1000 years ago Equestria was under the terrible rule of the God of chaos, Discord. During the time of the draconequs’ rule the entire world was in a state of chaos. Due to Discords chaotic magic the words magic itself had become riddled with unpredictability causing life to be nothing more than a game of chance with every passing day, if days passed at all. Earth ponies couldn’t grow their crops properly, their harvests still bountiful enough to sustain what was the pony population at that time but the results were erratic and unpredictable. Corn grew and when ready to pick pooped filling the field with popcorn; potatoes grew to enormous sizes only to pop when they were picked leaving nothing but the skin and leafy greens made out of green parchment. Pegasi weren’t any better off. The weather changed at the drop of a hat, literally. A pony could sneeze and let out a small twister that swept through the town, a hat could drop and send a devastating downburst crushing houses, farms and even ponies. Pegasi flight was left mainly intact but their weather control was basically non-existent with the clouds and winds having their own mind. Unicorns were the ones hit the worst by the chaos. Unicorn magic had severe limitations during this dark period of time, even simple acts of levitation could have disastrous effects, such as causing massive explosions or artificial sentience in items. Not even the Princess of Equestria were immune to this pervasive chaos. The sun and the moon had erratic patterns in the sky, sometimes the sun would stay out for what seemed like weeks and the night lasted for months, throwing the daily lives of ponies into a greater tailspin. It seemed that if this continued for too much longer the world would surely just fall apart, but there was one place that seemed unaffected by Discords rule. Far in the northern reaches of Equestria laid what seemed to be the only normal place in the land, The Crystal Empire.
The lands away from the Empire used to be lush rolling hills were crystal ponies jousted and frolicked with small ewes, now the lands left a cold artic landscape that ended once the borders to the city were crossed. The city itself was made up entirely of towering spires of light blue crystals. The houses, roads, the palace, all of it carved out of this durable yet easily manipulated with magic. The ponies in the city were very different than those in the rest of Equestria. They are called the most beautiful ponies in all of the land, their coats shimmering like the crystals they reside in, their names always perfectly coifed and pristine; their attitudes regal but not snobby. Their perfect coats were not something that they had to work for every day, it was a result of very powerful magic, the same magic that protected the kingdom from the magic that bastardized the rest of the world. What powered the Crystal Empire was a type of magic that everypony had inside of themselves, but a very limited amount had the ability to control, the magic of love.
Love is a special kind of magic. While no pony quite knows how normal magic works, the inner workings of Love magic are a mystery wrapped inside of an enigma. All that is known is that this kind of magic could not be corrupted by Discord and no one can how and why something that is so common can be so powerful. As stated before only a few ponies have the ability to use that magic. No pony is sure why that is either, there seems to be no pattern on what ponies get this ability and even more limiting is the fact that it seems to be exclusive to Unicorns. As hard as they tried other unicorns couldn’t manipulate the magic, reading the spells those that could control love lead to nowhere, the magic inaccessible.
Inside the throne room of the palace hovered what could be considered the core of the empire, the Crystal Heart. It was a large, light pink crystal shaped like, well a heart. This was the source of the magic that protected the empire, but that wasn’t always the case. But that will come later.
A large, heavily decorated, crystal door creaked open, one of the handles glowing with a light blue magic. A white coated pony walked into the room, his mane shades of gold and a deep dark red. He wasn’t just a normal pony, he was an alicorn. He had a small heart shaped crown upon is head, signaling that he was the king of the Crystal Empire. This was King Sweetheart. His cutie mark was one large crystal heart with 3 smaller hearts overlapping at its bottom, this represented his love for everyone that he met, regardless of who they are or what they had done his love always there for them. Sweetheart walked into the room closing the door behind him. He took a deep breath as he walked towards the crystal heart. He stood in front of it, now it was the time when the crystal ponies would bow down and use their emotion to charge the crystal heart to maintain the barrier over the empire. The heart couldn’t handle the surge of energy by itself, so a user of love magic had to be there to help the energy pass through the heart and out the top of the castle.
