It has been a thousand years since I have seen you like this.
—Pena “Teachings of the Alicorns”
The several ton lump of copper and molybdenum tore across the sky. Illuminated by the heat of its friction and the compression of the air as it traded velocity for light and heat, the incandescent sky-stone burned with a bright light visible all across Equestria as it neared the center of Equis.
Like an arrow from an ancient war in heaven, it had fallen from the outer darkness to the circles of the inner celestial sphere at enormous velocity stripping the atmosphere and gathering magic to itself like a loadstone as it passed. The bright green streak fell, clawed at by a black shadow. It raced from the east across the sky toward the ruins of Canterlot. Blue spirit sparks tried to redirect the meteorite and shift it slightly, but mere seconds remained. The small fragment passed directly above the ruins of Canterlot.
The blue spark had imagined the meteorite was a merely spiteful random act, and once it had altered the trajectory away from population centers it had forgotten the falling star. Belatedly it found the spark’s own redirection had selected the true target high in the air over Canterlot - a remnant spell window.
The bright green shooting star slipped through the magical window to reappear and impact the ice of the frozen north. Its magic energies spread over the ice. Kicked into motion by the magic, grim spirits of emptiness, hunger, and rage, burst forth from the ice, emerging from the silent resting grounds of the barren waste to wander aimlessly through the frozen north.