While Twilight's babysitting Flurry Heart, the Cutie Map assigns her a new mission whose location quickly worries her. She'll need a lot of courage when she finally realizes her new mission is to reform one of her oldest and most evil enemies.
On a day as ordinary as any other, the Cutie Map assigns a new friendship mission to Twilight, who soon becomes concerned about the place it tells her to go.
She will need a lot of courage and willpower when she discovers that her now assigned mission is to reform one of her oldest and most terrifying enemies: King Sombra.
And as the task is carried out, the pieces of the puzzle of the past will begin to fit together and make sense, accompanied by new nascent feelings that no one could ever have believed possible.
[...]
When King Sombra accepts the princess' offer with malicious intentions, he will be surprised with different and unexpected obstacles that will not make things as easy as he thought they would be. Especially when the different attitudes and qualities of the princess in charge of him, instead of making him hate her, begin to create a peculiar feeling of curiosity within him.
However, when a sinister and seemingly powerful evil that is somehow linked to him is unleashed upon Equestria and the Crystal Empire, giving himself the opportunity to explore his feelings will not be an easy task.
It was a calm day in Ponyville, the sun was at its highest point, illuminating and giving all of Equestria a beautiful and enjoyable day.
The princess of friendship was flying through the halls of her palace, chasing her alicorn little niece, who was laughing happily, entertained with the excitement of playing with her aunt.
The rulers of the Crystal Empire were on an important royal trip, one impossible to postpone. While the little princess' official crystallizer and caretaker, Sunburst, had other obligations to attend to. So with no other options left, the Princess of Friendship had to take care of her (although she didn't mind anyway, she loved taking care of her niece).
The purple pony abruptly stopped her running when she felt a vibration on her side.
Her cutie mark was vibrating, and that could only mean one thing: A new friendship mission.
She took the baby and put her on her back, the latter complaining because she wanted to continue playing. She quickly headed towards the main room (which is where the map was located) and she was unable to hide how this new mission was exciting her quite a bit, it had been a while since the map had called her on friendship missions, it had been calling only her friends, all of them together, which made her feel a little of sadness, because she was beginning to feel excluded, even when she knew that it was not her friends' fault; if it were up to them, they would all always go together.
As she thought about that, she remembered the many things that had been beginning to change, because although her relationship with her friends was the same, at the same time it was also not.
They didn't see each other as much as before, they didn't share as much as before, and if they did see each other, it was only a quick greeting, a quick topic, and goodbye, since they always had things to do.
Also lately, there was interesting news, like that Discord had asked Fluttershy to be his marefriend, something she had accepted. And it's not that it seemed strange to her, on the contrary, in reality from afar it could be noticed the great appreciation that they both had for each other, and she was very happy for her two friends. But she still felt that this was somehow going to change things even more.
The same with Pinkie Pie, she also had a boyfriend, something that had surprised everyone because it happened from one day to the next and it was something very unexpected. Curiously, this pony's coltfriend was none other than Cheese Sandwich, a pony with whom the first time they had met, it didn't take them long to start competing.
The irony of life.
Rarity was not far behind, although there was nothing official yet, the pony with the curly purple mane was all the time with the high society pony called Fancy Pants, she talked a lot about him, also adding that she had already admitted that it would not bother her absolutely if they ever became more than just friends. She was sure that at any moment those two would announce their union as a couple.
And last but never least, her dearest Applejack and Rainbow Dash; They had always been very close—competitive, too—, but they had recently admitted that they were more than just two friends who liked to challenge each other; Although it had taken them a long time to get to that point, since they were both equal, it was not very easy for them to show and say what they really felt. She was really happy that the two of them were together, since they complemented each other very well.
And that was why she was very happy for her friends, but a very deep feeling sometimes wished that things had not changed so much. And she felt like a horrible being for having that slightest thought.
Many things had changed, which made her very nostalgic; and she didn't even want to think about the things that still needed to change.
A sudden squeak from the baby alicorn still on her back made her immediately disconnect from her inner thoughts, realizing that she had been standing in front of the small mission map for like five minutes without even taking a look at the location of her assigned mission.
She pushed her thoughts away for later and focused on where the magical map was sending her this time; surprise and confusion quickly took control of her face.
Not being strange enough that the map had called only her, it also requested her presence in a place where basically no one lived—this one was too cold—, not to mention that most of the creatures that lived there were because they had been exiled from the Crystal Empire; In simpler words: Evil creatures.
The alicorn had not taken long to tell her faithful dragon companion what was happening.
