Fanfic / Austraeoh

Ever eastward…

Rainbow Dash flies east.

Austraeoh is a lengthy ongoing My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfiction series by Imploding Colon. New chapters have been released daily since May 2012. There are currently eight completed stories: Austraeoh, Eljunbyro, Innavedr, Odrsjot, Urohringr, Yaerfaerda, Ynanhluutr, Utaan, and an ongoing ninth, Ofolrodi. Each story is 200 chapters long, with Utaan (clocking in at 300) and Ofolrodi (still unfinished, but topping 300) being the exceptions for the time being.

The official story summary is the laconic "Rainbow Dash flies east." Indeed, that's the only thing that happens for a while as the story begins: Rainbow Dash is flying in solitude across uninhabited scenic landscapes, and is about to reach the eastern edge of a map of lands known to the kingdom of Equestria. Where is she heading? Why has she left home? Why does she keep the Element of Loyalty on her? Any answers to these questions will not come early in the story.

The author, Imploding Colon, is an alias of shortskirtsandexplosions, author of well-known fanfics Background Pony and The End of Ponies, a fact that was not known initially and came as a surprise to many readers. The author has spoken almost nothing about Austraeoh and its sequels, only briefly acknowledging writing them in some recent blog posts. Although the author never replies to reader comments, he seems to enjoy reading them, as hidden references to last chapter's comments occasionally appear in the next chapter. Starting from about the mid-point of Austraeoh (the first story in the series), most characters and places have been named after frequent commenters on Fimfiction.net.

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This My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Fan Fic series contains examples of the following tropes:

• Aerith and Bob: Partially caused by the author's practice of naming characters after commenters' nicknames. Aeriths include Zaap Nator, Floydien, Khao, Zaid, Zytharros, Arcshod, Lasairfion. Examples of Bobs are Sam, Stu, Dalton, Jasper Clark, and Simon. Then there are traditional (canon-like) pony names such as Gold Petals, Whitemane and Nightshade.
• All Just a Dream: A number of chapters in Innavedr. Nightshade captures Bellesmith and plugs her into a sequencing machine to trick information out of here. As the chapters are through Belle's point of view; the reader doesn't learn it until several chapters later. As those chapters were released, some observant readers guessed it already at the first or second dream chapter, due to Kera behaving "out of character".
• Anti-Magic: The sapphiric crystal ponies of Aurum province can suppress biological and artificial leylines.
• Arc Number: 12. There are 12 planned parts of the series (9 currently published), and Urohringr is a dodecagon, a 12-sided polygon.
• Arc Symbol: Each part prominently features a symbol representing the same thing as the fic's name. There is also the sunrise, emblematic of Rainbow's journey east.
• Awesome, but Temporary:
  • The Sword of the Solstice was the only reason anypony made it off Stratopolis alive. It also allowed Rainbow Dash to talk to Celestia whenever the sun was up. Rainbow Dash decided to leave it in Durandana to give the pegasi there a link to Celestia.
  • Unfortunately, the entirety of the Noble Jury can fit this description- they were fated to part at the Grand Choke since its perils were first mentioned back with the caravan in Windthrow.
• Ax-Crazy: Rainbow Dash, without the Element of Loyalty to keep her Chaos in check, will relentlessly slaughter anyone in her path. The Ledomaritans only realized the connection between her and the Element because it was at the bottom of a Mountain Of Corpses.
• Badass Boast: Courtesy of Prime Enforcer Shell; "I don't make threats. I make corpses."
• Badass Crew:
  • The Noble Jury. Every single one of them, even the stated non-combative ones, have been shown to handle themselves in a fight.
  • The Tarkington's crew is hardly shabby either, especially since many of them-changeling impostors or not- were antagonists at some point in the story.
• Badass Family: And then we have Pilate, Belle and Kera.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Bellesmith verses Nightshade in chapter 150 of Innavedr.
• Battle Amongst the Flames: The confrontation at the end of Odrsjot gets extra credit for being both this AND a battle in the rain.
