Shining and Cadence watched as their now-grown up Flurry Heart go and mingle with her subjects. It’s amazing how time flew by. One day, they were changing her diapers and keeping her magic from throwing temper tantrums. The next thing they knew, she had come of age and become the new Princess of the Crystal Empire. Today was her Coronation Day, and the citizens were happy to have their new ruler.
The young Alicorn was as radiant as ever, and all-so kind. She was beloved by all already and she loved them. She had grown into a fine, young mare with pink skin, purple-blue mane and tail, and ideal mane and wings suited for her species. Her cutie mark had been earned long since she was but a filly: A crystal blue heart surrounded by an explosion. For this occasion, she was wearing a white dress with light blue and pink trimmings. Her crown was decorated with a blue crystal that looked similar to the Crystal Heart.
The filly had been the sweetest little foal she could ever be. When she already began to use her magic, her parents had her enrolled at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. She passed easily, even with the entrance exam. The students all loved her, and not just because she was a Princess. She was kind, caring, brave, demure, hardworking, intelligent, and selfless.
Beside her as she always had been since the day she walked was her dragon assistant Fable. She had pink scales along with rosy spines. Her underbelly was a near-white pink. Her eyes shone with a shade of azure. She wore a similar dress to Flurry, and seemed be a splitting image of Spike. She was as hardworking as the dragon, but a little more mature and already had her wings at birth.
“We’re so proud of you, honey” Cadence congratulated her daughter when she came over to meet them.
She smiled. “Are you crying, Dad?”
“Oh, no, of course not. It’s just liquid pride” he assured her.
“That’s what he always says” Twilight spoke up as she came over to them.
“Heya, Auntie Twilight! What do you think?”
“That was beautiful, Flurry. I know you’re going to be as great as your mom”
“She seems to take after you more” Cadence pointed out. “Although, her assistant seems to be otherwise”
From afar, a teen Spike was currently trying to talk to Fable, who was getting drinks at the table. Though a little grown now, the older dragon was still a kid in the mind and thought that his crush on Fable was no different than Rarity. Though he was trying to hit on her, she rebuffed his every advance.
“…Get it?” he finished a joke.
She nodded, not amused. “Uh huh, now if you’ll pardon me, I have supplementary obligations to be present for”
“Was it atleast a little funny?”
“My Princess is evidently parched and I have no time for dilly-dallying about” was her last word before leaving him and going over to Flurry with their drinks.
The Mane Six were all present here as they always would with a grand meeting for friends or relatives. Twilight was to organize the occasion itself, though it was a bit difficult to go along with Fable’s wishes. Fluttershy brought her song birds for the music. Rarity had the dresses made. Applejack was in charge of catering. Rainbow Dash had marked the event with yet another Sonic Rainboom. Pinkie, of course, set up the party.
The day had gone pretty well, even when Discord showed up due to Celestia’s invite. In fact, he made it even better. All in all total, this Coronation day had gone perfectly. Soon enough, Flurry went back to her room as Fable trailed behind her, keeping her composure to avoid showing she was tired. The baby dragon opened the door to let her Princess in.
“You know, you have to learn to be a little nicer, Fable. He was just trying to be your friend”
“My boyfriend, superficially. I don’t hold him liable. I mean, how many other dragons were raised by ponies? And, he’s just not my type”
“Then what is your type?”
“Perhaps if he were a little less childish, stops playing with little dolls and reading comics, and acts his age, I would consider his pitiful attempts”
“Oh you” Flurry chuckled as she lay down on her bed. At the side, her assistant had curled up on a mattress with a pillow and blanket. The Princess then checked her side and found it: Her little snail Whammy. He was a little dusty and not as bright as he used to, but she still loved him.
“I cannot fathom why you insist on keeping that old toy. It’s inappropriate for a Princess your age” Fable pointed out.
“He means a lot to me” Flurry smiled at the button eyes. He smile was long since losing its stitching, but remained nonetheless.
Whammy had been with her ever since she was a foal, and she still kept him around. Shining thought it was similar to Twilight and her Smarty Pants, but it was more than that. Whammy was a lot different from all the other toys she had.