"Would it be very bad if you didn't obey to the map this time and didn't go? That place isn't very safe, and besides, you're taking care of Flurry Heart," the little reptile mentioned worriedly. He had already been there and he didn't at all like the idea of his friend wandering around those desolate wastelands alone, not even knowing what she was looking for.
"I know, Spike." But I've never ignored a quest that gives me the map, I can't do that now. "And in any case, I don't think it's that dangerous, it's just an empty place full of snow, right?" She suggested in a 'confident' way, but inside she knew that that place could be more dangerous than it appeared.
The dragon didn't respond, but his look was enough to show how much he disapproved the alicorn's statement.
Still, after thinking about it and consulting with the little girl's parents—through letters that Spike helped exchange—it was concluded that the girl would be safe with her aunt; However, for their safety, Shining Armor would order a guard to keep them company.
"You know you could have left Flurry with any of the girls, right, Twilight?" Objected the dragon while he said goodbye to the alicorns, who were already taking the train to the Crystal Empire.
"I already talked to Shining and Cadance, Spike, we'll be fine." Before fully entering the train, she added something else. "Also, why didn't you suggest that to me before?"
"Why didn't you think about it before?"
The princess rolled her eyes and simply finished boarding the train. There was no turning back, normally when the map made a call they had to hurry, because they never knew how urgently the intervention of the pony who was called was needed.
"We'll be back soon, have fun."
He gave his answer until no one was listening to him. "Yeah, sure."
The trip had been quite exhausting to tell the truth. All along the way, Twilight had not been able to get rid of the feeling of singularity that had settled in her. She perceived the trip as strange because most of the time she traveled to the empire, she had the company of her friends. The moments they lived together were so pleasant that sometimes the duration of the trip felt non-existent.
However, now, remembering the last time they had taken a trip of such length where the sole purpose was to have fun and relax together was more difficult than she would like to admit. She didn't want to have the bad luck of unconsciously making her fears come true, but she also couldn't help but feel like they were starting to get further and further apart, and she hated that feeling.
Her thoughts quickly drifted away when a visible flash caught her attention and the glittering Crystal Palace slowly appeared in her field of vision.
"Look, Flurry, we're close to home." She pointed out to the little girl, who, despite not really understanding, let out a small but happy laugh.
Only a few minutes later, the train finally stopped at the destination the alicorns were heading to.
"Good afternoon, Princess Twilight." A stallion, who from the armor the aforementioned was wearing Twilight deduced that he belonged to the Royal Guard of the Empire, approached and bowed before her. "It is nice to see you again, I hope you enjoyed the trip." He turned to look at the little girl and quickly added: "You and Princess Flurry Heart."
"Oh, thank you very much, uh..." She looked thoughtful, "Lieutenant General Flash, is that right? It's nice to see you again, too."
The pegasus smiled at what was said.
"I assume you will be the one to accompany us, right?"
"That's right, Your Highness."
"Well, in that case I think we can start."
The yellow-furred one just nodded and gave a short bow. With nothing more to say, they both began to walk, both remaining silent for most of the way.
[...]
"Oh, how am I supposed to fulfill my mission of friendship here if there is absolutely nothing and no one?" The purple alicorn exclaimed out loud, beginning to get tired of having already spent almost two hours looking for the 'friendship problem' that she had to solve, and the only thing that could be heard were the occasional echoes of the guard's, the baby's, and her voices. "Maybe the map's broken down again?" She asked to herself.
It was likely that if she didn't find something soon, this mission would become the first one she ignored/abandoned.
"Excuse the question, Your Highness, but what exactly are you looking for?" The stallion suddenly questioned, bringing up the doubt that he had had since the trip began.
"That's the problem, I don't even know that, when the map calls it's for us to go somewhere and solve friendship problems, but we never know specifically what we're going to find until we get to the point."
"Friendship problems?"
"Yeah, you know, conflicts between two, three or even large groups of ponies; conflicts that can be resolved by showing them the value of friendship and all of that."
"I understand, but... With all due respect, I don't think there's a friendship problem here," he emphasized, "you know? This place is usually completely desolate, except for a few creatures that I doubt you'd want to encounter."
She grimaced and looked away at the stallion's words. She knew that he was right about everything and she had even considered this before deciding to carry out the mission, but she had still ignored him in the end.
"I know, Flash, but..."
The increase in concern that the baby had been showing since a few minutes ago did not allow her to continue the sentence, concluding that it was probably a good idea to see what was happening to her.
"Give me a minute." Twilight excused herself and stopped with the intention of checking on her niece. "Everything okay, Flurry?" She asked as she picked her up and rocked her gently.