• Battle Couple: Rainbow Dash and Roarke have been this since around when the party re-united in Urohringr, though oddly they don't seem to fight alongside each other as often as you might expect.
• Battle in the Rain: See Battle Amongst the Flames above.
• BFS: The Xonan general Zytharros has a magical sword "twice the size of any full grown pony".
• Big Bad: Prime Enforcer Shell is this for the majority of Eljunbyro, Innavedr and Odrsjot. After him, the next big bad seems to be none other than Queen Chrysalis.
• Big Damn Heroes: At the end of Eljunbyro, with Rainbow at her last legs and Shell poised to kill her, Roarke returns in her ship and makes it off with the unconscious Rainbow Dash, leaving Shell in the dust.
• Big Good: Queen Whitemane, in the first two books. Duchess Arcanista fills this role somewhat in Yaerfaerda.
• Bilingual Bonus: the titles are composed of Old Norse or old English (with a little bit of goodwill when it comes to the grammar).
  • The meanings of Eljunbyro ("endurance (re)born") and Odrsjot ("frantic compansionship") are mentioned in the text.
  • Austraeoh is "east horse" (Austraeoh; the "eoh" is from Old English)
  • Innavedr is "accomplish-wind"
  • The "hringr" in Urohringr means "circle, ring", while "Uro" means chaos or unrest in modern scandinavian, meaning Urohringr can be translated as "Discordant Ring".
  • Yaerfaerda apparently comes from "gær - fœða", "yesterday - to give birth" (translated as "foal yesterday" in the story).
  • Ynanhluutr seems to come from "innan hlutr" - "inner purpose".
• Blood Knight: Roarke delights in combat, and are overjoyed at fighting a Worthy Opponent like Rainbow Dash.
• Book Dumb: Rainbow Dash is this by her own admission.
• Breaking the Fellowship:
  • Eljunbyro ends with Rainbow kidnapped/saved by Roarke; Pilate alone, blind, and whereabouts unknown; Bellesmith and Phoenix on a Ledomaritan transport bound for Blue Nova; Eagle Eyes lost and possibly dying in a canyon somewhere; and Crimson boarding a managlider to chase either Rainbow or Bellesmith.
  • The Noble Jury disbands in Yaerfaerda, and Rainbow Dash goes into the Grand Choke alone.
• Breather Episode: the Emeraldine arc, where Dash gets to play soccer and meet with the friendly Queen Whitemane. The Alafreo and Durandana arcs of Urohringr are DEFINITELY this, and are the first real spots where you can kick back and relax since... Emeraldine, actually. This did not stop paranoid fans from being concerned while they were in progress, however.
• Butch Lesbian: Rainbow Dash prefers mares and is a self-proclaimed athlete.
• Butt-Monkey: Nightshade. She has gone through and continues to go through so much crap that you really do have to wonder if the author hates her.
• Canon Immigrant: Eagle Eye is based on a character of the same name and appearance, appearing in three fanfics (Distorted Perspective, Playing Hard to Get and A Night He (Won't) Remember) by Vimbert the Unimpressive.
• Child Soldier: The Searonese in general, but Roarke in particular. Foals are raised from birth to become warriors.
• The Chosen One: It slowly becomes clear that Rainbow Dash is Austraeoh, the Spark that will reforge Urohringr.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Props and Floydien, at least at first impression.
• Character-Magnetic Team: The Noble Jury acts as this for much of the main cast.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Rainbow tends to solve problems on her trip eastward. Averted for the reason she set out in the first place. She's travelling eastward because she has nothing left at home.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Enforcer Josho. There is no other way to describe him.
• Cute Ghost Girl: Twilight Sparkle. Don't tell her, though.
• Cyborg: the Searonese, especially Lady Pestiferous. Also Uncle Prowse.
• Damaged Soul: After being dead for a good few months and turning into a chaos beast, Rainbow is a bit unhinged upon coming back. She gets better, but for a while she's so Ax-Crazy that even the people she's helping are deeply terrified of her, not helped by her joking and laughing and generally acting like Pinkie Pie while being splattered with the blood of ponies she just killed.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Rainbow Dash can remove her pendant and enjoy the benefits of being a partially transformed chaos beast, but there's always the chance of it being permanent. It's also very painful for her.
