xjuggerscrapsx

by xjuggernaughtx

A Periodic Tale of Elements: Generosity - Chapter Five (Dark, Adventure)

Two Hours, Forty-Five Minutes Before the Ritual - Queen Chrystal

He’d better not be chewing on his hoof again, Queen Chrystal thought as she watched the petitioner before her flick his eyes questioningly to where her husband sat. The queen tried to maintain her poise, but she knew he must be lost in thought again. She could feel his inattention like a physical force, weighing on her. These days, It seemed that he lived in his memories more often now than in the real world. It angered her, but she also understood; their world was dark now.

Where did we err? the queen thought, doing her best to appear calm and collected as she watched the petitioner’s brow knit. The Crystal Empire used to be the shining jewel of Equestria. She allowed her gaze to travel around the half-empty audience chamber. Several key councilors seats sat empty and had been that way for months. The rows of benches where the petitioners and courtiers usually sat while waiting for their moment before the royal couple were largely empty. Those in attendance fidgeted, constantly looking around the room for help that never appeared. Where did it all go so wrong? she wondered, wanting badly to cry, but refusing to allow the tears to come. Late at night, long after her husband had gone to sleep, was when she could fall apart. But not here. Her people needed strength, and she refused to let them down.

“So, as you can see,” the petitioner said, shaking away his perplexed expression to address the queen again, “it would be in our best interest to do an entire zonal realignment within the city. With sixty-eight percent of the population gone, the old laws are wreaking havoc with our taxes and service allocations. My shop falls—”

“Yes,” the queen cut in, glancing to her right in spite of herself. As expected, Sombra was absently chewing on his hoof as he stared out the window, completely oblivious to his surroundings. The queen pursed her lips before turning back to the nervous shop owner. “We’ve already commissioned a study of our zoning regulations." She smiled down at her subject, and it transformed him. She watched as he relaxed, relief settling over him like a warm down quilt. “We just ask that you maintain your patience for a few more weeks and then we will announce a council meeting detailing our findings and proposed solutions.”

“Oh, thank you!” the shop owner said, offering up a weak smile of his own. “We’ve been without utilities for a month now, since our residential zone was declared abandoned. It’ll be a great relief to get them reinstated!”

As the queen watched her subject trot away, she continued to smile, knowing that the court saw it as confident and serene. Only she knew how empty it had become.

Her smile was once her greatest tool. Now, she fixed it into place each day, and it made her feel like a jack-o’-lantern. A grinning, empty thing with no strength and no voice. Something that was put out to show to the people. Something powerless.

“Is there anypony else with a question for the throne?" Her voice rang out, overly loud in the stillness of the throne room. Just a few years ago, this chamber had bustled with activity; the noisy, messy business of state, where each pony brought before her argued vigorously for favors and boons. Now, beyond a few courtiers that came each day out of habit, the chamber was nearly empty. She was lucky to see three ponies a day. So she sat for hours, looking at their sad faces. Wanting to scream and cry and beg them for forgiveness for something she didn’t even understand.

It hadn’t always been this way. As a filly, she’d wandered these halls, dashing from visitor to visitor, charming them all thoroughly. Even at a young age, she’d proven remarkably adept at changing minds and moods. She’d known that with her soft silver coat and pale blue mane that she was unusually beautiful, and that beauty could change ponies’ minds, but it was her tutor that had issued her the challenge that had changed her life.

With the king’s consent, she’d been assigned to work in a home for blind veterans of the King’s Army. There, she was tasked with helping to clean the facility and feed the infirmed. But her most important job had simply been to try and make the veterans happy.

She’d complained bitterly to her father about it for several weeks, but he’d remained steadfast. She’d rolled her eyes as he reminded her that it was the job of government to work for the people, and that community service helped to breed a cohesive and caring society. It would not do for the children of royalty to be sequestered away from the people, never getting to know those for whom they ruled.

Finally, defeated, she’d stomped out of the castle, ordering the guard to slam the door as she passed. Once at the home, she just put her head down and bent to the task, hardly uttering a word. They could make her work, but she didn’t have to like it. Hurrying through her tasks each day, she’d been eager to be on her way back to the relative freedom of her temporary apartment behind the facility.

However, over time, she’d found that her silence actually made the work more difficult because she couldn’t avoid hearing their stories. Try as she might, she couldn’t avoid the soldiers’ sad tales of bravery and loss as she brought them their meals in the cafeteria. She found out all about their lost loves and their children who never came to visit. And she heard all about her father, and what kind of king he was. Some of them had cursed him for sending them off to war. Others argued back, saying that the king continued to care for them, even when their families had stopped visiting long ago. Without the state’s assistance, they most likely have starved to death.

