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// Chapter 2 - How not to foal-sit 
// Story: Crystal Empire Chronicles 
// by Northern Course 
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Sleep use to be something Crimson enjoyed. The few moments he had to rest his mind without worry. No pony could have sleep well after the heart breaking news. His dreams had become nightmares. 

In the nightmare, Crimson was in a deep black darkness. In the darkness was the outline figure of another pony. Crimson found this pony very familiar to him. He knew him, but trying to make out his face, caused great pain. This “stranger” stood at a good distance away from Crimson.

“This is just the beginning. In the end the empire will fall, and it will be your fault” the stranger said, as the darkness began to fade away, and Crimson was surrounded by the ruins of a great crystal palace.


Crimson jumped awake in hot sweat, as if his heart had skipped a beat. His window was angled in the right position that the sun would directly hit his face. Some days he just loved that feeling, and this was one of those days. Crimson’s eyes shot open and he was blinded for a moment from the sunlight. It was painful on his eyes, but a good wake up call. 

He got his body out of bed, placing his hooves on the floor. “Another bad dream again” Crimson said placing his hoof over his eyes and squeezed the ridge of his nose, trying to sort out the pain he had throbbing through his head. He fixed his eyes on the window, and reached his head out to look down upon the empire. Looking out his small window, he could see the shine the empire, or what was left of the shine. “Crystal Ponies, if this continues they won’t be ‘crystal’ anymore” he said, even taking note of his own coat’s lack of shine.

After taking the moment to gather his thoughts, Crimson began to get his room ready for him leaving. He folded his sheets, and gathered his research papers. He was about to leave with his research bag when he remembered it wasn’t a necessary need for his new job. Head Crystal Heart Researcher to Royal Foal-sitter. Kind of seems like a demotion Crimson thought as left his room, shut and magically sealed his door. His finally thought before heading out were we’ll see if it is.



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As he stood outside the royal’s quarters, looking at the two sets of guards stood outside. It was hard to ignore the feeling of messing with guards who stood with such lack of movement. Crimson reached out to the door, but stopped as he was about to touch the door with his hoof. He looked at the guards, who looked at him very questionably. 

“Ummmm… would you two…” said Crimson as he motioned his hoof back and forth as to ask them to open the doors. It was not he couldn’t do it himself, he just didn’t want the chance that the guards could misunderstand what exactly he was doing. The guards looked at each other with a sort of confusion. One finally pushed his hoof out, opening the first door and the other followed suit.

“Thank you… guard ponies” said Crimson as he waved back to them as he entered the room. I should really learn their names thought Crimson, taking the mental note and slamming it in to his mind as hard as could.

“Ah Crimson, you’re here” said Stratege delightfully, standing next to his daughter’s crib, the princess still sleeping, curled up in a lovely blanket. “Come in here” Stratege said waving his hoof to invite Crimson in. Walking into the room, Crimson couldn’t but help take notice over the room overstocked with foal supplies. “We had a lot of work putting all of this together” Stratege said taking notice of the rotation to Crimson’s head.

There was a knock at the door and a voice called out “Majesty, you are expected in the throne room”. “Very well, I will be off very shortly” said Stratege to the voice at the door. 


“Everything you will need is in this room. Anything that we somehow missed, ask the guards to get it for you. I’ll be back tonight. Look after her” Stratege said. Those last three words he said as if it was a threat.

“Alright, off I go sweetie. Have a good day” Stratege said quietly as he could, as he lightly kissed his daughter on the forehead and made his way out to leave, before giving Crimson a look of “do your job right”. He levitated his crown from the windowsill and onto his head and left accompanied by his two guards.

Crimson was left alone with the sleeping foal. “Well, what am I supposed to do now?” 

It had been years since he had even see his sister’s, let alone the years before that when he took care of them as foals. When he looked down at the crib, he saw the princess was in fact awake.

“Well hello princess, good morning” Crimson said with the kindest tone that his voice could produce.