• Dead to Begin With: The Mane Six are all dead except for Rainbow Dash for the entirety of the books up to Ynanhluutr.
• Death Seeker: Rainbow Dash is a weird mix of this and Immortality Seeker. The Chaos Energies inside of her will destroy her if she can't remake the elements. She'll either succeed and become immortal, or fail and die, and she really doesn't care which one it ends up being.
• Defeat Means Friendship: This is how Roarke and Josho come about joining the Jury.
• Defector from Decadence: Josho was just fine with killing Xonans and following the will of Ledomare ... until Shell tried to pervert his idea of justice.
• The Determinator: Prime Enforcer Shell. Seriously, he's relentless!
• Diabolus ex Machina: In Odrsjot. Belle, Pilate, and Kera have been left in Lerris, where they can start a new life away from war ... and then Shell shows up and slaughters the entire village. The three of them survive, but not without scars.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Enraged by her friends' deaths, Rainbow manages to summon her Element's power and single-hoofedly turn Discord back into a statue. She proceeds to break the statue into pieces
• Doomed Hometown: And how. Kera has this really bad. No sooner than she arrives at the place she decides to settle down in with Bellesmith and Pilate, which was her hometown before abducted by Nightshade, Prime Enforcer Shell shows up and spreads the fun to everypony!
• Door Stopper: As of February 2021, this story is 2000 chapters long, clocking in at 3,903,404 words total. And it's still not complete.
• Downer Ending: Austraeoh seemingly ends with Rainbow dying, but she gets better in Eljunbyro (although it isn't clear that she survived till halfway in Eljunbyro). In the end of Eljunbyro, several main characters get thrown off an airship, but the very ending reveals that they all (unbeknownst to each other) survived the fall.
• Disney Villain Death: Enforcer Shell gets bucked off a bridge by Rainbow Dash in chapter 95 of Eljunbyro. He survives.
• The Dreaded: Rainbow to the Ledomaritan soldiers, and not without reason. Rumors eventually start spreading that she can summon giant centipedes at will. While that's not true, she did slaughter an entire batallion on her own.
• Dream Within a Dream: Bellesmith experiences a severe confusion of dreams and reality when Madame Nightshade plugs her into sequencing while she sleeps and makes her believe that the events of Eljunbyro and Innavedr were hallucinations experienced under sequencing in Blue Shelf. Belle is first driven to suicide in the dreamworld and then made to experience a false awakening in Blue Shelf.
• Driving Question: Why is Rainbow Dash flying east? At least for the first half of the first story.
• Egopolis: Ledomare is ruled by queen Ledo. The nation is actually officially known as The Maretriarchal Confederacy, but gets a new name based on the ruling monarch. Previous names include Byssomare, Zaidmare and Wessamare.
• Eldritch Abomination: The chaos monsters in Windthrow. Also, what Rainbow becomes when her pendant is removed. And Nevlamas.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Enforcer Josho has no problem killing Xonans, but he refuses to kill his own people.
  • Shell is disgusted when he finds out that Nightshade abducted a bunch of unicorn foals, chopped off their horns, and forced then into a Lotus-Eater Machine.
• Evil Is Hammy: Nevlamas, in chapter 123 of ''Odrsjot'' for example.
• Eye Colour Change: Rainbow Dash's eyes are red rather than magenta in this story. It's because of the influence of Discord. Anytime she loses the element of loyalty, they turn yellow and red like his eyes were.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Many of the deaths in the series are this. Twilight and the Elements of Harmony are reduced to dust. Nightshade as abandoned and left for dead. Shell is impaled on a stake. There are many, many more.
• Flash Back: Several such chapters occur throughout Austraeoh, slowly unveiling the backstory. Then in the first half of Eljunbyro, we finally get the entire backstory in form of several multi-chapter flashbacks.
