Dawn cracked, and, as such, the sun was high in the sky. The steam-mobile was parked on a gravel road separating a swamp from the desert that surrounded Horsetown. Hot was asleep on the couch. He was sitting on the bed. The bed was comfortable, and he was just as slightly tired as ever, but he didn't try to sleep. He didn’t want to take the bed, but hot insisted, out of politeness, at least until they bought another mattress, at least as long as he was still a guest.
He had turned on a light and read all night.
Commander whatever-his-name-was had died when a single unicorn struck the city. The evacuation of old cloudsdale was as easy as falling through the ground. A single pony wasn’t considered cause for evacuation. Half the support clouds of Old Cloudsdale were filled with poison or explosion magic and the military base was burnt with the commander inside. The unicorn was caught and slain, but managed a high body count and basically destroyed the architecture. Over a few months, the magic-charged clouds were replaced and dispersed. The Old Cloudsdale civilian population adopted the phrase “Cloudsdale rises above” as a banner of pride in their survival. With a large portion of the pegasus soldiers and all of those few in line to take command of this lightly organised military dead, survive was a good word for it.
There was no consensus among any of the other groups about this event. Some ponies were outraged at the attack. Some other ponies raised flags with the reported colors of the unicorn. Since only a few pegasi actually saw him, the colors varied. Numerous fights broke out about flags. Some of those flags weren’t even intended to have anything to do with the unicorn, but ponies mistook them for support anyway.
Seven summers after arrival in Equestria, the ponies were struck.
The first enemy to come through that snowy border in full force was The Rolling Stone. The Rolling Stone was either a creature or a magical object created in the old world, so no pony fully understands it. It was a small white rock and it was believed to steal souls. Every time it killed something, it would create a blue silhouette of that thing. The silhouette of the last thing it killed would normally surround the stone, offering protection. The other spirits would move freely, but seemed to have no will of their own. Unless all the spirits under it’s command were slain, it seemed untouchable. It slaughtered two villages before news spread.
Against the pleading, commanding, and demanding of every pony who thought they were in charge at the moment, nearly every village near the destroyed villages evacuated to the most defendable nearby place: Stalliongrad fortress. Stalliongrad had been one of the better attempts at making an Equestrian capital city. It had already been under siege three times by Equestrians. Before “The Attack of the Stone,” it was under siege again.
Thousands of wingless peasants camped outside of the stone brick wall of Stalliongrad fortress. About three thousand could have reasonably been fit inside. Around a thousand sat behind it’s closed fortress gates. Always, there were ponies pulling on bricks or trying to climb. Stalliongrad’s walls were self repairing, due to magic arrays and a great crystal core which sat in the center of the fortress. Ponies were easily removed from the walls using long sticks, and none had anticipated a need for siege tools.
After two days, The Rolling Stone arrived.
Before sun-up, a group of ponies spotted a blue glow coming down from the northern mountains. They spread the word and most ponies were packed up and shuffling nervously near the gates, or already running, by sunrise. Blue silhouettes emerged from the northern treeline. The remaining peasants started running away, along the fortress wall, and it looked like they would surely be caught. Then, the blue silhouettes walked through the walls of Stalliongrad Fortress.
Some peasants rejoiced as specters began snapping necks, inside. As those inside the fortress died, Spirits began pouring out from a point in front of the treeline. A lone unicorn stallion had remained at the gates. He wielded magic that modern ponies would call forbidden. Miasma floated out from his eyes. A life eating gem rose from the ground at his command. Magical beams fired from the gem, leaving small grey stones behind. These “null stones” impede magic, and any parts of a ghosts that got too close to the stones would disappear. The pink gem was essentially a medium for casting, and the unicorn used it to cast an anti-gravity spell on themselves before jumping through the air. Once he was above The Rolling Stone, he commanded the gem to cover his own hooves in grey “null stone,” and fell to the ground, shattering The Rolling Stone.
The silhouettes had already come through the other side of the fortress. The quick destruction of The Rolling Stone saved most of the retreating peasants. The life-eating gem fed on the spirits as they faded, and would have used the energy to grow, multiply, and cover the region for a time. The gets would have compelled the unicorn who made them to collect more souls, sending him on a murdering spree, but the sudden influx of death was great enough to instead cause the unicorn to faint and the pink gem to shatter. He woke up as a magicless martyr, though he would eventually forcefully remove the grey stones, getting his magic back. This event began the dark age.
