A week passed without incident. The nightmares did not return to Princess Luna, and her dream-walking went uninterrupted. This should have been a welcome relief, but in truth, the abrupt lack of bad dreams only deepened her sense of unease. During the daytime while Celestia attended her royal duties, Luna found she was heading to the royal library more often than not. She wanted—no, she needed—answers about King Sombra’s story. She doubted very much that he spoke the truth about the Crystal Heart; all she needed was some sort of proof he was lying.
The task was far easier said than done, however. In order to find nearly any text pertaining to the Crystal Heart, one needed to look up the Crystal Empire first. And as she was learning during the course of that week, there were very few books that held any knowledge of the Crystal Empire, even in the royal library.
It was during the fourth afternoon as her frustration was mounting and her search still turned up nothing that it occurred to the princess to send a message to Twilight Sparkle. There wasn’t a book in Twilight’s collection that wasn’t already in the royal library, but she had had personal first-hoof experience with the Crystal Heart itself. Perhaps she would know something. Thus Luna quickly penned a letter and sent it on its way before attending to her duty to raise the moon. Not even a couple of hours had passed before she received a response, the sealed scroll manifesting in a burst of dragon’s breath.
“OooOO curses!” Luna grumbled, stamping a hoof as she read through the letter, disappointed to learn Twilight knew nothing of the Crystal Heart’s origins. She didn’t even finish reading the rest of it before crumpling the scroll up and tossing it on her desk, trying to put it out of her mind as she went on to her dream-walking.
The fifth day she sent a letter directly to the Crystal Empire and her niece, Cadence. Surely Cadence and Shining Armor had enough pull they would be able to find a book in the Empire’s library that had something pertaining to the heart’s origins. She received a response the next day from a baffled yet eager-to-help Cadence, who said she would happily take the time to send somepony to search the library for any such books.
The seventh day dawned, and Luna was back in the library again, trying to pass the time by continuing her search as she waited for more news from her niece. However, the power of the vast library’s solitude was finally beginning to get to the alicorn.
How odd, she thought, this is so peaceful and quiet. So soothing.
Warm rays of sunlight shone through a window that opened out to the courtyards below. The sun’s rays warmed her skin and she basked in the comforting feeling, leaning her head down on the table she was seated at.
“I should relax a little,” she murmured to herself, trying to hold back a contented yawn, “I shall give myself wrinkles if I continue to stress so.”
Her teal eyes fluttered before closing, and her last conscious thought was that her sister had truly made this day a beautiful one.
Everything was mist and darkness. There was no ground beneath her hooves, and she flew through what appeared to be an endless void. Momentarily she found herself confused and startled, but only for an instant. Rapidly her puzzlement gave way to angry suspicion, as a chill sensation of wrongness spread from her horn to her hooves.
“My dreams are no longer enough?” She called angrily into the expanse of darkness. “You seek to invade peaceful daydreams as well, King of No Kingdom?!”
A low, familiar chuckle shook the edges of the void, rocking her in mid-flight. As she struggled to right herself, a spinning, glowing wisp appeared to her right, moving at a rapid pace. The wisp began to take form, and in the space of a few breaths, Sombra’s head, neck, and torso had materialized, powerful muscles pumping as though he was running at a full gallop. The corners of his mouth stretched into a broad grin as his red eyes locked onto her.
“Whoever said such a thing?” He asked evasively. “Why am I always the intrusive one in your eyes? How are you so certain it is I invading your sleep, rather than the other way around?”
Rage burned in Luna’s heart as she flew.
“I have no desire to see into the tyrannical thoughts of a megalomaniac!” She responded fiercely, her nostrils flaring as she lowered her horn in an unspoken threat.
“Like draws like, princess.” Sombra purred. “Remember, a thousand years past, you and I were not so different.”
“We are nothing alike, and I am no longer the same pony I was while under the power of that parasite. Nightmare Moon exists no more.”
The ghostly mist drew nearer to her, close enough she could see the unusual sharpness of the unicorn stallion’s teeth.
“More’s the pity.”
The words were barely a whisper, and he dissipated like smoke before he finished speaking, his unearthly chuckle again ringing through the starless void.
Something was shaking her. A voice was gently calling her name. She stirred blearily, her mind still drowsy with the syrupy slowness of dreams. A half-formed mumble slipped between her teeth and she realized her face was sticking to the pages of a book.
“Luna?”
She pulled herself upright, shaking her head to wake herself up more, and looked up into the face of her elder sister. Puzzlement and worried concern were evident in the way the edges of Celestia’s mouth had turned down.
“Oh! Sister, my apologies!” she exclaimed, and upon realizing the library had darkened, she asked with a sinking sensation in her stomach, “What time is it?”
“Nearly moonrise.” Celestia replied, though around her eyes her expression softened.
“Moonrise?!” Luna blurted, and with little more than a thought, her magic reacted. Her mind jumped to her observatory at the same moment she recounted the spell for teleportation, and the world vanished and reappeared in a flash of blue magic. Glittering stars were already beginning to appear at the edge of the horizon, little jewels in a dark violet dress of twilight. A little hastily, Luna nudged her beloved moon into the sky, her magic bolstering its rise, rather than slowly enveloping it and pulling it into place. A crystalline snap reached her pricked ears, and not even a second later her sister was speaking.
