The tyrannical Shadow Stallion oppresses Equestria, coating the land in a thick layer of clouds, tightly controlling the population. Three children, the unicorns Celestia and Luna, along with a Draconequus, Discord, must live up to their fate. They must find the Elements of Harmony and take up their rightful place as Equestria's new gods and saviors.
This is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfiction written by TheGreyPotter
. It can be found here.
This fanfic has examples of:
- The Artful Dodgers: The Sickle Ravens are a group of homeless colts who cause troublemaking and steal food from markets. When they reluctantly brought Celestia with them, she tried, and failed, to tame them.
- Broken Pedestal: Blueblood to Celestia when she found out that he saw her as a trophy to win in a game of politics and not as a pony.
- The Chosen Ones: Celestia, Luna and Discord are the next to be chosen by their respective Elements of Harmony.
- Conflicting Loyalty: Discord suffers from this at the beginning. He doesn't want to lose his new unicorn friends, but he also doesn't want to anger the Shadow Stallion who he, like all other Draconequui, view him as his 'Father'.
- The Corruption: The Nightmare. It is an emotional magical condition that occurs mostly to highly magical beings when they constantly feel bitter emotions. Discord feared that Celestia was falling victim to this after their fallout.
- The Dark Times: Equestria has been founded for 60 years, but the bitterness of its first gods caused it to turn into an oppressive Dystopia with the sky always overcast and the Shadow Stallion (who was Butterfly Bright, the last bearer of Kindness before he fell in his Nightmare) always watching.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Smooze. Is it even a living thing or just sentient chemical?
- Evil Overlord: The Shadow Stallion, who was the last bearer of the Element of Kindness before his fall to Nightmare.
- Evil Uncle: Not really evil as in 'Mwahahaha!' evil, but Celestia and Luna's uncle was actually very neglectful to his nieces (if he was even alive for that matter and his butler didn't just tell them that he was busy so they would not know he is dead).
- Fallen Heroes: The first bearers of the Elements of Harmony became the first victims of the Nightmare with the Shadow Stallion still ruling with an iron hoof.
- Honour Before Reason: Martyr, one of Celestia's alter egos, wants nothing more than to risk and work herself to death for satisfaction that she made a generous good deed.
- Impoverished Patrician: Celestia and Luna are very poor since foalhood when their family inheritance were stolen by officials after their parents went missing, possibly dead. Celestia is also a baroness.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Discord. He actually cares about both Celestia and Luna as his first ever friends, but his Draconequus nature makes it harder for him to act like one.
- His adoptive brother Ruin could be described as such too. Even if he doesn't show it, he really does care for little Discord.
- Perpetual Frowner: Ruin, but that could be because of his deep cynicism and annoyance to the stupidity of his fellow Draconequui.
- Physical Gods: The first Element Bearers are also known as the First Gods. Celestia, Luna and Discord are also on their way to become the Second Gods due to being Element Bearers.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Discord gave one to Gravekeeper in chapter 73:I was on my feet in a moment, roaring at the top of my lungs, "You blame me for not caring about the country! Then you just forget about that and yell at us for being friends! You said friendship was a bond and it would work! Now you say it's stupid and we should forget it! You keep finding thing after thing after thing wrong with us, and not everything you say even adds up!" I swiped at the rocks at my feet. "This broken rocks are Four-Clover! The First Gods chanted something to connect to one another! The nightmare is inevitable, except for Four-Clover, oh no, he was special! You're just, just all over the place! What the hell are we supposed to believe?!"
- Sanity Slippage: What happened to Celestia during her time travelling alone and in the Sanatorium note .
- Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Gravekeeper, an old stallion living in and keeper of a desolate Tomb of Magic, treats the young trio like how an old teacher treats an ignorant student.
- Slave Race: The pegasi are shown as being forcefully working to maintain the overcast sky in Equestria under the Shadow Stallion's rule with the griffons as hired slave masters.
- Snobs Vs Slobs: Celestia, a baroness later princess, is the Snob and Discord, a juvenile Draconequus, is the Slob. Luna is somewhere in between, but due to her getting very close to Discord she is more in the Slob side.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Celestia and Discord might not look like the best of friends to outsiders, but after a while they care for each other a lot.
