Follow the Sun

Would you take the hand of Truth

No matter how it may burn?

Would you look to the past

Knowing that then rests the future?

Would you reach a hand through Time

And touch the essence of all things?

Would you follow the path of the One

Through all the costs it would weigh?

Prologue

The Legend of the Alicorn

In a time before the horrors of the Pegasi War, a time before our Empire was divided by the Great War, a time before the Cadenzan Dynasty rose the Empire of Alicai out of the Lost Age, a time before Celestia fought the Darkness at Cavalry Mountain, a time before the reign of the Sisters of Equestria, there once was nothing. Neither sun nor moon rose to light the earth, for neither they nor it had come to be. Neither pony, nor griffin, nor dragon had yet awoken to life. Even time itself had yet to be. It was into this nothingness that one came from a realm beyond our own. She looked upon the infinite emptiness and saw that nothing here was corrupt; nothing was yet impossible, and the future was as infinite as the void itself.

She knew the power she held here, for nothing yet existed to limit it, and with the hope of her world at heart, she decided to create a new universe here. Onto the blackness she spread a web of stars; one of these she created with the utmost care and called it the Sun. Then, in the light of this single star, she created planets, first among them the Earth, onto which she gave the Moon to light the parts which Sun might not reach, and upon the earth she spread great oceans, and sent out vast rivers like bolts of lightning set into the ground, and transformed the barren brown land into the green of trees and grass, and finally capped its mountains with the white of snow.

Yet the Earth, while fertile, was still empty, and she knew her work was not yet complete, for she had come to create a world of harmony among all, yet none existed to know that harmony. It was so that upon the plains of the Earth, she created ponykind in the image of her ideal, and then, filled the world with all that now lives. With the greatest care, she placed each of these beings, so that they would know the harmony her world lacked. All was finally as it should have been.

However, it was now she perceived a problem. The world had form, but was without laws or change. It was a vision; a dream; a moment. Without change, none of her creation could see any other, for it knew only the most infinitesimal moment of existence, and nothing of the grandeur of the universe, or the harmony of all things within it. Even more, it was now she realized that she herself was without form in this world, and was not of it; while it was hers, she could never be a part of it for, no matter how pure her intent, she was not as pure as her creation, and would taint it with all that was not meant to be.

It was so that finally she resolved she would stay no longer; to rule in her place, she created another form of ponykind to wield the fragments of her power: the Alicorn. Over the Sun would rule Celestia; the Moon, Luna; and the force of time, Auroraious. The Sisters were ordained to lead all ponykind as the Alicorn of Harmony, the ideal from which all virtue flows.

Then, her work at last complete, the Queen of the Alicorn bid farewell and left the universe, never to return.

Yet all was not well, and soon, a darkness spread across the land, calling home the world of the Alicorn Queen. Its flames singed all corners of the Earth and rent to ash the hopes and faith of ponykind in its pyre of hatred. Barely was the world saved when, at Cavalty Mountain, Celestia, Luna and Cadance sacrificed their mortal being to banish the evil that was never meant to be.

We, the first-born ponykind, await the dawn when the legacy of these dark days should itself perish and the light of harmony shall again shine upon all. Though we may err, let us always strive to walk in the hoofprints of the immortal ones, on their path to a new Equestria.