Platinum's foalhood had been harsh and growing-up harsher still.
With her mother executed and her father, King Ferric of Precia finally marrying Lady Antimony, the royal court devolved into debauchery as the King no longer feared what others would think about him. Antimony and Tinfoil used their family influence to fill the court with spies and thugs, silencing or informing on any who may wish the king harm or even speak ill of him.

The tales of his misrule are many, each one more unpleasant than the last.
One tale purports that he granted Lord Fleckleton a place as Lord Treasurer in exchange for access to all three of his daughters.
Another asserts that he attended at the wedding of Earl Plentymoore’s daughter only to announce he was taking possession of Plentymoore Castle to be used as his personal hunting hall. When the Earl objected, King Ferric had him imprisoned and only spared him from execution after both his wife and newly-wed daughter offered themselves to him.
And a distinctly unsavoury scandal claims that, while on the road, King Ferric passed an Agneian abbey where four young nuns tended to a nearby pig farm. Ordering them to come with him for reasons best left unsaid, the four nuns refused to his face. Enraged, he had the four mares tied up and hung upside-down from a weak tree branch over the pig farm that submerged their heads in the muck until they either drowned or changed their minds. It was not specified which choice any of the four mares took.
All the while, Antimony and Tinfoil laughed at such antics, encouraging their king at every turn.

For Catkin, every day was a day of grief and degradation, keeping up the facade of a weak and simple mare who could not possibly threaten the king.
She was and remained, however, Platinum’s oldest and dearest friend.
Outside of studies, Platinum was still able to meet with various sons and daughters of her father’s inner circle and while known as a bossy and short-tempered filly in her younger years, to say nothing of her upbringing, she had some friends, three most famous among them.
There was Soda-Water, the dopey but charming son of her cantankerous teacher, Lord Pinchley Salt.
Wild Goose, son of Lord Admiral Gadabout of Ganderly, cheeky and exuberant.
And Sleeping Dog, daughter of Lord Beagle of Barkshire, a quiet and morose filly but faithful.

One very fateful day, Platinum and her fellows followed Catkin home to Verdant, dressed themselves as peasant foals and met the nurse’s family.
Platinum remembers seeing how large the family was coupled with how small the house, meals and facilities were made her horrified at how the lower classes lived in these times. But more than that was how impressed she was that they seemed so easy to make happy and always banded together to pull through desperate times.
One among the family she found fascinating. A young daughter of Harrow and Catkin who had taught herself to read through any material she could lay her hooves on, giving away her own food in exchange for books at the market and reading to her brothers and sisters. Without any tutor to call her own, this filly could read better even than Platinum or her fellows.

The filly’s name was Clover. ‘Clever Clover’ as she was known around the village, consulted for instructions and advice by nearly every local mare and stallion.
Intrigued and impressed by the filly, Platinum took her in to her circle of confidantes and prepared to privately confide her secret identity in her.
Clover then explained she’d already deduced that she was the Princess soon after she arrived. The signs were clear; her rushed disguise, tell-tale traces of her noble accent, her unfamiliarity with the common household, slight remnants of her grooming and makeup and the fact that her Cutie Mark showed a bejewelled crown.
Platinum noticed this and suddenly realised she’d just earned her Cutie Mark, here in Verdant, with this strange, clever young filly.
Somehow, their destinies were joined.
Unfortunately, coming home, they were caught by the royal guard and forced to explain themselves to the King and Queen.
However, Platinum knew that if she gave away Catkin’s family, who had aided them in this escapade, their punishment would be unspeakable, likely carried out for little more reason that out of spite.
So the four friends were beaten through the night and day, near to unconsciousness by the end, but never gave away Catkin and her family.
The four friends were separated from each other, their fathers were ostracised at court, and Platinum found herself alone.

