“But where would it even be?”
Sassaflash's joy at convincing Rocinante to pursue the amulet had quickly faded as she realized just how hard it would be to find it.
“If we knew more about why King Sombra didn't have it with him when he faced the Princesses, we could probably guess where it is.”
Curio looked around at the different hallways, what few guards were in the Crystal Empire were gone, no doubt trying to keep the populace from panicking. While it left the trio with plenty of options of where they should look, neither Curio, nor Sassaflash could even begin to imagine where the amulet might be hidden. Strolling along slowly behind them was Rocinante. His eyes slowly scanned the palace, but were strangely uninterested in the world around them.
“Evil often keeps its prize possessions nearby. The throne room or the royal bedroom would be the most likely of places where such a dark item would be kept.”
Curio instantly turned towards the stairs that led up towards the throne room, but Sassaflash floated back down to the ground and looked to her cousin. His spirit was so clearly dampened by their current task that she didn't need to ask what the problem was as they trudged up the stairs together.
Inside her heart, there was a part of her that wanted to say they should forget it, that if Rocinante didn't have an amulet to face Nightmare Moon or Discord, then they wouldn't need an amulet to face King Sombra. But this bit of her was quickly drowned out by the rest of her mind. Despite the guilt of manipulating Rocinante into pursuing this, the idea that the Helmet of Marebrino saved them the trouble of actually facing Nightmare Moon and the recollection that the confrontation with Discord was quite decisive against them, left Sassaflash confident that their only recourse was to find, and if necessary use, the Alicorn Amulet. But even with this logic firmly making its case in her mind, she couldn't help but notice a slight pit in her stomach as she caught sight of her cousin looking around the halls.
Once they reached the top of the stairs, they found an eager Curio, scratching his head as he bowed slightly.
“Seeing as you are the ones sent here by Princess Luna, I figured you should go first, in case the Young Royals want to know why we are here.”
Sassaflash rolled her eyes as she walked past him and pushed open the heavy door to the throne room. To her surprise, no one was present and although this was her first time inside the throne room of the Crystal Palace, she found it remarkably strange that there would be a hole with a staircase spiraling downwards at it center.
“It would appear that the Champion of the Sun is already well on her way to obtaining the very relic that we seek.”
Sassaflash looked back from the hole to Rocinante, who was approaching her with his eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Do you think this is where it was kept?”
Rocinante put a hoof to his chin, but before he could answer, Curio raced past him and proceeded down the stairs.
“Of course! Where else would you hide all of the powerful and valuable artifacts of your kingdom, but beneath your very hooves?! Why, whoever might think to look here would no doubt be too terrified of King Sombra to even try to slip their way down here!”
Almost skipping down the stairs, Curio bounced happily into the dark, seemingly bottomless, abyss below.
“Come quickly Sir Knight! Who knows what treasures await us down here, waiting to be plucked from their ancient treasury like an overripe pear eagerly awaiting its chance to fill a hungry wallet- or stomach, definitely I meant stomach.”
Sassaflash look to Rocinante, who looked out the window to the fading shield surrounding the city. As it flickered and shimmered, Sassaflash couldn't help but get the feeling that their time was running out.
“Rocinante, we need to hurry! What if Twilight is almost to the amulet?”
Looking from the window to his cousin and then to the hole below, Rocinante straightened his helmet and began his descent.
“Though our quest was to be cloaked within the veil of secrecy, if the young Twilight Sparkle is indeed intent upon using this amulet, then we have a duty to inform her of its evil disposition. If she insists upon its use, then we are honor bound to assist in whatever manner possible.”
Sassaflash nodded as she folded her wings in slightly and began gliding downwards into the abyss. The flight, if she could call it that, was little more than a long, boring, continuous right turn downwards, but it left her mind open for contemplation as she glided. There was a growing tinge of guilt in the back of her mind as she thought about all that she had said to get Rocinante to pursue the amulet. Technically, nothing was a lie, but she couldn't help but feel as though she had been intentionally misleading in her words. True, they had a valid cause to protect the amulet from being reclaimed, but the entire motivation she had for bring her cousin on this “egg hunt” was simply to avoid the direct confrontation with King Sombra. Of course she couldn't tell her cousin that she was afraid. What would he say if he discovered that his squire of all these years was, in fact, still horrified at the very notion of combat?
