Clara Terram: The Other Side Of The Worldby Bucking NonsenseChaptersPrologue: From The Collected Musings Of Starswirl The BeardedIt Begins With Something So Small And SimpleIntrerlude: Friends In Far Off PlacesInterlude: Ancient HistoryPrologue: From The Collected Musings Of Starswirl The BeardedWe know so little about magic... I've spent over a century of my life studying magic, and yet, for all I've learned, I still feel as if I am little further along than a colt who has just cracked open his first spell book. Why, you might ask? Simple: While I know a thousand spells and more, I have no real understanding as to the why's and how's of how magic works. The mysteries of a spell, any spell, have eluded me. Oh, I know plenty about the biological aspects of spell casting: I know how our horns work in converting magical energy into magic spells. But can any pony tell me how and why, exactly, a certain set of thoughts and images, when focused upon in our minds, cause a growth of tissue and bone jutting out of our foreheads to convert magical energy to create exactly the effect we intend? More precisely, how do spells work, and why do they work without any real hiccups? I mean, take the spell that transforms apples into oranges: Can you even begin to grasp how insanely complex a change that spell causes, on so many different levels? The peels, the flesh of the fruit, the seeds, those are just the start. When we go down to the cellular level, and look even further using more advanced magics, we see ever increasing degrees of complexity, and yet the spell perfectly performs the task to the point that I, years ago, took a seed from an apple that I transformed into an orange, planted it, and took seeds from the fruit, and planted them to get perfectly ordinary orange trees. I am up to five generations thus far... and counting. Not a single leaf is out of place. The orange, fifty years later, remains an orange, as do all that came after. And then we get into the mind-numbing complexities of the spells that can be used to change a living, flesh and blood creature into another living, flesh and blood creature. If a fruit's structure is mindbogglingly complex, it cannot hold a candle to the body of the average pony. And worse, everything is constantly in motion, and any effort to still that motion can be fatal. And then there's the whole matter of mass: How can you change a pony to a breezie, and not have a huge pile of unused pony messily littering the floor afterwards? Let that image sink in for a moment before I continue. Yes, well, I'm glad I skipped breakfast, too. More to the point, when you change the breezie back, where does the mass come from to do so? Why aren't you left with a just a tiny pony, or just a tiny part of a pony? Another wonderful mental image. My gift to you. And let us not even start on teleportation, especially given how much we know about how everything in the cosmos is constantly in motion, at velocities that are beyond our ability to fathom, let alone measure. When a unicorn teleports from place to place, how does that pony not end up in the vast reaches of space, or inside a solid object? Or colliding with the ground or a nearby tree at speeds sufficient to render their body to paste? Or with large chunks of them missing or in the wrong place? Why does that pony invariably end up with their hooves planted on the ground, and why is the pony teleported, complete with skin, bones, tissues, organs, blood, and various fluids, along with the contents of their digestive tract, all right where they belong. Not once in the history of teleportation magic has their been an error that could not be attributed to operator error, rather than an error with the spell itself. They should be happening hourly, given how complex the art of teleportation really is. Our instincts, perhaps, are just too good for our own good. We can do these things so easily, so naturally, that we never had to learn how to do them, beyond the initiation of the spell. We think things, and they happen. That's it. We know nothing of the route from thought to action, just that somehow, we go from point A to point B, and it works. And in a thousand, thousand ways, that terrifies me. When we cast a spell, it is more like we are pressing a button, and then things happen. The button just happens to be affixed to our heads, and a little more complex in pressing than most. We understand nothing about how spells work, and why. We are little better than a monkey flipping a switch to get a banana as part of an experiment. The monkey knows it gets a banana when it throws the switch, we know we get a result when we cast a spell. Neither we, nor the monkey, contemplate the whys or hows, when any other kind of pony would ponder this in detail, and question it to the point of distraction. We're the only ponies foolish enough to risk our lives using a process whose working we know nothing of without ever considering the inherent danger in that action. The next time you hear some proponent of the "Unicorn Master Race" philosophy start spouting their rhetoric, tell them what I just told you. Ten bits says they won't be able to give a counter-argument that makes any rational sense whatsoever. Of course, they can't give a rational counter-argument to anything that contradicts them, so that's an easy bet for me to win. Never delude yourselves, my fellow unicorns: We've been given an impossibly potent gift, and our over-reliance of it has left us stunted, mentally, in ways that I have only recently begun to categorize. Earth ponies and pegasai have proven themselves to know a great deal more about their spheres of competence than we ever have of ours. If earth ponies knew as little about farming, or pegasai as little about the wind and weather, as we do about the workings of magic, we'd all starve to death, if the uncontrolled weather didn't get us first. We are, as a race, SIMPLE in all the most unpleasant definitions of the word. Imagine if we knew as much about our spells as, say, earth ponies know about farming. You laugh, the lot of you, but that is because you think farming is simple. You think that they just plant a seed, water it, and then a tree pops out. No, it is nowhere near that easy. I've spoken with earth ponies about their work, and the sheer volume of information regarding the subject they maintain in their heads, once you get them started, is nothing short of tremendous. There's the quality of the soil, for one: Different seeds need different kinds of soil to grow. A dozen different factors based just on the "plain old common dirt" will determine which seed, if any, will thrive in the soil. Then, there's how the plant needs to be raised. Yes, you pour water on it, but how much, and how often? Too much water can kill a plant as completely as too little. You have to constantly check the plant for pests that will eat the plant or its fruit (Which are legion), check it for diseases(which are even more multitudinous), and make sure that the soil is well fertilized, and is getting the right amount of sunlight. And the common farmer has to do this for dozens of plants, if not hundreds, of multiple varieties which all have different requirements to maintain. And they have to get this right for the overwhelming majority of their plants, year after year after year. And they do. When it comes to farming, the margin of error is MICROSCOPIC, compared to that of a spell. And then, after determining when the crops are ripe, there's the means of harvesting the food, and converting it into preserves, baking it into pies, or just properly cooking it so you don't get ill from eating it, like you can from eating raw potatoes. If you were to compare their works to ours, an earth pony does the equivalent of working dozens, or even hundreds, of spells at the same time, and works them for years on end, and does so with more skill, patience, and above all else, SUCCESS... than any wizard who has lived in recorded history. If we understood our spells even a fraction as well as an earth pony farmer understood his tradecraft, we'd be able to do far more than throw spells around. We'd be able to make real progress in understanding the universe as a whole... And if earth ponies had been granted the gift of magic, and unicorns were stuck with managing the crops, they would have unlocked the secrets of the cosmos centuries ago, and ascended to some distant astral plane far beyond our fleshly concerns... while we unicorns were moronically throwing seeds at the ground and wondering why they weren't instantly growing into apple trees. They would be as gods, while we would be lucky if we didn't starve, while the pegasai just pointed at us and laughed at how stupid we were. How stupid we are. And they'd have every right to do so. Consider all of that, the next time you think to speak ill of an earth pony. We have been granted the keys to the universe, to becoming the ultimate powers in the cosmos, and we're barely competent enough to use them as a poking stick. Were it not so effective a stick that it could potentially wipe out entire cities, we'd be serving them, begging for food, rather than they paying us to move the sun and moon about. It Begins