became countries of their own. Discord's influence began to affect the minds of the leaders, causing them to fight amongst themselves, so Luna took what ponies remained faithful to her and created the New Lunar Republic.

Due to the added strain of raising the sun, Luna appointed trusted advisers to listen to the people in a forum. Luna also created the Celestian Knights in honor of her sister and to protect her little ponies. Now Luna is only seen in public at formal occasions and spends a great deal of time in the ruins of the old city that she and her sister once ruled from. The NLR is very stable and deaths to Discord's influence have been minimal over the years. Unfortunately, the other countries see the NLR as inferior, and have attempted to siege us before, but we have always defended ourselves and have always avoided unnecessary conflict.

Fast forward a thousand years, and you'll notice that monsters all over the world have been slowly growing more potent. Over the last year alone, abominations such as the Bone Dragon have been rumored to exist.

After learning the real history of my fellow ponies, I couldn't help but feel compelled to continue my fight for the Lunar City. Such devotion to the protection of my country yielded an accelerated climb through the ranks of the knights. I also attracted the attention of one of the oldest and most decorated Lunar Knights, Marshall, who became my commanding officer. Under his supervision, I became one of the best sword fighters in the knights, but I requested that my accomplishments not be flaunted. Soon after I made the rank of Solar Knight, Marshall suffered from a serious illness and retired. I was acting like a little fan-boy at the reception for him because I got to see Luna herself! I even squee'd when i got to kiss her hoof...

Since then, I've been paired with Sour Note, a rather odd example of an Earth pony's internal magic. This eccentric and blazingly neon blue and pink pony possesses the ability to foresee negative events. Although It's often inexact, it's been useful more than once but I value him more for his swordsmanship and intellect. Our latest assignment is to undertake a trek to Luna's Watchtower, the northernmost outpost before the great Ice Wasteland. We are to provide safe passage back to the Lunar City because he will no doubt be tired after a week of solitude while battling the embittered enemies of the Wastes.