Chapter 5
“You’re saying that your sister, Emerald, is missing?” Princess Cadance asked the two crystal ponies in her audience. Amber Waves and Rubinstein had just been admitted and they briefly explained their situation once they had the full attention of their new monarch.
“Yes, we all three woke up in the castle, I escorted our sister out, but lost track of her while King Sombra’s curse still lay upon us and I was still disoriented by it. After that, we couldn’t find her,” Rubinstein clarified.
“We’re worried that maybe Prince Temor is still around and he might have gotten to her,” Amber added.
Cadance blinked in confusion when hearing the unfamiliar name. She glanced around and noticed there were uncertain looks in the various crystal ponies around. They clearly recognized the name and some started to whisper nervously.
“All right, all right, calm down. Please tell me, who is Prince Temor?” she asked, noting that the uncertain looks were changing into worried ones.
“Ah, he’s King Sombra’s son. You did not see him?” Amber cringed when seeing no recognition in the Princess’s face.
Either Aunt Tia forgot to mention him or assumed we would just meet him and be able to deal with him more easily than King Sombra. Cadance frowned as she thought this new information over.
The princess didn’t like this new wrinkle that had arrived in the first court she was holding for the Crystal Empire. She had simply assumed it would be getting to know her new staff, figuring out how the situation was in the Empire after years of brutal rule and maybe answer any questions the crystal ponies might have with the regime change.
“Could you go and find Shining Armor for me?” she asked a nearby guard - one of their own from the Canterlot Royal Guard. They were still figuring out which of the Crystal Guards had worked willingly for King Sombra and who had been forced to. The pegasus stallion bowed and quickly made his way out of the throne room.
“You two please stay here,” she addressed Amber and Rubinstein, then she looked over the other crystal ponies. “I’m afraid we must delay the current court due to this new information that has been brought to me. I’ll need everypony that is not a member of my staff to leave. It will be announced when the court will resume. Your turn will not change, just note when you arrived with my secretary.”
It took a few minutes, but soon all non-staff had been cleared out of the throne room. Shining Armor arrived in the meantime with the guard. The white stallion quickly went over to his wife’s throne, frowning a bit in concern.
“Is everything all right, honey?” he asked and gave Amber and Rubinstein a glance. His brow rose high when Cadance told him why they were there.
“I met no Prince Temor while scouring the castle when we first arrived, nor when I went out in the arctic,” he remarked and rubbed his muzzle in thought. Then the unicorn looked at the crystal ponies. “Can you describe him for me?”
“Well, he was a unicorn, like King Sombra,” Rubinstein described, knowing well as he had been the personal servant of the prince. “Dark gray, like the king, but with a dark blonde mane and tail and dark brown hooves. Curiously, unlike the king, he had a cutie mark - a book I think. He usually wore a black cape with white fur lining.”
The crystal stallion also went into the armor, but noted that the prince wore it seldomly, mostly for ceremonies or the rare celebration the king held.
Cadance and Shining looked at each other and didn’t need to say anything to know neither of them recognized the description. Clearly whoever this Prince Temor was had either avoided them or was quite possibly already dead.
As the royal couple mulled this over, a staff member came in, announcing that Twilight Sparkle and her friends had just arrived. Surprised but not displeased, Cadance told the mare to show them in. It didn’t take long as the group was pretty much already on their way in. Pinkie practically burst into the throne room.
“Hi, we’re back even if we were just here yesterday!” she shouted as she bounced over, followed by the rest of the mares.
“Twily, I’m glad to see you came back so soon. We have a conundrum on our hooves,” Shining Armor said as he went over to greet his sister with a hug. Twilight took a moment to greet Cadance with their little playground rhyme before looking back at her brother quizzically.
“Amber Waves and Rubinstein over here have told us about somepony called, Prince Temor,” Princess Cadance gestured to the two crystal ponies who waved nervously.
“Huh, what a coincidence, we’re here about that pony too,” Applejack remarked.