Meanwhile, the absence of Woolsey had been filled by a new stallion with heavy ties to Queen Antimony.
Lord Carvery of Wytheryte, an exiled noble of Marchion, banished for a crime few would speak of but rumoured to have been for killing and eating his own wife! He practiced the same dark arts as Queen Antimony and promised that Marchion’s alliance would no longer be necessary when the kingdom had been ground to dust.
While Marchion was new and carried the taint of treachery of the High Hooves that had betrayed Rememberly the Bonnycorn, it was nonetheless a very rich, influential and, for the most part, well-led by Galena’s brother, Cerulean, who had heard of Antimony’s black arts and was not convinced that Silvia had murdered his sister. Plans for war were drawn up between both sides.
[Note: Woolsey had remained in Marchion and was struggling to keep the peace. He was outspoken in insisting Silvia was a traitor and a murderer and that Ferric had done Marchion a great service by killing her and all who supported her.
However, in records from the Agneia, there is a documented confession from Woolsey to the head of the Agneia, Granpastoris Lanitus V, admitting his shame in condemning an innocent mare and allowing a dark practitioner to rule as a queen in order to avoid a war.
Woolsey is a venerated figure in Marchion and among the Agneian community he is a patron of pacifists and diplomats so this absolution and the good intentions behind it may have become public after his death.]
King Cerulean was known as a stern but wise monarch who would meet with Ferric to broker terms for peace however many times it took but would not kowtow to him. Ferric, meanwhile threatened Cerulean with death if any wish of his was not met.
Conflict was inevitable.

Antimony meanwhile, was trying to produce a son. Knowing the fate of those who had failed Ferric before, she faked a wasting disease when her inability to grant her husband an heir became noticeable to the king and court.
It is here that Star-Swirl proposes a theory. Soon after Platinum’s birth, Ferric was struck by a pox that left him immobile for several weeks (Throughout which he ate out of boredom and developed his famous obesity) and Star-Swirl believes this pox had left him impotent.
Later around this time, Platinum relates in private memoirs that, around the time Antimony was recovering from her supposed illness, she passed her bedchamber and saw Antimony and her brother, Chief Advisor Tinfoil, in each other’s embrace.
When she informed her tutors in the morning, she was brought before the court to repeat her accusation. Here, Antimony and Tinfoil made a great show of hurt and dismay at such a slanderous lie and prompted the king to punish his daughter for such insolence. Sympathising with the Queen and Chief Advisor, Ferric and the court shamed and scolded Platinum loudly and fiercely.
It is here, Star-Swirl recants with pride, that Platinum responded with fury by denouncing her father as a self-interested hypocrite as, met with exactly the same accusations by which he had her mother and grand-mother executed, he dared now to speak of ‘lies and slander’, declaring that he was no true king and no true father.

At this, Ferric flew into a berserk rage and viciously beat his daughter with his royal sceptre (An act of his that was enough to shock all but Antimony, Tinfoil and Carvery) Turning blue in the face, he fell to his knees after two dozen strikes upon her daughter, gripped by his dangerous blood pressure.
Platinum meanwhile, though bloodied all over, had not shown Ferric any pain throughout this ordeal. His fury spent, Ferric ordered his daughter to leave the Royal Court and make her penance to her step-mother and uncle by serving as a scullery maid at Stibbley, confined to a tower and never to speak without permission, for as long as he saw fit.
Antimony and Tinfoil also returned to Stibbley to ‘recover’, along with Catkin to supervise Platinum. It’s more than likely that, if Ferric had his way, a scullery-maid in Stibbley is what Platinum would have been for the remainder of her life.

In the heat of all that had transpired, the elder Princess Arsenic had been growing in the shadows of her father’s court.
Star-Swirl likens her behaviour to a statuette, never speaking or moving out of place. After her mother’s death, she had become inconsolable and rarely interacted with anypony, least of all Platinum who she blamed for her mother’s terrible end.
[Note: It’s unclear whether or not Arsenic believed that Silvia murdered Galena. Regardless, Arsenic certainly blamed Silvia for replacing her mother and all that transpired as a result]
Eventually, as tensions between Precia and Marchion escalated, Arsenic was given over to Marchion as a hostage. Ferric’s antagonism of Marchion did not end here, if anything it escalated, ordering his outriders to raid villages over the borders of Marchion and ambush dignitaries. It seems likely that was daring Cerulean to execute his daughter and give him a reason to declare war. While in the court of Marchion, Arsenic became enamoured by a dashing hippogriff named Gilead, the Captain of Cerulean’s Royal Guard. Her teachings under Woolsey continued and she sought the faith of the Agneia as a comfort after so many years of torment.

