The Road Home

The Road Home
The Road Home cover image
Writer(s)	Pen Stroke
Date published	March 26, 2015
Words	82,155 as of chapter 11
Status	Incomplete
Type/genre	Normal
Featuring	Twilight Sparkle Nyx Spike Discord
Based on	Past Sins First Hours "In the Family" mini-series
Story link(s)
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The Road Home is a sequel to Past Sins and the first that is not a part of "In The Family" trilogy. The story takes place in an alternate universe season 5, in which Twilight hid Spike and Nyx in Zecora's hut and then sent them to Canterlot to live with her parents, Twilight Velvet and Night Light.

Official description

In the wake of the battle with Tirek, Twilight Sparkle becomes fixated on restoring Golden Oaks Library. After all, it was home for her little family of three. But as her attempts to repair the books and tree continuously fail, her friends must take matters into their own hooves. Discord, as the good friend he is, tosses Twilight and her extended family into an unexpected adventure while Twilight's other friends get to work on the new crystal palace.

All together, they'll do everything to ensure Twilight and her family have a place to call home when they reach the end of the road.

Style

The story is written in the third person past-tense, and focuses on various viewpoints, including Twilight, her friends, Discord and Nyx.

Summary

The story begins with Twilight in the renovated Night Stone Castle, which is now Princess Twilight's School Of Higher Learning. She is praised by Princess Celestia, but her conversation is interrupted by Tirek, who absorbs their magic and then destroys the school. When he surrounds her with flames to kill her and shows her a black feather and a green scale, Twilight wakes up from her repetitive nightmare. She finds out that during her dream, she levitated her temporary home, Applejack's barn, which forced Applejack to wake her up. After a small talk with Applejack, she starts to try a new variation of repair spell on her books, which fails.

Applejack moves back to her work, getting some of their last harvests off the orchard before the fall. But after bucking a tree, she finds out that the apples are acting strange, which was because of a spell put on them by Discord to 'help' her. After a little arguing with Discord, Rarity and Fluttershy come join them to convince Applejack and Twilight to have a meal in the town. At first, Applejack hesitates, but when Discord uses his magic to harvest all of the apples, she agrees, but states that Twilight needs a 'force of nature' to get her out of the barn. Then she asks Discord why he isn't using his chaos magic to rebuild the library again, but Discord uses two puppets to tell her that Twilight already asked for his help, but he was unable to do so, because he can't remember everything from her library, and also his conjuration were not able to last forever.

After Discord says that Twilight didn't have some friend who could get her palace ready for her, Rarity gets an idea, to become the interior designer of Twilight's new castle and prepare it. She says that they can get bits for the job from donations, and makes Applejack the organizer for the workforce needed to repair the castle. Fluttershy, Applejack and Discord agree with her plans. At the same time, Spike is showing Nyx his comic book collection, or what that was left of it, and has a talk with Twilight Velvet about telling the truth to Nyx, who is still unaware that the library is destroyed.

The next day after the agreement, the Mane 6 sans Twilight, along with Discord, meet in Twilight's castle. Rarity brings her plans for every room, and makes everyone accept her plan to add a ballroom to the castle. Applejack argues that they are low on time because Nyx and Spike will come back the next day, and they also need an ‘army’ to do everything, and they will also need some crystal ponies. Rarity says that they can distract them, and Discord accepts to do the job.

"The name of the spell is ‘Yllissi Thgi Liwt’"

— The fake letter from Princess Celestia. Invert the name of the spell and you will see ‘twiLighT is sillY’

Discord uses a fake letter to convince Twilight that there is an ancient spell which is able to repair anything in the Crystal Empire, and Twilight blindly accepts it. She says that Shining Armor and Cadence are going back to the Crystal Empire too, so she takes the first train and moves toward Canterlot. Discord is also happy, because now he can sow a lot of chaos in the name of friendship, and also gives a secret message to the others, who are discussing with Rainbow Dash about adding a pool to the castle. At the same time, Shining Armor and his wife are in hospital, glad that their foal is still healthy after the attack of Tirek, and when Cadence is discharged, they go back to Shining Armor's mom and dad's home, and a little after they get there, Twilight also arrives, and after a reunion with her family, Spike and Nyx, and then they are all distracted by Cadence's foal's kickings.

Meanwhile, back at the castle, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are arguing about adding a pool and a garden, respectively, but Rarity states that they don't know where the property lines are, and Applejack will never agree with them too. Applejack joins them, and when Rarity asks her about the volunteers to build the castle, Applejack says that nopony has arrived, but they are surprised by a loud music and singing, which reveals itself to be the ‘army’ they needed to renovate the castle, consisting of a countless number of ponies, led by a band and with Pinkie Pie at the center of them all.

Twilight, Shining, Cadence, Nyx and Spike are in the morning express's royal cabin, playing Dodge Hold'em, which is actually Texas Hold'em, with Nyx winning. But their game and arguing is interrupted by deceleration of their train car, which is because of a rock slide with a large boulder in the middle of the tracks, which somehow didn't hit the train, but just hit their car (later it is revealed that this was done by Discord). Then Twilight hears a familiar voice which says they hit a rock, a sedimentary rock, which reveals itself to be Maud Pie's voice.

Back in Ponyville, Pinkie Pie is telling about the way she gathered all the volunteers from normal and crystal ponies. She says that Rainbow Dash inspired them to help, and Rainbow says that she just told them that they'd be helping ‘The Brave And Glorious Spike’ to convince them to help. They also make Pinkie Pie undertake the responsibility of the housing of the volunteers in the Night Stone Castle, and they also make Rainbow Dash the leader of the delivery team, which is responsible for bringing the materials the crystal ponies needed. After one of the items Discord conjured dissolves, Rainbow asks where Discord is, and Applejack says he is going to make Twilight's trip a long one, probably by changing the train's coal into brownies.

Twilight was listening to Maud's lecture about what happened to them, and that it was strange, because she found a obsidian (which was not common in the region) in a pile of rocks and when she pulled it out the rock slide happened. In the train station of the Crystal Empire, Flash Sentry and a bunch of other guards are waiting for the arrival of their Princess, but they find out that the guards on train are all unconscious, and they think that the royal family has been kidnapped.

Discord is also using a map to oversee Twilight and her family which are stuck, and then throws a bunch of creatures around their figurines.