Legends of Equestria

"Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together, and created harmony for all the land. To do this, the elder Celestia used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn; the younger Luna brought out the moon to begin the night. Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all the different types of ponies. But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful. The ponies relished and played in the day her elder sister brought forth, but shunned and slept through her beautiful night. One fateful day, the younger unicorn refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn. The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness: Nightmare Moon.

"Nightmare Moon and the eldest sister fought in the nighttime eternal, calling upon their entire magic reserves. Once magically drained, neither sister gave up, and battled horn to horn.

"Finally, the elder sister bested the dark mare, and Nightmare Moon fled to the badlands in shame and anger. She knew that she would need an army of great power to take Equestria as her own, and so she built the Lunar Gateway. Forcing a group of diamond dogs to mine for her, she constructed the gate from pure, solid gold, and placed a magical moon enchantment on it, allowing only her to open it. The gateway would lead to realms of myth and legend, allowing Nightmare Moon to build up an army of horrible beasts, unaffected by magic, more powerful than Nightmare Moon and her sister combined.

"Before she could ever open the gateway, the elder sister found her, and reluctantly harnessed the most powerful magic known to ponydom: the Elements of Harmony. Using the magic of the Elements of Harmony, she defeated her younger sister, and banished her permanently in the moon. The elder sister took on responsibility for both sun and moon...

"However, it was suspected that on the day of the next total lunar eclipse after Nightmare Moons banishment, the pure lunar energy radiating from the moon would hit the Lunar Gateway, opening it and releasing monsters of myth and legend all over Equestria...."

Weeds. The grey weeds were everywhere, always returning, always growing, always moving. They could be fought, but not destroyed. They overtook and they destroyed. They infested.

Weeds.

Ponyville's cobbled streets were littered with scraps of uneaten food, ripped up papers, and weeds, among other things. The weeds were the worst. The sunlight accelerated their growth, causing them to infiltrate the paths and roads, making it surprisingly difficult to traverse the once orderly town. Ponies were tripping an awful lot, carridges were struggling to move through the streets and were tipping over, and worst of all, the weeds were almost impossible to kill.

In its current state, Ponyville could very well be likened to a post apocolyptic world, but the problem wasn't a lack of ponies; the problem was an excess of ponies.

In recent months, the once small, rural town had become a hub for traders of all different species; pony, mule, batpony and griffon alike. The train systems to Canterlot had broken down, and it seemed that nopony was in a hurry to fix them; the only way for traders to reach Canterlot was to pass through Ponyville.

The traders had soon realised that setting up in Ponyville was good for buisness, and many of them made weekly swaps between the town and Canterlot, increasing their overall income. Some chose to stay in either Ponyville or Canterlot, giving even more competition for Ponyville's resident market.

Sure, it was good for the whole of Ponyville, in an economical sense, the town was making more money than ever, with the traders needing places to rest, supplies and, for some, food. But Ponyville was slowly moving out of "large town" status, and towards "city"; it had all the problems of a city and a town.

It was slowly becoming littered and overgrown, busy and confusing, and of course a strain had been put on Ponyville's resident markets and shops, who had to provide supplies. Small animals were getting injured a great deal more than before, giving Fluttershy an enormous workload. And because of Ponyville's technical status as a town, it wasn't particularly large, and so lacked the space, money and supplies for this sudden trader influx.

Ponyville wasn't the same town that Twilight had moved to years before.

Either way, it was most difficult for little old Spike to traverse Ponyville's littered, bumpy paths, and even knowing this, Twilight had still me out to the markets in order to buy food. Being her assistant, he guessed it was his job to do that kind of thing.

He stopped to rest on a stone wall, away from the general market area. There may have been no ponies walking around, but the sheer amount of stationary traders was enough for him, thank you very much. He sat swinging his legs, the cool autumn breeze soothing him, for once. Ponyville seemed so dull now. Monotonous. Boring. Bleak. Grey. More than anything, Ponyville just seemed grey.

Even though it was full of life, it seemed to lack something in his opinion. A certain flair, something that gave the town true life.

It was so grey.

His mind switched intrests, howver, when, outut of the corner of his eye, he noticed market stall, overflowing with thick books, was set up in the middle of the market, manned by an earth pony mare. Ponyville's market often carried rare goods, treasures and books. Unfortunately, the number of corrupt traders around made it difficult to know which rare goods were actually legal.

Corrupt traders, and corrupt ponies in general, were more common in Equestria than many citizens would think. Despite the best efforts of Princess Celestia, shady dealers were all over the place; some in the middle of Canterlot, right under her nose. It was one such Canterlot dealer, Spike remembered, who was inadvertently responsible for Ponyville's near destruction when a vengeful Trixie had purchased an illegal magic amulet.

He knew that Twilight had to pity these criminal dealers; she knew that to resort to stealing goods and lying about them, a pony has to be desperate for money.

Despite this, Ponyville had generally clean traders. There were exceptions, of course, sometimes corrupt traders would roll into town, and to Spike, walking through the Ponyville market area, today seemed like it would be one of those days.

'Books,' Spike thought to himself. 'I bet Twilight would love a new book!' Eager to please Twilight, Spike ran over to the stall, as fast as his little legs could carry him. Twilight had given him bits to spare, and would be delighted if he brought her a new book!

When his head suddenly popped up over the edge of her stall, the mare was evidently surprised, and quite rightly so. Spike waved a clawed hand over at a large grey book, "How much for that one?"

"Huh," she was not expecting this small dragon to suddenly appear out of seemingly nowhere, and it took her a moment to gather her thoughts. "Oh, this one here," she signalled to the book, "10 bits."

Spike was taken aback. 10 bits would leave him with none left, at least after buying the food, and he wasn't sure if Twilight would be too happy with that. But she would be more than happy with a new book, especially one that size. Although he didn't even know what it was about. Was it a magical tome? Another kind of spellbook? A history book?

As if she could read his very thoughts, the mare told him "It's a bestiary. A book of all the different mythical creatures of Equestria," she was apparently becoming impatient. "You want it or not? 10 bits."

Spike looked up at the raspberry mare, directly into her cyan eyes. He stared at them so intently, he simply couldn't help himself. "You.... have beautiful eyes."

The mare sighed wistfully, as if she had been through this a million times before.

"I'll take it," he handed over the 10 bits, and took the book himself, not waiting for the mare to give it to him. The mare facehoofed, and shook her head, before returning to setting up the rest of her stall.

Spike sat once more on the grey rock wall, looking over the grey Ponyville. His mind was jumbled, and he seemed to get even more confused whenever he peered at the huge book in his claws.

The book had a drawing large, grey key plastered on its cover, not quite matching with the rest of it, which was the same colour. What shocked Spike the most was the fact that the book's cover was made of... leather.

Opening it to the first page, to check it was in good condition, he saw the words,

Made in Lundyn,

First printed by RedRum books in 1989

© RedRum books, 1989

Unsurprisingly, the writing was grey.

Spike snapped the book shut, slightly disturbed by the leather cover and binding, and continued his shopping, putting the book away in his bag, ready to gift to Twilight.