//------------------------------//
// 36. A Different Game. 
// Story: Time to Shine 
// by Easysnuggler 
//------------------------------//

Of course, there was Flurry Heart, the daughter of Cadance the supposed former pegasus.  Flurry Heart was simply born an alicorn.  It is not known why this happened, but reports said her newborn magical strength nearly precipitated a natural disaster in the Crystal Empire.


—Pena “On the Origins of Ponies*(*and Others) and Magic”




36.  A Different Game




The Empire came back with a ka-thump.  There was very little ceremony when the great nation known as the Crystal Empire simply popped back into existence from thin air near a snowy crater.  Its towers, spires, halls, houses, and businesses and even the great central fortress known as the palace of the empress were momentarily warm and full of light.  But it was empty. Not a single crystal pony walked the halls, strolled through the fields, or even slept in the homes.  The Crystal Empire’s powerful defense allowed it to slip through time and avoid destruction again and again.  After 1000 years the power of the temporal disjunction mega spell dissipated.  

Wind whistled through the empty streets and snow began to fall.  There was no shield of bright daylight keeping the cold out. The blue crystal heart spun so fast it appeared as a solid ovoid, but it began gradually to slow.  It took quite some time to spin down.  When it finally stopped, the light began to fade.  The light of an empire once filled with hope and love by the emotions of its inhabitants began to fade.  The illumination of love was simply replaced by the pretty but mundane ribbons of the northern lights.

A moment later with a crackle and pop, a large glowing pink alicorn mare appeared far above the palace in the crisp clear air.  The abrupt change in ambient magic let Flurry Heart recognize the ending of her temporal disjunction spell.  Her rage at Twilight and the deaths of her entire family had turned her eyes black like her distant uncle.  Smoke poured from her hide, and a blinding blue light shone from her eyes.

She had been too slow to stop Twilight Sparkle and her minions.  The populace of the Crystal Empire had been extirpated.  Twilight Sparkle’s plan to remove the populace had succeeded.  They were in the future, through the mirrors or in the astral plane. Unreachable.  She was alone.  Starlight Glimmer and Sunset Shimmer were nowhere to be found.  There was no sound.  Her panting faded, as her heart rate slowed.  

Her horn, chest, wings, and hooves smoked from magical exhaustion.  She closed her eyes as the blinding light from her eyes faded.  Her blue and purple mane was singed, and her pink body was charred in places.  

She had failed.

Failed to save her soul sister Skyla.  Failed to save her mother Cadance.  Failed to save her cousins Valentino and Clemente and failed to save her sweet fiancé. 

She had failed to live up to her parent’s expectations.

No wonder her mother had held the breach instead of returning.  Sacrificing herself instead of facing a future with no empire.  Her cutie mark burned.  The missing citizens were a physical pain.  Taken from the world and put ‘elsewhere’, or lots of elsewhere, and elsewhens as well.  With no way to track them and return them, she was devastated.  The dissolution of the attachment to her subjects, written by the stars themselves on her flank was traumatic and profound. 

The empire of ice and crystal, wonder of the north was a dead and empty shell.

It was intolerable.  She felt the vast emptiness of a parent feeling the death of a child, or of a child for a parent.  Thousands and thousands of missing individuals.  The existential vacuum consumed her mind as her magic winked out.

Her eyes blinked black turning back to blue and then she closed them.  She lost consciousness. Her pretty blue eyes rolled back into her head.

Her wings failed, and she fell from the sky.

With no one to catch her she fell twirling three thousand feet straight to the flat balcony of the crystal palace.  Her body didn’t splatter so much as smash, and while its hide was somewhat complete, the bones had shattered.

Snow continued to fall, covering her in a thin covering of red that paled as the dusty blanket thickened until only white remained, burying the last empress and final citizen of the crystal empire in gentle white flakes.