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// Prologue: The Continent and the Dale 
// Story: Princess Essenta 
// by Pone_Heap 
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Several millennia ago, long before Equestria, long before the great Princesses, even before ponies gained control over the world around them, bending it to their will, ponies still existed on that land.

They had resided there for thousands of years. Nopony was quite sure what happened before ponies came to the land, or even how far back they had done so. Little knowledge was known to exist from before the Great Centauri-Equine War. The end to that horrible war saw the land virtually destroyed. The ponies emerged victorious over the centaurs and the centaurs were driven off the continent. The land, overtime, came to be divided into countries as different ponies went where they would.

In the days before Equestria, there were still Earth ponies, unicorns, and Pegasi. But among the types of ponies there was more diversity, mostly among the Earth ponies and Pegasi. Their existence faded away after a time, but they held sway where they occurred.

The Terrans, called that for their own language, were Earth ponies of exceptional strength, with a magic unlike that of other Earth ponies. Relatively isolated for centuries, their ancestors had drawn their power from the mountains around which they lived.

Similarly, the Mazans existed. They were a group of Earth ponies that emigrated across the Great Eastern Sea soon after the end of the Great Centauri-Equine War. They came upon a magic, they learned, that exemplified the female sex. Males ceased to be born and stallions became infertile; to save their tribe, young mares journeyed the world, to find a mate. Mares continued this for millennia. They became, overtime, formidable and respected warriors… proud, skilled, and secluded in their queendom across the sea.

The last of these tribes were the Knollwings. These Pegasi were built differently than others, with a strange magic giving them heightened senses, physical strength, and overall intelligence. Dwelling in the mountains, they drew on a similar power as which the Terrans did.

Civilization had seen many wars, many confederations between warring countries and city-states. Many kings, rulers, and invaders came and went, as well as rebellions and uprisings. It was now the year 4781… that much time had passed since the Great War. To this point, nopony had managed to conquer the land as a whole…





Among the many countries on the continent, there was a land known as the Dale. Its name was appropriate, if uninspired, for it resided in the Eastern Central Valley.

While unicorns had yet to find a way to manipulate the environment to do their bidding, their grasp over magic allowed them to control other things. Most of these countries and even the smaller city-states, regardless of their overall populations, were ruled by unicorn families. Pegasi managed to control a few countries and the Knollwings had held their mountain strongholds for centuries. Even the Terrans held the great city-state Terrow, which boasted a great strength in commerce; it was a crossroads of the entire continent.

But the Earth ponies, the unremarkable ponies, sometimes looked down upon for only their ability to tend the land, had managed to hold onto the Dale for about seven centuries. An outwardly unexceptional place, the land responded to the Earth ponies in ways never seen at anywhere else in time or space.

The bounty of the land had saved the continent from famine several times in history. This was the reason why the land was left to the Earth ponies. Not unskilled warriors or crafters, agriculture was still their primary reason for being.

King Dale was an ambitious pony, though not particularly wise. He had never used the importance of his land to influence much of anything. It was not that he did not try, but sounder minds than his prevailed in the interest of peace and goodwill among their neighbors.

He could trace back his roots to well before the founding of the Dale. Many great kings, and poor kings, came and went, in war and peace. Now was a time of relative peace and its king was mediocre at best.

More than a decade had passed since the Confederation of the Valley had split up. He had taken the warriors he had to defend the valley against their enemies to the east. It had been more of an annoyance than anything, dealing with the petulant unicorn king of Joeh. For his trouble, King Dale took it upon himself to terrorize a few bordering villages of the Joeh Kingdom. Condemned by many of his neighbors for this needless violence and horror, King Dale paid little heed, and went on with ruling.

King Dale’s wife was a unicorn, offered to him with a handsome dowry from one of his neighbors to the west. He gladly accepted. She bore him 5 children: Essenta, Valles, Calleha, Abateles, and Durenes. As his children were born, he regretted more and more not looking harder for an Earth pony to be his queen. There weren’t that many, but royal families occasionally saw an Earth pony daughter if their family history allowed for it.

Valles, 16, his oldest son and second child, was an Earth pony. This pleased King Dale. What bothered him was that Valles was cruel, careless, stupid, and lazy. The idea he would succeed him gave him ulcers.

Abateles, 14, his second son and fourth child, caused great confusion the day he was born. A Pegasus was born to the queen and if her family history hadn’t come to light, showing it was possible for her to have a Pegasus foal, the king would have had his queen and his infant son thrown off a cliff for alleged infidelity. Later glad he had not been rash (rather his advisors stopped him from killing the little foal), Abateles proved to be loving, passionate, skilled in various arts, and a son to be proud of. If the king had not been so desperate to keep an Earth pony in power, the crown would belong to Abateles someday.

Durenes, 8, his third son and fifth child, was a mentally defective unicorn. There was little to say about the moron that couldn’t be explained by Durenes throwing pig shit at passersby.

That brought the king, grudgingly, to his daughters. Calleha, 15, his second daughter and third child, was a unicorn. She was kindhearted and earnest. She would make some king a lovely queen someday. That was about the best thing he could say about any mare or filly. The king was not one to value the female.

And of course, there was the last child… Essenta, 17, his first child and first daughter, was an Earth pony. He had never known quite what to do with this one. Ever since she could talk, all he had ever heard from her was “no”. Instead of doing the things Calleha proved to be so good at, such as being a little space-occupier and accomplished in domestic things, she was more interested in playing with other foals, even their rough games and other mischief, than playing princess… Not that she was not decent at sewing, cooking, languages, etc. Really… she could do just about anything well enough.

Perhaps the most unsettling thing about her was her desire to fight. To King Dale’s disgust and shock, she was a skilled enough fighter to beat some of the stallions in his contingency, even a few of his personal guards, in combat… and that was when she was 14. At 17, only a hoofful of stallions could best her. One characteristic he especially hated to see in another pony, specifically a filly or mare, was Essenta’s occasional cunning and more consistent will to succeed. Not that he was that accomplished in either other than in his own mind, it was appalling to see it in his daughter.

For years, she had been building sets of armor and all sorts of weapons in her little workshop. She enjoyed farming. Many a family had been aided by the princess’s influence, and often Essenta herself plowed fields, helped in field maintenance and harvest, and shouldered anything a peasant mare might. She taught foals to read and write, and of commerce at the local schoolhouse. Any trouble that came up in the kingdom, she was often the first to respond with a helpful hoof and a strong spirit.

The Dale loved its First Princess, her great kindness, and good humor. She was a beautiful ray of hope in sad times and good times alike. Nopony dared say it out loud, but if Essenta became Queen Dale… they could never be in better hooves.

But the world being what it was, they sadly tried to accept the fact she would be sent off somewhere, not too long into the future, to some other kingdom, to produce foals for some other blowhard king. The only thing that gave them any solace was the fact she would be an asset to other ponies. They chose to believe that no matter where she wound up, Essenta would turn the world on its ear to make it a better place.