Tales of Prince Onyx. Tome 2: Dusk Sparkle

by Stanislas

First published

The story of Onyx as he return to his adoptive homeland and try to regain what he once possessed.

After Onyx have been killed by the evil Changeling Queen Equestria a drastically changed; Celestia have lost all interest about her kingdom, Blueblood proclaimed himself emperor of Equestria and the Griffin empire, now under the rule of a new Emperor, still want to get their claws on the Equestrian Throne.

Dusk Sparkle

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Dear Diary,

I’m writing those lines to lets you know how the kingdom is doing. I shall write in this journal the whole story of what happened after the Changelings attack on Canterlot after the death of the Adoptive prince and son of Celestia, until the ascension of Blueblood to power. Those lines shall only be read by myself or somepony else that I judge of confidence.

I think I should start by what his now called by ponies “The Day when the sun lost is flames.” know too as when the long thought lost Changeling Kingdom attacked our nation and killed our beloved prince Onyx. Soon after the burial of our deceased prince, Celestia, ex co-ruler of Equestria, entered into a deep state of depression. At the start, only ponies close to her saw it as she was barely eating or going out of her room, the only exception being when she had to be at the day court or to cry in the royal garden where her son was buried, but it soon started to became worse as the days passed. Her mane was no longer flowing, she was cancelling almost every day court and no longer wanted to see her sister nor any other member of her family. Sometime she would stay in Onyx’s room for days, crying his name, hiding from the rest of the world.

Then Cadance had to leave Equestria to go rule over the Crystal Kingdom. I will not enter in the details but I can say it did not do anything good to Celestia’s state of mind.

Now with two of three of the Alicorns no longer available for the day court, only Luna remained to take succession on Celestia’s business.

In the first month, Luna had the strength to take care of both the day and night court. Even myself I thought that maybe things will go into a nice direction, that maybe with Luna taking care of every royal responsibility and me taking to trying to heal the mind of Celestia, things could return like before, but I was wrong, I was very wrong. After maybe seven months of attending every court, raising the sun and the moon, holding every festivity and more, Luna found herself out of strength to continue this way, she was forced to abandon the day court so she could put her energy more on the night one, which had the consequence of making the kingdom less efficient. Ponies were talking about how things started to degrade themselves, the sun was less and less bright, the nights were dull, the ceremony short and on the verge of being deadly boring.

Now with two of the three rulers of Equestria not being able to properly rule over their kingdom, the council had no other choice but to take things in their hoof, and so they “momentarily” threw Celestia out of power and gave all her responsibility to Blueblood, Saying that he was the only one fit for this role. As for myself, I think that the council is nothing more than pawns that would do anything for gold, and if there is something that Blueblood has, it’s gold.

From a military point of view, I could say that Blueblood did a good job on protecting the kingdom, the economy is strong for the royal family, no other nation threaten us, the sun and the moon both rise at the right time, and our military is well prepared for any other attempt of wars against us. But from a more civil point of view, I can say that the land has drastically changed. There is but only a few celebrities happening, the ponies have less and less time to be with their family, since the taxes are so high that everypony needs to work twice as much time than before to be able to live correctly. As each day passes, more and more ponies get thrown out of their own home for not being able to pay their rents.

I just hope that someday things will change for the better, in the meantime I shall do my best to take care of my son, Dusk Sparkle, who is now ready to start his first year of school, and my Husband.

Twilight Sparkle.

***

Dusk Sparkle stared lazily at the blackboard, who was to the far front of the room, sitting in his desk, diligently writing down the notes that Sweetie Belle herself was writing on the blackboard in front of the class. Since three years ago, Mayor Mare had allowed Sweetie Belle to have her own classroom, neighbor to Cheerilee’s class, and with the financial help of her sister, she had been able to buy new items for the class so all the desks and boards were fancy and new, and the classroom smelled fresh. Anything that Miss Sweetie Belle was saying was drowned out by the scratch of the students’ pencils.

