Chapter 16: Loré's Fate
“So this is my last trial,” mumbled Loré as she gazed around.
This room was quite different from the precious ones. Instead of a fully tiled floor, there was only one narrow passage leading to a small circular platform surrounded by tall, thin walls. Another bridge of sorts connected on the other side of the platform which led to the way out of the room, and deeper into the depths of the structure. Everything else in the room was nothing but a deep abyss, a one way ticket to whatever lurked in the dark below.
Loré didn’t pay too much attention to the ominous presence underneath her hooves. Although her mind had dulled from the tension, it was still adamantly determined on reaching her destination, and whatever traps awaited her on this bridge, well, she would deal with them as they came up.
“I’m ready for anything you got for me!” she snarled loudly, her voice echoing in the room. “What are these, mirrors?”
Within the circle of walls she could see her reflection in every single one of the sections. Five selves stood on each side of her, all looking equally disgruntled with the situation as Loré did.
“I know this is a trap, let’s just get it over with, shall we?” said Loré as she stood in the center of the platform, activating the trap as she made one more step towards her destination. “Gee, what a surprise this is.”
She slowly shook her head as another section of the wall rose in front of her, and behind her, completing the wall into a full circle with no exits. Then, the light died. Though, despite everything having gone completely black, Loré could still see herself as if light still shone brightly upon her, and, in fact, so was the case for every one of her mirrored images.
“Well… this is an interesting trap at least. What now, Sombra?” chuckled Loré.
“Yes, what now, Loré?” replied one of her mirrored images in the same voice as hers.
“What?... you can talk?” asked Loré with a raise eyebrow.
“We can more than talk, Loré,” answered another image.
“The real question you should ask is; Why are you even here?” came a third image.
“Don’t you know it’s futile to fight the darkness? Trust me. Far stronger unicorns have tried to defeat them. Who are we to think we can do much better?” said a fourth image.
“Oh please, is this going to make me doubt myself? You’ll have to do better than that to even make me cry.” She laughed loudly while shaking her head.
“You do doubt yourself, Loré.” Every one of her images faced her despite her direction, all staring with stern eyes and unamused mouths. “You know you’re weak right now. The horn-ring you’ve brought has taxed your body beyond what it can take.”
“Deep down inside, you know you’ll fail.” Their voices came from every direction, almost impossible to see which one spoke at times. “You’ll end up like Sombra did. We see you’re shaking, Loré. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“What do you know about me!?” snarled the real Loré, quickly getting agitated with them. “Nothing, you are illusions designed to mess with my mind, and I won’t allow it!”
“We know more about you than you know about yourself. We know how dishonest you are, even with yourself. We know who you hate, who you admire… who you love.” Their speech had unified into one obnoxious voice coming from all directions. “We can smell your fear and taste your despair. You are afraid of failing, Loré. You’re afraid of what you might have to do if you can’t defeat the crystals. You don’t want to leave him behind, do you?”
“SHUT UP!” shouted Loré. “You don’t know anything! Let me out of here, or I’ll make my own way!”
“And what, Loré? You’ll become even weaker. You’ll fulfill our prophecy for you.” Their combined laugh sent chills down Loré’s spine. Though, the silence following it was even more unnerving than the laughing itself. “… We can change your fate, Loré. The darkness is a gift. You can use it to make the world better. You can use it to become stronger.”
Whispers of hope echoed through her mind with every poisonous word they mumbled to her. Their promises were intoxicating, and the images following them were blissful. Even if they were nothing more than fleeting dreams, they were more joy than she had ever dared hope for in her life.
“You can live forever, Loré. Be meaningful.”
“You’ll have a purpose, a purpose with us.”
“He can stay with you, forever. Forever together. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“I would like that…” mumbled Loré as their presence left her vacant and cold, in a world of dark where the pleasantries flaunted in front of her were nothing but a distant memory. “And I’ll obtain it on my own.”
With gritted teeth she broke free of the darkness surrounding her, flaring up her world with purple light as she stomped the ground with enough force to shatter the mirrors. Their glass crashing against the floors was the last thing they were allowed to say to her before she was released from the prison of illusions.
Her path was once again opened, allowing her to walk over to the stairs. And although her vision was blurry, and blood was all she could taste, she couldn’t help but smile to herself. “I’m doing the right thing… for once.”
Loré quietly crashed into the snow at the end of the stairs. Its soft, cold texture felt relaxing against her aching body, and the chill gave her the well needed rush to snap back from the brink of unconsciousness. With spotted vision she raised her head, eyes flickering as they settled on the centerpiece of the room, the dark crystals.
