If Twilight was to be completely honest, she still wasn't sure about what she was actually doing.
Not even she herself could believe the pony she had just dealt with, she was committing actions that she knew would bring her very possibly problematic consequences.
But even knowing all this, she was determined to take that risk.
Unfortunately for her, if that had been her decision, she now had many things to face.
Example number one: her angry brother.
"Twilight, I assure you that I try to understand you but it is impossible, after everything I told you, you just ignored it and went to make deals with that...?" He wanted to call him something insulting, but he preferred to avoid it; instead he just looked away and formed a frown.
"Listen, I think..." Before formulating any sentence, her brother interrupted her again. She really hated that.
"No, you listen to me, you will condemn us all by freeing King Sombra. What do you think will happen when you do it? He will try to take over the Crystal Empire and all of Equestria." His rapid breathing and completely frowning gaze made it impossible for everyone not to notice that he was greatly angry. "After everything he did, why do you insist?"
"Well... Because I think he can change. Look, the map sends us on missions when our help is needed to resolve a situation. In this case I think the situation is to help him see that there is a different way of doing things, to reform himself. We don't even know why he is evil, maybe he went through difficult things that made him that way. We've reformed many ponies before, why couldn't I do it now? That map in a certain way is connected to the elements of harmony, I trust whatever it is trying to do." The purple alicorn responded in her defense, using a peaceful voice; She knew that if she got upset like her brother, they would get nowhere.
The unicorn snorted still annoyed, he preferred to turn around and return to his place next to his wife, who had been in the same throne room as well as the Royal Sisters, listening to the discussion.
Twilight turned to look at the oldest alicorn, waiting for her to say something.
She took a few seconds to think quite a bit before speaking.
"It's your decision, Twilight, if you think it's best to give him a chance, you have our permission." She spared a glance at her sister and niece before addressing the younger alicorn again. "Though we still want to express our concern about all this, if you are really sure that you want to do it, we will support you, but you should always keep in mind that you are not dealing with Discord, Starlight or even Sunset Shimmer." The white alicorn walked a little until she was near her former student. "King Sombra has committed much crueler acts and cannot even be compared to them, he is capable of worse things."
Twilight only looked down in response.
"Him reforming and becoming an ally would indeed be a good thing," she continued when she saw that she would not respond, "but the risk is high; Personally, I'm not sure it's worth it, Twilight."
Twilight thought very carefully about the words of her former mentor, she knew that what she told her was true.
Still, it was a decision she had practically already made, and despite the risks she knew she was taking, she wasn't going to back down from giving the former king a chance.
She closed her eyes and sighed softly before speaking.
"I know, I understand... But I already thought about it and made the decision." She looked the elder in the eyes with a touch of insecurity, since usually she did not go against Celestia's wishes.
The one with white fur exchanged glances with the ponies behind her, and then sighed in resignation.
She didn't really agree with her final decision, but she respected it.
She took a short breath, she didn't look very happy. "Okay, let's free King Sombra."
The tyrant felt the satisfaction of being free running through his entire body as he watched and heard the pleasant sound of his cell opening.
In front of him was most of the royalty, also spectating his glorious liberation. Although clearly, from the look on their faces, they didn't think it was so glorious.
Either way, he couldn't care less what any royal or pony in general thought, he was a king and he was on his way to taking back his kingdom.
He had to admit that it was very surprising that the pony who had offered him his release had thought that with that insipid proposal he was actually willing to change.
She was very wrong.
He didn't even know who she was, just that she was a princess and that's it, but he didn't really care about that.
The plan was not very clear yet, but he did know that he had to be cautious, he should not attack the moment he was released, that would actually be very foolish and careless on his part, given that he was not even capable of invoking a simple lighting spell; Whatever the Crystal Heart had done to him, it really had almost completely finished him off.
So, seeing as the circumstances were not in his favor, he would try as hard as he could to pretend that he was truly changing and repenting as his magic was restored, while at the same time taking the opportunity to get to know his enemies better so as to to be able to attack them at their weakest point and when they least expect it.
He had a lot to thank for the ingenuity of the pony who had given him this great opportunity.
During their walk from the dungeons to the throne room, absolutely no one had said a single word; but with their looks, everyone had already made their thoughts clear.
At last they had arrived at said place. The princess of friendship and her brother, the Crystal Prince; They were the ones who had stayed to wait.
The Crystal Princess returned to her throne and the other princesses stood next to her, except for the youngest, who remained in front of them.
