Celestia groaned as she stared out of the Carriage, seeing the distant figures of Trees, Houses and Ponies far away, past the empty plains of Grass which she was passing by. The clear sky let out a cool breeze, causing her body to shiver at the sensation from the wind touching her white fur. Her wings were folded up on her sides to make room for the others in the carriage, despite her need to simply relax on the seat, wings stretched out. She was royalty and deserved that much privilege. That and to allow her little sister to lie down on the smooth feathers of her wing.

"Are we there yet?" she asked, much to the annoyance of many of the other occupants in the Carriage. She ignored the groans and focused on the one pony that did not react at all, preferring to write spells into a book instead. Starswirl the Bearded just sat there, patiently passing the time on the voyage, as he always does, much to Celestia's annoyance. How come he was always so calm and still. She was barely succeeding in forcing herself to be still and not move about.

"As you know", he stated in a calm voice, "we left the wildlands forty minutes ago. Our trip takes fifty. If you had bothered to even take count of the time instead of reminding us about your...boredom, you would have realised how little we got to go."

Celestia grumbled, crossing her hooves and looking away, too stubborn to admit that he was right.

Ten minutes later, their destination came into view. A wonderous mountain that seemed to pierce the sky, with streams of water running down its side. The green forest seemed to cover the entire back of the mountain. However, the true beauty that caught Celestia's eyes was the city situated near the bottom of the mountain, Canterlot.

Celestia had only been there a couple of times beforehand, all of which when she was a little filly. Its magnificence still always amazed her. It’s tall, yet sleek towers and the golden arches and entrances, as well as the rainbow that was behind it.

As they neared the entrance, Celestia could better make out all the ponies entering and exiting the large gate that stood out with its slick paint and the lush nature in the front. Royal Guards stood silent at the gate and on the battlements on top, a relic from a past age of fighting between the three tribes of ponies.

As the carriage came into full view of the ponies at the entrance, they all stopped what they were doing, watching as the carriage went past them. Celestia felt herself beam with glory as she looked upon her future subjects.

The city was filled with the nobles of Equestria and their peasantry subjects walking about, all turning to look at the occupants of the carriage with wonder, especially directed at the Pillars, which annoyed Celestia to a certain degree.

They finally arrived at the Castle in the centre of the city, where lines of nobles awaited them in earnest. As the carriage stopped at the beginning of a red carpet, Celestia couldn't help but grin at the sight of all of her future subjects as they cheered when she stepped out of the carriage, carrying Luna with her hoof.

She walked down the red carpet, followed by the Pillars before reaching the entrance of the Castle, where two Guards stood in their shiny golden armour, with three servants behind them. The doors opened up, revealing an older Pegasus stallion, with a whitened mane and a cutie mark of a book in front of a sword and a pen. Below his hazel eyes was a prominent scar that ran down his face, signalling his history in combat. He gave a small, yet powerful, bow to her before introducing himself.

"Thunder Spark, administrator of Canterlot and Lord Regent of Equestria. It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Princess", he said in a crisp voice. It was a surprise for Celestia to hear that, since it was usually out of the Unicorns who made up the almost complete majority of the Nobility that were chosen for positions such as Lord Regent. A Pegasus with the roles of both Lord Regent and Administrator was inconceivable and would undoubtedly be deeply unpopular with the rest of the Nobility, as indicated by the stares of hatred directed at Thunder Spark by certain members of the crowd.

"The pleasure is mine", Celestia replied in a humble manner, with Flash Magnus and Rockhoof stealthily sniggering at her, as they knew Celestia too well for them to miss how her attitude was being pent up. Normally, she is quite unruly, wishing for all the attention to be on her and her alone, unless it was Luna, while also being more selfish than they would like. It was an amusing sight, seeing Celestia act so respectful to others.

"And she is not a Princess, Lord Regent", Starswirl added, walking up to Thunder Spark, whose eyes lit up in recognition and familiarity. "Not yet, at least."

"Starswirl! It's been too long." Thunder Spark said with a grin. The two Stallions hugged each other.

"Indeed it has, my friend", Starswirl said.

The two broke off their hug and turned to face Celestia, who was struggling to maintain a pleasant composure. Starswirl smiled as he recognised Thunder Spark analysing Celestia for her personality just by looking into her eyes.

"Shall we enter, then", Spark said, motioning for Celestia and the Pillars to walk through the doors.

The group strode through the main hall of the castle, which Celestia took in with glee and amazement. It was everything she imagined it to be: regal, beautiful with white paint and soon to be all hers.

She was so busy looking at the ceiling that she stumbled into a poor Pegasus mare that was trying to walk up to Thunder Spark. The impact was enough to send the mare down to the floor while only stumbling Celestia.

