//------------------------------//
// Circle 
// Story: The Cutie Mark Crusaders in Avenellia: The Chicken and the Dodo 
// by pmcollectorboy 
//------------------------------//

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
The Cutie Mark Crusaders in Avenellia
The Chicken and the Dodo
Rated: PG 13
Themes: Discovery, adventure, and courage
by Mario Rodgers

Author's Note: A long and exciting adventure is in store for you, and hopefully this will change the way people view The Cutie Mark Crusaders.  While I'm proud of Challenges of Love, this is the kind of story I've always wanted to write since I started writing Friendship is Magic fanfics.  The Avenellian characters are my own creations and copyrighted by me.  All the Friendship is Magic characters are copyrighted by Hasbro.  Continuity is slightly altered Season One.  The Avenellians operate on the concept of Feather Fingers.

Circle


History never recorded the tragedy that befell the Avenellians.  Whatever forces that went to work in crafting Equestria into an idyllic land of magic completely ignored Avenellia and left it to the devices of those that would instead tear it apart.  Not even Princess Celestia knew of the world's existence, thus rendering her powerless to stop its downfall.  Rent from the materials that went into making Equestria, Avenellia was tossed towards darker corners of the universe, where poisonous influences sundered the land, killed many great tree cities, and sent monsters into the sky havens.  When all was said and done, a great war was started for the remaining patches of land, resources, and untainted stretches of the swell.  Stories of these calamities would never come with happy endings for anybody.  Indeed, many texts describing who took part in the war and what the war had decided or wrought were lost to the mists of time.

Several events would become important in the altering of Avenellia forever.  The first was the arrival of several peculiar strangers, who accidentally brought with them the magic and ideals of Equestria.  The second was the invention of songcraft magic.  Determined not to let the growing darkness consume their world, six Avenellians sacrificed themselves for the lands that they loved.  Using the strongest of their songcraft magic and what they learned from the strangers from Equestria, they gave their lives so that their people could live under the protective enchantment of their new gifts--The Spirits of Flight.  A council was created to determine who was worthy of guardianship of these new gifts.  It eventually fell to a lowly peacock boy.  He became the first Peacock Prince.

However with the war forgotten by most from impoverished, some would say purposefully ravaged, archiving, it would seem the mistakes of the past were fated to be repeated.  The Swan Queen of White Featherton, somehow sensing this, reached out with a Song of Finding, searching for her answers.

The gateway called.  Who would answer?

There would be no happy endings for anybody, but perhaps there hadn't been an ending yet.  I had come to find that everything tended to move in circles.

---Excerpt from the journal of The Wanderer Pony(banished to the non-disclosure section of The White Featherton Royal Library)