Equestria 908 (Setting: Past)

[Blueblood]

A cloud was on all Ponies' minds, and wailing went the weather;

Yeah, a sick cloud upon Equestria's soul when we were foals together.

Magic had lost its wonder, and flight it's joy forgot,

The earth had grown brown and dull, but you and I had not.

Round us in antic order such crippled vices came-

Tricks devoid of laughter, betrayal without shame.

Like that white disk of midnight, which lit our aimless gloom,

They all brandished lies and avarice as proudly as a plume.

Kindness was called weakness, no friend's appeal was rung;

Oh, how old Equestria was when you and I were young!

Lonely souls had twisted into shapes not to be named,

And were ashamed even of Friendship! But we were not ashamed.

Weak ponies we were, though foolish, not thus we failed, not thus;

When Night and chaos blocked the heavens they had no hymns from us.

Foals as we were -- our forts of sand, though fragile as could be,

High as they went we piled them up to break that bitter sea.

Such fireworks as we could bring the wise all thought absurd;

But when the sun was hidden, our sparklers lit the world.

***~***

It has been over 900 years since the Nightmare Moon was banished, but it feels lately that the choking miasma of fear that pervades the darkest of our dreams hangs closer over Equestria than ever.

Princess Celestia has been seen less and less often these past 15 years or so, and when seen, is rarely cheerful. A real sense of despair, perhaps, of ever seeing her beloved sister again has begun to set in. The mood is infectious all throughout society; all actions seemed only governed by a routine determined from birth. A sense of destiny about one's special talent has been replaced by a kind of fatalism, the whole universe seeming like an enormous, unfeeling clockwork machine.

In truth, Equestria is under attack, but not by monsters of myth, but of mind. Pessimism, destructive anarchism, petty pride and avarice all seek to eat away at the Ancient Harmony.

And yet, through the cracks in the world, not all that is seen is darkness. Humor, Charity, Love, Steadfastness, Truth, these have a power altogether separate from any artifact. And maybe there might just be a little Magic left in Friendships we once knew...

***~***

Bit of a teaser for an RP Crossover that had been brewing in my head for quite some time, now. Specifically, I'm crossing it over with the Turn-of-the-century novels by G.K. Chesterton: Manalive, The Man Who Was Thursday, The Flying Inn. The main idea behind it is that some element of what seems fantastic or absurd breaks into a mundane world to turn it upside down, only for the characters to realize that it actually turned the world the right way up.

That's basically the idea here, of making the background of Equestria almost as mundane, and allowing to become almost as dark as the real world, but having something strange (i.e. something not out of place in MLP:FiM) shake things up, so to speak.

Anypony interested?