Faithful Subjects and False Queens (Patreon)

False Queens and Faithful Subjects

There remain those who were told wondrous tales of the peaceful time of the old queen. She ruled over an entire empire of ponies, over all others in the land. It was a peaceful time. It was a good time. It ended. Some say it was only her untimely death that caused it. If she were still alive, the empire would have remained and easily turned away any aggression.

Some mourn the loss. Some act on it. She was a pinnacle of the old major tribes. She was a robust earth pony with grand wings and a long powerful horn. She was everything any pony would want to be.

And some made this a reality. Working in secret bunkers even as The Blaze tore the world apart and the ash rained. Even as the sky went dark and the sun became hidden behind the clouds, they labored. When their work was done, those who originally began the project were already dead, the task given to their children and their children and so on like a divine task, and they took to it with all the zeal it deserved.

Those left with their result were barely ponies, frail and shaking, they were barely surviving on the meager rations they could grow below the surface. Still, they had done it. They waited for a sacrifice. It came to them. A mare set up camp with a few others, but she was alone when the rest went hunting. She was busy setting up camp. When they returned, she was gone.

They took her, kicking and screaming. They celebrated her, adorned her with the richest clothing they had, and called her their queen. She was confused, but came around. If odd ponies wished to worship her, what was the harm in that? They kept bringing her gifts and praising the job she would do leading them. They colored her hooves and cleaned her from snout to tail. She was worshipped. Then the tiara came.

When the tiara rested on her head, she was engulfed in the powerful techno-mantic forces. The gifts were consumed and flowed into her transmuting form. When it faded, they were all gone, only she and the tiara remaining. She had wondrous wings and a long horn. She didn't know how to use them, not yet, but she had them, and they were functional. They cheered, and so did she. She felt her old wants fading away. She would be their new queen. She would not be the last, just the first.

Over the years, their numbers grew. The Faithful Subjects, as they preferred to be called, never entirely lost that gangly sick look that had marked them for their generations of malnourishment and cramped quarters, but they did recover their health in large part as they sought out other queens. The purpose of the queens was largely forgotten. It was their doctrine, their purpose, to make a perfect pony who would lead them to the promised land. What made a perfect pony, they only knew to a limited degree. Take a healthy earth pony and coronate them, transforming them into a queen. When the right queen was found, they figured, the way to the promised land would come with them.

Until then, they hunted.

Pegasi and unicorns were the other sides of the divine triangle, and were left alone. All other ponies, however, were flaws. Their very presence, they reasoned, was why they couldn't find the right queen. Their taint cursed ponykind with the misery of the ashen age, and only expunging ponykind of any pony not of the 'divine three' would bring about their perfect queen.

It was all the mad thoughts of a lost people, but it made enough sense to them to explain why they couldn't find the 'right' queen.