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// Either get busy princessin' or get busy dyin' 
// Story: Princess Flurry Heart Versus the Mud Monsters 
// by kudzuhaiku 
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	Princess Flurry Heart channeled the chill of winter into the mud monsters’ hearts. The big ones were slowing; one day, she might freeze them solid in an eyeblink, but today was not that day, and that was fine. Twilight was flying in a protective circle around her, but Flurry did not see her. She was too caught up in the glory of her magic. 

The muddy poo monster and the muddy compost monster merged, like two great masses of mucky molasses, they melded together, becoming larger, stronger, and more powerful. Flurry was already nullifying them, her storm was driving the dust from the air to purify it. The little alicorn filly was filled with cool confidence. Not only was she finally getting her time to shine, she was with her friends, and they too, were getting their moment of glory. 

For once, they hadn’t screwed things up too badly. 

Down below, Flurry could sense a rush of warm, cosy love, and she knew that her tutor and Starlight Glimmer were having a bit of a snog. It was like a spark or a match that lit a fire and Flurry manifested a cold that was proportional to their warmth. The ginormous giant of a muddy poo-compost monster now moved with comical slow motion, and the smaller, far less threatening mud monsters had stopped moving altogether. 

Borne upon the winds of winter, Flurry swooped down, leaving behind a wake that smelled of peppermints, of spice, of gingerbread cookies, all of the scents associated with the holidays. She flew up to the massive mud monster, the disgusting creature made of filth, and she heard its burbling roar that was growing weaker with each passing moment. 

Wings flapping, she placed a hoof upon it with a light touch and a blue glow radiated outwards from where she had tapped it. It froze, becoming hard and brittle, thunderous crackling sounds like the movements of glaciers filled the air. In that moment, for that second, Princess Flurry Heart was the majestic princess that she had dreamed of being. She had nullified a credible threat and she had saved her subjects. 

Okay, maybe they were Twilight Sparkle’s subjects, but she had saved them. 

The day, now grey with snow clouds, was being saved. Flurry, waited, patient, as the liquid mass of the muddy poo-compost monster froze. This was more like freezing custard, due to the thick consistency, and she had a lot of experience doing this. She realised that her mother and her tutor had trained her well. Freezing them was not enough though, and she knew it. 

“Where is Tarnished Teapot?” Flurry asked in a booming voice, a mighty display of her princess power. 

“He’s coming,” Twilight replied. “That’s all I know. He’s coming. The last message that came out of the magic mirror said to sit tight until he could arrive to nullify the bad magic in the dirt.” 

Tapping her hoof against the now frozen mud, Flurry nodded. This soil, this earth, had been tainted with bad magic. Malicious, malevolent magic, the kind that only Mister Teapot could deal with. This walking chunk of garden fertiliser needed to be purged so that it could be used to grow fruits and vegetables. 

“Bashers!” Flurry boomed in the voice of a commanding holiday spirit. “Destroy this abomination! It offends your princess!” Flapping her wings, she rose, moving away from the mud monster that was now frozen solid, unmoving, a thing now as hard as stone. Flurry knew exactly what to do with a hunk of stone that needed destroyed. 

Below her, Olive lifted up Pebble in her telekinesis, and then round and round Pebble went over Olive’s head. Crazy, insane amounts of momentum was built up, something only an alicorn or a stone pony might survive, and then with a banshee scream, Olive launched Pebble, turning friend and fellow Basher into a ballistic missile of mass destruction. 

Pebble went streaking away, once again moving at around three-hundred metres per second or so, just under the speed of sound, just as Flurry had seen her do once already. Pebble was the bomb and just like her mother and her father, she was classified as a living weapon of mass destruction. She was a being of immense physical power who was just coming into her own as she was graced with adolescence. 

A mere fraction of a second before impact, a heavy shield surrounded Flurry and Twilight could be seen gritting her teeth. Olive had thrown a Pebble at their enemy, and now, the enemy was about to go away in a dramatic fashion. Flurry, capable of dealing with time in a way that normal ponies could not, watched all of this as it played out, her eyes taking in every detail, she was capable of seeing everything. 

