Chapter 1: Born Too Late
When Pentos Quartz was three years old he learned that he was the Prince of the Griffon Marches. This made him very happy. Pentos was a small colt, the youngest of five siblings, and it seemed to him as if everypony got to push him around.
Morion, nine years his elder, might one day succeed to the Crystal Throne, and Morion made sure everypony knew it, trotting around as if he were already the Emperor. Pentos found this a bit confusing -- the actual Emperor was his grand-uncle Eisenkiesel, and he had seemed healthy at his last birthday, but Eisenkiessel had no children, and for some reason his family seemed to consider the appearance of another heir to be unlikely.
"He likes colts too much to get an heir," once said Aunt Beryl, his mother's sister, and all his older relatives chuckled in a rather nasty way, as if this was somehow a bad thing. Pentos didn't see why. He was a colt, and if the Emperor liked colts that was surely a good thing, wasn't it? After all Eisenkiessel, who was oddly enough both the all-powerful ruler of all the Northlands portrayed in heroic murals and statuary, and a cranky old stallion with dry lips and a tendency to mumble into his soup, presumably had it in his power to make it better or worse for colts such as himself, such as by commanding that extra cake, or alternately portions of dry alfalfa, be served at the dinner table.
But apparently Eisenkiessel liking colts somehow translated to Morion sitting on the Crystal Throne some day, though since Eisenkiessel himself was a big bony old stallion, Pentos didn't quite see how there'd be enough room on the throne, which will large was not really big enough to seat two with comfort. Maybe Morion could sit on the Consort's Throne? Beryl had joked once that if he could get away with it, Eisenkiessel would have "taken a pretty colt as Consort."
Morion wasn't pretty -- he was an unpleasant smoky hue -- but he was a colt. But for some reason when Pentos made the obvious suggestion, Morion became furious and chased him round and round the dining hall, trying to kick him, with Mother dithering and waving her hooves around uselessly as usual, instead of just grabbing him in her aura. Eventually Blue Rock, their old but sturdy butler, simply reached out and grabbed Morion in his powerful forelegs. This was technically a crime, as Morion was of course the Crown Prince, but Blue Rock had served the Quartzes all his life, and was an old friend of both the Emperor and Pentos' father, so he could get away with doing things like that when necessary.
Pentos had never known his father. He had been born "posthumously," a word that Pentos still had trouble saying, after Father had died heroically fighting the Snow Griffons at Icespike in the far North. The family never talked about the details, but it was mentioned sometimes that they were hardly the only ones to have lost a father in that campaign. The old military stallions who attended the Palace functions got a sad look when they talked about Icespike. "Where will we find another legion like the 24th?" he'd once heard one of them saying.
He knew that the 24th had been the one his father had commanded. When he'd first heard this he'd been ignorant of what he meant, and asked why someone couldn't go searching for the lost legion. His brother Aventurine, five years his elder, had said "Silly foal! When they say 'lost' they mean dead -- just like Father."
At that Pentos had started crying, and Aventurine had called him a silly foal again, and then Aventurine had started crying too. Which made him the silly foal, for a colt of eleven was surely too old to cry, wasn't he?
To give him his due, Aventurine didn't cry often. His glossy green brother was growing up. He had recently begun weapons practice -- Mother wasn't supposed to know, but old lame Little Basalt, one of the many servants who had been in the 24th with Father, was showing him the basics of the spike-sabatons and the bullae and spear. Aventurine said that one day he wanted to journey out beyond the frontiers and teach the barbarians a lesson. Pentos was pretty sure that by this he meant "fight them," which seemed like a good idea because that's what one did with barbarians, wasn't it?
There were lots of different barbarians. There were the Snow Griffons, of course, who seemed at present to be causing the Empire the most trouble. There were the Ice Dragons and the Cold Worms and even the hairy Gnoph-Keh really far to the north-east. Though it could be confusing. There were also the Three Tribes who had once been enemies but who now were some place called Equestria far to the south, and some bad pony called the Twister who had been beaten by the Sisters of Equestria and was now a statue. Which seemed odd because how could a pony become a statue?
"No, he was a drag -- drac-on-equ-us," said Aventurine once, sounding out the word carefully. "And he had magic powers and he scared everyone but he didn't scare us cause we have the Crystal Heart so nothing scares the Empire!"
