//------------------------------// // Chapter 12 - Empty and Silent // Story: The Ones Who Returned From Stone // by Skijarama //------------------------------//     “I still can’t believe they’re all so… scarred…” Twilight said quietly to herself, Shining Armor trotting along beside her down a mostly empty corridor in the Crystal Castle, his missing leg not causing him any problems. “I’d ask how it happened, but… I get the feeling I don’t want to know.”     Shining nodded in understanding. “I understand, Twily. Don’t worry, though. They’ve had their injuries long enough to get by just fine.” he said with a small smile to indicate that he was impressed.     “...I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”     “Hey, we take what we can get at this point. Even if it means a lot of our humor has turned kind of… morbid.” Shining replied before sighing and shaking his head. “It’s the only way we can keep things inside the empire standing.”     Twilight glanced to Shining quizzically. “Actually, speaking of the Empire, I’m curious…”     Shining looked down at Twilight, listening.     “When I first woke up, Drifter mentioned something about the Crystal Heart being… modified. I guess I want to know what those modifications are. She was pretty adamant about making me hear it from you.”     Shining frowned and looked away. “...Ah. Well, you aren’t going to like it, that much I can tell already.”     “I don’t like anything about this, Shining. What’s one more bruise among the hundreds I’ve picked up?” Twilight shot back with a grimace. Shining sighed and motioned for them to stop at a window. He pointed out of it and towards the streets below.     “Look out there, Twilight. Look at the city and then past it. What do you see?”     Raising an eyebrow, Twilight trotted up to the window and peered out. She could just see the outermost edges of the main plaza that rested around and beneath the castle. Beyond that plaza, Twilight could see the spider web-like grid of streets and roads that connected and encircled the castle in straight lines. Ponies were going about their business, much of it seeming to relate to matters of rations, construction or repairs. Letting her gaze drift farther, Twilight saw the looming darkness of the world outside, the crimson sky reminding everypony of what was just past that barrier. That in mind, Twilight returned her gaze to the crystal ponies, seeing that none of them looked happy in the slightest. Downtrodden, exhausted, resigned, some were even fearful, their eyes darting to the sky frequently.     “...Nopony’s happy. They’re all…”     “The weight of everything is weighing heavily on everypony’s shoulders, Twilight. Losing Equestria, having to make our last stand here, watching ponies revered as heroes one by one fall to disability and crippling injuries…” Shining closed his eyes tightly and looked away, shaking somewhat. “...Having to raise our foals with all of this happening around us…”     Twilight looked to Shining with deep sympathy before wordlessly nuzzling into him. He returned the gesture gladly.     Shining then pulled back to continue talking. “Well, with emotions and morale plummeting, especially after the Battle of Eclipse, we needed to either find a way to lift everypony’s spirits, or turn their fear and anger towards the fiends into our shield.”     “So when you say you modified the Crystal Heart…” Twilight’s eyes widened in realization.     Shining nodded grimly. “Yeah. The Crystal Heart still stores love and happiness whenever it can, but it doesn’t project it anymore, given how rare of a resource it is. We’re saving that for a rainy day. The rest of the time, the Heart sucks up everypony’s anger, fear, hatred and other such feelings. Then it projects those emotions out into the barrier around the city. If anything tries to break through the barrier that isn’t supposed to, the whole thing flashes and alerts the whole city. Whenever a fiend has tried to break in, the fear that they might succeed fuels the heart and, by extension, powers the barrier, making it even stronger.”     “Woah… how… how did you manage to do all of that? How were you able to dodge the side effects of weaponizing anger and hate? That was a part of what King Sombra did and look at the monster he became.” Twilight asked, worry lining her voice.     Shining shook his head. “We… we were only able to avoid it because one pony chose not to.” he said in barely a whisper, his words dull and miserable.     Twilight felt her blood go cold. She swallowed heavily before reaching out to her big brother. “Who…?”     Shining flinched under Twilight’s touch. “...Cadance.”     “WHAT?!” Twilight shouted, her other forehoof instantly reaching out and grabbing Shining Armor tightly. “What did she do?! Is she alright?! Is she alive?! Please, answer-”     “Twilight, let go.” Shining Armor said firmly, looking into Twilight’s eyes cooly. Immediately, Twilight fell silent and backed away, her ears falling flat against her head. For a moment, Shining Armor stared at her intensely before any and all tension melted away into miserable resignment. “...She’s alive, Twilight… but only by the loosest of definitions.”     “What…?” Twilight choked out, barely even daring to breath.     “Follow me.” Shining muttered before turning and trotting down the hall. Twilight gulped, shuddered and then followed after him.     