"Alright, so if a 'blog' is a diary that you post onto this 'internet', and ponies that also have the 'internet' can read it at anytime, from anywhere... Why? There's no privacy concerns?" Flurry asked, flabbergasted at such a possibility.
Sunny just giggled.
"Well, you don't post everything in a blog. Actually to be fair, some ponies do, like Pipp. But most content from other ponies is more curated, and focused on a specific subject, like food, music, or poetry. It's usually not intimate life details," the earth pony told her as they headed out of Zephyr Heights with a small wagon of camping supplies that they had pulled off of the truck before the others had continued on to Maretime Bay.
"I'm glad you told me the unicorns are happy in Bridlewood, and that they don't want their ancestral home back," Flurry commented, glancing back at the skyline of Zephyr Heights as the pair made their way down the mountain.
"Do you have any idea how that happened?" Sunny asked.
"Sadly, yes. Ponies had already started to drift apart. I don't have super specifics, but I think it had something to do with an earth pony getting injured by a spell. But it got so bad that they started to lose their magic, and that meant enchantments too. The pegasus city of Cloudsdale was above Canterlot at the time, and it quite literally fell from the sky. It left thousands of pegasi homeless, and put serious strain on the city's resources. The last I heard, tensions were quickly reaching a boiling point, and that wasn't long before the ritual."
"Did you think the ritual would stop any fighting before it began?" The earth mare asked.
"No... No. That was one thing that Luna wanted to make clear to me; our decision to lock magic away wouldn't stop the fighting; if ponies didn't use magic they were going to use hooves, and whatever they could get their hooves on. It broke my heart to think about what Equestrians would likely do to each other... But my goal was to give them the opportunity to heal the divisions. The Windigos wouldn't give them that chance. It took a lot longer than I would have wanted or thought, but I suppose it's finally starting to happen."
"I wish my dad could be here to see it, but I'm sure he'd be proud of what we've done," Sunny said confidently.
"When did you open your museum?" Flurry asked.
"Well, grand re-opening would be more like it, and that happened a few weeks after Reunification Day. It was mostly what we had found in Twilight's old castle, in addition to artifacts shared with us from the unicorns and pegasi."
"You found Twilight's castle?"
"It's in a forest pretty close by. Would you... Like to stop and see it?" Sunny asked.
"No... No, that's alright. It was one of my favorite places to visit when I was growing up, and honestly, I don't know if I'm mentally prepared to see it in whatever shape it's in now," Flurry admitted. "But I do thank you in taking whatever you could for preservation."
Sunny nodded.
"I understand. Twilight's memory crystals are how I first made the first discoveries about the Crystal Empire and where it might be."
"Speaking of the Empire, that is a place I would like to visit... And see what's left. I have a feeling that finding me cut your expedition rather short, didn't it?" Flurry asked.
Sunny nodded.
"It was no trouble. Pulling somepony out of a magical limbo was the absolute last thing I was expecting to do up there. Luckily we didn't use hardly any of our rations, and we came in under our projected fuel usage too, so planning another trip up there probably won't take too long, to tell you the truth," Sunny answered.
"I'll be ready to go whenever you will be, Sunny."
Opting for a light lunch of granola bars over stopping for a meal, the pair of travelers completed the descent by mid-day. But a light, on-the-go meal like that meant that their stomachs were rumbling again come dinnertime, and they hadn't had anything substantial to eat.
"This seems like the best place to set up camp. I doubt we'd get very far after dinner anyway. We'll only have the sun for about another hour or so," Sunny said as she stopped the wagon.
"How far are we from Maretime Bay?" Flurry asked.
"Well, we're about to make the wagon a liiiitle lighter, so I'd say another day, max. We'll definitely be back there by sundown tomorrow if we get an early enough start."
"Sounds good. You set up the tents, and I'll get started with the fire," Flurry suggested. The earth mare started unpacking the tents while Flurry went around and quickly collected stones for a fire ring, getting them situated in a suitable patch of dirt, before adding the kindling, which had already been packed.
Sunny watched as Flurry's horn began to glow a faint orange, but nothing beyond that as Flurry sat in front of the pile of kindling, her facial expression focused, only for her to give a grunt of frustration moments later.
"Everything okay? I've got matches," Sunny offered.
Flurry looked back at her and gave her a quick smile.
"I'm more out of practice than I thought, may have to resort to the actual words... Hm, what were they again...?" Flurry asked herself, again closing her eyes in concentration, turning back to the unlit kindling.
"Ignis," Flurry whispered, and with that, a glowing orange orb dropped from the tip of her horn, floated down to the waiting pile of sticks, and impacted with a small splash of flame, and whoosh, they had a small campfire suitable for cooking.
Flurry chuckled to herself victoriously.
"Heh, I've still got it."
"How do haycakes sound for dinner?" Sunny asked.
"Sounds like another time-tested meal that you really can't improve on," Flurry Heart answered.
"Did you go camping often?" Sunny asked as she finished setting up the tents.
"A few times with my mom and dad. But when they stepped down and I took over responsibility for the Empire... I guess I never made the time for it," the alicorn confessed.
"Alright, here we go," Sunny said, bringing over a cast iron pan and the freeze-dried haycakes, placing them in the pan and adding the correct amount of water in the recipe before setting the pan down in the fire. A few minutes later, the water had been reabsorbed, and they had steaming hot cakes on their tin camping plates.
"Not as fancy as you're used to, I imagine," Sunny commented before taking her first bite.
"No, and I can assure you that's a good thing. The last thing I want to feel like right now is a regal princess."
"Well, I'm glad I can help you 'rough it' for a bit," Sunny told her.
After dinner, they got the pan wiped out at the tin dishes cleaned. Without any serious wind, Sunny decided to add another log to the fire, before the pair of ponies retired to their tents for the night.
'Another one, here? After all these years?' the voice asked.
Flurry's eyes shot open, and she saw only the roof of her tent. She gave a snort of frustration before rolling over onto her belly in her sleeping bag, and poked her head out of the flaps of her tent to survey their chosen campsite.
The fire was down to mere embers now, and she heard Sunny softly snoring as she slept soundly across on the other side of the campfire.
She didn't want to be a hindrance on tomorrow's travels, so she popped her head back into her tent, and closed her eyes, lighting her horn up for just a moment.
"Somnium scutum," she whispered, and her horn's light brightened for barely a moment, before dimming and going out entirely as she slowly let out the breath she had been holding. A simple dream-shield spell that would hopefully keep the restlessness at bay for the rest of the night, as she wiggled back into her sleeping bag and let her head sink into the pillow once more.
The young unicorn mare was stirred from her sleep by the light ebbing and flowing through the crack between her door and the stone floor. Leaning up to gaze out the window, she saw that it was still pitch black outside. She gave a short stretch before pulling her blanket off of herself and she rolled to her hooves, hazily sauntering over to the closed bedroom door and slowly pulled it open with a creek.
There, in front of the stone throne, stood the only pony she had ever known, standing in front of her magical pool as murky purple clouds slowly whirled within the edges.
"It's really late. Have you found something?" The blue unicorn asked with a yawn.
The towering, eggplant-coated, white-maned alicorn acknowledged her with barely a glance, before returning her attention to the haze in the pool.
"Indeed I have. Something... Has returned. A presence I have not felt in... Ages..."