“Luna, are you alright?” Celestia asked, gentle worry just evident in her low voice. “This isn’t like you. Are you feeling well?”
“I am fine.” Luna said, perhaps a tad more dismissive of her sister’s concern than she meant to be. Her cheeks burned in embarrassment as she released her magic. “I was just careless and allowed myself to nap, and for far longer than I should have, at that. Tiberius is no doubt rubbing off on me.”
She turned, exiting the observatory tower, and Celestia fell into step next to her, those ancient magenta eyes soft and searching.
“I’m not just speaking of today, Luna.” She said gently. “You have been distant and distracted lately. Is something wrong?”
“There is much on my mind.” Luna murmured, looking away and watching her hooves as she moved down the long, winding staircase.
“Would this have anything to do with your nightmares, or King Sombra?”
She nearly missed a step, avoiding a stumble thanks to the span of spread wings, and looked at her sister in surprise.
“What?” She stuttered. Celestia had asked so calmly, with such assurance in her voice…
“Did you think I’d just forget our discussion? You’re my sister, Luna. I love you, and I worry for you.” She said, and quite unexpectedly, she swept Luna up with her snowy wings into a fleeting hug. “And I am willing to share your stresses or your fears and to help you shoulder your burdens if you rely on me to do so.”
“Thank you… for that.” Luna said haltingly, feeling somewhat uneasy by her sister’s sudden display of affection. “But you have more than enough concerns to worry over with your royal duties. I don’t want to bother you with my uneasiness; I can handle this myself, and if I cannot, then I shall ask you for help. I promise, sister.”
Pulling a way, she caught a glimpse of Celestia’s face as she turned and left, perturbed by her sister’s lack of objection given how bright and damp Celestia’s eyes were.
***
“If you are trying to break my will, it won’t work. If you seek to vex me though, I assure you it is working.”
Her voice sounded as though he was listening from underwater, liquid and muffled. Sombra opened his eyes slowly, vision gradually returning as it always did in his vaporous form. Faint silver light chased back the shadows, a sure sign Princess Luna had entered the miserable place. Moonbeams and starlight adorned the Princess of the Night like a luminous cloak wherever she went, though he doubted she knew just how much of a difference she created in this wretched cell of his.
It would be lying to say he didn’t look forward to these visits of hers.
“I am not sure I know what you are referring to.” He answered patiently, shifting back into his physical form and moving closer to the enchanted bars. “May I assume you wish to hear the rest of my story, Your Highness?”
She regarded him silently with large teal eyes that searched for signs of treachery, her struggle to stay indifferent just barely visible beneath a mask of neutrality. Even so, he could sense her building curiosity beneath the distrust, and he was relying on that to win out with her.
“It is not the reason I came here,” she finally admitted, relaxing a fraction, “But I do wish to have you continue regardless.”
Her voice was clear and ringing when she spoke, so different from how he heard things when he was incorporeal. It was so peculiar; here she stood, older than he by far in many regards, and yet she sounded so much younger when she spoke, for all one’s imagination still in that pristine moment of a filly who had finally, truly blossomed into a radiant mare.
He wondered if she would stay that way forever.
Sombra looked away from her, not trusting that his thoughts wouldn’t show on his face. He paced back and forth a little before finding a spot near the wall and settling down, leaning against the cool stone, closing his eyes as he started to remember again.
“I believe when we last spoke, I’d told you about my parents’ vizier seeking me out around the same moment I had decided I wanted an audience to request an expedition to the Star Lake Caves.” He murmured.
“You said he was bringing you to hear what would become the worst news of your life.” Luna spoke softly. He nodded, his right ear and mane scraping against the stone. Without meaning to, he began to frown.
“Yes…” his voice hissed through his teeth, “Growing up in a palace, you never truly realize how long its halls are, do you, Princess? How far they stretch on.”
“Halls?” She echoed, confused.
“Especially not when one is feeling so excited.” He went on as though she hadn’t said a word, his voice growing softer as images swam through his mind. “My eagerness was shattered quickly. I confess I do not recall the cause or the reasoning behind what happened, just that it happened.
“I was not taken to the audience hall, but a private chamber where the rulers of the Crystal Empire would hold council with ambassadors from all across Equestria. The moment I entered, I knew my world had changed forever. The details of the conversation are vague at my best recollection, but my parents had to step down from the throne. Lucien’s coronation would be held in a few days’ time… and I was to take a place at his side, to act as his confidant, to royally advise him, and to offer my expertise about magic he hadn’t learned. I had to stop acting foalish. It was time to grow up and act like a prince.”
“Surely you do not begrudge your parents that reprimand?” Luna asked, and he opened his eyes to look at her. “All ponies must grow up sometime.”
“Had the reprimand been issued by them, I would have moved past it. No, it was Lucien turning a sharp tongue against me.”
He watched her eyes widen in shock and horror, and part of him savored the sight. It was delicious to know he still had that effect on ponies, chained and unable to use his powers as he was. She offered no thoughts on the matter however, and he was compelled to continue on.
