I'm not dead, folks · 8:47pm Jun 20th, 2016
...Okay, it's time to break character here. I'm not gonna even pretend like I've been Discorded by the Discord you guys have been reading about in The Elements of Friendship. I have no excuse for my silence the past several weeks; I've just been terribly prioritizing basic mundane things over writing for you guys. As a way of apologizing for that, please accept the following.
Time for a little history lesson in the world of The Elements of Friendship:
Regarding the First Alicorn of Love
Mi Amore Valentina, Princess of the Crystal Empire, yearned more than anything to be a mother. Within hours of ascending the throne as a Crystal Queen, she had procured a Prince Consort in Iridescent Nacre, a Crystal Earth Pony who had long held her attention. She commissioned a most elaborate cradle for the foal that would surely be the loveliest in all the land, for it would be hers & Iridescent's. For all of their effort, though, no foal could be produced, and the cradle remained empty. Although much in the way of medical knowledge had been lost in the Age of Discord, enough had survived and been rediscovered to know this: Queen Valentina was barren. She would never bear a child.
Inconsolable, Valentina & Iridescence adopted dozens of foals over the years. Valentina fell into despair, for none of the foals filled the emptiness inside her, as much as she truly loved them. Finally, in her & Iridescent's sunset years, they made the first in what would become monthly pilgrimages to the shores of the Sea of Eris, and prayed fervently to the Queens of Equestria who had saved them all from the reign of the Drakonakis, hoping that they would be given a child.
As they departed from the seventh monthly pilgrimage, the Queens Celestia and Selena appeared before Queen Valentina & her Consort Iridescent. Their prayers had long since reached the Alicorn Queens, and long had they pondered on a means of granting the Crystal Queen's prayers. Her love of children was plain enough, for though her emptiness burned away at her inside, she still lavished each new adopted foal as though she or her were Valentina's own. The defeat of Discord was a miracle among miracles; granting a barren mare the child she so craved would be foal's play.
The magic of the Elements of Harmony passed through Valentina & Iridescent, twin beams of white and pink light respectively emerging from the royal couple. The beams converged, forming a shimmering plate of blinding pinkish-white light. When it landed before the Queen and her Consort, it transpired that it was a large pink clamshell, with an iridescent gleam. It slowly opened; inside was a newborn Crystal Earth Pony foal, her coat as smooth as mother-of-pearl. Valentina's heart sang, a wonderful fullness enveloping her. This was hers, her child, Iridescent's child! At long last, that which was impossible was now real...
But it was not to last, for Valentina & Iridescent passed away within the year, leaving the duty of raising Princess Mi Amore Perlescenta to her adopted brothers and sisters.
Princess Pearl was a very quiet and patient filly among her rather rowdy siblings. For Valentina was so eager to fill the void inside that she gave little thought as to how her adopted children would interact with one another. Most of them loved Pearl, but some, especially the eldest siblings, felt that she had absorbed much of their mother's attention and affection in the last year of her life.
One day, when Princess Pearl was barely a dozen years old, a particularly bad fight broke out amongst all her siblings and nieces and nephews, and for the first time in her life the pearlescent filly seemed to grow agitated. She stomped her forehooves in frustration, a pale-pink wave of magic identical in colour to her irises radiated out, knocking each of her siblings to the floor. She lambasted them for being so harsh to one another; they were all kin, daughters and sons and grandfoals to the late Queen Valentina. As the pink waves emanated out, each of her siblings and nieces and nephews felt their anger ebbing away as they remembered their kinship, and the love they all shared. As she felt a warm glow on her flanks, Pearl passed out.
When Pearl came to, she was in her bed, surrounded by all her brothers and sisters. All of them bore the same astonished expression. Pearl recollected the warm feeling on her flanks from before she blacked out, so she assumed at first that it was because of her new cutie mark that they all looked so flabbergasted. But, as she stretched her wings and felt a bony lump erupting from her forehead, she realised that it wasn't just her flanks that had changed.
She was an Alicorn, like the sister queens of Equestria!