Despite herself, she’d found herself wanting to get to know the soldiers. One by one, she’d learned their names: Cannonball. He was always hot-headed. Quick to laugh or to yell when something had annoyed him. Battlecry. Remarkably soft-spoken, but unyielding when he’d made up his mind about something. Summer Sun. As happy and bright as his namesake. These and many others became her friends.

Which was not to say that it was easy. The soldiers were crotchety, ornery, crass, and fussy. If things weren’t just so, they behaved like children. There were times when Chrystal had longed to dump their food trays on their heads and be done with them, but she wasn’t a quitter. Moreover, she’d found that charming them with her voice alone was a much more interesting challenge than just batting her eyelashes at some desperate courtier.

So she stuck with it, eventually growing to enjoy the challenge, and then to enjoy the soldiers as friends. She learned to joke with them, and how to ease their pain when they were lost in memories of friends long dead. From them, she learned how ponies lived their everyday lives, working to provide for their families and doing things for themselves. She’d found that she admired them. She’d never thought about it before, but their lives were much harder than she’d ever imagined. Laying in bed at night, her face burned as she remembered the times she’d scolded the castle servants for being late with her food or not having her bath water at precisely the temperature that she preferred. She vowed that she would apologize when she returned to the castle, and that she would never treat a pony that way ever again.

When her time of service was up a year later, she’d cried, hugging each of them in turn. She’d been amazed to see that they were crying, as well. They’d told her that she’d transformed the home from a sad place where they waited to die, into a place of laughter and joy. She’d told them that is was they who’d changed her. Heading back to the castle, she’d felt like an entirely new filly.

Back in the castle she thought, looking over the empty throne room once more. Around her raised dais, stately marble columns rose to the ceiling. Like bars, she thought as she traced their length with her eyes. Like I’m in a cage.

Returning to the castle after her time at the retirement center, she’d felt the same way. Before she’d left, she’d been the darling of the court, and she’d done as she pleased. But upon her return, she was keenly aware that her behavior had often been brattish and spoiled. Furthermore, she’d gotten used to the relaxed protocol of the retired soldiers. The castle’s meticulous etiquette grated on her. Instead of finding ponies who were happy to simply meet her, the visitors now wanted to see what she could do for them. Now, each pony had an angle that they were working. The world had become schemes and machinations. More and more, Chrystal had yearned for the simple times with the simple soldiers she’d grown to love.

She’d talked with her father and mother about it, and they’d taken her out to the garden for a walk. There, they’d explained duty to her. Of course, she’d always known that she’d one day be ruling The Crystal Empire, but she’d never really thought about what it had meant.

Vigilance, they’d told her. Constant vigilance for both internal and external threats. While she needed to be able to identify with the common pony, she also had to be aware that they all wanted things, and that some were willing to go to great lengths to get them. That was what she’d been experiencing, they’d said. Being a ruler was an act of balancing the needs and desires of tens of thousands of ponies everyday. Kindness to one was often times cruelty to another, and she needed to learn how to walk carefully between the groups, never letting one side or the other gain too much.

And so, she learned to walk that perilous path inside the throne room, giving ambiguous answers to those that spoke to her. She charmed them with safe, meaningless nothings until their time before her parents came.

Until Sombra walked into the castle one day.

When he’d first appeared in court, she hadn’t thought much of him. As a young heather-coated colt, he wasn’t particularly robust, and his horn was stumpy. Her tutor had clucked disapprovingly at the family’s formalwear, rolling his eyes at their rather dated finery. While his father spoke with the throne, Sombra had stayed close to him, occasionally touching his father’s leg as if to assure himself that his father was actually still there. He’d looked a little frightened until he spotted Chrystal from across the room.

Chrystal had watched as his jaw slowly sagged open, and his clutching hoof dropped away from his father’s leg. Seemingly of their own accord, the little unicorn’s legs had started toward the princess, first at a slow walk, and then breaking into a brisk trot. He’d been halfway to her chair before he seemed to realize that he’d been clattering his way through the royal audience chamber, his steel-shod hooves banging out a terrible racket. As the entire court stopped to watch him, he’d blushed furiously, but still came to her, this time much more slowly.

She’d shared a giggle with her tutor when his father moved to retrieve him, muttering furiously to his son as he’d dragged him back to the family by his ear. But through it all, Sombra hadn’t taken his eyes from her. Though she’d laughed, Chrystal had found his intensity to be both disturbing and captivating. She was used to being fawned over, but this was something entirely different. He had looked sincere and strangely focused. Strangely adult. Above all, he’d looked hungry.