"So we made him a statue?" asked Pentos.
"No, the Pony Sisters did," Aventurine explained. "Celestia and Luna. And then they became the Princesses and united Equestria."
"Are they barbarians?" Pentos asked.
"Yes," said Aventurine. "Anyone who isn't Crystal is a barbarian. But they're, um, friendly barbarians, and sometimes they help us against the Griffons."
Life was sometimes complicated.
But one day Pentos learned that his great-uncle Sard had died. Pentos barely remembered Sard. He'd only seen him once, and remembered him as a really skinny old orange stallion with lots of untidy white hair everywhere.
Sard had been the Prince of the Griffon Marches. Which was also where Father had died, so Pentos had never been sure why Sard had lived and Father had died, but sometimes these things were complicated. And that meant that the title was now vacant, and so after the long boring funeral for Sard there was a long boring ceremony in which Pentos was formally invested with the title of Prince of the Griffon Marches.
For a week Pentos had galloped around the house telling everyone that he was the Prince of the Griffon Marches and he had "wide realms" and that everyone now had to listen to him. They tolerated it for a while, but then one sad day Morion told him, "Look, you little dumb foal. There are no Griffon Marches. Haven't been for hundreds of years. We lost them at the end of the Age of Discord and never got them back. Father died trying to get them back, and he couldn't do it, so now we'll never get them back. Which makes you no real Prince -- just a worthless little sprout like you've always been."
At that Pentos had cried, and tried to attack his oldest brother, which was of course completely pointless. Morion hadn't even bothered to give him a beating, just held him in his aura and laughed and laughed and laughed at him. Pentos had screamed himself into a rage and finally told his big brother:
"Just you wait! Someday I'm gonna be big, and I'll be better at magic than you, and I'll have a really strong aura, and then I'll be the one tossing you around in it!"
And Morion just laughed harder and harder, and eventually Blue Rock had to separate them again. Blue Rock was just an earth pony, glittery crystal like all the Crystal Ponies but with no magic powers. However, he was the one pony who Morion always listened to when Morion was in one of his mean moods. Later, privately, Blue Rock told Pentos that he was really a prince, and so of course were all his brothers and sisters, and that little princes and princesses of the same House should be friends.
Pentos supposed that Blue Rock told Morion that from time to time, but Morion never seemed to listen.
***
Two years later, Pentos had learned all his letters and discovered how wonderful were books, and he found his own happy place in the Great Library of the Crystal City.
The Great Library was a huge room filled with books with grand stairs leading down into it and galleries off to the sides with more books and cellars full of still more books that they didn't let most ponies see because they were rare and historical. The oldest books in the Great Library's collection dated back to before the Age of Discord: they were fourteen hundred years old and more. Many of them existed nowhere else in the world, because when the Twister had ruled he had sometimes scrambled old books, just to play mean jokes on the ponies. But Discord didn't dare go into the Crystal City, because of the Crystal Heart, and so the books in the Great Library had remained undamaged.
The librarians wouldn't let a little colt like himself touch the rare and historical books, because they were afraid that he'd damage them. "No I wouldn't!" he protested when they first told him that, but it was true that he had still far from mastered his aura. Anyway, he'd seen quotes from the oldest books, and they were hard to read. Lady Tourmaline, one of the nicer librarians, and some kind of fifth cousin, told him that this was because the language had changed over so many centuries.
That was a hard concept for Pentos to grasp. Language was what everybody spoke, it was the one sure way to tell the difference between Crystal Ponies like himself and the barbarians (because barbarians who lived long enough in the Crystal City would get all sparkly too). How could language change? Did this mean that the Crystal Ponies of old were actually barbarians? Or that they were civilized but the Crystal Ponies of today were somehow barbarians?
"No," said Tourmaline with that gentle laughter in her voice that made him sometimes wish she was his big sister or his mother, because she always knew how to explain things without hurting his feelings, even if she was laughing at him, "it's just that things change, little prince."
"Change?" he asked. "Like when an old house falls down, and then it's not there anymore?" That had happened to a house two blocks over. It had been deserted -- a lot of the houses on the outskirts of the Crystal City were deserted -- which was just the nature of a city, Pentos assumed.
