Once upon a time, there was no land of Equestria.
Or at least, not yet.
Kingdoms rose and fell, and there was something long before Equestria was even thought of.
The land that would become Equestria sat empty of ponykind for years to come — and all time that passed was beyond the lifetime of six mortal generations. Only stories and gods could survive where mortals would only ever be swallowed. Some told tales of fire, but the details faded almost as fast as the ponies who told the tales.
Of all the different kinds of ponies, only three races were thought to have survived: unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies. They found a valley and stayed there, their knowledge fading as the older generations were replaced by their offspring. They fought amongst themselves when they weren't succumbing to diseases. Magics faded and weakened as did knowledge of all kinds. Unicorns were filled only with prejudice towards the other two factions. The pegasi stratocracy eagerly disposed of their weak and dissidents of the frozen clouds in mandatory droppings. Earth ponies cried out in frenzy until they were able to establish a tyranny of the majority that they so desperately craved, electing their greatest tormenter-puppets. The valley in which they lived — where hardly any food would grow — was constantly torn apart by petty feuds as the ponies became prisoners of the frigid climate and their own ignorance. To any outsider, they were obviously digging their own grave, especially due to the toll of raising and lowering the sun and moon.
Fortunately, no outsiders knew they existed — nor did they know any did. The world of the three tribes began and ended with the mountains and encroaching storms that entrapped them, all of which were only given the final seal through the collective actions of three mediocracies.
They had long since stopped marking their graves. The earth ponies had reached the point of near-total illiteracy, preferring to dispose of their dead in unmarked pits altogether. The pegasi continued with their regimes of letting all deemed undesirables be dropped from the clouds so that the earth ponies might have compost in their fields. Fewer unicorns had any names or ornamentation to put on their lackluster family tombs. All three nations believed themselves to be alone in a flat and desolate world that never extended beyond that valley. This was all while the only creatures in the world that could have saved them from the miserable existence they led happened to stumble into the unforgiving maw of that greater valley.
Two little Alicorn fillies with snow in their manes, overgrown coats of fluff, and the newly earned marks they had gained for lowering the sun and raising the moon had come at last. Their eyes twinkled like the stars that had failed to shine for so long as they gazed upon this backward land. These two children hadn't known what had happened to the Old World — but, in their own way, each knew what they saw was wrong.
Who were they? The ponies of the three tribes wondered. Why do they speak so funny?
How can they have both wings and a horn?
We can hardly feed ourselves, they cried. How can you possibly want us to feed these brats?! What amount of labor can they do that would justify their keep?
Are they even ponies at all? They can't be; they must be monsters! Who would buy such ugly mockeries of ponies?
It was the only way they could come up with to explain the strange, animated mane of the elder, the behaviors that were perceived as improper, and the otherworldly magic the two sisters had. The latter was especially exemplified in the younger. Most of those ponies had considered teleportation to be the most advanced magic—or, at least, the few who knew what it was. Now, they were confronted with two children older than all their clans put together, who could move the heavens without succumbing to the death that claimed one hundred unicorns needed to raise and lower each heavenly body. And while they used this unfathomable power to effortlessly arrange the skies, it was evident how raw it was. The nativity of foals was always the first to approach that which wears the face of kindness — and the first to fall victim to it. Two peculiar, unpony-like sisters had this nature in abundance. This sheer lack of proper training only made them perfect for plans they could have no full reading into.
In the end, it was decided that they would be given to the Unicorn Court, so they might figure out what to do with the unwanted 'monsters' that each other tribe deemed too beastly and magical. For, to an earth pony or a pegasus, all magic was a monstrosity. They knew not the irony of proclaiming their own clear magic to be anything but what they saw in the aura displays of the unicorns and the two Alicorn sisters. It was the unicorns who had the closest to what could be called scholars in such a place where knowledge was more precious and scarce than full harvests.
So, they had the two fillies sit on a cold stone floor before the king as the nobles who held all influence shouted their 'suggestions' from the balconies. A murder of crows would have been so much friendlier to the cowering children.
"Perhaps they should be hired out, or sold more properly as the disturbed chattel they are! Somepony ought to have these uncivilized and feral bastards know what hard work and discipline are!"
Celestia hugged Luna tighter. If anypony had noticed the younger sister seemed to be a deeper shade of blue as a result, they said absolutely nothing.
"It is true! Why, just yesterday, the blue one had the nerve to smile in public at a complete stranger! I saw the whole thing! These creatures bare their teeth so savagely and have no sense of manners or what their place is!"
