Backstory:
 
The Sparkle family, while not of noble blood, is well-known in their village for their involvement in the community. The Sparkle parents, Twilight Velvet and her husband Night Light, were masters of organization and leadership. It was common to find them walking around Ponyville, taking note of things such as old gutters, poorly-placed water pumps, or loosely-paved cobbled streets. After identifying a problem, they would either set to work on it themselves, or rally the town and organize volunteers to help with projects such as house renovations, repaving roads, or salvaging supplies from a flooded cellar. All this they did without pay, never charging for their help and never asking for themselves.
 
In their home life, the Sparkles ran the only library left in the area – the Old Oak Library – refusing to follow the law that ordered old history, science, and magic books be replaced with “newer, more accurate” versions, dictated by Princess Celestia’s Royal Scholars and shipped to all parts of the kingdom. While they initially got in trouble for this rebellious act, Mr. and Mrs. Sparkle soon learned that they could replace the old books on the public shelves, but sent word around to all the trusted families that the old books were still available upon request. They disguised the covers to look like the modern history/science/etc books, then simply continued providing them as they had before.
 
The Sparkle children take after their parents, following their selfless example in their own ways.
 
Shining Armor Sparkle became fascinated with stories of the ancient knights that used to traverse Equestria, defending the weak and helping those in need, no matter their lot in life. With help from his parents, Shining found a sword master (a certain Fleur de Lis) to teach him the basics before she moves back to the Royal City – Canterlot. Fleur gave her student the tools to begin learning on his own, and after a great deal of studying the old texts he unearthed in the library on swordsmanship, Shining became a master swordsman. As Celestia’s rule became more and more corrupted, however, he came to the conclusion that he would never be a knight. While disappointed, he turned his efforts instead to defending those in Ponyville that he can, as well as continuing to help his parents with their charity work. He is the gentle protector of his family, and everyone in Ponyville knows he’s as noble as any decorated knight.
 
When not helping his parents with charity work, Shining is a hire-hand, usually working at the town forge or at Sweet Apple Acres on the border of Ponyville.
 
Twilight Star Sparkle is the second child of Velvet and Night Light. While just as self-giving as her brother, Twilight is perhaps emotionally less equipped to deal with the responsibility of helping the entirety of their village. Anxiety, second-guessing, and fear of judgment are always on the fringes of her mind, constantly nagging away at her every waking moment (and her sleeping moments too). Determined to help as many as she can in these constantly-worsening times, Twilight began throwing herself fully into her experimentation, finding some relief from her stress through the excitement of research. She is an arcane scientist, and is constantly testing magical properties of flora and fauna, magical effects of certain substances, potions, and spells, and researching ancient incantations in the endless supply of the Old Oak library. She is a self-taught master of arcana with an insatiable craving to know more. Twilight’s goal with all her scientific work is to find solutions to the many problems faced by the villagers, and often pulls all-nighters to continue working.
 
In her endless research, she found many useful spells and potions, and decided to set up a little potion shop next to the library to help earn money to keep her family afloat. The little shop was much more popular than anticipated, and Twilight’s potion and spell money is now the main source of income for the Sparkles.
 
Spike Longsight Sparkle is adopted…. obviously. His parents died of a rare dragon illness that passed through the village before he ever hatched, and the Sparkles adopted the egg. After a year of incubation (dragons are 1 year old when they hatch because of how much they develop in the egg before hatching), Spike hatched, his first sight being two loving pony parents and two curious little pony siblings standing around him (Twilight was 4, Shining was 7). He grew up as a Sparkle, and while he learned about his parents from people around the village, he was never emotionally attached to the idea of them. To him, his dragon parents were like great-grandparents that you only hear about and never meet. He vaguely remembers the sound of his mother singing to him while he was still in the egg, and the warmth of his father’s talons, but that’s it. The Sparkles have always been his real and present family. He loves watching Shining perfect his wordplay, watching Twilight work in her shop, and helping out around both the library and the town, watching his parents at work. (This is why he was named Longsight, because he can watch something for hours and be content. He prefers watching social interactions then actually interacting much himself). Spike is often seen nestled into a corner of the marketplace, simply watching the bustle of the village around him. He is a favorite of the village kids, and it’s quite common to see a pile of kids mounded around the still form of Spike, each one reading a book, chattering away, or napping as they rest with the peaceful dragon.
 
Like Shining, Spike is a hire-hand, and enjoys working the forges.  

