Part Forty-Five
Flurry Heart’s balcony offered an excellent view of the encroaching storm wall. Lightning raced across the surface of the pink shield. Large chunks of ice slammed against the magic and shattered into chunks. The shield made a dull chiming sound with each impact.
Flurry rubbed her golden crown with a hoof, then pulled her flight jacket tighter around herself. It was growing colder. The shield kept out the worst of the storm and the winter chill, and the steam vents in the mines and basement provided natural heat. Over the past week, it wasn’t enough. The Crystal City’s streets were cold and shadowed by the endless storm.
“Princess?” Arctic Lily asked. The dull-eyed mare sat at one of the few office tables not destroyed during the alicorn’s rampage through her bedroom and the upper floors. The rest of her advisors sat with her. Spike stood against the wall.
“How long will it take to evacuate the city?” Flurry asked again.
“We’ve already begun pulling out equipment,” Barrel Roller responded, “but the tracks are buried in the storm. We have to send ponies out every time.”
“Over a month,” Dusty guessed.
“And how long until the shield collapses?” Flurry repeated.
“We’ve already lost a bit of the trainyards,” Rainbow said. “We, uh, need those to get everypony out, obviously,” the pegasus added lamely. Her prosthetic sat on the adjacent table.
Flurry shut her eyes to the storm, trying to deny its existence. “We’re not getting everypony out,” she admitted, voicing the unspoken situation.
“No,” Duskcrest replied after a long silence. “We don’t have time.”
“Some can make it on hoof through the storm,” Heartsong said. He rubbed his dull, chipped hooves against each other and puffed to warm them up.
“Nopony has ever escaped that way,” Arctic Lily responded bluntly.
“Spike, do we have an evacuation plan?” Flurry asked.
“We need to talk about that,” Spike answered.
Flurry trotted to the table and slumped against it heavily. “Ponies leave. What’s there to talk about?”
“It’ll be obvious in about two weeks that the shield is collapsing,” Thorax began softly. “There will be a massive panic and rush on the trainyards.”
“You underestimate us,” Lily whickered.
“Ponies are ponies,” Thorax replied. “We don’t have the time or the space to evacuate everypony, so we need to prioritize what to take first.”
“You mean who to take first,” Flurry corrected. “We get the wounded and the weakest out on the armored trains first.”
“Some won’t survive the journey even in a train car, not all the way back to Evergreen.”
Flurry shook her head. “We’re not falling back that far. The Crystal Mountains are a natural defensive line.”
Dusty looked Flurry in the eye. “Our army is stretched thin. The Yakastani Range is to the north, and there’s still Changeling outposts and garrisons stationed along it.”
“We don’t control the north,” Heartsong added. “We control railways that we could lose at any moment. We don’t have the ponypower to run patrols.”
“The Changeling garrisons are cut off,” Flurry said stubbornly.
“And we will be too,” Thorax stated. “Josette can’t lend us more soldiers from Nova Griffonia. She’s already stretched thin.”
This city is a trap. “I could’ve just destroyed this city,” Flurry snapped. “Ponies died taking it. Griffons died. What was it worth?”
“Fuel, guns, ammo, vehicles,” Duskcrest counted down on his talons. “We have war materiel that we desperately need.”
“It’s all going to be lost to the snow,” Flurry snorted.
Everyone shifted uncomfortably and glanced at each other.
What to take, Flurry realized, not who. Her muzzle trembled. “You can’t possibly be suggesting this,” she said in a low whisper. “Say it out loud.”
“Flurry…” Thorax answered.
“Say it!” the alicorn snapped. “Who agrees with this?” her head whipped back and forth violently, but no one met her icy eyes. “Say it!” she shouted again.
“Take your supplies and leave the city,” Lily quietly replied. “Leave us.”
Flurry’s breath rattled and she felt a block of ice settle in her stomach. “No.”
“Many will not survive the trip across the Frozen North.” Lily’s tone was kind, as if speaking to a foal. “The natural hot springs in the mines will provide warmth, for a time.”