Pebble had adopted her ‘superpony’ pose, one front hoof forward, one reared back, and she collided with the frozen fifty foot tall behemoth with terrific force. There was a sound like glass shattering, but worse. A shockwave of energy buffeted the shield around Flurry and then a second later there were a thousand impacts as shards of frozen filth pummeled the shield that Twilight had projected.

Houses toppled, a water tower leaned over, its metal struts bending, creaking, the sound of metal fatigue filled the air, and the resulting explosion sent an immense shockwave of devastation radiating outwards from the epicenter where the Pebble-bomb had struck. The great muddy monster was now nothing more than freeze dried slivers and shards of nastiness. The sound was indescribable, other than it was the noise of utter and complete destruction. The big mud monster exploding caused the smaller, less impressive mud monsters to also pop and shatter—along with pretty much every window in town. 

Winter had come to Ponyville and unleashed its destructive fury. In its wake there would be a fertile spring, the soil renewed, revitalised, rich in compost and fertiliser. Such was the way of things, such was harmony. Flurry knew her place now, she understood, and her mind knew a peace previously unexperienced. 

She was Flurry Heart, Alicorn Princess, the Heart of Winter, and the leader of the Wipe-Outs.



 

Seeing her tutor, Sunburst, and Starlight Glimmer wrapped up together in a blanket made Flurry’s heart feel warm and squishy. Both were holding mugs of warm cocoa, which was fine for them, but Flurry wasn’t in the mood for cocoa after fighting a mighty excremental monster. She flinched and let out a hiss as the nurse drove yet another staple into a very delicate place on her southern reaches. 

“Meouch!” 

Nearby, Megara too, was being stapled and glued back together with body spackle. Flurry braced herself, knowing that more staples were forthcoming. She was tired, but satisfied. There was a tremendous feeling of euphoria from her victory, a sense of accomplishment. The Wipe-Outs had saved the day and Flurry hoped that whatever punishment was coming for their escape would be minimal.

“Ow!” Flurry let out a hiss as the staple gun made an ear-raising metallic clunk and a stabbing pain went shooting through her backside. The gash in her dock had to be closed and Flurry was having a hard time maintaining her princessly demeanour. Not far away, Olive’s whimpers could also be heard, as she was being sutured as well while Pebble was holding tight to her hoof. 

Heroism had a cost in staples, stitches, and body spackle. 

Turning her head, Flurry looked over at Sumac, who had escaped unharmed, for the most part. For once, their adventures didn’t involve him getting his head stapled back together or being mummified in bandages. He was smothered by his mothers, all three of them, and somewhere in that mess of overprotective mares was Boomer, buried. 

With a click, the door opened and Flurry glanced over to see who it was. Twilight Sparkle came in, looking only a little worse for wear, a little dirty, a little damp, and she had some cuts that needed tending to. Biting her lip, Flurry choked back a cry as another staple went in, and one fat tear rolled down from the twitching corner of her eye. Flurry was determined to take this like a princess. 

“Tarnish has arrived and he is purging the area of bad magic,” Twilight reported as she came over to where Flurry Heart was being tended to. Drawing herself up to her full majestic height, the regal alicorn and aunt looked down at her niece with a smile. “I owe you a debt of thanks, Princess Flurry Heart.” 

Heart thumping, Flurry hardly even felt the next staple as it pierced the tender flesh of her damaged dock. Nearby, Megara yowled and let out a snarl of pain. Flurry’s ears pivoted towards the source of the sound, but her eyes remained on Twilight, who had just addressed her as a princess, and not in a teasing way. 

“You’ve grown so much, Flurry,” Twilight said as liquid pride shimmered in her eyes. “Because you saved Ponyville, I’m willing to forgive you for wrecking my castle. Again.” A broad smile crossed Twilight’s face, and she beamed down at her niece, her face like a miniature lavender sun. “You did very well. Destruction was minimal and acceptable. You kept the smallest, most vulnerable members of your team safe. Sumac is unharmed, as far as I know, and that’s not how these things usually end.” 

