Images flashed before me, images of strange beasts, and monsters. Images so strange yet somehow familiar, I absorbed everything shown, but soon the images turned horrid. Horrible scenes of families being massacred, men and women crucified, children, being lead to the slaughter, and being devoured. I tried to close my eyes to try and stop the onslaught of these gruesome deceptions, but they didn't stop. It was as if my whole world was transformed and these images were the reality as if this was what life was, and forever would be. I started to shake violently try to escape, shaking and screaming. Trying anything, but my voice was hollow and the only sound I heard was the sound of the dying around me. I collapsed and started to fall, I fell for what felt like an eternity. I saw the ground approaching fast and was glad for it, I held my arms out wide as if to hug it, longing for its embrace, but that embrace never came. What instead embraced me was rotten and decaying. Hundreds of the dead moaning in pain, and all asking the same question.

'WHY'

As if they were all just one big broken record, some pleaded, some accused, some were just confused. I didn't have an answer for any of them. I started to hyperventilate, they started to crowd around me even more, some started to climb over each other and soon I was under them. Feeling their weight, feeling their pain, feeling the life slowly drain from me, all I could muster as I started to fall unconscious were two simple words, a simple 'I'm Sorry!"

I awoke with a start sitting straight up in an instant. I heard the faint sound of someone falling over next to me but I paid it no mind. Cold sweats racked my body, and I was breathing heavily, it felt as if my heart was racing a thousand beats a second. My eyes darted around the room but couldn't fully focus on anything. I tried to steady my breathing taking long deep breaths, minutes passed and I could feel my heartbeat start to slow down, and my eyes able to refocus.

When I looked around I saw that I was once again in Miss Havens's classroom, and saw that Cinnamon Twist was on the ground staring at me, she displayed a look of worry. On the other end of the room, I spotted Desert Flame alone gawking at me. I ignored them as I tried to regain my composer, taking another few minutes to settle myself. In that time period Twist rose from the ground, and was over in her seat staring at me. I stood from my desk and absentmindedly made my way over to a nearby window and peered out it. I wasn't looking at anything in particular just making sure everything was still the same, and to escape the gaze of the two girls in the room.

As I looked out the window I watched as the kids playing went about their day enjoying life and experiencing joy. I had to shake my head violently as scenes from my dream flashed in front of me for a split second as the playground outside transformed into a graveyard. I started to think to myself at this point, What the hell is happening! Was that some kind of premonition? Or something far worse?

I gave a quick prayer to God but expected no answer. He hasn't said a word to me since that incident when I was a child, I understand his reasoning and why he stays silent, but that doesn't mean it doesn't piss me off. As I was contemplating all this I felt a slight nudge to my left, assuming that it was Twist I turned towards the nudger. Instead of Twist what greeted my eyes was Desert Flame she looked at me warily and then began to speak.

"What is wrong with you? One moment your sleeping, the next you're acting all frantic, everything with you so far has been strange, Can't you just be normal for like five seconds."

Looking away from her I decided not to respond, I wasn't in the mood to deal with her, or to make any snarky comments at the moment. I turned away from the window and made my way back to my desk, I started to pack up everything, deciding at that moment that school was the least of my concern that I needed to focus on more important things. Such as learning how to wield a blade better, and seeing if I could tap into any more of my Paladin abilities. After gathering all of my stuff I made my way towards the door, I could feel Twists and Desert Flames eyes upon me as I exited the room.

When I exited the schoolhouse, I could see all the kids packing up ready to head inside. Acting quickly so I wasn't spotted by Miss Haven I rushed over to a nearby slide and took cover behind it. I watched as the bell rang once more and all the kids started to head inside. Miss Haven stood at the door taking attendance as the kids filed in, I waited for her to go inside before I made my move.

In all honesty, when dealing with Miss Haven I could have just walked away, and maybe sparked an argument with her over her curriculum, but just like with Desert Flame I wasn't in the mood, so I made my way home.

While traversing through the town I thought about what I was going to do with my life. What I was going to achieve and my future aspirations, I knew that when I got big enough I'd leave this town and do a little traveling, maybe do some good old dungeon crawling to beef up a bit, and maybe earn some money. The problem though at the moment is that I was still a little rusty with the blade. Don't get me wrong I wasn't bad but I wasn't that good either, I could probably give someone a run for their money if it was a fight for our lives.