“You don’t speak for everypony,” Flurry managed. They’ll die in the mines hating me, freezing to death. “I am a Princess of Ponies.”
“Nova Griffonia doesn’t have enough food to take in thousands more refugees,” Spike explained. “It’s the middle of winter.”
“We’re planting crops,” Flurry replied, but knew how weak that argument was.
No one responded to that.
Flurry swallowed. “I will not abandon them. My mother did not.”
“Your mother is dead,” Thorax said softly. “Staying here won’t change anything.”
Flurry pushed herself away from the table. “If I wanted to destroy the city, I would have!” she ranted. “I would’ve killed everypony with spellfire and cut the supplies to the north. What was the point of all of this? Ponies are dead! Griffons are dead! For nothing!”
“For you!” Spike shouted and the alicorn stopped pacing. He clenched his claws. “They died for you, Flurry. They died to take this city, and now we have to make sure it means something.”
“Some will not understand, Princess,” Arctic Lily admitted, “but we’ve been prepared to die for our home for years.”
Flurry blinked rapidly. “I’m not prepared,” she answered in a trembling voice and sniffled. “I’m ordering you to take my ponies through the storm wall. Take them back to Nova Griffonia.”
“Many won’t make it,” Dusty said.
Her wings spasmed. “Some will.”
“Just to starve,” Thorax added. He stood up and approached Flurry.
Flurry couldn’t stop the tears anymore. She pushed the changeling back as he moved to hug her. “Don’t!” she cried.
Thorax skidded back on the crystal floor, but was unharmed. He licked his fangs.
“Y-you want me to s-say it?” Flurry stuttered through snotty sobs. “Is t-that it? So you can feel b-better?”
Rainbow looked away and squeezed her magenta eyes closed.
Spike dropped his claws to his side and grimaced. “We’ve already started running equipment back,” he admitted. “We can take a few ponies with us as we go. We take the healthiest crystal ponies that can fight, and families.”
“This will not be our end,” Lily said. She worried with her front hooves, clearly uncomfortable with the sobbing alicorn. “Sombra could not destroy us, neither will Chrysalis. Our history may be lost, but we will always endure.”
“J-just,” Flurry stuttered. Too many. The words stuck in her throat. The alicorn barely managed to nod towards Thorax, then teleported away in a crack of light.
She reappeared in the basement before her mother. Jadis whinnied in surprise and unslung her rifle, then registered the sobbing Princess on the floor. The crystal pony rushed over as if her leg had never been injured. “Princess! Are you hurt?” Jadis set the rifle down and ran her hooves along Flurry’s wings and flight jacket, checking for blood.
My heart, Flurry thought. That’s what hurts. “I’m fine,” the alicorn mumbled and pushed Jadis’ hooves away with a wing. “I’m fine.”
“Clearly not!” Jadis nickered and tried to pull the Princess up to her hooves. Flurry stumbled upright and gripped the crystal pony’s bad hoof. Flurry blinked at the mare and looked around the dimly lit basement.
The Crystal Heart was suspended above them, still chained to the ceiling. Wires ran from the cocoons along the wall, jabbed into the cracks along the Heart’s body. Cadance still floated below the Heart in her own cocoon, and the wire still ran from her horn up to the Crystal Heart above her.
Wax candles and small, glittering crystals surrounded the cocoon and the dead alicorn.
Flurry turned to Jadis, sniffling. “What are you doing here? What’s going on?”
Jadis looked towards Cadance with wilted ears. “We come here sometimes.”
We? “Why?”
“To thank her,” Jadis answered quietly. “To pray. She saved us from Sombra. So much has been forgotten,” the crystal pony said sadly. “I was born a thousand years ago, and I can barely remember my parents. I don’t even remember Amore.”
Flurry shook her head and her curls bounced against the crown. “You shouldn’t pray to my mother. She shouldn’t be seen like this.”
Jadis was quiet and looked away. “I remember my mother praying to Celestia,” she finally said, staring at a cocoon on the wall. “She begged the Sisters to come and save us from Sombra. It was your parents that finally came for us. And you.”
Flurry bit her lip and asked a question she didn’t want to know the answer to. “Are your parents here?”