They gathered around as Twilight began explaining her meeting with Princess Celestia, also showing her brother and sister-in-law the notes the Solar Princess had written. In turn, Cadance told Twilight what little they had already learned from Amber and Rubinstein. Hearing that their sister was missing, the purple unicorn looked at them.
“When did you see her last time?” she asked.
“Shortly after I escorted her out of the castle and shortly before the Princess and the Prince arrived,” Rubinstein responded, indicating to the royal couple as he did so.
“We came the day after, so it’s been what, three days? It’s definitely strange if you haven’t seen her since,” Twilight said with a concerned frown.
“Well everypony here were kind of mopey until we finally got the fair going and got rid of King Sombra,” Rainbow Dash pointed out.
Twilight conceded that point though she felt Dash could have worded it a little more tactfully. She asked for Emerald’s description and as Amber provided it they did hear a very faint, ‘oh’. All eyes immediately went to Fluttershy, who was the only one in the room that would whisper so softly an exclamation.
“I just… uh, I think I saw that pony when trying to ask the crystal ponies about how they defended the empire in the past. She was near the castle when I saw her,” Fluttershy told them quietly. “I didn’t want to bother her. She looked like she was looking for something.”
“Now wait a minute, now that ah think about it, that description is mighty familiar,” Applejack rubbed her muzzle in thought. “When I was trying to guard the fake crystal heart from the curious crystal ponies, I think I saw a pony like that off in the distance, watching the castle.”
“I wonder why she would be doing that? You don’t think maybe she was waiting for somepony?” Rarity wondered out loud what the others were thinking.
“What was Emerald’s occupation during Sombra’s reign?” Twilight asked, noting immediately how uncomfortable the crystal ponies became.
“She was… the prince’s concubine,” Amber whispered hesitantly. Almost everyone else around her cringed.
“Oh that’s horrible,” Pinkie Pie said aghast, but then paused for a second as the mare realized that she didn’t quite know what the word meant. “Uh what’s a concubine?”
“That’s a servant and sometimes a slave, usually a mare, who engages in sexual service with their master,” Twilight explained quickly to the pink earth pony who now really cringed in disgust.
“No, that doesn’t sound fun at all,” Pinkie remarked.
“Of course, in some cultures concubinage was a voluntary position and with full consent, but I seriously doubt that is the case in this instance,” the purple unicorn added and wasn’t surprised to see the crystal ponies nod.
“Who would she be waiting for?” Twilight wondered. Somehow, she couldn’t imagine it being the Prince. She looked at the crystal ponies again who were just as unsure as the rest.
“It makes no sense. She had no friends and even though we also worked in the castle, we were forbidden to talk to each other. The only one she really interacted with was Prince Temor,” Rubinstein told them.
“Nonetheless, your sister is now missing…” Twilight trailed off as something suddenly came to her and she looked at her brother and his wife. “Is there anything else missing?”
“Well, we got a report that few things were missing from the castle. A guard is looking into it, but we haven’t been overly worried about it. We think somepony used the opportunity during the chaos to steal themselves some memorabilia before castle security went up again,” Cadance told her, then eyed her husband. “What went missing again?”
“Uh, a few books from the castle library, some equipment from a room they called the lab and they did say something about a helmet…” Shining’s words died in his mouth as he reached the last items.
“The Prince is alive!” both he and Twilight said at the same time, coming to the same conclusion. The rest could only look at them confused, but the purple Unicorn was already talking.
“Prince Temor clearly didn’t want to be found by us, so he must look at us as enemies, thus he got his helmet to complete his armor which he was probably already wearing. Remember what Celestia said, if anyone would know of a way to resurrect Sombra, it would be him. So, he would need equipment from the lab and books on the subject from the castle library,” she explained to them quickly. The crystal ponies cringed at the thought of their king being brought back.
“So, this Emerald has been missin’ for at least two days and this prince no doubt booked after we defeated his dad yesterday,” Applejack summed up.
“Oh my, that could mean they could be anywhere right now. It’s probably obvious that Prince Temor met up with Emerald and probably took her with him,” Rarity chimed in as well.
