Twilight Sparkle, magical protege and avid knowledge nut, questions what came before ponies. With a little help from the enchantress Zecora, a hard-to-find spell book containing dark knowledge, and a single old book with torn pages found in a ditch, Twilight attempts to discover the past. What she finds, and what she experiences, is a complete shock.

Just what exactly came before ponies?

A/N: Rated mature just to be safe. Ratings and categories are for the entire story, not the first chapter alone.