“They died many years ago, Princess,” Jadis answered. “They died waiting.”
Flurry let go of the crystal pony’s hoof. “I’d like to be alone,” she said quietly.
Jadis hesitated, but picked up her rifle and trotted out the door. She looked at Flurry over her withers as she passed the threshold. Flurry waited until her uneven hoof steps faded, then cast a ward over the door and silenced the room. She glared up at the Crystal Heart.
“You fucking hunk of rock!” Flurry snarled. “Why? Why isn’t it enough? How much more? How much more!?”
Flurry flared out her wings and her horn sparked. “Enough loss! Enough sacrifice! You want love and hope and joy? Earn it!”
“They’ve lost enough!” her voice rattled the chains suspending the Heart. “My mother gave everything! Earn it!”
“WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?” Flurry screamed and ripped the wires and cables from the Crystal Heart. The artifact swayed in the chains. Flurry’s magic gripped the large wire extending from Cadance’s horn and yanked it away. She approached her mother's cocoon and slammed her hooves against it, knocking it over and sending the candles and small crystals spinning across the floor.
Flurry stood below the Crystal Heart and screamed up at it. “EARN IT!”
The Heart did not answer her.
The dim blue light emanating from the crystal pulsed erratically, like it had done for weeks. Flurry Heart collapsed underneath it and wept against her mother’s cocoon. How did you know what to do, mom? Flurry laid her head against the sticky membrane, close to Cadance’s shaved head. The alicorn’s horn glowed weakly with faint blue light. Tell me what to do.
The Crystal Heart chimed softly above Flurry as the chains groaned. She looked up with wet eyes. The Heart pulsed erratically with dim blue flashes.
Like my shield. The thought came to her suddenly.
Flurry stared at the Heart for several minutes, then closed her eyes and felt for it in her magic.
A thousand voices shouted in her head. Flurry snorted and stumbled back, bouncing her head off the side of the cocoon. She shook her mane and stood up. The Heart swayed in the chains.
Flurry’s tail slowly swung behind her. The Crystal Heart makes the shield.
Her eyes narrowed. A shield can be a weapon.
And she reached out for it again in her magic. A weapon needs a wielder.
The voices assaulted her, screaming and yelling and shouting from every direction, swirling around her ears in a wordless howl. Flurry gritted her teeth and pushed through the noise, feeling for the Crystal Heart. It was old, thousands of years old. And it was broken. But a broken weapon still carried memories; it still carried the will of every creature that ever held it.
Flurry dispelled her wards. They interfered with the flow of magic. As the wards collapsed, Flurry felt the presence of other ponies all around her. Their magic swept into the Heart. She brushed against them saw flashes under her eyelids.
Lapis sits at the empty table, staring at the empty chairs. She’s alone, and she swears that their deaths will have meaning.
Emerald clutches the picture tighter. It is the only picture left of his wife and daughters. He weeps, but his eyes are hard.
Marble stares up at the unicorn who took her brother away. His orange coat is dull and he sways in the wind. She promises herself to fight for the Princess.
Heartsong stares at the revolver on the table. He wants to use it, but he cannot. He knows thousands will die, and it will destroy his Princess. He feels nothing but shame.
Arctic Lily stands in the small square where her mother was cremated a thousand years ago. She remembers Amore’s disinterested eyes during the funeral. She admits this Princess is different.
Frosty Jadis stands in the hallway. Her mother prayed to the wrong Princess.
“Princess!” Jadis shouted.
Flurry inhaled and fell back into herself. She stumbled to the floor and struggled to gather her trembling legs back under her barrel to stand up. Her coat was slick with froth and her wings trembled.
“You’ve been down here for hours!” Jadis limped over to Flurry. She slowed as she took in the knocked over cocoon and dangling wires around the room. “What happened?”
The Heart still flickered above the alicorn; the magic chimed with a dull gong. Flurry stared up at it, and deep in her heart she knew this was the only chance she would ever have.