He was a gift, from a friend she never forgot.
A few years ago…
Though it seemed like to everyone else that she couldn’t even talk yet, Flurry Heart had already understood words and tried her best to speak them. It always came out as gibberish, but to her she sounded perfectly fine. Yet, when she’s asleep, she was free to be as she wanted to be. She was able to walk, speak, and use magic.
Right now, she was playing in her dreamland again. Some chocolate rain hailed down complete with fudge toppings. There were cotton candy clouds and the sidewalks were chocolate lined with lollipops. It looked like any foal’s paradise.
But then, she felt something else in her dreamland. Someone else was there with her. She looked around and saw a small fudge cake cave. She walked over inside with a candy firefly by her side. It was a little dark and musty inside, but she felt no fear and as she kept walking. She soon spotted something.
The silhouette of a pony sat a few feet from her.
From the looks of their position, their head was hung down as though in shame. Their back was turned to her. She only walked closer as they seemed to pay no mind. She finally got close enough to make out their features.
It was a grey stallion with a black, matted mane. What looked like bits of armor fell from his body, barely even covering him up. His eyes were close, but the expression said that he was sorrowful. There was a red horn on his head, but it was broken.
“Hey Mister!” she greeted with a smile.
He opened his eyes halfway to her, revealing them to be a brown color. But when he got a good look at her, he scowled slightly as he turned away. It seemed his eyes had turned green with red pupils when that happened.
“Go away” he growled in a low voice.
She tilted her head slightly before smiling again. She learned about her grand-Auntie Luna and how she was the one who controlled dreams at night. She supposed it was probably one of those dreams with moral lessons so she could be a fine ruler when she grows up.
She lit up her horn and levitated a soft, wooly blanket over to them before covering the stallion up in it. He flinched at the sudden act of kindness, but clutched it tightly.
“Uh, thank you, child”
“My name’s Flurry Heart, but call me Flurry!”
He paused for a bit before answering. “Salutations, I am King Sombra”
She giggled. “Ooh, King of what?”
“King of the Crystal Empire” he grumbled. “Atleast I was”
“What happened?”
“I was removed”
“Oh” she suddenly felt a familiar sensation. “I have to go. But I’ll be back, okay Mister?”
He glanced at her before sighing. “Fine”
For the next few nights, Flurry had been going back and forth to the cave to go and see her new friend. She knew he wasn’t real, but it was nice to have someone to talk to in her dreams. She found him rather funny. He told her what she wanted to hear. She would tell him everything about herself, including her mother, her father, her aunts, her friends, including how she got her name. He found the one about the destroyed Crystal Heart the most interesting.
“But now I have better control over my magic, and Uncle Sunburst is helping me learn spells” she explained.
“It’s quite funny” he chuckled.
“What about you? What can you do?”
“I do create tricks to fool people. Though, now I can’t because of my horn”
“Oh, so you are a magician?”
“I suppose you can say it that way”
“I wish I was able to see what you could do”
He chuckled. “Let’s not talk about that for now. It’s supposed to be a happy time and I won’t be the one to ruin it”
“Can we play Hide and Seek?”
“Of course” he then covered his eyes. “One…two…three…”
As he counted, she began to scramble for a hiding place. She looked high and low before deciding on an area. Sombra then opened his eyes and pretended to look around.
“Oh where oh where could that little Flurry be? Could she be…in the bushes?” he looked, but she wasn’t there.
“Could she be…under the stone pile?” he didn’t find her there.
He was starting to get a little confused as to where she could be before he felt something drop from above and remembered that she was an Alicorn. “Could she be…up on the ceiling?”
She giggled as she flew down when he spotted her. “You found me! Yay!”
“Well you are pretty sneaky, and resourceful. Using her wings and flying up, prefect tactic for this game. You could be good at sneak attacks one day”
“Thank you!”
During the day, when she was awake, Flurry was blabbering on and on about her new friend. Her parents couldn’t understand her, but she was trying to hint them out. One time, she drew a picture. They seemed a bit frightened at her doodle of Sombra and her, but they shrugged it off as merely a bit of imagination.