The door slowly creaked open, letting in the light from beyond flood into the otherwise pitch dark room in a long stripe. It was a small but heavily furnished and ornately decorated bedroom. Photographs from Shining Armor and Cadance’s lives covered almost every inch of the walls. On the left side of the room rested a large and luxurious bed draped in purple sheets and beautiful, deeper magenta comforters. On the right side were two lounge chairs with a tall bookshelf resting between them against the wall. A loveseat sat off to the side of these chairs, seemingly unused. A coffee table sat in front of the lounge seats and bookshelf. Most of the room was covered in a thick layer of dust. Except for a line leading straight from the open doorway to a large, cushioned chair sitting against the far wall. Sitting in said chair, unmoving with her eyes wide open, unblinking, was the form of Princess Cadance. Bags had formed under her eyes, which themselves were now dull and unfocused. She was skinnier than Twilight remembered, her ribs showing from under her fur. “Oh my gosh…” Twilight gasped quietly, reaching a hoof up to her chest. Cadance didn’t even react to the flood of light or the sound of Twilight’s voice. Slowly, she approached the seated alicorn and waved a hoof in front of her face. “Cadance? It’s me, Twilight. I’m… I’m back.” There was no reply or reaction of any sort. Cadance took in a shuddering breath before letting it out, completely unresponsive to the world around her. Slowly, Twilight turned to Shining Armor, who stood by the doorway, looking away with a pained look on his face. Slowly, Twilight backed away from Cadance before turning to face Shining. “What happened to her…?” “When we were modifying the Crystal Heart… We needed a way to contain the effects of the hatred to just the shield. We researched ways of doing it for months and came up with nothing that could save everypony. In the end, the only method we found was…” Shining shook and sighed. “...was for somepony to concentrate all of that negative energy somewhere. The power derived from the emotion that the Heart sucks up is indefinite, but… the leftover emotions themselves would seep out like a corruptive force. It would have turned the empire on itself. So… Cadance took it. All of it.” “She took in that much negative emotion?” Twilight asked quietly, glancing back over her shoulder with wide eyes. “That much and more. She still takes it in, even now. She became intrinsically linked to the Crystal Heart after the modification spell was complete. As long as her body is alive, that corruptive force and emotion has somewhere to go without harming anypony else,” Shining looked to his wife with two decades of sorrow hiding in his eyes. “But the cost… the c-cost…” Shining looked down to hold back a sob. “Shiny…” “The cost… was her mind. She just… she screamed out as all of that energy flooded her mind all at once… there’s nothing left in there, Twilight… it was obliterated the second the spell was complete…” Shining sobbed openly and locked eyes with Twilight, tears streaming freely down his face. “And she didn’t even tell me… she knew I would have s-stopped her... she j-just told m-me that she was going t-to more research and then… the next time I saw her… she was…” he gestured vaguely and widely to the room before sitting down on his haunches, shivering uncontrollably. “I… I’m-” “Don’t say it,” Shining cut her off abruptly before looking up again. “Don’t say you’re sorry. Everypony keeps saying it and I’m sick and tired of hearing it…” he closed his eyes and another sob slipped out of him. “...I don’t want anypony to be sorry. I want somepony to kill Horizon already… I want all of this to mean something… if we can’t stop Horizon than… C-cadance… her loss will have been for nothing!” his voice rose in volume and intensity as he spoke before, at the end, he crumpled to the floor, covering his head with his only front hoof and screaming out. Twilight’s ears were pinned to her head and she felt tears in her eyes as well. Slowly, she trotted towards Shining and set herself down in front of him. “...We will.” she whispered softly before pulling him into a hug, one which he gladly returned. “...Luminous Horizon will pay for this.” “P-Please…” Shining stammered out, his breath still ragged from the sudden release of sorrow and misery. “Please… please… please…” Slowly, Twilight turned her head to look at Cadance over her shoulder once more. Despite the scene unfolding before her, the pink alicorn didn’t respond in the slightest. Her body was motionless and unresponsive, save for slow and uneven breaths brought on by mere reflex. Her eyes were dull and empty of life, thought or emotion. The voice that once could soothe any crying filly into peace, or sing a beautiful melody that could touch the hearts of countless ponies, was as silent as the grave. The Princess of Love, one who could spread love and joy wherever she went… was gone. All of her that remained was an empty, silent body, and her memory, preserved perfectly in the mind of a stallion crying openly in Twilight’s hooves. Twilight held him close, listening to his words. “Please… please… please…” She could tell that he was no longer asking for Horizon’s death. Such a plea had already been made and was promised to be answered. No… now he was begging for something else entirely. Now, Shining Armor was begging and pleading for Cadance to wake up. He was begging whatever would listen to give his wife back. “Please…” A desire that would forever be unfulfilled.