//------------------------------//
// Chapter One 
// Story: The Corvus Prince 
// by Daemon McRae 
//------------------------------//



Chapter One



Caw, Caw, the Black Prince cries
As the housecat prowls and the raven flies

Caw, Caw, he cries again
As the flowers wither where his shadow has been

Fly, Fly, the Prince commands
marching fur and feather to the farthest lands

End, End, the Black Prince prays
As he waits all alone for the end of days


Princess Luna paced in her study, not because she was nervous, or on edge. In fact, it was none of the usual reasons most ponies pace, back and forth. She paced because she was reading. A large, ancient tome floated in front of her, her eyes perusing it lazily, as if it was nothing more than a dime-store mystery novel she had found on an old shelf and approached with a lack of anything better to do.

Of course, it helped that the ancient tome was actually a few centuries younger than the alicorn reading it. In fact, she had found its contents rather amusing. It was, for the time it was written, a history text. Hoof-written, depicting ancient battles and military stratagems according to the author, who wrote from the best information he had available. This didn’t stop him from being wrong.

Luna smiled to herself as she re-read a particularly interesting passage about her and her sister’s encounter with Discord. She couldn’t lay any particular blame on the author for the inaccuracies in this section, as she had difficulty remembering the details herself, and she had been there. Chaos magic had a way of making such things as simple observation a much greater chore than necessary.

She set the book aside, ceasing her absent-minded pacing in favor of a more deliberate trot over to her private bookshelf. Considering the size of her royal chambers, it was much smaller than expected, in that it was the same size as really any bookcase you’d find in the home of a regular citizen. It was a favorite piece of hers, however, as it had been her own purchase; a venture into the modern day, to see how ponies now bartered and traded as opposed to the methods used before her banishment. It had been her first successful purchase, if only by virtue of all her other acquisitions on her trip being presented to her as gifts She had a particularly fond memory of the ratchety old shopkeep who had sold her the piece, as he had little patience for anypony trying to use their so called ‘authority’ for a lower price. A customer was a customer, and money was money, according to him. Luna found herself regularly shopping their. She had a small sitting room furnished almost entirely from that store.

The books on the shelf were near as important to her as the shelf they sit on. Some of them were texts as old as the one she had just returned to its post. Some were brand new, her foray into the recent trends of popular fiction. Some still were truly ancient texts, pieces of her collection her sister had managed to save for her eventual return. That had been an emotional day when Celestia had brought up the book filled with her old journals and picture books, textbooks and collections of poetry.

Her eyes perused the limited shelves, a collection of her most favorite books, ones she’d read literally dozens of times, showing no sign of stopping. Until her eyes fell on one old, curiously bound book. It intrigued her, in that she had never seen it before. This wasn’t new, however, as she and her sister had made it a game of leaving each other presents in natural spots, waiting until the other noticed it. It had taken Celestia almost a week to notice the new curtains Luna had bought for her (from the same furnisher, of course).

She levitated the book in front of her, and read the title aloud with a sense of dry humor. “The Penumbral Son,” she said with a scoff. No doubt her sister had seen the… what was the word… “edgy” title and left it for her as some sort of a prank. She imagined it to be some kind of collection of deeply emotional and poorly written poetry by a self-proclaimed ‘damaged’ soul the world no longer understood.

Luna had no patience for the “emo” crowd.

There was no dust on the old book, which didn’t surprise her. Either it had been there a few days, and the maids had tended to it, or it had been put there fresh. She’d been more surprised if there had been dust. She opened the book, and saw, in plain text, in an older font, the same words on the inside page as on the cover, The Penumbral Son, but with a subtitle. Below the ornate writing of the title were the words “The Tale of Corvus: Uncrowned King of Neverwere.”

Her apprehensions regarding gaudy collections of metered whining abated, she turned the page to begin reading. Until she saw that the first page was simply a large black rectangle, stopping just a half inch short of the borders of the page. She flipped the next few pages to see much of the same. In fact, it appeared at first that the entire ‘text’ was little more than the most well-measured waste of ink she had ever seen, until about halfway through, she found the first passage.


“The Prince he sits on a throne as old
As the world is round and the ice is cold

He cries no tears and wears no smiles
And sees no soul for miles and miles

In empty space and hollow verse
He recites his creed for better or worse:”


The next few lines were much harder to read, as they seemed to have a large, blocky line drawn through them, neat and clean. If she didn’t know any better, Luna would venture that it was merely part of the font, so evenly was it drawn. Of course, being the ancient, noble, and intelligent creature that she was, it was a simple matter of extrapolating the information based on the tops and bottoms of the letters that she could see.

It only took her an hour, and two notepads. Much better than the last time, when she had attempted to read her physician’s hoofwriting, only to determine she had accidentally pocketed his shopping list, her prescription for flu medicine still on his counter.

Setting aside her quills, ink, and spare notepads, she held up the final, deciphered passage on a scrap of paper next to the book, and read aloud:


“Within this cage of bone and skin
Lies my beating heart within

For when the call comes out for me
I shall return posthaste to thee

My life eternal and patience long
I shall return with verse and song

Each lyric spoken and line orated
Shall bring an end so orchestrated

As to turn the world from light
from dawn, from dusk, and even night

No longer shall the world doth turn
Once the Corvan Prince returns.”


Luna raised an appreciative eyebrow at the simple rhyme. She appreciated that, even though it had been rather bleak poetry, there was no mention of lost love and self-harm, and most appreciatively, no lines lamenting the ‘only one who understands’. She had had enough of that malarkey, thank you very much.

She noticed that there was, in fact, much more text to be read, and had begun pacing as she turned the page to continue. She was stopped in her tracks, however, as the book fell from the air. No warning, no reaction, as though she had let go of it on purpose. Which she hadn’t. It had simply… fallen. And on impact, had opened itself to one of the solid black pages. She attempted to lift it again with her magic, to no avail. It simply wouldn’t move. As if she had no magic to speak of. An experimental levitation of another text disproved this theory, yet rose many other questions.

Ones she didn’t get a chance to ask straight away, as the black page began to bulge slightly. It rose, gracefully and carefully, until it began to take a simple shape. Luna watched with a combination of curiosity and hesitation as the black ink melted away from the rising mass to reveal the shape of a single black cat, who regarded Luna with an equally curious stare. She then meowed lightly, then walked out of the room.

This in and of itself did not concern the princess.

The next two-dozen cats did.