"Hey", she said in anger, turning to face the mare, who surprisingly didn't lowered her head in shame when being talked to by the Alicorn, rather staring her down with a determined expression. Due to herself being quite egotistical and self-centered (though she doesn't admit it or even recognise it), Celestia couldn't help but feel angry that this mare wasn't treating her with her due.

The mare looked around twenty years of age, only one year younger than Celestia herself. Her blue fur and silver mane glistened in the light dilated by the glass panes.

"Ah", Thunder Spark said, recognising the potential problem that was going to break out. "I see you've met my daughter, Cordial Humility."

"Pleasure", Cordial bowed down, without the look of determination being lost at all, her tone without any sincerity at her statement. She turned towards her father.

"I was just about to inform you that many of the nobles wish to see you afterwards, when her future highness is finished with touring the castle", Cordial said to Thunder, her voice stressing the word 'future', causing Celestia to narrow her eyes.

"You seem to have a problem with stressing certain words", Celestia forced out of her gritted mouth quietly, the true intentions behind the words obvious, with only Cordial hearing it, whose face transformed itself into one of forced pleasure.

"Thank you for noticing, your majesty", Cordial replied in an equally forced tone.

"This way", Starswirl said, interrupting the confrontation. The group, with Cordial walking in the back, entered a large room, with two thrones placed in an elevated position in the middle.

"Welcome to the throne of Equestria", Thunder proclaimed in a extravagant manner, "where our country always has been, and always shall be, ruled by two Alicorns, the greatest of us all."

He turned to face Celestia and Luna. "The last rulers that sat in these thrones were your parents, until they disappeared in the dark wars that occurred fifteen years ago."

Celestia's face paled at the mention of the wars. Despite it occurring beyond her memory, she studied the history and the events of the wars, including the loss of her mother and father during the final battle, where they managed to banish the armies of the dark prince, at the cost of them disappearing, presumed dead.

Thunder continued his speech, as a means of distracting Celestia from the dark wars. "And now, after fifteen years of being regent of Equestria, I am pleased to announce that, in two months, on the eve of your fifteenth birthday, you will be crowned Princess of Equestria and its lands across the world!"

The pillars began to clap in congratulations, while Thunder, confirming that Celestia was distacted by the prospects of being ruler, walked up to Starswirl and whispered, "are you sure she's ready for this? She seems too..."

"Egotistical, arrogant, confrontationist and self centered?" Starswirl offered, eliciting a smile from Thunder. "Yes, she is all of those, and most definitely not ready. But we have two months to change that."

Thunder nodded, his expression now resigned. "So we continue the plan?"

"Yes", Starswirl said, looking right at Cordial as she clapped in a polite, but obviously reluctant, manner. "We shall."

Golden Sprint looked at his compass to see the direction he was heading. Satisfied with his bearing, he placed his compass on his belt and walked forward to his companion, Sapphire Whistle. She was surveying the clearing and gave a whistle of triumph.

"There's the town!", she shouted out in excitement as she pointed out the small series of specks on the horizon to Golden. "We made it!"

"Took us long enough", Golden replied, his annoyed tone cancelled out by his warm expression, indicating his statement as a mock insult. "We should have been back there two days ago!"

"Well, we had to locate that site and it took longer than expected", Sapphire explained, "That royal guard gave us bad information which led us to the wrong place. Besides, we were under obligation to find the battle site, since there may be certain artefacts from the dark wars that need to be recovered."

"I know", Golden said, shaking his head. "At least the military pays us well."

Sapphire smiled before looking at the town in the distance, squinting. "Strange. There's smoke coming from the town."

"Maybe they are having a party with a bonfire", Golden suggested, with Sapphire accepting it.

He turned around to grab his bags when he saw in his peripheral vision an orange light flash in an instant, followed by the screams of Sapphire and an unknown sound, that overwhelmed his ears.

"Sapphire, what's wrong?!" he shouted out, now half deaf as he turned around and bore witness to her body quickly disintegrating into glowing, orange dust before his eyes, even as she fell to the ground.

"No!", he shouted, not noticing the large oval of orange light that looped around the back of Golden, instantly enlarging to a height of five times the size of the Pony and the black void which encompassed the space in between, that appeared behind him, nor the hand that emerged from the void, which grabbed his head and crushed it into a mass of gore in a single movement.

Author's Note

Hi Everyone,

dalek117 here with the first chapter of my second fic. This is just an introduction into the setting of this world, so I hope you all enjoy it.

Please post your thoughts and any mistakes you picked up in the comments below.

Until next time,
dalek117