"Yes," said Tourmaline, smiling at him. She was a pretty mare, all bright-green coated, and there was also a bright intelligence in her eyes. "Old words get forgotten, or the way that words are spelled or pronounced change. And sometimes there are new words -- like 'bombard,' which came about when Equestrians got the idea of putting black powder in a tube and using it to throw great stone balls against barbarian walls. Before there were bombards, no one needed a word for them."
Bombard. It sounded exotic and strange, like the Equestrian merchants Pentos sometimes saw in the marketplace looked. They weren't sparkly, they were smooth and had all kinds of more muted colors, and they dressed differently. They spoke a different language, too, though most of the better-educated ones also spoke fair Imperial.
He supposed knocking barbarian walls down was a good idea though. Maybe if his father had bombards, he could have knocked down the Snow Griffons and then he wouldn't have lost his legion, and his life.
But there was one thing of which he wasn't so sure.
"If the Equestrians have bombards, couldn't they come and knock our houses down?" he asked. "Even the Crystal Palace?"
Tourmaline laughed, but Pentos thought she sounded a bit nervous, as if the thought bothered her as well.
"They would never do that," said the librarian. "They're barbarians, yes, but they're good barbarians. Their Ruling Princesses have long been friends of our house, and we have treaties. After Icespike, they sent their own troops north to help us, which was why we were able to stop the Snow Griffons at the mountain passes. My brother fought alongside them -- he said they were good ponies."
Pentos still wasn't sure. "But weren't they the Three Tribes who used to raid our western borders, in some of the books?"
"Yes," said Lady Tourmaline, "but that was a very long time ago, before even the Age of Discord. That was two millennia ago. They're civilized now. They've changed, and for the better."
"So change can be bad or good," said Pentos. "Is it mostly bad, or mostly good?"
"Now you're being quite the little philosopher!" said the librarian. She smiled at him, but very nicely. "Well, some change is bad. The oldest histories say that there was once a Golden Age, before even the time of the Three Tribes, when everypony was rich and happy and the world was beautiful everywhere. But then ponies got too proud so the gods cast them down and made them suffer, to teach them to be more humble. So that was bad."
"Yes," agreed Pentos. "But then Ametrine and Azestulite discovered the Crystal Heart and founded the City, and we all became civilized and everything got better and better, and will keep getting better and better, right?"
"I certainly hope so!" replied Tourmaline brightly. But Pentos thought she looked troubled about something.
"Do you really think it will?" Pentos asked her, peering up into her sparkling-green face.
"Well, no one can know," said Tourmaline, looking really sad.: "I remember when there used to be less abandoned houses. And my grandparents said the city used to be bigger. I've seen old maps ..." She collected her composure. "Don't worry about it, little prince. Everything's going to be fine. You have years before you need to worry about things like that.
***
At seven years old, Pentos was big enough that he could have begun his own weapons training. His elder brother Morion, now sixteen, had become an officer with the 1st Legion, which defended the Crystal City itself from its fort just north of the city. His oldest sister Rose, at fourteen, was starting to dress up and flirt with the most eligible of the current generation of aristocratic young stallions. She complained sometimes that there weren't enough of sufficiently high birth to interest her. Aventurine now twelve, was fascinated by maps and languages, and was thinking about attaching himself to a diplomatic mission, the better to see the world. Shy nine-year-old Iolite had just gotten her Mark, and walked around the house so quietly that Pentos rarely heard her hoofs even on marble.
Pentos wasn't interested in weapons, though. Books fascinated him, specifically history and magical lore. He was starting to gain some control over his aura, and could now write better with his horn than with his hoof. He imagined himself a heroic mage of old like Azestulite, fighting the Ice Orcs, carving out the city-state which would one day become the Crystal Empire.
By now he'd read enough to know why Lady Tourmaline was worried about the future. He'd seen the old maps, and was smart enough to draw the correct conclusions from the fact that the boundaries of the Crystal Empire had shrunk, century upon century. There'd been a time, fifteen hundred years ago, when it had looked as if the Crystal Empire would unite all North Amareica under its rule, gaining dominion over even the Great Houses of the south which were now Equestria. But then had come Discord the Twister, and a thousand years in which only constant vigilance and subtle policy had prevented the loss of the whole Empire.