A frown appeared on her face when she noticed how the baby's attention seemed to not want to move away from a specific place.
"Is something wrong, Your Highness?" Flash couldn't help but ask when the alicorn turned to look in the same direction as the baby, her attention also immediately drawn to it.
"Are you seeing that too, Flash?" She didn't take her eyes off it.
When he directed his gaze towards the same place as both alicorns, he noticed a medium-sized cave covered in snow with a large opening in the front and a small ice formation on the side that protruded from the ground; However, he also realized that this was not what the princesses were interested in, but rather what was inside the aforementioned cave.
Although darkness completely reigned inside the cave, it was thanks to the clear sky that the sunlight could provide a faint illumination at the entrance of the place, both due to the reflections it projected on the ice, as well as on its own.
Due to this fact, it had not been very difficult to notice the (uncertainly) living being that was there.
"Do you think it's because of him or her that the map has sent you here?
"We have to find out that."
She put the baby back on her back and ran to get closer to the cave. The pegasus imitated her action.
When they were about 20 feet away from the cave, they were both able to confirm that, indeed, there was someone there; It was a steed that was apparently unconscious.
The alicorn internally wondered what had happened to him to end up in a cave in the middle of the Arctic North; She also came to the conclusion that there was no way for that pony to be in good health, since on its own it was impossible to withstand the cold that affected those moors.
She had never seen a pony like that, she had to admit. His fur was completely gray and his mane was completely black, she never judged basing on appearances, but she was almost sure that he was not from around here, which made her even more curious about him.
She also thought that maybe it could be someone who got lost and had no choice but to sleep in the cold. If the map had sent her there, then it was most likely her task to help him.
"We should see if he's okay." She said, starting to get a little closer to the cave.
"Wait, I'll get closer first." He didn't give the alicorn time to respond and stepped forward.
"Oh, Flash, he's unconscious, we could be more of a threat to him than he is to us." She laughed a little at what she described as a very exaggerated caution on the stallion's part.
But the fact is that neither of them managed to even get close.
The steed woke up and stood up quickly and abruptly, causing both ponies to instinctively step back a little startled.
What had previously seemed like a helpless steed that had gotten lost, began to transform into something completely different. His fur was still gray, but now it was a darker gray; His hair had not stopped being black either, but now it moved as if it were some kind of smoke. She hadn't even noticed that he had a horn, and that horn had now elongated and turned a rather bright red color; and finally, his eyes opened, showing how they were a very strong and bright green color, with red pupils and a kind of purple aura or smoke coming out of them.
It didn't take him a second to realize that it wasn't about anyone else than King Sombra.
"..."
The alicorn couldn't find a way to formulate a single word.
"We are more of a threat to him than he is to us, huh?" Even being somewhat shocked, the stallion found enough courage in him to use sarcasm.
Like him, she, despite the impact, was a little upset and made it clear with the look she gave him.
He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry."
They were in trouble, they knew it very well. Now it fit perfectly why the baby had become so uncomfortable. She had felt the dark energy of the evil king.
The purple alicorn had been unable to escape her trance as she watched the aforementioned king transform into what he really was. At the same time, her mind was also being attacked by thousands of doubts.
She had considered before that perhaps it would be dangerous to come, but she would never have imagined how dangerous it was.
But to her great surprise, before they could even come out of their shock to think of something or visualize any movement against the dark steed, he simply vanished.
And not literally, but it seemed that the magic and energy that surrounded him had vanished, and he had fallen to the ground, turning his appearance back to the one he had before and once again becoming unconscious.
"..."
The purple alicorn had not finished processing yet.
"Holy Celestia."
And neither did the pegasus.
She didn't know what to think, everything had happened in the blink of an eye, she still felt her heart beating rapidly.
Had he transformed and transformed back to normal in the same minute? She didn't understand anything at all.
But what she did understand is that she had to act immediately and call both the empire's guards and Princess Celestia and Luna; she didn't want to wait too long and have King Sombra wake up again and attack them.
"You say that he just transformed and fell to the ground again?" The alicorn with white fur and colorful mane questioned her former student, walking from one side to the other, wearing a worried and thoughtful face.
"That's right, I'm not very clear about what really happened." Twilight followed the princess with her gaze, who along with her sister, Princess Luna, had arrived immediately after letting them know of the situation. "I thought we defeated him, but it seems all we did was just weaken him."
"This is dangerous, if the crystal heart did not actually defeat him then that means that he is even stronger than we thought, he represents a great threat to both the empire and Equestria." Her scowl and distressed-looking look made Twilight swallow thickly.