• Flat World: The fraction of Urohringr that the entire story takes place upon is stated to be a flat side of a dodecagon.
• Foreshadowing: The fic routinely draws attention to Rainbow Dash's ruby eyes. Except, in the show, Rainbow's eyes are magenta, not red. It's eventually revealed that she is host to Discord's magic, who does have red eyes.
• Good Samaritan: Rainbow Dash flies east. Meanwhile, she simply does what she feels to be right, and accomplishes feats that heal the hearts of ancient, mad Divines, brings peace to two war-torn nation-states, and saves the world from an unstoppable undead plague. She never once asks recompense for this, and as soon as all is well takes wing once more.
• Heroic BSoD: After the Lerris massacre, Kera is reduced to an unresponsive shadow of a filly.
• Hidden Elf Village: Equestria itself turns out to be one for the pegasus race. Across most of the world, pegasi are all but nonexistant (the ponies of Emeraldine only knew of one pony with wings, their alicorn queen), but they are abundant enough to make up a third of the population in Equestria.
• Honor Before Reason: Roarke, and her fellow Searonese, treat imprisonment and being saved by someone else as worse than death. It's so bad that she tries to start a fight while Rainbow is trying to get her out of a burning inferno.
• How Much More Can He Take?: Pretty much the majority of Rainbow Dash and Roarke's fight. Everytime one thinks they have beaten the other, they just get back up again. Rainbow Dash ultimately wins by smashing her armor with Crimson's hammer.
• Humanoid Abomination: Rainbow Dash is a pony, a being of harmony, with the power and magic of Discord swirling around inside her. As long as she keeps the Element of Harmony around her neck it's fine, but it's the last element and won't keep her safe forever, and anytime she removes it she starts turning into something like Discord only a lot less playfully mad and a lot more Ax-Crazy.
• Hypocrite: Shell spends a good deal of time describing how much of a monster Rainbow is. He is blind to all the atrocities he himself has committed willingly, whereas Rainbow rarely kills anyone intentionally.
• Immortality Seeker: Spoiler for 1/3 through Eljunbyro: Rainbow Dash. She's bound to both Chaos and Harmony, but with only the single element to keep chaos in check, she will eventually die. If she were to recreate the elements with the Harmonic Prism, the harmony would be powerful enough to fend off chaos indefinitely, making her immortal.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Shell's eventual fate is to be impaled by Rainbow Dash with a stake. The best part is that he still causes trouble for the jury for, arguably, the next hundred-or-so chapters.
• Imposter Forgot One Detail:
  • Played with. The changeling impersonating Prowse did know he has an accent... but it failed to realize that he only uses that accent as a marketing gimmick. Unfortunately, Prowse's niece Props has forgotten this since she last saw him.
  • More generally, changelings have green blood, even when transformed. Or do they?
• Indy Ploy: Rainbow's approach to most situations is to make it up as she goes, and rely on luck and endurance to make it through alive.
  Eagle Eye: Don't do anything stupid.
  Rainbow: You mean stupider than usual?
• In Medias Res: The story starts out with Rainbow Dash flying east, with no explanation of where she's headed or why. The Backstory is told through a series of flashbacks in Eljunbyro.
• Internal Reveal: In "Dying Fighting" (Eljunbyro), Rainbow spills the beans to Crimson (and unbeknownst to her, Zenith who's listening in) that she's dying, and whatever goal she's going for she probably won't live to see it.
• Invincible Hero: Dash selflessly throws herself into danger to help ponies she's just met (even though she's already on a really important quest and time is critical)... and invariably succeeds. You might find it acceptable because Dash is a canon character who's been shown to be legitimately badass, but even then there are limits. Especially in Ridgeside it's amped up to ridiculous levels: Dash boasts about how awesome she is, Dash does something awesome, everyone else gushes about how awesome Dash is, rinse, repeat. After two days the villagers already want to name a building after her – and this is the one group for which she doesn't perform any town-saving heroics!
• La Résistance: Ponies against dragons in Silvadel.