Princess Cadance could only nod in agreement, it was clear something like that had happened. She quickly turned to a guard, knowing now what had to be done.
“Send word to the rest of the guards, search the city for any clues of either this prince or the missing crystal pony. You have already heard the description. Spread it out to everypony. Also, have some guards scour the outskirts for any possible signs of them,” she ordered. The guard bowed and ran out along with a few others.
The alicorn the turned to the rest. She could see Rainbow Dash was raring to go and so was Applejack. The others looked more mildly concerned. The princess figured the rainbow pegasus could be best used helping the guard. “Rainbow, could you go with the guards and help them?”
“I’m on it, Princess!” Rainbow saluted and blasted out of the throne room in a rainbow trail.
“The rest of us should probably scour the castle for more clues now that we know what we’re looking for,” Shining suggested. Nobody argued and he and Twilight led the rest of the mares out of the throne room.
Cadance turned in the meantime back to Amber and Rubinstein. She smiled reassuringly to the crystal ponies, seeing quite clearly that they were now deadly worried about their sister. She couldn’t blame them. It seemed Emerald was not quite going to escape the nightmare like the rest of her people.
“We will find your sister, I promise,” she told them. Amber and Rubinstein could only nod. The princess prayed she wasn’t giving them false hope.
Rainbow Dash flew higher and higher until she had a good view over the entire city. She had already notified the guards that she was helping them. Most of them were already scouring around the city and some were heading to the outskirts.
The pegasus, however, suddenly had a thought that maybe she could spot something from a high enough altitude. The tallest building was of course, the Crystal Castle - all other buildings were only one or two stories tall. It would be quite easy for her to see over it.
“As if dealing with that stupid Sombra wasn’t enough, now we have to look for his stupid son too,” the mare grunted as she began looking over the city for anything unusual. She didn’t like this complication; the bad guy had been defeated - that should have been it.
Ugh can’t see nothing, she thought and decided instead to dive down and zip around the city closer to ground level. She was about to jump down from the top of the castle when she noticed two pegasi guards flying towards a small mountain a bit outside the city.
Huh, wonder if… Rainbow shrugged and figured since she was helping she might as well help those two. She dove down for a little bit before flying off after the two stallions.
It took her only a second to overtake them, giving them both a cheeky grin as she zipped past, leaving a rainbow trail in her wake. The guards only slightly raised their eyebrows but otherwise said nothing. Rainbow Dash had already landed on top of the mountain when they arrived.
“Hey look, somepony was definitely around here.” Dash pointed at signs in the snow where something had clearly laid on it and parts were also cleared off. There were also multitudes of hoofprints.
“These can’t be more than a day old,” one of the guards said as he hovered over the scene, glancing down at the prints and the other signs. Rainbow Dash blinked when she realized why he didn’t land and quickly took back to the air, grinning sheepishly, hoping she hadn’t contaminated the scene too much.
“There are prints going up and down the mountain,” the other guard called. All three pegasi followed the trail down the mountain but when they came to the bottom things suddenly got really complicated.
“What the… it looks like a whole stampede went around here,” Dash arched her brow, hoofprints were going in all directions; east, south, north and some even went around the mountain and towards the west.
“There were no more than two ponies up on the top and going up and down,” Rainbow Dash claimed and was glad to see that the guards agreed.
“Yet these hoofprints, it looks like several ponies passed,” one guard said as he silently tried to count the number of possible ponies from the prints. “Six, maybe seven.”
“Do you know if anypony came here?” Dash asked the closest guard to her.
“Not that I know of. We are still helping the crystal ponies recover. I somehow doubt they are suddenly going leisure walking in the snow after years of slavery,” he responded and looked at his partner who nodded in agreement.
“Wait a second,” Rainbow Dash looked up towards the east. She peered hard. “Is that somepony there?”