Princess Celestia stopped to think for a few moments before continuing.
"It's best that we wait for Cadence and Shining Armor to discuss all this, after all, Cadence is actually the one who should make the decisions here."
"Yes, you are right about that. In any case," the Princess of the Night turned to look at the youngest princess, "something I don't quite understand is why your map sent you there."
"Me neither, it broke down once but that was when Starlight cast a spell on it, and it was repaired almost immediately; there's no way it could have gotten damaged out of nowhere." She responded with the same level of confusion.
Both minor alicorns left a space of silence, waiting for a response from the eldest, but they noticed how she did not respond and kept her gaze lost in front of her.
"Sister?"
"I'm afraid there might be a not very pleasant explanation for this."
The response made both princesses slightly alert.
"Maybe the point of the map was for you to, in fact, find King Sombra." The eldest continued.
"What? Why would it want that?" The purple alicorn responded somewhat surprised, hiding that, although that had crossed her mind, she had not wanted to believe it possible.
Princess Celestia walked forward a little before continuing to speak.
"Throughout your journey in life, you have managed to reform people who were on the wrong side; of course, with the help of your friends." She added. "Discord and Starlight can be very good examples. We don't know how the map works or what kind of magic it uses, but perhaps it recognized that you are capable of making someone who has been evil see that it is possible to change."
"Okay, let me see if I understood... You're saying that maybe the mission the map is giving me this time is... Reform King Sombra?" With every word she said, the possibility that it was possible to achieve something like that became less and less. "Is that even possible? You once told me he was a pony with a black heart full of hate."
"That's right, but, I repeat: I don't know the way or the magic with which the map works, Twilight, so I have no idea about anything really."
Twilight shook her head slowly, processing what was happening, thinking about everything that would entail even trying to do such a thing.
"N-no... I don't know if I can do that, I don't think so."
The ruler of Equestria nodded softly at her former student's reaction, she completely understood why the youngest did not feel capable; personally, she admitted that she did not want her to risk herself in that way, that pony was dangerous and unpredictable. But it wasn't something that was her decision, there didn't seem to be any other explanation as to why the map would send her there if there was no one to help.
There was a long, uncomfortable moment of silence.
"Where is he now?" The purple-furred one finally asked.
"In one of the empire's dungeons, we put him in a super-reinforced cell and several guards to watch over him."
Twilight sighed tiredly. She had had too much emotions in just one day.
"I guess I'll have to stay the night. Tomorrow I will think about this, today has been enough."
Both elder alicorns nodded in agreement.
"Rest, Twilight."
"I'll try."
As soon as she entered the room that they normally lent her to sleep in, she wrote a quick letter to Spike in which she let him know that something had come up and that she wouldn't be able to arrive soon, so that he wouldn't be worried.
And with nothing else to do, she fell into bed and fell asleep.
Or at least that's what she had tried.
Cadence and Shining Armor had arrived as quickly as they could from their trip. When Princess Celestia told them what had happened, they immediately stopped what they were doing. They knew how dangerous that being was, and that he had been close to their daughter; which was enough that it didn't matter whatever royal trip they were doing.
The three princesses were having breakfast in the kitchen, they needed something in their stomachs before they could debate and/or make any decision.
From one moment to the next the kitchen door was abruptly opened, creating the loud and thunderous sound of the door hitting the wall. The prince had entered, shouting the dark king's name as soon as he had crossed the entrance.
"Sombra! Where is that coward?" he turned to see where his sister was, who was surprised and could barely react. He quickly ran towards her.
"Twilight, did something happen to you? Or to Flurry Heart? Did he hurt you?" He launched each of the questions without leaving a space between them to give way to an answer.
"Wow, calm down. We're both fine, nothing bad happened." She tried to calm her brother's concern.
"Of course something bad happened, that idiot is still alive, hadn't we already defeated him?"
The violet alicorn sighed and she closed her eyes tiredly. "We thought so, but no."
After a few moments, the stallion was able to relax enough so that at least they could reason with him, then both crystal rulers sat down, and were informed of the situation.
"You'll do what?" The one with the blue mane had become upset again, not believing what his sister was telling him.
"I'm not completely sure yet, brother, I–"
He interrupted her.
"You can't do that, you would be walking into the manticore's mouth. Are you serious when you say you're considering reforming King Sombra?" It seemed that he actually found it very difficult to believe that his sister did not speak with even a hint of joking in her words.
