Chapter 1: A Frozen Heart (Prolog)
Frozen hearts stood on the balcony, looking at Luna’s gorgeous night sky as the moon slowly rose over the eastern horizon. The light of the twinkling stars reflected in her beautiful sapphire eyes, as the cool evening air flowing through her coat left small snowflakes in the fur of her body, making her normally icy-blue mane and snowy-whit coat shine like the purest of crystals. Her white feathers clean and without a single flaw, tickled in the wind as she spread her wings to set off into the night. Looking back into the bedroom behind her one last time, she flapped her wing and took off over the Crystal Empire.
Under her, the lights from the festival gave the empire a beautiful glow matching the aurora of the castle gently flowing over the sky. ‘Ah yes, hearts warming festival,’ she thought to herself. The festival was something that had been established by the princess of love with the purpose of lifting the spirits of ponies in the empire in order to renew the love, and restore the magic of the crystal heart in the dark times of winter in the northern Equestria.
As she glided across the sky, felling the chill of cold winter air and the snowflakes falling from some of the few clouds still hanging in the heavens above, she let out a happy sigh before flapping her wings, whirling the snow around her. Considering it was one of the coldest winters in decades, it was a rather warm evening thanks to the protective barrier of the empire, which for the time being, served to keep out most of the harsh weather caused by the bone chilling winter storms the former wastelands of the north had been infamous for.
This was her element, one of the only places where she felt free from all the problems, all the stress, and all the emotions normally tormenting her. She suddenly took a very sharp turn upwards, showing off grace only elite flyers and others who had been practicing flying for years could perform.
As Frozen rose to the skies she closed her eyes, and a larger smile formed on her face. Breaking through a large high hanging cloud she spun vertically in the air, sending snow in all directions for the moonlight to shine through, breaking the light into the most breathtaking span of colors, and creating hundreds of small luminous rainbow particles that slowly began to fall to the ground below. “I’m free, the last one of them is gone,’ the very thought made her do a loop in the air. ‘I can’t believe it, I did it,’ she looked down at her flank to her cutie mark, a heart made of ice… shattered into pieces by a web of cracks originating from its very core, and in the top left corner was the missing piece slowly beginning to return. “Sigh’ finally, all the pieces are together, now I just need to assemble the puzzle’ she thought to herself, a single tear made of innocent joy rolled down her cheek.
As she began to decrease height ones again, she searched for a place to rest a little on top of the exercise and sudden raise in adrenalin. It wasn’t long before she found the perfect spot, a large cloud, roughly a dozen or so feet across and just light enough to aid support for her muscles, but without it being so hard that she would be unable to lay upon it. Lightly tapping her hooves across the cloud as her momentum subsided she came to a stop, and walked to the edge of the cloud-island. Laying down, she shifted between looking at the lights from the festival below and the sparkling stars above.
“The empire is truly beautiful at night. It’s a shame the cold prevents the ponies from being out on these lovely evenings more often.” A small gust took hold on her mane and made it wave into the night, similar to the magical aurora of the castle, gently floating across the sky of the crystal empire. Some of the leftover snowflakes in her mane was blown out by the wind, and began to blend with the hundreds of other snowflakes in the air, all looking like falling stars.
She lay there for about half an hour, just watching the world in all its beauty. She got up after one last look towards the mesmerizing aurora of the castle. She unfolded her wings revealing small drops of water in the feathers left by the melted snowflakes. Ones they were no longer hidden in the shadows of her wings they began to shimmer like small pearls in the slivery light of the moon.
She began to flap her wings, lightly lifting off from the cloud, when she was court off guard by a large red blur that connected with her shoulder and knocked her out of balance, and sent her falling towards the cloud she had just left moments ago. She fought to regain control but to no use, for as soon as she started to flap her wings she connected with the cloud. With her left side being the first thing to make contact, a violent jolt of pain ran through her wing joint and made her cry out in agony, before she passed out from the burning sensation that shot through her spine.