Chapters Discord, The other elements.
The curse.
This world appears to be in disarray. Nothing seems to make sense anymore. The weirdest part…this discord’s start is no where to be found. About 100 years ago, when all began… this whole nightmare started…and the only information I have to work off of…
* * *
It all began with the items, the Elements of Harmony. These are 6 Elements, known as Laughter, Honesty, Generosity, Loyalty, Kindness, and Magic, were known to banish all evil while the current controllers were in their right states of mind. It turns out that around this time, the controllers of the elements of Harmony had changed. Originally they were used by Princess Celestia and Princess Luna to vanquish Discord and put him to stone. When this had been done, Celestia and Luna were dubbed the princesses of this land and Celestia would raise the sun everyday and Luna the moon. This was a system that was done for many years, until Luna realized something. She had discovered that the ponies would play all day but would only sleep in the night. This displeased her and she became a pony known as Nightmare Moon. Quickly, Celestia tried to reason with her sister, but it was too late. Using the very elements that Luna had once help wield, Celestia banished Nightmare Moon to the Moon for 1000 years. When this happened, something unexpected had happened that would ruin the future for the rest of the world. Because one of the original controllers of the Elements of Harmony was banished by them, the Elements realized that they no longer had the same controllers and went dormant when Nightmare Moon’s banishment had ended. The Element’s were now waiting for new masters, which would show up in the nick of time. A pony by the name of Twilight Sparkle had somehow found and resurrected the Elements of Harmony. When she and her friends took control of the Elements, the Elements broke all of the past spells and only decide to work on the current problems at hand. Unknown to the world, the spell on Discord began to fade.
Who could know that the day the spell would brake would happen to be on the same day as a class field-trip to the garden in which they are stored. On this day, the statue cracked and Discord was let out. Some of the first things he did were create silly things like cotton candy clouds and chocolate rain, but, it was predicted that it wouldn’t stay that way. Just as predicted Discord put a spell on Twilight Sparkle and her friends, making them act as different ponies then they actually were. Twilight Sparkle, as a desperate last attempt, gathered her friends and presented the Elements of Harmony. Sadly, she had no idea what a mistake she had just made. By presenting the Elements of Harmony while all of her friends were either missing or in different states of mind, relative to when they first had used the elements, she really just showed the Elements that the old masters were unable to complete their task and again went into a dormant state. From this point on, all hope seemed lost, and everyone feared the worst possible thing. But…it never came. This chaos that everypony was worried about, it only lasted about ten years. Then out of nowhere, it all just disappeared and everything went back to normal, everything but those six ponies. What happened during those 10 years, no one knows. I just wish that I had more information to work off of. Oh well, I guess I should tell you my story… and I will… just, not now, I’ll tell you in a little bit. Please, just bare with me, for now.
Discord, The other elements.
0100 hours--- Somber Forest--- Starchaser’s shack
* * *
My head snapped around, only to find Moonstone, “Hey man!” I said to my friend, “Did you bring any food today? I’m starving.”
Moon, my best friend, is pretty much my lifeline. I don’t know what I would do if he didn’t bring me food every night. I’m not a unicorn so I couldn’t bring the dead apple trees around me back to life, so I guess I would have to fly and steal the food in the night. Maybe my friend Dusk could come and fix a couple of trees for me, he is magic … I’ll have to think about it.
“No, I decided I’d rather watch you starve”, he said as sarcastically as he could muster, “OF COURSE I brought you some food!”
“Thanks” I sighed in relief. My friend, Moonstone, looked the color of dark sapphire in his body, and his mane, but amongst that dark blue mane is a single emerald green strip. He is not your average earth-pony; he is a little shorter than most ponies at his age and is dead quiet. What’s his mark? It’s a cloud covering the moon. Why, because he is as quiet as the dark sky, and as hard to locate as the moon on a cloudy night. Yeah, he got his mark in stealth. Me? I’m a pegasus of pitch black. I have some white here and there but I got my mark in a in a strange way. To this world, I don’t exist, and the only ones that know I do are Moon and Dusk. My parents died in a fire and no one knew they had a child, so, I embraced it and tried not to let not to let anyone know I existed. You see how much that worked, I was found out the day I get my mark. I was flying when the Wonderbolts happened to be having one of their ‘safe sky’s’ checks. They thought they saw something, me, and they tried to chase it. I obviously didn’t want to be found, or have to talk to them, so I flew down. I felt the chill of the night’s sky as I descended, and I felt the rush as I dropped. Faster, I kept telling myself, Faster, and then suddenly, BOOM! Ever hear of the Sonic Rainboom? This is better. I was now a shooting star. My massive speed allowed me to break the white-light spectrum, so now a beam of white light followed me from my tail and I flew across the sky, making me seem like a shooting star. My mark … a star with a white beam behind it. My talent … hiding in plain sight.
