Legends Never Die: A New Age

by bookhorse125

Nightmares

Flurry Heart dreamed that she was back home, but everything was frozen over. The halls gleamed with ice as well as crystal as Flurry passed them, the tip of her horn lit and reflecting off every glittering surface. Her eyes darted around, panic building inside her chest, but she was all alone… or was she? Up ahead, light poured out of an open doorway, and Flurry practically ran inside, hoping to see her mother, her father, her aunt, anypony…

She skidded to a halt inside the door, her eyes widening. There was a pony seated on the throne, but it was not anypony she particularly wished to see.

His chilling laugh wormed its way into her ears and into her heart, wrapping cold hooves around her soul. She tried to take a step back, but found that dark tendrils of shadow had wrapped themselves around her hooves, holding her in place - no, pulling her forward. Flurry freaked out and lit her horn, trying to blast the shadows away, but they kept coming back.

He laughed. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that, my little pony,” he snarled, his lips curling into a cruel smile. “Not unless you want the same fate to happen to them.” He gestured to a cage made of black crystals in the corner of the room. Between the jagged structures, Flurry could see painfully familiar faces, and she lost her concentration. “After all…” He sat back and studied her as if enjoying the full effect of his words. “This is all your fault, is it not?”

The pony on the throne laughed once more as his shadows overtook the young alicorn, winding their way up her legs and holding her wings to her body and crushing her soul until she became something she knew she could never be-

Flurry gasped, jerking out of the dream world, tears running down her face.

Was that… was that a nightmare?

She hadn’t had a nightmare in years. Princess Luna had always been there to keep the bad dreams at bay, so Flurry never had anything except for pleasant dreams… Except… there had been one. One bad dream. One nightmare. And she would never forget it.

Not now, she thought. Don’t go there now.

Flurry stood up and looked around the room that Sunny had given her in her lighthouse. They had arrived that day after a night in Zephyr Heights, and Flurry was staying with the earth pony because she wanted to show Flurry absolutely everything and possibly get some answers. Flurry didn’t mind Sunny’s multitude of questions so long as it kept her busy.

But Sunny was asleep right now, when Flurry really needed to keep her mind occupied. She slipped outside, straightening the picture of a young Sunny and her late father as she left. Flurry tried not to look at the picture; Argyle Starshine reminded her so much of her aunt that it was sometimes painful. So she barely gave the picture a glance before continuing. Spreading her wings, the young princess lifted into the sky, pouring on speed until the rushing wind tore away all her thoughts, leaving her with mindless bliss.

She soared over the town of Maretime Bay, and she couldn’t help but notice how different it looked compared to the city of Manehattan that she knew the place as. The buildings were smaller and more humble, with the exception of the Canterlogic factory. Flurry hadn’t been in there yet, but Sunny had promised a tour sometime.

Something caught her eye, and Flurry slowed down to study it. An earth pony was standing at the railing, the breeze ruffling his mane. Flurry tilted her wings and swerved around to land behind him.

Sprout jumped and turned around, his eyes wild with fear, until he registered who she was. “Oh.” He let out his breath and cleared his throat. “Uh, sorry. Old habits die hard, I guess.”

“Ponies have a habit of screaming whenever somepony drops out of the sky?” Flurry asked, joining him at the railing.

“Not really…” Sprout turned back to the ocean and took a deep breath. “I was… well, we all were, except for Sunny… Anyways, we were told that… unicorns could read minds and wanted to fry our brains with horn lasers, and pegasi would suddenly swoop out of the sky and eat us.” He gave Flurry a sideways glance. “Obviously, none of it’s true, but… that’s what we were told, so… It just kind of… stuck. Sorry,” he finished with a whisper.

“It’s fine,” Flurry said quickly. “This isn’t the first time Equestria’s divided.” She looked up at the sky, clear and dotted with stars. One group of stars in particular caught her eye - five stars surrounding a sixth. “How did you fix it?”

“I… didn’t,” Sprout admitted. “Sunny did all that. I really just made it worse.” He looked down at his hooves, embarrassed. “Her dad… he always believed that ponies could come back together, but nopony believed him. He told Sunny, though, so she kind of carried on the tradition. Then Izzy showed up one day, and Sunny went with her on a quest to bring back magic, and Hitch went after her, leaving me in charge. But… I had no idea what to do, so when everypony was scared, I just added fuel to the fire. I spoke to their inner fears and practically brainwashed them all into a little army, which did not last long. But I also built a giant war machine that destroyed Sunny’s lighthouse and almost hurt earth ponies, pegasi, unicorns, and my friends…” He shrugged. “Sunny showed everypony how we could come together, magic returned, and… yeah.” He looked at Flurry and then back at his hooves. “I know, you probably think I’m a monster.”

“Yeah, no,” Flurry said, and he looked at her, shocked. “Believe me, I’ve heard about plenty of monsters, and you’re no monster. For starters, you changed, so even if you did do terrible things, that’s not who you are anymore. Second, that was hardly anything. Try stealing everypony’s magic for your own benefit. Or taking over Equestria. Or extinguishing all light and hope. Or literal mind control-” She stopped, remembering her dream. “Trust me, my aunt and her friends have dealt with much worse.”

“Have any of them, you know… tried to make up for their mistakes?” Sprout asked carefully.

Flurry grinned. “Tons. And they all prove themself, don’t worry. Usually by saving the world. Have you saved the world yet?”

Sprout let a small smile slip and shrugged. “I mean… I saved Sunny so she could save the world? That counts, right?”

