Far to the south, where the badlands border the Dragon mountains, there are the remains of a sprawling pony city. Except for two individuals, nopony knows about it; and life in Equestria is better for it. It is not visible, not even to pegasus eyes. None of its features carry through to the surface. It does not have any.



The millennia have covered it with red sand and dusty earth, close to a hundred yards in some places. Dig deep enough and you would find a thin layer of obsidian droplets, a few feet deeper followed by smooth, solid, black glass. Unbroken for miles.



Whatever stood here was purged from the face of the earth, just as any record of it has been purged from history. Except for one: a small gap at the beginning of the first and oldest shelf in the forbidden wing of the Royal Canterlot library, an empty marker and silent reminder. Every few decades, one of the Royal Sisters visits this place and sits there from dawn til dusk. Nopony knows of this, and nopony would be able to make any sense of it.

But one.