In a place far away.
Ice and snow pierce the sky of a kingdom long forgotten.
There, in the throne room of a grand citadel stands a secret frozen cold in a block of ice.
A secret soon to be unfold.
A scar appears on the block and a voice emits from the cold ice.

Celestia...

Princess Celestia yelled out of fear and woke up from her sleep. Not long after that, the door to her residence opened and trough it came a blue winged mare with a grand horn on her forehead. It was Celestia’s fair sister, Luna.

“Dear sister,” She said, “What happened?”

Celestia panted and sweated, it looked like she saw something. Something that the great ruler of Equestria never wanted to see. “Nothing, it was just a nightmare.” She said. Luna leaned backwards in fear, “A nightmare? I had one too.”

“About what, Luna?” Celestia asked.

“About him…”

…

Later that day, somewhere far but yet close to Castle Canterlot, lies a town called Ponyville. There stands a tree which is partly a house. In there, Twilight Sparkle is busy ordering her books for the third time that day. “Spike, do you know where Mythica: An appendix of Mythical Creatures in Equestria is?” Asked Twilight while she was surrounded by books which she made floating with a floating spell. The unicorn was talking to a little purple baby dragon who was cleaning the staircase. The little dragon looked at Twilight, “It’s floating right of you ,Twi.” he said. “Oh my, silly me.” Twilight said to herself and thanked Spike.

Suddenly there was someone knocking on the door. “Spike, could you open the door, please.” Twilight asked. Spike threw away the broom and ran to the door, he opened it only to find a blue Pegasus with rainbow dyed hair. “Hello, Rainbow Dash” Spike said and he let the Pegasus fly in. Twilight looked up to see that Rainbow Dash has entered the room and asked, “Let me guess, you’re here for Daring-Do: The Temple of Hoof, isn’t it?” The Pegasus blushed, “Of course, Twi.” she said. Spike barked a bit and Rainbow Dash frowned at him. “Something wrong with Daring-Do, Spike?” She asked.

“No, it’s just…” His sentence was interrupted when he barked up a scroll of paper. “It’s a message from Canterlot.” Said Twilight and used her floating spell to make the scroll fly towards her and roll open to read it.

Twilight, my dear student

There is something I would like to talk about with you and your friends.

Come to Canterlot Castle as soon as possible.

Your teacher, Princess Celestia

“What does it say, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked. “It seems that Daring-Do can wait Rainbow." Twilight said, "We are asked to come to Canterlot Castle immediately.”

“I’ll tell the rest and you’ll fire up that Hot Air Balloon.” Said the Pegasus and she fled like the wind through the door.

…

It was already midday when the six ponies and the little dragon came to Canterlot with the balloon. Rainbow Dash had to pull the balloon or else it would be too slow for her taste. Twilight, Rainbow Dash were companied by four other ponies: Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie Pie. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were already waiting for them at the castle gates.

“Twilight Sparkle, my dear student. I’m glad you and your friends could come on such a short notice. Enter, there’s much to be told.” They entered the throne room of the castle. The six ponies and Spike have been here already, they looked at the stained glass windows to see the confrontation between the princesses and the Spirit of Disharmony itself: Discord. Only looking at that picture made the six ponies shiver in fear. Princess Celestia walked up to her throne. “Sorry princess,” Said Applejack, “But why were we here again?”. Celestia pulled a secret handle and revealed a secret stairway. She looked at the orange pony with great worry on her face. “Through here lies the answer.” She said.

The six ponies, Spike and the two princesses walked down the stairway to find an old room filled with scrolls and books. Celestia used her magical unicorn horn to make the torches burn to add some light.

“What do you see here, dear substitutes?” She asked. The yellow Pegasus looked around and said: “Ehm… I see books and… eh… scrolls.” The princess smiled, “Yes, Fluttershy. But do you know what for books and scrolls these are?”
No answer came from the ponies, not even from Twilight Sparkle, who knows everything about books.
“You don’t know?” Asked Celestia, “Good, that was the meaning of this chamber.”
The ponies looked confused.

