Shattered Crystals

Prologue: Shattered Crystals

Once I was...

Ah, if only could I remember! Countless other times I had wondered: Who was I once? But not once can I remember anything. Time; it is an everlasting, unendurable present. A second of Time could be an eternity, yet an eternity of Time is but a second to us. It is unfathomable.

Outside, ponies are born and die, are born and die, are born and die, while we, cursed as we are, remain eternally unchanged. If a life could be likened to a burning candle, than we have watched millions of candles burn out in a second of our time. Sometimes, it happens so fast, their lives flicker past us like a strand of moonlight caught in the foaming waves of a storm-tossed sea, like a dying star streaking down the clouded sky. But sometimes, an unendurable lifetime seem to pass between each of their living breaths.

Once I was...

What was I?

I know that I wasn't always like this, living like a shadow, a ghost with no purpose. I know that I had an elder brother, but I cannot remember his face. I know I had parents, loving parents that guided me. I remember only glimpses; a white feather, worn in a hat on lilac-shaded mane; a crooked trumpet, bought for me in a Crystal Fair by my brother; pledges of love, loyalty and friendship towards our families and the Royalty to renew the Crystal Heart; pink marshmallows, roasted on a wooden stick, shared with many others. But I cannot remember the taste; all tastes are ashes now. I know that sunlight glinted off our crystal coats, but I cannot remember how it looked like. All I know is the shadow that came into our lives, and that pair of red eyes like tormented souls.

I had a name, I think, but I could never recall it. I could talk to others, make my emotions known to them then. I could talk of friendship and loyalty, of love and kindness and happiness. I am not alone in this desolate, cursed kingdom; there are many others like me, but we are all locked in the same solitude. For I cannot talk to them; nor could I understand their desperate whispers, like stray winds stirring up dead leaves. We trot side by side, yet when we touch, I can feel nothing but a bone-shattering coldness; no warmth, none to share, in our coats in this bitter winter. We cannot make ourselves understood. We cannot share our memories, nor trade our hopes, for how could we, when all means of communication cease to exist?

Our heads hang low, ears laid back, hollow eyes without life, without hope, without love. For love is what defines us. And now that it is taken away, cruelly by the Black-hearted one, we are nothing but a hollow shell, nothing, nothing, nothing.

My lonely whispers echoe along the deserted path carpeted with dead leaves...

Once I was...

I remember that we held hooves and danced beneath Luna's moon, but I cannot remember the songs. I remember that we sweated together beneath Celestia's sun, yet I cannot remember the feel of sweat. I remember that we sang together each year in the Crystal Fair, yet try as I might, I could never recollect the lyrics and the music of the song. I have just enough memories for everything to be a torment, yet not enough to be a comfort when the shadows close in upon me once more.

Only one memory remains intact, clear, yet it is one that torments me the most. I can still remember the horror when he invaded our land, killed our good King and wrested the Crystal throne to himself. I can still remember that he raised the Black Crystals in the last desperate fight to conquer the Crystal Heart from us. I can still remember seeing into his eyes as he took the Heart from me, the terror of seeing those once beautiful living souls twisted and tortured into malicious, evil beings. It nearly rendered me senseless with terror. It broke me, and all the others.

Slaves. He made us his slaves. He broke our spirits with pure terror. Now I shiver when I remember his eyes. I do not want to remember this at all.

Once...

Two princesses came, and tried to fight him. Ah yes, they did, they tried their best. But He was too cunning for them. He cursed this whole kingdom to fall into oblivion if he was banished, and so when the two princesses found out after they banished him, it was already too late. They fled, like puppies with their tails between their legs to save their own skins. To save themselves from falling into our fate, our banishment.

But I do not blame them. I would have ran if I had the choice, or had I been in their stead.

It would have been better not to give us any hope at all, than to present our chance of escape and then snatch it mercilessly away by placing us under a curse. Worse, it would hold us captive until the Black-hearted one finds his way of escaping his banishment. And then he would come again, and make us his slaves again, and break us all anew...

Cruel, hope is cruel. Really, it would have been better if those two princesses had not interfered and failed at it. Ah, they let us all down with their failure. The people of a whole kingdom!

So now you know my story. Our story. And here we have waited for an eternity, for a hope we dare not hope for.

Ah, if only I knew who I was once...