//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: The stolen heart // Story: Of Crystals and Roses // by MoonSaysHello //------------------------------// "Good afternoon my love," Cadance said as she entered the throne room. "How are you doing?" she asked cheerfully and climbed up the stairs to the throne on which her husband, Shining Armor, was currently sitting. "Well, now I know how you felt all these days. Listening to all these ponies complaining is really exhausting," Shining admitted pushing few loose strands of his mane back in place. "Say, how was your day?" he asked. "Oh it was just so wonderful..." Cadance replied and sat next to Shining, "I went to the spa this morning and just now I finished playing with Flurry Heart, she is just soooo cute when she's sleeping." "I'm glad you had a good time," Shining Armor smiled happily and added. "I still have a few things to take care of, what do you say we all go for a walk this evening? I'm sure Flurry Heart would enjoy stargazing." "That's a great idea, I could help you a bit if you want, I already had plenty of rest." Cadance offered not noticing a shadow, black as the deepest part of Tartarus sliding past the guards across the crystal floor. "No thanks, I promised you a day off and I always keep my promises," Shining said winking at his princess. The shadow now sneaked behind the throne laughing quietly, unfortunately nobody seemed to have heard it. "Well whatever you say," the princess replied and jumped off the throne, "I'll be in our room if you need me," she was about to leave the room when suddenly everything around her got dark. Strawberry has seen a lot of weird ponies, well anyone who has ever travelled as much as she has. It was nothing unusual really. She didn't think it was weird that the dark green unicorn with silver and green mane and piercing green eyes asked her for a coffee, what was a bit weird was that the said unicorn asked her to add extra sugar cubes, and what was even weirder was that after she did they asked for more, and more, and more, until there were so many sugar cubes that she really couldn't fit anymore is a small coffee cup. She was pretty sure there were more sugar cubes than actual coffee in there. Yes, ponies love sugar, a LOT of sugar, but this was a bit too much for anypony. She grimaced as she watched the unicorn happily drink his beverage of doom. "Ahh, nothing is better than a good glass of coffee to wake a pony up," the pony said cheerfully and licked his lips. 'Wake up?' Strawberry thought and looked at the clock. 'It's afternoon!?' She decided to just give up. "World is full of all kinds of ponies, isn't it?" she mumbled to herself as she turned away from the horrible sight and focused on her next customer. "What can I get for you?" She asked. The customer turned around and was about to answer but his face turned from cheerful one to that of utter terror. He screamed before launching out of his seat and running away as fast as his pony legs could carry him. "What the-?" Strawberry wondered and looked around to see what in the world could scare a pony so much that- "SWEET CELESTIA!!!" The notebook in which she usually wrote the orders fell out of her shaky hooves onto the crystal ground as she stared at the terrible sight in front of her. The once beautiful crystal castle was being swallowed up by giant black crystals and thorn-like structures formed all around it, everything they touched became dark and sinister and it started spreading faster and faster. "Princess Cadance!" Strawberry shouted in horror. 'I really hope she is still away from the castle, but wait, her baby!!! Is she still inside?!' she tried to get her legs to move, she had to help, she couldn't just stand here and watch as horror spread across the empire. But her legs wouldn't move an inch, as if they were glued to the ground. Her heart was beating rapidly and she felt sick, the ponies ran all around her and she couldn't move a muscle. The world around her suddenly turned pitch-black, she breathed deeply and slowly looked around but there was noting there. The streets, the cafe, all ponies, everything was gone and when she looked ahead again she found herself in the middle of the Frozen North staring at the burning empire in the distance, the voice in her head that sounded exactly as Princess Cadance screamed: "I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY FRIEND!" "Why didn't you help me?" "I thought you liked me!" "LIAR!!!" Cadance found herself in Flurry Hearts' room, she looked around completely confused and tried to remember where she was or what she was doing moment ago. "What happened?" she asked listening to her own voice echo in the room. Flurry Hearts' room was surprisingly dark as if it was sundown. 'Did I fall asleep?' she wondered. All of a sudden Cadance heard a baby crying. "Flurry Heart?" she asked and walked over to her crib only to find it empty. "Flurry Heart?!" she repeated in panic and started searching around the room. "Where are you?" she called desperately as the sound seemed to get more silent every passing second. 'Maybe she's outside?' she thought and ran out of the room. "Sweetie, where are you?" she followed the sound through numerous corridors of the crystal castle that now seemed more like a maze than her home, but she couldn't find her baby. And all of the sudden... it was silent. There was no sound of any kind, no crying, no wind, only her own steps made noise that echoed loudly in the deserted castle. "Flurry Heart?" she tried again, "Shining?" "They are not here..." the voice in her head told her. "Not here...?" she asked cautiously. "Not anywhere," the voice answered, "nothing's here anymore..." "Nothing...?" the princess repeated as she slowly looked outside the nearby window at the wasteland that was supposed to be The Crystal Empire. "No... no, this can't be..." "You failed..." "I was supposed to protect them!" Cadance screamed as tears started falling down her face and her eyes turned green. 'This can't be real...' "King Sombra has laid a lot of traps down here." Twilight pointed at the stairs that led down into what seemed to be deepest and the darkest part of the castle. "If it wasn't for Spike I would have been stuck in one of them for hours, maybe weeks, or even worse, the eternity, and failed to save the empire." She explained as shiver ran through her and her ears pinned back at the grim memory. "What do you mean? What was it?" Princess Cadance looked down into the darkness worried that whatever is down there might affect them even if King Sombra is no more. "It was a dark spell," Twilight answered, "it made me live my worst nightmare... "Dark spell... My worst nightmare... "Spell... Nightmare... "Nightmare..." "This isn't real." Cadance growled using her magic to try and break the spell. "This. Is. Not. REAL!!!" She shouted as the spell broke and she found herself back in the throne room. She tried to move her legs and wings but they were covered in thorn-like black crystals. Shining Armor was not far from her in the same state as she but he was still under the spell. She was about to call out to him but was interrupted. "Impressive..." the all too familiar voice praised her followed by evil chuckle. "I wasn't expecting anyone to be able to simply break my spell on their own like you just did." Cadance looked up glaring daggers at the grey unicorn dressed in the metal armor and red cape who was standing in front of her with her royal guards at his side. She knew that they would never betray her, she knew that King Sombra forced them to obey him using his dark magic, she could only hope he didn't hurt them in the process. "Sombra," she spat the name as if it was the most disgusting thing in Equestria. "Princess." King Sombra replied in similar tone accompanied with a mocking bow. "It seems this isn't going to be as easy as I thought." He added with a grin levitating the Crystal heart in front of her. "What have you done?!" Cadance asked staring at the black crystals that formed around it. "Well we can't let you use its powers to destroy me again now can we," he laughed and added. "This does not belong to you 'princess'" He spat as his sclera turned green and purple smoke started flowing from his eyes. "Lets see how great you are without The Crystal Heart!"