Fanfic / Paradise

"It's hard for ponies these days to imagine what it was like back then. If they were dropped into this time before Equestria, it'd be unrecognizable to their eyes."

—Excerpts from the Candid Sayings of Celestia as recorded by her friends

Paradise is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic by Slywit. It tells the tale of how Princess Celestia and Princess Luna became the ponies they are.

Celestia and Luna were born several thousand years ago to a herd of Earth ponies. Back then, ponies weren't the dominant species they are today. They lived in constant fear as vulnerable prey animals, wary of predators and the humans alike. However, the siblings were destined to change the world in elaborate ways.

The two were born as unassuming foals in troubled times. But already marked for greatness, the simple earth ponies stand to face a world set against them, full of danger, fear, and sadness. A world they will change forever.

A sweeping epic taking place before Equestria was made, where Celestia and Luna must rise from normal foals to become the Princesses we know them as, beset from all sides by monsters, other ponies, and even the forces that govern nature. Their tale is as tragic as it is triumphant.

Paradise has been taken off-line, though mirrors exist elsewhere, due to the writer wanting to revamp the story.

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Paradise contains examples of:

• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Deconstructed. Upon her birth, Celestia's parents worry about the safety of their white-and-pink coloured foal. She stands out like a sore thumb amongst the rest of their herd.
• Bears Are Bad News: The Ursa Major passing by the Unicorn territory in chapter 8.
• Beware the Silly Ones: The hunting pack of wolves from chapter 10 were afraid of the Shaman due to her not being afraid of them. Celestia felt a little uneasy at her too.
• Big Damn Hero: Shaman came just before a pack of hungry wolves were about to kill Celestia.
• Broken Pedestal: The Unicorns to Celestia as of chapter 7. Noticeable in this quote at the start of the chapter:
  One part of growing up is realizing that the idols you've constructed of gold are merely gilded granite.
  —Excerpts from the Candid Sayings of Celestia as recorded by her friends
• The Chosen One: Upon her birth, a shaman told Celestia's parents that she was destined for great things due to her unusual (to them) coat and mane colour.
• Conflicting Loyalty: This is the cause of Ebon betraying Celestia and Luna when they escape the Unicorn herd when it was being trampled by an Ursa Major because he either would betray his own herd by letting the fillies go and risk getting punished by Phantom Spell, or he would betray his new friends and risking their friendship.
• Covered with Scars: Celestia's father had a lot of scars due to abusive humans.
• Culture Clash:
  • Celestia and Luna had difficulty living with the Unicorns due to the differences in how the Unicorns organise themselves from the Earth Ponies. This also led to them being slightly homesick.
  • They also had difficulty with interacting with the Pegasi, mostly because they don't use herdal structure and are more anarchic than Earth Ponies and Unicorns.
• The Dark Times: Ebon once told Celestia and Luna that although not everyone likes Phantom Spell, before he became chief of the Unicorn Herd they were disorganised and deaths were very common. It was only after Phantom restructured their herd into a hierarchy with different jobs to different unicorns that living in their herd became easier.
• Death of a Child: Celestia and Luna learn about death the hard way when they see a friend of theirs after he's been killed by a pack of wolves.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Celestia and Luna vs. Awe the Dragon ends with Celestia shoving a spell construct up his nose and detonating it on the inside.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Celestia as 'Pink Plummet' by the pegasi.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Shaman.
• Exact Words: In chapter 18, when Celestia challenged the pegasi on flying against her, she promised to never use her magic to cheat. She never said that Luna couldn't secretly use magic to help her.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Though not all ponies are this, the upper hierarchy of the Unicorn Herd and Earth Ponies don't like each other.
  • When Celestia and Luna suggested to the Unicorns that the herd could use its magic to aid the Earth Ponies in survival, the chief Phantom Spell's response was a blunt and stern refusal.
• Generation Xerox: There are some characters which feel suspiciously like FIM characters we know, but the most obvious one is Shaman, who is an ancestor of Pinkie Pie. Then there was a bit when they were still living as Earth Ponies when they mentioned somepony named Uncle Apple, probably an ancestor to all of the Apple Family in FIM.
• Honour Before Reason: When Celestia saw a pegasus foal falling from the Pegasi's mountain home, she without thinking ran and jumped down to save him from dying. Only her gaining wings saved them from certain death.
• Humanity's Wake: The series takes place in a world where humans still existed as recent ago as during Celestia's lifetime.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Chapter 21; Celestia and Luna have an Oh, Crap! moment when the dragon they are fighting turns out to be a magic user.
• Intrigued by Humanity: When they were very young, Celestia and Luna were very fascinated on humans in general when their father Whip Scar told stories about them. Though he doesn't like to recall his life with his previous owner, who was very abusive (thus Whip Scar's name).
• Light Is Not Good: The ponies' stories bring a negative light (pun not intended) to the Sun as a vain, jealous and slightly stupid thing.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Awe the dragon. It is mentioned that even the dragons among other races fear him above all else.
• Not So Above It All: After weeks being the pegasi's walking prank target, Celestia decided it would be fun to prank them back.
• Only Sane Man: Celestia felt that she and her sister were the only ones who know how ponies should live like after she was being treated like an idiot by the Pegasi when they kept asking around for the chief of their herd.
• Origins Episode: Paradise is an origin story for the two rulers of Equestria, Celestia and her sister Luna.
• Parental Abandonment: Though reluctantly, Whip Scar and Lightning Kick had to give Celestia and Luna to the Unicorns after they grew a horn since their herd could not teach the sisters magic.
• The Pranksters: The pegasi love to play practical jokes on everypony they meet. They also mostly enjoy cruel pranks, especially on newcomers to their cave.
• Rags to Royalty: When Celestia and Luna were born, ponies didn't even have a concept of money yet. They were still living in tribalistic herds and surviving much like normal horses.
• Raised by Natives:
  • The Unicorns think of Celestia and Luna as this since they don't believe that the fillies were ever born as Earth Ponies.
  • The sisters were technically this trope when they stayed with the Unicorns.
• Recursive Fanfiction:
  • There is one, Paradise Sundered by q97randomguy.
  • The story has inspired the Filk Songs Luna's Night and Silent Night.
• Sibling Team: Sisters Celestia and Luna, obviously.
• The Smart One:
  • Luna can be seen as this next to Celestia.
  • The legend of the First Pegasus has the first pegasus as being able to outwit the griffin on meeting both the Sun and Moon on giving him wings and the ability to fly and touching the clouds.
• Stepford Smiler: Levity, one of Celestia and Luna's unicorn tutors, much to their discomfort. She does it because she was used to teaching unicorn foals.
• Too Dumb to Live: The Pegasi basically see Celestia as this, mostly because of her Honour Before Reason behaviour.
• Undying Loyalty: Rebel Bolt has this behaviour towards his new friends Celestia and Luna.
• Vanity: The pony songs and legends have the Sun as very vain and jealous, enough to make herself give off blinding light to be more beautiful than the Moon and Stars.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Phantom Spell. He is an autocratic Unicorn chief stallion, is very (large emphasis on "very") strict on his orders and rules and has zero tolerance on misbehaviour and internal conflict. But he did so to keep his herd safe from the frequent dangers of the Everfree Forest where they live in.
• You Have Failed Me: The dragon in chapter 20 let the pegasi settle in his cave, the same one on the mountain, a thousand years ago on the condition that they should protect his horde, with the threat of killing their descendants should they fail so. The dragon returned in the story, he found that his jewels are stolen and with anger started killing the pegasi as promised.