While I was contemplating everything I finally reached my home, entering the front door and announcing my presence to my parents. I didn't get a response so I assumed that they were away working, so I settled in and made myself a sandwich. After completing devouring it I went up to my room to retrieve my practice sword and went to our backyard to start my daily routine training, The training I did was similar to what my father said they did in the military academy in Canterlot, a lot of running, hitting things hard, and swinging around swords. Usually, I'd do this training with him because some of it requires a second person to make sure you're doing the techniques right.

I'd train for hours that day using everything I was taught, the day would fly by in a flash. Training and sweating was the only thing that kept my mind occupied, I was out there until my parents finally arrived back home. First, it was my mother, she came out to converse with me and ask me about my first day of school. I told her straight up that I was no longer going to attend, being a reasonable gal took about five seconds to process that then decided it was time to freak out. She ranted about how school was important to one's growth, and yatta yatta yatta, I stopped listening after the first sentence. Soon she would tire herself out, and send my father to talk to me. I did exactly what I did with my mother and just continued training, he would get bored of trying to talk to me relatively fast and instead start helping me train.

Another year would pass, and quite a bit would happen in that year. First off I decided that I wasn't going to keep my promise with Cinnamon Twist, the lives of the kids were more important than some stupid promise. So a few days after my first day of school I told him the full story and telling him who told me. I warned him that if the Mayor found out he knew Twist would most likely feel her wrath. He took this news better than I expected, after I told him I heard him mumbling something to himself about reporting back, but then nothing else. After this, though he increased my training regiment ten folds, saying if I wasn't going to school he was going to run me ragged until I changed my mind. I accepted his challenge and would try with all my might to do everything he told me.

Also during that year Twist would make it her obligation to visit me every day, she claimed that it was to deliver homework from Miss Haven, but I had a feeling she had alternative motives, most likely she has a crush on me but I wasn't interested. She'd sneak into my backyard to watch me train, I would spot her easily enough but would do nothing to dissuade her from watching. I might not see her as anything other than a child, but my parents took a liking to her, they would give her snacks and invite her over. My mother was particularly fond of her teaching me how to cook, and to do simple magic. Which was interesting to watch, magic here was somewhat like dungeons and dragons, you couldn't understand the text unless you trained to learn the spell, but it wasn't as restricting. The only limit to how many spells a person could cast was how much mana they had in reserves. My mother told me that her mana reserves were somewhere in the realm of a bucket, but then told me that people such as the Princesses reserves must have been something like an ocean.

My father's interest in Twist was something akin to a child's interest in an anthill, which was to simply hassle me about her every day, saying that it was cute that I had a girlfriend already at my age. The thing about her visits every day and her obvious interest in me, I thought up a way for her to actually be of use. I asked my father if she could join our training, he got a wide smile on his face when I asked but I quickly tried to dash any thoughts he was having. I simply told him that if she was going to hang around she could at least be of use, and even could help me train when he's gone. He agreed to this but the smile never left his face.

So within that year Twist and I got stronger, and a friendship kinda started to appear, Twist was a shy girl and only really spoke when I addressed her. She did start to become a fine swordsman within that year, training with her magic to hold a sword, while also training with one in her hand, it was damn impressive.

Also, I would see no more of the Mayor or Desert Flame that year, and my father would tell me nothing about what she was up to, or even if he was investigating her. This irked me beyond belief, I understood that he was a soldier and had to follow orders, but what she is doing is wrong and sometimes orders need to be disobeyed for the greater good.

Somehow within that year Twist tried to convince me to help her shed light on the Mayor's mining scandal, and to help infiltrate it, which I quickly said no to, not wanting her to get herself killed. She was hesitant to agree with me at first but agreed to stop pestering me if I convinced my parents to adopt her. Which I saw no problem with so I happily asked, which they seemed to like the idea. So that's where the year ends with Twist and I becoming family.

Author's Note

Changed some stuff from before that didn't really make sense, and going to completely re-write the next chapter.