4/4 first - prev

The pillars are a legendary hypothetical group of heroes. A few old files dating from before the sisters reign have been found on the group but were heavily redacted from before the separation of Equus and Equestria. Only hypothesis can be done on its role and members. From what scholars have deciphered, Starswirl the Bearded seems to have been involved in a way or another as most redacting have been registered as being of his doing. Princess Celestia has indicated her lack of knowledge about any group her old mentor could have been a part off aside from the solar mages. --------------------------- Originally I tried another style soooo, little bonus !

3/4 prev - next Somnambula is a unicorn who comes from the homonymous desert. It is actually unknow if she was named after the place or if the place was named after her. Most historians thinks she is a fictive character.

The tale of Somnambula is classical from the region, the story of the young unicorn who went and saved the pharaoh from a terrible Sphinx but lost her sight to the creature after managing to answer its riddle. Despite no proof of the existance of Somnambula being ever found, most habitants of Somnambula insist on the existance of the mare. The closest thing to a proof of her existance is a letter talking about the story by the pharaoh, alas translation is difficult due to the state of the paper as it was partially burned. Some historians pretends than proof of her existance or non-existance may be found inside the pharaoh's room in the pyramid. Though those ponies tends to be badly seen by the community after having mistaken pharoahs and having announced her existance due to a vase done about the story, thinking it had been done at the time of the story. The vase was, in fact, two hundred years too recent. ---------------

Rockhoof is a unicorn from a volcanic island at the edge of Equus and Equestria. Despite the stereotypes about unicorns, Rockhoof wasn't any kind of scholar or even a good magician. He is of the type of unicorns often forgotten but his existance was proved thanks to his file in the Mighty Helm. The Mighty Helm was originally a subdivision from the EPA which separated from the EPA, becoming it's own little force. It is mainly known as one of the first known group which allowed ponies of different kinds to fight together. The most known tale about the stallion is the following : Rockhoof was a particularly weak colt when he was young. Generally, weak bodied unicorn became scholars or planners but not Rockhoof. The young stallion trained again and again for years, slowly building strenght and muscle. Though the strength he is now known for only appeared while his town was in danger due to the volcan erupting. Rockhoof took his shovel and managed to dig and deep trench in only moments as in face of the danger he accepted than he was neither a failed unicorn to prefer physical activity nor a failed earth pony for not being born an earth pony and having horn magic. Despite the disparition of both the Mighty Helm and the town, Rockhoof is a classical figure to see in foal-section classroom or in museum. There are also a few games which were inspired by his story. ------------------------

Mistmane is a pegasus mare from the lost pegasi empire of Poneon. Her existance is doubted at best by most historians despite her name being used to describe a type of mane replacement and a medical condition. If the tale is too be believed, young Mistmane was one of the most beautiful mare of her time with a lustruous fur, magnificient mane and shining feathers. But the young mare was also an adventurer and a friend of the princess of Poneon, a small pegasus touched by naked foal syndrom, a fatal condition. To give the bed-ridden filly a taste of the world despite it, she went and traveled accross the world for years, allegedly bringing beauty and peace with her. But when she went back home, she discovered than her friend's parents, in a desperate try to make their daughter happy and experience travel, forced most of her town to bring and do exotic things for the sick filly. The young princess hating the suffering endured for her despite loving the attention and unable to convince her parents than they don't need to make people suffer to try and make her last few years better. Mistmane, having explored the world, had also discovered multiple magic and 'broke' the disease in two, losing all of her hair to allow her friend's to grow and make her healthier. Horrifying her friend as by doing so, she had lowered her own life expectancy. The tale finishing on a cautionary notes explaining than even when you want the best for someone, you have to ensure their consent to the act. If the story is true, no one is certain of what happened to either the princess, the Emperor family or Mistmane after this story.

New redesign of the pillars :DD And... I'm still unsure for some of them x"DD I hesitate to swap Stygian and Starswirl for example. And I also hesitate to make umbrum (making them more earth-pony like than unicorn-like) and either make Stygian or Somnanbula one. But yeah, here I will just talk about timeline in my AU :DD (I think I will do character by character drawing of them at a moment as I did with the mane 6) The timeline begins with the Unknown Era. Or the time before the sun and moon needed benders. Before the weather needed help to regulate itself. The time when the elements were working together as a well rodded machine. That Era was put to an end at the arrival of Grogar and him breaking all of the natural cycles to control them himself.