If only he’d show the same interest now, she thought, turning to stare at him again. With the petitioners gone, she no longer had to pretend he was doing his job. The courtiers were all used to it by now. They’d lost all respect for him long ago. Where does he go when he just fades away like that? Why won’t he tell me? She sighed, biting her lip to stop the threat of tears. There was a time when he used to tell me everything!

Unbidden, the memory of her fourteenth birthday party bubbled up to her mind’s surface. By then, they’d become fast friends. She’d been a little wary of him, at first, but it was rare that fillies and colts of her age came to the castle. When he visited again, she grudgingly gave him a tour of the grounds at her father’s insistence. He’d mentioned to her that such favors had a way of instilling loyalty in the minor families.

To her surprise, when his family’s visit was over, she’d found herself missing him. During their brief time together, he quickly moved from nuisance to peer to confidante, and she hadn’t really had any friends since she’d left the retirement home. She’d found him to be reasonably intelligent and polite. He could make her laugh and he didn’t mind if she complained to him about castle life, but what had really impressed her was that he didn’t seem to want anything from her but time. He was content to just be with her, doing whatever it was that she wanted as long as they could do it together.

Yes, together, she thought, letting her eyes roam over him as he sat, lost in whatever memory held him. We used to do everything together. Now it’s all I can do to remind him that I’m even here. That the world is even here. He’s so focused on whatever this is! If only he’d just tell me! Chrystal banged her hoof down on the arm of the throne, instantly regretting it as the courtiers looked up. They were desperate for something to happen that could distract them from the castle’s generally miserable atmosphere. Isn’t that part of being in love? she thought. Aren’t there supposed to be no secrets between us? But the way he still looks at me when we are alone, away from all of the pressure. I-I just don’t believe it’s gone! I know he still loves me!

Love. It had come after her relentlessly. After each of his visits, she ached for him more. Her father began to grow apprehensive as she requested that his family visit with increasing regularity. He sat his daughter down to explain the realities of adolescent colts and the dangers of indiscretion. Not to mention, he’d added, that Sombra’s was a minor family, and that they didn’t really bring any advantages to the table. Her parents had decided it was in her best interest to cut off the budding relationship.

For the first time in her life, she’d raged. Her father and mother were shocked, staring at one another with horror and bewilderment. Chrystal had always been a good filly; level-headed and dutiful, but there she was, screaming in a voice that shook the halls and sent the rumor-mongers into overdrive. After several days of tears and fury, they relented, but warned her to keep things under control. They would allow friendship, but nothing more. He simply hadn’t the standing for a higher station.

They’d carried on in that emotional limbo for a year or so, each of them yearning, but not quite daring, to move forward. Sombra often talked of performing some great deed to improve his family’s standings, but they couldn’t ever think of what he ought to do. The Empire had been in a prolonged period of peace. There just hadn’t really been any pressing problems.

It had all changed when a different class of visitors began coming by the castle. Her father took her aside, and somewhat uncomfortably explained that many of the invitees henceforth would be families of good standing with eligible stallions. He’d wanted her to spend time with each and to see if any seemed like a good match.

She’d fretted for weeks about whether she should tell Sombra or not, but in the end she’d decided that they’d promised not to have any secrets from one another. She’d regretted it almost instantly. He panicked, pouring out his heart, telling her all the things that were plainly apparent to anyone with at least some sense: That he’d loved her since he’d seen her that first time, and that he wouldn’t be able to bear it if she married another stallion.

They’d cried, alone in their special corner of the castle. The eastern tower once held the royal slaves, but the practice had been outlawed long ago as barbaric. And so they’d turned it into their sanctuary, though at the beginning, they’d rarely been able to go there unaccompanied. Once it had been apparent that Chrystal was not going to do something untoward, her mother and father had relaxed her supervision somewhat. They still posted a guard outside the door to whatever room they were in, but she was allowed some relative privacy with Sombra should she choose it.

It was in the tower that he’d told her his plan. He would join the army and hope that something would happen. He’d said his father had been pushing him for ages to enlist, since it was one of the few ways the family could advance. She’d hated the bitterness in his voice then. He always despised the greedy, grasping nature of his parents. Their obsession with improving their station was a constant embarrassment to him.

She’d tried to talk him out of it, but he was unusually steadfast. Before, he was generally happy to go along with whatever she’d planned for them, but her possible marriage had possessed his mind utterly. Even though she’d assured him that she hadn’t liked any of the stuffy, pompous stallions that had begun to travel to the Empire, she could tell that he was tearing himself to pieces over it. He’d lost weight, and the skin under his eyes began to hang in loose folds. Whenever they were together, he seemed nervous and fidgety.

