It was dark... dark as an abyss that hides the creatures who fear light will cast judgement upon them. This darkness went beyond simple shade, enveloping and smothering like a thick fog, silence pervaded as though ponies feared that sound would cause it to force itself into their lungs and ears, or as if the darkness already had. The eerie, echoing silence leaving ponies to the doldrums of thought, but not even the mind was a safe haven from this new darkness, the grim darkness pervaded through the clouds of imagination, of memory, of everything. The darkness made everything seem so dull, as though the colorful lifeblood had been drained from the world. Many were forgetting what daytime even looked like, trying oh so hard to picture a large glowing ball so bright as to blind them, but try as they may they couldn't. Royalty had been sought to purge this shadow, but all attempts have failed. One such member, a young princess by the name of Twilight Sparkle, currently suffered from bouts of insomnia, attempting to piece together a solution to the oppressive darkness. "No! No! No!" She cried out in frustration, desperately pacing from one side of the room to the other, "There doesn't seem to be anything that can pierce this for more than a few feet, and even then you-" Her rant cut short by a bright light shining through the window of the old library, "Can barely see it." she murmured out the rest of her sentence as the light grew in intensity, CRRRRRRRKKKKKKKK the loud noise shook the library, the light ceasing immediately afterward. Twilight rushed outside her horn glowing dimly in an attempt to see what happened, only to end up tripping into a crater in the darkness, it was a rather decently sized hole in the ground, and yet, in the center sat a young filly, sound asleep and seemingly unharmed her white mane seemed perfectly groomed, and her coat was a light fuchsia. Though perhaps more puzzling to the unicorn, was the package the child clutched, it was a standard brown package aside from an odd insignia, what intrigued her most was the note attached to the package, in very neat hand writing it read,
"Life will be scary, but one day we shall all die. Know the Void of what lies beyond.
Signed, The Dreaming Dead"
The letter unnerved Twilight somewhat, but she could not abandon the small child to her fate, she scooped her into her arms, and carried her and the package inside, she set out a small bed for the child, allowing her to lie undisturbed for several moments before Twilight herself began to doze off, eyelids becoming increasingly heavy as she fought off sleep, only to slump to the ground next to the small bed, the world was but a hazy memory at this point, all that existed now was the dark, warm confines of sleep.
Cadance looked out the balcony window, sighing, the crystal empire was usually beautiful at night, but you couldn't see it now, thick, smoky darkness blotted out all below and above, "It's not fair..." She thought aloud, resting her head upon her arm that sat against the balcony, "Ever since Shining..." She stopped, uncertain of how to finish her statement, "We were always too busy to start a family, and now this happens, and I can't even lament while gazing into the horizon..." She stared downward, before a brief glint of light caught her eye, pulling her gaze upwards, as the fiery object hurtled downward at blinding speed, before finally hitting the ground with enough force to cause the entire castle to shake. Cadance quickly shook herself from her daze, before hopping from the balcony and gliding downward towards where she believed the object had landed. Finding a rather large impact crater, in the center, was a sleeping young colt, he lay undisturbed and uninjured, his white mane seemed unkempt and wild, his grey coat seemed to shine like iron in the moonlight. He seemed to be clutching a neatly wrapped package, it seemed to mimic the shape of a sword, though one of foreign origin certainly, it's brown paper wrapping bearing the symbol of a half filled heart, and attached was a note that read,
"Follow your Heart, for it will always lead you to the end of a rainbow. Take Heart in knowing you can protect them.
Signed, The Dreaming Dead"
Luna watched over the night as she was apt to do, even though not even she could see through this darkness. "I see you are still up, sister." Luna said, as she turned to smile towards her older sister.
"I see you're still as vigilant as ever?" Celestia joked, "I couldn't sleep, too..."
"Dark?" The younger sister finished, a smirk worn across her face.
"Quiet." She said wiping the smirk from Luna's face, "So have you seen anything interesting?"
"Well let's see... I saw three robberies in progress, four murders, a rape, and someone shooting a porno," Celestia glowered at her, "'Tia I can barely see two feet in front of my damn face out here, exactly what the fuck did you expect me to see?" Celestia opened her mouth to respond only for both of them to be silenced by an intense brightness streaking across the sky, "Is that a meteor?"
"No... it can't be that's much too bright..." The older sister thought aloud, the two pseudo goddesses falling in quite an ungraceful fashion as the ground shook beneath them upon the object impacting.
Luna stood up first, coming to a full attentive state before scanning the horizon, "I think it landed in the garden!" She cried out, hopping over the railing to glide down.
Celestia took a moment to shake herself out of her daze, Luna's words barely registering at first, only to smack her in the face like a fully loaded train. "Hey... Wait up!" She cried out in a vain effort to catch up to her sister. Luna had always been much more of a mare of action, she did things for herself, and was only home when it was demanded of her. Celestia was the opposite, and always had been, she had the guards investigate strange occurrences, and was almost always at the castle, only taking initiative when absolute need be.
They arrived shortly at what was left of the gardens, which wasn't much, most of it now depressed wasteland, "Hey look down there!" Luna called before rushing to the bottom of the depression, Celestia shouted after her and followed as quickly as she could. Upon arrival she found Luna hold a small filly and a package vaguely in the shape of a rifle case, she appeared to be reading a letter.
"What does it say?" Celestia asked before spying another child, a colt with a hammer-like package, she quickly scooped him and his package off the ground, though being careful not to disturb his sleep.
"It says, 'Aim hard, aim true. Have Hope knowing this world you will renew.' It's signed as 'The Waking World'."
"Are there any other clues as to who it's from?"
"Just this symbol on the package." Celestia examined the odd symbol, it looked like a yellow bird with no head, or maybe a star with wave like projections, it honestly just confused her further the more she tried to understand it. "What does yours say?"
Celestia hadn't even noticed the note until Luna mentioned it, her symbol was thankfully much easier to decipher it was a very stylized sun, "Let's see..." She opened the note, "It says 'The Heir to a throne yet unnamed. For you light's luck shall be reclaimed.' And like yours it's signed The Waking World."
"What do we do with them?" Luna asked, Celestia pondered for a moment.
"We'll take them in, at least for now, we can't leave them in this suffocating darkness."