There were collective gasps.
Luna whimpered. She was almost indigo at this point.
"How old are they?" called out another with a prospective voice. "They might be able to be married off. Might there be some use as livestock in them? I think that the down of their feathers would be splendid for filling a pillow, if nothing else."
Celestia bit the inside of her cheek. How could the king just look on as this happened? Who would let this happen to them?! Was he not supposed to be good and heroic, the way all the ponies were in what she heard from before? She felt scared — not as scared as she was sure Luna probably was, but still frightened enough even if she couldn't let it show for fear of upsetting Luna even more.
A fourth call rang out: "Why hire both of them out when they can be separated? Think of the prices they might fetch if they are not sold as a bundle! After all, two nonsense-uttering beasts such as these are bad enough. Somepony who is smart enough would just split them up, since they shall probably develop a much more submissive temperament. Once they stop speaking and are decent enough to lower their gaze, their capacity for obedience will exceed even the most wizened earth pony house-slave. That, I can promise! I am telling you that they are a bad influence on each other."
When the young noblemare finished her sober speech, there was silence. All gazes turned toward the king, who then ordered that whoever spoke step out. There was the sound of hoofsteps as she descended from the balcony. When the mare stepped into the light, she revealed herself to have a light magenta coat, haughty stare, and a mouth curved in a permanent look of disgust. A straight pearly pink-white mane fell out from under a large silk cap with a geometric pattern that matched her ornate, ribbon-covered gown.
"What is your name?" asked the king as he stared into the mare's royal blue eyes.
"Sweet Heart," she replied tersely.
"Very well, then," the Unicorn King said dully, offering a clumsy, tired wave of his forehoof. How it still managed to carry any shred of a commanding presence was beyond the reckoning of anypony present.
He quickly summoned a nearby scribe who then wrote out the payment of gold, gems, and titles the Lady Sweet Heart was to be offered. It was then presented to her, and she smiled coldly — or at least attempted to. What came out was a disgusted sneer instead, and her eyes were tinged with greed in a land where most ponies showed only hollowness in their stares, regardless of race.
The King dismissed Lady Sweet Heart with a wave of his forehoof. Next, he summoned two guards outfitted in the Unicorn Tribe's ill-fitting and poorly crafted armor. Each suit was also crudely emblazoned with the royal family's coat of arms.
"Separate them," he ordered. All of this was done without even the slightest look in the direction of the sisters. The unicorn guards attempted to pull them away from each other's embrace using rough tugs of their thin, weak magical aura.
Celestia's frantic calls were drowned out by Luna's wailing as most of the crowd looked on, hardly even a bit of kindness to be seen in any of their eyes. All were averted to a sight that the majority of them found to be annoying and nothing more.
All this ceased when one of the guards howled in pain, clutching his unprotected foreleg. "OW! THE BLUE ONE JUST BIT ME!"
Luna scrambled back into her elder sister's waiting forehooves. The smaller filly made a sound much like sobbing that was combined with something like a wailing cough. She wanted to leave! She wanted to go home! Anywhere but here was home! At least Philomena was still safe outside! Why weren't they outside?
Young Celestia decided that she had enough. Her horn flared to life with magic she had yet to control as bursts of fire the size of shields flew in all directions, landing on tapestries and the edges of clothing, burning with not even half the fury that resided within her. Ponies started to scream. The few that weren't in a panic were hurriedly attempting to put out the flame in a land where the water came in ice and snow more than anything else. However, a few pointed in the direction of the two sisters.
Celestia was hugging Luna tighter than she ever had before and rocking her back and forth, whispering that everything was going to be okay because it just had to be okay. Privately, somewhere deep within herself, she wanted to bring these ponies home as well. This awful place could hardly ever be the home of any creature. This wasn't what the ponies were pointing at. Instead, they gestured to yet another example of the strange and awesome magic of these beings they had so hurriedly dismissed as monsters for their differences. A cloak of the elder's fire had surrounded the huddled forms of both, yet did not burn them.
Suddenly, the doors burst open and a blast of cold air snuffed out all but the protective blanket of fire, which had come close to glowing just as bright as the fire Celestia's aura had become. There was a brief, heavy silence as the hysteria ceased and a few gusts of wind blew through, ushering in snowflakes and the sound of hoofsteps.