Platinum meanwhile, found life far less hopeful. At Stibbley’s grand estate, she was reduced to a common servant, cut off from everypony she’d grown to love and humiliated by her masters at every turn.
And here it was that a particularly dark tale emerges.
As Platinum approached adolescence, Lord Minister Tinfoil began finding any opportunity to see her, casting her eye over her in a manner she found vexing. He declared that he’d seen her trying to escape under the cover of night and ordered that, whenever she went to bed, she would wear a leash connected to the bed post.
Compelled to follow such an order, Platinum was visited the next night by Tinfoil who, according to Platinum’s notes, behaved in a distinctly unsavoury manner, laying his hooves on her body and calling her distasteful things. It is confirmed that these actions did not go beyond this, at least at first, but Platinum nonetheless found them degrading and frightening, her time at Stibbley made all the worse knowing that a stallion old enough to be her father, a pony who'd had his hoof in the death of her mother and grandmother, was now lusting after her, a stallion who could have her or those she loved killed whenever he pleased. Catkin pleaded Tinfoil to leave the Princess alone but the stallion would not be perturbed.
Antimony knew of the affair and did nothing to stop it. Apparently, she entered while Tinfoil was in the midst of such lewdness and bade him continue, amused by the Princess’s discomfort.

Eventually, one fateful night, Tinfoil arrived at Platinum’s chambers, profusely drunk and accompanied by guard who held Platinum down. What he was intending need not go mentioned but, before he could, a magical aura lit up in the darkness of the room. His guards were slammed into the wall unconscious and Tinfoil found a knife under his throat, another placed between his legs and an old, familiar voice, gripped by rage, hissing in his ear.
It was Star-Swirl. By what means he infiltrated the castle and left it the morning after is a mystery but he delivered a warning to Tinfoil there and then.
“You touch her again, worm, and I will make your life not worth living.”
As far as any record goes, Tinfoil never dared touch Platinum again.
After this event, Platinum searched Stibbley incessantly for Star-Swirl, lighting candles outside her room and praying he would return one day.

Elsewhere, Antimony was called back to the palace as she announced she was at last pregnant with Ferric’s son.
The son would be named Pyrite.
Platinum is recorded to have been adamant the foal was Tinfoil’s but her opinion counted for little at the time.
The day she was due to give birth, Ferric celebrated with a great feast as he was prone to do for any reason. Platinum was present at this feast but only to clean up. However, soon afterwards, Ferric was struck by indigestion and hurried to the privy while Antimony was giving birth. When Pyrite was at last born, the doctor and nurses thought it best to bring the newborn to the king. Passing by a window, they noticed an old black cat perched on the sill with what appeared to be a wicked grin on its face, disappearing into the mist in the darkness of the evening.
Calling to the preoccupied king from outside the privy, they received no reply.
When a guard opened the door, they found a mass of worms crawling all over the privy door, walls and the unmoving king.
Ferric was dead. His enormous gut was burst open, gigantic maggots crawling out of it and feasting on his corpse.

He’d been poisoned. Somehow, he’d unknowingly ingested food or drink that had hidden eggs of the deadly Boghorn Fly, causing its larvae to hatch within his stomach and tunnel out of his digestive system by whatever way they found.
Horrified, the royal doctors rushed to the queen’s chambers to find the doors locked. From inside, the sounds of Antimony screaming and pleading for mercy could be heard. The guards and attendants hurried to find some means to force the door open, eventually resorting to using a nearby statue as a battering ram.
Breaking open the doors, they were greeted by the instantaneous sight of the tortured Antimony literally flying into pieces. A spell had been placed on the lock of the door and connected to a magical explosive placed within the queen’s mouth. When the door burst, so did she.
So ended the lives of Ferric and Antimony, hideously murdered by a mystery assassin.

The killer’s identity remains a mystery. Some claim it was an agent of Cerulean, possibly Arsenic herself, having been indoctrinated into a weapon for Marchion and for the Agneia.
Some say a disgruntled peasant or servant, a lord with a grudge, a mad mage.
A few even suspect Princess Platinum herself in a fit of rage. But this is unlikely. The attack was premeditated and unspeakably cruel, even towards victims such as Ferric and Antimony. And while there’s little to suggest Platinum did not want the three to receive a painful end, she was almost always watched and confined to quarters.