Princess Pearl had been unconscious for nearly a week, in which time the Equestrian Queens were hailed and informed of the change which had come upon the princess from the clamshell. Celestia and Selena were in the room as well, and they told Pearl of the fact that she was an Alicorn of Love. Although she was born with only the magic of Earth Ponies at her beck-and-call, the moment that she'd earned her cutie mark and realised her special talent was also the moment that her inert Unicorn and Pegasus magic activated. Pearl's parents had loved each other so much, that their love mingled with the magic of the Elements of Harmony and allowed for her to be born. Neither one alone could have given birth to Mi Amore Perlescenta, whose special talent was love itself.
Pearl asked the Queens what that meant, with all of her siblings who'd argued so much? Selena said, "Love is when you argue with somepony because you love them. Because you want them to improve, to be as good as you believe them to be." Pearl asked why they made her to be an Alicorn, instead of a normal Earth Pony, and Celestia replied that when she and Selena made eye-contact upon first hearing Valentina's prayers, they shared a thought. They both felt that the world was in dire need of love, of a single figure who could embody the concept and guide ponykind towards a kinder, stronger, more loving future.
From that day onwards, Princess Pearl's siblings argued less and for less petty reasons. Although they still had their disagreements, they never let each other forget that they still loved one another despite their quarrels. It was especially difficult to do so in Pearl's presence, which seemed to act as a balm on the atmosphere around the Crystal Castle.
On the one-year anniversary of her Ascension, Princess Pearl was brought before the Regent of the Crystal Empire, to decide whether or not she would accept the title of crown-princess as the only blood-born child of Queen Valentina, or let it defer to her eldest sibling despite their having been adopted. After a moment of rumination, Pearl let the title of heir to the throne defer. She was a Crystal Princess, but she had her duties as the Alicorn of Love, and she doubted she had the capacity to handle both. Surrendering her right to the Queenly crown to her eldest sibling Diamond Dust, Princess Pearl made it her sworn duty to travel the Crystal Empire (and Equestria as well) and sort out whatever love problems she encountered.
In time, Pearl took in a lover of her own, a slovenly Earth Pony mare named Carbonado. The gruff mare initially viewed Mi Amore Perlescenta with indignity, a shimmering aristocrat flaunting her fancy wings and long alicorn from atop her ivory tower. But, in time, Pearl's "never hurts to help" mentality won over her friendship... and, eventually, her love. And though Carbonado begrudgingly cleaned up her act after entering the Crystal Royal Family, her life expectancy was still far below Pearl's. But somehow, miraculously, she remained steadfast at Princess Pearl's side, either in the Crystal Castle to dote on their many relations and to check up on their own children, or around Equestria in pursuit of aiding in love problems.
Sadly, despite her eagerness to solve so many love problems, Princess Mi Amore Perlescenta passed away at the age of one-gross-six-dozen-and-one years old. On her deathbed beside her longtime wife Carbonado, their daughters and sons and grandchildren and nieces and nephews beside them, the pair of them stopped breathing at almost exactly the same time.
(The lifespans of later lovers of future Alicorns of Love followed typical fashions, leading thaumaturgists to speculate that the soul-bond between an Alicorn of Love and their lover led to the latter sharing their lifespan with the former.)
As her chest sank and her last breath escaped her, Mi Amore Perlescenta's alicorn and wings gleamed with a blinding light, fragmenting shards flittering away from her body and forming a large crystal heart between her & Carbonado. This Crystal Heart became a protective artifact of the Crystal Empire, as the present Crystal Queen pronounced a celebration of Mi Amore Perlescenta's life, channeling such love and adulation through the artifact and providing a bubble of protection from the dark forces, such as the Umbrum, that would beset the Crystal Empire.
Meanwhile, at a monument at the edge of the sea celebrating the Alicorn of Love, the large pink clamshell which had remained closed since Mi Amore Perlescenta was brought forth opened once again, containing a newborn ruby-red Crystal Unicorn colt. The guard sent word to the Royal Crystal Family...
I profess myself intrigued...
Go on...