With Something So Small And SimpleIt begins with a filly showing up at Canterlot Castle. It was a bright and sunny afternoon as Princess Luna came winging into Canterlot from her visit to Manehattan. It had been a rather dull affair: The appointment of the new mayor required a royal presence, as it did in any major metropolitan center in Equestria. However, presence was all that was required, so in these situations, Luna and Celestia would take turns attending events like these. Admittedly, they were important, and it was good to get out of the palace every now and again, but she genuinely wondered if every politician in the county measured their own importance based solely on the length of their speeches. If this were the case, the new mayor of Manehattan considered himself the most important pony in the history of Equestria, if not the entire world... Luna was distracted from her thoughts by an unusual sight at the main entrance to the castle: A small filly was conversing with the guards stationed there. An unexpected thing to see, as there were no tours or field trips scheduled today. Curious, Luna set down a short distance away, and began walking towards them. She had found that most ponies do not appreciate having a princess suddenly materialize unexpectedly behind them, and causing one heart attack was enough for her to begin exercising a bit more caution, even with young ponies. "Look, I'm sorry miss, but the library's off limits to anypony except palace staff and authorized guests," the guard explained to the young filly. "If it was up to me, I'd let you in. I don't see no harm in it. But it isn't up to me. It's regulations..." Clearing her throat, Luna asked, "What seems to be the problem, Captain Thunderbolt?" The younger princess had spent the better part of the year getting to know the faces of every guard in the palace, especially after the changeling invasion. She counted it a mark of pride that she knew all but the latest batch of recruits on sight, and even those she was getting a feel for. The captain straightened up, and looked over at the princess. Clearing his throat, he said, "I was just informing this young lady that the castle library is off limits to the public." The filly turned and faced Princess Luna, her expression so blank, so perfectly neutral, that the alicorn couldn't help but briefly wonder if Maude Pie had a daughter. Dismissing the ridiculous thought almost immediately (This filly being too old, and Maude Pie being too young), she took a moment to study the pony more carefully. She was an earth pony, and had a butter yellow coat, and a purple mane and tail, both of which she kept in a tightly managed bun. She was very slender for her age, but held herself with a strange sort of dignity, which was odd for a filly so young. However, while her face was expressionless, there was something in her purple-colored eyes that seemed to say something to the princess, but Luna could not say for certain what it was. She carried a backpack, letting its weight rest on the ground while she was not in motion. In a dull, emotionless, almost lifeless monotone, the filly said, "I need a book for a project at school. It's one I read before, maybe a year ago. The school library didn't have it, and the city library's copy was apparently checked out five moons ago and was never returned, a replacement not yet having come in. Canterlot Castle's library is famed for having every book ever written in Equestria, or just about, so I thought I'd ask if I could see the copy here. I only needed to write down some information for my project, maybe two or three paragraphs." "I see," Luna said, her expression thoughtful. Most ponies would have immediately given up after finding out the book was unavailable at the public library. Instead, this young filly had the gumption to walk right up to the castle and ask if she could see the royal library's copy. Admittedly, it was true that the library was intended for castle staff, as the guard said, but Luna wouldn't have a problem with a young filly paying a short visit, and she knew for a fact that Celestia wouldn't have any complaints about a young visitor like this one: If there was one thing that Celestia loved more than cake (And Celestia's hindquarters announced that affection in a language that anypony could understand), it was having young ponies visit the castle. Every day was considered bring your son and/or daughter to work day for her: The palace featured the single largest nursery in the nation. "Well, if that is all you need, young lady," the princess said with a nod, "I can certainly oblige you. If you'll follow me..." "So," Luna asked, a few short minutes later, "which book were you needing to see, ah...?" The castle library was as grand as it always was. Admittedly, the library in the Crystal Empire was even larger, but it was still in the process of updating its contents, many of it tomes being current for a library a thousand years ago. Many of those tomes were practically relics found noplace else and would need to be relocated to the castle for safekeeping, or woefully out of date and best discarded or burned. Still, Luna felt a small measure of pride at the size of this library: It had originally been her idea to house copies of all the books in the nation inside of the palace. After one fiend or another a thousand years ago (It was hard to remember which one did what, given how many of them there were) had tried to burn every library in the nation in attempt to hide the secret of his long ago documented weakness, she'd had the thought that it might be a good idea to keep a copy of every book ever printed, so such vital information would be impossible, or practically impossible, to lose. While it had been under construction just before her banishment, it pleased her greatly that Celestia had completed it in Luna's absence... "Starburst," the filly stated flatly. It wasn't unfriendly, or even rude. It was just... empty. "And the book I was needing to see was 'The Mystery Of The Baltimare Derelict, by Purple Prose'." Nodding, Luna said, "Let me ask the head librarian to bring it." The librarian in question, a beige, grandfatherly unicorn stallion by the name of Subscript, was seated at the front desk, doing restoration work on one of the many ancient tomes that filled the library. It took a staff of dozens of ponies to maintain the dozens of books that, due to time and wear, were at risk of falling apart, but the older pony still took pleasure in doing some of the work himself. Clearing her throat, Luna was able to distract him from his work. "Ah, Princess Luna," the elderly librarian said, a kind smile on his wrinkled features, "it is always a pleasure to see you. How might I assist you?" "I was needing to borrow one of your books," Luna explained. "The Mystery Of The Baltimare Derelict, by Purple Prose. Might you have a copy?" "I do," the stallion said with a nod, signalling a passing junior librarian, and sending him after the volume in question. "An interesting read, to say the least. Always reminds me that, for all that we know, we know very little about the world outside of Equestria." Surprised, Luna asked, "How so?" At her side, Starburst piped in, stating, "The Baltimare Derelict is the name given to a shipwreck that sailed mysteriously into Baltimare harbor six hundred years ago, nopony aboard, and while moderately damaged, not sufficiently so to justify the absence of the crew. No vessel like it has been encountered even to this day, and it contained the single most mysterious item ever discovered in Equestrian history: A scroll that no translation spell cast can crack. Even today, its meaning remains unknown, but the few diagrams displayed on the scroll point to it being instructions for the construction of some sort of device, the nature of which is unknown. However, since the materials needed, the size intended, and how it is meant to be assembled are all in an indecipherable language, it is considered impossible to build, currently." Subscript raised a bushy eyebrow, and after looking down to see the speaker, said, "Exactly right, young lady. I'll admit, I wasn't expecting a five year old filly to have read about that topic: I've always found Purple Prose's work to be a little too pedantic for young readers, but nopony else has ever bothered doing a study of the Derelict in recent history." Nodding, the filly said, "I know. And it was a bit... thick, when I read it a year ago. But I was hoping to copy a part of it for an assignment." "And what assignment would that be?" the librarian asked, intrigued. Starburst stated, "My teacher gave us an assignment today, relating to the history of the Red Plains War. One of the turning points of the war was when Equestria came up with a coding system that made it impossible for communications to be translated, even if intercepted. That, combined with a spell that allowed us to invisibly intercept enemy communications, allowed us to outmaneuver the enemy forces and ultimately forced Red Ruin, the leader of the Red Plains forces, to surrender. Magic can decipher normally written messages, but it can't crack codes written in a foreign language. The teacher gave us an