Afterward, things had never been the same. Theoretically, the Crystal Empire should have been able to reclaim the whole Northlands, regain its position of dominance. For the first centuries after the fall of Discord, the rule of the Princesses over Equestria had been but theoretical; there had been civil wars in the Southlands, and repeated attacks by challengers both internal and external.
But the Crystal Empire had suffered civil wars as well, and barbarian attacks, and had not enjoyed the same stability of leadership as had Equestria. Princess Celestia was a truly talented administrator and diplomat, and her sister Princess Luna one of the deadliest strategists this world had ever known. Between them, they defeated the threats to their throne and united the quarreling noble houses.
The Crystal Empire had by contrast known some truly terrible leaders. Old Uncle Eisenkiessel, whom Pentos supposed would last forever, was a mediocre leader, and he did like pretty colts, but he was neither stupid nor monstrous, and some of his predecessors had been both. There had been riots, revolts, coups and civil wars, and each time it seemed that foreign foes were quick to bite off another province. Great leaders were understood to be part of a lost past. The Crystal Ponies seemed to be accepting their decline.
This bothered Pentos. It seemed wrong to him that the greatest empire the continent had known since the Cataclysm should just fade away, without even really trying to fight it. But there seemed to be no hope, no solution.
***
Pentos was in the library. There was a major Equestrian diplomatic mission in the Crystal City: the Moon Princess herself, leading dozens of nobles, generals, merchants and scholars to discuss new treaty terms. As a prince, albeit a young one who still had not even gotten his Mark, Pentos had observed them from across a room.
Princess Luna was certainly impressive: tall and dark and regal, with a long flowing blue mane that sometimes seemed to shimmer with its own internal light. Her great wings, which she kept furled, should have been an impossible addition to her anatomy, but seemed natural enough on her slim, powerful form. She wore a black tiara and breastplate, with her Mark of the crescent moon, and silver shoes and jewelry. She seemed cool and distant, but then of course he knew she was putting on a show so that no one thought she was a common barbarian.
Though even the other Equestrians seemed fairly nice. They tended to dress much more warmly than was the Crystal-Imperial custom, especially within the City where the Crystal Heart kept out the blasts of even the worst Northern winters. They were obviously more used to southerly climes, not hardened against the cold as were the Crystal Ponies. They spoke with strange Southern accents.
But they were manifestly civilized. They manipulated their utensils and trenchers properly, avoiding spraying food all over the floors. Though their accents were odd, their tones were courteous. They smiled and seemed kindly enough to the perceptions of the young prince. They certainly did not appear to want to attack or pillage their hosts.
Pentos decided that maybe they were good barbarians.
The next day he went to the library, as was his wont when he had nothing else in particular to accomplish. The trade delegation remained quartered in the Crystal Palace, and was presumably engaged in whatever negotiations occupied them. At seven going on eight, even Pentos found the details of exchange rates, tariffs, and most-favored-nation trading statuses rather boring.
He was in a wing of the library that he much enjoyed, which contained some of the oldest books the librarians allowed to the general public. Sometimes Lady Tourmaline would let him look at older books -- she trusted his aura now, under her supervision -- but she wasn't on the job right now, so he was limited to what he could normally access.
He was sitting at a table, engrossed in a tale of Monasdrommir, a dark unicorn witch who had led the Norse barbarians from across the Stormy Sea against the Sea Dogs who had harassed the northeastern provinces. Though Monasdrommir and her followers were barbarians, they had been allies of the Empire, and had helped them in their time of need, twelve hundred years ago in the Age of Discord. The tales were confusing -- some said Monasdrommir had been a unicorn, some a pegasus, and some claimed she was an alicorn like the Royal Equestrian Sisters.
He became aware of a presence, and looked up to see a black-cloaked and hooded unicorn mare regarding him. She was obviously an Equestrian.
At first he jumped, for the mare was tall, her fur was a very dark blue, and she looked rather like one of the pictures of Monasdrommir from his book. Her eyes were a deep greenish-blue, and she was gazing down at his book with what seemed a rather melancholy expression. Her features were fine, her muzzle long but slim, and even a blank-flanked colt like himself could tell that she was very beautiful.
"Huh!" he said, gathering his composure. "Sorry, but you look so much like her!"