 
About 7 years ago (Twi was 16, Shining was 19, and Spike was 13), the taxes were raised yet again and the Sparkles couldn’t meet the amount. To save their children and the library, Twilight Velvet and Night Light volunteered to work in the Royal Fields as indentured servants (essentially slaves of the government) until their debt was paid off. They, like many other who couldn’t meet he new taxes, believed that they would be working for a year, maybe two, then would be allowed to return as free ponies to their home. Celestia, however, had other plans for her new slaves, and passed a new law declaring that all indentured slaves could be kept as such until the justice system (Celestia) decided their sentence was over. In other words, she wanted to keep the free labor in her fields to feed her rapidly-growing army.
 
As the Sparkle children began to learn of this over the next year, they began to doubt if their parents would ever be freed. They also began to understand that their monarchy was not as it used to be (even though it had been getting worse for a while, the indentured servant laws were a wake up call for many Equestrians). Never a family to turn away from their beliefs, the Sparkles began acting under the radar of the town guard, which had recently been strengthened by fresher, harsher forces from Canterlot.
 
It was small things at first, such as sneaking money to those they knew wouldn’t meet the tax cuts. They would gather as much as they could from the secret donation ring, then give it to whoever needed it, adding their own much-needed coins to the pool. When the farm taxes were enacted – forcing famers to ship a ridiculously large amount of their produce to Canterlot to feed the army – the Sparkles set up a supply chain throughout Ponyville to keep as many as they could from going hungry. Many healers were drafted for the army, so Twilight made her medical potions and spells free, as well as supplied herbal dictionaries and medical encyclopedias to the many townsfolk who stepped up to replace the old healers, all of them gathering in secret to learn the healing arts.
 
Then, 4 years ago, the terrible day came: dragons and griffons were outlawed from Equestria (Twi was 19, Shining was 22, and Spike was 16). While there were only a few griffons and dragons mixed into Ponyville’s population, they were as part of the village as any of the ponies. When word was brought at midnight by a gasping pegasus mare that the town guard was receiving extra troops from the Royal City to arrest every dragon and griffon in the area (literally as the pegasus was speaking, the troops were arriving), Shining took the lead: the pegasus was sent out to warn every griffon and dragon in the town while the Sparkles sprinted throughout the library, grabbing as many supplies as they could lay their hands on. The pegasus mare – having recruited other fast fliers as she went to sound the alarm – brought every griffon and dragon and any pony related to them by marriage or adoption to the library. The Sparkle children gathered everyone up and set out immediately for the Everfree forest, a solid day’s travel away.
 
As soon as they set out, however, it became clear that the guard was aware of the escapees and were in hot pursuit.
 
Shining and Spike detoured away with the swift pegasi, laying a false trail towards a different section of the Everfree border, while Twilight led the rest of the party onward. The pegasus mare (who introduced herself as Rainbow Dash) led her fast-fliers to ambush the troop at a tangled part of the trail, where the troops were especially strung out. Spike and Shining attacked from the ground, using some explosive and nauseating potions Twilight had given them to sow chaos among the troops. After over an hour of scattered attacks, disrupting the soldiers and leading them on wild chases through the underbrush, the troop retreated back to the town for a respite, resolving to follow the escapees in the morning.
 
It might have worked … if all of their armor hadn’t been stolen out from under their very noses by the flock of gleeful pegasi and generously “donated” to the town forge, where all of it was quickly melted into unrecognizable – yet very valuable – chunks of metal. Twilight, meanwhile, helped the griffons and dragons escape into the Everfree, bringing them to the home of a reclusive pegasus named Fluttershy that Twilight had met while searching for potion materials in the treacherous forest. Fluttershhy immediately took the refugees in, welcoming them into her small home and enlisting the help of her animal friends to gather food from the forest.
 
Over the next few weeks, Fluttershy’s humble home was turned into a refugee camp, with several dugout homes being added to her own. It became the headquarters of the Rainbow Dash’s fast-flying flock, as well as part of the new Underground established by the Sparkles. With the help of the pegasi, Shining quickly contacted other nearby villages and set up a network of communication. Many griffons, dragons, and their families were saved through the network, and even some who had been arrested had their prison caravans attacked on their way to Canterlot by Rainbow’s pegasi, saving many more would-be slaves from an unknown fate.
 
