Flurry Heart stood on the balcony of her palace, staring out into the night. Through small breaks in the thin layer of clouds covering the sky, she caught glimpses of glimmering stars against the dark backdrop of the night sky. A gentle flurry of snow drifted down and dusted the crystal city with its gentle flakes. Although she was out in the snow, Flurry wasn’t cold - she had grown accustomed to the cold temperatures that came with living in the north and wasn’t bothered by the savage temperature drops as much as most ponies.
“No sign of them,” she whispered, searching the skies above her. “Where did they go? And how were they defeated?” She once again looked towards Mount Everhoof, the tallest mountain in the region, but the tip of the mountain was clearly visible - there was no sign of the creatures that had been plaguing it only a while earlier. The Windigos had inevitably returned with all of the chaos and lies and deception going around with the other tribes and very nearly froze all of them in an apocalyptic wasteland for yet another time in Equestria’s history, just as they had done earlier when ponykind had begun to separate. But not long ago, Flurry had realized that the dangerous winter creatures had simply disappeared, as if they had never existed in the first place. And no matter where she looked, she couldn’t find any answers - except that, perhaps, as tensions between the tribes went down, the Windigos, having nothing to feed off of, simply went away.
Flurry had been communicating with her friends in the other tribes regularly, and most of them were happy to report that the creatures in their kingdoms were happy to not get involved in any conflicts with the ponies, and that some of them were even wanting to open up the borders of their kingdoms and form alliances and good relations with the ponies, to keep incidents like impending wars from ever happening again.
Queen Monarch really wants to talk to Sunny, Imara wrote. I’ve been trying to reach her, but I don’t think she’s been getting my letters. Could you please pass a message along to her?
Flurry sighed. She wasn’t sure Sunny was getting her letters, either. She had written to the last living descendant of her Aunt Twilight Sparkle every single day, and had yet to receive any kind of answer, and apparently all of her friends were getting the same silent treatment.
Don’t think about it like that, she commanded herself. Sunny probably just isn’t getting your letters for some reason. Don’t jump to conclusions. Sunny wouldn’t do this to you. She wouldn’t leave you and your friends all alone in the outside world while she’s back in Maretime Bay with her friends.
…Right?
“Flurry Heart?”
Well, not completely alone. Flurry turned to see a Crystal pony - likely the last one left - emerging from the dark doorway that led to the palace. His dark blue coat matched the night sky above the clouds, and his deep purple mane had been growing longer in the past few months. Hanging around his neck was a thin chain with a large charm on the end - a crescent moon made of pure white stone that glimmered and seemed to glow even though the moon wasn’t out. It bounced against his chest with each step he took.
“Hey, Midnight,” she greeted the pony. He, like her, had been immersed in some kind of limbo state back just before magic vanished and ponykind split into the three tribes, though his was definitely voluntary, whereas Flurry’s could only be described as some kind of trap. Her mother had cast a spell on the Crystal Heart to shrink its protective spell to only protect Flurry, and caused Flurry to fall asleep for at least a century while her kingdom froze around her. Midnight, on the other hoof, had answered a summons sent to him in a dream by Princess Luna to be the guardian of a tower in the west that activated a magical artifact that controlled the movements of the sun and moon, where he would remain for all time until he left, and occasionally receive visions about the future that he would be tasked with distributing, through the dreams of ponies, all across Equestria, to where they were needed.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing much,” he admitted, shifting his hooves nervously. Even though they had been living up in the Crystal Empire for at least half a year, just the two of them, Flurry could tell that he was still awkward around his princess. “I just… I was wondering what you were… doing.”
“Just thinking,” Flurry said after a brief pause. She didn’t really want to talk about what she was thinking about, because she was afraid that if she said things out loud, they would come true. All she really wanted was to have Sunny back, to have all of her friends back. She missed them all so much…
“Me, too,” Midnight admitted, looking down at his hooves. “But that’s not what I wanted to tell you. I… I found something that I think you should see.”