• Lame Pun Reaction: Happens once when Rainbow refers to "the Ten Commarements", and another time when she uses the phrase "to show the middle fetlock".
• Leave No Witnesses: Shell claims that Rainbow was found after she killed the entire village of Aridstone when her necklace was removed. A flashback at the end of Eljunbyro shows that her necklace wasn't removed until after she was placed in the Chaos metal sarcophagus, and the village was killed by Shell's enforcers to prevent any witnesses of the confederacy's latest "weapon".
• Little Miss Badass: Despite being the youngest of the Jury, Kera has incredible raw magical talent.
• The Lost Lenore: Applejack is Rainbow's. While they were never in a relationship, Rainbow was in love with her. She does have flings along the journey eastward, but they all end just as soon as they begin due to Rainbow's quest.
• Malaproper: Rainbow Dash tends to replace fancy words with similar-sounding ones.
• Messianic Archetype: Rainbow Dash is one of at least two, and likely more, ponies destined to spread harmony known as Austraeoh. She exhibits every element of the classic Messianic qualifiers except for having a name directly based off of Jesus.
• Mistaken Identity: When Rainbow arrives in Verdestone, the denizens assume she's queen Whitemane's daughter. Whitemane doesn't actually have a daughter, and she and Rainbow look nothing alike, but the Verdestinians have never seen a pegasus before, so they assume she's related to the only other winged pony they know.
• Mysterious Watcher: Chapter 17 of Odrsjot ends with a cloaked figure watching the party.
• Mythology Gag: A place called Dream Valley is, according to this story, somewhere in Equestria. Seaponies are also mentioned in passing.
• Never Mess with Granny: Lady Pestiferous. There's a reason the Searonese treat her with such reverence.
• The Nicknamer: Rainbow rarely calls anyone by their real names. Among others, Bellesmith and Pilate are "Ding-dong" and "Stripes".
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The dragon Matriarch Axan gives one to Rainbow Dash after she melts her hoard.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Shell will occasionally engage in some gloating, but usually only while he pounds some poor pony into the ground with his immense magical power.
• Noodle Incident: Props mentioned several such events in her uncle Prowse's life, over 300 chapters before said uncle actually appeared in the story.
• Noodle Implements: Inverted in that the audience knows exactly what she's talking about, while Belle, Dalton and Pilate are just confused when Rainbow Dash casually mentions that last time she was in the mechanical bowels of the world, it involved floating balls of lightning, a gasmask and a bunch of dead foals.
• "Not So Different" Remark
  • Josho delivers a short speech to Shell, trying to make a friend. Shell disagrees. Loudly.
  • Shell also is very fond of telling Rainbow Dash how evil she is.
• No, You:
  Rainbow: We found a safe way out of here, so lemme just undo these restraints-
  Roarke: Undo your own birth, you dishonorable pile of filth!
• One-Steve Limit:
  • Broken with the name Zetta, borne by two characters (one a stallion, the other a mare). Also, Bellesmith is usually called Belle, which generally stands for Sweetie Belle in this fandom.
  • Merigold, the Mayor of Amulek, shares a name(with one less R) as Shell's deceased beloved. Once more a subversion of this trope.
• Oh, My Gods!: inverted by the Val Roans, who actually use real-word phrases involving God, with God always capitalised. What the nature of their religion is has not been revealed. Played straight with other cultures in the story: Ledomaritians invoke 'the Spark', Xonans Nagu'n, Searonese Searo, while Rainbow Dash herself uses Celestia and Luna's names or sometimes 'Goddess'.
• One-Winged Angel:
  • Lady Pestiferous can turn into a mechanical pony-spider hybrid at will.
  • If Rainbow Dash is without the element of loyalty for too long, she turns into an Ax-Crazy dragon-like creature.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The dragons that appear in Austraeoh are, to make a massive understatement, not as friendly as Spike. The dragon Matriarchs are apparently ancient creatures older than the alicorns.
