Mornings were always cold in the Crystal Empire. It wasn't unusual for the air to be a bit nippy.
It was, however, unusual for ponies in the vicinity of the Crystal Palace to be frozen in blocks of ice.
Shining Armor cantered around the palace, panic growing as he found more and more of his guards turned into ice sculptures. "Oh man...Peytral! Maximillian! Genji!" He cried out the names of the frozen guards as he examined each one. "Flash Sentry!" He skidded to a stop in front of the pegasus. Frowning, he reached out and tipped him over. He shattered with a satisfyingly loud crack.
In Shining Armor's head, anyway. In reality, he just rolled around on the floor with a nice, chunky ice-on-glass sound.
He shook his head. "What's going on here?"
Cadance appeared a few feet away in a heart-shaped burst of light. "Shiny!" she cried. "Help!"
"Cadance!" Shining pointed at the frozen guards. "We're under attack! The guards are--"
"Forget them!" Cadance screamed, hiding under her husband.
Shining jumped as her horn goosed him in a particularly tender spot. "What's gotten into you?"
"It's what WANTS to get into me!" Cadance said. At that moment, a hunched, blue-robed man with ice-blue skin, a bushy white beard, and a jeweled crown floated into the room.
"THERE you are, Princess!" he cooed. "C'mon, give us a kiss!"
"EWW! No! Go away, you gross old man!"
Shining stood in between his wife and the intruder, pawing the floor with a hoof and snorting. "Ice King! I should've known. No, really, I should've. I mean, the guards are frozen solid...it's kind of obvious now that I think about it."
Ice King made an annoyed sound. "Hmm. I don't wanna fight you, Shining Armor. You're boring. You're a BORING HERO! You don't deserve a beautiful princess like her!"
A magic bubble snapped into place around the Ice King and began bouncing him around the room. "Whuh...hoo...whuzzah..."
"Don't hurt him too much," Cadance said. "He IS elderly."
"Okay, fine," Shining said. He trotted calmly outside, dribbling the Ice King ball with his magic. Once he had cleared the palace entrance, he reared up into a basketball shooting stance. The Ice King screamed as he was flung out of the Crystal Empire, all the way back to his frozen mountain domain.
"Nice shot," Cadance said, trotting alongside her husband and nuzzling him. "Come on, let's thaw out the guards with the power of our love."
The royal couple gathered up all the frozen guards and levitated them into the throne room. Once all the guards were accounted for, Cadance and Shining Armor started making out. The power of their hot, burning love for each other thawed all the guards except one: Flash Sentry.
Shining Armor scratched his head with a hoof. "Huh. Watching us make out didn't thaw him out."
Cadance frowned. "There's only one sexy pony that can get Flash Sentry all hot and bothered. Your sister."
Shining and Cadance looked at one another.
"Let's go get some breakfast."
"Yeah."
And that's the legend of how Flash Sentry came to be an ice sculpture in the Crystal Palace Gardens.