‘Emeralds are… stones with a bright color.’
- A first year student in mineralogy in mock to a certain someone.
An eye opened.
It looked around and saw nothing.
From the primordial clay, it molded beings of thought and flesh. It imbued them with ambition so they could have purpose, and it bestowed them with intelligence so they could think. It gave them wings so they could explore, and the firstborn, its most ambitious creation, was given extraordinary and amazing gifts to mold reality to their wishes.
And it was so that, in those old nights, in those old days, the first creatures awoke in a world they called their own.
The first fire was lit, and the first bread was baked.
There was peace in the world. There was harmony between the creatures.
In those ancient times, as the first villages and then cities rose, as the first monuments were built and the first books penned, the powers of magic started to be explored. Not all, however, for many lacked the connection the firstborn possessed.
Some of the first child race contented with the understanding of levitation, aiding the less gifted by shifting the clouds and teaching them as much as they could. Others, though, pushed their gifts to limits unbound.
Their power grew, and a cataclysm occurred as the first wars were waged. The first betrayal happened. The first death in battle was recorded, the name and identity lost to time, and the first weapons were smithed. But from that death cry, from the echo of the sorrow and despair it brought in its wake, the Eye, wallowing in the actions of its firstborn, was awoken once more.
It sundered its firstborn and cursed them for their betrayal; leaving only a couple as a reminder of past failures.
In the last of the clay, it built its last creature, one with abilities able to rival and exceed its firstborn. One that would keep the balance and harmony. The Eye’s greatest and proudest creation, pouring all it got into preparing them.
And thus it was that the first Changeling was born.
But as the forging of more Changeling occurred, a great magical disjunction occurred. Reality was torn, showing in the impossible gap a realm of cavorting, incomprehensible miasma. It had no rules, and it gave form to a being of malice.
The Changelings named him “Diss’dab Queon” – the Long-lasting Joke. Discord, for the rest of the world he would use as its play thing.
The forging ceased, the Eye expending the last of its essence to create six artifacts and trusting, for the last time, its first children to use them well.
The souls of the last creation, however, was left incomplete. From the depth of their being, an indecipherable hunger would the day ever after plague the Changelings. No matter nutrition, no matter consumption, the Changelings would always starve. Always shunned by a world terrified of them.
In those times, left without a guide or understanding of themselves, a figure immerged. She named herself Lakrosha, and under her reign of a unified Changeling kind, she was able to bring stability to the chaos. And so, the first Queen was christened, bringing the first light of a new dawn to her people, and turning away from that most accursed Eye.
Knowing her kind too little in number and their seminal curse plaguing any growth, Lakrosha made the first Changeling lords and ladies – their names: Abdemon, Sargona, Zultanekha, Oltyx, Kayseris, and Merix – vow that no war would ever be waged against each other and those other races. Raids for sustenance and never more.
And she made them to find a way out of their hunger. A promise more than a vow.
The Changelings might have shunned their creator, but none ever forgot the words of Lakrosha.
She was the First Queen, the first of her kind, and the last for a long while to have brought any degree of change to their society as the promise for deliverance would be lost to the ages. Impossible to achieve.
Infighting, mired by shy cooperation between rival hives ensued.
And for an impossibly long time, it was how the Changelings lived. A life of strife, in a world that hated them.
****
A lone figure walked the long road toward Featherfall – one of Equestria’s northernmost towns. On the ground, two snakes had followed her since her departure from the train station of Acornage at dawn. A line connected to Featherfall, but she preferred the long trek.
Spring felt different here. That aspect had not changed after years of cavaliering around Equestria; returning to the north almost relieved her somewhat.
She had been everywhere, traveled Equestria more than any before her had.
She made short-lived friendships everywhere she went. Some she reunited with briefly in her ceaseless travels, others were forgotten, relegated to simple memories of times passed together.
Many find it odd how a mare traveled alone, particularly one able to easily wrought close bounds as her. Surely, all those experiences would mount to a better result with the company of a friend, they told her. She would simply answer that people tire her. As much as she found it simple to befriend people, staying around them, having to contend with their desires, and knowing all would be brief instances in her life made any sort of long-term relationship difficult for her.
‘Like bright stars in the sky.’ She once told her longest-lasting friend, a cantorlotian Unicorn mare that had introduced her to photography – a passion she would preserve.
Before meeting Coccinelle, she had given little interest in the arts. That inopportune friend even came to offer her a camera, with which she kept a record of all the places they visited together and of those she had prior. The photos were still in her saddlebag, protected within the few books she was able to take back north.
That friendship had lasted four years before concluding in a fiery dispute. An argument she cannot cease replaying again and again in her head. Every time, finding ways to embellish her phrases, to present concrete, succinct, and plain retorts. She tried remaining subtle. She had succeeded in the real dispute, but, like in the real, when directness was demanded, she could not help but cringe at her numerous imagined reactions. Her mouth stumbled, and her tongue could not properly fashion the words she wanted to say. She hated herself for it. She resented the faults she could expose during a direct confrontation. And she hated Coccinelle for making her feel weak.
The two mares lost contact afterward. Coccinelle had been clear; she refused to lay eyes upon her ever again.