“I have to try,” Flurry said to Jadis, then shoved her out of the room with a burst of magic. The crystal pony neighed in surprise and slid against the wall of the hallway. Flurry’s horn blazed and she sliced through the chains suspending the Crystal Heart.
The Heart fell towards the floor, and Flurry seized it in her magic and reached out again. Her horn burst into blue flames.
The voices weren’t thousands. They were millions. Flurry felt her ponies, all of them. She saw their lives in quick flashes underneath her closed eyes, and she felt their pain. The Crystal Heart was connected to all of them. Flurry rammed her way through, feeling the magic pull her deeper into the Heart.
The voices dimmed, then new voices surged forward from the distance. They battered Flurry’s ears and mind. Their emotions tangled together, blending into one chaotic miasma of hopes and dreams and desires and fears. One long scream echoed behind them.
Flurry realized it was her own.
She forced her eyes open to see the Crystal Heart engulfed in blue fire. The fire poured from the cracks and lashed tongues of flames across the room. They smashed into the cocoons along the walls, scorched the crystal walls, melted the dangling chains. Flurry felt one wrap around her hoof. She watched as it tickled her fur and retreated. Her pink fur was unharmed. The whips of fire avoided her mother’s cocoon; they bent awkwardly as they wriggled to avoid touching it.
Jadis screamed something in the doorway. The heat from the fire kept the crystal pony away. Flurry felt blood dribble down from her nose as her eyes rolled back into her head. Her mane and tail were smoking from the heat, and the thin, little golden crown was uncomfortably hot. The voices echoed in her skull, and Flurry tried to single them out.
“We have gone far enough.” A hard-eyed pink unicorn stood in the snow. Her armor was made of purple crystal and looked impossibly heavy. The mare smiled grimly. “We have run enough from these demons of snow. They say my heart is as hard as crystal. Let us see what their words are worth.”
“Get her out of there!”
Flurry struggled to focus her eyes. She was floating with her wings extended, drifting around the Crystal Heart while wild blue flames engulfed the room. Her wings weren’t flapping, but she remained suspended by her own magic. The Heart thrummed with power in front of her, but the cracks remained. Blue fire dripped from them as arcs of electricity ran across the Crystal Heart. Flurry jerked her head to the side.
Spike and Thorax were in the doorway. Spike tried to press forward, but a wild arc of lightning flayed purple scales off an arm as he stepped into the room. He roared in pain and stumbled back.
“Flurry!” Thorax screamed. “Stop!”
Flurry Heart smiled. I can’t stop, uncle.
Her teeth were bloody. Blood ran down from her eyes and ears. The voices echoed again in her mind, and Flurry saw shadows of ponies along the walls.
My mother gave her life for the north! For us! A unicorn died for all of us!
The voices ebbed and flowed like a tide.
I am not a unicorn. We are all crystal ponies, and this will be our home.
They washed over Flurry like the tendrils of fire from the Heart.
Let the southern tribes make war against each other. We have the Crystal Heart.
Each voice grew stronger and louder.
The Yak Khan’s crown is broken! We rule the north!
Their emotions and hopes and dreams pounded against her head.
On this day, I declare before the Crystal Heart an Empire of Crystal Ponies!
Every voice reverberated with thousands of other voices behind the words.
My mother dreamed of the ocean, and I will fulfill her vision.
Mare, stallion, filly, colt, young and old all blended together.
To be the Crystal Empress is to be the Empire. It is a burden, daughter, not a gift.
“You want to shoot her!?”
“The Heart’s taking her magic! She’ll die if she doesn’t break the connection!”
“Flurry!”
Flurry Heart felt the Heart shudder as the cracks melded together in the intensity of the flames. The cocoons along the wall had been reduced to ash. The walls warped and bent oddly; the crystal unused to the intense heat and wild magic. The entire basement sagged.
Please. Flurry struggled to see through the blood in her eyes. Blood dripped down from her ears and matted her smoking mane.
Behind her, Jadis took aim in the doorway at Flurry’s left hind leg and fired, praying for forgiveness. A bolt of lightning struck the bullet mid-flight and sent it spinning past the alicorn's floating legs and into the Crystal Heart.
