Author Note: Many thanks to Book Smart for editing AGAIN!!! He's so awesome.
The throne room of Canterlot castle stood nearly empty. The guests and petitioners that normally frequented the court had to be moved to one of the secretary’s rooms due to ‘Royal Business’. Equestria’s daytime matriarch was sitting in her throne, waiting with patience that only thousands of years of life could grant. She was quite a sight to behold. Much like her younger sister Luna, Celestia had both wings and a horn, but that was where the visual similarities ended. Her short fur coat was of the purest white that would put doves to shame. She was much taller then most ponies, including Luna. Her eyes were of light magenta, and filled with a beauty and knowledgeable insight unique to her that had humbled many a visitor. Her mane and tail were in constant flux of several pastel colors; both in constant motion, as if blown by a summer breeze. It was a testament to her magical power that such a thing was the case. Finally her cutie mark (a term she had coined long ago, after all) was a symbol of a glorious blazing sun.
The large, beautifully designed doors leading in and out of the courtroom suddenly swung wide as six colorful ponies burst through.
“We’re here, Your Highness! We got here as fast as possible,” said Twilight Sparkle.
“I could have gotten here faster but I had to wait for those slowpoke guards,” interrupted Rainbow Dash.
Twilight shot her a glare. They were in the presence of royalty after all, and insulting the Princesses’ Royal Guard was not the most respectful thing to do. Rainbow just shrugged awkwardly as she hovered in place.
Princess Celestia began to speak after dismissing her royal guards from the room’s entrance. This matter would require the utmost privacy. “I’m very grateful you all are here. I need your help. But first, has anything out of the ordinary been happening at Ponyville?”
“Yes Princess. Several things have happened actually,” Twilight replied in all seriousness.
Celestia nodded with a knowing look in her eye. A frown spread across her visage. “I feared as much. I’ve been receiving such reports from all over Equestria for the last nine hours. Tell me my student. Have you ever heard of a gremlin?”
Twilight’s near photographic memory went to work as her mind sorted through the mental library of information she had learned from books. “I believe they were a sort of fey creature that was fond of causing as much trouble and chaos as it could. Supposedly they were a favored pet of Discord because of all the mischief they got into. Those aren’t supposed to be anything more than old mares’ tales though. They’re passed on by the same ponies who believe in gargoyles and demons,” she said.
Celestia looked somewhat disgruntled at her student before saying, “As much a myth as the Mare in the Moon, Twilight?”
Twilight Sparkle cringed in embarrassment at this. She was saved from further discomfort though when a grey unicorn guard in a white robe pushed in a large bird cage that was covered with a black velvet sheet. The thing was rattling and mean-spirited sounding gibberish could be heard coming from it.
“THIS,” Celestia said as she rose from her throne, “was caught trying to set fire to the royal record’s room in the east wing.” She lifted the sheet off the cage to show a hunched, pointy eared, wild eyed, two legged, greenish blue creature in the cage. It was nearly bouncing around in the cage, obviously trying to escape, but to no avail.
“Is that what I think it is?” Twilight’s eyes grew larger than dinner plates as she looked at the supposedly fictional creature in front of her.
“Yes it is, and a particularly nasty one as well,” Celestia said.
As if to confirm this the Gremlin blew a raspberry while making several rude gestures, nearly causing Rarity to faint.
“That’s more then enough,” Celestia gave a light, magical, shock to the foul little monster to make it stop, even if for just a few moments. “You may take it away now Loyal Heart.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the guard replied, recovering the cage. He levitated the cage with his magic and backed out the side door.
“I assure all of you that most of the creatures of legend and old mares’ tales are as real, or at least were, as dragons and diamond dogs are today,” said the Princess.
“What do you mean were?” asked Twilight Sparkle.
“Follow me,” commanded the Princess.
She led the main six through several hallways and spiraling staircases to a part of the castle that they had never seen before. They followed her through a few more corridors shrouded in shadows and cobwebs. They were only lit by the occasional magically fueled torch. They stopped at what looked like a dead end.
“There’s nothing here,” Rainbow said with a small hint of impatience.
“Not quite my little pony. One simply needs to look past the obvious,” said Princess Celestia.
Her eye as well as her horn glowed a soft white as she cast a spell she had learned from a hermit half-elf she hadn’t used in what she thought may have been centuries. It made her feel rather old as she thought of one of her long dead teachers, especially combined with the fact that the half-elf had lived to a cranky six hundred before she had passed away.
“And one must have the proper key of course,” she finished saying with a smile as her eyes and horn returned to normal.
