The Mountain of Shadows
Chapter 1: Legends
Five hundred years ago there was once the kingdom of Astoria, it was ruled by the princess Anora. She was a kind and gentle ruler who loved her subjects and they in turn loved her. The kingdom had been founded in a beautiful valley and had enjoyed a peaceful existence and in the heart was the White Palace said to be the most beautiful palace the world had ever seen. The realm was protected by the Order of Knights led by the Knight Commanders of the Round Stable.
They all were sworn to be the sword and shield of the kingdom to protect the weak and serve with honor and to serve their Princess above all. Their loyalty, skill and courage were without question. But the peace did not last, a terrible evil happened, creatures and monsters some heard of and others who had never been seen before attacked the kingdom. The knights went out to war to protect the kingdom and in this turmoil many legends were forged from their deeds.
But it all came to a dark end, in the final battle when the monsters had managed to surround the palace it was the day everything changed. The Princess had placed a powerful shield over her palace and surrounding town helped by the court mage, The Great Silvermane. They held at bay the dark forces as the knights fought on as they slowly pushed them back. The tide of the war was in their favor but that was when the unthinkable happened.
One of the Knight Commanders who had been tasked with protecting the palace and the Princess broke rank. Golden Shield had been his name, many said he was the most powerful warrior of the Knights of the Round Stable. He took his forces and smashed through the enemy line, breaking them and scattering them as the other legions crashed down on the monsters in the wake of Golden Shield’s attack. It should have been a day of great celebration for the victory but something horrible had happened back at the palace.
Dark clouds grew around it as a dark force seemed to be coming from the once shinning palace. They all rushed back to the palace as the Knight Commanders rushed to their Princess’s side. When they arrived they came upon the sight of their Princess on the ground in the throne room weak and dying as the court mage battled a traitor in their mist.
She was Morgan La Mane, a sorceress of great power and understudy of Silvermane, she had whispered poisoned words into Golden Shield, attacking his great pride and vanity as he chose to charge into battle for glory he felt he was being denied. Without anyone to guard her La Mane had poisoned the Princess to steal her alicorn magic the power La Mane felt she had been denied. Silvermane was only barely holding her back but with the last of her strength Anora used the last of her strength and sacrificing her life to cast a spell to entrap Morgan La Mane.
Although Morgan had taken the power she did not know how to wield it and in that moment of weakness was banished from this world never to be seen again. This last act to save her kingdom from Morgan’s cruel reign but had cost Anora the last of her life.
Soon after Golden Shield had been arrested and put on trial for disobeying orders to stand his ground at the castle, leaving the Princess unprotected, failing his duty to her and to the kingdom. He said nothing in his defense as he stood there a broken stallion the full weight of what his pride had cost not only him but the kingdom he swore to protect and to his brothers and sisters of the Knight Commanders.
He was sentenced to be banished from the kingdom never to return but Silvermane felt it was too light a punishment. He had cast a spell onto him, his glorious white coat turned a deep purple, and his golden mane turned to the blackest of nights even his mark a golden shield was turned pure black.
‘Forever shall you be marked by your sins, for your failures, forever you shall be a shadow of your former self. Let the world know who you are and what your pride has cost us.’ Where the words spoken of the great wizard after the spell had been cast.
Golden Shield was dragged away in chains to the border as he left his home for the last time never to see it again. The Kingdom tried to go on but with no successor on the throne and without leadership over time the Kingdom of Astoria slowly faded from the shining kingdom it once was. It was like the heart of the kingdom had been lost as many slowly started to move to other lands. The Knights did their duty and stayed until the last one of them finally fell to time. By then the kingdom was empty and abandoned and was eventually lost to the ravages of time.
“And that is the story of how the Kingdom of Astoria fell,” Twilight said reading the final page of the book in front of her. She was in her new library of her crystal castle in Ponyville, in front of her were the three young Cutie Mark Crusaders. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle who had come to Twilight for help and were now sitting in front of her.
They were to give a report on something from the history of Equestria but they didn’t know what to report on. So they figured that Twilight with her large new library and given she was most likely the smartest pony they knew would have an idea on something really cool for them to report on.
“So all that really happened?” Scootaloo asked looking up at the princess.
“Yes, in fact I did a report on this very subject myself once in school,” She said with some pride magically closing the book and setting it down between the three young friends. “I was always fascinated by it as it has such a sad ending.”
“Yeah it was but whatever happened to Golden Shield?” Apple Bloom the young earth pony asked next.
“Well that’s up to some debate actually,” She tried to remember the subject as it was also a question she had once and tried to look it up years ago. “There isn’t any hard evidence on what happened, there are reports of sightings of him in various lands never staying for too long but no record of what his final fate was.”
