//------------------------------// // Light in the Darkness // Story: Legends Never Die: A New Age // by bookhorse125 //------------------------------// “It’s another window,” Sunny said unexcitedly, peering into the box. “But what if it tells us another piece of Ancient Equestrian history that we’ve been missing!” Izzy said enthusiastically. “Can you imagine?” Sunny sighed and rolled her eyes. “Yes, I can, because we’ve literally got twenty more of these.” Despite this, she helped the other seven ponies (Haven insisted on helping, since she wanted to know what this all was about) lift the much larger shards of glass out of the box and set them on the ground, though the look that she gave Izzy and Flurry as they used their horns to levitate the broken pieces wasn’t wistful, but fearful. “Woah,” Hitch said as he slid pieces together, forming the image of a sunshine yellow pegasus with a long pink mane. There was a look in his eyes that made Flurry think he had seen her before. “I think this one’s going to be much bigger than the ones downstairs,” Sprout reasoned, tearing his eyes away from the chunks of glass that he had assembled to make a picture of an orange earth pony with a country style hat on her head to look at the size and amount of glass pieces on the floor. “A lot bigger.” “How many windows did Ancient Equestria have?” Zipp asked Flurry, who shrugged.  “I dunno. I think the system’s been around for thousands of years, so there could be others in different places that we just haven’t found yet.” They were silent for a while, putting pieces together on the throne room floor instead of transporting everything down to the airstation again. The final window covered nearly the entire floor and, with all of them working together, was finished within the hour. Flurry spread her wings and joined Zipp, Pipp, Haven, and just about every single pegasus in the room hovering over the completed picture. She knew what it was, but as soon as she saw the whole thing, Flurry felt a rush of nostalgia, and she gave a bittersweet smile. The image was a giant mural of her aunt Twilight and her friends, including Spike, surrounded by things that they loved. “Wow,” Haven whispered in awe. She turned to her daughters with a proud look on her face. “I want you to know how proud I am of you for doing all this. And every time you do it, it only makes me love you more.” She sighed and looked back at the picture. “I only wish I could be there for you more. It feels like you’re growing up too fast.” “We’ll tell you everything we find, don’t worry,” Pipp assured her. “And we’ll ask you for help.” “But there will be times when we have to go on dangerous quests with the fate of all of Equestria upon our shoulders,” Zipp reminded her mother. Haven smiled. “I expect nothing less.” The three royal pegasi embraced in midair. Flurry watched the scene from a respectable distance, but she still felt it tug at her heartstrings, remembering all the times her own mother had hugged her or told her she was proud of her, and knowing that it would never happen again. She also knew that her mother never let her go off on dangerous quests and had insisted on keeping her safe all her life. If Flurry had ever tried to save the world, Cadance would have followed her around with safety spells ready to fire. She landed on the floor and felt somepony by her shoulder, and, expecting it to be Sprout, was surprised to see Sunny standing next to her, also staring up at the royal family’s heartwarming embrace. “It’s hard, isn’t it?” the earth pony said, sighing. “When you lose your parents, and then your friends who still have them kind of… rub it in your face.” “They’re not rubbing it in,” Flurry insisted. “They just… don’t know what it’s like.” Sunny looked at her, surprised. “You think so?” Flurry smiled. “I know so.” She nodded to the giant window. “One of my aunt’s friends, her name was Applejack, she lost both of her parents when she was younger, and she never felt like anypony who had parents was rubbing it in.” They were silent for a while before Flurry plucked up the courage to say, “Does it get easier? You know, after time?” The mare laughed, sounding just like her old self. “If it does, it must be a very long time, because it hasn’t for me,” she said, grinning at Flurry. “Maybe we can work through it. Together.” The alicorn took the earth pony’s hoof. “Together,” she agreed. “This brings back memories,” Izzy commented as she joined the two ponies, nudging Sunny. “Of putting together a broken window and starting off on a quest to save Equestria and bring back magic?” Sunny gave no indication that she recognized what Izzy was saying, so the unicorn dropped her hopeful expression. Zipp, on the other hoof, knew exactly what she meant. “Yeah,” she agreed as her family landed, “who knew that would escalate so much?” Pipp huffed. “I’m still angry with you for ruining my show, you know,” she told her sister. Zipp grinned. “Wonderful, we’re back on track,” she said teasingly. “Hey, Pipp, where’s your cell? Just thought you might want to take a picture of this and post it on whatever.” She frowned. “When was the last time you had that thing? I don’t think I’ve seen it since you came back.” The younger pegasus reached under her wing to pull out her cell phone, but her hoof felt nothing but empty air. “Huh,” she said, “that’s strange. I must have forgotten it in my room.” She shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I’ll find it later.” Her older sister gaped at her before grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. “Who are you and what have you done with my little sister?” she demanded. “Are you an evil spy of sorts? Because I should warn you, I am an officially licensed world-saver and blaster-of-friendship-magic, so you might want to watch out!” “Officially licensed what?” Hitch asked as Sprout doubled over, laughing. “Where’s my official license for world-saving and friendship-magic-blasting?” Izzy asked, looking hurt. Then she brightened. “No worries! I’ll make some for all of us.” “Add lots of glitter,” Pipp suggested. “Especially on Zipp’s, because she just loooooves glitter.” “Ick, I do not!” Zipp said indignantly, making a delightfully humorous disgusted face. “What about the time I got you that very glittery hoof polish for Hearts and Hooves Day a few years ago?” Pipp retorted, a smug and mischievous smile on her face. “Admit it, you just adored that.” “I did not!” she protested. “I merely tolerated it until it ran out, which was quick because I wanted to get rid of it and not because I liked it!” “Sure,” Pipp agreed, though her tone contradicted that. Zipp glared at her. “What are we going to do with this?” Haven interrupted, nodding towards the giant window on the floor. “It’s too big to move anywhere like this, and there’s nowhere I can put it.” “We could put it in the airstation,” Sprout suggested. “Flurry could teleport it there.” Hitch shook his head. “We’ve got the entire floor covered. I vote we take it apart and put it back in the box for now, and put it back together once we’ve got a place for it.” He thought for a second. “Maybe we should do that for all the windows.” “I’ll go get my phone so I can take pictures of them all,” Pipp volunteered before dashing out of the room. Before long, she was back, holding her phone aloft. She took to the skies, hovered near the top of the room to get the entire picture in the frame, and snapped a picture. Taking a few seconds to grin at her family, Pipp once again flew out of the room, this time heading to the airstation to take yet more pictures. Zipp leaped into the air and followed her. “Sunny, you and everypony else go downstairs and start cleaning up,” Flurry instructed. “I’ll catch up with you after I get this all sorted out.” The earth pony nodded and led Sprout, Hitch, and Izzy out of the room and closed the door. Haven remained in the room, and she looked at Flurry curiously as she lit up her horn. All the pieces of glass on the floor were lifted up and packed gently in the box, the flaps slid closed, and the box disappeared in a bright yellow flash to reappear down in the airstation. “Wow,” Haven said, her voice full of wonder. “That was… incredible.” “Oh, please, it wasn’t that cool,” Flurry laughed. “I’ve been doing things like that since I was a filly. I also broke a vitally important magical artifact just by screaming, and we all very nearly froze while I just flew around causing more trouble. It’s a long story,” she finished hastily, seeing the queen’s confused face. “But to shorten it, everypony did a big magic thing, and everything was fixed.” “...I’ll take your word for it,” Haven decided. She took a deep breath and looked around the throne room. “So, back in… your time, your aunt ruled all of Equestria from Zephyr Heights?” Flurry nodded. “It was called Canterlot back then, but… yeah, basically.” “It must be really weird seeing us here instead of her,” Haven agreed. She shifted her hooves nervously. “If you wanted, we could step down, and you could take over. I mean, you clearly would be the better fit, and you’ve been around so many great rulers, and-” “Stop, stop, stop,” Flurry interrupted. “I would never do that. I don’t want to rule all of Equestria - I just want to rule my home. I have no idea how to handle things in this time period, so even that’s going to be a struggle. And who said I would be a better fit than you? You had to be queen during a very difficult time in history - a time that broke both my mother and my aunt, who were some of the strongest ponies I knew. And you did a good job - Zephyr Heights easily surpasses Maretime Bay and Bridlewood in both happiness and advancement. Sure, the fake-flying wasn’t the best decision-” Haven winced as Flurry said this “-but sometimes there aren’t any really good decisions. I used to want to be like my aunt or my mom, and I still do, but now I also want to be like you - somepony who gives her subjects hope and keeps going forward even when they don’t really know what comes next.” “You make me sound like a saint,” Haven said ruefully, and Flurry laughed. “But I’m afraid that’s not all it seems to be. If I was truly a good ruler, then I would have reached out to unicorns and earth ponies and tried to amend things and really solve the problem, not come up with false solutions. But I guess I was afraid that, if everypony could fly again, they wouldn’t need us anymore, since we wouldn’t be special or seemingly above them, and I just didn’t want my fillies to have to go through something like that.” She stared wistfully at the door through which they had gone. “They seem to be growing up too fast, and I’ve missed most of it…” “Life is full of choices,” Flurry said, remembering something that Starswirl the Bearded had told her at one of her magic lessons. “But the most important choice is choosing to make, not the best choices, but the right ones.” Haven smiled at that. “Princess Flurry Heart, I have a feeling that there is a lot we can learn from each other.”