“Now class,” Started Sweetie Belle as she placed herself behind her teacher’s desk. “it’s time to start the presentation about the thing you love the most I made you all prepare for today? So, who wants to start?” She asked in an excited voice.

In a perfectly coordinated movement, every student raised their hoof, all wanting to be the first one to present their project. As Sweetie Belle looked through her class to pick one of her students, she saw that one of her new students was daydreaming in the middle of her class.

“Dusk Sparkle.” Said the teacher in a calm and motherly tone. “Would you mind presenting your project in front of the class?” She asked.

The young stallion, who was no one else than Dusk Sparkle, raised his head to face the teacher. He was not particularly happy to be called back to duty by his teacher, but there was a small part of him that felt proud to be the first one presenting, and he hoped to make a good impression on his classmates. Being the new student of a class was never easy, but his mother told him many times that he had everything to succeed at making friends fast and have good grades,

“Sure, I guess.” Said the pegasus in a low shy voice as he raised up from his seat and walked to the front of the class, a huge cardboard stuck under his left wing, with a plush representing a phoenix under his right one. The young Pegasus placed the cardboard in front of him and faced all of his classmates, before he shyly started to talk.

“My name is Dusk Sparkle, and I would like to talk about my favorite toy,” Started the Pegasus, before showing to everypony the plushie he had brought with him. “his name is Philomena, and he was given to me by my mom, which herself received it from an old friend of hers. She said that it came from t-” Continue Dusk before being interrupted by an older classmate.

“Look at that, the little baby wants to talk about a toy for baby,” Yelled the bully, a yellow unicorn, to the other classmates, who all smirked. Dusk ignored them and kept going.

“My mother said this plushie represented a past friendship she had and wished me to, just like her, make as many friend possible. Each night I-”

“Do you still sleep with it like a baby who’s afraid to be alone in the dark?.” Asked the same bully from before, laughing at the expense of Dusk. The other classmate laughed at him too, before Sweetie Belle intervened.

“Bulky! Be nice to your classmate! You were the new one too, once. How would you have liked it if you would have been treated like that?”

“I would have been angry and sad.” Answered the yellow unicorn before whispering under his breath.

“Good, now keep going, Dusk.”

***

Dusk opened his locker, the bells had rung a couple of minute ago, signaling the end of the class and every students were preparing himself to return home. As Dusk pulled out his backpack from the locker, he felt somepony pushed him on the ground. The young pegasus turned his head to see who pushed him, before meeting the face of the same unicorn who had made fun of him and his plushie earlier.

“If it’s not the little prick that brought his plushie to school.” Said the bully as he picked up the backpack of Dusk with his magic.

“What do you want?” Asked Dusk as he rose up on his hoof. He was a bit scared, but he did not show it.

“What do I want? I want you to learn your place in this school. I want you and every other pegasus that attend this school to show me respect!” Answered the Unicorn as he opened the backpack, and started to pull out everything that was in it.

“Why would I show respect to a bully like you?” Dusk asked back with a taste of anger in his voice. If there was one thing that Twilight had teached him, it was to never be racist, and Dusk despised racists, but this Unicorn was clearly being mean to him for being different from him.

“Simply because I’m a unicorn, which makes me superior to you and every other pegasus who come to study here. Plus, if you don’t do everything as I say….” Dusk breath became faster as he saw the bully take his phoenix plushie with his magic. “If you don't do as I say, I will make sure that you never see your so precious phoenix, ever again.”

“No, please give it back.” Said Dusk, tears in his eyes, but the bully only ignored him and left with the plushie, leaving the young pegasus alone in the hallway of the school.

“ I want my mommy…” Whispered the pegasus before a rain of tears falled down of his eyes..

Coffee

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"May I take a seat?" asked a woman who was probably in the mid fourth to the man who sat alone at his table on the patio of a small coffee shop.

The man in question was absorbed in the lecture of a book. He was wearing a long pale brown coat to keep him warm against the light but cold wind that was constantly blowing the few leaves that had already started to fall down from the surrounding trees His long dark hair was tied up behind his head and his visage was harboring the common sign of someone who was entering their early thirties.

