1000 Years Ago

1000 Years Ago

by PartyCannonInc

Prologue

Canterlot, Twilight’s Room

April 8th, 1003 Celestia’s Reign

9:23 PM

Twilight Sparkle, newly crowned Princess of Friendship, could not sleep. It wasn’t because of her new wings. It wasn’t because of the excitement that took place the day before. It wasn’t even the fact that Pinkie Pie, Ponyville’s top party planner, downed Twilight in a mixture of honey and melted chocolate at the ‘Alicorn Party.’

Twilight couldn’t sleep as she thought of reasons why the legendary unicorn, Starswirl the Bearded, would write such a spell.

In her mind, the purple alicorn went over the words of the spell again: From one to another, another to one. A mark of one's destiny singled out alone, fulfilled.

Twilight shifted on her bed, her large wings twitching uncomfortably. I can’t think like this. The purple mare stood up, and made her way off the bed. As her hooves touched the cold, hard ground, Twilight started to wonder if leaving the warmth of the sheets and pillows was worth it…

Mare up Twilight! The alicorn shook off the shivers that ran down her spine, and silently walked to the door. Careful to make no noise, she pushed it open.

Creak. The door groaned in the night air. Twilight stiffened, then remembered that Spike could sleep through an explosion if he wanted to.

Twilight trotted down the long hallway. Paintings she long since memorized seemed to darken and sleep in the cold night. Twilight gulped. She wondered if things seemed scarier when she was alone, and wondered what a park or the Cakes’ bakery looked like at night.

Twilight walked a little faster now, not stopping until she finally reached the entrance door. Luna’s night guards were stationed outside.

One of them turned to the alicorn. “Twilight!” The purple alicorn jumped a little, then softened up when she realized it was just a unicorn guard. “Good to see you!” He then leaned close. “Whatcha’ doing?”

“Oh, you know, just a little night reading!” Twilight said quickly. The unicorn nodded, then resumed his duty.

The alicorn sighed and continued down the path to the Canterlot Archives.

Canterlot, Canterlot Archives

In the Starswirl the Bearded Wing, there are bookshelves surrounding a giant hourglass. Behind the hourglass, 4 tables sit, waiting for somepony to read on them. On the table farthest to the left, a brown stallion looked at a Time Spell scroll, despite the fact that he was an earth pony. On the table a wee bit right from the center, Twilight was flipping through an autobiography of Starswirl the Bearded.

Technically, it wasn’t an autobiography. It was more like a diary or journal, something to work on when Starswirl didn’t have work (except for to find something to work on). Here, the legendary unicorn wrote down all his thoughts and what was going on.

The only thing that refrained the Pony Press from releasing the book for all of Equestria to see was the fact that it was completely and utterly not finished.

Twilight was aghast when she found out.

The last page that bore any writing on it was torn in half, too. Twilight hesitantly used her magic to make the indent on the next page more noticeable, and read the entry.

September 3rd, 162 DR.

Thou shall be thy last entry. Thee mare of love, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, is gone forever. I shall go out to thee ends of thy Equis to find thou.

Adieu, Starswirl

Twilight imagined Starswirl going out to find her. She sighed with her dream, then shook her head and stood up. She couldn’t get carried away!

Twilight was worried. She had never heard of Princess Gardenia, not in any of the history books she read.

She would go to the history wing and try to find out what happened all those years ago. This would be the first time she had gone there.

Twilight levitated the book to the shelf she found it on, and trotted out of the Wing.

Canterlot, History Wing

The alicorn entered the History Wing to find Princess Luna sitting on a table, reading a book called Mare in the Moon. She looked distraught, and her eyes reflected a great sadness. Twilight could almost see the ethereal mane slowly turning back to its normal, light blue form.

Suddenly, Luna looked up. “Twilight Sparkle. We are pleased at thy presence.” Twilight eyed the book. “We see thee observing thy book. We just wanted to know why we turned into thy Nightmare Moon.”

Twilight saw pain flash in Luna’s eyes, and confronted her. “I’m sorry, but shouldn’t you know why you turned into, uh, Nightmare Moon?”

“No.”

The answer was blunt. Twilight huffed, and Luna smirked.

“Would you care to tell why?” Twilight asked.

“Our memories are foggy considering thou time.” Luna sighed, then stared at Twilight. “And what is thy doing here and thee hour?”

“I also wanted to know what happened 1000 years ago.”

“Oh. Does thou want to accompany us to thy Royal Retellings of Equestria?”

Twilight drew a blank. “I’m sorry, the whatful whatings of what?”

“Thy Royal Retellings of Equestria. Strange that thy has not heard of it.” Luna stood up, her graceful figure towering over Twilight. “Shall we go?”

Twilight reluctantly said, “Okay.” Luna proceeded to walk to a statue of Luna and Celestia.

The purple alicorn’s jaw dropped as Luna’s horn shined with a prismatic aura. Harmony, peace, war, and death emanated from the rainbow colored magic. Twilight was forced to tears, then blessed with happiness all at the same time.

Luna, Lady of the Night, Princess of the Moon, cast a beam of magic that was transformed into a portal in between the two stone goddesses. The moon goddess looked down at the awestruck Twilight and took her hoof.

Together they walked into the portal.

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It was a dark room. Twilight didn’t know where they were, what they were in, or even WHEN they were.

So naturally, Twilight asked the first thing that came to mind, “What is this place?”

Luna put a hoof to her mouth. Twilight accepted the gesture and shut the wave of questions inside her mind.

“Book, open.” Luna commanded. Suddenly, a gigantic book was set in front of them.

Twilight immediately noticed that something was wrong. “It’s blank.” Luna stared at her.

“Really, we hadn’t noticed,” she chortled. She turned to the book once more and said, “Show us what took place in Canterlot, 162 Discord’s Reign and 1 Celestia’s Reign.”

“That is a dark time.” Twilight looked around, trying to find the source of the smooth voice, then realized that it came from the book. “Are you sure you want to continue?”

“Yes.” Twilight couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw a flicker of fear when Luna said that one word.

Pages turned, time bended, all of reality was forced to succumb to the magical book as Luna and Twilight saw a moving image of Canterlot Castle.

The images continued to flow until it turned into a story.

This is what they found.