assignment to come up with a code of our own, and then write a sentence in that code. If one of us could come up with a code that he couldn't crack, the teacher promised to buy us all ice cream on friday. And I like ice cream." Confused, Luna asked, "And what does that have to do with this derelict?" "I think I figured out how to crack the mystery of what's written on scroll," Starburst stated flatly, "and if I'm right, then I'm pretty sure that my teacher, smart as he is, won't be able to break a code that has stumped scholars for six centuries." One thing Luna would learn in the days and weeks to come was that, if there was one thing that Starburst took seriously, it was ice cream... or sweets of any kind, really. In front of the table that Starburst sat were now three books, and two adult ponies looking over her shoulders. One of which was the tome she'd come to the castle library to see, and the other two were ones that she'd been carrying in her backpack: Basic And Advanced Cryptograms, and Pre-Unification Era Equestrian Dialects. Not exactly the kind of books a five year old filly normally reads. "I like to read," Starburst explained, "and I read a lot. I'm told that my reading level is at a university grade, but that's just what I've been told. And when the teacher went over this lesson, I remembered the scroll mentioned in the book about the derelict. So, I thought, maybe it was in code. And a coded message can't be cracked by a translation spell. A cipher spell can crack a coded message, but only if you know the language it was written in, and use the appropriate spell. But a coded message in an unknown language cannot be cracked by any spell, if I remember correctly from 'Shortcomings Of Linguistic Magicks'." Subscript nodded, saying, "Indeed." "But if a translation spell doesn't work on either a coded message in a known language, or a coded message in an unknown language, then it's impossible to tell the difference between the two just by casting a spell. But," Starburst added," there are ways of figuring out what language a cryptogram is written in, based on certain indicators. At least if the cryptogram is simple enough." Pointing at the two tomes in front of her, Starburst said, "These two are the key." Opening the book, Pre-Unification Era Equestrian Dialects, she flipped forward to the section on Earth Pony dialects. "Earth ponies used, way back before Equestria was a single country, a Base 4 number system, and their written language was based solely on words containing four letters, although their alphabet was forty characters long, allowing for a lot of different combinations. It wasn't until the unification that they adopted the unicorn's Base 10 number system, and the pegasai's modern twenty-six character alphabet." She opened the book, The Mystery Of The Baltimare Derelict, and pointed to the copy of the scroll inscribed on page eighty-seven. "And each of the words on this scroll are four letters long," Starburst concluded. "There are, as I remembered, forty-four different symbols on this scroll. Four numbers, forty letters." She pointed to the tome concerning cryptograms. "The simplest cryptograms used in ancient times were just replacing letters and numbers with symbols. So, it's just a matter of working out which symbols correspond to which letters and numbers." She pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil from her backpack, and began copying the symbols on the copy of the scroll. "I think I can have it worked out by dinner, if not, then before bed time." "But why would a scroll on a shipwrecked derelict from six hundred years ago be written in an ancient Earth Pony dialect?" Princess Luna asked, confused. "How should I know?" Starburst asked, sarcasm shining through in spite of her dull monotone, the tone undulled by the fact that she was holding a pencil in her mouth. "I'm five years old, and I don't even have a cutie mark. I'm not some kind of super-genius." "Said the filly who just cracked a six century old mystery in the course of an afternoon," Luna quipped back reflexively. For an instant, it seemed as if the filly might smile, but after a second, the moment passed. Clearing her throat, Luna said, "Well, I would be grateful if, after you've decoded the contents of this scroll, you'd be willing to share what you've discovered with us. I'm certain that there are many scholars who would be interested in what it has to say." And then, as an afterthought, added, "I'll make certain that you receive full credit for your discoveries, of course." The filly nodded, and said, "Thank you, your highness." As she departed the library, Starburst did her best to keep her 'poker face' up. It wasn't easy: She'd had to maintain her cover under very difficult and frustrating circumstances. She'd never, in any of her turns of the cycle, been very good at acting. The best she could ever manage was a kind of 'blank' expression that she knew many found off-putting. However, it was effective in keeping her true intentions hidden. For the thousandth time since her 'birth' here in Equestria, she cursed her terrible luck at being stuck in this place: Starburst, also known as Lady Violet, The Knight of the Royal Purple, First of the Chroma, stuck in the body of a young filly so far from Clara Terram that nopony here had even heard of her home country, let alone her. Had her latest incarnation been located in her homeland, the moment she regained the ability of speech, she could have announced her identity and be assured of immediate return to her former status, and be assured as well that she could spend her formative years in safety (and luxury) until she was ready to again take her title as defender of the realm, rather than being stuck as an orphan in this primitive backwater. Instead... Well, at least they had ice cream. And candy. The Equestrians had gotten that right, at least, and Starburst supposed that was something. Still, it was frustrating to have to wait this long to put everything together. After all, it wasn't like she could claim to have broken the 'code' when she was two, right? It wasn't even actually a code, but the actual written language of Clara Terram that was recorded on that scroll. Her people had just assumed that the basic structure of their written language had not changed too much over the last few centuries and would be easy for anypony with a basic understanding of the Earth Pony alphabet to decipher... Instead, the scroll had been considered indecipherable after unicorns spent a week throwing spells at it, and then was all but forgotten, a footnote in history on both sides of the world. Clara Terram assumed that ponykind no longer existed on the other side of the world, and went on with its business. Meanwhile, the scroll was considered a curiosity here, instead of a message from a far removed tribe of ponies who had grown into a powerful country in its own right. Of course, nopony, or at least no unicorn, had ever thought to ask an Earth Pony to take a look at it, especially not one who knew anything about the old ways. Things might have gone much differently, if they had. Luna's presence had been unexpected, yet also a boon: This project would now have royal attention, and the device that was on that scroll would allow Starburst to finally get a message through to her homeland. Instead of having to scavenge for parts herself, the princesses would do all the hoofwork for her, assembling the device and opening communications to Starburst's compatriots. From there, things would quickly fall into place. While blank faced, Starburst couldn't help but chuckle on the inside: She was certain that the ponies here would be completely amazed by the complex mechanism detailed within the scroll, a device that nopony in this backwater cultural wasteland had ever conceived of, a device that even the young colts and fillies of Clara Terram used on a regular basis... A smartphone. She looked briefly over her shoulder, and saw Luna watching her leave. After a moment, Starburst waved goodbye, and went back to walking. 