On a Flurry kick, so I thought I may as well start at the beggining of her story.

Having suffered losing their last princess, Amore, and being enslaved to King Sombra before being taken into limbo alongside him, the residents of The Crystal Empire had lost quite a lot, and even upon their being saved by Spike and the Mane 6 there were still many pieces for them to pick up, their houses and livelihoods had been damaged in the struggles before and after their banishment, and many friends and family members were gone to the ages, having been lucky enough to escape the Empire before Sombra took it down with him, their decendants long forgotten their heritage, if their fear-striken kin even told them.

Cadances immediate rule was hard, and the ponies still bore the marks of their past, wether physically or mentally. And so it wasn’t surprising that when Flurry Heart was born she was seen as a great gift to The Empire, a new line of succession and a mark that they would continue to move on from their strife into a new golden age, and upon dicovering she was an Alicorn their joys only lifted, a great boon for powering their Crystal Heart.

The citizens of The Empire adored Flurry and she was always the center of their worlds, they would dedicate works of art and jousting events to her, at almost every royal appearance she would be given the most attention, she was showered with love and gifts every moment of her young life.

As a child Flurry had no issue with this, the attention and gifts and love, no child could not enjoy themselves, she had no real idea why they loved her so much, she knew little of Sombras reign or why her being an Alicorn was anything special, her mummy and aunty were alicorns too after all, she was simply a young child enjoying every bit of positive attention thrown her way. As she grew though this would all start to cause problems, little ones, but they would build…

As a child Flurry started to see the lines between royalty and the civilians, that the civilians showed them love but that was in exchange for how her parents ruled. How it was her parents job to look out for all of them, to ensure their safety, that their crops were growing, that the guards were trained and alert, that each pony played their part and kept the kingdom working, that trade deals and relationships with outside kingdoms were successful and not too taxing on the ponies, and that one day all of these jobs would be hers. The first trickles of anxiety began to grow, with Flurry fearing the day she would have to rule, that she would make mistakes, and that those mistakes could hurt these ponies or cause them to hate her if her decisions were not in their favour. But she knew it would be her destiny to rule, she simply had to learn to do it right.

Additionally she saw the arrival of her siblings, a pegasus and two unicorns, and the question had to come, why did only she and mummy have both wings and a horn? And so it was explained to her that each Alicorn before her had not been born as one, that they were ordinary unicorns, or a pegasus in the case of her mother, and that each of them achieved great feats of Harmonic Magic to earn their ascention and thus, in the eyes of the pony tribes, their right to rule. She had been the first pony to be born an Alicorn, and the only.

This spurred Flurrys anxieties further, she couldn’t help but notice the gifts The Empire gave her, how so many portaits and vase arts put specific emphasis on her horn and wings, always splaying them out, with her head raised, often an unknown lightsource behind them in the art. How much her alicorn status added to her subjects adoration of her, she bagan to wonder if they really loved her or more loved the idea of her? After all, she had been a baby with no real achievements or gifts outside of her strange additions, she had done nothing to earn her power or right to rule.

And so Flurry Heart began to question why she had been born as she was, what purpose she was meant to serve, if any of her own achievements would ever mean anything when put next to her big wings and horn, a badge she had never done anything to earn. These anxieties would eat at Flurry as she grew, she would never stop questioning why she had been born as an Alicorn, or if she could be a good ruler to her ponies, the ponies who looked to her so often with adoration and expectations.

Expectations that would slowly start to crush her…