We then enter the Era of Monsters, which funnily enough is also the time where the different pony types were created by Grogar. The different earth-ponies type (zebras, donkey, earth-pony, ...), the closest to the originals inhabitant of Equus. Made more resistant and stronger to be able to survive the long hours of difficult work that were put on them day after day. Their hooves the new rythm at which the magic of the ground beats. The flying types (Pegasus and Bat-ponies) to control the weather, one from the sky by creating and manipulating clouds, one from the ground, helping all types of mist. One able of high flight, one able of impressive dashes and jumps thanks to their wings despite being grounded. Both lighter bodies that the others to be easier to control and herd with powerful flying monsters. The magic-type (unicorn, kirin) one centered on the elements of the nature their creator destroyed, one centered on emotions. Their bodies weak and fragile. Some says kirins were a mistake by Grogar, a first try for unicorn, to explain their second form, the nirik. Some says that, kirin were the first try for alicorn, to force an element inside the body of the pony so they would control it. And finally, Alicorn. The final type, the type Grogar would gave to his better followers. Traces shows that most to all tried to overthrown Grogar before they completely disapeared. The one beating him would be Clover the Clever after uniting for the first time the different pony type and stealing his magical source. The Era of Monsters would still last centuries before the Era of Unity begun (The Era still continuing to this day), before the two alicorn sisters unites below them ponykind. But before that and after Grogar, when the pony types are still separated and most thinks a unity as such as the one against Grogar couldn't happen without a world threat, a young Kirin assembles a group of heroes from all over the young Equestria, the Pillars. That group would unknowningly pave the path of unity while fighting the monsters still rooming all over Equestria, bringing chaos and destruction. Alas, they would all disapears a few years only before the sisters step up.

That legendary group let only few traces to new generations, a few tales of a group of ponies fighting to save towns and cities. Most of those tales only talks about six heroes. Fewer sometimes mentions a seventh one. The only sure fact is the presence of the still-famous Starswirl the bearded.

Full shuffled pillars ! :DD Here are their adapted stories (version in a nutshell) :

-Starswirl, alicorn of magic : first unicorn to ever reach alicorn-hood by his own means and teacher of Celestia and Luna. He became an alicorn before there was one government for all of ponykind, the fusion was done by the sisters after he disapeared. He is the one who created the first few models of magic and multiple spells. Some call him the "father of modern magic"

-Flash Magnus, earth pony soldier : the town he was situated in got attacked by a dragon, pegasi soldiers came since they are better abilited to fight a flying ennemy. They got beaten but before they could get burned to a crisp, Flash grabbed one of their shield and threw himself before the blaze, stopping it and managed to beat the dragon by climbing on it.

-Mistmane, pegasus : In this version, her friend is younger and became deadly sick during her absence. Her parents, to try and keep her alive as long as they could, locked her in the palace and she began asking for all the beautiful things, to feel as if she had been able to travel, explore and discover. Feeling isolated due to Mistmane being gone, the villagers being overworked and her parents not accepting that she wants to see the world, even if it makes her life even shorter. Finally, she snaps at them when Mistmane comes back and sacrifice a big part of her health for her (against her friend will, who also snaps at Mistmane, not having wanted her friend to suffer for her, but nothing could take it back), making her realize that no-object could make the disapointment of staying between the same walls disapear. And that she only felt hurt for the hurt caused to others to try and make her happy. Mistmane is a master of weathers and winds, able to make powerful puppet-cloud that she can use to attack. She is very weakened by her condition and needs regular rest-period.

-Rockhoof, unicorn : despite the stereotype on his race, he isn't a scholar and doesn't have natural talent in magic nor strong magic. Tried and tried to conform but it wasn't him. Realized he loved physical labor and was kind of shunned for it, so he shunned his own magic, when his town got in danger from the volcano, he (like in fim) began his trench, while digging, he realized his magic could help him and to amazement, when he accepted that he wasn't a failed unicorn for preferring physical labor nor a failed earth pony for having magic, it happened like fim and he saved his home. He began then working with the mighty helm despite them originally being earth pony only, due to unicorn army working only with their magic.

-Somnambula, unicorn : very close to fim until her magic was stopped by horn ring for the crossing of the bridge. She again crossed it by not losing hope or panicking. But the end wasn't quite as sweet and easy because, when she took the blindfold off and saved the prince, the sphinx decided to get one last hit before flying away and blinded her with a hit of claws in the eyes. She is also a dream-walker (like Luna, she can walk in dream. Though, contrary to her, she can only access dreams of people she touch and can't manipulate them, she has to make the dreamer manipulate their own dream).

