//------------------------------// // Prologue: The Fall of the Crystal Empire // Story: The Pony: An Unexpected Journey // by AdrianJNovelle //------------------------------// My dear Princess Celestia...you once asked me everything you wanted to know about my adventures before I came to Ponyville. While I can honestly say I've told you the truth...I may not have told you all of it. It all began long ago, when a Crystal Kng overruled a kingdom built within a mountainside. It stood hundreds of feet high, and cast a shadow across the entire valley, as if it were telling the small villages which lived below it that all was well under the spell of the shadow. Inside this colossal castle of unimaginable defense was the wealthiest kingdom in the land: the Crystal Empire, towering to the skies in everything else: from military strength to financial prosperity. All the occupants who lived within this divine empire spent their days harvesting the vast amount of minerals found within the earth, and using their talents in smithing and armory to construct the finest jewelry and armor anypony could imagine. One day, a miner found a special jewel known as the Arkenstone, which the Crystal King displayed in pride over his throne, as a symbol of his divine power over the land. A short while thereafter, the Crystal King began to exert a disease. His tremendous obssession with gold consumed his thoughts. He grew all the more greedy, and only time itself would be able to tell if he would ever recover from his dreadful illness. Unfortunately, my dear Celestia, no one would ever know because...Smaug came. The nearby town of Dale was the first target on the great beast's path of disaster. It brought Dale to its very knees, killed and incinerated many villagers, and torched the entire town to ash. With nothing standing in his way, Smaug then loomed over the great Crystal Empire, barred through the mighty gate of the stronghold, and, with little effort on his part, frightened the Crystal Ponies, and caused everyone to flee their sacred home in a flaming tongue of ember and destruction. Upon his egress from his beloved kingdom, the King lost his hoofing on the Arkenstone, which he had so desperately tried to salvage and keep his own from the horrible beast. It fell to his hooves and disappeared in a tidal wave of wealth and gold which came hurling towards the King at a blinding speed. With most of the Crystal Ponies out of the Crystal Mountain, the King finally saw daylight as Smaug ransacked his home. Out in the distance, over a tall cliff, the King could see the elf-ponies and their grand army watching in awe at the scene. The King hollered up to them, but their leader, King Thranduil, dismissed the King's pleas, and set forth away from the devastation, leaving the Crystal Ponies to fend for themselves, and all alone. Smaug gained control of the Crystal Empire and the Crystal King's fortune. And he would guard his hoard until the day he dies. The Pony: An Unexpected Journey