Flurry tilted her head at him, and he gestured to her to follow him as he ran back into the palace and down the crystal staircases until they had arrived underneath the castle, where the Crystal Heart spun in its place - the spot where Flurry had been frozen in time for one hundred years while the world fell apart around her, and the place where her mother had given up all of her magic - and her life - to keep Flurry safe and secure the future of Equestria. Even after so many months, after everything she had been through, whenever Flurry had a moment to think about it, she felt a wave of sadness. Equestria really hadn’t been as far gone as everypony had thought. There were still ponies who had believed in friendship and unity throughout everything that the other ponies told them, like Sunny’s father, Argyle Starshine. But even though Flurry missed her mother and her Aunt Twilight and all of her friends, she wouldn’t go back for anything.
She had friends here. Friends who cared about her just as much as Twilight Sparkle cared for her friends. She had to believe in that.
“What did you want to show me, Midnight?” she asked, shoving all thoughts of Princesses Cadance and Twilight from her mind, as well as Sunny and her other friends.
The Crystal pony pawed nervously at the ground. “Remember that big storm a while back? I remember seeing these glowing green vine-looking-things stretching across the land before they vanished. I didn’t think about it too much then, but earlier I was just walking the gardens, and I was thinking back to when I was a filly. My mother told me that Mistmane herself tended to the flowers here after she returned from limbo, and I was just thinking how cool it would be to grow plants like that. And… well, then this happened.”
Midnight carefully stretched out a hoof and planted it on the ground. He shut his eyes and concentrated. His hoof began to glow green, and a glowing green vine stretched out across the ground. A small stem curled up from the ground before blossoming into a beautiful flower, made entirely out of crystal.
Flurry felt all the air leave her lungs. “Woah,” she whispered. “What… how?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, picking up his no-longer-glowing hoof and inspecting it. “I think it’s some kind of new power that earth ponies have? And I can’t shake the feeling that this has something to do with… Sunny.”
The two ponies unintentionally met gazes and then both looked away. “How do you know?” Flurry asked lightly. “Did you have a vision?”
Midnight looked down at the moon-shaped crystal pendant that hung around his neck. “No,” he said, sounding troubled. “I tried to see what was happening with Sunny and the others a few times, but I can’t see inside Equestria. I can see our other friends perfectly fine, but for some reason, the rest of Equestria is completely off-limits to me.” He looked up at her. “But… while I was trying, I did have another vision that I think explains why the Windigos are gone, and where this new power came from. I think… I think I can show you.”
Flurry nodded carefully. Midnight closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment before his pendant beacon to glow. A faint light surrounded the pony, illuminating every hair on his head with a silvery sheen. The crescent moon lifted off his chest and hovered between them before it projected an image into the air - an image of two achingly familiar ponies.
One was as pink as the most perfect roses, her large purple eyes full of concern as she landed behind the second, purple as the twilight sky, the mark on her flank that of a six-pointed star. Above the two ponies, around the icy mountain peaks, swirled stormy gray clouds from inside which came ear-piercing shrieks.
Flurry swallowed back her tears as she watched their exchange. She heard every word that they were saying without actually hearing it. She watched as Twilight gave up everything she had left to preserve a world that would eventually forget her. Flurry knew that this was before all of ponykind’s memories got wiped, but it was still heart-wrenching to know that it had already come to such a sacrifice.
But even though she could barely keep it together with her aunt and mother within sight - and being tortured by the thought that, although they were right there, they might as well have been on the moon - Flurry found herself watching carefully as Twilight sacrificed all her magic to create a gem that then separated and spread to the rest of the land. As she did, the magical blast generated vaporized the Windigos, and caused… something else to happen. When the Windigos were blasted into oblivion, it looked for a moment as if the magical blast spread across the land, settling over it almost like a shield. But it was only visible for a moment before it disappeared - if it even existed at all.
Once the vision was over, the glowing image winked out, and Midnight returned to normal. He blinked as if coming out of a deep sleep. “That was how magic disappeared, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Flurry said softly. “By condensing all of her magic into the crystals, my aunt Twilight created a strong enough force of unity to defeat the Windigos…”
“But then why did magic disappear if everything was alright?” Midnight asked, looking like he had already figured it out but was waiting for Flurry to. “Wouldn’t ponykind just carry on as usual? Just because Twilight lost her powers didn’t mean that everypony had to.”
