8 Years Later........
Hundreds upon hundreds of crystal ponies slaved away in the Empire below, the men pushing the carts filled with crystals of all sizes and colors that shined in the blackened skies, the women forced to shaped and carve the mined crystals into tributes for their dark and evil King, and the children were chained into machines and whipped to ensure they turned and continued to fuel the furnace to allow the crystals to me shaped and formed. Their cries echo but to fall upon deaf ears, who have given up hope and are content to their lives of pain and torture, and to the ears of the King who simply smiles with joy. Bodies lie scattered, of the living and the dead or those close to dying whose shallow and deathly breaths go unnoticed by those who still have the strength to work but are forced to work harder for every fallen body. In he darkness and vile of the kingdom their it only one who smiles and laughs and that honor belongs only to King Sombra.
“Yesssssss, yeeesssssss my crysssstal sssslaaaaves. Work for me, slave for me, die for me, for I am your KING!” and with that final word his horn erupted and the dark magic spewed forth like a shockwave that surged through out his Empire and shocked every pony it came into contact with and with it carried his dark will and presence as an incentive to keep working. With whatever energy they could muster they pushed themselves even harder as to obey his dark will, with a few falling to the ground with only moans and blood to answer with. The King smiled at the renewed energy but the smile soon gave way to an evil smirk as the King hatched an idea even more sinister.
With his dark magic surging again, he cast a voice amplification to allow all his subjects to hear his cruel and terrible words “My dear crystal slaves! I am most happy that your spirits remain high and that you continue to work hard for your beloved King! But I think you can do even better still and double your efforts! Try not to disappoint me my cryssssstal slavessss, or else I shall have to throw the children and elderly into the furnace to keep that stoked......AGAIN! HAHAHAHAHAHA!” With those words the already frightened and tired ponies pushed themselves to their limits for the King, for it was one thing to hear children cry about working too hard but to hear them scream while they burn was something nopony could ever unhear and never wanted to witness again.
The King continued to hysterically laugh while another thought sprang into his devious mind and he surveyed his Empire only to notice that the bodies that lie strewn about had grown in number again and with that revelation he stomped his hoof and summoned his two crystal abominations to his side. “Clear the streets of those bodies and bring me those who appear strong and breath. BURN THE REST!” and with that he stomped his hoof again and the two mindless slaves began their work to gather dead and dying to burn and the barely living to be transformed into more abominations.
With his body collection order in effect the King returned to the throne room and took his place upon his seat of power to which he was greeted by his enslaved and brainwashed mistress. With her at his side, his view settled on his wonderful Empire, and his plan always in motion he let forth another round of insidious laughter. All of a sudden his shadowy head floated up and grinned in one direction and was followed by “All of this will come to pass upon all of Equestria thanks to you, MY CRYSTAL!”
“NOOOOO!” I sat up in a cold sweat once I was awake and my eyes darted around the never changing scenery of the forest to try and calm myself that I was not in a land of fire and death. With my ragged breaths I very, very slowly began to calm down and collect my senses and finally after a few long minutes I was steady before I let out a tired sigh as his mind raced and thought about another horrible memory of King Sombra he was forced to endure during his imprisonment in the mirror. Unfortunately true to his word, the King had made it so he did need to eat or sleep but his body grew tired like normal but with no means to restore itself and so while he did not sleep every now and then his body collapsed and he went into a sleepless dream but the dreams were only more memories of King Sombra during his days ruling over the Crystal Empire.
It was strange how accustomed he had become to all of this during his eight years thought this was not always the case. During the first four years he had become mad and deranged due to the horrible memories and sleepless days and some days he had even thought that he himself was King Sombra and had laughed at their pain and suffering. But during the fifth year his mind broke again and his madness turned back into sanity though he was not entirely back to his old self, but his new self had more awareness and insight and had a kinder heart. He had laughed at the thought that through seeing the ultimate evil and going through sheer and utter madness that he had found within himself a deeper sense of kindness.
Though it also made him sad that even though he acquired this new kindness he would never be able to use it but he could not complain since it was he who had unleashed this evil upon Equestria during his time of weakness and heart ache. Greymane sat down in his usual spot which was right across from the reflective edge of the mirror that separated himself from the mirror world and the real world and stared at the magical marks that eerie glowed around the mirrors edge. At first he had no clue as to what they were but after a few days of experimenting he had gathered that as another part of the Kings cruelty that they were the days he spent in this prison, fortunately after a while the smaller digits shimmered together to form bigger numbers which was a relief in that he did not have to count hundreds of singular slashes. He looked for todays newest slash mark and had found that exactly on this day was his eight anniversary of imprisonment and his twenty forth birthday “Happy Birthday Greymane”.
After that he quietly hummed to himself the song his mother would sing to him on his birthday, her the 'Gift of Music' she would call it, which lasted a couple of minutes and brought to him a small smile. Once he was done humming he opened his eyes and stared into the real world again and began his daily ponderings, which was usually just a million questions that would never be answered but there was one that usually came up often. When he was thrown into the mirror the King said that along with his memories he would also show him conquering Equestria through his eyes so as to see what his foolish mistake had wrought to the world, but strangely he was never once shown these visions. He figured that maybe the King had forgotten to activate it or something but it was another thing he was silently thankful for because if he had to witness both the old world and the new world being enslaved his mind would probably have never recovered.
During his thinking he glanced up to the sky and thanked Celestia that it was a nice sunny day out today, the one thing he had learned was that he could not change things in the mirror world so if it rained or snowed he could protect himself or make anything to shield his body from the elements. The only time things changed in the mirror world was if they changed in the real world, but once again due to his quasi-immortality he never got sick and never died due to hunger or sleeplessness so even though he had to sit through the winter with snow burying him he was always fine in the end. But that did not stop him from trying to seek out some sort of shelter that already existed so as to make his imprisonment a little more comfortable.
A small chuckle left his mouth at the thought of being comfortable then a thought came to him, he has not made a birthday wish since his first year in the mirror and while it would only serve as a slight amusement from cycle of madness he decided to go ahead and make one. While he could not physically change anything in the mirror world, he had accidentally found out during a rainy day that the mirror on his side could fog out and he could touch and clear the fogginess from the mirror and it was his first sign of hope and almost everyday for a year he would constantly fog up the mirror and write messages. Though he had to learn how to spell backwards after realizing that it would probably be reversed in the real world, but after that year he had once again given up hope and stopped writing messages but would doodle once in a while before the Kings memories would strike again.
So for his birthday wish, he spent a few minutes fogging up the mirror before drawing a cake with twenty four candles and when he finished he took a second to gather his thoughts and his wish before saying “I know that I do not deserve such kindness for my actions and that I should be granted nothing for my crimes but still....I wish.....I wish” a few sniffles and a tear or two slowly came up while the foggy cake was slowly vanishing “I wish to be saved” and with his wish he 'blew out' his candles and watched as his cake and candles slowly vanished and was left staring at the real world again. “Please, save me” was all he could say before more tears rolled down his cheeks and into the ground before disappearing since nothing could change in the mirror world.
…...“Hello? Is some pony there?”......
To Be Continued...