'When I'm back where I belong,' she thought to herself, 'I'll remember this day. Be grateful, Princess Of Nowhere Special: By this time next year, you'll need all the friends you can get.' She needed to return home. Her people needed her. But sadly, getting home was going to mean forcing Equestria to become part of a much wider world... and the ponies here would soon learn that they were just a big fish in a small pond, compared to the whales and sharks who swam in a vast ocean. Intrerlude: Friends In Far Off PlacesClara Terram, The Meeting Room Of The Nine Knights Of Chroma... Orange, The Knight Of The Golden Fortunes: So, still no sign of her? Green, The Knight Of The Green Fields: Nopony has come forward yet, at least nopony credible. There's been a few fakers, of course, but that's to be expected: Some ponies just don't understand how The Cycle works. They think we just look for ponies with strong potential or a strong likeness to the original to fill the role, rather than wait for a current member's incarnation to step forward. You can't fake being one of the Chroma, especially in the presence of one of the other Chroma. We've known each other too well for too long. Blue, The Knight Of The Flowing Waters: A shame that there are ponies who understand so little, but what can you expect? Only about 5% of the population have sufficient magical ability to 'close the gap' between birth and death, if that, and until you've done it, you can never understand what it entails. Probably for the best: I've... seen what is waiting on the other side. If I didn't have responsibilities here, I wouldn't bother coming back. Red, The Knight Of Iron And Blood: And nopony would hold it against you. But that raises a question: Could Royal Purple have decided to just pass on? She's the first and the oldest, so if anypony has earned it, she has. Yellow, The Knight Of Dazzling Lights: And she knows how bad things could get if she leaves. Her sense of responsibility is the strongest of all of us. No, something must have happened. Maybe she's stuck someplace remote, where contact isn't possible? Indigo, The Knight Of Vast Skies: A possibility. And in spite of our efforts, nopony has managed to successfully make contact with the old pasturelands. I know most assume it to be a myth, us having migrated from a far off land on the other side of the ocean, but even if it is just a story, there's still the possibility of there being ponies outside of Clara Terram. If she was reborn amongst one of them, and they didn't have our level of magitek... White, The Knight Of Unbreakable Diamonds: A possibility indeed. And at five years old, how could she manage to construct a communication device without the proper materials, or manage even a basic communication spell with that kind of range? We'll need to widen our nets a bit. But we'll also need to be discrete: If Madigrin learns that Chroma Violet is missing, he'll do one of two things. He'll either try to make a move on Clara Terram, thinking that without our leader, he might be able to break through and take the throne... Black, The Knight Of Limitless Voids: Heh. He can try, see how far he gets, compared to last time. White, The Knight Of Unbreakable Diamonds: Or he'll try to capture Violet, and... well, if he were to burn out her mana channels, and then slay her at the moment she has no magic in her body... Indigo, The Knight Of Vast Skies: ...There's no coming back. Black, The Knight Of Empty Voids: This is my department, then. Madigrin and his cronies can't scry me outside of this room, unlike the rest of you. I know a few ways Violet might try to make contact if she were in a situation where normal methods were impossible. But the bigger question is, once we find her, how do we retrieve her, given that she may be on the other side of the world? White, The Knight Of Unbreakable Diamonds: We'll cross that ocean when we get to it. Interlude: Ancient HistoryFrom 'The Collected Histories Of Clara Terram'. Three centuries after the founding of Clara Terram, and two centuries after the discovery of magic, an unexpected event occurred, one that would have repercussions that would be felt even to the modern age. That event was the birth of the king's second son, Madigrin. Clovis, the firstborn, was strong, brave, ruggedly handsome, wise, honest, kind, generous, and charismatic. He was well beloved by the citizens of Clara Terram, and his coronation was looked forward to all, save one. While not blessed with any talent with magic, let alone magic energy, he would, in years to come, prove himself to be an able administrator, and would usher in a golden age for our people. The second son, Madigrin, however, was different. Rather than handsome, he instead possessed an almost effeminate beauty. He was clever, and possessed a certain magnetism that seemed to draw others to him, in spite of his personality. He was also deceptive, calculating, and cruel to the point of sadism. He also possessed, most importantly, tremendous magical power, the kind that few in our history have matched. And this was where the trouble began. "Why should I serve others?" Madigrin asked of his father. "Why should I serve my brother, who has less magical capability than a stone? With a word, I can tear down mountains. With a wave of my hoof, I can bring fire and ruin to any who might threaten our kingdom. With a thought, I can rend even the strongest of warriors asunder. Why shouldn't I be the king instead of Clovis?" While upset by his words, the king advised his younger son that magic alone did not make one worthy of ruling a nation. His incredible talent had left him lacking in humility, unlike Clovis. The king could trust Clovis to rule the kingdom wisely and well because he knew that he was only a mortal pony. Madigrin, however, would not, since he thought his magical abilities made him some sort of god, something that none of the ponies of Clara Terram would stand for. "Had our ancestors not left the homelands specifically to escape the sort of tyranny you intend? To escape the horned and the winged ones who treated them as nothing more than slaves? Those who forced us to pay tribute to them and thought themselves superior to us in every way? The people will not stand for a pony who tries to rule over them using abilities that they do not possess. If you become king, our subjects will either revolt and overthrow you, or abandon our kingdom, leaving you all alone to rule over an empty nation. No, my son: You are not fit to rule, and I fear you never will be..." Madigrin would not take no for an answer. He instead would pour venomous, honeyed words of treason into the ears of those members of the populace who possessed great magical power, yet felt constrained by the traditions and laws of our people. He promised them power, the ability to rule over others. They would be as gods, and Madigrin, the king of gods. Within a year, he had a sufficient following to try to seize the throne. The coup failed, ultimately, due to Madigrin's own twisted dogma, his belief that only magic mattered, and that anypony without magic was beneath contempt. Moons before his coup began, an unspelled serving girl had overheard a conversation between Madigrin and his cohorts while serving them drinks. He thought nothing of speaking treason before a magicless commoner. This would be his undoing. The maiden reported the plot to the newly crowned king, and the king made preparations of his own. When the coup began, Madigrin and his flunkies found themselves faced, not with a palace of unprepared courtiers and servants, but with knights of the realm armed with anti-magic arms and armor, and dozens of powerful wizards who were loyal to the king and to their people. The coup was stopped without a single casualty, and both Madigrin and his followers were captured and brought before the king for judgement. And on that day, the king made the one mistake of his reign, the mistake that haunts us to this very day: He chose mercy, rather than justice. The penalty for treason was death. This had always been the case. However, when Clovis looked upon Madigrin, he could only see his brother, and not the monster he was, and certainly not the twisted thing he would eventually become. Instead of death, the king chose to exile his brother. Although, in fairness, the destination of his exile was practically a death sentence. The Dark Lands were a large island off our eastern shore, the site of a magical battle between two powerful wizards a century previous. Then, as with now, nothing existed there that was not lethally venomous, violently carnivorous, psychotically aggressive, or a combination of all three. That included even the plants, many of the stones, and some of the lakes and rivers. It was expected that Madigrin would die there, as would his followers. That expectation was not completely wrong. However, it was not right, either... A century later, the first attack from the Dark Lands, The Day Of Infamy, began. And we have not known peace since then. Fear of an attack from Madgrin colors every aspect of our civilization: None dare try to leave our kingdom to explore for fear of a repeat of what last happened when Madigrin captured a ship filled with hopeful explorers. Our blue skies have been tinted by the defensive barriers that protect us from his continuous magical onslaughts. Even the taste of our water has been subtly altered due to the dozens of antigens, antitoxins, and alchemical elixirs required to prevent Madigrin's dark magics from introducing plagues or worse into our water supply and do harm to our population. There cannot be peace between Clara Terram and the Dark Lands. Not so long as Madigrin sits upon its throne. Any who have attempted to broker peace with him have been slain, and their deaths were long, protracted, and broadcasted nationwide for every pony to see. Whatever good was within Madigrin died when he did, and the abomination that he has become is now our adversary, now and forever. He will possess our nation, even if he must burn it all to ash to do so. He will become king by any means necessary, even if it means he will be a king of only the dead... Author's Note Ah, since this has come up, and I have mentioned it in the comments, I'll post it here as well. Equestria has a total land mass equivalent to that of Japan. Clara Terram has land mass equal to that of Africa. The Dark Lands have a total land mass equivalent to Australia. Food for thought.