I just now notice that I no longer have a sandwich and I turn back to moon, “So, what have you been up to lately?” I ask.
“Well, I went to the library and say they have the book you were looking for,” he stated, “I believe it was called ‘The Nightmare Night’, am I mistaken?”
“No, that is correct, can you get it for me?” I asked.
Moon really does think of everything. I’ve been researching and I’ve found some pretty interesting stuff. I’ve found that the princesses were more involved with the general population, the military was only needed in very rare situations, and people cared for each other. Now, you never see the princesses except on very specific occasions, and people need to watch their backs or they could end up hurt. I’ve made it my mission to find out why, but all the little information I have took place 100 years ago. I hope these books help point to more information. I need to know why the world isn’t what it used to be. What makes it different? There doesn’t appear to be an answer, all I have is some books, the shack I'm in with the letters “CMC” carved into the front, and the Somber Forest. I hope some information comes up soon, I'm getting impatient.
Discord, The other elements.
0600 hours--- Somber Forest--- Starchaser’s shack
* * *
About five hours of reading. Not how I like to spend my time, so… now its morning. I guess I’ll go for a run through the forest today instead of my normal flight. Moon left about 3 hours ago. He helped me take notes and stuff but all I learned is stuff about these things called the Elements of Harmony, some gems that can’t really do much because they banished some … thing called Discord, and then later banished someone called Nightmare Moon. You know what? Those things should be called the Elements of Crap because only 100 years later, Nightmare Moon escaped from her banishment. This proves that they are complete crap. Ah whatever, I should just go run; I do the best thinking when I'm doing some sort of exercise.
* * *
A breeze. It feels good. I like love running. I’m just doing my normal run throughout the Somber Forest, but I think I hear something.
Someone’s bucking apple trees. Should I go and see who it is? I have no idea, maybe I should just leave. Well … it never hurts to look, right?
I head over to the noise; I can hear it getting louder and louder. As I get closer, I stoop lower to the ground and then I hide in a bush. I peer through the leaves to see a brown earth-pony with a dark brown mane. She appears to be running around and kicking different trees, but seems upset she isn’t getting any apples. Then the strangest thing happened, she tripped. It’s not the fact that she tripped that was strange, no it’s the fact that she tripped right in front of me, into my bush. Crap.
“Wha?” she said, “What the … Who are you?”
I realize I'm now lying on the ground behind the bush and she is standing on top of me, trying to pin me down. I would get out from under her, but, I sense no anger or aggression in her hold on me, so I just chilled. She sounds confused. I don’t know what to say, I’ll just wing it, “Um, Hi?” I responded as if I was asking her approval.
“Tha-That didn’t answer my question!” she said clearly even more confused, “Who are you and what are you doing?”
“Um, well, right now?” I respond.
“YES!” she said as if she struck gold.
“Well, currently, I’m being stood on.” I said while a grin came across my face.
“Wha? Your name is …? What?” she stammered, “I’m so confused now.”
“Well if you get off me, I’ll give you answers.” I said as I threw my front hooves behind my head, “or you can just stand there, and I’ll just chill here under you, your choice.”
She appears to just now understand that she is standing on my hind legs and my chest. After this realization, she gets off of me and stands to the side, “OH!” she exclaimed, “You were trying to tell me I was on top of you! That first answer makes sense now!”
“Hey,” I said, “You know that these trees have no apples, right?”
“There aren’t? I thought this was Apple Acres.” She responded.
“Correct, this WAS Apple Acres, but then it caught fire, so, by the time the got the flames put out all the trees were dead and no longer produced fruits. You are currently in the somber forest.” I replied impressed she knew this much.