With a still serious look, the pink alicorn gave a nod to the guards, this as a sign that they could remove the restraints that were holding the gray unicorn.
"King Sombra, Princess Twilight surely already explained everything to you really so there is not much to say; You will be released from your prison and the charges against you, so that you can change your path and amend your actions, do you accept?"
Although the aforementioned was already smiling, his smile spread further, which made the princess, and everyone in general, nervous.
"Yes, I accept."
"Good. You will understand that we cannot leave you free to do whatever you want without any supervision or precautions, so you will have to accept the conditions as well." She paused briefly, the former king's gaze was making her feel truly uncomfortable. "Princess Twilight will be in charge of you, you will stay with her in her castle, and you will not be able to leave or do things that she does not allow you to do. Should you break any of these rules, betray us, or try to harm us or any innocent pony, you will be immediately returned to your prison here in the empire with no chance to ever be freed."
"..." He did not provide a verbal response. By this point, his smile had faded.
"Are we clear?"
The pony thought twice, his plan seemed somewhat compromised with all the conditions that he had to meet, but it was that or stay to die in a Crystal Empire prison.
"Yes... Your Highness." He stated seriously and bowed his head a little, imitating a bow.
The princesses looked somewhat confused, but ignored it.
"I'm also afraid I must add one more thing... "
The unicorn refrained from grimacing; they were making things difficult for him.
"Even with all the security you will have, we need to be sure that you will not do anything other than work on your redemption." The ruler of the empire turned to see the older alicorn and nodded as if giving her a sign.
The one in white approached the unicorn and with her magic raised a small object that had the appearance of a ring.
"This is a magical item that Star Swirl the Bearded created while he was still alive. This can differentiate dark magic from white magic; We know that you are weak now and have no magic, but eventually you will get it back, so this will know when you try to use it for evil and it will stop you."
Without even time to react or say anything, the alicorn proceeded and placed the "ring" on the unicorn's horn. The only thing he felt was a small tingle when it came into contact with him.
"Well, that's all, I wish you good luck, Twilight... Now you can leave."
[...]
If it was satisfying to leave the prison, it was much more satisfying to see the faces of the guards and palace workers watching him leave without any type of chain, as if he were someone normal walking through the castle; He smiled arrogantly at anyone who crossed him, shamelessly bragging that he was free.
He couldn't wait for his plan to be carried out, he would never be humiliated again.
It had been hours since they had boarded the Crystal Empire train to Ponyville, they had had to wait a bit for that since it had been agreed that the best thing for everyone was that no one would notice that King Sombra was loose, certainly that would cause a stir throughout the entire Empire and everyone would be scared. So it was ordered that the next train come completely empty so that no one would find out or suspect the presence of the aforementioned king.
Both ponies were in the same line of seats, only one had been placed on the right and the other on the left. Neither of them turned to look at each other, each one was absorbed in their own thoughts, not to mention that they didn't really know or have anything to talk about and would only end up creating an awkward silence.
The princess, for her part, had her head leaning against the window, watching the speed at which the train didn't give her time to admire the landscape. It was more than clear what her thoughts were about, she didn't know how she would get the king to even turn to look at her, and being somewhat afraid of him didn't help either.
She knew the pony was deep in his thoughts, so she figured he wouldn't notice if she gave him a quick little glance. Trying to be sneaky and without moving her head much, she directed her gaze to him, but to her surprise, the unicorn immediately met her gaze with his, causing her to turn away from it in microseconds.
She closed her eyes and let out a silent sigh, she knew that, ultimately, nothing would be easy.
The last time she had seen King Sombra, he had a very different appearance, before his eyes were a very bright green with pupils similar to those Spike had but these were red, without forgetting the purple smoke that came out of them; Before, his horn was also larger and curved backwards like a tusk and tinted red at the end. Lastly she was not going to forget to mention his hair, it was the same color, but before it moved as if it were smoke, while his current hair was quite ordinary, she could tell.
In summary of his current appearance, he had the appearance of a more or less common pony, since even his horn was that of any unicorn, you only had to take away the fact that he was really tall and strong, almost like Applejack's brother, but he was a little more.
His eyes were a very deep and mysterious scarlet color—although there were certain ponies with that same eye color, they still made him look different—; And finally, this pony had fangs, which if you just looked at him out of the corner of your eye you wouldn't be able to notice them, but at the moment he spoke they were quite visible.
