A History of Equestria

by Lumosity15

A Little Shadow

The grin on Luna’s face was quickly widening, until it looked like it would swallow up her entire face. Celestia gave it about three seconds until Luna started running around screaming. To try and avoid this, Celestia walked up to the nearest pony, who happened to be a light pink unicorn mare with a pitch black colt kicking a hoof in the dirt at her side. The mare looked at Celestia and smiled.

“Hello little ones. My name is Lucem, and this is my son Sombra.” The mare said. Sombra looked up at the sound of his name, but went right back to kicking his hoof. Celestia smiled at him, but he just looked away. “I take it the two of you are Celestia and Luna?”

The alicorn was startled, but she regained her composure and said,”Yes, we are. Myself, Luna and the rest of our party are looking for the... um..er..”

“The Grand Council!” Luna interjected, running out from behind her sister. Hearing a younger voice, Sombra looked up again, only to be bowled over by a midnight blue blur. Luna stood over him speaking so fast she couldn’t be understood by anypony, not even her sister! Celestia trotted over to them, apologizing to Lucem the whole way, and pulled Luna off of him. Sombra sat up, and instead of hiding behind Lucem like Celestia expected, he went over to Luna, and the two started talking. Smiling at them, Celestia turned back to Lucem, to see the same warm glow reflected there.

“Don’t bother apologizing,” she lilted,”I’m just glad to see Sombra talking to somepony, he’s always been so shy. Also, as for the Grand Council, it just so happens I work there, since my little Sombra is the protegee to Clover the Clever, representative and leader of the unicorn tribe.”

“But don’t all the ponies live together now?”Celestia asked, confused. “I saw unicorns, earth ponies and pegasi at the village where we were found.”

Lucem laughed. “Right you are, young one. However, each race still is technically part of a tribe, even of they are not just one big group, and therefore still answers to their representative, and tribe leader. The three tribe leaders, Clover the Clever of the unicorns, Smart Cookie of the earth ponies, and Pansy of the pegasi, and their protegees make up the high council. They’re the ones you and your sister are to meet.”

Celestia gulped. She wasn’t sure what she would say to the ponies in charge. I am the rightful ruler, step down? Don’t worry, she chided herself, it will all be fine. You’ll figure it out.

“Now, how about you gather up your sister, and the rest of your group, and I’ll take you to the Counsil.”

“Thank you very much Mrs. Lucem,” Intoned Striker. He was walking over to them, Thunder, Lightning and Leaf in tow. Looking over at the foals he said, “Luna, it’s time to go. Come along now.”

“AWWWW” Luna whined. Sombra said nothing, but Cela could tell by the way his shoulders slumped, he didn’t want Luna to go either.

“Don’t worry my little ponies, both of you will be coming with us.” Said Celestia. She couldn’t bear to see the the little colt sad. Following Lucem, the ponies trotted around the city. While the village guards seemed at ease, it was obvious Leaf had never been to a metropolis this large before. He seemed very nervous and and started every noise. When Celestia tapped him in the shoulder to ask if he was okay, she could have sworn he grew wings and became a pegasus for how high he jumped in the air. Lucem trotted at the front of the group, pointing out landmarks to Celestia and Leaf at her side. Behind them were Luna and Sombra, talking and laughing with each other, while Thunder and Lightning watched the from either side. Bringing up the rear was Striker, keeping a watchful eye, just in case.

As it turned out though, Striker’s watchful eye wasn’t necessary for this trip. As they walked through city, the young alicorns were astounded by the grandness of it all. True, they had grown up in a castle, but this was different. The whole city was bursting with life, and there were ponies there than Celestia and Luna had seen in their entire lives combined! There were so many things to look at, Luna got a neck cramp from spinning her head so much. Having ponies in a place makes it seem much friendlier, thought Luna, remembering the large, empty castle where she had spent her days. She also really liked Sombra. He was funny, and really nice once you got to know him. He came from a long lineage of very famous unicorns, and had a lot of magical power, which was why he had been chosen to be the successor of Clover the Clever, but he didn’t really care about that stuff. He just wanted to have fun with his friends, but since he was such an important pony, all the adults treated him like he was royalty, and the foals treated him like an outcast.

Luckily for him, he had just met the one pony who didn’t care about that, and was almost in a similar position, about to be crowned one of the joint rulers of Equestria and all. The two them had hit it off almost immediately, figuratively and literally, in Luna’s case. At first they had talked about general foal things, but then sombra asked;

“Luna, How old are you and Celestia?”

“Well, I’m 163, and Celestia’s 257. How ‘bout you?” Luna replied, unaware that she was 40 years older than the oldest pony ever recorded.

“I’m eig- wait a sec, did you just say you were one hundred and sixty-three years old?” Sombra turned to look at Luna in astonishment, while she gazed nonchalantly forward.

“Well, yeah. Did you just say you were eight? You seemed like you were at least in your hundreds!”

“Well normal ponies don’t live as long as alicorns do.” He said, with a touch of indignance. Then, his eyes lit with a curious glow. “Ya know, the legends say that alicorns are immortal, or just age suuuuuuuuuper slow, but I didn’t think that was true.”

Luna smiled,”Well I guess it is. What else don’cha believe?”

