It was six in the morning, and the fifth hour that Flurry had spent staring at her bedroom ceiling. She had gotten through the meeting with the abyssinians well enough. She had even managed to smile and laugh once or twice. She was good at that—at being a princess.
Why not come with me?
You could be with me.
I love you.
Cozy’s voice drifted through her mind. In an hour, Cozy would be gone.
Flurry ran to her window, throwing it open—
She stuck her head out of the window and took in the cold air, relishing in the way that it nipped at her face.
Her mane curled around her head, and her ears swiveled back as she started to cry.
Something left her head. A pink feather. Cozy’s feather. It fell from behind her ear and began to drift on the air, spanning almost whimsically through a stray breeze.
Flurry grabbed the feather with her magic and brought it back to her, and she wiped her eyes.
She turned and left her room, zig-zagging through the halls, paying no mind to the staff or the guards. Tunnel vision clouded her sight. She was in front of the throne room in what felt like a few seconds, and she threw open the doors with her magic before the guards flanking them could let her in. She locked the doors when they closed, and walked to her throne.
Flurry stared at the throne. Countless times she had found herself looking at her mother sitting there, holding court, welcoming ambassadors, teasing the guards about their love lives…
Countless times she had thought about what she would do when she was the one sitting on the throne.
Flurry lifted a hoof and removed her shoe. Then she removed the other.
The rest of her regalia followed. She placed it all in a neat pile on the seat of the throne, and then teleported.
The nostalgic sight of her family’s cabin entered her vision.
Flurry grabbed the door and turned it into sand, stepping through the cabin to find her mother reading on the floor, by the fireplace.
“Flurry?” Cadance asked, glancing to her, and then the door. “What’s—”
“Don’t!” Flurry barked, horn lighting up, snuffing out the fire. “Tell me why you abdicated.”
Cadance blinked, and shook her head. “Flurry, I told you that I don’t know why.”
“You said that you didn’t know if you knew what you were doing. Not that you didn’t know why. Those are two different things, Mom. Tell me,” Flurry demanded. “Tell me right now! I need to know, Mom!”
Cadance stood, but instead of being scared, like Flurry hoped she would be, she simply looked concerned. “Sweetheart? What’s wrong?”
“I need to know why,” Flurry said shakily. “Please.”
“I didn’t feel like a princess anymore,” said Cadance. “Come and sit down. Put the door back.”
Flurry conjured the sand into wood, and the wood into a door, and she walked to her mother and dropped to her stomach. Her mother laid beside her.
“What do you mean, you didn’t feel like a princess anymore?” asked Flurry. “You’re the best princess that ever ruled.”
“Before I answer that, tell me why you’re asking.”
“Because…” Flurry began. She swallowed hard before continuing. “Because I want to leave. Because Cozy asked me to come with her through The Portal and I want to, Mom! I want to leave so bad. I missed her so much. I—I love her. You probably already knew that, didn’t you? Well, now I do, and I can’t do anything about it. I can’t be with her. Becoming the Ruler of the Crystal Empire should have made me the happiest mare in the world, but I—
“I love my ponies. Our ponies,” said Flurry. “But I can’t stay on that throne and know that Cozy’s in another world, and not be with her, and not even know if she’ll ever come back.”
They fell into quiet for a moment, gathering their thoughts.
Cadance spoke up eventually, sighing. “I stopped loving your father, and your father stopped loving me. It took me a long time to admit to myself that we stopped being happy. That that was possible. Then I realized that anything was possible, and that everything was possible and that I was going to see everything. I used to be excited for all of those possibilities. But I realized just how much...bad I was going to see. And I started just—just watching. Watching my meetings and my conversations with you and the guards, and your father as he dressed himself for the day before he left our bedroom each morning, never saying more than a few words to me. I was watching my life go by but I couldn’t feel anything anymore.
“How was this love? How could I sit on that throne and look at our crystal ponies in the eye and declare that I was their rightful ruler, and that I was the embodiment of love? What kind of pony could endure that shame?
“So I started looking in the mirror every chance that I could get. I would stare at my crown, and my crown was beginning to look like it wasn’t mine. I looked like an imposter. So I left my crown behind and I came here, and I’ve been trying to live with myself.