“To tell the truth, he is very attractive.”
Her wheel of thoughts paused for a moment and she opened her eyes in surprise at what she herself had thought. She couldn't believe that she had had such a thought when it came to King Sombra.
She mentally scolded herself, trying to ignore those kinds of thoughts.
She shook her head slightly to bring her attention back to the train window, there were still important things to think about, like what she would tell her friends once they noticed the pony with she was accompanied by.
She was afraid of their reaction, but more so of Starlight's and Spike's.
Starlight could get scared and cast a spell on the king.
And Spike, after having helped defeat him, had been left with nightmares; She didn't want Spike's nightmares to come back.
Still, she wanted everything to go well, and a part of her felt calm, she knew that once she explained it to her friends they would understand, they always did.
Now all she had to do was wait.
The desire to run and escape as fast and far as he could had been inevitable, of course he had just wanted to get away and flee from that place and go to any mountain to plan his revenge; but that would just be a dumb movement.
If he had learned anything, it was that it was better to be patient and get what he wanted, than to act on impulse and be humiliatingly defeated.
So that's what he would do, he would be patient.
After his audience where he had been judged and told the conditions under which he would be free, they had been escorted directly to a train—which, in his opinion, had taken too long to arrive—which was completely empty.
Upon entering they decided to use a car that was not so far in front but not so far back, the alicorn took a random seat where there was a window on the left, and the unicorn decided to sit in the same row of seats as her, but on the right; The truth is he didn't want to get too close to her.
Two hours after boarding the train, as entertaining as it was to fantasize about him being the king of the Empire and the entire Equestria again, he was starting to get bored, he even felt the need to crack his back.
With nothing else to do, his eyes focused on the pony in the opposite seat.
He didn't expect to catch that same pony looking at him, apparently he wasn't the only one bored on the train.
Being seated in a seat on the right and the pony in one on the left allowed him to observe physical details about her.
When she barely arrived at the cell to make her proposal, everything was noticeably dark, the light was too opaque, he could only notice fairly visible details such as if it had wings, a horn or anything easy to see, but he couldn't see the factions.
The first thing he saw were her eyes, dark violet orbs but at the same time bright; He found them relatively cute, plus they matched well with the color of the coat and mane, which was the next thing to notice.
He had to admit that he liked the type of mane in which colors were mixed, this pony's was a navy blue with two stripes in particular, one of a violet color almost the same as her eyes and another in pink; Without a doubt, an interesting type of mane.
When it came to analyzing her body, he knew that it was not something extravagant, she had a fairly ordinary body, although somewhat thin.
She didn't have a bad physique, he could easily find her attractive, but he wasn't someone who would rely solely on physical appearance to decide whether someone was attractive or not. He needed to find out a little more about her and then he would give the final verdict on her.
If he liked her maybe a little, possibly he wouldn't hurt her as much when he took back his kingdom.
After two more hours, the tedious and awkward trip was over, the princess had only packed one suitcase so that was the only thing to unpack.
Before leaving the train, the pony spoke to the stallion for the first time in the entire trip.
"Uh... King Sombra?" She called him by his name with a bit of insecurity in her tone.
The aforementioned looked at her, raising an eyebrow in response.
"I... Well, I need you to wear this." With her magic she took out a red and black cape from her suitcase, big enough to cover the entire unicorn. "You know... So they don't see you, at least while we walk through the town."
It took a few seconds to respond.
An 'aha' was his only word, taking the cloak and putting it on top of him with some difficulty, since he had no magic and he had to do everything on his own.
When he finished, he simply left the train, followed by the alicorn.
Now it was time to have the long-awaited conversation with her friends.
While she was still on the train, being thirty minutes away from arriving, she wrote a letter and sent it to Spike; The content only warned of her arrival, and she asked them to all meet at the castle, that there was something important to talk about.
Now, standing in front of the door of her castle, with King Sombra at her side, she sighed deeply and tried to let her nerves go away in that sigh. Because, yes, she was nervous.
“They'll take it well, I'm sure”.
"WHAT THE HAY IS HE DOING HERE, TWILIGHT!?" Rainbow Dash's scream echoed throughout the room they were in.
The aforementioned lowered her ears a little due to the force of the sound.
"Rainbow, calm down–" The alicorn tried to pacify her, but was quickly interrupted.
