Once upon a time, long, long before the magical land of Equestria was even a thought, there was nothing but the sky, the land and the sea. There weren't any animals or any ponies- nothing but grass and water and sky for as far as the eye could see, if there were any eyes around to see it.
And suddenly, there was.
In a brilliant flash of pure magic, the first alicorn came to be. His name was King Aedifex. With a mane and tail as white as the clouds and a coat as dazzling yellow as the sun, he towered over the land at heights unheard of in modern Equestria.
He wandered the land, eating what he might find and drinking from nearby ponds and streams. He would fly in the sky or swim in the water or walk on land to his heart's content, but the strange thing was... He wasn't content. Not in the slightest. He felt a strange emptiness deep inside him that he could not place. He pondered what he could possibly need for several days, and then he realized-what he was longing for was another pony, a companion to explore the land with him. Concentrating his powerful magic carefully, with a bright flash another pony came into existence along with him, a beautiful alicorn mare, Queen Analasia. Then, they didn't really have a definition for marriage, but if they did, that is what they would have called themselves, husband and wife, married.
Several years passed before they realized the sun and moon were in a chaotic state. Almost too enamored with each other to notice, they did not want to spend their time with the sun and moon, so using their powerful magic once again, they created a couple to help them-King Cosmos, dark as the night sky and covered in stars, and Queen Galaxia, her wings shining bright like the sun. Queen Galaxia rose the sun in the morning and King Cosmos rose the moon in the evening, and for a long while, everything was peaceful.
After centuries, Queen Analasia discovered she was pregnant. She gave birth to a beautiful filly with a mane and tail like fire and a coat as green as fresh grass, Princess Sollertia. As she grew, she discovered you could make beautiful things out of nature-tapping a beat on a few stones, crushing berries and wiping the juice in beautiful patterns on a large piece of bark, or pretending to be somepony else simply for amusement. With these discoveries, she was the first pony ever to earn a cutie mark, a term her parents coined because of their "little cutie".
As the foal grew into a mare, she observed her parents and King Cosmos and Queen Galaxia. Each of them had a pony to love and hold, and she felt the same sense of loneliness her father had felt centuries before. Longing for a romantic companion, she went to her father and mother, asking them for a stallion to love. They granted her wish, giving her a husband with a tan coat and multi-colored mane, a master of math, science, magic, and logic, Prince Videlicet.
Centuries more passed as the six alicorns roamed the earth, making new discoveries and inventing things. That is, until Queen Galaxia got pregnant as well-twice in the same century, a rare occurrence for alicorns. Two beautiful fillies were produced- one white with a pink mane, another navy with a powder blue one. Each were taught up in the way of their parents, raising the sun and moon each morning and night. As the older one, Celestia, aged, she developed colors in her hair and she and her sister, Luna, were referred to as princesses. The small group of alicorns, three couples and two sisters, began to develop farming techniques and began to create houses, as it had to rain for the farming to be successful.
Surprisingly, only a few decades later another princess was born of Princess Sollertia-Princess Cadence. With this, King Aedifex was enraged. He proclaimed no more foals to be born of them, fearing for not only his seat of power, but his family. When questioned about what would they do to spend their time, Aedifex had a brilliant idea.
With the help of each other, they created ponies. Knowing Aedifex didn't want to create any more alicorns, Prince Videlicet came up with an ingenious idea-split up the alicorn's traits into three different kinds of ponies-for their horns and magic, unicorns, for their wings and flight, pegasi, and for their strength and stamina, earth ponies. The alicorns showed the lower ponies some of their secrets and spells, and were praised as rulers. And for a while, everything was peaceful.
Until...
One night, a strange darkness passed over each of the alicorns, giving them fitful dreams. With each dream, a new terror or strange being was introduced, and each alicorn would subconsciously blast a spell, creating each terror.
The next day, the found all their nightmares had come true. Not every terror was fearsome-Zebra ponies, mules, and common animals were quite sweet and peaceful when approached. However, others, such as parasprites, Manticores, and dragonequi wanted nothing but chaos and destruction, forcing the alicorns to banish them to far corners of the land for fear of harm to their little ponies. The older alicorns tried to create a way to defend themselves and their subjects from further harm, but each try seemed futile.
As each generation passed, more ponies with new and different talents emerged, evolving their way of life bit by bit, introducing new ways to paint, or cast spells, or farm. The queens and kings and prince and princess still worked and worked on their way of defense, even more so than usual because their subjects began to expand to new and different places, endangering themselves further.
And finally, on one glorious day, the elder rulers finally perfected their mechanism of defense, and all over the kingdom, ponies far and wide rejoiced...
Until disaster struck.