"Like whom?" the dark mare asked, smiling at him.
"Like her," he said, pointing down to his book. "Monasdrommir, a barbarian heroine of the Age of Discord."
She regarded the picture.
"I suppose I do," she said thoughtfully. "Though they got the mane wrong. They always get the mane wrong. Still it's hard to get my mane right, and the likeness is not bad, considering it's a copy of a copy of a copy, who knows how many times." She looked up at him. "And you're certainly the young scholar, to be reading this book. This was not written for children." The tone of her voice was strangely approving.
Pentos was confused. Still, he decided to make a good show of it.
"I am Pentos, of the House of Quartz, Prince of the Griffon Marches. And you are?" he asked politely but with a firm statement of his own importance.
She smiled more broadly. "A Prince, then," she said. "You bear yourself right royally, young Prince." Her horn glowed, and she shrugged back the hood. She shook out her long, light-blue mane, which seemed to flow in the wind despite the stillness of the air in this nook of the Library. There were strange sparkles from that mane, as if it contained within it a starry sky.
Suddenly, Pentos knew who she was.
"As I said," she continued, "they always get the mane wrong."
"You were ..." he gasped.
"I was Monasdrommir, yes, though the Crystal Empire is one of the few lands which still even remotely remembers that time, when I fought Discord's pawns on the Stormy Sea, and saved your harbor-towns. And now I am Princess Luna Selena Nyx, the Moon Princess of Equestria." She smiled. It was a small smile, but utterly genuine. "Well met, Prince of the Griffon Marches."
Pentos got up and inclined his head. As a Prince, he was theoretically of the same order as Luna, but she was a Ruling Princess, co-regnant with her sister Celestia, while he was merely the vassal of his uncle, and over a non-existent province as that. "Your High Grace," he addressed her.
"No need for all that," she said softly. "We are both royal here, which means that we need not stand on ceremony. Besides," she grinned, "this is a library. The librarian probably wouldn't want me to use my full ceremonial mode of address. It's a bit loud."
There was something strange about her manner. She was in form an adult mare, and he knew that she was at least fourteen hundred years old. He was but a colt. And she did speak like his superior. Yet somehow, she was also being almost conspiratorial with him, as if the games of status she must play before the Crystal Court were all a great joke, and she were merely a slightly older filly encountering him on some play-ground.
"Oh ... of course not," Pentos said. "Well met, Princess Luna," he said, belatedly returning her earlier courtesy.
"So," she asked, "do you often haunt this library?"
"Um, well, yes," he said. "I really like books. I hope you don't think that's boring."
"Never!" Luna said passionately. "Books are one of the most precious treasures Ponies can create. They take us away from the here and now, and let our minds roam to other places and times. They help separate us from the mindless beasts."
"That's why I like them too," agreed Pentos. "There are secrets in them too -- you can learn really great things, things that could be important today too."
"Like one of my old names?" asked Luna, arching an eyebrow.
"Yeah!" agreed Pentos.
She laughed warmly, and he joined in.
"You're not what I'd think you'd be," he told Luna.
"What would you think I'd be?" she asked him. "A Norse barbarian with a battle-axe?"
"No -- well you were -- but I mean you were all high and cold in front of the Court, and I can see you're really nice and friendly, like a regular pony."
"We play roles before the Court," Luna said seriously. "I do at home, and I know you do too. You're less restrained than the sober colt I saw yesterday -- and yes, I remember seeing you. I have a very good memory," she explained. "I can clearly remember ponies who are long -- never mind."
"I'm glad you're like this," Pentos said. "It makes me feel better about us being allied with your country."
"Ah," said Luna. "That makes me glad. But consider this, young prince -- because you will one day perhaps have to make decisions like this -- that may also be me playing a role. The role of private diplomacy."
"Are you?" he asked, suddenly worried that she might be lying to him.
"Not particularly," said Luna. "I'm the High Lady of War. I leave the complex prevarications to my sister." She smirked, then giggled, and Pentos couldn't help laughing along with her. She reminded him so strongly not of a strange barbarian sorceress, but of some sort of especially-amusing older friend.
They spent the next hours talking together as if they had known each other for years. She knew so many really interesting things that weren't in the books. She told him about wandering under the name of Monasdrommir and so many others in the Age of Discord, when her sister and herself had fought against the tyranny of the Twister, and finally defeating the tyrant, turning him into stone ...