"I'm sorry, Twilight, but I'm with Rainbow, why is King Sombra here? I hope there is a good explanation." Applejack intervened, her serious look indicating that she was not very happy with the surprise.
"There is, I–" Again someone stopped her words.
"King Sombra? I don't understand, who is he?" Starlight noted her confusion.
"Well, if you let me speak–" It was not necessary to explain that she had once again not been allowed to continue.
"King Sombra is a tyrant who took over the Crystal Empire, eliminated its ruler, enslaved a bunch of beautiful crystal ponies, and made them disappear for a thousand years." Rarity explained with her usual elegance but annoyance in her voice.
"Girls... "
"And Twilight just brings him here as if he were just any guest and doesn't even explain anything to us." Rainbow Dash spoke again, apparently the most upset of all.
"Well, I would do it if–"
They all started talking at the same time, starting to make it difficult to understand what each one was saying. Soon the room was a complete bustle, everyone arguing and showing their discontent.
“What's wrong with everyone interrupting me?”
The alicorn crossed her legs, frowning slightly, annoyed. She didn't believe how wrong she was when she thought they would take it well.
Tired of waiting for them to calm down, she stood up from her seat and raised her voice.
"Enough, girls!"
Immediately they heard the scream, they all fell silent and turned to look at the pony.
"Listen... King Sombra is here because he has been given the opportunity to reform." For some reason, she felt relieved to finally be able to say it.
While the others just looked like they were going to be jawless if they kept their mouths open for so long.
"WHAT!?" They all shouted in unison, including Spike, who had only remained thoughtful.
About to say something, someone beat her to it.
"Have you lost your mind, sugarcube?" Applejack addressed her, with a look still shocked but worried.
“Maybe.”
For the third time that day, she closed her eyes, releasing a heavy sigh.
"No... Listen, I... Yesterday, when I was taking care of Flurry Heart, the map called me; At first I hesitated to go because it told me to go to the Ice of the Arctic North, yes, where King Sombra had been banished. After thinking about it I decided that I would better obey the map, a guard from the empire accompanied me, we searched for a long time until we found something, or rather someone, and that was King Sombra." She stopped for a second to connect her gaze with the others, and indeed they still looked very worried.
"But he didn't do anything to you?" Fluttershy, who had preferred to remain silent until now, spoke for the first time.
"No, and that's what I was going for, just when we ran to see who he was, he transformed into the form we already know, but the second he did so his magic faded and he fell to the ground. The lieutenant called the guards and the princesses, and after talking with Princess Celestia, we discovered that the mission the map assigned me is to reform King Sombra. So I went to his cell and... I pretty much convinced him to give it a try, that's why we're both here." The alicorn sat down again.
The entire room was silent, everyone still processing what they had heard.
"So... Your mission is to reform him?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Well, yes."
"That's strange, normally friendship missions are not of this style, are you sure that that was actually the mission?"
"Rainbow is right, it's also strange that it only gave it to you, it seems to me that reforming someone like King Sombra would require more than just one pony." The white-furred unicorn agreed.
"I know we've reformed ponies before and it turned out well, I even took care of Discord, but I think King Sombra is much scarier, don't you think, Twilight?" said Fluttershy, joining the conversation with some uncertainty when it came to talk.
"Well... Yes, maybe, but even so it's already done, and I thought about it carefully before making the decision, I think I'm doing the right thing."
"If that's what you believe, then it's fine, we believe in you." Pinkie responded.
"Yes, thank you... Although I would still like to ask you something, if it is not too much, of course."
"What's happening?"
"Well, I know that the mission is mine, but I really need to know if I have your support in this, girls, I don't think I can do it all by myself; I know I just said I thought it through, but I don't know how this is going to turn out anyway."
"Of course, Twi, you don't even have to ask, we'll be there for whatever you need." The one with rainbow hair stated.
The others attended as a sign that they agreed as well.
"Well, then I guess he'll stay here with us, right?" Starlight questioned.
"That's right, I have to keep a close eye on him."
"Well, if all this is clear, I really have some stuff to do, I promised Applebloom that I would accompany her to the town theater and it's already getting a little late, so I have to go, girls." Next she got up from her chair "I know you're capable of doing this, sugarcube, but be careful, okay?" She suggested once again.
"I will, thanks, Applejack."
She just nodded before turning around and leaving.
Soon the other ponies did basically the same thing, excusing themselves that they had certain matters pending and had to leave, although not before also warning the three inhabitants of the castle to be cautious with their new "housemate"; little by little they withdrew, leaving only the three mentioned above.