The previously dead-end alcove was now transparent. Celestia confidently stepped forward. Instead of smashing her regal self against what looked to be a glass limestone wall she passed through it as easily as Pinkie Pie passed over the laws of physics without magic. The others took pace after her. As they all stepped through it, the six young mares looked in awe at the huge room they had entered.
“This room was my own study many, many years ago. I used it to understand more about the other creatures of this land before the nation of Equestria was fully formed.”
The room had a curved dome roof with a tile mosaic of the sky. Its left side was dominated by dusty bookshelves overflowing with literature; while its right side had several objects on metal tables and pedestals, some of which were in display cases like at a museum. The floor was a polished wood paneling unlike the rest of the castle, which was either tile or carpeted. There were no windows, but a strange chandelier made of white marble with a glowing white stone affixed to its center provided at least enough illumination to read by.
“Before I tell you what you need to know it would make me very happy if you were to look around first. It’s been too long since anypony besides me learned of a part of Equestrian history I couldn’t give a personal recount of.”
The six ponies took Celestia’s invitation to look around. Dash hovered over to one of the display cases. The plaque at the base of the glass read ‘Eye of the Chained God.’ She squished in close to the glass to get a better look at the black, perfectly circular stone. As she did, the sphere flooded with red fiery color. A cat or dragon-like pupil stared intently back at Rainbow.
“AAH!” Rainbow cried out as she nearly jumped out of her skin in surprise.
“Be carful,” Celestia calmly explained. “Some of the artifacts here are dangerous if they were ever to be released.”
“You don’t say,” said Dash, trying to regain her cool composure. She didn’t want to lose face in front of her friends and Princess Celestia, after all.
Fluttershy had been drawn to a part of the room where the books were in order to look through the book she saw titled ‘Animals of the Fey Realms’. She was intently looking at the various entries, some with red inked notes in the margins likely made by the Princess. Many of them included animals Fluttershy had never heard of. That was quite the feat seeing as how Fluttershy made a point to know just about every animal she could, in case one ever needed her help. There were entries about things like the Couatl - a serpentine creature of unparalleled beauty and wisdom; the Shocker Lizard - a small blue reptile that protected itself through magically generated electricity; Sprites (distant cousins to the Parasprite) - mysterious winged creatures of nature that tended to attack anything ugly or potentially damaging to their environments; the Grick - a pony sized carnivorous worm monster with a deadly beak. The list just went on. It was a VERY thick book. While skimming through, Fluttershy couldn’t help noticing that most of the animals’ pages also had the words ‘extinct’ or ‘disappeared’ written in red above them. Fluttershy closed the book after a bit when the sadness in her overly kind heart became too much to bear. She put the book back in its place as she struggled to hold back her tears.
Applejack was inspecting some farming equipment on one table that certainly didn’t look like it had been made for use by ponies. Most of it looked like they were made for use by diamond dogs. Only thing was, she was pretty cotton-pickin’ sure that diamond dogs didn’t do any farming and the tools all came in different styles. Some were blockish and straightforward. Others were curvy and elegantly designed. Still others looked spiky and menacing like whoever made them was just as likely to use the tool as a weapon as for gardening.
Pinkie Pie had hopped to the side of a rack on the wall that held a wooden staff with a blue orb on the top. The staff itself had an inscription that read, ‘There will be a time when I am needed once more. When it comes, a king of kings must unite the land. I will be there for him…in another time…another place.~Merlin’ Pinkie Pie couldn’t help but start to feel sad. Her intuition was telling her somepony great had been lost to time. She didn’t know why she even thought that, but it kept nagging at her until she finally turned away from the staff.
Rarity, on the other hoof, had instantly been drawn to the gold and brass octagon that rested on one of the pedestals. It was utterly beautiful and geometrically decorated. ‘Whoever made this was clearly a master craftspony who took pride in their work,’ Rarity thought. In its center lay a single ruby that looked suspiciously like a button. It wasn’t in a case like some of the other things in the miniature museum, so she pushed it. The curiosity instantly began shifting its pieces like a rubix cube that solved itself until its designs roughly resembled some kind of wide, bearded face. The face’s mouth then opened to reveal a small compartment that contained a rolled up piece of wax covered parchment. Curiosity once again got the best of Rarity as she carefully lifted it out with her magic and unrolled it. It showed a map, but it wasn’t of Equestria. It almost looked like it was a map of an underground nation all its own, but that was unlikely. The words weren’t printed in Equestrian script either so she couldn’t discover what it said. Had she been able to read Dwarven she would have seen that it read ‘Map of the Dwarven Thiags by the royal choreographer Edric Stonefist. May the ancestors guide and protect you.’ She carefully put it back with her magic and pressed the button that had initially opened the stylized container. It shifted in its unique way one last time as it safely sealed the map again from the ravages of time. It hissed as the device ejected all the oxygen in the compartment to seal it air tight.