“None at all?” Apple Bloom felt a bit disappointed to hear that. She felt a bit sorry for him, he had been tricked by that Morgan La Mane pony and to never see your friends, family and home again was a punishment she couldn’t imagine having to deal with.
“No I’m sorry,” Twilight took another book and opened it. “There is a legend that he still wonders the world, well one of the legends. Some say that his ghost still wonders looking for a way to redeem himself or trying to find his way home. Some said they found his wondering spirit on the road at night or a phantom flying overhead. Others say that his will was so strong that even after death his shadow still lives.”
“His shadow?” Sweetie Belle gulped at the three looked on with wide eyes.
Twilight tried not to smile as she started to get into the legend. “Yes his shadow roams the lands, some say to take the Cutie Mark of others to replace what happened to his.”
“Take a Cutie Mark?!” The three cried out in unison although they didn’t have theirs yet that was one of the worst things they could imagine.
“Well it’s only a legend,” Twilight finally laughed lightly. “A ghost story like the Headless Horse, there’s no way he’s still around today or his shadow but it’s because of stories like that, that he’s often referred to as Shadow Knight or the Wondering Shadow.”
“So there how come there was no one else to take over the kingdom,” Scootaloo asked next.
“There were no other princesses around to take over,” Twilight explained to her. “Luna was still banished to the moon, Celestia was ruling over Canterlot so she couldn’t leave, there were no other new alicorns that could have taken over and Princess Anora didn’t have any heirs. So with no one to take over the kingdom it slowly fell to ruin.”
“That wouldn’t happen to our home if something happened to you would it Twilight?” Sweetie Belle asked with a look of worry on her for both the village and because she really didn’t want anything to happen to Twilight.
Twilight smiled kindly down to her, “Don’t worry about that, Ponyville existed long before I showed up and just because I’m a princess now doesn’t mean I run Ponyville. I have my own duties and Mayor Mare still runs the place. I only help out when she needs it or when it’s something official I have to do.”
“But a whole Kingdom is a lot different, from what I read that kingdom had been a whole valley filled with ponies. I can only imagine all the confusion that had to have been going on, no one who was in charge and ponies unsure of the future or what to do. It had to be a chaotic time, I did read that Celestia tried to help as best she could but the kingdom was slowly dying without its own leader.”
“It’s kind of sad,” Apple Bloom spoke up looking at the book. “But also kind of cool, it sounded like it was an amazing place.”
“From what I read it was,” Twilight told her remembering the accounts of the slow fall of the kingdom.
“How come there are no more knights?” Scootaloo asked as her eyes shined with the images of ponies in shinning armor like the royal guard.
“Well that’s because the E.U.P. and the royal guards already do the same job,” Twilight explained, “It had been something unique to that kingdom and it fell out of practice over time. Canterlot did used to have a few knights, they were the best of the best and were held as an example to everyone. But over time that too faded away.”
“Aww that’s too bad they sound like they would have been really awesome,” the young Pegasus said. “Were all the soldiers knights in Astoria?”
“For the most part,” Twilight explained to the little orange Pegasus. “You see there were also squires who were in training under a knight to become one, there were regular soldiers as well but the knights were the elite. The Knight Commanders were picked among the best of the best, they each commanded a full legion and they all sat at the Round Stable. The Knights of the Round Stable were said to be legendary ponies.”
“They were?” Sweetie Belle asked next getting a bit more excited on the topic.
“Oh yes in that book you’ll find so many stories about the Round Stable,” Twilight had read those stories herself when she was younger back when her brother had gone off to join the guard she had wanted to learn all there was to the Royal Guard the E.U.P which led into the Knights of Astoria as some of their traditions still existed to this day in the Royal Guard.
“Can we borrow the book?” Sweetie Belle asked her. “I promise we’ll be careful with it.”
“And try not to copy anything from it like say a love poison?” Twilight slyly asked seeing the bashful looks on the three of them.
“We promise, we learned our lesson about that,” Scootaloo told her.
“Well then feel free to take it just bring it back when you’re done,” she told the three of them.
“Okay thanks Twilight!” The three said at once as one of them took the book as the three scampered off to their clubhouse to get started on their history report project.
Twilight could only smile as they ran off, she always enjoyed their company and she really enjoyed teaching them. She sometimes wondered that if she hadn’t gone the route she had in life she might have ended up a teacher like Cheerilee. At any rate she enjoyed her life now, a lot had changed for her in the past few years. She got lots of friends, several best friends, a great sister-in-law, had done so much here and for all of Equestria, had so many adventures and now she was a princess with a title and her own little castle.
Looking back on it all it had been an amazing last few years and she wouldn’t change one moment, well maybe a few less than stellar ones. Getting out of the way of what that moving van when all those things had dropped would have been a nice example.
