Fall of Equindor

In the assembly hall of Equindor Castle were gathered row upon row of ponies dressed in battle armor.  They bravely stood their ground, waiting for command, even despite the terrible screeches coming from the outside.

A male alicorn wearing a crown burst through the grand entrance and galloped to the front of the room as his soldiers stood to attention.  Upon reaching his destination, he turned to address the crowd, casting a spell of voice magnification.

“We don’t have much time.  Any moment now the cravers will be upon us, and even Equindor’s last sanctuary will have fallen.  My actions as your king were meant to be the good of all, and indeed, magic is stronger than ever in Equindor, giving all ponies equal opportunity to exercise its power.  However, in so doing, we have brought the cravers upon ourselves, and we have lost the only weapon that could have overcome.  I am not worthy to be anypony’s king.”

He stopped speaking for a moment to gauge the reaction of his audience, most of whom had looks of shock or were whispering to one another.  He continued.

“It was far too late by the time I decided that we could not survive alone.  While I have done my best to see that-“

His speech was interrupted by the sound of the grand entrance bursting open behind them.  Some of the soldiers were casting shield magic, but the king knew it would be futile.  He spoke once more to the assembly, even as he himself began casting a spell.

“We need more time!  I can only hope we will see each other again one day!”

The magic took effect and all of the ponies, including the king, froze in place.  From their coats to their armor, they had all taken on a grey color.  The air became as silent as a graveyard as the cravers swiftly left, having no interest in the stone ponies.

On a farm beyond the outskirts of Ponyville lived a small family of earth ponies.  The crops that grew that were not nessasary to feed the family, they would stack into several wagons and sell them in Ponyville when enough had accumulated.

It was well into the afternoon, and all of the work for the day had been finished.  A yellow colt with a black mane was outside playing, and the husband and wife had engaged in an argument inside the farmhouse.

“I tell you, our colt is a perfectly healthy young foal!” said the father.  “Just because he has a horn on his head doesn’t mean we aren’t raisin’ him right.”

The mother was close to tears.  “We certainly try our hardest, I don’t mean to imply otherwise.  But when a unicorn takes a look at him and tells us that there is something we will never be able to give him, I think she might have known what she was talking about.

The father huffed.  The day before, a stranger had come to the farm, claiming to be lost and willing to pay for food.  He had not liked the mare, especially when she had taken an interest in Dayspring and made that remark.  He wasn’t one to turn down a sale, but he was quick to see the mare on her way.

“We may not be his birth parents,” he said quickly, “but we’re the closest thing he’s got to a family.  He’s just a little colt, and he’ll be worrying about his cutie mark before he even knows there’s such a thing as magic!”

“He needs friends!” shouted his wife back at him, anger now present in her voice.  “We can’t keep him cooped up here, what will become of him when he decides to leave on his own?  We should move to somewhere in town so he can have-“

“You know why we can’t do that!” yelled the husband, almost losing his temper.

As soon as the sentence left his mouth, he heard Dayspring give a terrible scream.  He rushed out the door with his wife right behind him.  What he heard put fear into his heart.

“No!” he said aloud.  “What are they doing all the way out here?”

A pack of timberwolves was surrounding Dayspring, snarling and growling.  Dayspring saw his parents galloping toward him and screamed “Help!”

The wolves’ attention was drawn to the two adults.  They leapt away from the colt, who took the opportunity to run.

Celestia was holding court, barely listening to a periodic report from one of the guards in boredom.  Suddenly her head felt as though it was cracking open.  She cringed and fell to the back of her throne, grasping her head.  Everypony stared at her in supprise.

“Princess, are you alright?” asked the guard with great concern.

As quickly as it had come, the skull-splitting headache disappeared.  She opened her eyes and looked the guard in the face.

“We shall cut this report short for now.  I must speak with your superiors at once.”