"Ugh, what a day." Starlight complained, the whole situation had been quite unexpected "It's getting a little late, I think I'd better go up and get ready for bed." She got up from her seat.
"I'll accompany you." Spike followed her without exchanging a word with the alicorn, which she would have found strange if it weren't for the fact that her mind was actually very busy thinking about the new great adventure that she knew was coming, and that she wasn't exactly very excited about living it.
When the unicorn and the dragon came out, they both passed as far as they could from the king and looked elsewhere to avoid exchanging glances. The king had been sitting there behind the door during the entire discussion, with his arms crossed and his cape still put.
When Twilight was completely alone in the room, she closed her eyes tiredly, crashing her head against the table; She really needed a break.
She turned to look at the door that connected the main room—which is where she was—with the corridors, she knew that behind that door the pony that was causing her fatigue was sitting, and she wanted and knew that she should talk to him, but she just had no idea what she was going to say or how she should start.
She knew absolutely nothing about him, nothing that she could use as a topic of conversation so she could move on to something else and little by little get to know more about him. Since she would be lying if she said that outside of the mission, this pony didn't intrigue her, of course he did, it was like a mysterious book that she was eager to open, but at the same time she was scared to try, this was a dangerous book.
Ten minutes with her head lying on the table was enough to help her get up with better energy, so she did it, she went straight to him.
The sound of the door opening quickly brought the unicorn out of his thoughts, reflexively turning to see the being that had been responsible for.
His gaze connected with that of the alicorn, noticing how she quickly became nervous and showed how intimidated she felt before him.
"Ah... I'm going to take you to your..." She cut off what she was going to say when she realized that he was still wearing the cloak. "You know? You can now take off your cape. I'm going to guide you to your room, follow me."
The unicorn obediently did as she said, on the way to what would be his room he took off his cape.
"And... Here we are." She pointed with one of her hooves to the room, waiting for him to enter.
As she did so, he could clearly see her look away from him as he entered the room.
She didn't know the way it fed his ego that she felt threatened and intimidated when he was so close to her.
Once he was inside, she asked: "Do you like it? Is it comfortable enough?"
A rather unusual feeling invaded inside him, why was she asking him if he felt okay where he was? Why did she even care about that?
"Yes, that's okay." He finished by answering, feigning indifference.
The thick voice of the stallion still created a strange feeling in the alicorn that she couldn't decipher.
"I'm glad... And... If you don't mind, I wanted to ask you something."
He responded by making eye contact with her, waiting to know what she had to say.
"I can't help but notice that you didn't have those bruises and injuries when we found you in the snow, may I know what happened?" She finally asked, she had noticed these details as soon as she saw him in the Throne Room, but she decided to wait until they could talk about it in private, knowing that asking the question in public might not have been a very good choice.
And there was that strange feeling again, why did she care if he had gotten hurt or not?
"Nothing, I'm fine."
But she was not satisfied with that answer.
"It was the guards, wasn't it?"
"If you already knew, why did you ask?" He responded quickly and “defensively,” while he narrowed his eyes in some annoyance.
"I didn't know, I assumed it, it's different." Unlike him, she was not upset, she had realized that these behaviors would be common... And quite recurrent as well.
"Yes, it was them, are you happy? What are you gonna do?"
"I could get them disciplined or even removed from their position, after all, they didn't have the right to do that to you." She smiled confidently. "Even so, I asked you the question because I wanted to know if you weren't in a lot of pain; because we have a first aid kit if you'd like to use it."
"I'm fine... I'll get over it."
"Okay, if you say so, but–" she lifted a medium-sized white box with a red cross in the middle with her magic and placed it on the ground in front of him, "–if you change your mind about that, you can use it. I'm not a doctor, but some wounds seemed to be a bit deep." A small grimace of pain appeared on her face.
He looked down at where the box was, and then returned to look at the alicorn.
"Okay."
"Well... I hope you can rest, good night."
As soon as she moved a little away from the door, the stallion hurriedly closed it without answering her.
This being so, she turned around and headed straight to her own room, which was in fact in front of the stallion's.
When she was finally inside it and the sound that confirmed that the doors had closed appeared, the alicorn fell exhausted on her hind legs, releasing a breath that she did not know she had been holding.
It had certainly been a hard day, she needed a long rest.
She had no idea what would happen next, but she knew that this was just the beginning of many new experiences.