Prologue: From The Collected Musings Of Starswirl The BeardedWe know so little about magic... I've spent over a century of my life studying magic, and yet, for all I've learned, I still feel as if I am little further along than a colt who has just cracked open his first spell book. Why, you might ask? Simple: While I know a thousand spells and more, I have no real understanding as to the why's and how's of how magic works. The mysteries of a spell, any spell, have eluded me. Oh, I know plenty about the biological aspects of spell casting: I know how our horns work in converting magical energy into magic spells. But can any pony tell me how and why, exactly, a certain set of thoughts and images, when focused upon in our minds, cause a growth of tissue and bone jutting out of our foreheads to convert magical energy to create exactly the effect we intend? More precisely, how do spells work, and why do they work without any real hiccups? I mean, take the spell that transforms apples into oranges: Can you even begin to grasp how insanely complex a change that spell causes, on so many different levels? The peels, the flesh of the fruit, the seeds, those are just the start. When we go down to the cellular level, and look even further using more advanced magics, we see ever increasing degrees of complexity, and yet the spell perfectly performs the task to the point that I, years ago, took a seed from an apple that I transformed into an orange, planted it, and took seeds from the fruit, and planted them to get perfectly ordinary orange trees. I am up to five generations thus far... and counting. Not a single leaf is out of place. The orange, fifty years later, remains an orange, as do all that came after. And then we get into the mind-numbing complexities of the spells that can be used to change a living, flesh and blood creature into another living, flesh and blood creature. If a fruit's structure is mindbogglingly complex, it cannot hold a candle to the body of the average pony. And worse, everything is constantly in motion, and any effort to still that motion can be fatal. And then there's the whole matter of mass: How can you change a pony to a breezie, and not have a huge pile of unused pony messily littering the floor afterwards? Let that image sink in for a moment before I continue. Yes, well, I'm glad I skipped breakfast, too. More to the point, when you change the breezie back, where does the mass come from to do so? Why aren't you left with a just a tiny pony, or just a tiny part of a pony? Another wonderful mental image. My gift to you. And let us not even start on teleportation, especially given how much we know about how everything in the cosmos is constantly in motion, at velocities that are beyond our ability to fathom, let alone measure. When a unicorn teleports from place to place, how does that pony not end up in the vast reaches of space, or inside a solid object? Or colliding with the ground or a nearby tree at speeds sufficient to render their body to paste? Or with large chunks of them missing or in the wrong place? Why does that pony invariably end up with their hooves planted on the ground, and why is the pony teleported, complete with skin, bones, tissues, organs, blood, and various fluids, along with the contents of their digestive tract, all right where they belong. Not once in the history of teleportation magic has their been an error that could not be attributed to operator error, rather than an error with the spell itself. They should be happening hourly, given how complex the art of teleportation really is. Our instincts, perhaps, are just too good for our own good. We can do these things so easily, so naturally, that we never had to learn how to do them, beyond the initiation of the spell. We think things, and they happen. That's it. We know nothing of the route from thought to action, just that somehow, we go from point A to point B, and it works. And in a thousand, thousand ways, that terrifies me. When we cast a spell, it is more like we are pressing a button, and then things happen. The button just happens to be affixed to our heads, and a little more complex in pressing than most. We understand nothing about how spells work, and why. We are little better than a monkey flipping a switch to get a banana as part of an experiment. The monkey knows it gets a banana when it throws the switch, we know we get a result when we cast a spell. Neither we, nor the monkey, contemplate the whys or hows, when any other kind of pony would ponder this in detail, and question it to the point of distraction. We're the only ponies foolish enough to risk our lives using a process whose working we know nothing of without ever considering the inherent danger in that action. The next time you hear some proponent of the "Unicorn Master Race" philosophy start spouting their rhetoric, tell them what I just told you. Ten bits says they won't be able to give a counter-argument that makes any rational sense whatsoever. Of course, they can't give a rational counter-argument to anything that contradicts them, so that's an easy bet for me to win. Never delude yourselves, my fellow unicorns: We've been given an impossibly potent gift, and our over-reliance of it has left us stunted, mentally, in ways that I have only recently begun to categorize. Earth ponies and pegasai have proven themselves to know a great deal more about their spheres of competence than we ever have of ours. If earth ponies knew as little about farming, or pegasai as little about the wind and weather, as we do about the workings of magic, we'd all starve to death, if the uncontrolled weather didn't get us first. We are, as a race, SIMPLE in all the most unpleasant definitions of the word. Imagine if we knew as much about our spells as, say, earth ponies know about farming. You laugh, the lot of you, but that is because you think farming is simple. You think that they just plant a seed, water it, and then a tree pops out. No, it is nowhere near that easy. I've spoken with earth ponies about their work, and the sheer volume of information regarding the subject they maintain in their heads, once you get them started, is nothing short of tremendous. There's the quality of the soil, for one: Different seeds need different kinds of soil to grow. A dozen different factors based just on the "plain old common dirt" will determine which seed, if any, will thrive in the soil. Then, there's how the plant needs to be raised. Yes, you pour water on it, but how much, and how often? Too much water can kill a plant as completely as too little. You have to constantly check the plant for pests that will eat the plant or its fruit (Which are legion), check it for diseases(which are even more multitudinous), and make sure that the soil is well fertilized, and is getting the right amount of sunlight. And the common farmer has to do this for dozens of plants, if not hundreds, of multiple varieties which all have different requirements to maintain. And they have to get this right for the overwhelming majority of their plants, year after year after year. And they do. When it comes to farming, the margin of error is MICROSCOPIC, compared to that of a spell. And then, after determining when the crops are ripe, there's the means of harvesting the food, and converting it into preserves, baking it into pies, or just properly cooking it so you don't get ill from eating it, like you can from eating raw potatoes. If you were to compare their works to ours, an earth pony does the equivalent of working dozens, or even hundreds, of spells at the same time, and works them for years on end, and does so with more skill, patience, and above all else, SUCCESS... than any wizard who has lived in recorded history. If we understood our spells even a fraction as well as an earth pony farmer understood his tradecraft, we'd be able to do far more than throw spells around. We'd be able to make real progress in understanding the universe as a whole... And if earth ponies had been granted the gift of magic, and unicorns were stuck with managing the crops, they would have unlocked the secrets of the cosmos centuries ago, and ascended to some distant astral plane far beyond our fleshly concerns... while we unicorns were moronically throwing seeds at the ground and wondering why they weren't instantly growing into apple trees. They would be as gods, while we would be lucky if we didn't starve, while the pegasai just pointed at us and laughed at how stupid we were. How stupid we are. And they'd have every right to do so. Consider all of that, the next time you think to speak ill of an earth pony. We have been granted the keys to the universe, to becoming the ultimate powers in the cosmos, and we're barely competent enough to use them as a poking stick. Were it not so effective a stick that it could potentially wipe out entire cities, we'd be serving them, begging for food, rather than they paying us to move the sun and moon about.