A mare was cautiously making her way through what little remained of the farmhouse.  She was wearing a black cloak, which had a hood and a hole cut out for her horn.  What little of her coat that showed was dark burgundy.  She was looking to see what remained of the strange blast, but all she had actually found was scorched earth, ashen remains of planks, and a shallow, wide crater.

She did not see any sign of the wolves or of the colt or his family.  Cursing to herself, she galloped away in the light of the setting sun.

She grumbled to herself as she ran, imagining what the others were likely to say about the incident.  They would not be happy about losing the colt.  One of the others had been to the farm just the day before, and when she had returned, she insisted that the colt had incredible potential, and that no time should be wasted in “recruiting” him.

It was supposed to have been a simple job.  She would use her unique ability to take out the colt’s parents.  That way, when the ponies inevitably discovered what had happened, the blame would be upon the wolves.  Meanwhile the colt would fall into her hands and the Assembly could instill the true ideals into his head.

She fearlessly ran right into Everfree forest, but she did not go far.  She stopped and looked around.  Satisfied that she was alone, she opened a hidden trap door and stepped down the crude ramp.  When she got to a door at the bottom, she heavily beat on it with her hoof.

“Hey!” said a stallion as he opened the door from the other side.  He wore a cloak similar to that of the mare.  “What’s the big idea, you trying to break the door down?”

The mare said nothing and squeezed past him.  She approached the table in the center of the room, around which were seated several cloaked ponies, apparently engaged in a card game.

One stood up and harshly said, “What are you doing back here?  Where is the colt?”

“Boss, hear me out,” said the mare.  “The plan would have worked perfectly, had it not quite literally been blown to hell!”

“I don’t have time for games!” screamed the pony that the mare had called “boss”.  “What happened?”

“I don’t really have any idea!” yelled the mare defensively.  “The timberwolves were running down the parents, I heard them scream as no doubt their miserable lives flashed through their eyes, it probably didn’t even take that long.  But, then the entire farm, it just... exploded with magic!  I was keeping well out of sight, so I didn’t get hit too bad, but when it was over there was nothing left at all!  The colt was gone!  And my pack, the damn pack has been wiped out!”

“Shut up about the wolves, Nel!” shouted the boss, earning a glare from the offended mare.  “You can go get more!  But, right now, we have more important things to do!”  She motioned for everyone to get up.

“Come on, we’re going after him, right now!”

“What?” asked Nel in disbelief.  “What makes you think he’s even still alive?”

“Thanks to you, he may very well not be,” hissed the boss at her.  “But if he somehow did that in self-defense, he might very well have not been hit at all, and we can’t afford to let a pony like that slip through our hooves.  Now lets go, we can’t waste any time!”

Dayspring had indeed survived the magical explosion, but he was now nowhere near the farm.  He barely took note of this however, as the events that had recently occurred and the fact that he was alone as the sun was going down kept him glued to the spot, too terrified to do anything.

An orange stallion appeared before Dayspring.  Dayspring had seen the stallion before.  He would appear at times when he was feeling sad and try to cheer him up, and occasionally play with him.

“Dayspring,” whispered the stallion to the colt, loud enough for him to hear.  “You need to leave this place.  There are bad ponies looking for you, and your home isn’t safe.”

Dayspring barely listened to this.  He asked the question that had been eating his mind ever since he had found himself alone.

“Where are mom and dad?”

The stallion lowered his head.  “You won’t be seeing them again, Dayspring.  They are gone forever.  I need to take you away from here before you get hurt.”

Of course, the colt didn’t understand and tried to protest, so the stallion had to carefully explain how he needed to find somewhere else to stay.

“Where are we going?” Dayspring asked.

“I’m taking you into Ponyville,” the stallion replied.  “There will be lots of other ponies around to look after you.  You need to get help from a mare who lives at the library there.  Her name is Twilight Sparkle.”

He looked into Dayspring’s face and saw confusion.  “I promise you that everything will be alright, but if we stay here for much longer, we will be in danger.”

He took the Dayspring by the hoof, and the colt didn’t try to resist.  With a glow of the stallion’s horn, they disappeared.