//------------------------------//
// chapter 1: The End and the Beginning  
// Story: The Foals of the Prophecy 
// by animeyasha66 
//------------------------------//

Author’s note:
I'm bad with names, ok, and I can’t really come up with a name for their mom, so for now I’ll just use {mom} and put in the name once I figure it out, so please help me come up with a name.


Chapter 1


The last of the winter’s snow had melted, making way for the flowers of spring, bringing with them new life and rejuvenation.
The siblings were enjoying a simple carefree breakfast and conversation in their humble home. Little did they know that it would be their last.
“I’m sorry Hope, but I just can’t believe that,” the gray pony chuckled at his energetic sister’s anecdote.
“But it’s true! It really did happen!” she pounded her little hoof on the table to add emphasis. 
“I know it’s just-” Hope’s face turned serious as put up a hoof, signaling for him to be quiet. He did so immediately, letting the pegasus listen; even though they both have exceptional hearing, Hope’s ears are far superior to Silent’s.  She tilted her head and ears for a short moment, to get a better fix on the sound. 
The by that point the colt could hear it as well. Hope Feathers flew out of the tree to confirm what they had heard correctly: and they had. It was the roar of a powerful forest fire. That had completely surrounded the tree, and drawing closer by the second. Leaving them with no way to escape.
“How bad is it?” Silent asked as he finished packing two saddlebags with supplies. She flew over to him, wrapping her forearms around him, crying into his crest.
“I-it’s surrounding us… we can’t escape…” 
“No, Hope Feathers,” he lifted his sister’s muzzle with his hoof, forcing her to meet his gaze. “You can. You have wings; you can fly over the flames. You can survive.”
“B-but Sigh’ – sob – I can’t, I won’t, not if it means that you’d d-di – Not if you can’t come with me.”
“Please, Hope, please, do it for me.” He tears filled his eyes as well.
“NO! I won’t leave you. And that’s final!” 
Acknowledging his defeat, the earth pony returned his sister’s embrace. They held each other close, awaiting their imminent demise. 
Then, locked in each other’s embrace, something happened, something that neither of them would be able to comprehend or even recall for the quite some time. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two foals lay in a bed of ash. Soot covered the foals with a gray blanket. They stirred, awakening in a dead, colorless world, which was a lively utopia for them mere hours prior. 
“Silent, are we dead?” 
“… I don’t think so,” he attempted to shake the ash out of his mane, tail and coat, with little success. “It’s getting late. We need to find shelter.” 
“But were?”
“We need to find our mother, can you fly up to see what direction the village is.”
The young pegasus nodded and did as she was told. Soot fell off her as she ascended, like gray snow. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With the setting sun on their backs, the foals exited the scared remains of all that they had ever known. 
Awaiting the siblings at the edge of the village was a pacing pale pony, who upon noticing the siblings, ceased her pacing and ran to greet her little ponies with a quick but loving hug.
Her voice was full of urgency, “quickly, you must put these on.” She produced two black cloaks made out of a rough material, which she gave to them.
“Wha-” the young colt began to ask.
“I know you must have a lot of questions, but I can’t answer them now, it’s not safe here,” the mare interrupted. “We need to move quickly and quietly, for we mustn't be seen.” Under the cover of the moonless night, she led them to her small hut in towards the center of the village. 
The moment she closed the door behind them, the foals began their questioning, but once again, the older mare cut them off, “I wish I was able to hide the truth, I had hoped that if you knew of it not, then it would not come to pass.” With a sigh and a face full of sorrow, she continued, “but it appears that it is known by them, so it should known by you as well.”
“Know about what?” the little filly demanded, growing inpatient by the mare’s seemingly irrelevant ramblings.
“The prophecies,” she posed before continuing, “The prophecies about your future.” She looked into Silent Peace’s bright-golden eyes, full of youth’s blissful innocence. “Silent Peace, when you were born it was prophesied that you would bring peace to a land stained by war; at that time I thought that it would be when you’re a fully grown stallion, and in some far off land…” She posed and turned to the filly, looking into her large, shiny eyes, which contained the same purity as her brother’s, “And six months before you were born, Hope Feathers, it was prophesied tha-”
“- I think that I should tell the prophecies,” a creaky voice interjected. The owner of the voice emerged from a shadowed corner of the room, an elderly mare with a periwinkle coat and a silver mane.
“Fate Seer! How long have you been hiding there!?” 
“Oh, I was here the whole time, I was merely waiting for a good time to make my presence known.” The mare called Fate Seer smiled.
Their mother shook her head and sighed at the new arrival’s antics. “I guess you should be the one to tell them, since you’re here, would you like some stew?” 
“Yes, yes, thank you.” She sat down and took a sip of said stew, “once again {mom}, you've really outdone yourself is that fresh primrose blossoms I taste!”
“Yes, it is, most ponies don’t realize just how early they bloom.” While the mares were discussing flowers and cooking, Silent slid closer to his sister and pulled her right up against his side, to offer comfort and familiarity to both her and himself in this strange home filled with strange ponies. Hope immediately nuzzled herself even closer to the one thing in her life that always has been and always will be there for her. 
After a few minutes of the mares talking and completely ignoring the foals, Hope sneezed, reminding the adults of their existence. 
“Oh, Hope Feathers, Silent Peace it’s so good to see you again! Look how much you've grown! It seems like it’s been winters since I've last saw you-” Not sure how to respond to the attention the siblings remained silent, and snuggled even closer to each other. 
“Fate Seer! They haven’t seen you for over 6 winters and they were both very young then, I don’t think that they remember you, and you're scaring them.”
