The Light of Despair

by Gordon Pasha

Between Hope and Despair

Midnight.

Hope waited. And waited. More ponies than ever had been infected. And Hope had not heard back from Fallen Fortune. She did not know what she would do. She had healed them, but she knew it would not be enough. Any moment now, the boils would reappear.

Hope had extensively surveyed all the areas where the infected ponies lived. If she was lucky, and she managed to defeat the flame-creature at this particular hovel, she could quickly teleport into the others and hopefully be just in time to battle the creatures there.

Of course, that first required Hope to come up with a way to bring about the defeat of the flame-creatures. But one step at a time….

Hope stared at the pony peacefully sleeping in the straw bed. Any moment now.

The minutes passed. Nothing happened.

Hope waited. And nothing happened.

Hope wondered why nothing was happening. She realized that she was feeling tired. Exhaustion was once more getting the better of her. Hope felt her eyes slowly closing.

She quickly shook it off. There would be no sleeping tonight. Hope would not make that mistake again.

But then, when Hope opened her eyes, she saw it. There were no boils. The pony was completely fine. But between the pony and her was a small ball of light. Hope knew what this was. She readied herself.

It spread out, taking the form of a pony of fire. Hope noted that this one looked slightly different from the other. It was small and more feminine. It looked more like a mare.

“Welcome, little pony,” said the flame-creature. Hope noted that the voice was slightly, almost imperceptively different. It was softer. Rather more feminine too, somehow.

Hope did not answer. Her horn began to glow.

“You are as persistent as they say,” it said. “But what do you really think you’re going to do? You know your spells have no effect on us.”

Hope did not answer. She simply finished her spell and let it loose.

The blue bolt shot toward the creature. Within an instant, it had been absorbed into the raging flame.

Then came another one of those hideous, crackling laughs.

“Little pony, little pony, what do you think you can do? Little… Hope, is it?”

Hope felt the hair of her coat and mane stand on end. How that creature said it – it made Hope hate her name even more.

The crystal pony readied another blast and fired. Still nothing. Nothing except more laughter.

“So misnamed, little Hope,” said the flame. “No Hope at all. Utterly Hopeless. You were supposed to be this town’s last, best hope, and you failed them. You failed all that have died. You have failed all those who are dying tonight.”

“Nopony is dying tonight,” Hope responded.

Once more, a hissing, smoldering laugh.

“You think we would make it easy for you? We had this planned. While you waste time with me, others are dying.”

Hope’s eyes grew wide. Cold, painful realization came upon her. “But… why? Why are you doing this… to me?”

“You are so persistent, little Hopeless, little forlorn Hope, so stubborn. We wanted to know how long before you realize you are a failure, that you cannot save anypony. You cannot save this town, you cannot save your town, you cannot save your friend.”

Hope’s eyes grew even larger. “How do you know about Sombra?”

“When do you talk about anything else?” said the creature. “Even we have heard of it. And we have done this to make you see how… hopeless… your situation is. We want to see what you will do. We think you shall lay down and die.”

Hope shook her head angrily. “I will never lay down and die. Not as long as Sombra needs to be saved. Not as long as this town needs to be saved.”

Yet another wicked, burning laugh.

“Little forlorn Hope, little forlorn Hope, you know that I speak the truth. Our kind always speaks the truth. When have we ever lied to you?”

“You’re evil!” Hope shouted.

“So is your friend. You could not save him. You should have listened to him when he told you that. What is that old proverb your kind has? The devil always tells the truth.”

Hope grit her teeth, her face forming into a snarl. She focused intensely. Blast after blast sped toward the creature, each seeming to do less than the previous. Finally, Hope stopped. She realized that she had only exhausted herself. If she used any more power, she could not teleport out. And she was no closer to putting out the flame.

Hope looked down and felt herself about to collapse. She felt her body aching, the result of too much action and too little sleep. She thought of all the ponies she could not save, and all the ponies she would not save if she died tonight. Then she thought of all the ponies that would probably die no matter what she did. She thought of Sombra, and how she would probably never save him.

Hope felt weak. She felt more than weak. She felt empty. She felt almost as empty as on that grim twilight of the Crystal Empire.

The flame circled in the air around her.

“What now, little Hopeless? You have failed at everything. Failed as healer, failed as friend, failed as princess. What do you even have to live for? Your cutie mark, your friend, your princesses, they have all failed you. There is nothing left for you, nothing left to believe in. You shall never regain your friend, you shall never become a princess, you shall never save yourself.”

