Lost of thoughts

by CraftAids


Titans don't survive.

By 00100, Equestria was at war with the griffins, minotaurs, zebras, spiders, mer-ponies, dragons, donkeys, and frogs. Equestria was also at a sort of civil war. Nearly all power was in the hooves of those unicorns who would take it by force. The city of old cloudsdale still stood because it had co-operated with the unicorn council to create clouds which were somewhat resistant to magic tampering and which the cloudwalking spell would not work on. The council itself stood because no lord was willing to stand for another possessing it. The Crystal Empire was still trading gems to the council mostly because their leaders had been replaced.

In 00010, adults had remembered the grudges of the past while their children had remained mostly ignorant. At that time, the Hearth’s Warming message of unity seemed to be slowly defeating the “three tribes” mentality. Now, everyone knew that unicorns were dicks and overpowered. In 00010, fillies and colts looked up to heros. In 00100, some villages would crush unicorns at birth.

While no unicorn school of safe casting had ever been created, individual lords would take apprentices. Due to this practice, fewer died in the early days of training. Sometimes, lords would have births monitored, in case the result was a unicorn. Their power seemed secure.

In 00102, a warrior with no horn or wings appeared. Her name was Crinkle Snout, and her weapon of choice was a kitchen knife. Wherever she went, she left villages with no leaders. Wizards and apprentices were left in pools of their blood. Word of her exploits spread, and lords made the best defences they could for themselves. She was reported to simply walk through illusions and patrols. No trap or magic array ever caught her. Her strikes slipped past attempted blocks. Arrows and spells simply missed, even if some rube goldberg coincidence had to conveniently put something in the way at the last moment, and she would always finish in a single strike. They expected a fight with a berserker or a potion-guzzler or an enchanted item wielder. Instead, a moment would come where they yawned in their dining room, or where they sneezed when walking around a corner, or where they looked left first instead of right, and she would be there. “If Crinkle Snout came in the dead of the night, or mid-afternoon, or in the open sunlight, and carried her call in her mind for your head, it was hers, then, or so ponies had said.” There seemed to be no way to even argue with a fate like that, and no way to win that argument if you could.

The power vacuum this caused was catastrophic. Heavy breeding had been encouraged often, with almost no education.They were used to the structure of an uncontested totalitarian dictator. They mostly spent their freedom eating everything and breaking everything else, and were quickly captured by competing lords.

That unicorn who had originally pointed out the existence of the Crystal Empire was the oldest member of the unicorn council. He smashed his own horn before replacing it with a modified dark, soul-eating crystal. His plan had been to use the horn to cast magic without repercussions. It worked, but caused worse, permanent violent cravings.

The oldest living unicorn began claiming the lands and ponies of lords who fell to Crinkle Snout. None could directly oppose him. His body could melt into black mist and had reverted in age, and he could cast dangerous spells without creating mediums. Early in his reign, he took over the Crystal Empire.

Over time, he reportedly became less coherent and sane. In spite of this, Crinkle Snout refused to hunt him down. “That isn’t how this goes,” she said.

Under his rule, enemy nation’s forces and settlements were removed from Equestria. Old Cloudsdale was compressed and attached to the side of a mountain. This ended the Old Cloudsdale resistance. A stone platform was build around the cloud, then a palace was built on the platform, then the library of the unicorns was moved into the palace. He named the platform “Canterlot.”

One day, Crinkle Snout gained the attention of the Stalliongrad locals by taking the current figurehead’s life. There was an illustration of her standing on a large rock, with the sun behind her. Once everypony had gathered, she stated, “There is nothing else to be done.”

With a snap, confetti and balloons burst from a single point, and a high pitch buzz-whine filled the air. When the mess cleared, a serpent had appeared. It’s body was covered in either eagle feathers or brown fur. It had a red fish - or dragon- tail, and a head halfway between a dragon and a horse. It had one bat wing and one bird wing, one wavy horn and one branching antler, one lion paw and one eagle claw, and one bull leg and one lizard leg. He was floating on far-to-small wings in a tuxedo. “I disagree!” he declared. “But, if you insist.” He snapped his claw and she stopped existing. Before that large crowd, Discord began his reign.

The dark king did not directly confront Discord. Against a pony, or a mountain, or a lake, Discord was essentially unopposed. Where he went, he left creepy, mutated wildlife, edible objects, porcelain food, soapy roads, and all manner of things that might be marginally funny if they didn’t have any consequences which one cared about. He left ponies broken, mentally, weather it was done by causing betrayals or frustrations or by just altering their minds with magic. The book stated that records from that time were rare and often inaccurate, but the Crystal Empire was mostly untouched. Discord seemed to be a mostly harmless, all-powerful menace.

By 00150, the dark king’s influence was pushed back until it only contained the Crystal Empire. It was then that two ponies named Celestia and Luna, who were referred to as beloved rulers, appeared. Celestia was white and Luna was blue and they had both wings and horns. They emerged with six magic gems. The gems were called “The elements of harmony.” They acted like the gems made them invincible and confronted Discord. At the time, the idea was ridiculous. Then, the gems turned Discord to stone.

They were not initially seen as heroes, but as the latest “most powerful creatures in Equestria.” It was lucky that that was all they needed to be.

Shortly, Equestria was in its first full scale, organized, civil war. Only two groups were fighting.

The dark king quickly regained much of his influence and about half of his land. War continued until 00173, when the “alicorn princess” Luna was infected with an unknown mental curse, known as “the nightmare.” It fed on and amplified her self-hatred and loneliness.