He closed his eyes and focused on the heart. His horn began to glow a bright pink that enveloped the heart, this caused Sweetheart’s cutiemark to glow and shimmer. A few moments passed as the floor of the room started to glow as the magic from the crystal ponies surged and coalesced at the bottom of the crystal heart. The glowing circle of magic under the heart glowed a bright white as it then shot up like a pillar filling the heart with energy, causing it to spin rapidly and to crackle with energy. A beam of energy shot out of the top of the heart hitting the ceiling of the room and spreading all over it, causing the entire top spire of the castle to glow. The glow then moved toward the tip of the spire. Once all the energy gathered a large shockwave of energy filled the sky, causing rainbow like ribbons of energy to crackle through the sky. A bubble rippled around the city being refreshed by the burst of energy.
Sweetheart smiled for a moment as he felt the barrier refresh. That smiled quickly turned into a slight frown. “I guess this is the last time that I am going to do this” he said to himself. He sat down in front of the heart and looked at it then he began to speak, as if he was actually taking to the spinning stone. “I’m going to miss you all. I really wish I could have said goodbye, not just now but all those years ago.” He then looked down at the floor as if he realized how stupid he would look if other ponies had seen him do this. “I wish you guys could hear me, I know you are all there. You are the only ones that know why I’m leaving. I’m sure that Strongheart will be able to take care the empire so don’t worry about that, he doesn’t know it, but I know he has it inside of him.” Tears began to flow from Sweetheart’s eyes as he looked at the Crystal Heart for one last time “I have to go now. And I hope that I get to see you all again.” He then used magic to cut off one of the front facets of the heart. He levitated it and placed it inside of his crown. He turned around as he said “I hope you can forgive me.” He slowly walked out of the room and closed the door behind him, leaving nothing but the Crystal Heart inside.
It was a dark and stormy day at the Crystal Empire. Storms were rare in these parts of Equestria, but there had been a royal order to the Pegasi that this day be dark; the ruler of the Crystal Empire, Princess Amore had died during foal-birth the day prior.
She had given birth to twin colts, one a unicorn with a dark grey coat with a red and black mane, the other an earth pony a very light pink coat with a bright red, pink and golden mane. Moments before her passing a bearded, dark grey unicorn came into the room.
He bowed to the princess that lay weakly holding the twin colts as he spoke “Princess Amore, is it alright to test them for future magical abilities?”
The princess nodded “Do it quickly my dear, I think I do not have much more time in this world and I would like to name them myself Starswirl.”
Starswirl nodded as he came to the side of the bed. His horn glowed with green magic as a green aura enveloped the colts. The magical glow ended as Starswirl looked at the princess. “They both hold great magical potential, but it is strange, the earth pony seems to have a higher potential than the unicorn.”
The pirncess smiled at the colts as she said “Then you will take good care of them wont you?” She looked at the light pink colt and said “I feel that you will have undying love for everyone you run into you, a heart full of kindness and compassion. I think Sweetheart is a good name for you.” She then looked at the gray one and said “I feel like you will protect your brother whenever he needs help. A heart as kind as his is bound to run into trouble when the world turns dark. Knowing that I will call you Strongheart.”
Starswirl looked at Amore and said “How can you know those kinds of things about them my dear?” Amore smiled at him and said “Call it mother’s intuition.”
She looked at the colts one more time as she said “Now listen you two. I know you probably won’t remember this but I want you to know that your mother loves you much more than you could ever understand. You will most likely never see or get to talk to me and your father will be too busy with the princesses to be around all that often, but I am sure he will tell you everything he knows about me, he wrote it all down in so many books.”
She placed a kiss on each of their foreheads, before a pink aura enveloped them as she levitated them into a nearby carriage. Those in the room could feel that the aura was warm and comforting, much like a fuzzy blanket on a dark and cold night, or like a mother’s warm hug. This was the manifestation of the mothers love through magic, she knew this was going to be the last, and perhaps only, time she could express love to her children.
