Shards of Utopia

Once upon a time, there lived a great King who reigned over his ponies with a gentle hoof.

So great was his wisdom, that Flutter Ponies and Crystal Ponies alike revered him and asked him to preside over their squabbles and judge what should be the fairer outcome.

He was named Sombra, who wept for his daughter sent South out of the frozen wastes so long ago. It was he alone who had walked those ices until he came across a relic that exuded its own light and warmth, and was curated by the Crystal ponies of the mountain caves. It was he who was the architect of the great city that would supplement the power of that relic and provide a safe haven for the denizens of the North.

And so he ruled in peace, for a time, the light and love in his heart for his subjects making their home a happy one.

Once upon a time, there was a great Queen of the Flutter ponies, as kind as she was beautiful.

None of her children would dare say a word against her, for there were none to be said.

She was named Lovelace, who cured the King of his sadness. It was she alone who had kept her ponies safe during the long journey from their own wasted lands to the North, mourned and buried those who did not make the journey.

And so it was that King and Queen came together, and guided their ponies in the name of love and light.

One day a gryphon by the name of Shadefeather came to court with a small flock of his people, bringing with them an assortment of Southern goods. A small amount of ponies both Crystal and Flutter made the trip every year as a caravan to trade crystals from their mines and other goods in exchange for things that couldn't be found in the Kingdom. A deal was struck, a contract grown, and the Crystal Kingdom opened up trade with Grypha. Over time, the reign of the just rulers bolstered their nation, and they began to grow. Every new day, their budding Empire overtook more of the icy wastes, their love and light making it habitable as their population rose.

But a place so pure, and a love so true could never last. The Black Heart kept them safe, but the two living closest to it began to grow ill from its influences. They couldn't stand to be apart, but grew irritable in each other's presence. So it was that they began to demand more of their subjects, in order to spend more time with the other. With every argument, every new injustice, the Heart would glow brighter with that dark light. Their subjects didn't question them, trusting and loving them still, even as demand for crystals grew and more time was spent mining.

So it was that the trademaster Shadefeather offered them a solution. A tincture that would rekindle the love between the two rulers. Sombra and Lovelace, desperate for any respite from what had been making their kind hearts ache, acquiesced.

But the griffon was tricksy, or there had been errors translating the text the potion was brewed from. A tuft of cloud, a measure of liquid rainbow, the ingredients to be stirred quickly with a pegasus feather, served to King and Queen in a masking draught of wine. Their ponies were joyful as it seemed their tensions would be immediately soothed. Poisoned with infatuation, their kingdom fell to ruin in the months that followed. Dead to the world around them, even the simplest of tasks beyond them as they stared into one another's eyes and spoke sickly sweet nothings.

Their ponies still loved them, however, and begged Shadefeather on his next visit to set them right. He seemed as confused and worried as any of their subjects- after all the trade route with the Kingdom had brought him a fair deal of coin and prosperity to his lands. He used his connections to put forth a missive, attaching a lavish reward to the curing of his friends.

And so it was that for a full year and a day, creatures of all the settled lands made pilgrimage to the heart of the Kingdom bearing their hopes. Potions tried, spells cast, incantations spoken, rituals attended, but none of them budged the pair in the slightest. Now grown frail despite their ponies' best efforts, still they maintained the posture and attitude of the year before, half-mad from fitful and infrequent sleep.

With the dusk of their realm surely approaching, each passing hour, every new day bore fresh sadness and despair. The feelings of their ponies awoke the dormant Heart, which throbbed with new and growing vigor, spreading that darkness across the land until one felt the sun must shine darkly. The Crystal Ponies lost their luster, the carefully kept wings of the Flutter Ponies hanging slack and tattered, everyone remembering the previous time of happiness and peace as if it were a flight of childish fancy.

Finally having drunk its fill of love and light, darkness and despair, the Heart rang out a cruel toll as if a great bell had been struck, the specter of a pegasus four times the height of the Kingdom's greatest swordponies grew around it. Stepping off the pedestal the Heart had been displayed upon, she tossed her mane with a fierce snort. Wings like blades of ice splayed, mane as wispy as white as clouds on a day too cold to even snow when it hurts to breathe, eyes like burning coals that could pierce the soul of a pony.

Where she stepped, stone splintered and grass withered, hoarfrost creeping from beneath her hooves. Her name was Rhewedig, and her words brought fire and ice and sorrow. All who gazed upon her trembled and bowed and scraped, but she paid them no mind. With a booming voice that cracked the crystals of the buildings around her and bore a sharp biting wind behind it, she claimed to have been called by their sorrow and demanded their King and Queen be brought before her.

The ponies were quick to comply, but truthfully they were terrified for their beloved rulers and for themselves. Such a creature could only be a demon, and none of them were old enough to have completely forgotten the tales their King had told of spirits made up of ice and wind. Before Her the delirious rulers were brought. Jagged wings splayed wide, before furling around each of them, holding them each like a mother might a child. A lazy smirk folded her fierce visage, as she began to sing under her breath.

Her words were power, and set the air to glowing, chains of binding language coiling around the ponies curled against her. After a full day, she fell silent, and when she looked up again the square had flooded with ponies both Flutter and Crystal alike.

"It is done." She said simply, with a voice like thunder and iron. She released the two, and they splayed across the cracked stones she sat upon. Coats darkened to ash and black, they slowly rose to their shaking hooves and sneered at the other.

The pale coat and violet mane of Sombra had been reduced to charcoal and ash, his horn bent and radiating a wicked power that shone red, violet tinged smoke collecting around his eyes from the black hatred that had been burned into him.

Lovelace had been warped and corrupted, her pale-cream pelt melted into a shining insectile carapace. A jagged horn protruded from her forehead, and she smiled her own wicked smile of curved fangs.

The ponies before them wept with despair for their beloved rulers, as Rhewedig ascended her dais. A flash of cold that flash-froze the air she'd inhabited, and she disappeared only to leave her wicked Heart behind. The relic responded to the hatred, malice, and despair bubbling up around it, and loosed a pulse that radiated across the land. Behind the blast, stood the Flutter Ponies changed to match their Queen, insectile demonic caricatures of a pony with wings and horn each, hollow-eyed and greedy for love. The Crystal Ponies stood listless, hopeless, all love of life drained from them by the black pulse of the Heart.

Rather than starve, the Queen Loveless lead her children South to civilized lands. Alone in his rage and despair, the King turned inward, raising himself to rule over his new Empire.

"Thus, did the Crystal Kingdom become an Empire and fall to ruin, and our people lose their rightful homeland."

In the warm, sullen darkness, a nymph's voice murmurs sleepily. Her imagination is already full of dreams of their Promised Land, their homeland of the Crystal Kingdom. "Is that story true?" She was quiet, half-reproachful. Her mother had been known to make things up on the spot, or embellish needlessly. It confused the logical-minded nymph to no end how her dear mother could be so irrational.

"All stories are true, little one," Chrysalis, the Warqueen of Changelings, smiled as she coddled her daughter, as they lay together. "but this one really happened, if that's what you mean. More or less."