“Well, for starters, that the Alicorn War lasted a whole eon....”

Though Luna didn’t remember much of the war, she knew a lot of Alicorn history, and was confirming, and correcting what Sombra thought he knew. However, there was one legend that she had never heard of:

“The Crystal Empire? What’s that?” Luna asked, head cocked in confusion.

“You’ve never heard of the Crystal Empire myths?” Sombra neighed in astonishment,”They’re only like the coolest legends EVER! Up in the north, far beyond the Nightridge Mountains, there was once a beautiful city, where instead of flowers, jewels sprouted out of the ground. The earth ponies who lived there carved their homes out of the massive gems, and learned how to farm and contain the crystals that grew there. Over time, their simple coats became infused with crystal dust, and began to shine and sparkle like the gems they loved. Soo-”

“Uhhh, Sombra?” Interrupted Luna, “That’s nice and all, but I don’t see what’s so great about this place.”

Sombra sighed and shook his head.“Calm your hooves, Luna, I’m getting to that. Now, the crystal ponies were ruled by King Geode, and Queen Sapphire, who were elected at the beginning of the empire. They were well loved by all. However, one day, a subject found a new type of crystal, black as the darkest night. He-”

“Hang on, Som, I think I know this part!” Interjected Luna. Sombra sighed once more, but let her take the floor. “The stallion kept the crystals a secret. He was going through hard times, and really needed the extra bits. Soon, though, he came to realize these crystals, they’re called Sombrants I think, grew off of hate and fear instead of love and hope like the others. The stallion tried to contain them, but they continued to grow and multiply, feeding of the ponies darkest thoughts and fears.” She paused, trying to remember what else Cela had told her about the dark crystals. Eventually, she sighed,”Sorry, Sombra, that’s all I got.”

“No matter, I’ll take it from here. You were right about the name by the way. Anywho, the sombrants were starting to spread all over the empire. Soon, the dark aura projected by the sombrants attracted Umbra, leader of the draconequoi, and current master of chaos, who used the crystals to fuel his dark magic. The Crystal ponies only had limited magic, and they were powerless to stop him. Umbra took the king and queen prisoner, and captured the ponies to use them as slaves, forcing them to work day and night growing crystals. Still the sombrants crept over the kingdom, slowly encasing the once beautiful land.

After several years, the king managed to escape from prison. Using all of his gem making ability, he crafted a magical crystal that would take all of the crystal ponies love and hope and spread across the empire to destroy the Sombrants, and overpower Umbra. Before he could activate it though, Umbra caught wind of his plan, and quickly put a stop to it. However, hard as he tried to break the crystal, he couldn’t leave so much as a scratch on it. As such, Umbra kept the gem locked far away where nopony could find it. In doing this though, he sealed his own fate, for as the Sombrants enclosed the empire, they trapped him inside too.

Legend says the only thing that could free the Empire once again was the Crystal Heart, the gem crafted by Geode, but while it remains missing, so does the Crystal Empire.” Sombra’s voice faded dramatically, and Luna could see the exciment in his eyes just from talking this place. She knew should let him say something first, but she wasn’t very good at self control:

“Hang on a second, missing?” Luna asked confusedly,”I thought you said it was covered in Sombrants.”

“Well, nopony knows if the empire is still there or not.”

“Why not? It can’t be that hard to miss.”

“Luna, nopony is insane enough to climb the Nightridge Mountains, especially not in the dead of winter!”

“Ok, Ok, I get it. But maybe, sometime in summer, we could fly up there and see!” Sombra smiled at this, but almost immediately his face fell.

“You’re the alicorn, not me Luna. I can’t fly, remember?”

“There are plenty of pegasi here who could pull you in a wagon.”

“Not up the mountain, it’s the weather conditions won’t allow it.”

“Stop being such put-down!” Luna exclaimed, stomping her hoof. “We’ll get you up that mountain somehow! I don’t care if it takes a century, I won’t stop until we see if the legends are true!” She held her head up high, and lit up her horn for emphasis. Sombra looked at her.

“Fine. We both agree, someday, we will scale the mountains, and look for the Crystal Empire. We will find a way, no matter how long it takes.” He stuck his hoof out for luna to shake. With a nod she took it.

“No matter how long it takes.”

“Luna, Sombra!” Called Lucem,”Come up here please!” The two foals nodded at each other one more time, then scampered up to the front; Sombra rejoining his mother, and Luna her sister.

Celestia extended a wing and hugged Luna with it. “Did you have fun with Sombra?” She asked Luna.

Luna grinned,”Yeah! We talked about the legends, and the alicorns and, Oh! Did you know Sombra’s only eight years old? Crazy! Anyw-”

“Ok sweetie, I’m glad you had fun. Now you need to calm down a bit.”

“Why?”

Celestia gave a small chuckle. ‘Because, Luna. We’re here!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's Note:

Hi guys, I know it's been awhile, most of you probably thought this fic was dead. It's not, I just have had no time to write this summer, along with a heaping case of writer's block. Anyway, with school back in session, I should have more time to write, and get the next chapter out a few months sooner than this one. Again, any constructive criticism is always helpful and appreciated!

~~Lumosity15

Comments

[Unbridled Dolly]

Yay!! I was wondering when you would update this story again.