Gently touching down on the floor at the base of the stairs, Sassaflash looked up at the imposing wooden door ahead of her. Looking around at the tiny room, Sassaflash could see no other entrance or exit. If Twilight Sparkle had indeed come this way, then she must have gone through this door.
Taking a deep breath and reaching for the door, Sassaflash was suddenly and completely stunned as the door simply slid along the wall away from her. Doubting her own eyes, Sassaflash stepped closer towards the door, only to have it slide further away. Gritting her teeth, Sassaflash spread her wings and raced after the rebellious doorway, but no matter how hard she flapped her wings, the door seemed to remain just barely out of reach until Curio arrived at the bottom of the stairs.
As though the door realized that Curio had suddenly blocked its path, it suddenly shot upwards in an attempt to avoid capture, but Sassaflash was already airborne and, being now slightly above it, was just barely able to grab hold of the door with her hoof and throw it open.
She had expected Twilight Sparkle and her friends to be on the other side, perhaps in a room surrounded with treasure, like what Curio had described, but instead it was a plain, empty stone room, unfeeling and cold, with no other passageways in or out. Across from her, sitting in the center of the room, sat Rocinante with his back to her.
Confused, Sassaflash took a step into the room.
“Cousin? What is this place? How did you get down here so fast?”
“Surprised?”
Sassaflash froze at the voice of her cousin. It was not the warm, eager, or friendly tone that she had come to expect from Rocinante, Knight of the Restored Moon, but was instead a cold, bitter, and hate-filled rasp that she had not heard from Rocinante of Ponyville since he first left for La Manecha years ago.
“Is- Is something wrong?”
Sassaflash suddenly felt her knees begin to shake as Rocinante turned his head and looked at her from over his shoulder. The warm fire in his eyes was replaced with a cold and calculating glare, measuring up his opponent in the same, ruthless way that any cutthroat business pony would size up a competitor.
“C-Cousin-”
“Sassaflash.”
Sassaflash nearly jumped, not at the mentioning of her name, but the disdain with which it was spoken. When was the last time she felt like this around him? When was the last time she had truly been afraid of him as she suddenly was now?
“R-Rocin-”
“I trusted you.”
“Wha-”
“What, did you think I would not see through your pathetic deception? You stand there and shake sheepishly in the face of any and every adversity! Have you not seen me fight through thick and thin to get to where I am now?! Have you not borne witness to my exploits from the very beginning? And yet still you doubt me?!”
“C-Cousin I-”
“Enough!”
Sassaflash leapt back, her knees knocking uncontrollably as her eyes began to water.
“Rocinante, I didn't mean to-”
“To what?! To lie? You do not have to spout falsehoods to be a deceiver, oh Sassaflash! Your cowardice has caused you to hide the truth, obscure my path, and even now, as evil threatens our very existence, you cling to this foalish notion that some lost ancient trinket will save you over my proven ability! You have insulted me, you have insulted yourself, and you have cast away any and all of your honor.”
Rocinante's voice suddenly grew quiet as he picked himself up and proceeded to walk past her towards the door. Stopping to whisper his final words, Rocinante didn't even look at her as he shook his head.
“Go home, Sassa, for I have no use for a squire so wretched as you.”
Sassaflash's jaw quivered as she watched him go. She wanted to say something, anything that would make amends with him, but there was nothing that could come out of her mouth as she sat there with her head hung low. She knew what she was doing had been wrong, why didn't she stop? Why did she let her fears control her and ruin everything?
“Sassa!”
A voice, small and distant, seemed to echo throughout the stone chamber, but it barely even registered in her guilt-wracked mind as it grew louder and louder until suddenly Rocinante was back, directly in front of her face.
“Dear Sassa! Speak to me! Let not the vile grasp of darkness claim your noble-”
Sassaflash yelped in surprise as she leapt back from the sudden appearance of her cousin. With her wings folded against her side, the startled pegasus fell the short distance between the door's altitude from where she had caught it, and the floor. Despite hitting the ground with a solid thump, Sassaflash barely even noticed her impact with the ground as her watering eyes locked onto Rocinante.