“You’re right,” Flurry said slowly. “But we think it was because ponies were dividing. I remember that, in the weeks leading up to the Windigos’ defeat, my magic seemed almost far away, as if I couldn’t reach it. It was already fading because the magic of friendship was fading-”
“But remember the Hearth’s Warming Eve story? Ponykind was divided then, but they all still had magic. At least, the unicorns and pegasi did.”
“What are you saying?” Flurry asked, tearing her eyes away from the empty space that had shown her the last glorious moments of her aunt.
Midnight looked down at the crystal charm around his neck before he continued. “The Windigos feed off of hatred and mistrust, right? But the magic of friendship is strong enough to counter it because it’s whole. A sum of its parts, stronger together. Which means that Windigo magic has to be something different. Something fractured. We don’t know where the Windigos came from or where they go to - only that they only return when there is hatred and paranoia. They did come back just a few weeks ago, didn’t they? When all the tribes were angry with each other.” Flurry nodded. “So,” Midnight went on, getting more and more worked up, “why didn’t they come back when ponykind was divided before? That much hatred over a hundred years - not even Twilight Sparkle on her own would be strong enough to hold them back for that long. So why didn’t they come back?”
“I think I saw my aunt Twilight cast a protective spell when she sacrificed her powers,” Flurry said slowly. “Maybe that’s why?”
“One hundred years, Flurry. The magic from a single pony wouldn’t be enough to keep out such powerful magic like the Windigos for that long, no matter how powerful that pony was. The shield must have been for something else, but it wasn’t meant for the Windigos.”
“Then how did they get defeated?” Flurry asked.
“Because the magic was incomplete. Something was missing, the scale wasn’t balanced, and that fracture led to the creation of the Windigos. Think about it, only unicorns and pegasi had physical magic, but whenever someone tries to take over Equestria and steal all the magic, they go after earth ponies, too - meaning that earth ponies must have some kind of dormant magic that is worth more than just a special connection with the ground. When Twilight Sparkle sacrificed her powers, she enchanted the crystals to collect all of ponykind’s magic and store it in the crystals so that there would be no magic - and thus stabilizing it, which meant that the Windigos would be defeated. When ponykind would reunite, they could have their magic back because there was no threat of the Windigos anymore.”
“But… what about now?” Flurry looked up at the sky. “The Windigos did come back, but then they suddenly disappeared again, yet we still have our magic. What happened then? Did tensions between the tribes just die down enough so that the Windigos didn’t have anything to feed off of?”
Midnight shook his head. “I think magic was stabilized again… but in a different way.” He looked down at his hooves again. “I think it’s this new magic I have. I think that it happened to earth ponies all across Equestria - they finally awakened their powers and stabilized the magic permanently again. All ponies have magic, so it’s finally equal.”
“They… you mean Sunny?”
Midnight nodded. “She and her friends. They’re still alright, still changing the world, but it seems like they’ve forgotten about us.”
“Don’t say that,” Flurry snapped, a desire to defend her friend flaring up inside her. “We just haven’t heard from her, that’s all. Sunny wouldn’t do this to us on purpose.”
He sighed. “I hope she’s okay.” He looked over at the Crystal Heart, slowly spinning in place, then back at the crystal flower he created. “There is one thing I’m not sure about,” he said. “What was the shield that Twilight cast for?”
Flurry shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She was happy to leave it at that, but what Midnight said next unleashed a torrent of tortured memories that she tried long and hard to forget.
“Maybe it was a pony that Twilight and her friends never managed to defeat.”
She tried to keep her tone light as she said, “Maybe.” But inside, she had a sinking feeling that she knew exactly what the extra hidden spell was for, exactly who it had been meant to protect Equestria from - and exactly what pony had managed to be the one to defy Twilight Sparkle and her friends when no one else had managed to do so.
A pony she had been forbidden to speak of ever since she had accidentally learned her name: Opaline Arcana.