A Long Time Ago...
Spike made his way down the hallway of the Crystal Castle's second floor, towards the dining room. He got nods of acknowledgement from passing EUP guards.
"Good morning, Spike the Brave and Glorious," one greeted as he passed through the doors to the dining room. It was mostly staff and the skeleton third shift, either eating before their duties started or after, before turning in. He smirked that even after all this time, that title still made it's way around up here.
He stepped up to the kitchen window where castle chef was overlooking his small kitchen staff prepare more food for the buffet line.
"Morning, Turnip," Spike greeted.
"Morning, Spike," the crystal pony replied. "The usual?"
The dragon nodded, licking his lips.
"Say, where's the Princess? She's usually down here by now," Spike commented as Turnip returned to the window with a bowl of varied crystals for Flurry's royal advisor.
"She took a small plate and went to her private dining room. It looked like she had another rough night," the chef commented, sliding the bowl over to the dragon.
"I'll be checking on her then. Thanks, Turnip!"
Spike took the bowl in his claws, popping a couple crystals in his mouth as he exited the dining hall, going up two flights of stairs to the fourth floor, the royal wing. He stepped up to the second door on the left, and knocked three times.
"Come on in," came the tired reply, as she likely knew who it was.
Spike opened the door, and saw Princess Flurry Heart sitting at her dining table, looking positively sleep deprived as she magically poked at a light helping of hay and hash browns with a fork.
"Are we Flurry Worrying again?" Spike asked as he came up to the table, sitting down across from her.
"Spike, what was Rule #4?" She asked, leering at him, half-annoyed by the lack of sleep.
"No making you a verb..." Spike muttered, beginning to munch on two more crystals. "So, rough night? The nightmares are back?"
Flurry Heart set the fork down on her plate.
"They never stopped. For two weeks now. Neither has this weather," Flurry said, motioning to the window where the wind continued to howl.
She let out an exasperated sigh.
"It's always exactly the same. Every single night for two weeks. That's not a nightmare, Spike. That's premonition."
Flurry picked up her fork and took another small bite of hash browns.
"I don't want to try to make sense of it alone, but as far as I know, there are no dreamwalkers nearby, and there haven't been for years."
Spike continued to listen, as he had learned long ago that listening was just as effective as talking to a great advisor.
"Mom was right. Watching over this place is painfully predictable. But when I wanted more excitement around here, I wasn't talking about end-of-the-world scenarios," Flurry told him.
"To be fair, that's frequently what it was when things got exciting back in Twilight's day," Spike countered.
"I'm sure things were a bit more manageable when there were four or five alicorns instead of just one."
"You'd be surprised," Spike offered. "I lost track of how many times we would have to talk Twilight down before we could start formulating a plan of action. Talk. Breathe. Plan."
"Talking isn't going to help, Spike!" Flurry snapped, then took a breath, adamant on not letting the lack of sleep get to her. "What I mean is, things are worse than I've ever seen. We are losing Equestria, Spike. Bit by bit, every day. The Everfree Forest down in the central valley is slowly expanding, and Ponyville can't stop it. Cloudsdale has been gone for six months, thousands of pegasi refugees are causing overcrowding in Canterlot, and the last reports I received say that open revolt in the city is inevitable."
Flurry paused to take a drink of water.
"It's easy to separate ourselves from it all when we're all the way up here. But if this weather gets much worse, staying here won't be an option, and I don't want to send my populace down into... All that. It makes me wonder if Tirek, Cozy, and Chrysalis really were successful in the long term... If we've all forgotten the lessons Twilight and her friends taught us long ago."
Spike sat and continued into his bowl of crystals while his Princess and friend continued her heart-pouring.
"A year ago, I figured reaching my bicentennial would be nothing more than a painfully long wait, but now I'm wondering if we'll make it another three years."
"I say this every year, but for 197, you don't look a day over 40," he said with a gentle smile.
Flurry managed a small smile back.