Ages had passed since Sombra had entered these caves, but the crystals had remained the same. Their pitch-black hue had been restored, and along with it followed the dark taint plaguing the ceiling. The entrance was something new to the scenery, an additional entrance to more easily find one way down there. Sombra had arrived from the caverns, and just like in the diary, the chasm still remained.
“It’s time… to finish this.” She smirked cockily, wobbly legs or not, she was going to put up a fight. “I suppose you aren’t all that intimidated by somepony like me, are you now?”
With slow, lethargic steps, she circled the crystals in a similar fashion to what Sombra did while inside his diary. To Loré it was like reliving history, it repeating itself with minor adjustments. The place, the purpose, the lineage, heck even the dead air was just like she remembered it, everything was a mere repetition.
“To you, I’m probably nothing more than a new Sombra.” A slight laugh suppressed the aching frown. “Though, I’m not. I’m my own. I have my own fate and my own purpose. I may follow in his hoofsteps, but I won’t fail where he did!”
Angered eyes pierced through the coiling shadows embracing the crystals, drawing in visions of what could perhaps lurk behind it all. Vague misshapen forms in flux, all moving too rapidly in and out of existence for anything distinguishable to surface above the senseless patterns.
“I have the one thing, you know, the one thing that’ll end it all for you.” With even slower steps she approached it, pulling her neck back to properly view the crystals. “Sombra was strong, I will give him that. But, I’ve surpassed him now with the help of my horn-ring.”
Even with her head lowered away and eyes closed, the visions and images seen within the crystals could not dissipate. Neither could the haunting memories of what she saw take Sombra, or what had almost taken Namworth. The barricades would be down this time. She was going face-to-face with whatever the darkness was, and whatever was going to happen, was going to happen.
“I don’t know why I’m so hesitant about this…” she mumbled with her shaky voice. “Perhaps it’s because I know how this could possibly end… Maybe the mirrors were right…”
The rise of her lids brought with them two personal suns of purple. Their dramatic flare was only emphasized with the pragmatic expression hauled by Loré’s lips. As if parting a path, the snow shot the sides and made her way clear, revealing the ancient layers of ice beneath her hooves. Potent auras of magic fumed from every inch of her body, being a mild display of power in comparison to the unpredictable sparks rapidly multiplying across her limbs.
“Today… it ends.”
Her words were as soft as the snow, quietly incurring the phrase ‘the silence before the storm’. For once in a thousand years, the dead air came to life as Loré evoked a magical blast that echoed through the caverns and rooms of demise. It was a blinding array of light which enveloped the very definition of darkness, creating an unreal silhouette somewhere in the twilight of her magic and the crystals’ power.
“Argh…” groaned Loré as she took a knee, however not yielding an inch with her magic. “Break… already…”
Screaming, it was all she could hear, though not audibly. It was inside her head the crystals made unnatural tormented sounds the longer she held her beam pointed at them. Though, however long the pressure was placed, not a crack surfaced in the material.
“It can’t be…” Every moment bore nothing fruitful, unless one was to count her waning strength and ability to hold on to her consciousness as purposeful doings. “I have to… do it…”
All of her life had come down to repetitions. The way she carried herself, the things she did, the things she studied, and now even history was being written down through her repetition. The stream of magic which had once poured out of her like a waterfall had now reversed, sucking in the horrors which hid beneath the cold exterior of the crystals.
First, a surge of cold unlike the one she felt around her took up her body. After it came an almost overwhelming sensation of raw power, dark power. It was as for a moment, all the magical tension in her body was let go. Power and ease were fleeting emotions directly tied with the hue of the crystals. The longer she drained them, the grayer they became, and as the last drop of power went through, so did the aftermath.
“AAH!” she gasped for air the moment tremors of pain and despair took up her entire spectrum of senses. Darkness rapidly came for her vision, first it blurred, but then quickly enough it crept into the void where only she could see, them.
“Argh! It hurts!!!” she cried loudly as she wobbled around in her blinded stupor. “You won’t win. I can’t allow you to win! I have the power… I have…”
Worse, it only got worse. Their voices whispered in a language she couldn’t even begin to understand, and yet she knew every word uttered to her.
“Kill them, kill everypony. Let the world bathe in our darkness. Finish it! Finish his work! The Crystal Empire is the key. Finish the key. Darkness at its core. Finish the portal. Open the rift. Let us out. We want out. The crystal portal beckons you. We need out. Kill… KILL!”
Every second was an eternity of horrific visions, all traumatizing and then forgotten in the instant exceeding it. Like walls clashing down around her, she stood naked in front of the darkness.
