Sombra was the most loyal and kind pony I knew. He was with me since I started living in the castle. Whenever we were done with our lessons, he would come to the tower and keep me company.

When we grew up, the king appointed him to be my personal guard since he knew me better than anypony else. Words can't even describe how thrilled that made me. I felt safe knowing that my closest friend was right there by my side, ready to catch me when I fall. We had... a special connection... It tore me apart when he...

After the Fair, I knew something about him was out of place. He was acting strange, became awfully quiet, and just different. I just wish I caught it sooner, maybe I could have helped him. Maybe I could have stopped what he became.

=====

Worried, Chrysalis got out from under her covers and scanned the room. She saw that dark crystals were slowly growing from the floor and walls. She hurried to the double doors and found that the crystals were growing across it too, locking her in.

She fired a magic bolt at the lock, but it fizzled out, not even leaving a scratch on the crystals. She turned around and kicked at the lock. It chipped.

One last mighty buck and the doors swung out. The echo of the impact lasted for an unsettling amount of time.

The hall had the same problem her room had. The crystals seemed to follow a path, and Chrysalis decided to follow them down the stairs. Maneuvering the spiral staircase was tedious. One wrong step and she could have speared herself on the crystal spikes.

But her hooves were precisely positioned and she got down to the main hall without incident.

The lanterns here were all extinguished, so Chrysalis had to rely on her horn for light. Though, she almost wish she was walking blind.

The floor was riddled with ponies and changelings alike. To her relief, they were only unconscious. But why were they?

A barely audible buzzing called her attention to a changeling pinned between a pillar and a wall of crystals. "What happened?" Chrysalis asked.

"Somepony came in and started attacking us with these crystals. The guards were caught by surprise and got knocked out. As was anypony nearby. I'm just lucky I got a thick skull."

Chrysalis levitated a fallen guard's spear and began chipping away at the crystal to release the trapped changeling.

"I'm sorry to rush you, priestess Chrysalis, but these crystals are starting to pierce my skin."

The spear wasn't doing it. She needed something else. But she couldn't find anything that could do any better. Magic was the only tool left she could use, but she was hesitant to use it. Especially when somepony was in danger of getting injured if she messed up.

"Honestly," The changeling said, "its better if you hurt me and get me out than to let me suffer this pain before I die. Pardon me if I sound out of line."

"No, it's fine." The changeling had a point. Getting hurt was better than getting killed. She took a shaky breath. Since the crystals nullified magic directly set on it, she'd have to set her focus around the changeling's armor. Risky, but the only way.

The changeling was surrounded by a green glow which grew brighter then released a sudden burst. The crystals shattered around him and he fell harmlessly on the ground. "My thanks. I sense you want to see the pony responsible, yes? He went this way, follow me." He headed to the throne room, which made Chrysalis feel unnerved. She prayed nothing happened to the king and queen.

Heavy hoofsteps from inside rang louder the closer they got. Chrysalis turned off the light of her horn and peaked behind the giant doors.

The crystals were everywhere in the room. Evidence of a battle was scattered about: Fallen soldiers, broken weapons, deep cuts and scratches on the walls and pillars.

"There he is!" The changeling pointed to a figure at the center of the room, behind all the chaos.

There was only one lantern dimly illuminating the room. Chrysalis couldn't make out who the pony was, but he looked familiar. He didn't really look like the type to be responsible for all this. He looked way too confused and lost.

"I know that voice. Sombra?" Chrysalis walked to the little sliver of light, causing minor reflections from her coat. "What happened?"

Sombra backed away a few steps into the shadows. "Don't come any closer, Chrysalis. I don't want to hurt you."

"It's not me!" Sombra shouted in a voice that could only be described as demonic. "Something's wrong with me. I blacked out for a second and I find myself here. Get away before it happens again! These voices... these voices are driving me to insanity."

Chrysalis squinted to see her friend better in the darkness. "What voices, Sombra?"

Chrysalis' limbs refused to move. The spikes came closer and closer. Then she felt an impact. Not from the spikes, but from the changeling. He bumped her to the side, saving her from meeting her maker, but he was impaled in her place.

Sombra disappeared into the shadows, only to reappear behind Chrysalis. Sombra delivered a kick that knocked Chrysalis to the ground.

Crystals curled from the ground to encase Chrysalis. Tears began to well up in her eyes. "Sombra... don't... please."

She could see him beneath the blackened light of his horn. The whites of his eyes were now green and his pupils turned red. Madness screamed from them.

The crystals expanded, slowly crushing the mare. "Sombra... please... stop this!"

