The Drip Plague (MLP Infection AU)

The True Purpose

Princess Luna's original purpose for creating the Weeping Well was to address a severe drought that had plagued the land, particularly affecting the coastal village of Seafall. The water supply was dwindling, and the ponies of Seafall were facing hardships as crops failed and the community struggled to survive. Seeing her subjects' suffering, Luna used her magic to craft the Weeping Well, a powerful fountain that could draw water from deep within the earth and provide an endless, replenishing source for the village.

However, Luna's creation was not without consequences. The Well's waters were not just ordinary water, but imbued with a potent, ancient magic—an energy that was not fully understood. Luna believed that this magic was a blessing, a way to provide life-sustaining resources to Seafall for generations to come. But Princess Celestia, her sister, was deeply wary of such power, fearing that the magic in the Well could have unforeseen consequences—especially given its ties to something ancient and buried deep within the land.

While Celestia wanted Luna to destroy the Well, fearing it could awaken something dangerous, Luna refused. She believed that the village needed the Well to survive, and she saw it as a symbol of her ability to help those in need. She also believed the magic within the Well could bring something greater—peace, and unity for her ponies. 

Unfortunately, Luna's creation would set in motion the Drip Plague, an uncontrollable infection that turned the villagers into something else entirely—members of the flow, disconnected from their past selves but gifted with eternal life, at a terrible cost. However, The ponies of Seafall—and later the infected—misunderstood the true nature of the flow. While Luna originally created the Weeping Well to provide an endless, life-sustaining water source for Seafall, the magic imbued in the Well was much more ancient and powerful than she could have anticipated. The Well drew from a deeper, darker source of water, connected to an old, forgotten force that had the ability to reshape life itself.

The infection that emerged from the Well's waters, the Drip Plague, warped the ponies' perceptions. To them, the transformation into the flow became a perceived "opportunity for a better life." This is largely due to the fact that the afflicted ponies, especially those who had once been weak or suffering, saw the flow as an escape from the pain, limitations, and mortality of their previous existence. The flow gave them immortality and a sense of unity, even though they lost their individual identities in the process.

However, what they failed to understand—or rather, what the Well's magic distorted in their minds—is that this "better life" comes at a steep cost: their autonomy, their connections to their old lives, and their ability to be truly free. The flow's idea of peace and harmony is not true peace—it is the subjugation of individuality in favor of eternal existence within a collective, without room for choice or true agency.

In the infected ponies' minds, they believe they are better off because they no longer age, suffer, or face hardship. But in reality, they are no longer fully themselves, disconnected from their past, and bound by the flow to spread its influence and convert others into its grasp.