She looked over her new library, she still missed her old one but now she had all the books from the old castle of the two sisters and Celestia had been nice enough to help replace several books that had been lost. But now she had a lot more room for even more books and she couldn’t wait to start getting to organizing it.
While Twilight was thinking on how to start her new system of keeping her books in order elsewhere in Equestria near the small village of Newberry, it was a village much like Ponyville. A tight nit people who were friendly with each other, they also ran a large berry farming operation hence the name of the town. It also sat near a mountain range that had a small forest growing around it.
It was here that the earth started to shake as a large crack like a giant branch the size of a mountain had just snapped. Those in the village didn’t know what had happened at first it felt like a quake which it was but it had a different effect on the mountains. Rocks, boulders and dirt came loose and in the shadow of the mountains one of the great rocks split from the force.
This split was large as the quake opened up a weak point in this particular mountain side for unlike the other mountains this one held a secret. A secret so that it was old when the world was young, long before the time of the sisters came into being, before Discord and long before the pony tribes were split.
The fissure opened up into a deep dark underground cave that went far deeper than most any cave known in existence. This area had become its own little world being separated from the above ground since time forgot. This dark world wasn’t empty, shadows moved in the darkness disturbed by this sudden event. Light entered the area for the first time not that the inhabitants could see light, if they had ever had sight it was long since gone but they could feel the light. The warmth called to them as slowly the shadows started to move towards this new unknown.
They crawled into the warmth of the sun as their bodies were as black as the darkness night, it was like the light didn’t even touch them. Misshapen creatures of pure blackness, they came in various shapes like they were more like the distant memory of a shape, all misshapen and malformed. Some crawled with two long arms to pull them forward, others walked with multiple legs, a few had wings. They sniffed the air with flat noses like bats.
The faces were just a varied but they all had the same thing in common, they had no eyes to see. Living in the dark for so long if they had had eyes at one point they had been removed long ago the only thing where their eyes had been were just smoothed over areas. Their bodies were smooth and looked to glisten like they were covered in some kind of oil.
The first of them into the light sniffed the outside air for the first time it roared with a high pitch scream that seemed to reverberate in the air, its mouth was a row of sharp slender teeth.
These creatures that time forgot slowly moved out of their underground home as they started to explore this new world and to start to hunt for food.
Back in Ponyville everyone felt the quake, Twilight nearly lost her footing as most of her books came falling down. She kept in the center to avoid being buried, thankfully it didn’t last long as she paused making sure that nothing else was going to happen.
“Twilight!” Spike yelled the young purple dragon as he ran into the room. “Are you okay?”
“Yes thanks,” Twilight looked around suppressing a groan. This was going to take a lot of work but there was no time for that now. “Spike I’m going to go see Mayor Mare and start seeing if there was any damage to Ponyville. I want you to stay here in case anyone shows up, tell them to remain calm, write down any problems and I’ll check in later.”
“Okay Twilight, but I can’t remember the last time we had a quake.”
“They don’t happen often in this part of Equestria which is why I need to make sure every pony is okay.” Twilight ran to the front door. This village wasn’t built with quakes in mind thankfully it wasn’t that strong but there could be some injuries and Princess Celestia would want to be kept informed of anything that happened.
-Canterlot-
In the bedroom of Celestia she was having a fitful night’s sleep, all her life she had been plagued by visions in her dreams. Only her sister knew about them but Celestia had learned to listen to her visions. The only problem was that her visions were never clear, she only got images, sensations, sometimes they were more abstract than up front.
The whole day she had been busy with reports of the quake, there had been some light damage and some injuries but nothing major but it did take a lot to make sure everypony was okay and to go over all the damage reports.
In her dreams she saw a group of mountains she didn’t know them, she only saw a crown of peeks, then she saw a crack in them, a dark crack that felt so cold to her. There was something moving inside of the darkness but she couldn’t see them she could only tell that whatever it was they were dangerous. She saw her subjects being attacked by shadows, her ponies crying out in terror and fear. There was a figure there a tall dark figure. She saw broken armor for a moment and the figure was in a tattered clock of darkness.
She wasn’t sure who this figure was but her dream was telling her that this figure had something to do with it. Either he was (and she was sure it was a he by now) the cause of it or he could lead into helping save the trouble but she couldn’t tell which at this point.
Other images were seen, she saw Twilight and her friends facing the mountain in her dreams with the shadows moving through the forests but there was another figure with them. Her sister Luna was there standing with them. The shadows came at them, they surrounded them and that was when Celestia woke up with a start.
She felt her breathing heavy the sweat on her body as she tried to focus she had to remember as much as she could before the dream faded away again.
“Sister!” Luna ran in, because of Luna’s power to enter the dreams of others she was always aware of when Celestia had her prophetic dreams.
