Prologue - The Universal History of Equyn

 All creatures of Equyn knew the story of how the world came to be. From the harmonious Ponies of Equestria and the aeries of the Griffons, to the ancient war-torn Dragon clans and the ever-hedonistic Clawmara. The story was a reminder of the fragility of life and the blessings they had been given.

 Long ago, eons before even the first dragons hatched, Equyn was a still rock in a void of nothing. From the core of the barren world, magic awoke. It weaved all that was to be known and all that was to be. 

 Yet for all its power, the magical force that had brought life sought to experience its own miracle itself. It was then the first alicorn, whose name was only ever known as “Unadeah”, emerged. She was said to have given form to the first walkers, the ancient ancestors of all beings on modern Equyn. They were dreamers, and could shift their forms as long as they kept the magic of imagination in their hearts.

 Unadeah grew lonely, however. Though the first walkers were great company, none could understand her. She was an immortal, and though they too possessed great power, they were finite. She would spend centuries in an endless cycle of loss as her friends decayed and returned to the magic they came from.

 Then, everything changed for Unadeah. She had fallen in love with one of her own creations, his name lost to time. She bore the first divine foal, Harmony.

 Unadeah had many lovers throughout her presence in the mortal world, and each lifetime a new foal would be born unto the pantheon of the alicorns, and they would find their own lovers.

 As time went on, and Unadeah’s magic was dispersed throughout the world, she grew less and less tangible, until she could no longer become with foal. By then, thousands of alicorns had spread throughout Equyn. With her last foal grown beyond her mother’s shadow, Unadeah departed the physical realm. However, upon her departure, alicorns fell into a war that lasted thousands of years. Every alicorn wanted to step up to the plate, and so sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, sons and daughters tore each other apart.

 As though the world punished them for their selfishness, the final battle between the remaining alicorns over what would become the Chasm of Tartarus, caused a shockwave. The shockwave was so great it reverberated throughout the world, permanently damaging the leylines formed by the great awakening eons ago, and giving rise to the first dragons. It extended far into the heavens as well, shattering the second of the two Equynian moons, Terrum. The shards from Terrum’s explosion became the stars in the magical shield of ether blanketing Equyn.

 Due to the damaging of the world, the magical flow was no longer powerful enough to maintain the fluidity of the first walkers’ existences. Most walkers were cursed to walk in permanent, flesh-riddled forms. Many of the world’s modern races descended directly from these forms as they stabilized. However, those walkers closest to the calamity were dispersed entirely into mindless beasts, who became the wraiths that guarded the Chasm forevermore. The combative alicorns would not be seen again, presumed dead or dispersed. Following this tragedy, the mortal races learned to live on without them for thousands of years. Unicorn mages being responsible for moving the sun and moon was one such example of how they adapted to life without alicorns to rule. 

 That was typically where the story would end for most juveniles. As they grew, they’d think of the tale as exaggerated, or as a legend, but it would be told nonetheless. In the modern day, the story was simply told as fiction, or to teach rowdy children lessons. There was certainly truth to the legend, but nobody ever speculated on the fine details, which admittedly had gotten muddy over the past 20 thousand years.

 It was only 2,500 years before modern Equyn’s current troubles that two young sisters, a unicorn and a pegasus, connected to the sun and moon respectively. Following their ascensions to alicornhood, they would claim the throne and dub their nation Equestria, land of harmony. It was a mystery and outrage to many that no other people on Equyn had any of their own ascend to alicorn status. This led many to believe ponies in particular to be special somehow, for better and for worse. Truth be told, it was a mystery how they’d ascended. Only the sisters knew the details, and the sisters never spoke of such things.

 Alicorns were powerful. Alicorns could bring the day. Alicorns could bring the night. Alicorns could dispel themselves into any form. Alicorns could do almost anything, as far as commonfolk were concerned. Alicorns were to be worshiped, respected and served because they were so powerful and supposedly descended from Unadeah herself. No pony, or most other races, would really question those simple facts. They didn’t question much in regards to anything, simply because it wasn’t their place.

 Even when things should have brought everything into question, most preferred to live in ignorance of the whims of immortals. Only griffons ever dared oppose Equestria directly, and they were still recovering nearly a millennium following their sound defeat.

 Perhaps it was not ignorance. Perhaps it was something more primal that that. Something so potent even the very fabric of Equyn would remember from times long past, passing it along to future generations as they called upon the world’s magic to exist. The feeling of fear.

 After all, Alicorns could bring the day. Alicorns could bring the night. Alicorns could do almost anything. What’s to stop them from taking?