The Showmare's Sibling (Patreon)

My name is Virgil.

Virgil Lullamoon.

I've been told I take after my father.  He was a stallion of few words, somewhat standoffish, with a dark blue coat, brown mane, and blue eyes.  I honestly wouldn't know, save for the few pictures I've seen of the pony, since I never met him.  I'll let the bleeding hearts dry their eyes here before going on, but I'll tell then what I've told anypony that tried to pity me over it: you can't miss what you never had in the first place.

I can also say I don't begrudge him the fact that he ran away like a coward, at least, not for my own sake.

The fact that he left a mare with two foals and no other method of support, though?

He'll be lucky if I only break his face in, should we ever meet.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Like I said, my name is Virgil Lullamoon, and I'm a unicorn.

Done laughing yet?  No?  Take your time, I'll wait.

Finished?  Good.

My mother and sister have always described my coat as navy blue; I've always just said 'blue,' but then again, I'm a guy, so what do I know about color?  Nada.  Anyway, I'm a navy blue unicorn colt with a blue-black mane struck through with silver.  My eyes?  I call them blue, my sister calls them 'cobalt.'  I've been called cute, adorable, handsome (in a foalish way, of course), and all variations thereof.

Sister, Beatrix Lullamoon, is a light blue (she calls it 'powder blue') unicorn mare nearly a decade older than me with a pale blue and white mane and purple eyes (she calls them 'lilac').  She's probably the most 'high maintenance' mare I've ever come across, in either life on either world.

That's rather impressive, actually.

Mother, Cassandra Lullamoon, has a coat only a few shades lighter than sister's, such that it looks white if the light hits it just right.  She's a unicorn as well, though I'm told 'father' was an earth pony.  Her eyes are what my sister might call 'lavender,' while her mane is a mostly-solid purple (I won't even try to guess the exact shade), though the last time I saw her it was streaked-through with gray.

As far as I know, we don't have any extended family.

So its always been just the three of us, well, until recently.

But I'll get to that.

As you might have noticed form all the pony-isms, I currently call the great and noble land of saccharine-sweetness known as Equestria my home.  Currently, the weather is sunny, the clouds are being pushed about by a weather team of pegasi, and our land is a mostly-paradise under the benevolent reign of Princess Celestia.

I say 'mostly,' because of course, my life isn't a children's show.

Reality, for a given value of the word, isn't that simple.

Make no mistake, there are hundreds of other 'worlds' or 'lives' or whatever you want to call it that I might have been born into that could have been a living hell.  Equestria, by and large, is a paradise, at least by human standards.

Socially.

Low crime rates, almost-nonexistent murder rates, unemployment that's inching closer to zero by the year...yeah, Equestria is great.  There's an immortal goddess-like monarch willing to literally move the sun to protect her country, a fair and impartial justice system, and a correction system that focuses on 'reform' rather than 'punishment.'  If it wasn't for the whole absolute monarchy 'thing,' I'd have thought the country was founded by hippies.

Now, time for a dose of reality.

Even in the largest cities, animal attack fatalities are an order of magnitude worse than in human cities.  Equestrians share this world with Manticores, Cockatrices, Hydras, and worse.  The pony-utopia I call home shares a continent with a chaotic mix of Diamond Dog slaving tribes that hide out in the wastes beyond our borders.  The Griffins, not to play to a stereotype, are a generally aggressive system of feudal lords and fiefdoms that would take a poly-sci major years to sort out.

Dragons.

Just...Dragons.

Oh, and actual, honest-to-Celestia pirates.  In airships.

Still feel like buying that vacation home outside of Canterlot?

Personally, though?  I find the fact that Equestria isn't perfect reassuring.  If I actually lived in the grand children's show utopia of My Little Pony?  I'd have no idea how to deal with a world that perfect.  I'd probably have gone insane years ago.

As it is, though, I was born to my mother six years ago in a little nothing-village ten day's trot from Stalliongrad and two week's hard travel from Canterlot.  Worse, the village wasn't in a direct commerce path from either, which meant the little town of Springhoof didn't even get through-traffic.

Springhoof was podunk to the podunk.

It was a backwater's backwater.

I'm pretty sure Pincess Celestia has actually lost thing more important and noticeable than my hometown.

...I think you get the point, now, actually.

It's a good thing I wasn't a city-kid in my past life...or maybe I was and just can't remember it?  I shook my head and refocused my mind on the task at hand.  It was the only thing remotely 'fun' to be found to be had in Springhoof.

Magic Practice.

I smiled as I looked at the carefully arranged stones around me.  If there was one thing that made up for having my comfortable life ripped away from me, one thing to 'compensate' for the pain and anguish and outright trauma of having to go through infancy and child...foalhood again, it was magic.

*Little Note Here: This snippet has been rendered super-non-canon by later seasons of MLP.  It's very old though, so give it a break.