It Begins With Something So Small And SimpleIt begins with a filly showing up at Canterlot Castle. It was a bright and sunny afternoon as Princess Luna came winging into Canterlot from her visit to Manehattan. It had been a rather dull affair: The appointment of the new mayor required a royal presence, as it did in any major metropolitan center in Equestria. However, presence was all that was required, so in these situations, Luna and Celestia would take turns attending events like these. Admittedly, they were important, and it was good to get out of the palace every now and again, but she genuinely wondered if every politician in the county measured their own importance based solely on the length of their speeches. If this were the case, the new mayor of Manehattan considered himself the most important pony in the history of Equestria, if not the entire world... Luna was distracted from her thoughts by an unusual sight at the main entrance to the castle: A small filly was conversing with the guards stationed there. An unexpected thing to see, as there were no tours or field trips scheduled today. Curious, Luna set down a short distance away, and began walking towards them. She had found that most ponies do not appreciate having a princess suddenly materialize unexpectedly behind them, and causing one heart attack was enough for her to begin exercising a bit more caution, even with young ponies. "Look, I'm sorry miss, but the library's off limits to anypony except palace staff and authorized guests," the guard explained to the young filly. "If it was up to me, I'd let you in. I don't see no harm in it. But it isn't up to me. It's regulations..." Clearing her throat, Luna asked, "What seems to be the problem, Captain Thunderbolt?" The younger princess had spent the better part of the year getting to know the faces of every guard in the palace, especially after the changeling invasion. She counted it a mark of pride that she knew all but the latest batch of recruits on sight, and even those she was getting a feel for. The captain straightened up, and looked over at the princess. Clearing his throat, he said, "I was just informing this young lady that the castle library is off limits to the public." The filly turned and faced Princess Luna, her expression so blank, so perfectly neutral, that the alicorn couldn't help but briefly wonder if Maude Pie had a daughter. Dismissing the ridiculous thought almost immediately (This filly being too old, and Maude Pie being too young), she took a moment to study the pony more carefully. She was an earth pony, and had a butter yellow coat, and a purple mane and tail, both of which she kept in a tightly managed bun. She was very slender for her age, but held herself with a strange sort of dignity, which was odd for a filly so young. However, while her face was expressionless, there was something in her purple-colored eyes that seemed to say something to the princess, but Luna could not say for certain what it was. She carried a backpack, letting its weight rest on the ground while she was not in motion. In a dull, emotionless, almost lifeless monotone, the filly said, "I need a book for a project at school. It's one I read before, maybe a year ago. The school library didn't have it, and the city library's copy was apparently checked out five moons ago and was never returned, a replacement not yet having come in. Canterlot Castle's library is famed for having every book ever written in Equestria, or just about, so I thought I'd ask if I could see the copy here. I only needed to write down some information for my project, maybe two or three paragraphs." "I see," Luna said, her expression thoughtful. Most ponies would have immediately given up after finding out the book was unavailable at the public library. Instead, this young filly had the gumption to walk right up to the castle and ask if she could see the royal library's copy. Admittedly, it was true that the library was intended for castle staff, as the guard said, but Luna wouldn't have a problem with a young filly paying a short visit, and she knew for a fact that Celestia wouldn't have any complaints about a young visitor like this one: If there was one thing that Celestia loved more than cake (And Celestia's hindquarters announced that affection in a language that anypony could understand), it was having young ponies visit the castle. Every day was considered bring your son and/or daughter to work day for her: The palace featured the single largest nursery in the nation. "Well, if that is all you need, young lady," the princess said with a nod, "I can certainly oblige you. If you'll follow me..." "So," Luna asked, a few short minutes later, "which book were you needing to see, ah...?" The castle library was as grand as it always was. Admittedly, the library in the Crystal Empire was even larger, but it was still in the process of updating its contents, many of it tomes being current for a library a thousand years ago. Many of those tomes were practically relics found noplace else and would need to be relocated to the castle for safekeeping, or woefully out of date and best discarded or burned. Still, Luna felt a small measure of pride at the size of this library: It had originally been her idea to house copies of all the books in the nation inside of the palace. After one fiend or another a thousand years ago (It was hard to remember which one did what, given how many of them there were) had tried to burn every library in the nation in attempt to hide the secret of his long ago documented weakness, she'd had the thought that it might be a good idea to keep a copy of every book ever printed, so such vital information would be impossible, or practically impossible, to lose. While it had been under construction just before her banishment, it pleased her greatly that Celestia had completed it in Luna's absence... "Starburst," the filly stated flatly. It wasn't unfriendly, or even rude. It was just... empty. "And the book I was needing to see was 'The Mystery Of The Baltimare Derelict, by Purple Prose'." Nodding, Luna said, "Let me ask the head librarian to bring it." The librarian in question, a beige, grandfatherly unicorn stallion by the name of Subscript, was seated at the front desk, doing restoration work on one of the many ancient tomes that filled the library. It took a staff of dozens of ponies to maintain the dozens of books that, due to time and wear, were at risk of falling apart, but the older pony still took pleasure in doing some of the work himself. Clearing her throat, Luna was able to distract him from his work. "Ah, Princess Luna," the elderly librarian said, a kind smile on his wrinkled features, "it is always a pleasure to see you. How might I assist you?" "I was needing to borrow one of your books," Luna explained. "The Mystery Of The Baltimare Derelict, by Purple Prose. Might you have a copy?" "I do," the stallion said with a nod, signalling a passing junior librarian, and sending him after the volume in question. "An interesting read, to say the least. Always reminds me that, for all that we know, we know very little about the world outside of Equestria." Surprised, Luna asked, "How so?" At her side, Starburst piped in, stating, "The Baltimare Derelict is the name given to a shipwreck that sailed mysteriously into Baltimare harbor six hundred years ago, nopony aboard, and while moderately damaged, not sufficiently so to justify the absence of the crew. No vessel like it has been encountered even to this day, and it contained the single most mysterious item ever discovered in Equestrian history: A scroll that no translation spell cast can crack. Even today, its meaning remains unknown, but the few diagrams displayed on the scroll point to it being instructions for the construction of some sort of device, the nature of which is unknown. However, since the materials needed, the size intended, and how it is meant to be assembled are all in an indecipherable language, it is considered impossible to build, currently." Subscript raised a bushy eyebrow, and after looking down to see the speaker, said, "Exactly right, young lady. I'll admit, I wasn't expecting a five year old filly to have read about that topic: I've always found Purple Prose's work to be a little too pedantic for young readers, but nopony else has ever bothered doing a study of the Derelict in recent history." Nodding, the filly said, "I know. And it was a bit... thick, when I read it a year ago. But I was hoping to copy a part of it for an assignment." "And what assignment would that be?" the librarian asked, intrigued. Starburst stated, "My teacher gave us an assignment today, relating to the history of the Red Plains War. One of the turning points of the war was when Equestria came up with a coding system that made it impossible for communications to be translated, even if intercepted. That, combined with a spell that allowed us to invisibly intercept enemy communications, allowed us to outmaneuver the enemy forces and ultimately forced Red Ruin, the leader of the Red Plains forces, to surrender. Magic can decipher normally written messages, but it can't crack codes written in a foreign language. The teacher gave us an assignment to come up with a code of our own, and then write a sentence in that code. If one of us could come up with