As much as she wanted to deny it, Hope could not. The fiend was speaking the truth. What did Hope have to believe in? What could counter this deep emptiness inside of her? Her name had never fit her, her cutie mark was confusing, her healing powers did not help her to save others – at least not in the important sense. She had known three princesses, and now she did know if she could trust any. And Sombra, what about Sombra?

Hope thought about him. It did look bad. Sombra had become a thing of darkness. Everypony knew it. Hope even knew it, partially. He had done terrible things. Destroying Princess Amore, enslaving her kind to his will, warring with the Royal Sisters. And now the Crystal Empire was gone, her countryponies doomed to a thousand years of torment, all simply because Sombra had developed a grudge against her. Could Hope even still believe in Sombra?

Hope did not know. Only once before had she ever felt this uncertain in Sombra. And she had vowed never to make that mistake again. Yet now, here she was.

But was it a mistake?

Hope wondered. She was inclined to say no.

“Little forlorn Hope, lay down and die,” flickered the flame.

Perhaps it would be better. Life did not seem worth living. Without Sombra, without her dreams or her “destiny” – though Hope had never put much faith in that, it was sometimes a comforting idea to pretend it existed – what was Radiant Hope? Why should Radiant Hope still live?

Oh, I wish that name would be blotted out forever! I can never live up to it!

Hope felt her legs bucking underneath her. But there was nothing pushing them down, nothing outside her. Not even the flame. No, it was Hope herself, slowly giving way. Slowly giving in. Slowly giving up.

Maybe I should just let myself die. Everything I touch collapses around me. Ponies get hurt because of me. Sombra got hurt because of me.

Sombra….

Sombra’s image flashed through Hope’s mind. First, it was of that young foal that had been her first and only friend. Her only real friend, not like those fairies she should have outgrown believing in by now. Then it became the young handsome stallion Hope had seen him grow into, the kind and caring pony only she knew him to be. Finally, she saw that dark, dark figure, the Sombra that brought down the Crystal Empire.

Hope cringed.

That is my fault too.

But then, Hope saw another Sombra. A different Sombra, the Sombra in the obsidian mirror. As Hope looked back on it, she realized that that was not the Sombra she had once known, the Sombra before the darkness took him. No, that Sombra had overcome his darkness and become a newer, better Sombra for it. And that could only happen if Sombra still had good inside of him.

Or so Hope had to believe. If there was one thing she had to believe in, it was Sombra.

But how had he changed? The key must be there. Think, Hope, think!

Then it came. In her mind’s eye, Hope saw Sombra mouth that word. That single word.

“Hope.”

Could it be that she would succeed? Is that what Sombra meant? Was she his hope, his only hope?

Was she truly a radiant hope? Maybe, maybe she could be, for Sombra.

Radiant Hope always said she didn’t believe in destiny. But she believed in possibilities. And, as long as the possibility was still there, she had to keep going. No matter what, she had to keep going.

Hope’s legs lifted her up. Her head rose and she locked eyes with the flame-creature. Maybe the flame-creature had eyes, maybe it did not, but Hope knew she had caught its gaze. And the fire in her eyes burned more fiercely than all the fire that made up the fiend.

“What are you trying to do, Hopeless?” said the flame. “You, failed princess, never to be what you were meant to be?”

Hope’s voice, when she answered, was deep and firm. “I may never become a princess, but I am Radiant Hope still.”

The flame-creature let out a loud screech. It began to glow brighter. Hope instinctively realized what was coming next. She had to act immediately.

Hope dashed past the fire and to the bed. Grabbing onto the pony there, she formed a blue bubble around herself. There was a flash, and they were both gone, leaving the flame alone. Alone and expanding fast.

Hope and the pony reappeared. She quickly dropped the pony to the ground and threw herself over him before covering her eyes and ears. Her horn began to glow, forming a protective shield.

The blast destroyed the whole hovel. When Hope looked up, the debris had landed everywhere. It would have hit Hope and her charge had the shield not been active. But, amazingly, the debris was not on fire. The flame creature was gone. Hope knew better than to think it had died. Still, she was glad to be rid of it, at least for now.

But Hope realized that she could not stop to celebrate. There were other ponies to save. A blue glow surrounded Hope and she quickly disappeared.

---

“Hope? Hope?” Fallen Fortune called out as he hurried through the streets and alleyways.

He had no idea where she had gone to and, given his considerable unpopularity, nopony to ask. He could only gallop through town and hope that he would find her.