• Paradox Person: Rainbow Dash. After killing Discord, she became the host of Chaos while also being a creature of harmony. The Chaos is kept at bay by her Element of Loyalty, but there's only so much it can do and any time she removes it, her Chaos starts to show.
• Pensieve Flashback: Through a technology called "sequencing" in the country of Ledomare. Can only be done by unicorns whose horns have been lost or removed. Curiously, this can be done even if only a skeleton is left of the subject whose memories are accessed.
• Point of Divergence: The point where the fic diverges from canon is the second part of Return of Harmony. Instead of simply fizzling harmlessly, the backlash from trying to use the Elements of Harmony while discorded and without Rainbow Dash kills the rest of the mane six. Rainbow, having shaken off her own discordance, gets there just in time to see what happens and kills Discord in anger, something that turns out to have been a bad idea.
• Precursors:
  • According to Whitemane, the Alicorns (of whom Celestia, Luna and Whitemane are the last ones) seeded the world with harmony (and thereby life) after discovering it drifting through the void. She's partially correct, although that's not the entire truth.
  • Pilate finds some old ruins and deduces from the pictograms that they were built by a pegasi civilization that predates even the earliest settlements in the area. The ancient Pegasi were the first equine race to inhabit the world, possibly even before Urohringr was shattered. Modern equines are descended from the Pegasi through the Alicorns' meddling.
• The Quest: Go to the eastern edge of the world, reach the Midnight Armory, restore the Elements of Harmony.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: In addition to Prince Sam Rose from Silvadel, we have Prime Enforcer Shell. He's pretty much the leader of the enforcers, and is just as badass as Rainbow Dash.
• Recursive Fanfiction: Meat by Nevlamas, featuring Floydien's backstory. More loosely, there are a number of stories inspired by Austraeoh, such as Umbreka^note Fluttershy flies east, the Light Trilogy^note A changeling runs away, The White Void^note Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle try to escape the titular White Void, Climbing Mountians^note Years have passed. The Crusaders are given a task, Solem Perditum^note Princess Celestia wanders the lunar landscape, exploring the dark side of the moon. What she discovers there may be more than she can handle, From the Mist^note The great Pegasus fortress of Nimbus Ring vanishes, and Commander Hurricane sets out to find it, and The Olden World^note Equestrian culture loves cutie marks. Filly Starlight Glimmer hates them and never wants one. So, she leaves Equestria.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: After Zenith tries to sell out Rainbow Dash, Shell rewards him with an exploding mana crystal in the mouth.
• Ring World Planet: The world of Equestria used to be one, called Urohringr, which was shattered a long time ago.
• Samus Is a Girl: Roarke is female... not that you can tell from all the armor she wears.
• Sanity Slippage: Shell seems to be getting more and more insane with every appearance. Bellesmith too, but to a lesser extent.
• Self-Deprecation: In Innavedr, in reference to one of the first chapters of Austraeoh.
  Rainbow Dash: The sapphiric, glowy bands of light!
  Imre: "Sapphiric" isn't a word!
• Significant Anagram: this doesn't come up in the story itself (and probably is just a coincidence in-universe), but Noble Jury, the name of Floydien's airship, is an anagram of Eljunbyro. The author named the ship after a chatroom of the story's fans, whose name in turn was created by putting Eljunbyro into an anagram generator.
• Shattered World: Equestrians generally know that the world is a plane, much longer in the east-west direction than in the north-south. In Innavedr we learn that this is only a part of the formerly ring-shaped world, long ago shattered into pieces.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: As the series progresses, Rainbow Dash, her ghostly compatriots, Verlax, and others outright discuss this with each other on the subject of harmony and chaos. This scale tends to slide based on different character's experiences, with Twilight and company going the friendship route, Rainbow varying, and characters like Verlax going on the death and destruction side.
• Stealth Pun: A mysterious group of merchants, which for some reason is called "The Lounge", is mentioned in Odrsjot. In Urohringr, we learn that they are anthropomorphic lizards.
• Steampunk: Many of the civilisations east of Equestria run on steam power combined with magic.
