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// Prologue: Familial Truth 
// Story: My Little Mages: The Mirror of Shadow Bolt 
// by Foxhelm 
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A man in his early thirties, with red and yellow hair that looked not unlike strips of bacon and green eyes paced in front of a set of blue doors. He was dressed in the golden color armor of the ESM, but his helmet, which he held, was designed like a lion’s head, on the back on his chest plate were engraved eagle-like wings and throughout his armor were many engravings of stylized suns. The door he was pacing in front of towered him by at least thrice his height. He stopped his pacing and was about to rip the door off its hinges when it was opened from the other side by a woman dressed in a simple dark blue dress of a servant. “Commander Dawntreader, the princess is ready to see y…” she didn’t get to finish her sentence as the recently identified Dawntreader ran into the room. 

Dawntreader slowed his pace once he was in and walked slowly towards the main thing in the room, a bed fit for a queen. Seated on the bed, at its head, was Princess Celestia, her hair noticeable disheveled, in a gray gown. In her arms was a wrapped bundle, Celestia was looking down upon the bundle with a smile on her face as she hummed and cooed to it. She raised her gaze slightly up to see Dawntreader as he neared the head of her bed, “She has your eyes.” and presented the bundle, a newborn girl to Dawntreader.

Dawntreader cautiously reached out and the back of the fingers of his right hand on the baby, “She’s beautiful” he whispered and turned his gaze to Celestia, “Like her mother.” 

As Dawntreader went to kiss Celestia, the scene vanished as Juniper Montage’s voice began to read, “Little did I know things would spiral out of control.” The scene changed to Juniper’s chambers in Midnight Castle. “Big deal, this is thick and tedious.” she groaned and started to skip ahead in the book she was reading from. She got closer to the end when she saw her name. “Juniper, my little tree, I know you will be or depending on when you read this have been mistreated by my wife and denied your place in the family. This mirror should help restore some semblance of justice at the hand of Cinch.” Juniper put the book to the side as there was nothing else written in it, and looked at the mirror that came in the same box. “How?” She asked. “I wished he actually wrote down an instruction manual.” the mirror flashed and a small brochure manifested itself in Juniper’s hands. “How to use a Mirror of Wishes” she read the title. She didn’t bother to open it as sinister grimace grew on her face. “So I am daddy’s favorite after all.”