“Luna,” Celestia rubbed her head sometimes the visions gave her headaches and she felt a small one at the moment.
“Sister are you okay?” Luna knew that sometimes the visions could be a strain on her either physical or mental.
“Yes thank you Luna,” She took a breath to compose herself. “How much did you see?”
“I believe I saw enough,” she replied. “There is something either coming or already here.”
“Yes, I didn’t know those mountains did you?” Celestia hoped her sister did but it was a large kingdom and with their responsibilities they didn’t exactly have the ability to get out to view the sights.
Luna shook her head, “I’m sorry I didn’t, I don’t know what these dark shadows are either.”
Celestia got out of her bed not sure if she would even be able to sleep again tonight at least not for long as she went to the large French doors that led to her balcony. She opened them and looked out into the night as she looked over their kingdom. She hated not knowing what was out there or where it was, her visions could be so aggravating sometimes.
They never told her everything only what she needed to know apparently, maybe it was to prevent her from changing things or maybe her mind couldn’t handle more than what was given to her. She never knew where these visions came from or why she got them, over a thousand years she asked herself this.
Their mentor Star Swirl the Bearded had told her that they were a gift from the universe itself, she never was so sure about that some times.
“The shadows are what worry me,” Luna said voicing her thoughts to her elder sister. “You don’t think they are connected to Sombra in any way do you?”
“I hope not,” Celestia knew that he had been dispersed by the crystal heart but neither she nor Luna knew for certain if he was fully gone now. There had been no signs of him but you could never truly know for certain. They thought that they had seen the last of Discord and Tirek but both times they had returned. At least Discord was mostly reformed now but they had no idea what exactly happened to Sombra when the crystal heart had been used.
If the heart had destroyed the last of him then they could rest easy but she didn’t think the heart could be used to destroy. If it had banished his living shadow from this world he might find a way back one day or if it has simply dispersed his power leaving him without a form he may one day reform enough to cause trouble.
Celestia had no idea which one of these three scenarios had played out as she hadn’t seen what happened with her own eyes but she would be on the lookout for any sign of Sombra’s return she would not be caught off guard by him.
“It doesn’t feel like Sombra but we shouldn’t rule him out,” Celestia finally said thinking it over. “Whatever it is you and Twilight with her friends are going to face it.”
“What about that clocked figure?” Luna asked next. “Is he friend or foe?”
“I don’t know,” Celestia didn’t like the thought of her sister going out into danger alone. She had lost her for a thousand years and every night when she had to raise the moon it had been nothing but a constant reminder of what happened. She had only just got her precious sister back and if anything happened, she wasn’t sure she could take losing her a second time.
But Luna was a princess of Equestria as well and she had every right to protect their kingdom as well, her dream also showed that her sister was to play a part in what was going to happen. It was just so infuriating how she could never see entirely what was going to happen. It was because of this she saw how Discord would be needed and that Twilight and her friends would be key in his reform, how she knew to send Twilight to Ponyville, she wanted to do more but she had learned that lesson long ago.
She had tried to go against her dreams, at first she thought they were purely warnings and she had tried something else but in the end it had ended in disaster. After that she knew that her dreams weren’t just prophetic but also a blueprint on what to do. It was like a script of a play, she had to set the players but ultimately it was up to fate.
Oh how she hated having to limit herself like this, she looked at Luna with a slight worry in her eyes that her sister caught.
Luna stepped forward to be next to her big sister, “It will be fine, your dreams have always helped in the past and I am not made of glass dear sister.”
“I just can’t help worry about you Luna,” Celestia unfolded one of her wings and wrapped it over her little sister pulling her close and hugging her. “You are the most precious pony in the world to me.”
“As are you sister,” Luna hugged her back. “But I have a duty to the kingdom and I won’t shy away from it. Your dream showed me with them and I will stand with them.”
Celestia smiled down at Luna she was a lot stronger than she let on plus she knew that Luna had been working hard ever since her return to make up for becoming Nightmare Moon. Celestia had forgiven her long ago but she feared that deep inside Luna hadn’t forgiven herself yet.
“We will have to wait and see what happens, I’ll have the guards start on patrols and be on the lookout for danger.” Celestia already was starting to make plans in her mind. First they would have to find out where these shadows were coming from, from there they would know where to start but it meant they had to wait for the trouble to start. She didn’t like that but her dreams didn’t give a specific location that either of them knew.
“I can start looking over maps of possible mountains,” Luna offered thinking it through. “Those mountains have to be important for a reason. So there has to be a mountain range with a forest somewhere mapped out.”
Celestia nodded at the idea, she would also have to prepare a note to send to Twilight at some point. Looking out into the night the sisters wondered what evil was out there that threatened their kingdom and their subjects.
Next up Chapter 2: Shadows Rising