The foal looked carefully over Crimson, to the point she even rubbed her sleepy eyes to get a better view of vision. Almost in response to the fact she was seeing a face she did not recognize, the princess started crying. Crimson was shocked by this, to the point he stepped back as if to show he wasn’t threatening. In his mind this was a ridiculous idea, as if the foal is going to understand this. Stepping back however caused one of his back hooves to make contact with a very round ball. This then caused him to slip and fall onto his back.

As he felt the aching pain of his back being stabbed by the several toys that were lying on the ground, each with different shapes which somehow made things worse, he couldn’t help but notice that the cries of the princess had been replaced with gleeful laughter.

“She likes it when I feel pain. Fantastic, she will grow up to be an excellent tyrant” Crimson said painfully as he lifted himself off of the floor. A few toys had however stuck themselves to his back. 

Please don’t start crying again Crimson thought, as he went to look over the princess again. This time however he saw her smiling up at him. The foal even lifted her hooves onto the top bars of the crib. She kept one hoof on the bar and with the other; she reached out to touch Crimson’s face. Crimson couldn’t help but smile at the sight. He pulled his face in so she could touch it. 

There was suddenly a rumbling sound that erupted from her belly, and this sound and feeling still felt strange. The princess shifted her body on the bed rail away from Crimson and towards the table next to the crib. Crimson looked to the table to his left that the foal was reaching out to with her hooves. He saw various things such as a book, several amounts of toys, and a feeding bottle. “You’re hungry aren’t you?”

The foal grabbed the bottle and wrapped her entire body around it, as if it was hugging it. The bottle was almost as big as her. Crimson watched as the foal drank down the entire bottle. “Don’t worry; I’ll get use to this again, eventually” said Crimson as he took the empty bottle out of her grip by using his magic. He set the bottle down. He then used his magic to pick her up and leaned her over his shoulder and began pat her back to help her burp.


This is a lot simpler than I remember… although the fact she’s not a unicorn with untapped magical potential, well that’s something Crimson thought thinking about what few horrible moments he had doing this exact job with his little sisters.

“Whatever you do, please don’t magically grow a horn and turn me into a small animal to play with” Crimson said pleading to the foal in his hooves. Crimson thought to himself that, even through that was an complete impossibility, it was better safe, than being turned into a small puppy and dragged by your tailed by one of the most cruel foals to ever walk the earth.

Crimson’s nose caught a whiff of some horrible smell. “Some pony needs changing”. He picked up the princess and sat her down on one of the tables in the room. Crimson shuffled his hooves through various supplies around the room. 

The process of changing a diaper was very nostalgia to him, but changing diapers is not a very fun experience, so it would be like riding a rusty bike. Crimson kept repeating the process of diaper changing through his head over and over. Almost turning it into a repeated rhyme, and in the process, Crimson came to a realization.

“I think we’re going to get along just fine” said Crimson. Crimson magically lifted the dirty nappy and moved to the bin on the opposite end of the room. As Crimson turned around after deposing of the nappy, his brain took a slight mental lapse of sanity as he tried to process what was happening before. He turned his head and looked around the entire room. He looked up at the ceiling, he looked over the floor, he looked at every corner, every object that had some sort of space in it and even around his feet.

“Princess? Where did you go?” Crimson said with a smiling expression which slowly turned into a face of pure terror. He again scanned his eyes over the entire room again in a panic.

THIS IS NOT HAPPENING. THIS IS MY FIRST DAY Crimson screamed through his thoughts.


“Wait no stop and think rationally… I’ve got no time to pack my saddle bags”
“No no no, where did she go, logically she has to be somewhere”
“Although I hear the griffon kingdoms have a fantastic weather schedule this time of year”


Sounds of objects bouncing and breaking came from the royal chambers. As Crimson rushed towards into the next room, not seeing or remembering that the door was closed, and the force of his horn slamming into the door created a large cracking sound. Crimson took his horn out of the new crack in the door. He opened and jumped into the other room. He was not prepared for what he saw. 

