Winter panicked, hyperventilating as she rushed forward through the streets. She could have sworn she'd seen that building only a few minutes ago! She stopped to rest for a moment, and to her horror a looming shadow soon covered her...
"Hello?" The pony standing above her asked. "Are you okay? I've seen you pass through here at least three times already."
Winter's breath caught in her throat. "P-p-please... Don't hurt me... I'm lost..." she whimpered.
"Are you alright? I'd never hurt a poor, lost filly like you..." the pony, now identified as a mare by her voice, said.
Winter hid her face even more, curling up in a ball. "T-t-that's what they all say..."
"Who?" the mare asked. "Who would want to hurt you?"
"EVERYPONY!" Winter sobbed.
"I'll take you back to my place to get cleaned up, and then you can tell me all about it. My name is Shining Sea. What's yours?" Shining Sea asked.
"Winter Aurora," Winter sniffled. "Can I clean myself up at your house? Please?"
"Of course," Shining Sea smiled. "Can you walk with me, or should I levitate you?"
"Levitate me... If that's okay?" Winter asked.
"Of course." Shining Sea said gently, picket Winter up in her levitation field. She walked for a few minutes before coming to her house. Upon entering, she called out.
"Bright Spark! We have a guest!"
"Coming mom!" Bright Spark said. "Who's the guest?"
"She's a filly, about your age. Her name is Winter Aurora."
Bright Spark came around the corner. "Boop!" she said, by way of introduction. I'm Bwight Spark! Where are you from?"
"I'm from a place called Calypsion. It's the only place where I won't be driven away..." Winter sniffled, still hiding her face.
"Why would they drive you away?" Shining Sea asked gently.
Winter stopped breathing as she wondered how she could possibly respond. She didn't want to lie, these ponies had been nice to her, but that teleportation had taken a lot out of her and she didn't have anywhere near enough magic to disguise her face. What could she say?
"Are you alwight?" Bright Spark asked, noticing her lack of breathing. "Winter? Boop!"
Winter snapped out of it, resuming her breathing. It may have been unnecessary, but it was comforting, and it was a... 'dead' giveaway for what she was. She giggled to herself for a moment at her pun, before responding to Shining Sea's question.
"Because I'm not normal. I had an accident with strange magic, and now most ponies are scared of me," Winter sighed.
"That seems like an accident," Shining Sea replied. "So why would everypony go out of their way to hurt you? What makes them so scared?"
Winter gulped. Slowly, shakily, she raised a wing from her face to reveal the damage underneath. Shining Sea widened her eyes.
"Are you undead?!" Shining Sea exclaimed, causing Winter to slam the wing back down, covering her face once more.
"Y-yes..." Winter whimpered.
"Why is evewypony afwaid of you?" Bright Spark asked. "You're not scawy. You seem weally nice!"
Slowly, Winter raised her wing again. "You think so?" she asked in a small voice.
"Yes!" Bright Spark replied.
Shining Sea slowly calmed down. From previous experiences, Bright Spark had an excellent judge of character, and was it even possible to fake that much loneliness and low self esteem? She didn't think so.
"How exactly did your... 'Condition' come about?" Shining Sea asked.
Winter concentrated for a few moments before pulling her staff back out of her pocket dimension. "This staff has an unusual ability. Whenever I really, really, really want something while holding this staff, it comes true. Though not always in the way I expect, so I don't like to use it very often. For example, I got hit by a carriage and I told it I didn't want to die. This was the result. Also, I was in trouble recently and asked it to send me and my friends to safety... But, it looks like it sent them to a different 'safety' than it sent me to. I wonder where they are..." Winter's voice drifted off.
"We'll find them, don't worry," Shining Sea replied with a smile. "After all, it is about time I had a vacation, and school's out at the moment..."
"Y-you really mean it?" Winter asked hopefully.
"Of course I do! We'll prepare while you clean yourself up, and when you're done we can leave immediately!"
"Yay! This is gowing to be so much fun!" Bright Spark put in.
"Ah getcha, sugacube, but are ya sure this is tha' best way ta go about this?" Applejack said uncertainly after Twilight finished telling her friends about the Lich.
"Shining Armor has his mind set on that Lich being evil, but I have good reason to believe that she was actually just a filly. As for Sombra, if the Elements could purify the evil from Nightmare Moon, why couldn't the Crystal Heart purify the evil from Sombra? They both work on the same principals of Friendship and Love. I believe that our best option is to find both Sombra and the Lich. To do that, our first step should be to find Calypsion." Twilight replied.
"It sounds dangerous and awesome. Count me in!" Rainbow cheered.
"These ponies in Calypsion sound like they could use a little brightening up in their lives!" Pinkie smiled.
"I trust you, Twilight. Oh, I hope the Lich is nice..." Fluttershy whimpered. "We'll help the poor little Lich filly, won't we?"
"Of course," Twilight confirmed.
"Oh, alright," Rarity said. "I will come as well. It might take a day or two to pack up my luggage-"
Rarity was cut off by the sudden glares from all of the ponies in the room. "Oh, alright," Rarity said sheepishly. "I'll reduce my luggage to a manageable size."
"That is very good, because we will be leaving tomorrow, and I expect each of you to be able to carry everything you bring by yourself. We have to move quickly if we want to find Calypsion soon," Twilight put in. "If you can't carry it, leave it."
Snowflake and Ice Storm looked around their location. After Winter had pulled out her staff, everypony had disappeared. The area around them started to look a little more familiar.
"So, back so soon?" a friendly voice said. "You never even told us you were leaving. Where did you go?"
Ice Storm turned to see the unicorn mage who had first detected no trace of Dark influence in her child.
"I went to the Crystal Empire to try to find an expert in mental magic to see if Snowflake would be okay, and we got a teleport back." Ice Storm replied. It was only sort of a lie, as she had gone to the Crystal Empire to check on Snowflake originally, and she had gotten a teleport, even if that wasn't exactly the whole story. It would be nice to stay here, but... She just couldn't abandon Sombra, or Winter. "We plan on going back tomorrow, we just need to pick up our stuff. We're moving out."
Sombra stumbled around the abandoned city, disoriented. Only a moment ago, he had been frantically trying to find a way to protect everypony from Shining Armor, but everypony had disappeared. He shook his head a few more times to clear his confusion, before taking a better look at his surroundings.
"No..." Sombra whispered. "Not this place... My home!"
Sombra wept for his old home, his old friends, and the life he had left behind all too many years ago.