Twilight Sparkle had, of course, skimmed through five books in the time it took the others to look around. She was trying to find a book that answered the questions in her racing mind. Why have there been so many strange occurrences happening lately? Where are these once believed mythical creatures coming from and why? If most of the old myths were true, then where had they disappeared to for so long? She was still looking when Princess Celestia was satisfied with their investigations.
It brought an old joy to her heart that she could share some of her old findings with others, but they needed to get back to the business at hoof. “Now that you’ve looked around at the relics of the old ages I think it’s time I told you what I believe all the chaos is coming from. My little sister Luna…ah, it seems she’s already here.” The Princess then looked towards the back of the room. She raised her voice by only the faintest audible amount when saying, “You know it’s not polite to spy sister.”
A regal yet mischievous sounding voice echoed back from the doorway as a dark almost invisible mist coalesced within the dusty old study. “We are sorry sister,” The dark mist became visibly more tangible as it became the shape of an alicorn. Then the shape compressed like somepony squeezing a clod of soil to make it denser with the princess of the night’s features coming more clearly into view. She finished her little spectacle of an entrance before continuing, “But we didst not wish to interrupt.”
“Princess Luna!” the main six said in unified surprise, quickly bowing.
“I believe my sister can explain what started all the commotion,” Celestia said. Her expression hardened just the tiniest amount.
Luna quickly told the Elements of Harmony about her encounter with the strange half-dead thing in the Everfree Forest and its threatening message.
“Any questions?” Asked Celestia after Luna had finished.
Not surprisingly Twilight raised her hoof to her mentor to ask, “Do you know what it meant when it spoke about claiming what’s theirs?”
Almost immediately after Twilight, Applejack piped in with her question also. “Yeah and what exactly is a HUE-MIN-EAGHTY?” the last word came out weird due to applejack’s confusion on the subject. Neither she nor the others in the room, with the exception of Celestia, knew what they were and Applejack struggled with the foreign word.
Princess Celestia had been expecting these questions, but it still hadn’t prepared her enough. She was about to explain something even she herself, arguably the oldest living thing in Equestria, didn’t know much about. “I’ll answer both your questions but it requires some explaining.” The seven other mares in the room made themselves as comfortable as they could - they could tell this might be another long story. The marble chandelier kept illuminating the room as the princess recalled the correct memories, giving off an atmosphere of mysterious intensity.
“Luna and I weren’t always as mature and experienced as we are now. When Luna was a baby and I but a small filly, our parents were put in charge of this land as ‘Guardian Spirits’ by other much more powerful entities. Our father Thunder Fall was charged with protecting the land and plant life. Our mother Heavenly Mind was charged with maintaining peace and the natural balance of the land. Ponykind had not yet arrived from its original country and most of Equestria was like the Everfree Forest. Scads of monsters roamed everywhere from jungles and mountains to rivers and the underground. I remember our mother telling me how the land was such a small piece of a grand and ancient world. Mother and Father had guidance over only a small fraction of it. Their were other beings here besides the monsters however. They were beings of reason and logic with their own morals and opinions. I found out later through my research that these races had been created by others who’s abilities made ours and our parents seem like toothpicks trying to stand up to a dragon’s inferno breath. These were beyond the domain of our parent’s guidance. Most of the records I later found about their origins recited stories and poems of a great pilgrimage from other lands called Eberron, Thedas, Middle Earth, Mid-Guard, Krynn, the Forgotten Realms and several more.” Twilight and the other Elements of Harmony were amazed at what they were hearing. Celestia was divulging information that citizens, especially the scholarly types like Twilight Sparkle, had been wandering about for hundreds of years. If this was supposed to be a secret why tell them now? They continued listening, but now with their jaws nearly hitting the floor. Well except for Pinkie Pie for some reason. She was busy looking at a random direction in a frustrated fashion while apparently trying to reach out to someone that was imaginary. She was also muttering something about ‘cupcakes’ and to ‘stop doing that’ but the others took no notice.
Princess Celestia continued, “Several species came from their previous homes to escape their harsh and war plagued countries. But so many years of fighting combined with an environment filled with monsters must have taken its toll. After many more years of the unsupervised races being left to their own devices I remember our father having fights with our mother. There was some sort of mass fighting going on in the central plains. He said it was his duty to protect the land that was being demolished in the fighting, but our mother just kept restating that what the other races did was not their priority and they should let them work it out amongst themselves. She was sure the other races would come to a peaceful solution soon. One morning our father just…didn’t come back.” Celestia’s normally reserved and peaceful expression had now evaporated faster then a gallon of liquid nitrogen did when exposed to a bright sunny day. She was not STRUGGLING to hold back tears but it was plain that her tear ducts were reacting to massive sadness. This was getting to some rather sensitive issues. Luna didn’t seem too emotional about it though. Her expression was one of sadness like when one misses a recently departed pet, not when one loses a father, she was simply too young to remember. All she had was faint glimpses from faded memories and the stories about them from her sister. It was now that Princess Luna interrupted. “Tia you never told me about that part.” Luna’s formal speaking voice had gone out the window as she spoke to her sister. Luna had believed that a possible reason she had never been graced with the opportunity to meet her daddy would have crossed Tia’s mind at some point in the thousands of years the two of them had been alive.
