Destiny
At the end of the day, Skyla met up with her parents again and gave them a full report on the aftermath of Flurry Heart’s magic burst. Thankfully, the Crystal Heart had survived the castle crash. The decorations for the Crystal Gala, however, did not. Streamers were strewn all over the place and the glass ornaments had broken from falling off their hanging spots. It was such a huge mess.
Due to the crippling fear she had felt moments before, she couldn’t help but compare herself to the destroyed decorations. Like them, she was polished, sparkling, and new until something had brought her down, namely the birth of her sister…
With each passing year, it seemed that Flurry was given more praise than she was. The crystal ponies and Professor Sunburst praised Flurry Heart for her special powers, and even her parents praised her little sister for her good nature. She would have lingered on her thoughts further had not a crystal maid come up to her.
“Your Highness.”
She turned to the pony and smiled.
“As wonderful as it is for you to oversee the redecorating for the Crystal Gala, it’s going to take such a long time to redo the whole thing.”
“Is it? Well, thank you for informing me this.”
“It’s my pleasure, Princess. You and your sister mean so much to our kingdom.”
“But…you do know that even if my sister wasn’t here, I would be here protecting my subjects no matter what, right?”
The maid gave a confused look but smiled all the same, “Of course, Your Highness. As our future queen, we will always look to you for guidance.” She then took her leave.
Skyla was a bit troubled by the maid’s wording and went to a mirror that had cracked from this morning’s power burst.
She said into it, “Am I not a strong magic wielder after all? As heir to the Crystal throne, I should be able to protect my ponies, but…it would seem that they would rather look to me for advice. Not that it’s a bad thing, but shouldn’t I have magic strong enough to face threats that might attack the Empire?”
She started singing, “Look at me…I will never pass for a perfect queen…or a perfect daughter…Can it be…I’m not meant to play this part? Now I see…that if I were truly to be myself, I would break my family’s heart…Who is that girl I see…staring straight, back at me…Why is my reflection someone I don’t know? Somehow I cannot hide…who I am…though I’ve tried…When will my reflection show…who I am inside?! When will my reflection show…who I am…inside?”
Cadence, Shining Armor, Skyla, Flurry Heart, Sunset, Timber, and Blaze were all at the dinner table eating when Skyla brought up that the Gala decorations were going to take some time to be fixed.
Cadence pondered on that before smiling, “Well, since that’s the case, perhaps it would be a good time to visit your cousins at the Everfree Kingdom.”
Blaze and Flurry’s eyes widened in excitement as Blaze exclaimed, “Alright! I get to see Cousin Whirl and Cousin Star!”
Flurry gleefully said, “I want to see Cousin Star too, and Cousin Screwy, and all the rest!”
Skyla pointed out, “We haven’t seen them since last Hearth’s Warming. It’ll be great to visit them again.”
Flurry gushed, “Ooh! I can’t wait to see Dignity’s new baby girl! I’ll bet she’s cute!”
Blaze reminded her, “Oh! And don’t forget Whirl and Sky Blitz’s kid! I bet she’s going to be as fast as her parents are!”
Flurry asked her father, “Is anyone from Marendelle going to be at the Everfree Castle?”
Shining Armor answered, “They’ll be here for the Gala, but not at the Everfree Kingdom. Sorry.”
Her eyes looked down in disappointment and she uttered, “Oh. Okay. I was hoping to ask the aunts about how I should get my cutie mark.” For alicorns like Flurry Heart, they didn’t get their cutie marks until they almost reached adulthood.
Blaze said in astonishment, “Are. You. Kidding?! That magical blast you had today should’ve guaranteed a cutie mark for you!”
Sunset clarified, “Um, Blaze, a cutie mark appears when a pony knows what they want to do in life.”
Timber added, “Or if their special talent shows up.”
Blaze asked, “But doesn’t having really strong magic count as a special talent?”
Cadance explained, “That might’ve been something Flurry Heart inherited from her father and me.”
Flurry said, “Yeah, and I don’t want to cause huge magical bursts for a living.”
Shining Armor suggested, “Maybe you can talk to your Marendelle aunts through the magic mirror at the Everfree Castle. They might give you suggestions about getting a cutie mark.”
Flurry smiled, “That sounds great, Dad.”
Somehow, Skyla couldn’t get rid of this nagging feeling that something was going happen.
After dinner, the kids were told to pack their bags for the train trip to Ponyville the next morning, to which Blaze had groaned, “But we just got here!”
When Flurry Heart finished putting her essentials in her baggage, she decided to go out on the balcony that overlooked the Crystal Empire. Even though she was ecstatic about going to the Everfree Kingdom, she was still forlorn about two things: the magic incident today and the fact that she broke the Crystal Heart…as a baby. She looked up at the night sky and saw the beautiful streaks of aurora that always lit up the starry sky for as long as she could remember. She knew the pink ray represented her mother, the blue represented her grandmother Luna, and the yellow represented her great-aunt Celestia. However, the yellow aurora also reminded Flurry of her own magic, which had now become unusually strong. Given what happened today, she grew ashamed of her powers and never wanted to use them again.
A voice asked, “Is anything wrong, kiddo?”
Flurry gasped from being brought out of her trance and turned to see her parents and Aunt Sunset just stepping onto the balcony. She tittered nervously, “It’s a lovely view up here, isn’t it?”
Cadance said, “Flurry, I know something is bothering you. Is it about the magic burst this morning?”
Flurry groaned, “And the Crystal Heart! And everything about my magic! I’m too dangerous to be around other ponies!”
Shining Armor calmed her, “Oh, stop it, Flurry. You’re not dangerous. You know how strong your magic is. If you wanted to use it to harm others, then you’d be dangerous.”
