//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: The Cutie Map's Quest 
// Story: The Time Before 
// by LegitTheKid 
//------------------------------//

	Princess Celestia lowered the sun into the horizon while her sister, Princess Luna, raised the moon in place of the sun. For it was the end of another day in Equestria. After this, the two sisters went to sleep in their bedrooms in Canterlot castle. Though almost everypony else in Equestria was already asleep. In Ponyville, the lights were turned off in every home, and everypony asleep in their comfortable beds. However, this was not entirely the case in the princess of friendship's castle. Spike and the mane six were already fast asleep in the castle, as they all decided to stay there for the night, except for Twilight Sparkle, the princess of friendship herself. At this early hour, she was preparing to read.
It was not unusual for her to read, as reading was one of her favorite things to do. She had at this point been a princess for quite a while, and therefore had many responsibilities. This left her little time to herself, so she often stayed up later than everypony else reading in the comfort of her own bed.
The night had just started moments before. Twilight Sparkle was walking down the hall of her castle, her hooves making a 'clop clop' sound on the shiny floor below. The night sky looked beautiful through the tall windows of the castle, and the chandeliers were still on, reflecting on the floor. Besides the sound of her own hoofsteps, it was completely silent. After about a minute of walking, she made it to the door of her bedroom. She opened it with her magic, and walked into her room, closing the door quietly behind her. She walked to her bed and slumped down on it. The alicorn let out a short sigh. She was happy to be in her cozy bed, as it wasn't all the time that she was able to lay down in it and just relax. She levitated a book from her nightstand titled Canterlot: Equestria's Capital. Twilight had bought the book from a bookstore in Ponyville the previous day, but was just getting to read it that night, since she was busy the night before. The book was quite big, which made sense. It was also a book about Canterlot's history, written as a storybook, which is what the shop owner had told her when she bought it. Twilight hadn't read much about Canterlot's history in quite some time. At least, not like this. The last time she remembered having to recite Canterlot's history was in school when she was just a filly. It was going to be nice to catch up on a subject she had not had anything to do with in many years.
Twilight lit the candle and opened the book with her magic, starting on page 1, which was just about on who wrote the book and when it was made and other various pieces of information. She didn't care about that, so she turned to the next page, which revealed the table of contents. It was a long list that went on for four pages. The first chapter started on page 12, so she skipped to that page. The candlelight shined dimly on her book. Not so dim that it was hard to see, but not so bright that it lit up the entire room. When she got to that page, it showed the title of the chapter, which was named Existence. She read the chapter, which went on about how Equestria came into existence. It was an interesting read, as it showed that a deity named Tarvas created what would later be called Equestria and all its beings by turning most of its power into the land of Equestria and all other lands, which were mysteriously caged off from Equestria, and as the book said, ...the other parts of the world will not be covered nor mentioned again in this book. Then Tarvas went on to create all its creatures, starting with plants, then land animals, then sky animals, then ocean animals, and finally, ponies, which were created in his own image, as well as to be superior over the other creatures. He created three races, and made himself unique from all the rest.
After reading this chapter, Twilight was very interested. It was a moderately long chapter, and she was starting to get tired, but she wanted to see what would come next. So she continued.
The next chapter was titled Hearth's Warming. Twilight already knew what Hearth's Warming was, but she continued anyway. It said that the three main races, earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns, did not get along at first. The pegasi were responsible for weather, but in order to do that, they wanted food that earth ponies grew, which required weather control and some magic, which only unicorns could provide. But the unicorns demanded from both races. And on top of this, Tarvas, who was an alicorn, was the king of Equestria and did nothing to stop the conflict between the three races. Mistrust festered between the three races, and one day a mini ice-age, causing uncontrolable blizzards and making the races stop cooperation altogether. Famine hit, and the three tribes began fighting, which was not something they normally did before. Eventually the conflict and source of blizzards was stopped when the tribe leaders found out that monsters called windigos were feeding off their races' negative energy, and decided that fighting among each other did no good to any side. They bonded as allies, and created the Fire of Friendship, which did away with windigos and uncontrollable blizzards. The races created the nation of Equestria, and every year they celebrated the bonding and made the holiday, Hearth's Warming, which is Equestria's oldest holiday.
At this point, Twilight was feeling tired. The two chapters were long, and it was at least midnight. She decided to read more tomorrow if she had time, or just do what she normally did and read more the next night. She closed the book and levitated it back onto the nightstand and blew out the candle. She snuggled into her covers then closed her eyes, and slowly drifted off to sleep.

Twilight Sparkle woke up with a jolt, instantly waking up. It felt like somepony was pushing against her flank. She looked down and there was a light coming from there, shining through her blanket. She instantly pulled it off, revealing that her cutie mark was flashing.
It was from the map.
She hesitated no longer and got out of bed. She only felt slightly tired, despite it being about 3 in the morning. She walked out of her room, and shielded her eyes from the blinding light. She squinted her eyes and then went into a slow run down the hall, then downstairs, to the throne room, where she was surprised to see Rainbow Dash down there as well, with her cutie mark shining as well.
"You woke up with your cutie mark flashing too?" Twilight asked.
"Yeah." Rainbow Dash replied. The confusion in her voice showed that she was just as weirded out by this as Twilight was.
"I guess the map has a mission for us."
"Maybe we should look at it?"
"Certainly." Twilight said as she slowly trotted to the table. Rainbow Dash followed behind, flying just a few feet off the ground. They got to the table and a map of Equestria appeared on it. Soon after, it showed where they needed to be. But this time, it did it in a strange way. It zoomed into a group of houses in Canterlot. It then proceeded to pinpoint a certain house.
"Canterlot?" Rainbow Dash asked, still sounding confused.
"I guess that's where we're supposed to be."
Rainbow Dash rubbed her eyes. "Alright then. I guess we had better get moving."
"Okay." Twilight said, sounding tired. "But first I'm going to write a note for the others. We wouldn't want them to wake up and find us missing."
"Okay, makes sense." Rainbow Dash sluggishly flew to her throne and sat down. "Whenever you're ready."
Twilight took a sheet of paper from a drawer in the table. She always kept paper in there, in case of a situation where she needed to write something down. Now was that time. She grabbed a feather pen and ink from the same cabinet and used magic to write down a quick message to the others.
If you find Twilight and Rainbow Dash missing, don't worry. We were woken up by the cutie map in the middle of the night and sent to Canterlot on a mission. We will be back as soon as possible. Sincerely, Twilight.
"Okay, I'm finished. Now lets go." Twilight put down her note on the table, and place the feather pen and ink back in the drawer.
"Right behind you, Twi." Rainbow Dash got up from the throne and followed Twilight out of the palace.