Knights of Ice and Crystal

by Leila Drake

Forgotten Mother

They were many. They were one in purpose and desire. And old, so old that they recalled the rise and fall of the Shadow Empire.

It had been an eternity ago. For two thousand years, they had waited - imprisoned, confined, forgotten.

They had tried to escape, to rattle at the bars... it had taken a thousand years but they finally found out how to do it. Only one of them would be able to make it out. They had twisted him, transformed him, disguised into the shell of their former selves. It had been fragile, as fragile as a pony, but it had to do. They had cast their descendant out into the ice.

Unaware of his heritage, the scout had been found by the Empire. They had taken him in, raised him as one of their own, an orphan of the ice. They had taken him to it, and it had revealed his power to him. Terrified by his own self, he had come to them for guidance. They told him to take it, to bring it to them. They would shatter it and they would escape and reclaim their fortress.

And then it all went wrong.

The scout got caught, right in the act of stealing it. Inexperienced and weak as he was in his pony form, he was defeated by the Princesses of Day and Night. They banished him and encased his soul in the eternal ice. But it got even worse. The curse that banished the scout backfired and he took the entire Empire with him. A whole city, its land and its inhabitants, disappeared from the map for a millenium.

Thus, they had to wait for another thousand years.

They never would have thought that their scout would be such a failure. He managed to be defeated not once, but twice, and the second time was even more shameful. The shattered horn was all that had been left of King Sombra.

There was only one thing left to do. They had to make another one. So they cast out another. Again, the foal was found by the Empire. And again, it revealed his power.

Then, something happened that they had not even considered possible.

The scout returned to them. He was alive. But he was weak, useless, nothing in comparison with the new one: He was trash. They dismissed him; he was of no consequence, he did not even have a spark of their power inside of him anymore.

The new one would make their plan work. He would come to them, he would steal the Crystal Heart and he would free all of the Umbrum.

They were many but they could wait. What were a few years compared to two millenia?