“NAMWORTH!.. I… Namworth!” with tears rolling from her black eyes, she crashed into the snow, drifting into the void.
“Where… am I?” she asked, hearing her own voice being as muffled and distorted as if she was under water.
Darkness lay above her and below her as she drifted through a sea of nothingness. Though, somewhere towards her destination was a hole, a place that somehow defined logical sense and became darker than absolute darkness. From this hole in the void stretched unimaginable limbs, all grabbing, all clutching for a desolated spec of the outside world, and her.
“I’m so sorry… Namworth,” mumbled Loré, feeling herself being drawn into the rift, helpless to defy her fate. “I failed you… I failed everypony… I’m sorry.”
Resigned to the inevitable she closed her eyes, listening to the soundless noise streaming from the hole, smelling the non-existing smells, and feeling the sensation of being carried by nothing.
“Forgive me… Namworth…”
“Loré,” echoed his voice inside her mind.
Another one followed quickly thereafter, then another, and another again. Whether it was a memory or pure fantasy didn’t matter to Loré. It was the last sound she was going to hear, what could be better than him calling out to her, him saying her name.
“Namworth… thank you… Goodbye…” mumbled Loré as her body was a mere moment from touching the rift.
Though, the agonizing moment of what lied beyond it never came. She remained suspended dead in the air, right above the surface. A sensation of life and warmth flushed from her lips through every fiber of her body, accompanied with it was a deep gasp for air as if it was the first time she had ever taken a breath. The darkness evaded her presence, sending her in reverse from the rift itself, quickly accelerating till the existence of the real world returned fraction by fraction.
“Mm…”
A tender warmth mushed against her lips, a feathery mane tickled her muzzle, and from the barely open eyes she could see the familiar face of bliss, Namworth. With a racing heart she embraced the moment, accepting his legs firmly wrapped around her body as they shared this one, loving, kiss.
Their voices were finally silenced, their screams nothing more than a horrible memory. Like water hitting hot oil, darkness shot out of her back into the crystals for refuge. Though, they were intimately intertwined with her now, and the love flowing through her resonated horrifically with the darkness, ultimately shattering the crystals themselves into a million pieces.
Although they knew what had just happened, neither of them paid much attention it, especially Loré. For the tightness around her heart had gone away for good, allowing it to fully thrive through the first time experiencing an emotion that any other pony in Equestria had felt, but to her, was still a world left unexplored.
“Namworth…” mumbled Loré while slowly pulling her head away from their kiss. “You came back for me…”
“Of course, Loré.” He smiled tenderly, first now noticing her eyes having changed. “I couldn’t stay behind… I couldn’t let you deal with this on your own.”
“I was wrong, Namworth. It wasn’t the ring I needed… He told me not to throw away the one thing that would allow me to win… I threw it away… I threw, you, away.” An apologetic stare filled her eyes of purple flames. “Please forgive me.”
“I forgive you, Loré… you didn’t know what he meant. Everything is alright now.” He gently pressed his nose against hers while he slid off the horn-ring to place it in her saddle bags. “It’s all over now. You won’t need the ring anymore.”
Although Loré could no longer feel the Darkness within her, she could still feel the surge of power which came before they tormented her. The flames, much like Sombras, were a sign that she had indeed absorbed their power, but this time without them.
“Let’s leave, Namworth…” mumbled Loré, dark smoke slowly enveloping their bodies as they kept on sitting in a tight embrace of each other. “We’ve won… the crystals are gone…”
Namworth didn’t answer her back, nor was he alarmed by the sudden magic. Having been teleported around a few times made the whole experience a lot more pleasant this time around. And although the caverns were plentiful in tunnels, where each one could merit decades of exploration, being able to part into tiny fragments till the proper route was found made it a breeze to leave the depths of the ice.
Above ground, near the foot of the Crystal Mountains, the weather had calmed down to only a gentle wind and a bright sun shining upon them. A brand new world stood before Loré. The sky was vividly blue, and the snow intensely white, even Namworth had more colors to his feathers in the light than she thought she had. It was a place far more lively and vibrant than she remembered the world to be. She had grown, she had become more powerful, and she had finally come to an understanding of things which beforehoof puzzled her greatly. She was ready for a change in her life. She was ready for whatever would come her way.
“You know what, Namworth. I have changed… just like you,” said Loré with a soft smile plastered on her lips.
“Things can’t always stay the same if you ask me.” He smiled back warmly before bumping his side against hers. “But what do we do now, Loré?”
“We go home, Namworth. We go home.”