In those days, Celestia led most battles and participated personally. She brought fire down on her enemies. She was everything that the ponies of Equestria expected out of a leader, and she was respected. Her sister, Luna, tended to be artistic and quiet and kept to herself unless she had business to attend too. At the time, speaking loudly and acting without question were culturally considered signs of strength and honesty. Though she was still considered a princess, her reputation suffered. Ponies talked and gossiped about her, went to Celestia to try and have her decisions overturned, and occasionally challenged her to duels. The duelists always lost, but speaking lessons and victories didn’t repair her reputation.

Luna began researching the kind of magic that everyone she had ever seen respected, other than her sister, had used, and began treating ponies like they were beneath her. Unlike every other pony who had practiced dark magic, she had a grimoire to read, filled with spells specifically selected for being extremely risky, and also had no teacher. Luna snapped.

Luna and Celestia had been single-hornedly controlling the moon and sun, respectively. Luna held the moon up and would not lower it, forcing Celestia into action. As the world’s temperature slowly dropped, Celestia used the Elements Of Harmony on Luna, and the elements banished Luna to the moon.

The elements sealed themselves away after this event and Celestia became reclusive for a year. The dark king remained in the Crystal Empire until late 00174, when Celestia took a flight directly to the empire.

The Crystal Empire had an object known as the Crystal Heart. It was a blue gem that was known to cause spell effects that affected enormous areas. As Celestia approached, the dark king did something to the Crystal Heart, and the Crystal Empire disappeared completely. Where there had been crystal ground, there was only snowy tundra, with no evidence that ponies or houses had ever been there. Celestia claimed that the Crystal Heart had remained, floating, before shattering.

Only Celestia was left to rule Equestria.

At that moment, he was so done with history for awhile.

The sun was up and he was standing, looking out of the tinted windows of the Steammobile, hoofing the glass and leaving little marks. Behind him, the furniture had a thin sprinkling of fur. He didn’t know if he had permission to open any of the cupboards. There weren’t any games or any other books. He began to suspect that Hot was some kind of workaholic.

Shadows traveled slowly across a grassy, hilly field, under lazy clouds. A light breeze swayed the long grass in waves. A small flock of little black birds pecked at the ground in the distance.

He then realized that he wanted to go outside.

He looked at the part of the wall where he knew the doorway was and walked over to it. He just kind of reached out and pressed and it just kind of moved out of the way and dumped him in the grass.

He rolled to his four hooves and was excited for a moment. The sun was shiny and the grass was green and the air wasn’t too hot. He was wondering what he should do when he remembered that he was an adult and required more than an empty field and his imagination to be entertained.

He grabbed his sword and climbed on top of the Steammobile. He sat and watched. Shadows traveled. Grass swayed. Birds ate. He observed from behind a wall of indifference, but he was an adult, dammit.

Time went by. He enjoyed the breeze. He listened to the birds. He let go a little. He enjoyed some shade and closed his eyes.

“Oh, what in tartarus?” He heard Hot.

It was dark, until sunlight broke through and the black faded. He was suddenly aware of the feeling of his skin. Hot was sitting on dead grass, looking up at him. Hot lifted his forelegs above his head. “What? How’s about you say some thing-words for stuff-explaining, hmm? Also, get off my cart!”

“What, uh, what did you see happening, exactly?”

“Well, I opened my bedroom door to find blackness hanging out in my living room, then I followed it as it retreated out of my door, which you left open, and then it all condensed and left you slowly scuffing my paint. Also,” Hot gestured in a circle, “stuffs dead!”

“I think this just kind of happens sometimes…”

“Sometimes you just appear out of a black cloud on the roof and stuff is dead.”

“I was on the ground the other times…”

Hot blinked a number of times while his eyes glanced around. “Well, were you doing anything before hoof, because...”

“Befo- I used to think it happened when I tried to sleep, but I was just watching clouds one time. All I was doing this time was enjoying the day.”

“Oh, ok, do ya’ think it might happen whenever you relax? Also, that’s kinda strange, since you were using my bed yesterday; how tired are you right now? You should actually try to do it intentionally. That all sure is all kinds of interesting. Also, get off of my roof!”

“Right! Sorry!.” He tossed his sword down.

Hot gestured frantically and angrily. “No!”

The sword stuck in the ground. Its gem was bright orange again.

“..Alright, nevermind, then.”

He finished getting down. “So, uh, it’s kind of nice here.”

Hot looked around. “The buck are you talking about? There’s nothing out here. How did you restore your gem? What kind is it?”

“Oh, I don’t know, it’s just nice weather and nothing here is trying to kill me. Also, I have no understanding of solid objects having ‘charges’ and set durability.”

Hot didn’t respond for a moment. “Amount of energy put into creation? The way the amount of work a thing can do is determined?”

“What about chemistry? What about the particles holding it together?”

“Particles?”

“...I think I might be off a little on this one. I'm just gonna accept that. It was something I heard of about alchemy, once; I don't know what I'm talking about. But, anyway, yeah, this is nice. I mean, that swamp was no Everfree, but this is peaceful.”

“Pfthpthp, Everfree-shmeverfree,” Hot waved a hoof. “Locals always think that their wilderness is such a big deal, that others aren't so bad, that others are 'peaceful.' The grass is always greener, my friend."

“Ok.” He swept his gaze across the grassy hills. “Why are we here?”

“We are here to teach you how not to die. Yesterday, you were useless against slirds. Slirds!”

“Oh! Swordsmanship?”

“I ha- what? What even…” Hot shook his head somewhat hard. “I don’t think I carry one of those around. Let me check.” Hot stretched out his wings and swiveled his head about, checking. “Sure enough not, so It seems that I probably have no idea how to use that thing. I'm gonna teach you what I already know: how to survive when an environment is horseapples.”

He learned Hot Air’s lessons in those hilly, grassy fields. He also learned exactly how peaceful it wasn’t. He also learned how to play outside, sort of.