In the time since that event, the Sparkles have become the leaders of an immense secret rebellion – the Underground, as it is often called. They are in contact with many farmers and even some noblemen, both of whom send much-needed supplies, money, and information through the chain. Shining has taken on several students to train in sword fighting, and Twilight has allowed several of her more useful potions and spells to be documented en masse and sent off to other undercover arcane masters.
 
Spike, after several months away from Ponyville, was chafing under the restrictions of his outlaw lifestyle. Twilight did a lot of research and – through her new arcane master friends in the underground – managed to get ahold of an ancient magical amulet called the Red Rimmed Eye. With some tinkering, she was able to perfect the amulet’s spell to disguise Spike as a pony. While many illusion spells like this were used, hers was the only one that was able to change the subject’s (Spike’s) height. Since it actually physically changes his height, it is painful for Spike to take the amulet off and on, but he is more than happy to undergo the pain if it means continuing to help in Ponyville. Since the original town guard was sent back to Canterlot after their humiliation by Rainbow’s flock, none of the replacement guards know what Spike looked like before, so, to them, he’s just a short-legged earth pony in a unicorn family.
 

 
NOTES:  
–The Sparkle family has both earth pony and unicorn blood in their family tree. That is why both Twi and Shining are so tall (unicorns are super tall and thin with long lion-like tails) and why Spike can get away with his illusion magic. Shining got some of the earth pony bulk, as well as no lion tail or curve in his horn.  
–The longer/more curved a unicorns horn is, the more powerful their magic typically is.
 
Shining Armor Sparkle  
– Age: 26  
– Height: 6’9”  
– Design:  
**He has a very hard time controlling his magic, so he almost never uses it, relying on it almost solely for levitation and as a shield when sword fighting. Twilight created a leather band with a stone concocted from a potion that greatly helps him control his shield spell. He has a couple shield motifs scattered around his outfit to further aid in focusing his spell.  
** Simple clothes. His sleeves can unlace to make a tanktop on hot days at work.
 
Twilight Star Sparkle  
– Age: 23  
– Height: 6’6”  
– Design:  
**Star motifs! She found a large pink starstone on one of her expeditions into the Everfree and found that it synced up with her magic beautifully. Star motifs display her connection to the twilight sky.  
** She has tubes full of potions all over her, as well as a belt of scrolls (spells, notes, etc). With the aid of a fellow Underground arcane master Dr. Whooves, she got ahold of a rare timepiece that she’s strapped to her glove to use during experimentation.  
** Her staff is Blackthorn wood, a very useful wooden conductor of magic, and she manipulated the growth around the starstone to create her own mage staff (This and the strings of starstones are exactly like Luna and Tia’s staff and stone-set accessories, just the cheap version. Twilight can’t afford to have a metal staff forged for her, nor for her starstones to be hewn into proper shapes by a master jeweler, nor for her clothes to have starstones set into them by master tailors and leatherworkers. Instead, she makes do with strand of the startsones, placing them in the same areas a wealthier mage would put their magical knick-knacks.)
 
Spike Longsight Sparkle  
– Age: 20  
– Height: 7’ (dragon form)  
6’4” (pony form)  
– DRAGON Design:  
** Dragon scales are incredibly strong, and don’t burn like skin in the sunlight, so no shirt needed in dragon form. He wears simple baggy pants that wrap against his calves, allowing maximum mobility.  
** Despite his young age, Spike got all the dragon height. He loves to tease Shining about this, and constantly competes with Shining’s fuzzy facial hair with his own “facial scales,” as he likes to joke (no, he doesn’t shave them. They just have the same sandpapery feeling).  
** He has a lot of scars on his forearms from deflecting weapons with them. Dragon forearms scales are often as effective as shields, as Spike learned while sparring with Shining. He prefers to go talons against Shining’s sword, and can deflect his big brother’s blade without pain. The scars are from enemy swords when Spike misjudges a block, resulting in the sword hitting the softer part of his arm. It doesn’t usually cut deep, since dragon hide is also very tough, but it has caused some damage to his scales.
 
–PONY Design:  
** Wears the same pants as a pony, but tucked into his boots to hold in the extra bagginess. He wears the amulet under his shirt (I just put it out so it was visible).  
** His armbands, boots, and gauntlets all have hidden starstones sewn into little pockets on the knuckles, wrist, above the hooves, and on the biceps. These are all linked to the amulet, and are Twilight’s extra trick to help change his size (it basically lets the amulet know where Spike’s outer meridians are, allowing hte amulet to actually change Spike’s size)  
** He has the same lace-on sleeves that Shining has.