"Forever?" asked Pentos at this point.
"Very little is forever," said Luna. "But a good long while. He probably won't break out again in your time."
She told him about the castle she and her sister had built far south in the Everfree Forest, and it seemed a beautiful and exciting place. She told him about the new palace they were rearing high on a hill. There were many interesting places in Equestria, including great cities, some of them even bigger than the Crystal City. She and her sister were doing all sorts of complicated things there, working to encourage culture and trade and science and the mechanic arts.
"Some day," she said, "we'll bring back the Age of Wonders. With machines that can go under the sea and up into space, beyond the atmosphere, to other worlds. And then brave Ponies will explore those worlds, and make towns and cities throughout the Universe!" She seemed to really like the idea.
Pentos found it interesting too. He knew his brother Aventurine would like it even more.
What Pentos found even more interesting was the concept of science itself.
"You can study Nature, and she'll tell you her secrets," Luna explained. "Nature has Laws -- patterns that she always follows. Such as why things fall down, instead of up. Or to put it more rightly, why they fall toward -- I can't go into too much detail. My big sister wouldn't want me to. But that's Gravity." She seemed smug about something.
"But everyone knows about gravity," scoffed Pentos.
"Do they?" She smiled to herself. "They know things fall down, yes, but do they know how fast? What greater Law this expresses? Where things would fall if we weren't on the Earth, and to where they would fall? Someday, Pentos, Ponies will ask Nature these questions, and many more. And Nature will answer them."
"I thought that the answers were in books."
"Many are," Luna said. "Some of Nature's answers have been forgotten, and you can find them in old books. But sometimes they were never asked, or the answers were lost forever, and you have to go back to Nature to find them."
"We don't do that here," Pentos said. "We think that answers are only in books, and that if we can't find them in books they aren't worth finding."
"I know," said Luna sadly. "Your ancestors weren't like that -- they went out and looked at the world, instead of just into books, when they wanted to know things. And, more and more, your people have been not bothering to look at all, either into the world or into books. They don't care as much anymore."
"I think they're scared of the world," Pentos said. "They've been disappointed cause they lost a battle or a province and they've come to think that this is all there is, losing things, so they want to not care about it so it won't hurt them."
"You're right," said Luna, looking at him with great approval. "Very insightful for such a young Pony." She looked up, and away at something Pentos couldn't quite grasp. "That's what all fear is, really -- the fear of loss."
"My father wasn't scared," Pentos said. "He marched out and fought the Snow Griffons. Only ..." his voice quavered. "They were too strong for him. And for the 24th. They all died at Icespike." He cast his gaze down.
"They were brave," Luna told him. "They died well. Everypony dies in the end -- even ones like me, eventually -- so all one can do is to live well and die well. Your father lived well -- he sired five wonderful children -- and he died well. He died putting himself between the foe and his own people. That's why there are Princes ... and Princesses. To be a shield against the foe." She put a hoof on his shoulder, very gently, and looked deeply into his eyes. "Do you understand?"
Pentos nodded. "I just wish," he said, "that I could have gotten to know my father. He died before I was born, you see, so I never even got to see him, just pictures." To his very great embarrassment, tears welled up in his eyes and began rolling down his cheeks, as if he were a little foal instead of the big colt he knew himself to be. "I wish I'd known my father."
What happened next was even more embarrassing, but nice. He saw Luna's cloak lift, and two great wings came out from under it. And she held him in her forelegs, and wrapped those wings around him. She smelt nice, and clean, like a noble mare but one not too obsessed with perfumes. Most of her scent was Luna, and, impossibly, she smelt like starlight. She held him a while, and let him cry, and her shimmering mane swept around them both. And after that while, he felt better, and pulled away a bit, and she released him and smiled down at him.
"Don't worry," she said. "I won't tell anypony you cried on me. Anyway, everypony cries from time to time. Even big stallions do." She tilted her head and said wryly: "Trust me, I know this."
"Someday I'll be a big stallion too," he told her.
"Oh, I certainly hope you shall," Luna replied. "And I think you'll be a good and strong stallion, too."