a code that he couldn't crack, the teacher promised to buy us all ice cream on friday. And I like ice cream." Confused, Luna asked, "And what does that have to do with this derelict?" "I think I figured out how to crack the mystery of what's written on scroll," Starburst stated flatly, "and if I'm right, then I'm pretty sure that my teacher, smart as he is, won't be able to break a code that has stumped scholars for six centuries." One thing Luna would learn in the days and weeks to come was that, if there was one thing that Starburst took seriously, it was ice cream... or sweets of any kind, really. In front of the table that Starburst sat were now three books, and two adult ponies looking over her shoulders. One of which was the tome she'd come to the castle library to see, and the other two were ones that she'd been carrying in her backpack: Basic And Advanced Cryptograms, and Pre-Unification Era Equestrian Dialects. Not exactly the kind of books a five year old filly normally reads. "I like to read," Starburst explained, "and I read a lot. I'm told that my reading level is at a university grade, but that's just what I've been told. And when the teacher went over this lesson, I remembered the scroll mentioned in the book about the derelict. So, I thought, maybe it was in code. And a coded message can't be cracked by a translation spell. A cipher spell can crack a coded message, but only if you know the language it was written in, and use the appropriate spell. But a coded message in an unknown language cannot be cracked by any spell, if I remember correctly from 'Shortcomings Of Linguistic Magicks'." Subscript nodded, saying, "Indeed." "But if a translation spell doesn't work on either a coded message in a known language, or a coded message in an unknown language, then it's impossible to tell the difference between the two just by casting a spell. But," Starburst added," there are ways of figuring out what language a cryptogram is written in, based on certain indicators. At least if the cryptogram is simple enough." Pointing at the two tomes in front of her, Starburst said, "These two are the key." Opening the book, Pre-Unification Era Equestrian Dialects, she flipped forward to the section on Earth Pony dialects. "Earth ponies used, way back before Equestria was a single country, a Base 4 number system, and their written language was based solely on words containing four letters, although their alphabet was forty characters long, allowing for a lot of different combinations. It wasn't until the unification that they adopted the unicorn's Base 10 number system, and the pegasai's modern twenty-six character alphabet." She opened the book, The Mystery Of The Baltimare Derelict, and pointed to the copy of the scroll inscribed on page eighty-seven. "And each of the words on this scroll are four letters long," Starburst concluded. "There are, as I remembered, forty-four different symbols on this scroll. Four numbers, forty letters." She pointed to the tome concerning cryptograms. "The simplest cryptograms used in ancient times were just replacing letters and numbers with symbols. So, it's just a matter of working out which symbols correspond to which letters and numbers." She pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil from her backpack, and began copying the symbols on the copy of the scroll. "I think I can have it worked out by dinner, if not, then before bed time." "But why would a scroll on a shipwrecked derelict from six hundred years ago be written in an ancient Earth Pony dialect?" Princess Luna asked, confused. "How should I know?" Starburst asked, sarcasm shining through in spite of her dull monotone, the tone undulled by the fact that she was holding a pencil in her mouth. "I'm five years old, and I don't even have a cutie mark. I'm not some kind of super-genius." "Said the filly who just cracked a six century old mystery in the course of an afternoon," Luna quipped back reflexively. For an instant, it seemed as if the filly might smile, but after a second, the moment passed. Clearing her throat, Luna said, "Well, I would be grateful if, after you've decoded the contents of this scroll, you'd be willing to share what you've discovered with us. I'm certain that there are many scholars who would be interested in what it has to say." And then, as an afterthought, added, "I'll make certain that you receive full credit for your discoveries, of course." The filly nodded, and said, "Thank you, your highness." As she departed the library, Starburst did her best to keep her 'poker face' up. It wasn't easy: She'd had to maintain her cover under very difficult and frustrating circumstances. She'd never, in any of her turns of the cycle, been very good at acting. The best she could ever manage was a kind of 'blank' expression that she knew many found off-putting. However, it was effective in keeping her true intentions hidden. For the thousandth time since her 'birth' here in Equestria, she cursed her terrible luck at being stuck in this place: Starburst, also known as Lady Violet, The Knight of the Royal Purple, First of the Chroma, stuck in the body of a young filly so far from Clara Terram that nopony here had even heard of her home country, let alone her. Had her latest incarnation been located in her homeland, the moment she regained the ability of speech, she could have announced her identity and be assured of immediate return to her former status, and be assured as well that she could spend her formative years in safety (and luxury) until she was ready to again take her title as defender of the realm, rather than being stuck as an orphan in this primitive backwater. Instead... Well, at least they had ice cream. And candy. The Equestrians had gotten that right, at least, and Starburst supposed that was something. Still, it was frustrating to have to wait this long to put everything together. After all, it wasn't like she could claim to have broken the 'code' when she was two, right? It wasn't even actually a code, but the actual written language of Clara Terram that was recorded on that scroll. Her people had just assumed that the basic structure of their written language had not changed too much over the last few centuries and would be easy for anypony with a basic understanding of the Earth Pony alphabet to decipher... Instead, the scroll had been considered indecipherable after unicorns spent a week throwing spells at it, and then was all but forgotten, a footnote in history on both sides of the world. Clara Terram assumed that ponykind no longer existed on the other side of the world, and went on with its business. Meanwhile, the scroll was considered a curiosity here, instead of a message from a far removed tribe of ponies who had grown into a powerful country in its own right. Of course, nopony, or at least no unicorn, had ever thought to ask an Earth Pony to take a look at it, especially not one who knew anything about the old ways. Things might have gone much differently, if they had. Luna's presence had been unexpected, yet also a boon: This project would now have royal attention, and the device that was on that scroll would allow Starburst to finally get a message through to her homeland. Instead of having to scavenge for parts herself, the princesses would do all the hoofwork for her, assembling the device and opening communications to Starburst's compatriots. From there, things would quickly fall into place. While blank faced, Starburst couldn't help but chuckle on the inside: She was certain that the ponies here would be completely amazed by the complex mechanism detailed within the scroll, a device that nopony in this backwater cultural wasteland had ever conceived of, a device that even the young colts and fillies of Clara Terram used on a regular basis... A smartphone. She looked briefly over her shoulder, and saw Luna watching her leave. After a moment, Starburst waved goodbye, and went back to walking. 'When I'm back where I belong,' she thought to herself, 'I'll remember this day. Be grateful, Princess Of Nowhere Special: By this time next year, you'll need all the friends you can get.' She needed to return home. Her people needed her. But sadly, getting home was going to mean forcing Equestria to become part of a much wider world... and the ponies here would soon learn that they were just a big fish in a small pond, compared to the whales and sharks who swam in a vast ocean.