Letting go of his grasp on the doorknob, Rocinante landed on his hooves next to her, but before he could say anything, Sassaflash instinctively scooted away from him. Confused, Rocinante took another step in pursuit.
“Are you alright, Cousin?”
Her knees were shaking too much for her to actually stand. With tears now pouring out of her eyes and her jaw quivering incessantly, Sassaflash pleaded with Rocinante, whose own eyes were now filled with a rare emotion, concern.
“Rocinante, C-Cousin, I'm- I'm sorry, I'm so sorry! P-Please! Just don't-”
Sassaflash's words were interrupted as Rocinante swiftly closed the distance between them and embraced her carefully, holding her up as though she were a small foal who had fallen and hurt herself.
“Come now, dear Sassa, what is this? For what perceived grievance do you weep so?”
Stopping to look at her suddenly accepting cousin and the new room that they were in, Sassaflash slowly began to wonder what had truly happened. Her cousin's anger had completely disappeared and Curio was still attempting to recapture the door as though nothing at all had been said between the squire and the knight-errant.
“What, what happened? I- I thought that you had left me behind.”
Rocinante, his eyes as gentle and soft as they had ever been, shook his head slowly as he released her and let her stand on her own.
“You took hold of the mischievous portal with the utmost tenacity and courage, truly befitting of a knight-errant's squire, when suddenly the abominable mechanization appeared to have placed upon you a hex so dark and terrifying that you appeared to be ensnared, trapped in a dreamlike state, forced to watch some wretched form of nightmare.”
Sassaflash looked to the evasive door momentarily as it darted away and around Curio continuously.
“Cousin? Can- Can I speak with you for a moment?”
Rocinante tilted his head slightly in confusion, but ultimately followed her as she went a short distance up the stairs away from Curio.
“Is something wrong?”
Sassaflash at first shook her head, but stopped herself. Then, slowly nodding, she sat down on a step and faced Rocinante. Perhaps the portal was meant to terrify her from pursuing the amulet and perhaps it had succeeded, but the trap had also left Sassaflash with the feeling that she had been given another chance. Perhaps this trap had done more good than evil today.
“Cousin, Rocinante, I- I haven't exactly been truthful with you.”
Looking down in shame instinctively after confessing her crime, Sassaflash waited for Rocinante to say something, but he said nothing. He only looked at her with confused and troubled eyes.
“I- I want to apologize for misleading you. You see, I didn't ever actually lie, but, but, I didn't actually tell the truth, or at least all of it, to you.”
Rocinante's voice was as calm and steady as Princess Celestia's as he met her gaze.
“Why?”
Sassaflash stammered for a moment before she finally gathered her courage. She had come this far, there was no turning back now.
“I was afraid. I'm always afraid and I've always been afraid. Rocinante, I'm not a knight, I'm only a squire and really I'm not even brave enough to do that. I don't know what we're doing, I don't know how to stand against King Sombra. You only beat him last time because of Luna's crystal and still you are wanting to face him again. But I can't see how it is possible to fight him without some additional power, but you won't take the amulet, so I just said whatever I could to get you to avoid facing him and come look for the amulet. I still hoped you would use it even though I said we would only guard it and that it could help us beat King Sombra and even though what I said was true, I should have told you everything instead of picking words and manipulating you towards the amulet.”
Sassaflash paused to catch her breath from her ever racing words. She didn't pause for long, but it was long enough for Rocinante to interject.
“Sassa, what did you see in that doorway?”
Sassaflash felt her eyes begin to tear up again at the recollection of the nightmare, the nightmare that she now recognized as her worst fear.
“You- You had found out, or maybe you had always known, that I was misleading you. And you were angry. And you- and you didn't want me as your squire anymore.”
Wiping her eyes again, Sassaflash sniffed and rubbed her snout on her foreleg before looking back up at Rocinante. To her surprise, he was smiling as he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Dear Sassa, You tell me you are not brave. You tell me that you are not even brave enough to be my squire, and yet here we are. Cousin, I did not choose you to be my squire out of convenience. It was not because you were a familiar face or that I had been sent to you by my niece, but because I knew you were, in fact, quite brave.”