This age consisted of a very long list that he could not be bothered to remember of groups who pretended to stand for a very wide set of values, and insane wizards, all trying to gain and maintain power. After “The Attack of the Stone,” there was a sudden spike in unicorn fillies and colts who had an interest in using magic for exceptional heroics. As a result, there was a sudden increase in death related cutie marks and reckless combat magicians who used easy to learn and effective spells without understanding the costs. When you have a skull and crossbones cutie mark and magic, bad things tend to happen.
A month after “The Attack of the Stone,” giant spiders were on the march. The pegasi were still trying to reinstitute another chain of command, and couldn’t mount a valid defense. The pegasi were in as much disarray as the rest of the country. However, they had created a system of border lookouts and it provided early warning of the impending invasion.
To slow them down, the pegasi placed a snow blanket in the way of the spiders. As should have been predicted, they had snow shoes. Another village fell and Stalliongrad became the new northern border. Stalliongrad had a fortress. Under the leadership of the unicorn from “The Attack of the Stone,” they had set up a relatively organized government. They were economically ahead of the rest of Equestria. They had also set up a better evacuation system and militia. They were ready, and they defeated the spider forces.
There were many more such attacks over the next ten years.
Stalliongrad, which was quickly becoming the center of Equestria that it was built to be, became a center of untrained wizards with cutie marks in death as well as hopeful heroes from the other two tribes. The property and ecological damage that this resulted in was staggering and uncountable, but the surviving fighters were forces to be reckoned with. For a time, it was nearly the case that the highest law in Equestria was the judgment of wondering, opinionated youths with disproportionate fighting ability. As a result, the land’s natural beasts, monsters, and geography were quickly forced to manageable threat levels. Thanks to this strange combination of prosperity, protection, and danger, by the year “00010”, Equestria was filled with young ponies.
That year, in the month of “forpendu”, the town of Saddylon’s population disappeared along with half of the unicorn council. These disappearances were unexplained at the time, but it is now believed that a large hive of changelings was responsible. To do this, they would have to have been transforming to look like ponies and replacing them for years. This may explain the early Equestrian difficulty with creating working social structure.
With the loss of half of their members, the unicorn council had to begin importing magically charged gems and began to let in less skilled members so that they could maintain the day/night cycle. They wished to host a school to train young unicorns. Magic was a powerful force connected to emotions. The unicorn council believed that magic should not be used without understanding and care, lest the magic user should lose themselves to voices in their heads. While Equestrian villages were willing to pay tribute for a day/night cycle, education was seen as a luxury.
By this time, many of the self taught unicorns had come into prominence to such a degree that two of them had influence on par with the tribe themed organizations. Effectively, emotionally unstable ponies were gaining political and magical power. A few lesser “dark lords” took interest in the crumbling unicorn council, seeking to control it and gain their own power. If one of them could control the knowledge in the unicorn council library and control the sun and moon, they could get away with far more.
No one is sure when the crystal empire was founded. All that we know is that, in the middle of a permanent, snowy tundra, there was a large city made entirely out of magic gems. A young unicorn on the council who studied, but didn’t use, dark magic reported the existence of the empire to the unicorn council and a trade route was created so that gems could be supplied.
The book detailed the rise and fall and clash of many political leaders. He didn’t really care for their individual stories. The sun had been out for a good half hour and Hot was still asleep.
He put up his book and left the bedroom. He approached Hot’s sleeping form, curled up on the couch with a pillow on his head and his nose pressed up against his back hoof. His mouth was open and he was softly breathing.
“Hey,” he said. “Hey, there’s a sun out there. You can see things for stuff doing.” He poked the pillow. “Hey.”
“Ooooh, please no. For the love of Luna, whyyyy?” Hot groaned. “I will burn everything, everywhere, for all of time.” Hot curled tighter and pressed his forehooves into the top of his pillow.
He backed away quietly.
Hot pushed himself into the corner of his couch with a back hoof. “Uuuaahhe,” Hot flipped over, leaving his pillow under him. After a moment, he opened an eye “Luna, dammit.” Hot got up and trotted into the kitchen section of the cabin. He opened a refrigerated box and started digging around in it. “Oh, tell me he didn’t.” He kept digging. “Got a bucking early bird, what the moon was I thinking? Yes!” He pulled out an orange and held it up, letting the fridge-box lid slam back down. He bit into the side of the orange, eating it and the peel. Juice dripped. He remained sitting, hunched over the orange and facing away. When it was gone, he breathed in and out.
He trotted to the wall with an extended hoof and pressed it into the wall, which moved out of his way. “C’mon, let’s go.”
He picked up his sword and followed.