It has been some time since I put quill to parchment, so let us begin with a simple truth. You, my humble readers, know me as Beloved Craft. You have never sought to see beyond my simple pen name – although I received many letters asking as to how many ponies have held it over the last thousand or so years – and I have found a certain serenity in such anonymity.
The truth – or one version of it – is you may know me as Lord Third Eye the Fifty-second. I am the former royal bard and rumored oracle to Princess Celestia. Oddly enough, I am also supposedly dead after a body identified as mine turned up in a building that collapsed during the wedding of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Shining Armor.
They really should have checked that better. Looking under the horn for a third eye would have been a good start.
Your fathers – whether they are fans of my work or not – may know me as Lord Third Eye the Fifty-first. And your grandfathers would likewise recognize me as Lord Third Eye the Fiftieth. As you may have caught on by now, the pen name Beloved Craft has been passed through my house since the first generation.
Taking the name was mostly done on a whim. I’m certain the original Lord Third Eye never dreamed he would gain any sort of following – however small. The name Beloved Craft was an escape for us. As royal bard it was me and my forerunners job to bring smiles and dance and joy to special occasions.
It was not a particularly good outlet for the darker muse within us, however. The nobility tend to lack a taste for the bizarre and sublime unless it came straight from their own backsides. Anything that cannot be illuminated by their rather dim intelligence is seen as a waste of time: There are only so many heartbeats in the heart to push their precious noble blood through their veins I suppose. Perhaps I should refer them to a specialist.
Last I asked mine I had a few billion left myself. Of course, the price of knowing is to not know. Any true malpractitioner varies his prices without telling.
But that is enough of my petty – if well founded – complaints of the nobles.
As Beloved Craft, I was able to cut loose the shadows within my soul. For this I thank you. You see, it is my firm belief that by plumbing the abyss within our minds we can often reach an enlightenment and tranquility beyond what we find in the light of day. Every light – no matter how bright – holds a bottomless kernel of darkness folded within its brilliant depths.
To ignore that darkness is to invite disaster – such as when the supposedly omniscient Celestia failed to fully heed my warnings on Nightmare Moon.
I hope you enjoy my stories, gentle readers, and that you plunge into the strange and dark. Travel through the not-quite fires of Tartarus and damnation. Emerge from the abyss a better pony than walking in gentle Harmony’s light would ever grant. Never would I wish you to ever truly leave that light, but my stories grant you dark illusions and fancies – gardens in which to grow.
I digress, however, for in my current musings I lie to you even as I finally speak the truth.
I have written so many stories over the years – this volume may be my final one – and I no longer am sure of what is truth and fiction myself. Some stories were pure fiction. Some stories left me trails of victims to find. And some stories I lived through myself.
But of all the strange and fanciful monstrosities I have written of, there is one I know to be true. I am intimately familiar with one of them, because I am one of them. They are not the truest of my stories. Old habits die hard I guess. I am, however, one of what many of you think of as the Veiled Ones.
You, my readers, think of me as an unseen weaver of secrets and lies and illusions.
I think of myself as a changeling. My name – by the Azure Veil I can’t remember my full name anymore – was Father Arachne I believe. I am one-thousand four-hundred and twenty-three years old, and I am the last of House Arachne. I won’t bore you with the details, and I will let you guess how many Third Eyes there actually were.
I felt a confession to be necessary, however, because of a very interesting phenomenon in Ponyville.
The Veiled Ones are starting to crawl from the shadows once more. The monsters I’ve been creating stories and rumors of are here, and you’re horribly uninformed on them.
They are not actually creatures of vast and unimaginable eldritch power.
They may actually be pleasant – if they are not the typical backstabbing lord.
And they do actually have everyday interests.
I think you already know mine. You’re reading them after all.