“But- But-”
“You followed me through the Everfree, you were prepared to face Nightmare Moon alongside me, you were at my side after the great, albeit disappointing, battle with Discord, and you stood ever ready at my side during our great victory at the Siege of Canterlot. Tell me, how can you call yourself anything but brave?”
“But I was terrified, horrified, petrified the whole time!”
“And you were there.”
“But-”
“Courage, dear Sassa, is not simply doing what needs to be done, but doing what needs to be done regardless of how frightening the foe may be. Never, not even once, did you flee the field, never, not even once, did you abandon your charge in even the darkest of hours. Even now, when confronted with the possibility of your nightmare becoming reality, you have held your ground and said what needed to be said.”
Sassaflash sat on her step, dumbfounded by the words that sprang from her cousin's mouth. But Rocinante simply and sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, as though he were slightly embarrassed that these words were not entirely his own.
“Your predicament is, in fact, very similar to that of “Sir Gallophad and the Seven Night Mares”. After the seventh, I believe, was the discussion on courage and perseverance in the face of fear. I heartily recommend you read the noble book some time, perhaps in between this quest and the next one.”
Sassaflash's ears perked up.
“Does this mean that you'll still keep me as your squire?”
The knight-errant gave her an incredulous look.
“I could hardly stand to lose you. Dear Sassa, you are not only my kin, but you are also my friend. In truth, it is I who is honored to have you as my squire.”
“But, I lied to you.”
“You are sorry and have repented, have you not?”
Sassaflash quickly nodded.
“Then there is no ill between us.”
Rising from his seat, Rocinante passed by Sassaflash and began climbing up the stairs, but this time when he stopped, he looked directly into her eyes.
“Let us leave this wretched amulet behind. I believe it has done not but harm for us thus far.”
Sassaflash wiped the tears from her eyes as she smiled and the two began their long trek back up the stairs.
The thunderclaps rumbled so low that the entire palace seemed to shake as the knight-errant and his squire reemerged into the throne room from the stairs below.
“That...doesn't sound good.”
Rocinante smiled as he checked his lance and proceed out to the throne room and into the hallway leading back outside.
“It sounds as though the final confrontation is about to begin. Let us move with all due haste, dear Sassa, for the foe is a-hoof and we must be ready to strike in response!”
Sassaflash nodded and swiftly trotted after her cousin, but before they reached the door the growing image of King Sombra caught her eye. The fog had personified into an imposing form of a pony, riding a growing crystal spire towards the top of the palace. His eyes were eager and set upon some target out of sight from Sassaflash's position, but she didn't look for what the enemy was going for, she instead looked to her cousin.
“What should we do?”
Rocinante's countenance was one of eager anticipation, but suddenly his eyes widened and he pointed out to a purple figure falling towards King Sombra.
“Behold, dear Sassa! The Champions of the Sun sally forth to meet the foe in glorious battle! Such courage! Such determination! Oh! To be amongst their ranks and to take the noble stand against evil in glorious combat!”
Sassaflash tilted her head out the window and caught sight of Spike falling towards King Sombra. Whether his claws were extended in an attempt to reach for the glowing crystal between them, or baring their sharp edges to face the evil king, she did not know, but before she could comment on the situation, a pink flash raced between them, snatching away both the crystal and the dragon in the blink of an eye.
“What's going on?”
Sassaflash turned back to see Curio had evidently given up on the door and appeared behind them. In response to his question, Rocinante turned his eyes from Princess Cadance as she landed, and sighed, resting on his lance and pushing his helmet further up on his head.
“It would appear that our presence here was unnecessary, as the Champions of the Sun have emerged victorious.”
Though his voice sounded almost melancholy, his eyes still seemed to smile as they suddenly turned to Sassaflash and the distinct lack of knocking between her knees.
“However, I would still venture to say that our time here was well spent.”
With a smile, Sassaflash turned and followed her cousin to the door while Curio followed after them.
“But...what about the amulet?”
With a clear conscience and a smile across her face, Sassaflash turned back to their companion.
“Such things, Mister Curio, are best left lost.”
Curio opened his mouth to speak, but was stunned into silence as a bright light over took them, leaving all three ponies in the shining crystalline light of the newly restored Crystal Empire.