//------------------------------// // Sweet Sorrow // Story: Redemption of a Monster // by Raven Shadow //------------------------------// Celestia could feel all his anger and fear melt into nothingness. She stepped closer to his form as he laid where that shade took him. The air began to cool again taking its normal temperature. Sombra laid completely still, his body racked with pain. "Sombra? Are you okay?" Celestia asked with caution. "I... hurt." With those words Celestia feared that he could be dying after the battle with the shade. Upon reaching his side Celestia noticed his wounds. A large gash on his right side bled profusely, his face bore three scars on the left side stretching from his forehead to his chin. His left eye was swollen and cut, leaving it useless at this time. His right eye locked with Celestia's kind violet eyes. He smiled weakly at the sight of beauty before his fading vision. "Celestia... I... am... sorry." Once the final word left his lips, his eye closed. "No... no no no no! Sombra! Please don't go! Please! I need you! Damn it don't die on me! Please..." The tears fell with each word. Could she really go on now after witnessing his death before her own eyes? She couldn't think. Celestia laid her head upon his chest, continuing to weep. Luna walked slowly to the form of Celestia, whom had not stop the tears, nor left Sombra's side. She felt horrible for mistreating Sombra. With a selfless act of protecting Celestia he had gained Luna's respect. "Tia? Tia he did a great deed today." "He is dead! Why did save me if it brought all this pain?! Sombra please please please come back to me..." "Tia he is gone... He is at rest now. We will honor his choice to save you, he wouldn't want you to be so broken. Come with us Tia we will shall have him cremated." "No!" Luna stepped backwards by Celestia's outburst. "You always wanted him to die! Now you have your wish! Now there is a hole where my heart used to be..." "Tia it's perfectly natural to feel what you are feeling now. He did something terrible in his past, today he did an extraordinary act of selflessness, he will be paradise." ---- Sombra opened his eyes to a white surface. This alien place jolted Sombra upwards, onto a white marble floor. "Uuggghh where am I?" "Rest easy my child, you are safe." "Who's there? Who are you?! Where am I? I demand answers!" "I am the mother of all life, I am who would call god or in your language Faust, and this place is limbo." "Faust?! Limbo? I do not understand!" "Sombra you have done many a evil deed, that would grant you a seat in hell. With what you did today was nothing short of heroic. Which is why you are here. So much to balance with good to decide where you will be put." "So I'm dead?" "Yes the shade stabbed you with a cursed dagger, you died of blood loss." "Faust, is there any way I am able to go back?" "No I'm sorry. For what good you have done it is outweighed by all the evil you have committed." "I don't remember doing anything evil!" "Oh your memories have been locked away... this may sting but I am going to help you remember your past." A delicate finger aglow with holy light touched Sombra's forehead. Sombra felt pain that never should exist beyond mortal understanding, every life he took flashed before him. Each one that followed the first looked terrible, as though they starved of joy and any happiness. "What? No this cannot be! Stop at once!" "What's wrong?!" "You cannot exist! You will not exist! Blight of love and joy begone from the known history!" Sombra felt more pain and pressure as the once delicate finger became a scythe like appendage. The pain pushed further into his cranium causing him to yelp in agony. Faust pulled his very soul out of his body, with a sickening crack Sombra's soul was present before Faust to see.