“But I can’t,” Cadance said. “I just realize that I can’t do this anymore. I can’t run from my problems forever. I’m the reason your heart is broken. Flurry—my own daughter—I did this to you. And I’m sorry. I’ll fix everything.”
Flurry laughed harshly. “How could you do that?”
“I’ll take my throne back.”
Flurry turned to her mother, whose expression was stern. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am, sweetie,” Cadance said. “Your love is so pure. I wish you could feel it. It’s so amazing, Flurry. I wish you could sense what I do. You deserve to embrace this. You’re going to embrace this.”
Flurry didn’t know what to say. She stepped forward, and after a moment’s pause, wrapped her legs around her mother, squeezing her tight.
“There’s no point to living forever if you’re going to do it alone,” said Cadance. “Go to her.”
“I love you,” said Flurry, trembling hard.
“And I love you,” Cadance cooed. She pressed her lips hard to the top of Flurry’s head, just in front of her horn, and then pushed the alicorn away.
“Go,” said Cadance, readying a teleport spell. “I’ll handle everything.”
Flurry’s heart was racing. She nodded, her eyes wet, and when her mother disappeared, she left the cabin and flew into the sky.
Flurry’s arcane reserves were exhausted. It would take a few more minutes before she could simply teleport to Fort Oculus.
She flew over the frozen tundra, admiring how the early morning sky still looked so much like night. The burning white snow was still tinted a calming indigo. She saw nopony or creature save for a couple of wolves. She didn’t expect to. That’s why when she was struck with a purple stun spell, right in her ribs, she was caught completely off guard.
Flurry fell hard, the wind knocked out of her lungs, until she realized what was happening and forced her mind to focus on flying. She spun a few times, flaring her wings out completely until she regained control of her flight and was able to glide down to the snow.
Once she landed, she looked around for whatever attacked her. It was unicorn magic. Strangely familiar. Perfectly aimed.
Another beam of magic shot towards her, but she was ready. Flurry ducked, avoiding it just barely, before—
Yet another beam of magic struck her in her side, pushing her off of her hooves. Flurry rolled in the snow, grunting in pain.
Her father appeared in a flash of light, a black scarf wrapped tightly around his neck.
“Cadance told me what was going on,” he said.
Flurry eased her pain with a quick healing spell and stood, brushing the snow off of herself. “You deserved to know first, Dad. There was just no time to say anything.”
“Do you know why you’re flying to Fort Oculus?”
“Because my arcane reserves—”
“Restored themselves three minutes after your last spell, whatever spell it was, no matter the power, no matter the distance. Nothing short of rendering you unconscious is something that you can’t recover immediately from. You can lie to yourself, Flurry, but I was your arcanologist for the first seventeen years of your life. I know you,” Shining said as he crouched, readying another spell. “You want somepony to stop you. That’s why you’re flying. Something in your mind is trying to give me the chance to save you from this.”
“Dad,” Flurry said. “You know how this is going to end.”
Shining closed his eyes. “I have to try.”
He cast his spell, but Flurry had been ready since she lifted her head off the ground. The beam came towards her. It was a trivial thing to cast a spell in the seconds before it hit her chest, taking it apart like a tower made of popsicle sticks and repurposing the energy for her own reserves.
She sent a wave of telekinetic energy at him, intending to throw him back a few yards.
He flew half a mile away before crashing into the ground, skidding hard to a halt until his body had firmly dug its own trench in the snow.
Flurry teleported next to him. Shining attempted to cast a spell, but she slapped his horn firmly before the magic could fully form, and he recoiled, grunting in pain.
She didn’t let up on him, stepping on his side. “Yield.”
“No.”
“Yield, Captain Armor!” Flurry commanded, channeling the Royal Canterlot Voice as full volume, right into his face.
“I watched as you were born,” said Shining, coughing a little. “I changed your diapers. Saw you take your first steps. I was there when you cast your first spell, had your first crush...you’re my daughter, Flurry. You can’t pull rank on me.”
Flurry’s legs quavered. She felt like crying, but held the tears back. “I’m an adult now, Dad. You can’t just pull me out of whatever your want. You need to let me make my own decisions.”
Shining’s mind rolled around his skull for a few moments, but eventually he was able to pick himself up. “Flurry, y-you need to think of what you’re doing hard. You need to make sure that this is the right thing. Because I’m not sure if it is.”