Sunset agreed, “Yeah, kiddo. Your magic is just acting out of whack right now, but your cousin Snow Pea showed me that learning to control it will help you and others greatly.”
Flurry sighed, “I know that, but…I’m also worried about getting a cutie mark. Is it going to be destructive? Am I going to end up destroying or nearly destroying things?” Tears threatened to escape her eyes.
Cadance put her hoof on her daughter’s shoulder and comforted, “I highly doubt it, honey. Whatever your cutie mark’s going to be, I bet it’ll be special.”
The young princess gave a small smile and said, “I hope you’re right, Mom.” Her head hung again as she added, “I mean, what good a princess would I be if my cutie mark was for evil?”
She walked to the railing again and sang, “It isn’t that I’m ungrateful…for all the things that I’ve earned…for all the journeys I have taken…all the lessons that I have learned…But I wonder where I’m going now…what my role is meant to be…I don’t know how to travel…to a future that I can’t see…I have my wings, I have my crown…I’m a princess, this is true…But it’s still unclear to me just what I am meant to do…
“I want to have a purpose, want to do all that I can…I want to make a contribution…I want to be a part of the plan…”
Shining Armor put his hoof on Flurry’s shoulder and sang, “Your destiny’s uncertain…and that’s sometimes hard to take…but it will become much clearer…with every new choice you make…”
Sunset walked up to her and sang, “Patience is never easy…I understand wanting more…I know how hard it is to wait…to spread your wings and soar…”
Flurry’s mother then sang, “But you stand here for a reason…You’re gifted and you are strong…A crown is upon your head because you belong…”
The three adults sang, “Know that your time is coming soon…As the sun rises, so does the moon…As love finds a place in every heart, you are a princess…You’ll play your part…”
Sunset sang, “We understand you wanting more…A chance to shine, a chance to soar…”
Cadance sang, “Soon will come the day it turns around!”
The adults reprised, “Know that your time is coming soon…As the sun rises, so does the moon….As love finds a place in every heart…you are a princess…You’ll play your part…”
Shining Armor came up to his daughter and finished, “You are our princess…You’ll play your part…”
Touched by the adults’ kind gesture, Flurry wrapped her arms around her father. Cadance and Sunset then joined the heartwarming hug.
After sending their daughters to bed, the royal couple climbed into bed to grab a little shuteye. However, sleep was not kind to Cadance. She dreamt of shadows seeping from her mother’s moon and enshrouding the entire land in darkness. Unicorns were losing their magic and Pegasi could no longer fly. The darkness soon reached a crystalline tree and everything went black. The image then returned to the moon, but this time, a dark silhouette was seen on the heavenly sphere. The figure had a long horn, bat wings, and long, wavy hair. When the black shadow opened its glowing white eyes, Cadance gasped as she sat up in her bed.
Shining Armor, hearing his wife’s sudden gasp, woke up and asked in concern, “Cady, what’s wrong?”
Cadance put her hoof on her beloved’s shoulder and apologized, “I’m sorry, Shiny. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Well, that usually means something’s wrong. What is it?”
The princess sighed, “It…was a bad dream, but…it felt so real, like…”
Shining Armor finished, “A vision?”
Most of the Alicorn royals had the gift of foresight. When Cadance showed signs of it when she was little, Luna taught her how to distinguish a dream from a vision. Sometimes, though, Cadance would have visions while she was awake. They were always so sudden and so random, but nevertheless, they almost always came true. One vision in particular was of her, her mother, and a pair of glowing eyes in darkness.
A scraggly voice echoed, “You are my flower and you shall belong to me!”
The vision had ended with a flash of light that burst from above the eyes. Cadance had that prediction just days before Tirek came and cursed her to be a Breezie.
Cadance nodded her head, “Yes.”
Her husband asked, “Can you make sense of what you saw?”
She racked her brain as she said, “I saw…strange shadows trickling from the moon and covering the land in darkness.”
Shining Armor asked in near-alarm, “You don’t think it’s the Reign of Darkness again, do you?”
During the short-lived Reign of Darkness, Belladonna transformed Princess Luna into Nightmare Moon, who cast a sleeping curse on all ponies. While the moon stayed up in the sky, the Umbrum were free to go out and terrorize all who were awake. The Reign of Darkness would’ve lasted forever had the Umbrum insignia fully covered the moon. Thankfully, though, the only royals who were awake stopped the shadowy creatures and brought both Radiant Hope and Luna back.
Cadance shook her head, “No, I don’t think so.” She put her hoof on her chin as she pondered, “Still…the silhouette in my vision looked strangely like Nightmare Moon, but with bat wings.” Her eyes widened as she thought of a horrible possibility. “What if my mother gets corrupted again, but this time, it’ll be worse?!”
Shining Armor comforted her, “Cady, if your mother’s anything, it’s resilient. Trust me, she won’t go back to being bad. I promise.”
Cadance gave him a smile and hugged her husband, saying, “Thank you, Shiny. Thank you.” She then kissed him on the lips.
Unbeknownst to them, Skyla was tossing and turning in her bed. She was dreaming about a dark silhouette with a long horn, bat wings, and glowing white eyes…
Stats
Page generated in 0.022 seconds
Total duration
915 users online
196,828 hits today, 2,314,256 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Refresh my memory if you've already told me, but what's the RCF series?
7853425 The "Royal Canterlot Family" series. It starts with CartoonNerd12's The Midnight Dance.
Good job so far! I love it! Cant wait to see what happens!
Skyla had some crazy high expectations about what a queen should be able to do. So what if her magic isn't all that powerful? That's what military personnel are for.