Arcane Lore wandered the streets of Moongleam. The streets were swarming with these oddly-armored batponies who call themselves Kro'Kron. Everything seemed so different from when Luna was in command. He hoped she would come back soon. It was like Moongleam had turned into one huge military fortress. The zebras, buffalo, changeling forsaken, sunwell unicorns,strangely intellegant dogs, and even the lions were all being closely monitored. This was troubling for him as he was a sunwell unicorn. Although he had been pretty lucky in this regard.
Like a lot of sunwell unicorns, Arcane was an adept mage. He had trained for a long time and gotten better and better, taking on more and more powerful creatures. He had spent much time on Lionus and had even been a part of slaying the Mantid Empress when the nightmare of fear had taken hold of her, but that's another story for another time.
Things had always been a mess since Starlight Weaver took over, but never like this. Arcane whistled, and his faithful drake came to him.He mounted, and they flew off to their destination. It wasn't that long of a walk, but he flew there if only for convenience. The Valley of Strength was busy with trade as always. His destination was in the Valley of Honor. A place with a few lions. One of them was casting a portal to Lionus. He wanted to travel there, to see the Vale of Eternal Blossoms just one more time. He went through the portal into the peaceful little lion village at the end of it and took flight for The Vale. He had no warning of what awaited him.
MEANWHILE
As Princess Luna sailed for home, she wondered how Starlight has been managing the Republic. He was fairly young. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to put somepony so headstrong and brutish in charge. As she wondered, she thought she saw a batpony in the distance, flying towards her ship. It got closer and closer until it could be heard.
" Princess Luna! Princess Luna!" The batpony landed on the deck.
" What have you come so far to tell me?"
" The heart of Sha has been awakened."
" Oh no, this is a serious problem. Thank you for reporting it to me. She wondered, who could want to unleash the most powerful nightmare force.
" There's more Princess. It seems that Starlight Weaver may be the culprit Him and his Kro'Kron were all seen in The Vale of Eternal blossoms before the heart was unleashed. He was seen dumping a casket into the pools. Zecora advises you do not dock in Moonbeam."
Luna gave the batpony a glance " I'll make sure of it"
And with that, the messenger flew away.