When they had a brief moment together, Chrystal had begged her father to station Sombra as one of the royal guards, but he refused. He said that it wouldn’t do to be seen giving plum job assignments out to friends of the court. Sombra would need to earn that duty through valor on the field. Chrystal suspected that her father had really just wanted the troublesome stallion out of the castle, and her fears were confirmed when he’d been assigned to the border, as far away from her as possible.

She’d hated her parents then. They pretended that they’d had nothing to do with the assignment, but how could they not have? They were the king and queen, after all, and the military answered to them. If they’d asked for Sombra to be moved from the border, it would have happened the next day. But it hadn’t, and she’d refused to speak to them for weeks.

And so, she hadn’t seen him for months, and they were the loneliest of her life. She hadn’t realized how much she’d come to depend on him. He’d been the one pony she’d been completely at ease with. He knew just how to make her laugh and when to be a shoulder for her to cry on. All of a sudden, she’d had nopony, save for the near-constant barrage of suitors that seemed to besiege the castle.

On and on they came, one after another. Some were older ponies and some were terribly young. There were braggarts, snobs, louts, and weaklings. Very occasionally, there were even some who’d been appealing, but each one had a fatal flaw: They were not Sombra.

Now, sweeping the throne room with her gaze, she was drawn again to the pillars surrounding the thrones. Yes, she thought. How very comfortable. I’ve been in cages all my life. Turning back to her husband, she cleared her throat, hoping he would turn to her, but he was still deep in his memories. The cage you put my heart in was the first one that I welcomed. she thought, sighing. And how it soared when you returned, bursting free to fly to you.

She could remember it like it was yesterday. The knock. The muffled, slightly embarrassed voice of the guard telling her that Sombra had returned, and that he insisted on seeing her. The guard sounded hopeful when he’d suggested that he could send Sombra on his way, reporting him to the guard for desertion, but Chrystal snapped that he would do no such thing. She’d pounded down the castle’s wide steps, the guard galloping after her, crying out for her to be careful.

She’d laughed at that. Sombra had somehow left his post and travelled more than a hundred miles to be with her, and she was supposed to carefully and demurely trot over to him? She couldn’t fly into his embrace fast enough!

And then, there he was. He still had that haunted look that never quite left his eyes, but he’d been dashing in his uniform, even covered in dust from his travels. She’d run to him, and they held each other, coming together to form the whole that each had been aching for.

From that point on, it had been a confusing whirlwind. Sombra started yelling something about a key and the old legend of the central spire. Chrystal hadn’t been able to tell if it was some plot he’d schemed up to return to the castle, but she played along as best she could.

The key! she thought, grinning despite the throne room’s gloomy atmosphere. He’d found it! He really—

The queen jumped as the heavy, wrought iron doors banged open. Followed by two flustered guards, a very dirty and very tired-looking soldier stumbled in, breathing heavily. All around, the courtiers erupted into shocked shouts of protest at the lack of decorum.

“Your… Majesties,” the pony panted. He tried to trot to the dais, but his legs were shaking badly. It was all he could do stay upright. “News from the front! We’ve been defeated! All is lost!”

“Guards,” Queen Chrystal said, rising from her throne with concern. “Fetch this soldier some food and water. He’s raving.”

“There’s… no time!” the pony gasped between huge lungfuls of air. “The army… been destroyed. No more… left!”

“WHAT?!” Chrystal cried, aghast. “The whole army?! That’s impossible!" Around her, the other ponies in the room began to panic, yelling amongst themselves.

“I saw it!” the soldier said, quaking. “I saw the… thing! It destroyed our base… like it was nothing. Lifted tons of rocks just by waving its hands!" The soldier took a step toward her, his eyes bulging. “It said to tell the king that it’s coming! It’s on its way!”

“Sombra, we have to—" Chrystal stopped abruptly, her eyebrows slamming together as she pursed her lips. He’s still not paying attention! Chrystal leaned over to her husband and smacked him in the shoulder with the back of her hoof, irritated at the way he jumped in his seat. “What is with you?!” she hissed, her patience exhausted. He clearly hadn’t heard a word of what had transpired. “What are we going to do?” she asked, pointing to the soldier at the foot of the dais. “He says the our forces have been wiped out and the monster is advancing on the city! We’re defenseless!”

We only have one hope left, and he must take it this time! Chrystal thought, rising to stand before him. As the audience members in the throne room gasped, she knelt in front of her husband, her hooves pressed together beseechingly. “Please!” she said, her voice trembling violently. “Please! I know you don’t want to, but please! We have to!”

Finally, he listened.