-Meadowbrook, bat-pony : the exact same as fim, except she isn't an earth pony but a bat-pony. Bat-ponies generally lives in forest in my au due to not being as good flyiers as regular pegasus. They also have a better night-vision but are more easily blinded by bright light. I will at a moment make something to talk about the different pony kind in the au

-Stygian, earth pony : I can't tell much since it would spoil if I write precisely the au x'DD So, I will just say he is a shadow-infused earth pony. Where earth pony are normally infused with the magic of the earth (which give them their enhanced strenght and ability to grow crops more easily), he is infused with the shadows. It is a forbidden process done during pregnancy that is complete at birth. If Stygian had a child, except if he had them with another shadow-infused earth pony, the child would be either a regular earth pony or of the other parent race. Being infused with the 'wrong' magic has multiple consequences, notably being far smaller and weaker than normal, a weakened immune system, special culinary needs, ... It also allow access to the magic in question, more precision if/when I will do a post on them specificaly. Starswirl was aware of what Stygian was from the moment he saw him. Stygian isn't aware before being in current Equestria.

Small concept for the pillars (already changed, not linked to the AU) and my problem with them pretty much x'DD I really like them, but I think they are extremely under-used. They appeared what, 4 times in the whole series for the most part ? (except Stygian who litterally appeared twice, in the finale about the pillars and once referenced as an author, not even here x'DD And Starswirl who got a bit more mention, but even then, still not a lot) And they had so much potential ! For me, the best thing would have been to make them antagonists (not villains) during a season. They each have an opposing member of the mane 6, they are a far more powerful group without the use of the elements (or well, should be *looking at you the pillars vs tirek fight*) and they have a pretty opposite view from the mane 6 despite having used the same methods multiples times (the pillars stops the threats without proposing a chance at redemption, the mane 6 did it multiple time but they also offered redemption).

Stygian could have been very interesting by not making him guilty of stealing (bc yeah, he still took without asking his friends artifacts... They should have let him explain, bc he could have had a good reason (for example, there could have been a curse put on the artifacts, curse which could kill his friends before they came back when he saw it. In that case, he would have been justified (and he could have, like, put a note but they didn't found it) in doing without asking because there would be a high chance that they never make it back in time for him to ask.). Instead, it would have been interesting that he was casted out after a disput where he began doubting the casting away method or even him getting upset about being let in the shadows despite all the work he does for them.

Also, the pony of shadow. NOTHING was done with them. All they did is being a big mouth and it's really disapointing, particularly when we see them *resisting* the elements of harmony. They were just a tool to get the pillars to seal themselves away ! They didn't even came back with other villains despite being in a known location ! They could have gaven them to Cozy for example instead of making her an alicorn with the bell, or to Sombra even. Not to mention that they were mentionned far earlier in the series and... had nothing to do with that mention :/

So yeah, in my AU, I'd like to make them more important, all without eclipsing the mane 6. There are some hated episodes which could have been made far better by using the pillars (whose relationship could be rocky since they were less a friend group and more a work group. And could also be on hills with the whole change of time period + what happened with stygian, particularly if they find themselves as the villains of that story. Not to mention it could allow for old lessons to be re-relearned with the same character as main, but not as "they need to relearn it" but more as a "they need to reinforced it in themselves and helping others with that same problem"). And I hesitate a lot because if I talked about the closest concept I had to canon here, there are LOADS of things which could have been done. (Calling them bc a still villain starlight uses starswirl spells and the p.o.s is seen as not as much of a threat? (which would make their return even more epic because the threat is *seen* but just seen as a necessary risk) And villain starlight taking stygian "under her wings" to be able to access the power of p.o.s ? Good Starlight "falling back to evilness" and Starswirl trying to use it as proof of his world view? P.o.s escaping and the pillars begin trying to act on reformed villains? (using discord old betrayal as proof of the need to do it?) With Luna running away when Celestia wants to put her in safety before Starswirl learns of Nightmare Moon? Luna creating some Nightmare knights to saves people while in hiding with other reformed villains (some even low-grade, but still attacked by pillars)? So many possibilities ! AAAAAAAH)

So yeah, that was kind of a rant x'DD

Oh also, here Stygian is a bat pony bc my first idea was to make him one and the pony of shadow a kind of force protecting bat ponies. With that idea, I was thinking of making batponies extincts and the p.o.s of Castlemania a residue of it, staying where the last batponies went to pay respect to Luna, princess of the night, their time of day. But I kind of let this idea behind now. I also didn't really liked what I did for most of them