There were times when Flurry would try and see if there was a way to help Sombra with his broken horn, atleast enough so he could perform basic spells. It bothered her so much to see him like that. He mostly stared when she did magic and seemed to look on as if he was remembering his days when he used to do that.
One time, she was able to wait it out for Sunburst to fall asleep during one session. She managed to flip through the pages, but didn’t fully understand what she was looking at. Made sense, she doesn’t know how to read yet.
She told Sombra about her issue at being illiterate so he offered to help her. She summoned some old fairy tales that her mother and father read to her at night, including an ABC book for tots. He had to be patient. Little by little, she was able to learn. It was easier that she was learning in her dreamland as she could speak as well. Before long, she was able to learn the basics and moved on to a little more average.
She finally was able to get another chance and found a spell. She supposed it could work. So when they met up in dreamland again, she knew just what to do.
“It should be able to atleast fix it a little” she explained.
“I suppose it would suffice. Even just levitating objects would mean a lot by now”
She nodded before lighting up her horn and touching it with his broken one. He held still as she worked as gentle as she could manage. He felt a slight sting, but kept on. She soon pulled away as he took a deep breath.
“Now try on the rock there” she pointed.
He looked over to it. Hesitating at first, he took a deep breath and lit up his horn. A small red aura permeated from it, then enveloped the rock. He took deep breaths between it all as Flurry looked on. He finally opened his eyes and was surprised at the results. He glanced at Flurry, who smiled. He then returned it. This time, sincere.
For the next few meetings, Sombra and Flurry had been practicing magic a little more often. He only used the basics given as he didn’t wish to risk any more breaking it by accident. But he had been teaching Flurry a few spells as well. They were simple at first, but then they progressed on to more advanced lessons. In reality, she would secretly try them out. It was amazing how much knowledge she was accumulating ever since the first meeting.
Oh right, Sombra had begun to tell her how to act properly. He was giving her lessons on manners and etiquette. She learned how to properly choose a fork or a spoon and learn not to slurp and often held little tea parties with the living stuffed animals abounding the candied plain. She even learned ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.
“Excuse me, Senior Fluffy, but can you please pass me the sugar?” Flurry asked.
“Of course. Here you go” the living teddy bear handed it to her.
“Thank you”
Sombra chuckled. “It’s nice to see how much you’ve been able to do now”
“Yeah, I just wish I could soon do it in reality”
“Oh I know you will. If you’re anything like you’re Auntie Twily, you can surely master it as she does”
“You know Auntie Twily?”
He nodded, looking down. “But we don’t have a good history. Nevermind that. I heard today was your birthday”
She nodded. He smiled before taking out a small present box and setting it before her. He gestured for her to go on and open it. She eagerly tore away at the paper before opening up a box and taking out a small stuffed toy.
It was a plush toy of a snail. It had a yellow belly with a white underside. It had a green shell with little blue spots. It’s black button eyes gave her a kind smile.
“What are you to call him, child?”
She giggled before answering. “Whammy”
“Whammy” he repeated. “Whammy and Flurry, that matches you”
She giggled as she hugged the stuffed doll tightly. “Thank you”
It turned out that Whammy also came into the real world with Flurry. It was surprising, but he was right there in her hooves when she woke up. Even Shining and Cadence were surprised where the stuffed snail came from. Then again, it was her birthday so they just assumed it was a present from Twilight. Flurry loved to keep the doll with her, mostly found cuddling it wherever she went. It reminded them a lot of Twilight and Smarty Pants.
Overtime, Flurry had grown up and started to talk and walk better. She was soon able to do the same spells and use what vocabulary was taught to her in dreamland. They were impressed at her feats, even Sunburst had to take down notes because it almost seemed like she ended up teaching him.
She soon came of age to be enrolled in school, and they decided on Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. Of course, she had to pass her entrance exam. It was the same Dragon Egg Hatching. The other students could mostly only get the egg to glow and that would qualify as a pass. But those with the ability to actually hatch it were rare. It was why Celestia took Twilight as protégé.
And it was why Flurry had the same privilege.
