PLACEHOLDER

        It had been years since the assassinations of the Four Princesses had occurred. These assassinations could have been prevented, however the entirety of the Royal Guard were idiots. Prince Shining Armour, shortly after, had died in a venture to Yakyakistan. He had been about as smart himself as any member of the Guard. Equestria, I implore you to know, had begun to fall into chaos after the assassinations, and the Yaks - as the Griffons were unable to help and the Dragons quite rudely decided not to - were the ponies’ last resort. Unfortunately - or fortunately, as several hundreds would put it - the Prince was ambushed in a snowstorm and killed. Definitely unfortunately, the others on the journey, including the remaining Holders, had the same fate.

        As for Ponyville - the only place any evil forces seemed to attack besides major cities and such, though nobody seemed to find this strange - it undefended was immediately corrupted by the Tantabus, which had had the chance shortly prior to Luna’s death to escape her mind, in which it had been hiding since it nearly captured Ponyville, however Doctor Whooves was able to stop its expansion via some very obscure science; he trapped the Tantabus in its own nightmare. Ditzy, suffering from insomnia at the time, was able to leave conscious and left for Apple Loosa, getting lost and eventually wandering Equestria, looking for a familiar place.

        As for the Crystal Empire, though King Sombra had been killed, the umbrums had regrouped and overtaken it. Again, the Royal Guard were idiots and were able to be bribed with doughnuts to leave. In their defence, the doughnuts were Doughnut Joe’s finest and unbearably scrumptious. The changelings had formed an alliance with the umbrums and together ruled Canterlot and the Crystal Empire respectively, enslaving the citizens thereof and degrading their will to rebel via Umbrum-caused depression and some cleverly-utilised changeling disguises. I shan’t go into detail on this, though; I’ve a story to tell!

Discord, having still been working on a good friend and altogether member of society,  was grieved by the death of Fluttershy to a point at which he returned to performing, in his rage, evil. He liquified Cloudsdale’s clouds and caused its establishments to fall into discord from kilometres above Equestria’s face. Now, to continue with the lore!

The west third of Equestria remained safe for a few years, and was renamed Canterda. The large safe havens Trottawa, Manetreal, and Vanhoover were established, followed by Whinnipeg and Maneitoba. They offered protection (and maple syrup and poutine) to the ponies that had escaped the Crystal Empire and Canterlot.

The ones who had ended the Holders of the Elements (save Twilight) did it poorly; the Elements had become lost, most likely having fallen down the mountain in the blizzard. After much more searching than usual, all that was recovered was a slip of parchment bearing nine words (or eleven, if you count contractions as two each):

He’s got Padhoof at the place where it’s hidden.

Anywhomever, I am getting ahead of myself! Let me explain in more detail the snowstorm in which the remaining Holders were assassinated.

        Prince Shining Armor, the previously mentioned Holders, and some professional mountain climbers had been ascending a large mountain between Equestria and Yakyakistan, with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy flying ahead to find safe paths. Pinkie Pie had been instructed to alert the rest should her Pinkie sense come into play.        As the group approached an icy cave during a blizzard, Fluttershy descended and quietly asked Shining Armor if they should stay there and eat. Pinkie Pie, who had  been happily hopping around nearby, squealed with excitement at this almost whispered question.        “Yes!” Pinkie shouted. “That cave is fuu-un!” She managed to stretch this last word across two syllables, placing much too much emphasis on the latter one.        “Why?” asked Shining worriedly.        “Because --”        A loud growl interrupted this elaboration. Through the rapidly-falling snow, a large, hairy creature could be seen: it was none other than Snowbutt McTwinkles. Rainbow Dash - too high up now in the blizzard to see its white form properly - heard this extraordinarily audible growl and dropped as swiftly as possible. Before she could reach the steep surface of the mountain, though, she was caught in a magical energy field that prevented her from moving. Rarity, who had been at the back of the herd, found that a bag was finding its way over her head.        Applejack felt a hoof come into painful contact with her stomach, and another to her head, knocking the consciousness out of her before she could let out any form of stereotypical farmgirl exclamation. Pinkie Pie caught sight of a rather delicious-looking lollipop and, distracted by it, was very easy indeed to bag. Fluttershy, of course, took next to no effort, and Shining Armor found water being dumped on his horn, rendering it next to useless briefly, and then an immobilization charm. The other climbers were jumped and bagged relatively easily.        The large band of changelings (who had been disguised priorly as small, white rabbits to avoid being seen) then brought the unconscious ponies to a stone circle a hundred metres off-course. A large flash of green light accompanied their teleportation. Now, I don’t want to go into more detail than necessary, as I want not this story to be too violent or anything like that, so I’ll skip their rather painful interrogations and sum them up instead: they gave no information before their deaths. There.

        It was a quarter past seven in the morning. Though it was mid-October, it was rather warm for this part of Equestria. Above the mist hanging lazily over the lake, the clouds were oddly reddened by the horizon-approaching sun, their edges goldened by the skysphere. Xavier’s breath, a white mist, floated through the air, weaving through it and fading. Xavier watched the clouds drifting slowly across the sky, their red colour gradually shifting to a ginger shade as the sun, a small circle on the line keeping the sky up and the ground down, was lifted by Princess Celestia for the morning. The sky surrounding the sun was still red, as the sun itself had only just peeked over the horizon. If the sun stopped here, it would be splendid. Beautiful, even.        And then the sun did stop. It was beautiful, but only momentarily; the sun flashed for a second and then vanished. It was no longer beautiful, but that was of the least concern at the moment. The sky had quickly faded to a dark, solid grey, casting an eerie light on the lake’s mist, and nobody knew why.        See, that’s what happens when the Sun Princes dies. Some magic continues to linger in the sky, and it casts enough light to see where you are going, but not enough to read or have a nice day in any way. And, as if that wasn’t enough, it is also a permanent reminder that somepony managed to kill one of the most powerful beings in Equestria. It is not particularly pleasant.