The guards looked up and tried to see what the mare had spotted. There was definitely a movement - something was walking or maybe jumping away from them. Rainbow Dash didn’t wait for a word, she darted off at high speed towards the movement and it didn’t take her long confirm that it was indeed a pony, hurrying away from the mountain.
“Hey you!” she called to the yellow crystal pony. The mare on the ground only glanced up for a second, scowled and tried to increase her speed.
Oh yeah like that’s gonna work, Rainbow Dash snorted and zipped past the mare, quickly landed in front of her. “You there, stop!”
The mare ignored her, quickly sidestepped on her gallop and ran right past Rainbow Dash. “Oh come on,” the blue pegasus groaned and took off after the pony, catching up with her quickly again. This time Dash simply tackled her to the ground.
“I told you to stop,” Rainbow growled as she struggled to hold her grip on the crystal pony who was trying to shake her off. Unfortunately for the pegasus, the yellow mare was a bit stronger and did manage to pry herself free.
However, this served as a nice enough delay. Suddenly the royal guards landed in front of the mare and blocked her way. When she tried to run past them, one guard quickly and swiftly raised his wing and proceeded to club her with it. The crystal pony crumbled groaning, to the ground.
“I think you better come with us, miss,” the guard retorted as the mare glared at them saying nothing.
Rainbow Dash didn’t get the attitude. Why was she running away? Did she have something to hide? This wasn’t Emerald clearly enough and why would a crystal pony act so suspiciously?
The guards helped the mare back to her feet, but the moment she was back on her hooves the pony pushed away from them. Rainbow Dash moved in to help but froze when the crystal pony drew out a jagged looking knife with a crystal blade out of her mane.
“Miss, put down the knife,” one guard raised a hoof slowly towards the mare who kept backing away, there was a mad glint in her eyes now.
“For the glory of the Shadow King!” the mare suddenly yelled with a sneer and plunged the knife into her chest.
Rainbow Dash had been a split second too late, she had intended to quickly zoom past the mare and kick the knife out of her hoof. The mare hadn’t even taken off before the yellow pony stabbed the weapon into her own body. Now the rainbow pony could only watch as the guards rushed to try and do something, but it was obviously too late.
The crystal pony now lay in her own pool of blood on the snow. The knife’s blade had snapped off at the hilt as the mare had killed herself, leaving the hilt now sticking out of the snow where it had dropped.
Okay, I was not ready for that. Rainbow Dash willed herself not to hurl. She was not going to vomit in front of the Royal Guards, but her face was pale.
“Seriously dude, this is messed up,” she looked around. “Why would she do that!”
“Miss Dash, please calm down,” one of the guards approached her, but before he could put a reassuring hoof on her back, the mare jumped away from him.
“Calm down? CALM DOWN!? A PONY FREAKING KILLED HERSELF RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!” Rainbow Dash screamed, still not sure if she should be panicking or enraged or maybe bit of both.
“And we need you to go and report that to the Princess and the Prince while we bring the body back. You can get to the city quicker than us,” the guard continued to speak calmly. He braced himself when Dash stomped a hoof down on the ground then snorted angrily, then to his relief the mare actually took a second to calm down.
“Yes, yes you’re right. I’m sorry, I lost my cool. Sweet Celestia, this is crazy!” Rainbow glanced at the dead body. “Seriously though, what the hay happened?”
“That is a good question. She mentioned the Shadow King, so that must be King Sombra. It’s possible she was a Sombra loyalist,” the guard told her as he observed the body as well.
“‘Sombra loyalist’?” Dash looked at the guard in utter disbelief. Both stallions nodded.
“We have been getting reports of crystal ponies who actually didn’t mind King Sombra’s rule and even collaborated with him. We are still weeding out the collaborators who were in the Crystal Guards and we already have had reports of a few civilian ponies too,” they told her.
“That’s just sick,” Dash shook her head in disgust and started to hover in the air. “Alright guys, I’ll go tell the Princess and the rest what happened. You bring the body.”
The guards simply nodded and in a flash Rainbow Dash was speeding back towards the city.
End chapter 5