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// Red Sands (Lore) 
// Story: A 14th Century Supplement in Celestia's Court 
// by Antiquarian 
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Centuries ago, the desert once known as the Eastern Wastes bore witness to a short, brutal war between ponies, griffons, minotaurs, and dragons.

The Empire of Griffonia had opened hostilities – a rising power to the East, they’d thought to take advantage of Equestria’s apparent weakness. Equestria was, at the time, reeling from the loss of Princess Luna and multiple attempted coups. Emperor Gustav saw an opportunity to subjugate his powerful neighbor, and invaded with a massive force of griffons, supported on the ground by minotaur mercenaries hired at great expense from the Tauren city states.

Celestia, for her part, was much aggrieved by the loss of her sister and the betrayal of those lords who had risen against her, and the country suffered with its monarch. The Combined Forces, which would eventually become the EUP Guard, was still in its infancy, wracked by internal conflict, the loyalists in its ranks tied up hunting down the traitors. Under such unstable circumstances, a war in Equestria proper would be devastating. It was thus necessary to crush the invasion swiftly and decisively, at the desert where the enemy force was crossing. However, there was no time to muster any earth pony or unicorn troops except those closest to the border. Only the pegasi legions could be mustered there in any great numbers, and so Celestia’s army was drawn overwhelmingly from that race. 

Finally, were the dragons. Dragonlord Torch the Mighty was young, brash, and ambitious. He observed the rulers of two of the richest realms in the land rushing to the same desert to give battle, and saw an opportunity therein – if Celestia and Gustav could be taken alive and their forces routed, then Torch could demand from their realms any ransom that he wished, and perhaps even extort a yearly tribute. He and his queen, Inferna the Swift, gathered two hundred of the boldest and most ambitious dragons and set out for the desert. 

Three rulers converged on those sands, each seeking a short, victorious war. But, as history has so coldly proven, such wars are vanishing rare, and rarer still are those that are won without extraordinary cost. 

So it was with this war – a conflict which the history books first named as the War of the Eastern Wastes, but which came to be called the Red Sands War. In its brevity the misery of years of conflict was concentrated in a few short months. Thousands died under the desert sky, their bodies swallowed by the shifting sands which drank blood like water. 

Of the small companies of earth ponies and unicorns who had formed the border guard, nine tenths of their number fell to the spears and swords of the minotaurs. In the air, the flower of the pegasi warriors were cut down. Few of their number ever returned to the soaring cities from whence they came – a generation of their race lost in the span of a season. To this day, it is remembered as the Spring of Empty Clouds.

Yet they did not die impotently. Thousands of griffons joined them in death, and many a proud company of minotaurs met their end in that desert. Never again would the Tauren states have any dealings with Griffonia or its successor realms. For their part, the griffons called the campaign the Black Gold War, for the army’s wages were death as often as not. 

The dragons, too, suffered loss to both realms, for in those days the spears of the ponies were long and sharp, and the ferocity of the griffons was legend. Mighty as the dragons were, the weight of battle and the valor of their foes was enough to lay low even ones as great and terrible as they. 

This Eastern war would likely have lasted far longer than its bitter season, had chance not intervened. History turned, as it so often does, on the smallest of things.

A chink in the scales of a grand dragoness, left over from a forgotten injury.

A griffon arrow, aimed at a pony, behind whom soared the grand dragoness. 

A gust of wind making the shot stray from its path.

A piercing strike, a rupturing of the heart… so it was that Inferna the Swift, wife of Dragonlord Torch, fell.

Wrath consumed the mighty Torch. He incinerated any who stood between him and his beloved with a fire old and terrible. Taking her in his arms, he quit the battle, leaving behind three armies reeling from the swift change of fortunes. 

Night fell, and the belligerents withdrew to their own encampments to lick their wounds and mourn their dead. The dragons had the worst of it, for while their army was the most intact, their leader was in such a state that none could approach him.

None… save Celestia. 

The solar princess braved the grief-stricken dragon as he cradled his beloved and laid bare her own grief – the loss of thousands of her ponies to this senseless war, the betrayal of those she had once trusted, and the loss of her own sister to darkness. She spoke in passion, in pain, and her mane blazed with a fire as of the sun.

Torch heard, and listened.

Dragons, as a rule, respect strength. For this reason, they are quick to dismiss the littler races, whatever their magic and numbers. But on that day, it seems, Torch saw something of the dragon in the Princess of Sun and Fire. 

In the shared fires of grief, they sealed a pact – one of the few ever sworn between dragons and ponies. For dragons are slow to bind themselves, and slower still to bind themselves to those not of their kind. Yet on that day, by pain or by power, Celestia earned the respect of Torch the Mighty, and so history turned once more. 

The next day dawned red. Many minotaurs took it as an ill omen, for in those days minotaurs were wont to read the portents more than in the present time. Yet griffons have seldom put stock in prophecy, excepting those griffons of Hungriffy and Griffuania, and the Griffonians were as dismissive of the minotaurs’ words as their forebears had been. Proud Gustav heeded not the minotaurs’ warnings, and went forth with his army to give battle.

On that day, the line of Gustav would end, scorched from the earth by the fury of Sun and Fire. The Griffonian army was utterly broken, and few escaped flame and sword to flee back to their homes. Within a generation, Griffonia was no more, torn apart by the same internal strife and weakness they thought they’d seen in Equestria.

Torch took the body of his mate and returned to the Dragonlands. He never had further dealings with Equestria. Though individual dragons would have their parts to play in pony history, for good and ill, it would not be with the Dragonlord’s order. The migration was allowed to pass through Equestrian territory, and nothing more. Torch would make no war against the ponies.

Of the three nations, it would be Equestria that had their ‘short, victorious war.’ Equestria, which had desired war the least. Yet, there was no celebration, no songs of joy or revelry. Too fresh was the grief for any songs but those of lamentation. 

Most stricken were the pegasi, who had journeyed forth with legions and returned with companies. It would be generations before they would recover from the loss of so many of their warriors, and even to this day the Red Sands to the East haunt them. The Eastern Wind is treated with little of the love shown to the other Winds, unless it is a lesser eastern wind made of pegasi magic. The songs of their warriors offer no praise to the Eastern Wind, and they ask it for no tidings. Such it has been, and such it shall be, until the Eastern Wind brings tidings of glory and joy to unmake the evil it once heralded. 

As for the desert itself, it is forever marked by the conflict. The Eastern Wastes it is called no longer, for the Red Sands Desert will forever be known by the nomenclature of war. Apt is the new name; there is a permanent red color to the sands, unlike any other on earth. It is said they were not always that color, but were rather stained red with the blood of thousands, and scorched a permanent crimson by the wrath of the Sun and Dragon magic. Amongst ponies, only Celestia could say for certain, and she speaks of it not. The dragons would know, but none have been foolish enough to ask one who might remember. 

Even to this day, the Red Sands Desert remains inhospitable. Nothing grows or lives there, and those who pass through do so at great risk. Some say there is a curse upon the place that keeps things from growing. Others say it is simply the magic of the slain earth ponies, or perhaps the unchecked power of a grief-stricken alicorn, which maintains the desert in this state – a reminder of the folly of tyrants, a memorial to the dead. Whatever the case, crossing the waste is treacherous even to those well-outfitted and prepared for the trials. 

Those who do brave the desert wastes might see a curious sight, appearing now and then amidst the shifting dunes according to the whims of the wind. Buried in the sea of red dust, there is sometimes a glitter of light catching a shimmering artifact of war – places where the flames burned sand into glass. Sometimes within them can be seen the molten mortal remains of the dead, preserved until the End by terrible grief.