The egg had been hatched by her magic, but she didn’t need a Sonic Rainboom. She was able to use enough to make the newborn dragon come out and she had no accidents. She got to keep the dragon, of course, and was learning from her Aunt Twilight how to care for one as she did with Spike. The drake himself also came at times, excited at the thought of not being the only dragon amongst ponies anymore.
Flurry had named the little hatchling Fable, and found she was a girl. Fable was like any other newborn but seemed to already show signs of being smarter as she preferred blocks than toy dolls. The first few days after she was born, Flurry put a necklace on her.
It had a pink color and a crystal heart on it.
It was cute. Fable soon learned to walk and talk as well as write and read. Yet, Flurry was still careful about making sure she was properly cared for. The funny thing was that Fable was truly different and more mature. Spike once tried to read a comic to her, but she flat out reduced it to ash at the first page.
“Well, atleast there’s one thing that makes her different” Twilight mused as Spike cried over his burnt comic.
Fable also seemed to have a high society mind. She was very formal and cared less about playing. Flurry had been educating her on manners and etiquette, which she took very seriously. She taught her about Literature, Match, Science, and History, basically everything needed. Though, it seemed she didn’t like to mingle much with Spike especially with the fact that he only got his wings after so long while she had hers at birth. It hurt a lot she could even fly well at this point whilst he’s still learning.
As she went to school, they all squealed at the sight of her. It was not every day they got to have a Princess for a schoolmate. Many ponies tried to befriend her just because of her status. Though, Fable had none of it. The little dragon kept them away.
“You can be her friend if you really want to get to know the real her” she said one time.
They kept trying, but to no avail unless they really wanted to befriend her, and not just because she was a Princess. It took some time, but she had established a group of friends for herself. They were Cheery Pie, Honeydew, Snow Fall, Clarity, Benevolent Ray, and Radiance Bloom. They saw her for her true self, not just for her status. Fable deemed them fine, but still was wary.
In the entire timespan, Flurry hadn’t seen Sombra so much. He seemed to just disappear. She was really worried about it. She tried to look for him even in the usual place, but he wasn’t there anymore. One night, she was about to give up when she found him atlast.
“Flurry, there’s something I must tell you”
“What is it?”
“I can’t be here anymore” he looked down.
She was shocked. “What?”
“You’re growing up, and you will see the world out on your own. I must move on now. Tonight will be the last time together”
“But…but…” she was tearing up.
“It’s okay, Flurry. Tonight may be the last time, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make the most out of it”
So that was what they did. All through the night, they played together and spent the most out of it. She told him about everything that had happened. He told her about how proud he was of her. Finally, they rested on the hilltop after she managed to coax him out of the cave.
“It’s been so long since I last saw the sun” he mused.
“Yeah, grand-aunt Celestia sure makes it beautiful. So does grand-aunt Luna with her moon”
“Indeed” he sighed. “I must confess something to you, my dear Flurry Heart. When I first met you, I wanted you to leave. Your parents and I were never on good terms and I thought the same would be held from you. But you were so kind, and you gave me what I never thought I would feel: Love. When I was your age, my own mother never loved me. She left me at the orphanage and I grew cold to the world. I thought I could never feel such emotion other than anger and hate. You proved me wrong”
He then glanced back at her before blinking back happy tears. The green and red eyes had gone as well, turning into nothing but normal brown eyes anypony would have. “All my life, I have hated everyone and wished them all to darkness because I myself was trapped in the darkness. You have freed me from the shackles of the pain. For this, I am forever grateful. Thank you, Flurry Heart”
She smiled as she herself wiped away tears before lunging forward to him and hugging him tightly. He hugged back as well.
“I’m gonna miss you, Mister Sombra”
“I shall miss you too, child. But should ever do, you have Whammy to keep you company at night”
As the sun rose outside, prompting Flurry to soon awake, they held their final farewells as Sombra began to fade away.
“Goodbye, Flurry Heart”
“Goodbye, Sombra”
She woke up, his final words still ringing in her ears before she looked down and hugged her Whammy doll.
The Present…
Flurry looked down at little Whammy happily as she held him close. Fable had already fallen asleep, not wanting to listen for the rest of the night.
“I’ll never forget you, Sombra”