Flurry nodded. Typically, these adventures ended with Sumac and her other teammates in the intensive care unit. Twilight was right, this had gone well. Pride burned inside of Flurry’s little alicorn heart like embers in a furnace. 

“You actually worked with Olive and Pebble, and didn’t compete with them, trying to show them up. That shows maturity… you put the safety and security of others ahead of your own glory and the need to prove yourself.” 

Again, Flurry nodded, and she winced as another staple pierced her dock. A tear spilled from her eye and she squirmed a bit, but not too much. Things had gone better, Twilight was right. This time, there had been no silly contest to prove who was bigger, better, faster, stronger, or more capable. 

“Are you… are you gonna… will you tell Sleet that I was bad?” Flurry asked, her voice hitching somewhat from her hesitation. 

“No.” Twilight let out a resigned sigh. “Sometimes, the most important lesson that a princess can learn is when to cause trouble.” Reaching out a wing, Twilight stroked her niece as the final staple was applied to close up the horrendous gash in her dock. “You had the right skills for the job, and the right team, too.” Drawing in a deep breath, Twilight continued, “It’s a hard lesson to learn, knowing when to rebel. It took me a long time to learn this lesson, when to break away from my mentor Princess Celestia and do things my own way. It caused me a lot of fear, worry, and doubt, but as it turns out, Princess Celestia wanted me to defy her… it was the final lesson that I had to learn and truly become the princess she believed me to be.” 

“Really?” Flurry tried very hard to understand what her aunt was saying. 

“Really.” Twilight gave her niece a nod. “In fact, I found out after the fact that Princess Celestia would put me into a situation with a set of instructions that made it almost impossible to achieve the desired results. The instructions made it very difficult, very dangerous, and in many cases, made the situation so much worse, but I followed those instructions, because Princess Celestia had given them.” Blinking, she let out a sigh of regret and then added, “I was so eager to please.”

“Princessing is tricky,” Flurry said to her aunt as the nurse began to wrap gauze around her dock. 

“It is,” Twilight replied with a nod. “But you have your Wipe-Outs. They’re your best friends, Flurry, your accomplices. Being your friends, they’ll be very forgiving if you make a mistake, and they’ll steer you in the right direction. Everything you will ever need to know about princessing, you will learn from your friends, just like I learned how to be a princess by being with my friends.” 

“Yeah, I guess the four of us are pretty special.” Flurry squirmed a bit as more gauze was applied, the pressure pushed down on the staples and brought some serious discomfort. 

“Six,” Pebble corrected. 

“Huh?” Flurry looked away from her aunt and stared at Pebble. 

“I propose a merger. Olive and I were outclassed today and I think the six of us stand a better chance in future engagements if we work together.” Pebble gave Olive’s hoof a squeeze, and Olive nodded. “You didn’t screw up today, Flurry.” 

Pebble’s compliment almost floored Flurry, and she felt a lump grow in her throat. 

“Hey a group of friends and a dragon,” Twilight remarked as she began to chuckle. “That’s all you need to change the world. I know, because I’ve done it. You’ve got everything a princess in training needs, Flurry Heart.” 

“I do, don’t I?” Shifting her weight a bit, Flurry wiped her eyes with her foreleg and began to sniffle. The team was going to need a new name, or so she thought. Feeling eyes on her, she looked around the room and found that everypony was looking at her. Everypony. Trixie, Lemon Hearts, even Twinkleshine. Was that pride that she saw in Twinkleshine’s eyes? Acceptance? Like her beloved pink cherry blossoms in spring, Flurry felt hope blossom. 

“Congratulations, Flurry Heart, you’ve proven your worth as a Princess of Equestria.” And with that, Twilight bowed her head. 

Others followed suit, some sitting, some standing, but all bowed their heads, even the nurses took a moment to do so. Flurry felt a peculiar sensation, one of worry, and she realised that now that she had their respect, she was going to have to work even harder to make sure that she did not let them down. As Twilight had once said, a princess’ work was never done. 

Flurry’s work was just beginning and the little princess began to make plans.