“From what I’ve heard, yes.” Flurry tore her eyes away from the starry sky and studied the earth pony in front of her. There was something familiar about him… “Look, my aunt and her friends defeated countless villains, and made friends with over half. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from them, it’s that the magic of friendship is a powerful thing, stronger than anything. And I believe that still applies today as much as it did back then.”

Something like hope entered his expression, and Sprout turned away to study the sky once more. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked her.

Flurry shook her head. “Nightmares,” she replied, surprising herself. She had promised not to tell anypony about her dream, but she felt that this was one pony she could confide in.

“I used to have nightmares,” Sprout said, looking a little surprised himself that he was sharing this with her. “About… what I did.” He coughed. “But then I just talked to my friends about how I was feeling, and they just stopped. Like I didn’t have anything left to be ashamed of.” He gave Flurry a sideways glance. “What was your nightmare about?”

Something lodged itself in Flurry’s throat, and she found that she couldn’t speak. Sprout noticed and immediately backed down. “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me,” he said, sounding sad. Flurry quickly realized what he was thinking, and said, “It’s not you. I’m just… not ready to recall it yet.”

They were silent for a while until Sprout plucked up the courage to ask another question. “So… you’re from up north?”

Flurry laughed. “That’s putting it lightly. We’re the northernmost settlement in Equestria - besides Yakyakistan, I suppose. We keep the bad weather at bay with a magic artifact called the Crystal Heart, which is powered by the love and light of the Empire’s citizens. It protects us.”

“But now it’s just you?”

Flurry nodded, her throat closing up again. “Everypony else fled south as soon as the Windigos appeared. My mother insisted that I go down with them, but I couldn’t leave my home. So I ran away from the train station to the mountains until the train left, but then I got stuck, and my parents came for me, and my dad…” She choked back a sob, feeling like somepony had dumped a bucket of snow on her wings. “It was my fault,” she whispered.

She felt a hoof on her shoulder and looked up, surprised, to see Sprout standing next to her, sympathy in his green eyes.

“I don’t think it is,” he said. “I think you’re just blaming yourself. There will always be something you can’t control, and you shouldn’t blame yourself for things like that. Trust me on this one.”

Flurry gave him a watery smile. “I do trust you.” She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “I’m going to go back to bed. See you in the morning?”

Sprout nodded and stood back as Flurry spread her wings and lifted into the air, the cool night breeze calming her down as she soared back to Sunny’s lighthouse. Opening the door, Flurry’s eyes drifted to the picture on the wall beside it as she walked in… and stopped. Why was the picture of Sunny and her father tilted? Flurry thought she had straightened it when she left, just as she did now. Flurry’s foot hit something, and it skittered across the floor. Lighting up her horn to take a closer look, she noticed that it was the wooden necklace that Sunny had kept from her father… except that there was a long jagged crack running through the wood so that it was snapped in two.

Flurry’s breath caught in her throat, as she knew how important this was to Sunny. She carefully picked it up and took it up to the earth pony’s room, where she gently set it down next to her alarm clock, not having the heart to wake up her friend. Then she quietly made her way back to her room, where she curled up and slept until morning.

---

“Did you break this?”

Flurry jerked awake and stared at the pony above her, brandishing two pieces of wood joined together on a piece of string.

“N-no,” Flurry stammered, having to mentally rewind the events of the night before to know what Sunny was referring to. “I went out for a fly because I couldn’t sleep, and when I came back, I saw that on the floor, so I gave it back to you.”

Sunny frowned like she didn’t quite believe her. There was something… different about the earth pony today. Flurry narrowed her eyes until she found what it was - her pink mane was done in a braid, secured in place with two blue rubber bands, unlike hanging in curls like it usually was. And there was something in her eyes that made them… colder, more distant. Flurry stretched her wings and yawned, managing to convince herself that she was imagining it. “Would you like me to fix it?”

“No, thanks,” Sunny replied, still eyeing the alicorn like she was about to go on a rampage and destroy her entire home. “I’ll get Izzy to do it - she’s great with glue.”

“You know that magic works better than glue for fixing things, right? At least, if you know the right spell,” Flurry Heart pointed out, jumping out of bed and using her magic to fix the blankets and fluff the pillow.

“I’d rather not,” said Sunny distractedly. She turned and left the room, her movements somewhat stiff. Flurry frowned. This wasn’t anything like the chipper and overly excited earth pony she had met a few days ago. It was as if somepony had taken her place or was mind-controlling her…

Stop that, Flurry chided herself. That hit a little too close to home for comfort.

But all the same… she couldn’t help wondering. What had happened to Sunny Starscout?

Author's Note:

Conflict is beginning... Can you guess what it is?

Constructive criticism is appreciated. Thank you for reading!

Comments

[Yoshifan30]

“Have any of them, you know… tried to make up for their mistakes?” Sprout asked carefully.

Well look at the shadow Tempest AKA fizzle Pop berry twist Starlight glimmer Sunset Shimmer Discord most of the changelings stygian I can go on but you get the idea

[Yoshifan30]

But all the same… she couldn’t help wondering. What had happened to Sunny Starscout?

Yo what the heck happened to her she completely turned 360

[Yoshifan30]

Oh wow so flurry heart was having trouble to go to sleep but unfortunately she's having a bad dream so she decided to go out for flying to check out the town but then she met up with Sprouts who was also awake and it's actually nice to see them talking and everything and not only that giving them a little comfort but after a while she went back but in the morning something is strange with Sunny like she wasn't herself I wonder what's going on

[Magic135]

It is just me, or am I seeing a shipping between Sprout and Flurry?