“As such, you can imagine how it stung deeply to be spoken to so coldly by my own brother. But no objection could be raised on my part. I was, after all, only the second-born. I was to resign myself to my fate and that would be that. Ironically, Lucien told me I was to finish off any of my ‘silly little projects’ by his coronation day, something that wound up staying in my thoughts.”
He shut his eyes again, letting out a rumbling, melancholy sigh that set his mane and tail billowing like clouds of smoke.
“Walking back to my chambers, I suddenly realized how long the corridors were, how easily other ponies could become overwhelmed by them. Never in my life had I felt like everything was crashing down around my ears. Little Prince Sombra, useless unless his dear older brother had need of him, every hoof-fall of his life to be determined by the capricious whims of somepony else.” He spat bitterly.
“That can’t have been the case.” Luna said, her voice just below a whisper. She was speaking to herself more than to him, as though trying to deny something that unsettled her.
Good. She needed to doubt.
“I was brooding by myself for a time,” he continued nonchalantly, “Only for hours, I expect, but every second passed like an eternity. You know the feeling, I’m certain. Eventually it came to mind that if I couldn’t protest my fate under my brother’s rule, then I could rebel in advance, just a little. Taking little more than a cloak, a diary of magic I had been working in, and a crystal pendant enchanted to protect the wearer, I set off at dusk, slipping out of the palace without a word to anypony.”
“To the Star Lake Caves?” Luna guessed. His lips curled upward in a faint smile.
“You’re catching on.” He chuckled, and she flushed at his approval, scowling faintly. “Yes, I was dragon-bent on reaching those caves and finding the crystals with their own magic. I needed to see them for myself. I needed to study them, to learn, and I needed to do so by myself.”
Was that a guilty look passing over the princess’s face? And just below it…a flicker of fear?
“Indeed?” She asked.
“Oh yes,” he answered, nodding, “It took me the better part of the night—sorry, your night. I daresay it was well past the enchanting hour when I finally reached my destination. But the moment I laid eyes upon it, it was worth every sore, every ache, and every trifle I had suffered to get there. The caves were beautiful beyond anything my eyes had ever beheld, and they stole the breath from my lungs. Crystals. Crystals of all shapes, in every size, glowing so gently with the pulse of life… of magic. It felt as though I had cantered into a dream.”
He exhaled, a shiver running from his horn to his tail.
“They spoke to me.” He whispered.
“They spoke?” She said in skepticism. “The crystals of the cave spoke to you?”
“Did I not say they had their own latent life and magic in them? Yes, they spoke to me. What was more, they knew me. They knew who I was, and they had watched me all my life, awaiting my arrival.”
“Why?”
He chuckled at her. Such a commonplace question, “Why.” A single word that could open a floodgate of unpleasantries when spoken. It was a question all creatures asked throughout their lives, but so few were ever prepared to bear the weight of the answers.
“Because they wanted to help me,” he replied, “The crystals had seen my plight, and knew it had brought me there, to the cave. They told me the pain I felt was only minimal at the time, but that left unchecked, it would become toxic, grow into a hideousness that would eat me from the inside out. My pain would lead to negative feelings that would poison my otherwise pure heart.”
Luna shifted uncomfortably again, and he imagined she was probably remembering something from her own past. The two of them had more in common than she was willing to admit, but in time, he would bring her to her senses about that.
“They were warning you, then?” She asked softly, looking at the ground and avoiding eye contact with him.
“Not just warning. They offered to help, to prevent the poison from spreading, so my heart would remain uncorrupted. Naturally, I had grown frightened by these ominous pronouncements, so I readily accepted. What I didn’t realize was how this living magic intended to do that. Living magic doesn’t think like us, my dear. Thus, the most perfect course of action was to separate my heart and me. After all, splitting up two components of a spell can prevent it from being cast, can it not?”
A breathless hush feel throughout the bewitched prison. Luna’s eyes were wider than ever as she gazed at him.
“It removed your heart.” She whispered.
“And encased it in a crystalline form,” he finished for her, nodding confirmation, “So I could advise my brother and fulfill my duties as prince until the danger had passed and my heart could be safely returned to me without fear of corruption. I was unsure of this, or if there was any wisdom behind it, but I couldn’t go back on it. I left the caves in something of a bewildered trance, my heart safely wrapped in my cloak, to return home to my family. They were understandably furious that I had disappeared without a word, but Lucien smoothed things over. He was relieved that I'd gotten my impulse out of the way, and the heart-shaped crystal I had brought back from the caves pleased him. He said it was a fine token of my loyalty to the family and his leadership, and declared it would be made a beacon of light for the entire Crystal Empire. I doubt he ever knew it was my heart.”
He went quiet, pondering, and listened as Luna drew in breaths. Secretly, he was pleased he had her waiting on tenterhooks over this story. Captive audiences were so delightful.
“And?” She breathed. “Then what happened?”
“Oh my dear princess,” he said, a deep chuckle rolling out of his chest as he allowed himself a grin, “I don’t think you’re going to like that.”