Regardless, the one blamed for the murder was Tinfoil, samples of Boghorn Fly eggs found in a jar hidden in his study and a page on magical explosives such as the one that killed her sister found marked on his shelf. Though he pleaded his innocence, he was arrested on the spot and, in the heat of such a calamity, sentenced without trial, Tinfoil was dragged to the block, weeping for amnesty, and hung, drawn and quartered on the very scaffold he and his sister sent Silvia to some few years ago.

The sticky end of all three of the royals gave rise to the ghostly story of Bloody Silvy, the murderous spectre of Queen Silvia who’d come for vengeance at the moment was all seemed right for the trio of her murderers and who would prowl the castle in two pieces, her head one place and her body in another, the bloody axe that killed her in her magical grasp (Further adding to this story was the fact that the executioner, a mere month after killing Silvia, had gotten his throat torn out by a hunting dog, his own) The legend was adapted into a work of literature by the alchemistic scholar Twaddle Dee and has since become a cultural legend among unicorn communities.

In the wake of Ferric’s death, Pyrite ascended to the throne on the day of his birth. Pinchley Salt, Platinum’s cantankerous old tutor was chosen to be the new Lord Minister. Pinchley sent Platinum immediately back to Stibbley in the wake of the tremor while hastily marrying the newborn Pyrite to his adolescent daughter, Salice.
But with Ferric’s death came a power vacuum that was fought over by many. One of which was Arsenic, come to claim her rightful inheritance. Pinchley hastily began marshalling an army but, being no real politician, made a fatal error.
Announcing his intention to invade Marchion before he was actually ready to do so.

Cerulean saw this as the perfect time to attack, seizing several of the most prosperous fields, mills and mines over the borders while Arsenic herself rallied her supporters in Precia and, accompanied by her new consort, Gilead, marched into her homeland once again.
On her instruction, peasants rose up against the last few supporters of the late and unlamented Ferric, mobbing the local estates, Stibbley among them. Platinum and Catkin were barely able to escape alive and Catkin was gravely injured in the escape from Stibbley estate as it was ground to rubble, the whole of the region turning on itself in a frenzied civil war.

Lost, alone, injured, destitute, hunted and fast running out of time as the cold winds of winter kicked up with ferocity, the Princess and her minder would soon die.
Until that night, a great light appeared above them in the sky, a brilliant, six-pointed, rose-pink star.
Only the two mares seemed to notice it. Until, after several hours passed and night grew as cold as it would get, two ponies emerged from over the drifts. A young common filly in a russet hooded-cloak and a tall bearded wizard with cloak, hat and staff.
Clover and Star-Swirl had found their Princess.

As Platinum rejoiced to see them, she motioned to Catkin who only gave a weak murmur.
To her horror, Catkin’s wound had grown far worse in the short time they’d lingered in the cold.
Clover rushed to her mother’s side as she, Platinum and Star-Swirl did all they could to keep her alive.
The four journeyed to Verdant over a long and dangerous road through the thick of the early winter. As Harrow and his remaining foals found them, they gladly gave them refuge and tended to Catkin as best they could.

After half a month, the weary mother's heart finally gave out, giving her love to her family and their friends, blessing Princess Platinum and swearing to pass her love on to her beloved mother before closing her eyes and drawing her last breath.
So it was that Catkin, Silvia’s last and truest friend, died in her home surrounded by loved ones and Clover the Clever and Princess Platinum pledged their lives and friendship to one another as their mothers had once done.

6305428
A Friendship that would hold for a long Time. As for the King and His Wife, that was bound to happen, such People get what they deserve eventually

Oh life hit me so I was gone for days, I missed reading your stories Purple. There are times I feel like this is a crossover between King Arthur and the Tudors, as told by ponies, or maybe it's just me cause I'm not so sure about my world history lessons.

6305941
That's okay, Cherry. Hope you're doing okay.
It's alright, it is largely based off fantasised history.

6305967 So... what became of Pyrite when the mobs gathered?

6310264
Don't get your hopes up...
Puppet Kings always fall to earth when the strings are cut.

6310281 *senses a part 3*

6310325
Eeyup!

6310332 :D