Feeling that someone was looking at him, the man rolled his eyes from his book to see the woman who had interrupted him waiting patiently for an answer, a coffee in both hands.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"I was just wondering if I could take this empty seat, seeing as how we are both on our own and it would be a waste of opportunity if we were to sit at opposite places," the woman explained while keeping a warm smile on her lips. Seeing no harm in her demand, the man closed his book and answered the request in the positive.

The woman happily pulled out the second chair of the table and sat in front of the man before presenting to him one of the two cups of coffee she was holding.

"The name is Lauren, and you are?" she asked, waiting for the man to take her offer on the coffee.

While the man found the behavior of Lauren a bit strange, her offer was certainly appreciated plus his own cup had been empty for now over half an hour.

"Thank you, my name is Onyx," he answered as he took the cup from Lauren's hand. Now that both of them had introduced to each other, they each started to drink their respective beverage in silent, appreciating the calm and the fuzzy warm feeling that provided the hot yet amber liquid. Onyx used the opportunity of this moment to take a closer look at his new coffee companion.

While clearly older than him, she seemed to be in her mid forties, her expression was almost like the one a young girl would have on a Christmas morning. She had long reddish hair and Onyx could see in her eyes that she did not hide any ill-intention, not that offering a coffee to a complete stranger could be seen as something evil. The woman seemed to be in good shape and Onyx could not keep himself from thinking that the man who was sharing his life, if there was one, was one lucky person.

"Not wanting to sound rude or anything, but it’s not everyday that I meet someone with a strange name like yours. Did you change it, or were you given that name by your parents?" Lauren asked while keeping direct eye contact with Onyx.

A little taken aback from the delay between when he told her his name and her questioning him, it took him a small moment to answer back.

"As far as I know I was born with this name," he answered. Lauren seemed pleased by his answer and Onyx even thought he saw a spark of interest appear in Lauren's eyes, but he shrugged it off preferring to return to his coffee before it turn cold.

"May I ask what you are doing in life?" asked the curious woman.

"I don't really have a job," answered Onyx with a sad smile. " I mostly do small tasks here and there for the people around here like walking their dog, mowing the grass or repairing small stuff. It’s not really a prestigious job, but I earn enough to pay for my room. How about you?" Onyx asked, trying to shift the conversation over to Lauren since he felt a bit ashamed of himself to not have a proper carrier like most men of his age had.

Lauren told him how she was working for a television station, that she created cartoon for children and grown ups alike and how she was currently trying to find the inspiration for her next show. Onyx noticed how much pride she put in her job and respected the degree of passion she had when she described what she was doing. Then they both continued talking about their lives, but mostly Lauren's life, since Onyx was always shifting the conversation over to her side. It was only about one hour later that Lauren started to take her leave.

"Well it was a pleasure talking with you, Onyx, and I wish you good luck for your future life," she said while placing back her seat under the table. Onyx wished the same for her and was going to return to his reading before Lauren interrupted him one last time.

"Already returning to your book? I see that you really do have the same interest as the students of my little Celly."

At those words, Onyx's brain froze, his heartbeat accelerated and every member of his body started shaking. Flash of past memories made their way into his mind, memories that he did not want to remember because they were false like the doctor had told him.

“So Onyx, how would you like it if we go to the park today?” asked a motherly voice, happiness evident in her voice.

“To the park... really? I would love to mom! It’s been like forever since we’ve last been there!” The voice giggled at the kid excitement

“Since forever? But we go there everyday.”

“I know, but for me, it’s like forever!” The kid answered back.
Onyx reached his bag that was still under the table but with the constant shake of his hands and the sudden feel of weakness it took him more time than he wanted to. Once the bag was finally in his reach he tried to find the pills that was supposed to be inside it without any success.

“Oh! This is Mr. Smarty Pants. He always helps me with my homework... By the way, I'm Twilight Sparkle.”

“Twilight, that is a cute name, I like it... Hey do you want to play with me, I have some plushies of mine too!”




“Shut up Shut up!” Cried Onyx in hope to silence the voice.