"When I'm big," Pentos said, "I'll learn all the secrets. Both in the books and in Nature. And then I'll use those secrets to defeat the barbarians and restore the Crystal Empie to its former glory!" He did not stop to think of the enormousness of this vow. He did think of one thing, though.
"Um, the bad barbarians," he clarified. "You're a barbarian too, but you're a good barbarian, and I'd never hurt you!"
Luna giggled. "I try to be a very good barbarian indeed," she said. "I don't claim to be perfect, but I do try."
"I'm serious!" Pentos said.
Luna tilted her head. "I know you are, Pentos, and I think you'll be a very great prince when you reach your age." She looked sad. "It's too bad that you have to be born in this time, though. You were born too late."
Pentos was mystified by that comment. "What do you mean 'born too late?'" he asked.
"History, dear prince, has its patterns. The destiny of a whole people is like a mighty river. You can't just plunge into that river and divert it with nothing but your own body's strength. Even if you're very strong, the river is even stronger."
"Then how do you change things?" Pentos asked.
"You have to work well in advance," Luna explained. "Create institutions -- like libraries and officer schools and laws and tactical systems. Teach Ponies those institutions, so that you're like a pony digging a canal, using the power of the river to shift its own course, you see. It takes many Pony lifetimes."
"I'll do it in one!" Pentos said.
"You can't -- oh, I don't know, I shouldn't discourage you.. You can do some good, that's true, and help save more of your people's learning and culture than would otherwise be the case. The Crystal Empire is beautiful, Pentos, I love it and it's sad to see something you love dying. When my sister and I were young, when the world was mad, this city was one of the places we went to rest, to study, to plan our next campaign. We went in disguise, because the Emperors didn't want to focus Discord's wrath here -- if he'd tried hard enough, he could have gotten through even the Crystal Heart, but Dissy was always lazy -- and we didn't want to either. We didn't want to see the last remanant of the ancient world go down like Para -- like our old home. But we loved this city -- it was the only place, back then, that we could be at peace."
Pentos didn't understand all of this, but he understood that Luna genuinely admired his country, and his city, and that she believed that he could do some good things. And he'd show her the rest of it. He felt a firm resolve light within him.
Something tickled at his flank.
"Oh look!" said Luna. "My embrace is perilous. Really, it is ... this probably would have taken another year or two otherwise ..."
"Huh?" he asked.
"You have something on you."
He looked at his flank. A design like three smoky red crystals was there, in a form that he of course recognized.
His Mark, and his adult name came to him in that library.
He was Pentos no longer. Now, he was Prince Crimson Quartz.
Author's Note
My model for the late Crystal Empire is late Byzantium, under a bit less threat because the equivalent of the Holy Roman Empire is actually and actively on its side, and its foes are hardly as well-organized as were the Ottoman Turks. They have an ancient and noble tradition of civilization, and have fallen behind the curve both demographically and in terms of economic and technological development. Aside from sentiment (which Celestia is capable of suppressing for reasons of State) and the fact that the Empire is a buffer to the north against the barbarians coming down off the Ice Wastes on the other side of the Crystal Mountains, one reason why Equestria is on their side is the Library, which long predates Equestria's own civilization. The Crystal City was founded within mere centuries of the Cataclysm itself, and has some books whose originals are over four thousand years old.
What Luna is doing here is a very old pattern for her: to befriend a highly-intelligent young pony and hopefully win a friend for the rest of his life. This could be looked at as "friend husbandry" and sometimes reaches the extent of "lover husbandry," depending on how things develop (Luna is neither wanton nor depraved, so she would wait until he was a stallion full-grown for anything like that to happen, if friendship grows into love). Her purpose is simple: all her friends ultimately die on her, of old age if nothing else, so she'd rather befriend them when they're young and thus get to keep them for half a century or more if possible. That this time she's met a young prince of an important ally is just icing on one of those cakes her sister loves. Mmmmm, cake ...
She never gets what she really wants: a friend who can stay with her down the long lonely centuries. But she does make some real friends who can make the time they have with her less lonely, which is all she can expect. And, after a millennium and a half alive on Earth in this incarnation, she knows full well that this is all she can expect. Her friendship is almost always extremely good for those whom she befriends, for Luna is a very good pony.
She so deeply does not deserve what is going to happen to her.