What he saw was the small princess, sitting on the pillow of her mother’s crown, and sucking on the jewel of said crown. Crimson was glad to some degree that she was too young to even comprehended how sad this situation was. Although the one thing on Crimson’s mind was how she got into the room.


“I hit my head against that door and the… Window... is open” Crimson had forgot one very important aspect of this job. He was very used to dealing with ‘evil’ unicorn foals. In his panic he forgot that the princess was a Pegasus. Although the very idea of her flying at such a young age was just ridiculous, but Crimson did not know much about the wing usage of a Pegasus at foal age. I should really start reading books on this subject thought Crimson.

“Why don’t we just keep this little adventure between us, shall we?”

“Now why don’t we let go of this” Crimson said as put his hoof on the crown to pull it away.

The look of the princess’s face was not of amusement as Crimson started pulling her new favorite toy away from her. She pulled her small body over the crown, even extending her small wings out and over Crimson’s side of the crown.

“Just let go. You’ll get your own crown when you grow up” said Crimson, generally having to struggle between getting the crown out of her hooves, and not making her cry.

“Don’t make me have to use my magic on you” Crimson warned her, knowing he could quite easily when this battle. Crimson liked to say he fast learner. It was true. More to say that he saw the princess’s tell-tale signs of “I’m about to cry”.

“Okay, keep it, keep it” Crimson said taking his hoof off of the crown and backing away to the middle of the room. He looked around, and took notice of a few key objects. He took some paper, a lighting crystal and some string used to tie up scrolls.

He made sure that the little princess was aware that he was doing something, but just that she couldn’t see what he was doing.

“Your crown good, but mine so is much better” Crimson said as he turned to the princess to show he was wearing a crown made of paper. There was a crystal tied to the very top of the creation. Crimson magically lit up the small crystal, which created an array of lights much like a disco ball.

The princess at the sight put down the crown and leaned forward over the edge of the desk. In a single moment, Crimson lunged forward in order to catch her. The small princess landing on Crimson’s head as his horn stopped just before hitting the leg of the desk. “That was too close” Crimson said as he felt amount of relief, just to remember that not even an hour has passed since he began today.

“This is going to be a long day” Crimson said as he had a small princess on top his head, who was trying to fit a very large paper hat over her own head.



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After much time passed, most of which involved Crimson taking great precaution of not taking the princess out of his sight, there was a knock at the door. Crimson taking as much precaution as possible made sure that the princess was in view as moved towards the door in the next room.

“Yes, what is it” Crimson said using his magic to open the door, his back faced to it, and eyes still square on the princess. “Crimson, a letter has arrived for you” the guard said reaching out his hoof holding said letter, with an obvious confused look. 

Crimson giving one quick motion of his eyes, took reference to where the letter was and used his magic to levitate the letter towards him. “Thank you” Crimson said as he practically slammed the door in the guard’s face.

Crimson returned to the princess’s room, opened the letter and began reading.

Crimson, short message but I wanted to get this to you as quick as possible.
I was doing my regular scan of the area, when I noticed a very particular pink flying object circling the area around the royal quarters.
Below find a sketch detailing what I believe the object to be. 
Sincerely the pony that for the next two months, you will be getting those really good baked muffins down at Cookie Cutter’s bakery, you know the delicious ones with crystal berries which sell out like really early in the morning.

Keen Eye



The letter did in fact come with a very crude drawing of the crystal palace, and what looked like a small pink Pegasus flying next to it. It did also contain a little sketch of a smiling pony’s face next to a muffin right at the bottom right corner of the page.

“I take back what I said. Being a puppy would be more preferable” said Crimson as he crumbled up the letter in anger. His anger was short lived as his mind seemed to realize the princess had disappeared from sight from where he held the letter up to read. The very thought of that being a regular accurst had Crimson worried. Very worried.

“She is going to keep doing that, isn’t she?” Crimson said as he heard an assortment of noises coming back again from the royal quarters. 

“At least she’s using the open door”