Last thing she heard was the sound of magical blasts being fired, then the shattering of crystals. After that, all went quiet.

Three days later, Chrysalis awoke in the infirmary with bandages around her head and across her chest. The small mirror on her right showed that she was in her changeling form. A good thing, since changelings healed faster than normal ponies when fully fed with love, and there was no shortage of that in the empire.

"Ah, Priestess, you're awake." A crystal soldier in full metal bowed. "I am Shard Talons, your newly appointed body guard." He was alert and sounded more stoic than Sombra--

"Don't worry, Priestess, Sombra has been contained with the necessary augmentations to his cell." Shard reported.

"My objective as your personal guardian is to keep you out of harm's way, and--"

"And to do as I say. And I say, I want to see him!" Chrysalis held a cold stare at Shard until he finally agreed to escort Chrysalis to the dungeon.

The dungeon was right under the castle. It was rarely used since ponies and changelings alike were always on their best behavior. The Crystal Empire was the center of love and peace after all.

The dungeon walls were designed to hum a peaceful tune to keep the prisoners calm and relaxed. Some of the guards, and even the king would often visit the dungeon after a stressful day. Eventually when the dungeon got more visitors than prisoners, they split it into two sections, converting the first into a leisure room.

But in the light of Sombra's rampage, the room was deserted as nopony wanted to be anywhere close to Sombra. The only ponies present were the prison guards, and a unicorn from Equestria's High Council, who looked to be researching Sombra's affliction.

Chrysalis' heart sank when she saw her former body guard. Sombra was encased in crystals from the neck down, and his horn was fitted with a magic nullification ring.

Sombra looked up to find his visitor, but he couldn't dare to hold his gaze. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

A unicorn wearing a blue robe and pointy hat approached Shard and Chrysalis. "I studied the magic signatures of his dark crystals and used it to nullify all magic in his chamber." He explained. When asked what he learned about Sombra, he said: "From my research, I found that his sudden change of personality was due to unstable fluctuations I traced back to the Crystal Heart."

"Yes. In a similar way the heart gives you, and the rest of the crystal ponies, your shimmering coats, the heart in a way deteriorated his spirit, which allowed darkness to grow to fill in the spaces. I believe an outside interference with the heart's natural magical energies caused Sombra's condition."

Sadness threatened to spill out from Chrysalis' eyes when she made the connection to the last Crystal Fair. "Its all my fault... If I didn't do that spell... Please, tell me there's something I can do to help Sombra, anything!"

The unicorn shook his head. "For now, only the heart can save him. Although I will work on a solution myself, but I cannot say how long it will take."

"I... see..." Chrysalis was distraught. So that was it, she couldn't do anything?

"Listen, Chrysalis, you might not be able to do anything about Sombra, but... why not make use of the moment while he's... you know, in his right mind. I'm sure you both need each others comfort now more than ever."

"You knew Starswirl the Bearded?" Twilight jumped in excitement, but immediately calmed down upon receiving a look from Vigil who was not happy with the interruption.

"I knew Starswirl, yes. He, Celestia, Luna, and the rest of the Equestrian High Council were frequent guests of the king. They were the only ponies outside the empire who knew about changelings. The king convinced them to keep it a secret though, which is why you never saw changelings outside fairy tales and mythology. But I guess that's changed now."

Chrysalis changed the scene back to the throne room, but judging by how different it looked, Twilight guessed it was some time after the incident.

"A couple of years passed, and Sombra fell to the darkness. Starswirl still couldn't find a way to safely manipulate the heart, and the heart itself refused to do anything for Sombra. The day I feared came. Sombra broke out of his cell and hid the heart before he overthrew the king and took control of the empire. Equestria attempted to stop his reign on the first few weeks, but they found out that even though we were considered to be the most peaceful in the land, it didn't mean our military couldn't stand to defend the empire. And well, you know the rest of the story."

"Hold on," Twilight gave Chrysalis a skeptical look, "why didn't you and the rest of the changelings disappear when the empire did?"

"Because just before Celestia banished Sombra, I took the changelings and as many ponies as I could, including young foals and especially the newborns, and fled the empire. Of course I couldn't possibly have managed to save all of them. The colts and fillies you see running around now were either the ones we were forced to leave behind, or the ones we couldn't get to. And the changelings who couldn't leave the empire? The lack of love caused them to mentally deteriorate and eventually die."

"How come none of the crystal ponies turned into changelings during the last fair?"

"I can only guess that it had something to do Cadence's magic resonating harmoniously with the heart's own, inhibiting whatever it was that caused the transformations to happen."