He also had to hope that he was not too late.

But when Fallen Fortune came across the scattered and ripped-apart remains of a hovel, he knew he must be getting very close. Fortune's heart sunk as he pushed past the remnants of what had clearly been a terrible confrontation. As Fortune climbed over a pile of debris, he spotted the form of a pony, motionless and prostrate on the ground.

“Hope!”

Fortune rushed to the pony's side. With tears beginning to form in his eyes, he grasped the shoulders of the seemingly-lifeless body. He gave it several vigorous shakes. “Hope, wake up! Don't you dare die on me!”

“Wha-what?” came a gruff voice from below. "Stop that! Stop that! Let me go!"

Fallen Fortune looked down to see that he was holding tightly onto an orange earth pony, who was staring back up at him with clear disdain. The earth pony pushed Fortune off of him.

“What are you waking me up for?” the pony said as he got to his hooves. "I was having the best sleep I've had in ages!"

“I’m sorry,” Fortune said. “I thought you were a purple, female, unicorn, crystal pony. My mistake!"

The earth pony calmed down a little. “I can see how you could get confused,” he said with a shrug.

Suddenly, there was a blue flash. There was Hope, very much shaken.

“Hope, you’re alright!” said Fortune as he rushed toward her, intending to give her a large-but-this-time-totally-innocent hug.

“All dead,” Hope said. “All dead! They’re all dead!”

Fortune stopped in his tracks. He tried to form words. All he could manage was, “I’m sorry.”

Hope did not respond.

Fortune tried to put on a smile, for Hope’s sake. He pointed toward the orange earth pony. “At least you saved one.”

“It was my fault again,” Hope said, almost in a daze. “They said they did this to hurt me. Ponies get hurt when ponies try to hurt me. Why do I keep causing this?”

“Hope, this isn’t your fault. Evil doesn’t make sense. You can’t blame yourself.”

“I should have known better.”

“You’ve done the best anypony could have asked for. I doubt that there’s another pony in all of Equestria who could have stood up to those creatures like you have.”

“I could have done better.”

“Maybe you could have, maybe not. But none of us can know that until we’ve done it. You can still do better.”

“How?” Hope snapped. “How? I can’t stop them! I don’t have the power! I don’t have the magic! But you do! You could have saved them all, and you didn’t! You just let them die!”

Fortune remained calm. “Maybe I did. But I still believe that using dark magic would just destroy me, and destroy other ponies.”

“So what? We need to stop these monsters! We need to save this village! Who cares if we die? And ponies are dying already! We have to do something, no matter the consequences!”

Fortune slowly shook his head. “Hope, you don’t believe that. You’re just upset. You know you can’t die. Sombra still needs you. More importantly, you still owe it to yourself to live.”

Mentioning Sombra’s name was a tricky gambit. Fortune had put so much effort into breaking Hope out of that powerful attachment. But he knew that, as a tactic for getting the crystal pony to focus, it was unparalleled.

Hope seemed to calm down. Perhaps that was an understatement. Hope actually seemed to become just as still as that statue that had once been Princess Amore. Fallen Fortune watched her in concern. He did not know whether he had snapped Hope out of her moment of doubt or had just broken her more than Sombra had broken Amore.

“Hope?” he asked timidly.

“You’re right,” Hope said, in a voice near monotone. “You’re right.”

Hope walked slowly past Fortune. She seemed to be just dragging herself along, without any particular direction. It was not hard for Fortune to catch up to her.

“Hope, are you alright?” he asked.

“You’re right, Fortune,” she said. “I can’t die. Sombra needs me too much. Maybe I can’t save him, but everypony else won’t. So I have to try.”

Fortune began to smile. “Yes, Hope, that’s right!”

“And whatever it takes to save him, I have to do.”

It was not what she said so much as how she said it. Hope's voice had been quiet and calm, and yet it was as chillingly cold and bitingly fierce as the winds of the Frozen North. Fortune felt his legs suddenly transmuted into lead. ‘Stopped in his tracks,’ did not begin to cover it anymore. He now felt as petrified as Princess Amore as he watched Radiant Hope go.

“Please, Hope, don’t go that far,” he said, his voice growing weak. “Please, don’t give up your light! Don't give up your soul!”

She did not hear. Fortune did not have the strength to speak louder. And it did not matter much, he knew. Even had she heard, Radiant Hope simply would not have listened.

---

Could Radiant Hope still defeat the flame-creatures without dark magic?

Read on.