Render Unto Twilight is a deleted My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic written by McCoda.
Twilight Sparkle becoming an alicorn is well known. But what if it happened earlier? Like say... the day she earned her cutie mark? During her entrance exam, the Sonic Rainboom gives Twilight a power surge that not only hatches a dragon egg but also starts destroying reality around her. Once things are resolved, Twilight wakes up from her magic usage only to discover that she has a new pair of wings!
Celestia graciously makes Twilight her new student, being the only one that can teach the new alicorn all that she needs to know. But Twilight's new status comes with danger as the nobility see her as somepony to be either removed or used as they see fit. How will this innocent filly deal with the world she finds herself in? How will it deal with her?
Let's find out.
This work contains examples of:
- Big Brother Instinct: Shining Armor who only avoids attacking a pony looking to court Twilight because his father beat him to it. He admits that if it came down to it he would choose Twilight over Celestia without hesitation.
- Bribe Backfire: A corrupt noble attempts to bribe Shining Armor without realizing who he is after trying to harm Twilight. Needless to say look above for the reason it failed.
- The Chains of Commanding: Celestia loathes having to deal with the corrupt and selfish nobles. She outright bemoans anytime that she can't escape having to put up with them.
- For Want Of A Nail: The main divergence for this story is Twilight becoming an alicorn years before she was supposed to.
- A slightly smaller one is that she meets Applejack when the pair are still fillies due to the the orange Earth Pony deciding to take a train that goes through Canterlot on her trip back to Ponyville and going off to sight see, which leads to her and Twilight bumping into each other while Twilight's out on her scooter exercising her wings; after Applejack tutors her in the beginnings of proper Earth Pony magic use, Twilight treats her to Donut Joe's and cements their friendship. Pinkie shows up in a similarly changed up and earlier fashion with similar results.
- Twilight ends up in Ponyville years ahead of canon after being rescued from an assassination attempt and meets Rarity shortly after her arrival.
- Funny Background Event:It was only then that the unicorn noble started contemplating the fact that something was probably wrong… and it wasn’t Princess Celestia magically teleporting a sombrero hat unto the sculpture while everpony was distracted.
- Goo-Goo-Godlike: Twilight manages to become an alicorn while still just a filly.
- What's truly impressive is that the incident that let Twilight ascend is implied to be entirely by her own power, the Rainboom only being a nudge to open the reservoir.
- Innocent Prodigy: Twilight is, as her father says, "sharp as a sword, yet dense as a rock." She's very well read and intelligent but her reasoning follows the logic of a child.
- Last-Second Word Swap: Celestia has to cut herself off from saying a curse word when Twilight enters the room. Twilight catches on that she did this but is wrong about what the original word was.
- Mama Bear: Twilight Velvet, who will go off at any insults or threats shown towards her daughter.
- Nepotism: Shining Armor finds himself the recipient of this from Celestia, who moves things forward a bit to get him an actual military position. Shining doesn't enjoy it but Celestia did so because of the fact that he's related to one alicorn and dating another, meaning he has enemies amongst the nobility and she's working to safeguard him as much as possible.
- Not So Above It All: Celestia. While outwardly she is every bit The High Queen that you'd expect, her internal dialogue and some of her outward actions make it clear that she's nowhere near as restrained as she acts.
- Oh, Crap!: The ponies giving Twilight her final test to get into Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns have this response when they find out they stated their plans for Twilight in front of Celestia while they were unaware of her presence. A noble who tried to harm Twilight has two a few minutes apart, one after she sees Twilight was unharmed and the second when she tries to bribe Shining Armor without realizing it was him until he revealed that Twilight was his sister.
- Papa Wolf: Night Light is more even tempered than his wife but he'll go off just the same for Twilight. Just look at what he does to a pony trying to court his daughter for proof.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Celestia is very much The High Queen and goes out of her way to curtail the corrupt nobility while keeping the common ponies safe.
- Social Darwinist: Blue Lord believes in such rhetoric and even quotes the pony version of Darwin. Celestia, who knew said pony, notes they never actually said that and that their work is being misused in this pursuit.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: Twilight catches on to Celestia's Last-Second Word Swap but she thinks the word switched out was diabetes instead of the curse word it actually was. The doctor goes along with her reasoning to get Celestia into a diet plan and exercise regimen.
- Sweet Tooth: Celestia loves her sweets, to the point that she goes into withdrawal when she has to go on a diet.
- Would Hurt a Child: Several of the nobles have little compunction against trying to outright kill Twilight.
- The ponies who were testing Twilight are so terrified by her unrestrained power that they discuss drastic measures to protect other, such as locking her up or having her horn removed.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Both Twilight and Shining Armor are worried about Celestia wanting to remove Twilight as a possible usurper, with Twilight even citing history books as where she got the idea from. Fortunately Celestia is very much a Reasonable Authority Figure that outright hates that kind of behavior.