• Sudden Name Change: Happens to two characters near the beginning of Austraeoh. Ironhoof is first introduced as "Stonehoof", and another character's name vacillates between "Sun Plate" and "Iron Plate" before settling on "Gold Plate".
• Survivor Guilt: Rainbow has this big time, especially evident in Eljunbyro. She actually has a reason to blame herself too, having succumbed to Discord's temptation.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: Gold Petals, who has to pretend to be a stallion to get to join trade caravans.
• Take That!: A small one in "Precious Wings" of Eljunbyro. Rainbow says she'll be back before Belle and Pilate can recite the Ledomaritan pledge of allegiance, to which Pilate responds that they don't have one. That's right, the blatantly authocratic nation doesn't have the thing that the US makes their students do every morning.
• Temporary Love Interest: Gold Petals was this... for maybe thirty chapters in Austraeoh at most, and has barely been mentioned in the story since. Overall, Rainbow tends to get a minor love interest in several of the places she visits, but doesn't stay.
• Theory of Narrative Causality: Partially lampshaded and given an In-Universe explanation in Eljunbyro. After realizing how often Rainbow Dash has narrowly escaped death, Bellesmith and Pilate discuss the possibility that Rainbow's destiny might actually be preventing her from dying before the end of her journey.
• Threesome Subtext: There is some between Rainbow, Belle and Pilate when they travel together in Eljunbyro. Rainbow Dash treats them affectionately like close friends after just knowing them for a short while, and Pilate and Belle both refer to her as "beloved", a term they otherwise only use for eachother.
• Title Drop: In Austraeoh, this happens in the last chapter. Even then, the meaning of the word "Austraeoh" is not explained at all till Eljunbyro. In Eljunbyro, Innavedr, and Odrsjot, the title drop happens earlier. In all three cases, it's in the form of a character suddenly and unexpectedly uttering the title word.
• Tragic Keepsake: Rainbow dash carries two items with her; The glasses from Scootaloo, and a book of pictures. She loses both to the dragons in Silvadel.
• Transferable Memory: The "sequencing" technology of Ledomare lets a unicorn with a severed horn experience the memories of a dead subject. It's now Bellesmith learns Rainbow's past.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Madame Nightshade's goal of achieving world peace.
• Villainous Breakdown: Prime Enforcer Shell gets one in chapter 174 of Eljunbyro. And it only gets worse from there...
• Your Head Asplode: Shell kills Zenith by throwing a sound stone, a kind of mana crystal, and overloading it, blowing his head up real bad.
• We Have Reserves: Prime Enforcer Shell is incredibly cavalier with how many of his subordinates he murders. When one of his scientists objects that he can't just throw bodies at a problem until it solves itself, he responds that it's worked out great for him thus far.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • Madame Nightshade, whose goal in life is to end the war where she lost his brother. To do this, among other things, she kidnaps unicorn foals and cuts off their horns (It Makes Sense in Context). Although much less sympathetic, Duke Zaap Nator might also count, sacrificing innocent foals in order to save his city of Darkstine.
  • Khao and the cultists count too. They genuinely belive they are Eljunbyro and want to help Austraeoh achieve her destiny. It just so happens that they kidnap and attack the real Eljunbyro in the proccess.
• Wham Shot: In "Convenient Cave", the 123rd chapter of Eljunbyro: Rainbow Dash finds another wall engraved with the symbol of Austraeoh, the skeleton of another pegasus, and a book with Austraeoh on the cover.
• What If?: When Rainbow Dash abandoned her friends under Discord's influence and the others tried to use the Elements of Harmony against him without her, instead of just not working, the Elements kill them.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Zaid really lets Rainbow have it when she reveals that she sent Roarke away.
• Wham Episode: So, so many, but what takes the cake is Twilight Sparkle's ghost appearing at the end of Yaerfaerda, completely changing the character of the lavender light and the Yaerfaerda symbol.
• World Sundering: A bit more dramatic than normal. The Sundering was an event in Equestria's distant past where the ringworld of Urohringr was shattered into different pieces.

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