Before Us

When the mothers of the Crystal Empire send their little fillies and colts to their beds, they tell of a great many fantastical stories. Dragons that breathed lightning, stallions who saved the princess from certain doom, and other tales that would always fill the little foals' eyes with wonder. But when the foals for the Empire reached a certain age, they began to dream of being the heroes of their bedtime stories. They would wave their play-weapons in the air and look longingly at the far-off tundra, saying, "I want to be like the brave knight who saved Lady Diamond!"

And when they did, the mothers of the Crystal Empire knew what to do. They would gently take the play-swords and harmless bows and arrows, and tell a new story.

Once upon a time, there was a small foal who was teased at school. His classmates would laugh and say, "Look how small he is! He would never survive in the snow out there." One day, the foal said to himself that he would go outside in the snow and prove them all wrong. When night fell, he grabbed his play-sword for protection, and walked beyond the borders of the Empire. He walked and he walked, but try as he might, he found himself lost. He wandered in the snow for hours, searching for the glow of his kingdom.

Months passed, and the ponies of the Crystal Empire never found the small colt. The King had sent out search party after search party, but found that the task cost more than it was worth. He ordered one more to be sent, saying that if they did not find anything, the search must be given up. With a hefty burden situated on their shoulders, the party was desperate to find the foal. But as they trudged through the snow and against the wind, they saw an outline of a figure, standing at the horizon. They squinted, daring to think it was the lost foal. But no, this thing was much too tall. Not much could be seen of its figure, but they soon noted that it held something in its hand. The thing reached its arm back and threw the object like a javelin, which landed with a small noise in the snow. It was the play-sword of the foal, broken and battered.

The foals of the Empire would sit in shock as their mothers gingerly took their toys and locked them away for a little while. When they grew up, they would realize that the story was fabricated, of course. A tale created to scare them so they didn't freeze to death in the tundra. However, many scholars theorized that the tall tale had originated when somepony took elements from many of the surrounding cultures' myths about tall, bipedal beings who walked the tundra and would eat any pony as easily as a hayburger. For example, the gryphons had a story shared during times of ritual about a character named Jugël, a pony who discovered an ancient underground city populated by monsters. The creatures stood on their hind legs and were covered entirely in fur, large antlers erupting from their foreheads. They devoured the weak pony and gained a craving for living flesh. It was always necessary for the griffons to perform the correct annual sacrifices, lest the monsters catch their scent in the breeze and destroy the offending village.

However the story came about, time made sure it stayed to scare the foals of the Empire. And so it would continue to haunt them for as long as they were below the age, after which time they would dismiss the thing of any residual authenticity it could have possessed. After all, how could something so strange be in any way real?