"Whatever this premonition is trying to tell me, the Crystal Heart is involved, and if I don't figure it out, I fear that this city is doomed to a grave of ice and snow." Flurry said, turning her attention to the blowing snow outside the window.
Now it was Spike's turn to take a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
"Look, what I'm about to tell you... I was sworn to secrecy. But if you really, truly believe that this is that serious, that our world hangs in the balance of whatever you're experiencing at night... Then I think they'll understand," Spike said, his tone quite serious all of a sudden.
"What do you know, Spike?" Flurry asked.
"I know where you can find a dreamwalker. She's closer than you think."
Of course you take a break on the cliffhanger
All jokes aside, I'm hooked! Can't wait to see more!
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I'm hoping it's not going to be longer than a couple days. I'll still work on it, but I'll hold off on updating until the art is complete.
Ooh!!
Ohhh it looks like flurry heart is having a nightmare something bad is going to happen and it looks like spike is also hanging out with flurry as well I guess Twilight wanted him to keep an eye on her but what does he mean she is closer than you think I guess we'll find out next time
Which GENERALLY means, that Flurry is a dream walker and they sealed the abilities and erased her memories of it all "for her own good".
Which "for her/his/their/whoevers' own good" ALSO generally means toes were being danced on
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Possibly. But, given the tags, it's possible that he could just mean Luna is still around, but in hiding. Possible, but not certain.
Hey there. Great job on the build-up in this flashback chapter. Definitely appreciated Spike and Flurry's dialogue concerning Flurry finding out about the adage of being careful what you wish for. Great description of how bad the situation has gotten as well as the set-up for the events of G5. And, yeah, concerning Spike is kind of Flurry's adoptive uncle, it would make sense that Twilight probably asked him to keep an eye on Flurry and help her as needed after a while. And I don't know if Spike means Flurry has dreamwalker abilities that she doesn't know about or if Luna is still around. I'm about 50/50 one way or the other.
VERY certainly looking forward to more of this.
I'll be honest, the current cover art is just fine.
Clever. Very clever.
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I'm leaning towards that, myself.
So.......if things run true to form, they'll have at least two living sources of information about Twilight's era to talk to. That'll help Sunny a lot.
A few days? But I only have until the end of this sentence to live! *dies*
Spike & Flurry better be Ok in this & meet Sunny & Co. Or i will never forgive you
I forgot to track this... how did I forget to track this!? Good thing it's still in the feature box so that I would notice it! I loved Forgotten, and am so excited to see where this is going! I'm loving that we're seeing what happened all those years ago in Flurry's and Spike's POV of things, as well as what's going on with Sunny. For some reason I want time travel to be part of the answer, but that's just me being Time Travel crazy. Thank you for such an amazing story, and what do you know, I clicked track story this time.
Teddie
Sunny's rockin' that
articlearctic survival gear!Awesome art!
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*arctic
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Thanks, never take your eyes off a phone's autocorrect.
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im sorry to say, gen 5 is several years into the future where twilight and friends have long since passed. So sorry lol
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There’s a chance Flurry could still be around when Sunny comes
Ah, Cloudsdale collapsed when the magic starts fading, so the pegasi refugees swamped Canterlot which could no longer sustain any more refugees which led to a pegasi takeover of the city, that made sense. I wonder who's the ruler of Equestria after Twilight's passing(missing?/assassination?/natural death?). Could it be, an Alicorn Luster Dawn struggling to keep Equestria stable without help or it's just a council of ponies that bickered with each other?
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A Canterlot Council? I now imagine Luster Dawn's great granddaughter chasing a bunch of Blueblood clones with a rolled up newspaper 🗞️
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*wheezing*
lol.
That sure is a lot frustration to deal with.
Wonder how much time has gone just reading this. 🤔
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Around 196 years. Twilight really didn't last long. Makes one wonder. What greater purpose is unfolding that the number of active alicorns in the field has reduced to one?
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Yeah, how tragic indeed.
11251341
Yeah, tragic indeed.
In Spike's defense, he was making her an adverb.