Intrerlude: Friends In Far Off PlacesClara Terram, The Meeting Room Of The Nine Knights Of Chroma... Orange, The Knight Of The Golden Fortunes: So, still no sign of her? Green, The Knight Of The Green Fields: Nopony has come forward yet, at least nopony credible. There's been a few fakers, of course, but that's to be expected: Some ponies just don't understand how The Cycle works. They think we just look for ponies with strong potential or a strong likeness to the original to fill the role, rather than wait for a current member's incarnation to step forward. You can't fake being one of the Chroma, especially in the presence of one of the other Chroma. We've known each other too well for too long. Blue, The Knight Of The Flowing Waters: A shame that there are ponies who understand so little, but what can you expect? Only about 5% of the population have sufficient magical ability to 'close the gap' between birth and death, if that, and until you've done it, you can never understand what it entails. Probably for the best: I've... seen what is waiting on the other side. If I didn't have responsibilities here, I wouldn't bother coming back. Red, The Knight Of Iron And Blood: And nopony would hold it against you. But that raises a question: Could Royal Purple have decided to just pass on? She's the first and the oldest, so if anypony has earned it, she has. Yellow, The Knight Of Dazzling Lights: And she knows how bad things could get if she leaves. Her sense of responsibility is the strongest of all of us. No, something must have happened. Maybe she's stuck someplace remote, where contact isn't possible? Indigo, The Knight Of Vast Skies: A possibility. And in spite of our efforts, nopony has managed to successfully make contact with the old pasturelands. I know most assume it to be a myth, us having migrated from a far off land on the other side of the ocean, but even if it is just a story, there's still the possibility of there being ponies outside of Clara Terram. If she was reborn amongst one of them, and they didn't have our level of magitek... White, The Knight Of Unbreakable Diamonds: A possibility indeed. And at five years old, how could she manage to construct a communication device without the proper materials, or manage even a basic communication spell with that kind of range? We'll need to widen our nets a bit. But we'll also need to be discrete: If Madigrin learns that Chroma Violet is missing, he'll do one of two things. He'll either try to make a move on Clara Terram, thinking that without our leader, he might be able to break through and take the throne... Black, The Knight Of Limitless Voids: Heh. He can try, see how far he gets, compared to last time. White, The Knight Of Unbreakable Diamonds: Or he'll try to capture Violet, and... well, if he were to burn out her mana channels, and then slay her at the moment she has no magic in her body... Indigo, The Knight Of Vast Skies: ...There's no coming back. Black, The Knight Of Empty Voids: This is my department, then. Madigrin and his cronies can't scry me outside of this room, unlike the rest of you. I know a few ways Violet might try to make contact if she were in a situation where normal methods were impossible. But the bigger question is, once we find her, how do we retrieve her, given that she may be on the other side of the world? White, The Knight Of Unbreakable Diamonds: We'll cross that ocean when we get to it.
Interlude: Ancient HistoryFrom 'The Collected Histories Of Clara Terram'. Three centuries after the founding of Clara Terram, and two centuries after the discovery of magic, an unexpected event occurred, one that would have repercussions that would be felt even to the modern age. That event was the birth of the king's second son, Madigrin. Clovis, the firstborn, was strong, brave, ruggedly handsome, wise, honest, kind, generous, and charismatic. He was well beloved by the citizens of Clara Terram, and his coronation was looked forward to all, save one. While not blessed with any talent with magic, let alone magic energy, he would, in years to come, prove himself to be an able administrator, and would usher in a golden age for our people. The second son, Madigrin, however, was different. Rather than handsome, he instead possessed an almost effeminate beauty. He was clever, and possessed a certain magnetism that seemed to draw others to him, in spite of his personality. He was also deceptive, calculating, and cruel to the point of sadism. He also possessed, most importantly, tremendous magical power, the kind that few in our history have matched. And this was where the trouble began. "Why should I serve others?" Madigrin asked of his father. "Why should I serve my brother, who has less magical capability than a stone? With a word, I can tear down mountains. With a wave of my hoof, I can bring fire and ruin to any who might threaten our kingdom. With a thought, I can rend even the strongest of warriors asunder. Why shouldn't I be the king instead of Clovis?" While upset by his words, the king advised his younger son that magic alone did not make one worthy of ruling a nation. His incredible talent had left him lacking in humility, unlike Clovis. The king could trust Clovis to rule the kingdom wisely and well because he knew that he was only a mortal pony. Madigrin, however, would not, since he thought his magical abilities made him some sort of god, something that none of the ponies of Clara Terram would stand for. "Had our ancestors not left the homelands specifically to escape the sort of tyranny you intend? To escape the horned and the winged ones who treated them as nothing more than slaves? Those who forced us to pay tribute to them and thought themselves superior to us in every way? The people will not stand for a pony who tries to rule over them using abilities that they do not possess. If you become king, our subjects will either revolt and overthrow you, or abandon our kingdom, leaving you all alone to rule over an empty nation. No, my son: You are not fit to rule, and I fear you never will be..." Madigrin would not take no for an answer. He instead would pour venomous, honeyed words of treason into the ears of those members of the populace who possessed great magical power, yet felt constrained by the traditions and laws of our people. He promised them power, the ability to rule over others. They would be as gods, and Madigrin, the king of gods. Within a year, he had a sufficient following to try to seize the throne. The coup failed, ultimately, due to Madigrin's own twisted dogma, his belief that only magic mattered, and that anypony without magic was beneath contempt. Moons before his coup began, an unspelled serving girl had overheard a conversation between Madigrin and his cohorts while serving them drinks. He thought nothing of speaking treason before a magicless commoner. This would be his undoing. The maiden reported the plot to the newly crowned king, and the king made preparations of his own. When the coup began, Madigrin and his flunkies found themselves faced, not with a palace of unprepared courtiers and servants, but with knights of the realm armed with anti-magic arms and armor, and dozens of powerful wizards who were loyal to the king and to their people. The coup was stopped without a single casualty, and both Madigrin and his followers were captured and brought before the king for judgement. And on that day, the king made the one mistake of his reign, the mistake that haunts us to this very day: He chose mercy, rather than justice. The penalty for treason was death. This had always been the case. However, when Clovis looked upon Madigrin, he could only see his brother, and not the monster he was, and certainly not the twisted thing he would eventually become. Instead of death, the king chose to exile his brother. Although, in fairness, the destination of his exile was practically a death sentence. The Dark Lands were a large island off our eastern shore, the site of a magical battle between two powerful wizards a century previous. Then, as with now, nothing existed there that was not lethally venomous, violently carnivorous, psychotically aggressive, or a combination of all three. That included even the plants, many of the stones, and some of the lakes and rivers. It was expected that Madigrin would die there, as would his followers. That expectation was not completely wrong. However, it was not right, either... A century later, the first attack from the Dark Lands, The Day Of Infamy, began. And we have not known peace since then. Fear of an attack from Madgrin colors every aspect of our civilization: None dare try to leave our kingdom to explore for fear of a repeat of what last happened when Madigrin captured a ship filled with hopeful explorers. Our blue skies have been tinted by the defensive barriers that protect us from his continuous magical onslaughts. Even the taste of our water has been subtly altered due to the dozens of antigens, antitoxins, and alchemical elixirs required to prevent Madigrin's dark magics from introducing plagues or worse into our water supply and do harm to our population. There cannot be peace between Clara Terram and the Dark Lands. Not so long as Madigrin sits upon its throne. Any who have attempted to broker peace with him have been slain, and their deaths were long, protracted, and broadcasted nationwide for every pony to see. Whatever good was within Madigrin died when he did, and the abomination that he has become is now our adversary, now and forever. He will possess our nation, even if he must burn it all to ash to do so. He will become king by any means necessary, even if it means he will be a king of only the dead... Author's Note Ah, since this has come up, and I have mentioned it in the comments, I'll post it here as well. Equestria has a total land mass equivalent to that of Japan. Clara Terram has land mass equal to that of Africa. The Dark Lands have a total land mass equivalent to Australia. Food for thought.