“What good would that have done Luna? I still never knew the exact reason Daddy left” the Elements of Harmony tried to keep from laughing at this. Had they really just heard Princess Celestia use the term ‘daddy’?! But no, this was a serious thing by pony and they weren’t going to laugh at the choice of words the princess had used.
“Telling you would just leave you with the same unanswered questions about it as me,” said Celestia.
Luna turned that over in her cranium for a moment. Her sister was right of course. Having only the knowledge of an argument and some sort of outside conflict that caused him to leave wasn’t much to go on. If Tia hadn’t found an answer to what actually happened to him, she seriously doubted she would have had anything to show for the info except for things to have occurred differently somehow. The six smaller ponies looked around awkwardly. They sensed that this should have been a private moment between family, but under the circumstances they couldn’t very well just leave. They still needed to know what exactly humans returning had to do with all the problems. Luna noticed them looking uncomfortable. She motioned with her hoof for Tia to continue. The princess of the sun cleared her throat before getting back on track.
“As I was explaining, father had left. It was quite a while later, after I had first learned how to exert my will over the sun, that our mother became very ill. She had been increasingly distraught after Father’s disappearance and was always exhausted after using her daily spell of calming harmony. It was like she couldn’t gather the will needed to make others happy anymore. With father gone the land had no true protection from the more dangerous monsters anymore. The races, I’m sure had to defend themselves and that is not the sort of situation one finds happiness in. I was at our mother’s bedside when she…” Celestia hesitated. Even thousands of years had not done enough to dull the pain. It still felt like a dagger had been sent straight through her heart. “…when she moved on. She told me that my sister and I didn’t need to worry about fixing their mistakes. She told me that she had pleaded a deal to save the other races and to protect us (her daughters) in exchange for her. When Luna and I were both much older and stronger we decided to leave the safety of our castle home. We cleared out many of the monsters and drove back the darkness that shadowed the land like a cloak. Eventually all that remained of the darkness was the Everfree Forest and beyond the Equestrian borders.”
Luna continued further, “We hardly found any members of the other races. Only a few stragglers and hermits stayed behind for the most part and they either didn’t know where their kin had gone or they wouldn’t tell us,” She sighed heavily “I miss them sister. They were always such a colorful bunch, especially dear Ben Baggins. He had the greatest sense of humor,” said Luna.
“I miss them too sister but I’ve told you we can’t live in the past. Nothing good ever comes of it.” said Celestia.
The elements of harmony digested the massive revelation of history they had just heard. Twilight was the first to break the silence that filled the room like the unbearable odor of brimstone and smoke that filled the air around most adult dragons.
“So you’re saying that humanity was one of the races that came here looking for a better life then disappeared and that the monsters and weird occurrences are just Equestria returning to its native chaotic state in response to the return of one of these foreign groups.”
“That’s it exactly, my student.” Celestia smiled a little. Twilight’s intellect was still as sharp as ever. “With the human tribe’s return, Equestria is adapting to the humans’ reinsertion by reverting to its primal state.”
Applejack scrunched up her muzzle in confusion. “But your majesty, if’n that’s all true then why does that one human got such a grudge against ya’ll? It sounds like they up’n left on their own, not like they got kicked out by ya.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for that dear Applejack,” replied Celestia. She put one of her forehooves up to her mouth and looked down in concentration. “It’s possible that something went wrong with whatever it was that convinced them to leave or it was only temporary or perhaps something else. I can’t be sure.”
Princess Luna of the Night stood tall then. It was time for action not more standing around and talking. “Sister we dare sayeth that thou should ready Equestria for the worst. We must prepare for the strong possibility of an invasion.” Luna had become serious and was falling back into her ‘Royal’ speaking voice.
“Yes Luna, we should,” Princess Celestia said as she turned back toward the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. “In the meantime I want you six to prepare as best you can. When and if I must, I will call on you to use the Elements of Harmony to stop any aggression from the humans.”
“I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that point Princess,” Twilight said with concern on her face.
Princess Celestia nodded, “I hope so too my little ponies.” She seemed to lose herself in thought.
“I hope so too.”