"Sorry about that, children," Fate Seer lowered her head in an apologetic manor towards the foals. "So would you like to hear about the prophecy now?"
Hope Feather eagerly perked up at the chance of finally getting some answers.
Quietly chuckling at the young filly's enthusiasm, she began, "so the prophecy goes as fallowed:" her eyes rolled to the back into her head, and her voice lost all emotions. “When evil covers the land and all hope seems lost there shall be a brother and sister, half pure of blood, born on the shortest day of year four years apart. They shall wield the swords of yore to the land will be cleansed of its impurities." Once she finished reciting, she fell to the ground. Unconscious. 
"Don't worry, she'll be wake up soon, channeling the future always takes a lot out of her," their mother reassured.
"Erg! I’m now even more confused than before!" the brown filly pouted.
“Yea, what does she mean by 'half pure of blood,'?" the colt started.
“And what are 'swords of yore,'?” his sister continued.
“And what evil?"
"One question at a time, my little ponies; fist I’ll tell you about the species. There are four basic types of ponies: earth ponies, like you and me, Silent, pegasi, like you, Hope, unicorns who have a horn and can do magic, and the rarest of all are alicorns they have both wings and a horn. And then there are the descendents of the animorphus tribe, or those of pure blood, they can be any of the four types of ponies. Each pony with pure blood flowing though their veins have something called a soul beast; a soul beast is a specific type of animal with that give characteristic traits and abilities to their respective animorph."
"How does somepony know what their soul beast is?" 
"Really {mom}, you never told them?!" the formerly unconscious mare exclaimed.
“I-I was hoping that if they didn't know, they would be safe," tears glistened in her spring green eyes, "safe and away from all of this."
"I understand {mom}, but Fate Seer put a comforting hoof around the sad mare, “but it's time for them to learn who they really are." 
"Have patients, my little ponies, all will be explained shortly," the elderly mare assured the foals before they could voice even a single question. "So, {mom}, I believe you were telling the children about soul beasts."
"Uh, yes, so when an animorph is born, their soul beast briefly takes on a visible form in its special color surrounding the newly born foal.  Animorphs are also born with cutie marks, which depict their soul beast."  
"Silent Peace," Fate Seer looked at the gray-clawed paw print that decorated his flanks, “Your mark is that of the gray wolf, and Hope Feathers," she turned to the white outline of a heart surrounding four talon marks on the brown filly's flanks, “You bare the mark of the barn owl."
“What's your soul beast?" the filly innocently asked.
“You're not animorphs, are you?" the colt answered. 
“No, you got your pure blood from your father. And you two are the only animorphs left in this village, and most likely the only ones in any village."
“Where'd they all go?"
“They were all taken; you are the only ponies with even a drop of pure blood in them." {mom} fell silent with sorrow.
“Who took them?"
“And why?"
“You too have a lot to learn," the silver maned mare shook her head at the foals before turning to their mother. “This will take a while to explain everything; it would probably be best for us to head down."
“Your right, you take them and continue explaining, I’ll set things up here," {mom} replied, starting to gather and clean the dishes.
The elderly mare went to a shadowed corner of the room and unearthed a hidden door from the floor. "Follow me children," she beckoned, as she took a lit torch in her mouth and waited for the foals a few steps down. After a quick glance at the other, the siblings approached the secrete stairs. "Stay close to me, and don't wander off," she advised as she began to descended down the stair well, leading the foals down a seemingly unnavigable maze of narrow intertwining stairwells and passageways; all of which took them farther and farther underground.
Eventually they reached level ground, and the periwinkle mare the lit a few of the torches that littered the walls of the circular room. The room smelt slight of mold and mildew. There were three tunnels scattered around the room’s circumference and in the center of the room, there was a small wooden table, surrounded by cushions of moss and hay. 
“Silent Peace, Hope Feathers, come sit down, get comfortable, we’ll be here for a while,” Fate Seer told the foals standing rigidly by the entrance. They obediently sat down across the table from the elderly mare.  
“What is t his place?” 
“This, young Hope, is one of meeting rooms of the No Blood, I’ll get to that later; Now, where were we? Oh yes I remember now, there are no more animorphs left because ‘king’ Poison Blood	learned of the prophecy-"
"Wait wasn't the prophecy about bringing peace?" interjected Silent.
"There are many prophecies about many things," she chuckled slightly. "The one I’m currently referring to is about how he will be overthrown by two animorphs."
"Why would ponies want to overthrow him?"
"Ok, I guess I have to start with some basic history; Poison Blood has been in power for generations" 
“How’d he live so long?”
“Alicorns live much longer than any other type of pony, a healthy alicorn can live for several hundreds of years. As for why ponies would want to overthrow him, every year that he has his soldiers collect a large portion of our crops as tribute to him, leaving most with barely enough food to get by.”
“What happens if you there was a bad harvest and somepony cant afforded to give that much?”
“He is neither a kind nor benevolent ruler,” Fate Seer shook her head slowly.  
“He also takes foals from random towns every year or so, to work in his mines,” their mother grimly added.
“Yes, yes, so as I was saying, to ensure his rule he decided to kill and or capture everypony with even a drop of pure blood flowing through their veins.”
“Dad,” Silent whispered.	
“Yes they took him on during the first battle, the night I sent you away.” Tears were forming in her eyes.
“Is he still alive?” Hope inquired.
“I don’t know, darling, I don’t know.
“It’s getting late, we should get some rest, we have a big day ahead of us, come now children, I’ll show you to your room.” Fate Seer beckoned the foals to a seemingly random tunnel.