The Heart split in half down the middle and blue flames exploded from within. Spike pulled Jadis back and shielded her from the heat. Her rifle barrel melted into slag when it fell to the floor of the room.
“No!” Flurry roared and flung herself towards the Heart. She slammed her front hooves into the two halves. Flurry and the Crystal Heart spun in the maelstrom of magic, tied together by her burning horn. The flames licked at her fur, igniting her flight jacket. She felt the crown on her head begin to melt, mixing with the blood from her ears and eyes. Flurry shut her eyes and grabbed at the Heart, forcing it back together. The flames lashing out of the crack prevented it.
The brown flight jacket burned away from her body. The flames raced up and down her fur, spreading down to her hooves and joining with the fire from her horn. Her mane and tail blazed with blue and pink flames, and the aura around her horn vibrated between blue and gold. The fire swirled around her bare flank.
Flurry was trapped in a wordless scream. The flames didn’t burn her, but a small part of her mind wished they did. Every nerve screamed as if it was torn from her body and flayed. Her muscles seized as bloody foam spilled from her open muzzle.
It took everything she had left to hold onto the Crystal Heart.
There is a white mare. Her eyes are tired and sunken. Her crystal armor hangs loosely on her body. She stands on a balcony of the Crystal Palace, watching the pink clouds spread in the south.
“That patchwork monster cannot break the Heart,” she sighs, “but it spreads Discord wherever it goes. We will lose the north to the madness, but not our city.”
The unicorn turns and stares into Flurry’s eyes. “One day the monster will be gone, but I will not live to see it. The Empire will be yours, my Amore.” She lays a trembling hoof on Flurry Heart’s shoulder. “Take back what was lost.”
The pain stopped.
Flurry gasped for air and felt snow underneath her hooves and a bitterly cold wind blow her mane back. She opened her eyes to a howling snow storm that engulfed everything around it. The Crystal Heart shone through the snow and winds, far off in the distance. The blizzard threatened to bury it.
“You do not deserve the Heart, Usurper,” a high-pitched voice said behind her.
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Ah crap.
Here comes the atomic character development from a convenient pocket dimension. Flurry is going to have to prove she's worth her salt.
Also, foreshadowing much?
Actually the mention of the yaks makes me think of the northern front. There are good rails from the polar bears to nova griffonia. Also it's at times like this where I wish I didn't find the voices of mlp incredibly annoying, so I could have a better idea of what is going to happen. My guess for the voice is queen winter, but that is a very long shot
Not sure I get what just happened, but I’m sure it will make sense next chapter.
It is said: Thank you for saving me from the changelings, you damn ungrateful stone.
11403264
Honestly, Nova Griffonia's been been pushed so far already I don't see them doing anything but suck it up, they're too far committed now. Like, their democracy's been hijacked and replaced with a Princessdom, they're officially at War with the Changelings, and the previous attempts to overthrow Flurry were crushed pretty definitively. A coup at this point would be suicide if it works and suicide if it doesn't. So they'd just have to suck it up, just like they've been doing the whole story. If Flurry wanted to mitigate the effects of that instability, a reassurance that every Griffon under her rule won't be sent back to Grover is the best they could hope for, and they'd have to believe it because they have no other options.
And in character, Flurry would see it as a choice between either internal political stability or Crystal Pony lives. I think she would go with the latter for obvious reasons. I think she wouldn't care about the Griffons getting uppity if it meant this battle wasn't for nothing(in her eyes) and there was a chance that her remaining Crystal Ponies could all live.
Keep in mind, this idea was made before the last chapter you made, no idea where you're going with it now.
My vote is Sombra, but that's probably too cliched.
Well this is unexpected
Oh, old memories for Flurry to see?
My money is that Its a memory from the original princess. She's talking to Sombra right before she activities the heart and banishes the crystal empire destroying both her and Sombra at the same time while also giving Flurry the knowledge to use the heart to the fullest extent
Just binged this in two days. Excellent give me more
Well. Uh. That was unexpected. Let’s see where this goes.
"The North Remembers" literally in this case!