“If you’re that hungry, then I have some food at home, I'm Starchaser, care to join me?”
“Sure” she replied, still sounding confused, “That would be good.”
Discord, The other elements.
0630 hours--- Somber Forest--- Starchaser’s shack
Al my sandwiches are gone, all 4 of them. I ate one last night, but this girl … SHE DOWNED 3 IN 5 MINUTES! Well that means no lunch today, Great. Oh well, I wonder why, and who for that matter, told her that this forest is Apple Acres. Maybe she was reading and old map or something.
“Thanks.” She yawned. When she stretched her front legs in the air, some book fell to the floor.
She blushed, “Oh, sorry” and she quickly picked up her book. I got a better look at it in her hoof; it was a dark brown notebook with “Day to Day Log” scratched on the binding and cover. I can tell it is old and this is probably the reason she thought this was Apple Acres. I wonder what it is.
“Hey, what’s your name and what’cha you doing in the Somber Forest?” I asked.
“Huh?” she replied but continued, “Oh! I’m Clockwork and I've been researching the past.” I understand her mark now; it appears to be some sort of clock. It looks like 4 tick-marks in a north, south, east, and west pattern and an ‘L’ pointing to the top and right marks. This also explains her knowledge of Apple Acres; she obsesses about the past. Because Apple acres’ trees are so far apart to make collecting easier, so shrubs and trees grew in the gaps, making it a forest. All the light that would normally reach the surface, no longer did, so … it earned the name ‘The Somber Forest’, meaning the dark forest. Anyways, she seems to be reading her book, so I have to ask, “So …What’cha reading?”
Her head shoots up, as if she forgot I was there, “Um, well …” she started, “It’s called ‘Day to Day Log’, and it’s a book about, well … the log of a Crusader.”
“What? When was this made?” I asked.
“100 Years Ago, when the world went haywire.” She replied.
100 Years Ago.
Perfect.
Discord, The other elements.
0645 hours --- Somber Forest --- Starchaser's Shack
* * *
'Day 1, The Log Crusade
We, the Cursadors, have decided o create this log in order to mark our day to day crusades so we don't accendentally repeat any crusades or waste any time. We hope that this log itself will be, or at least lead us to, ~~obteni~~, no, ~~recebi~~, er ... gettin our cutie marks. That's us, The Cutie Mark Crusadors! Our base is currently located in Sweet Apple Acres and we come here every day after school to think of what we are gonna do today. We've tried bowling, writing for the school paper, and even participating in the talent show. Sadly though, nothing seems to be working. Oh well. Darn, Big Mac's callin me. Well, till tomorrow...
CMC 1 Out.'
CMC, the same letters on my house. This book is already accurate with placement of things. My Shack is in what's left of the Sweet Apple Acres. This is the first page of the journal, and it keeps running through my head. Clockwork let me read this part, but it would appear as if she has not slept in days, and she doesn't want me to read ahead and catch anything she missed while she is sleeping, so, I must wait. This book appears to have information about the times I was missing. Dates not covered in normal books, and it makes me so excited. I just wish Clockwork would wake up, I'm so excited.
* * *
* * *
She's waking up. YES! I got about 5 hours of sleep, but I woke up because of how excited I was to read this book. She sits up now and looks at me with a sort of confused look about her face. Then you can tell in her face she realized whom I was and greeted me with a "Good morning".
"Good afternoon," I replied. I then gestured to the floor infront of her, I had gotten some food. Her eyes widened, and she then asked, "Is this for me?"
"Yup!" I replied. I wish Moon was here, he would love this.
"So..." I started, "Do you know what 'CMC' means?"
"Yeah, she said as she stuffed some bread in her mouth, "It merphs Cumpi Marh Prusador...er...sorry" she then swallowed. "It means Cutie Mark Crusador" She finished.
"A what?" I questioned, now confused.
"A Cutie mark Crusador, ro one ho does random tasks in order to earn their cutie mark." She continued, "Yeah, this book is the log of 3 Ponies."
I understand now, this is the 'home base' of the crusadors. I think I should read more of the log, but, right now I hear some noise outside. I hear footsteps, somepony's coming.
No, make that 2!
