Flying past, a spaceship would view the colourful planet as like a jewelled egg in a nebulous sea. Traders from distant galaxies would look upon the clearly life-supporting little orb with desire for its treasures, and yet they dared not ever get close to it, for the burning clouds of the nebula belts around the bright young star it circled held dangers no craft would dare risk. Too many wrecked shuttles drifted lazily through the hazy system for the alien crews to venture foolishly in.

There came a time when the world shook for the small inhabitants of that world, the skies growing dark and tremulous over the lands below. The flying creatures took to the skies and would not land for many days as the ground was thrown about, shooting into the air or collapsing in on itself under mighty forces passing through it. At the time the satellite came hurtling through the nebulae to fall into orbit about its larger sister, the force of its passing broiled and churned the dark terrors of the nebula, revealing the great starry expanse of the sky to the wondering creatures of the world far below and opening trade routes to the travellers far beyond. About the planet now circled another world, nearly half as large as itself and like a mirror of itself, bright, shining and enchanted. Beautiful but mysterious, light and shadows played upon its surfaces as wildly as did warmth and life on the larger, yet its enchantments were dark and unfathomable and like an illusory mimicry of the older more than a vibrant world its own. Try as they might over the coming centuries, no spacecraft could land there, repelled by the strangely forceful shadows of its skies. For the technologically unadvanced inhabitants of the first planet, the new moon was as intangible and wondrous as any dream of such a thing could have been to them prior to its appearance. A beautiful orb to look toward and hope in admiration of greater powers.

As years went by, trade routes were established and interstellar traders did business trading ancient and outdated luxury technologies with the most peaceable nations in return for rare enchanted goods. While all parties would be pleased with the deals, the visitors never stayed long, and dared not do business directly with the largest and most prosperous of the world’s lands. For fierce beasts flew its skies and great serpents swarmed its seas. Beside the well-known and well-feared dragons, manticores timber-wolves and diamond dogs of its lands were numerous species so vile and so fearful as that no one had survived to name. But most dangerous and awesome of all the beasts were the dazzling creatures of magic and legend that guarded its borders and shared deep connections with the earth of its lands.

This was the Land of Ponies.

Besides the sky, the great upheaval of the moon’s arrival revealed something else to the major races of the Land of Ponies: In one of the great furrows left in the land stood a mighty and graceful tree of crystal from deep below the earth. From its branches protruded seven great gems: a diamond, an emerald, a lapis lazuli, a topaz, an opal, a ruby and an amethyst. All of incredible size and stunning beauty, round like eggs and polished by the movement of the earth in the process of their revelation.

The dragons, most sensitive to the lustrous allure of gemstones, were the first to covet and remove their totem stone from the seven. The great, perfect diamond, pure and unbreakable, gave strength to their fierce warrior spirits and warmed their simple hearts with its beauty and purity of light. Enchanted by its glittering facets, the small scouting party that found it carried it away with a mighty battle cry to present to their tribe, ignoring the weaker stones.

From the great shining city of the unicorn mages came the descendants of the first mage, their horns tingling and drawing them toward the power of the amethyst. Its serene violet surface calmed their nervous spirits, reflecting the deep truth and magic in their arcane science.

From the North came the sturdy-hearted Dread Pones, scouting for treasures and drawn to the glittering fissure. The viridian glow of the emerald, like the sunlit leaves of a perfect orchard in the groves of their forested home, spoke to them of honour, and they carried away the stone with pride in their hard work and the honouring of their promise to return with riches.

From the Meer a lone unicorn wandered through the forest, drawn by her searching spell to gems from which she might weave trinkets of lucky magic. She stumbled upon the trove to be dazzled by the glittering lapis, which shone with a thousand points of light like the night sky. Praising the generous bounty of her good fortune, she gladly pranced away without a second thought of the other gems, which was fortunate because they would have been far too heavy for her to carry without getting awfully sweaty, and she was a lady after all.

A Pegasus warrior from the Plains region literally fell upon the mighty opal while practising a complex flying spectacle, knocking it from its branch. In its rainbow light reflected upon the cave floor, she thought she could see her future as a loyal knight of the Plains Pegasi shining out at her. Hoping fervently that she could totally tell the future, she decided then and there that the multihued gem would look awesome upon her future battle helm.

A lone rock farmer on her way toward the castle of the princess of the Everfree region to offer granite trade at bargain price from Raladdin was drawn off course by the creaming-soda scent of the ruby. Looking upon its great scarlet depths, the small wiry earth pony found herself smiling with joy as she thought of the surprising glitter of weird rocks and the excitement of honeyed cakes and flute music at her people’s festivities.

Finally, a silent Pegasus pony from the prosperous southern towns of the coast was drawn to the cave where the crystal tree stood by the singing of weaver-birds and the humming of moths. Gasping at the golden glow of the topaz, she felt her heart swell with happy faith in the goodness of the natural world. She decided to share the beauty of the wonderful thing kindly with the fellow citizens of her town and delicately lifted the stone from its branch.

That day, the many members of the seven great tribes looked on in wondering awe at their fabulous finds and took them as a totem of their fortune in having survived the great upheaval and survived to a more beautiful and mysterious world than ever.

Oddly enough, the last one to get to the tree that day was the one who lived closest to it.

“Huh,” huffed the queen, bitting her lip. After assessing the complete destruction of her castle in the storm, it had been a menace trying to find somepony to look after her young daughters while she investigated the magical impulse from down in the forest.

“I could have sworn there was magic here, but all I see are six chunks of granite on a giant rock crystal.

She nobley trotted away.

“Eh, worth a shot.”