Props Valroa

Been thinking about my character Magnolia's backstory more. She has the same colors of Shining Armour in a way, so I had an idea...what if Magnolia is a lost member of the Sparkle family? 

In my first idea, Magnolia was conceived accidentally by Twilight Velvet and Night Light. She was the first born, and this was before her parents had lived in Canterlot. Her parents originally were from Sire's Hollow. Given an alignment between the planets of the Equestrian Solar system and a supermoon (a rare occurrence that happens every few housand years). There was a legend around the alignment and the supermoon, that those born on that date will become incredibly gifted with magic. Magnolia was born on this date, but Magnolia was not her original name. Her original name was Moonlight Sparkle.

Relucantly, Twilight Velvet and Night Light would raise her as their foal. The young Moonlight was easily scared of others and hated going outside. She never got along with other foals and had a hard time making friends. She never got her cutie mark until much later in her youth. She was also bullied for being a blank flank. When trying to get advice from her parents, Twilight Velvet and Night would generally ignore her or cast her aside, or tell her minor things. Without feeling understood by anyone, she turned inward and silent.

Soon enough, Twilight Velvet and Night Light would bear another foal. This time it was Shining Armour. Her parents cherished the young foal with love, and left Moonlight in the dark. Moonlight would remain distant from her baby brother. Eventually, for unknown reasons there would be a house fire. Moonlight saved Shining Armour from the house fire, carrying him in a cradle yet her parents blamed her for the fire and screamed at her, leaving Magnolia a crying mess. She ran away. Even at the age of 16, she had not gotten her cutie mark yet.

Moonlight would wind up lost within some caves. With the conclusion that she was rejected by the only ponies who ever remotely cared, she would snap and eventually go further within the caves. Within the caves, she found some sort of comfort within the dark shadows of the cave. She for once, felt safe. Upon exiting the cave, she would get her cutie mark. With wonder, she looked at her flank seeing the black and purple stars on it. A search team was sent into the caves by Twilight Velvet and Night Light, they found nothing, for Moonlight had already left. Twilight Velvet and Night Light were horrified they couldn't find her, now that they had lost Moonlight, they both felt very sorry for the way that they treated her and longed for her return.

She was lost, and did not know her way back and would wander the land for years, stealing what she needed to survive for years. Due to emotional reasons and the loss of their home, they moved away to Canterlot. They wished they could thank Moonlight for saving Shining Armour. After they moved, they vowed to never speak of Moonlight again and hid what had happened from other ponies. In part due to their guilt in the tragedy, and the pain that talking about it brings up.

Eventually Moonlight came across a field of Magnolia flowers. She enjoyed the smell of the flowers and had also felt comforted by the presence of them. She would roll around in the fields of flowers and play, for the first time being happy. For this reason, she changed her name by Magnolia and would go by it ever since. It eventually set into Magnolia that she was for all intense and purposes, and orphan. She'd do the occasional odd job for ponies she had come across to earn money.

In her spare time, she would read. As an avid reader, she would absorb the knowledge she needed in order to function in the world. Drawn by the allure of shadow magic, after reading forbidden books from areas she could she would begin practicing shadow magic. It came to her naturally, and became her biggest strength. For years, she would practice and perfect her magic in total secrecy. Totally lost in her magic, and with nobody to turn to for help her loss and pain would become rage, and the rage became a desire for more magic. More power.

Eventually she was inspired to go on a journey. A journey to find the legendary Gorgon's Eye. A pony by the name of A.K. Yearling wrote about the legend and where it might be located, as well as a fantastical tale of 'Daring Do'.  It would take a long time and plenty of effort, trials, and near death but Magnolia was able to retrieve the artifact in a distant land. She got to it before Daring Do was able to, and wore it herself.

It granted her the ability to turn those she hated into stone, as well as a general power boost. Years passed, and she eventually learned of Twilight Sparkle, her younger sister. Knowing of the name 'Sparkle', as she is of the family she would only grovel in envy and hatred that Twilight Sparkle had gotten all the attention as well as Shining Armour.

She would lurk in solitude, draining power and magic from others in hopes of working up enough power within her to ascend herself to alicorn status, so that she may strike down Twilight Sparkle and claim her crown for herself. All of this was to cover up her deep pain of being abandoned, the power complex, her ego, all of it was to fill the wound within her.