“This room is a safe house of everything literal and graphic of a certain stallion called Dusk Dawn.” Celestia said.
Twilight was startled, “Dusk Dawn, I never heard of him before.” Celestia looked worried at her sister, Luna.
Luna walked up to the her sister, “He.. He is our brother.” she said. Again, the ponies were startled but the dramatic silence was broken with the voice of Pinkie Pie, the pink Earth Pony.

“A brother!? I never knew you two had a brother! It’s like a big, what’s that word again? Plothole! Yeah, a plothole. Twilight always says something about that when I send her a manuscript of my book…”

Her chatter was interrupted when she saw that the others were looking at her with frowned faces.

“Oops, sorry.” She said, “Maybe it was, like Twilight always says, out of context.” With all that done, the attention was brought back to the princesses. “Yes, Dusk Dawn was our brother.” Said Celestia,
“Normally, an Alicorn like us can only be birth once in a thousand years. Even longer”

Luna took over, “But our mother gave birth to three: me, Celestia and Dusk Dawn. Having three baby Alicorns at the time was a big deal. So we got praised with love and affection from the whole of Equestria. We took our magic lessons of Starswirl the Bearded but Dusk Dawn abandoned the safe monastery of our teacher.” Twilight Sparkle glanced with surprise in her eyes, “You took lessons from Starswirl the Bearded? What was he like?” She asked but was answered with a: “That’s not the point right now.” by Celestia. Twilight looked to the ground, a bit ashamed right next to the other unicorn, Rarity.

“Where were we?” Celestia asked,
“Dusk Dawn abandoned the safe monastery of our teacher to go on adventurous trips. One of his trips was to the cold north. Where the first settlements of ponies lie.” Rarity asked, “Like that from that play we had to do on Heart’s Warming Eve?” Celestia answered: “Yes, Rarity.”

Luna continued, “There he found a cave and in that cave lied the frozen body of Discord.His voice spoke to him and asked our brother to free him from his icy prison. It took him days to scrape only a quarter of the ice on Discords body but that was enough for that foul dragon to free himself with his own strength and power. After that he took Dusk Dawn as his apprentice and majordomo.”

Luna stopped and started to shred tears, shame and sorrow could be read from her face.

“He was promised his own kingdom if he helped Discord take over Equestria.” Continued Celestia, “But in the end he helped us taking down Discord in our great battle against the dragon.”

“Then what was so bad about him? Okay, he freed Discord but he helped you, right?” Twilight asked.

“He helped us taking down Discord only so he couldn’t stand in his way for world domination!” Said Celestia.
"He started building his empire in the north, his dark magic allowed him to control the Windigoes in the region. From then on he was known as Cold Heart" Celestia then looked with worry to her crying sister. “His first move... That was when... It was him...” She got interrupted by a broken Luna,

“IT WAS HIM THAT TURNED ME INTO NIGHTMARE MOON!”

The ponies, again, where startled and Luna fell on the ground crying more broken than she looked a second ago.
Celestia continued: "After I prisoned Luna in the moon, he tried to corrupt me too. But I confronted him in his own citadel. After I grand battle, i could freeze him with the Elements of Harmony in a unbreakable block of arcane ice. I also covered up his whole kingdom under a glacier, so nobody could find him.”

Celestia, too, started to shed tears,
“I summoned all of you here because we started having nightmares. Both the same. We see that block of ice break, his voice emitting from it. We think it’s a bad omen.” The tearful moment was interrupted by one of the royal guards who entered the room.

“Where under attack,” He said, “Canterlot Castle is under attack!!!"

Celestia and Luna shivered in fear, “By who?”

"Windigoes!"

Next Chapter: Castle Sieged Estimated time remaining: 27 Minutes