“I am,” said Flurry, smiling down at him. “You know what, Dad? You were right. I was hoping that you would come for me. Maybe I would have gone with you in another world. But it was easy to defy you for once. That’s how I know this is the right thing to do. So I’m going, Dad. I’m sorry. But I. Am. Going.”
Shining lifted a hoof.
He put it on hers.
“I never could have stopped you anyway,” said Shining, grinning at her bashfully. “My little girl.”
“I’m a god,” Flurry bragged, smiling wider. “Nothing can hold me down.”
“I love you, Flurry.”
Flurry took him into her telekinesis and floated his head to hers, crossing horns with him briefly before she kissed him on the snout. “You too.”
She floated him higher. “Dad?”
“Yes?” said Shining.
“I’m glad you came for me. I’ll come back for you.”
Flurry took one last look at her father. She whisked him away with a thought, teleporting him back to the castle.
The sun began to rise.
The Portal had shrunk to half its height in the last few hours. It no longer towered over the bunkers of Fort Oculus as much as it imposed its presence on them. Its color changed, too. The shifting indigos, like pieces ripped out of the night sky, had burned away, replaced by a uniform teal that blazed brighter than the sun.
Cozy Glow stood in front of the portal, staring into it, daring it to try and collapse early.
The sun was rising. The night was melting away as the snow turned from dark blue to orange.
It was time.
Chrysalis, with her teal chitin and colorful wings, fluttered down from above, landing beside her with a cocky smile on her face. “Are you ready, whelp?”
“As ready as I can be, Chryssy,” replied Cozy.
“You stink of heartbreak, Cozy. Do not presume to lie to a queen.”
Cozy sighed. “I don’t want to go.”
Chrysalis, who was still learning how to console a friend, simply put a hoof on Cozy’s shoulder.
It helped, but only marginally.
Tirek strolled out of one of the nearby bunkers, all three of their saddlebags and supplies weighing heavy on his broad back.
“Are we all ready?” he asked.
Cozy and Chrysalis glanced at one another before nodding.
“Good,” said Tirek, “because it’s time.”
The next few minutes were a blur of researchers and mages and guards, talking to them endlessly about safety precautions and procedures that they had memorized over the last week. Cozy didn’t listen to any of them—if she needed something later on, Chrysalis or Tirek would help her out.
Soon they stood side by side in front of The Portal, flaring bright in a moment of teal colored ecstasy. They had to leave now, before it fully burned out.
The first step towards it exhausted Cozy like she had taken a thousand, but she continued to walk. Flurry Heart pervaded her mind’s eye. The way that the look on her face constantly played between amused and confused and delighted. The way that her coat felt, and the softness of her lips.
Flurry’s face was the first face Cozy had seen in her return to civilization, and it was the face that she thought of as she stepped towards The Portal—the end of the world that she knew.
There was a bright yellow gleam of light, thrashing against the teal. When it passed, Flurry Heart stood in front of Cozy.
Cozy struggled for words. “Flurry? What—you came to see me off.”
“I came to do more than that,” said Flurry, striding up to the pegasus.
They kissed, lips melding together passionately. Flurry felt Cozy’s disbelieving breathing tickle her nose, and reached out with a leg to draw her in closer. Cozy found herself embraced with grand, gigantic wings, and she melted under Flurry’s will. They pulled apart, but only for a second, to catch their breath, before they kissed again, and again and again.
The sun rose, and the ground turned into a battle between orange and teal, and Flurry loved Cozy and Cozy loved her.
Finally, Flurry pulled away, done for now, and smiled. “Run away with me?”
Cozy stroked the alicorn’s face. “Well—”
“The Portal’s about to close, idiots,” Chrysalis interjected. “Can you continue this on the other side?”
“Right,” said Flurry. She pulled Cozy to their hooves, and the four of them faced The Portal. “Everyone ready?”
Chrysalis and Tirek didn’t answer with words. They simply grinned at the two ponies before walking through.
Cozy and Flurry watched them disappear from Equestria, and neither could suppress the shiver that come over them.
But then Flurry draped a wing over Cozy, and Cozy wrapped a leg around Flurry’s, and they leaned into each other. It was time. The sun was rising. They were ready to go.
Flurry wanted to say something, but all it took was one look from Cozy to know that she knew anything that Flurry could possibly say, so she went forward, and the two lovers stepped through the portal together.