Enter a stallion with deep-set eyes that knew only sleepless nights poring over scrolls, a flowing mane, and a mouth that conveyed only agitation and more disgust than Lady Sweet Heart could ever hope to achieve. He was clad in a belled hat and a robe that displayed the night sky close to how the two sisters remembered it. He stomped his cloven hooves, muttered something about his loathing of peasants, and swept through the hall, his lion-like tail brushing past the fillies who still sat cowering on the floor. The stallion stared the king straight in the eye and gave a rather annoying, completely unnecessary filibuster about how hard it was to get anywhere when you lived in an even smaller valley so many days away. He continued to rant on about the stupid filly with the funny-looking mane who worked for him, who couldn't deliver messages on time, and something incomprehensible about stupid peasants.
The king sat straighter in his throne and wiped the spittle that the young stallion — who was hardly more than a recent graduate of childhood-to-puberty — had sprayed in his face. This egotistical nopony was Starswirl.
That's it—just Starswirl. There wasn't much to him: he was the son of one of the noble families but cut ties as soon he was old enough to forsake them and swindle money from the peasants. Why was that? He was always loud about proclaiming that he wanted to establish his own dwelling somewhere in a remote area neither tribe controlled. Starswirl would constantly be surrounded by books even he didn't even seem all that interested in. The only reasons the court tolerated him were his noble lines, and because he knew more magic than any tribespony combined (which really wasn't much from an outsider's perspective, as others would learn).
Celestia sat spellbound, staring at his starry cloak. This stranger filled her with the greatest cascade of optimistic feelings — one that was greater than any she had in a long, long time.
Luna peeked out from between some of Celestia's feathers. She heard his speech... To her, something about him didn't seem right...
Starswirl demanded that the magical creatures be given to him. In his explanation, he said that this was so that they might be trained properly. To teach them some discipline, so they might one day conform and embrace the status quo of their new keepers. Celestia wasn't quite listening. All she heard were offers of lessons and normal life. Those promises sunk their teeth into her young mare. Magic training? For so long she hoped that somepony would educate her sister and herself. Here was a pony who, out of all these nobles, she could guarantee was literate. He also lived away from this awful court! He had to be a hero if he was promising such good things!
The court was stunned. Once again, the balconies were silent, though there were nods of agreement. Then, the absolute king himself, his royal majesty King Titanium, rose from his throne, and declared it so. Starswirl would have the fillies, and he would be their father and master combined.
Even if it meant nothing to these ponies, Celestia — who always felt like a princess even after all these years — rose and voiced her own agreement to these deaf ears and numbed minds.
...
Years later, the sisters had grown apart due to conflict and sadness until the bond they once shared was hardly recognizable as such. They refused communication and interaction. Their paths further alienated them from each other as they went in divergent directions. Starswirl, their keeper, only served to drive them apart and pit each against one another — until their sisterhood was effectively sundered through his methods of triangulation. Not a single spell was needed to warp their emotions for one another into cycles of neglect, abandonment, and sheer helplessness. The prolonged youth of the forgotten goddesses made the decades that Starswirl had with them mere seasoning for their resentment. His magical talent for subtle manipulations and conjuring skilled wards to restrict the outside world from his other, unskilled, and living wards only served to trap them further.
Soon Starswirl — now known as the elderly Starswirl the Bearded — brought another apprentice into the valley—a young colt from a far-off land none had ever heard of. His name was Onyx, and he was probably the cruelest pony to ever live. Nothing could have made him more perfect for Starswirl's menagerie of miserable creatures. Onyx wanted to return to the land he came from and seek revenge for what he thought were the wrongs done to him, even though this bad egg was the cause of his own misery. Onyx found a forsaken book of strange magic that did things no other kind of enchantment could. Every spell was powerful, often twisted and deadly. Even Starswirl hadn't discovered its true nature, though it was plucked straight from the wizard's own library. From the start, the wicked book had ensnared his all-too-willing mind.
But the greatest power then-thirteen-year-old Onyx found in the magic book was a spell he discovered years later, when the sisters were gone and Starswirl was out for a time. The book would let him change his species from a crystal pony — one whose natural magic was impaired, much to his disgust — to a unicorn.
It was what he always wanted.
With all the magic he could muster, the little megalomaniac cast the great spell and broke the greatest taboo with the dark energy. He created fully-functioning, sapient life. Onyx created a living, thinking, independent being with a soul.
He got his wish, but at great cost.
Nopony ever saw Starswirl the Bearded after that day.
Nopony ever saw Onyx again, either.