Twilight thought for a moment. "Actually... why didn't you just go to Celestia? Couldn't she have helped you?"

"Of how the Equestrian ponies would react to us. I was afraid they would hunt us down, thinking we were Sombra's twisted creations. They had a reason to believe that. Sombra used changelings to terrorize nearby settlements, including those behind Equestria's boarders to strike fear on all who opposed him. But I'm guessing Celestia kept that from being written in the history books."

"Celestia wouldn't have let you be antagonized! You wouldn't have had to hide for so long. She would have--"

"Fear is a strong emotion, Twilight. No matter how you think it would have turned out, it would have always ended with us getting run out of town one way or another. When something that has protected you for years suddenly disappeared, you are left with nothing but uncertainty. Us changelings were afraid of being outcasts, shunned by the population as monsters. The ponies were afraid some new threat would arise when the relic that kept them safe had just suddenly vanished. They weren't about to take any chances. How do you think that would have ended for us? Do you think they would have allowed creatures that look like they had crawled out of Tartarus to live among them? Do you think they would have accepted us, knowing we fed off of love, the very thing that kept their society together? Of course not. They would have wanted to get rid of us. And I couldn't let that happen. Not when we had just lost our home."

"But..." Twilight thought long and hard, but she couldn't add anything. She didn't blame Chrysalis for what she was feeling, but she still thought that things would have gone a different way if the changelings had turned to Celestia. Equestria's High Council would have made sure the changelings were welcome... But the more she thought about it, the more she believed Chrysalis did the right thing to protect the changelings.

Ponies were individuals, and each had their own thoughts, dreams, fears... They wouldn't blindly submit to every desire their rulers had without giving it a second thought. Fear would gradually build up, and soon, the scenario Chrysalis expected would have happened, and they possibly wouldn't be here. If she hadn't known the story, Twilight would have thought that to be something worth going back in time for. But it would be a shame to lose such an intriguing race, especially since the changelings went through such an extreme change. That was something that needed to be studied in the future.

Suddenly, the world collapsed around her. A blinding light filled her eyes, and when the light faded, Twilight was back in the room, staring at her own reflection.

"Now you know the truth." Chrysalis turned away from the mirror and rested on her throne.

Vigil walked up to her and spoke up, finally. "Why didn't you tell any of us about this?"

Chrysalis regretfully stared at the ceiling. "I didn't want any of the younglings to long for something I wasn't sure would come back. It would be like tying a piece of candy just out of their reach. I didn't want to see them in that kind of agony."

Seeing that Vigil accepted her reason, Chrysalis turned to Twilight. "I'm sorry about the invasion on Canterlot, but please understand that it was all out of necessity. We were running out of food, and Equestria had an abundance of love. It was a difficult choice to make, but I had to put the ones I cared for first."

"I understand. And I'm sorry that you had to lose so much just to help the changelings." Twilight said, her eyes touched by Chrysalis' spirit.

"I knew she made a lot of sacrifices, but I never knew just how much she lost." Vigil said when he opened the doors. "She protected the swarm, nurtured it, and kept us all safe for generations. Mares, heh. They amaze me."

"For giving the queen a moment of your time. I saw it in her eyes: A heavy weight had just been lifted from her heart. I'm sure she'll rest more peacefully now. I thank you for that."

The changeling closed the doors and returned to the queen, only to find her in front of the mirror, her hoof gently touching its surface. A stream of tears rolled down her eyes. He could see her lips moving. He couldn't tell what, but he knew what Chrysalis was muttering about. Because inside the mirror was the pony she held so dear. A pony she knew she wouldn't see ever again.

Vigil put his hoof on Chrysalis' shoulder. Usually not a welcome gesture to the queen, but Chrysalis allowed it, just for that moment. "A wise pony used to say, 'Nopony truly dies until everypony forgets him.'"

Chrysalis closed her eyes and lowered her head. "I never even got to say good bye..."

"So how did it go?" Asked a certain little dragon who came from behind the pillars. "I was worried when you took so long, I thought you were changeling goo by now! Hey, what's wrong, Twi?"

"Oh no! Did they get you with that brainwashing spell?! W-we have to get to somepony, quick!"

Twilight levitated the dragon. "It's not that. I just feel so stupid. I was so sure she was up to no good. Now, I think I just..."

"I don't know. I think I'll just crawl back to my bed, do some reading, let things settle in my mind." She let out a heavy sigh. "I wonder what the girls are up to."

The Swarm Returns

by Digital Ghost

Shadow's Rise