Years later, strolling around the Canterlot region was to be simultaneously the bitterest and sweetest recollection of a time spent there.
It was with Coccinelle that she had met the Princess for the first time. From afar, of course; nobody was permitted near the Equestrian monarch.
She remembered being awe-struck by her portance. Her voice left an unwavering taint upon her; its confidence, authoritative, and yet reassuring nature were things she did not forget. Things she wanted to emulate for herself. She was envious of Celestia. She wanted to be like her. To exit her current self and become something greater. She knew the potential was within, but the road ahead dreaded her. The thought both tired and exited her.
A castle tour had even been engaged in. The twin Alicorn symbols did not leave her unquestioning like the others. Coccinelle had told the name of the second and the reason for her disappearance, but it had only left her more unconvinced. “Going to fight an evil”… for over ten centuries… was too broad, too easy, too… simple. The perfect lie, in short. And it had not surprised her. None of what she had seen inside the Castle surprised her. But observing up close the very heart of Equestrian unity was a different experience indeed.
Even the humble, beloved, and praised Celestia could lie. Something open, unhidden, yet so every Equestrian was oblivious to it. If she could lie this openly to her people, why bother with the truth? Honesty was nothing except a throw away word. It made the figure more envious, more resentful of a being she could not reach nor challenge nor emulate.
Respect, but if it was one born of hatred of Celestia’s deeds, or in fear of her hideous, pernicious control over the life of all. The hidden pride and arrogance the Equestrian monarch exude made her blood boil.
The figure looked to her left, looking at the endless stretch of plains, coated by the few patches of trees. Featherfall illuminated the horizon; the inhabitants started their nightly errands. Nightmare Night was soon to happen. Even at the very borders of Celestia’s realm, traditions did not differ. Almost dull in their plain similitude. A few differences existed, but nothing that broke or shifted tradition to claim regional uniqueness. Myriad of creatures roamed the land of Equestria, never the same everywhere, but seldom did anyone move past those seen around Canterlot.
Featherfall – an ominous name for a small town, but amusingly accurate to the border. Its name originated, supposedly, not from some ill fate, nor was it bestowed that name as an odd form of threat to supposed enemies; the name originated from the literal fall of a feather. Not any feather, the feather of a wounded, bloodied Alicorn. The plume was suspended in status in the town hall, the blood dried but its shape incredibly pristine. For centuries, it had given courage to its local militia. For centuries, that dark-blue colored feather was Featherfall’s symbol. Though the story was heavily distorted, its retellings were popular.
The enemy had come from the north. A call for aid followed, but too late as pitch battles engulfed the streets. Then she came. They surrounded her, throwing themselves at her with unrelenting ferocity.
Nobody agreed on the exact circumstances that followed. Some say true, deathly silence fell, and the enemy retreated in a great route. Others declared powerful howls that pushed the enemy away. And others still were adamant that victory was achieved through stalwart bravery and tactical acumen. Regardless, eventually, victory was achieved. The Alicorn did not stay, however, teleporting immediately after the battle, leaving only a bloodied feather on the ravaged ground.
She turned to her right, looking at the wheat fields ahead.
Her mouth trembled, unsure if to keep it open or close. Her legs felt numb.
She had eaten a copious meal before the start of her voyage. She had stopped to take some rest and supply herself with more calories along the way. Yet, she still felt hungry. An indescribable yearning for sustenance.
She did not want to go. That place revolted her. She did not succeed in her endeavor. But she had to return home; the serpents were following.
She turned back once more to her left, refusing to acknowledge the town, wondering how she would be greeted back home. With typical disinterest or with the blossoming flowers of attachment her departure had made burgeon?
Would she be permitted the same levels of freedom? Was she still remembered? Would they accept her even in the face of her failed strive? Of her self-exile?
She took her old emerald rosary in a nervous grip, torturing every scratched and worn pearl until her mind found peace. It had never failed to. A piece of jewelry that was gifted to her in early childhood. At the time, naively, she had thought it was an act of kindness. A simple gesture from an elder to a child she had cared for. She quickly learned it was only a means to an end. Nothing more than to denote her from the rest and to give her more importance. Other children started evading her. She had stopped to be one of them. Her destiny was to be for something greater. Before being given the rosary, she had close relationships with many, but none she would call friends, but many she would play with, share stories only a child’s mind could, and wonder in amazement at every new bit of story they were told of. She liked the latter part. In fact, she was of the few that stayed to hear of the lore of old. These were good times.
More jewelry was given to her – “gifted” always sounded too disingenuous – but she never took off her emeralds. Their sight alone gave her tranquility.
A chariot carrying a family of farmers passed by her, the wooden wheels creaking with their weight. She heard jokes, many she lacked the context for. But they were laughing like children.
They stopped next to her, she quickly hid her rosary, and one of them invited her to sit with them until they reached Featherfall. She politely declined.
They insisted. She shuffled her teeth, mouth closed, and accepted their offer.
They asked her questions, many questions. She kept a firm silence. They eventually left her alone, her mind lost in more meanderings.
As she wondered about a future uncertain, her hunger grew more unrestrained.
And, then, there was only silence on the road to Feathefall.