"Well–"
"This is not even about someone who did something wrong and could change, no. We are talking about the king of darkness, of nightmares; of the king who eliminated the previous queen of the Empire and enslaved the entire Empire. That simply cannot be forgotten and forgiven as if nothing had happened."
"But the map–"
She was interrupted again.
It doesn't matter what that map says, it could easily be damaged. Don't go near King Sombra, Twilight, I'm serious." He stood up abruptly from his chair. "I'll go see Flurry Heart."
The other princesses decided not to say anything at all, the reality is that it was a very complex issue. While the younger alicorn could only smash her head against the table.
"Cadence...?"
"I don't think it's a good idea either, Twilight. This king is evil, actually evil." She answered, trying to use a soft voice. "I'll go with Shining Armor, I also want to see my daughter."
The younger only watched her leave, and then turned to see the two authority figures sitting in front of her, insinuating with her eyes that they should give her some answer.
From the very peaceful and restful sleep he was having, only a headache could take him out.
The stinging sensation that felt like it was crushing his skull forced him to open his eyes and regain the consciousness he didn't even know he had lost.
He subtly moved his gaze around him, but he could only see the same thing as before: nothing.
The total darkness that inhabited wherever he was was completely limiting his ability to see.
He had no idea where he was or what had happened. His mind was completely blank.
From the softness and sponginess that he could perceive beneath him, he deduced that he was lying on some kind of bed, so he looked for a way to move, but at the immediate moment of doing this, he felt a pain that could be described as one of the worst he had ever experienced.
He couldn't indicate where, since it had been something general; Every muscle, joint, and internal part of his body had felt like being impaled by hundreds of swords.
Nonetheless, he tried again.
He obtained almost the same result as the previous time, but with less intensity; so, ignoring the pain, he set about trying to at least sit up.
He still couldn't see anything at all, but the pressure he could feel surrounding his hooves and neck, along with the sharp, hard metallic noise of the chains rubbing against each other and hitting the ground, quickly solved the puzzle about where he was.
He wanted to test the length of the chains by walking a little forward, and also hoping to know how far his probable cell extended.
His response was obtained only a few seconds later, when he finally collided with something that, from the resounding noise it made, he knew was crystal.
"Crystal? The only crystal prisons are in..."
Everything made sense now.
In a matter of two seconds, he knew how, when and why he was where he was.
His second defeat in the empire, the magic of the crystal heart reducing his body to pieces and then having to endure the cold again as he felt every part of his body come back together, every piece of bone, muscle, skin and tissue having to rebuild without him being able to do anything about it but to suffer the torture.
And when the ordeal finally seemed to be over and his body had finished the regeneration process, someone appeared.
In his mind the memory remained blurry, he could not recognize the faces of the ponies he had seen, but he did remember seeing alicorns.
An alicorn was always synonymous with royalty. Or at least almost always.
And royalty weren't exactly people he admired.
"I have to get out of here."
He didn't waste any more time and started channeling the magic within him in an attempt to use it, however, at the first small spark that appeared in his horn, the pain that his head experienced was something he simply could not explain.
As a result of this, he couldn't help but let out a loud moan, also putting a hoove on his head with the intention of making the pain lessen its intensity a little.
"Damn it, what is it now?" He blurted out into nothingness, bewildered as to why he wasn't able to use magic.
Before he could think about anything else, the sound of several locks being opened interrupted him, little by little the light beginning to illuminate the place as a door opened.
In a short time the figure of two stallions-apparently guards-revealed themselves before the eyes of the pony who remained behind bars.
"Well, well, would you look at that?" One of the guards addressed his companion in a mocking tone, wearing a seemingly amused face. "It seems that our guest of honor has already woken up."
"How was your nap, Your Majesty?" He pronounced the last thing with sarcasm and some contempt. "Are the shackles comfortable enough?"
Although he felt like replying, he did not give in to the clear mockery of both guards; Instead, he remained silent as he stared at them.
They, upon noticing this, approached closer to the bars that separated them from the former king.
"How does it feel that after so many attempts and so much violence you have ended up here and nothing was worth it?"
"How does it feel to have once been the king and to have had all the power you wanted and now you are here like the damned wretch that you are? In a disgusting cell, without the basic pony needs... And with the princesses and the prince Shining Armor surely deciding your final sentence." He let out a loud, disdainful laugh at the end of his sentence, his companion not taking long to follow his laughter.
The gray stallion just watched them without saying a single word, quickly getting bored of their teasing and beginning to turn around to return to his bed.
It wasn't even close to being the first time someone had insulted and mocked him, and even if it were, he wouldn't care.
"Hey, hey! Wait a moment," said one of the guards as soon as he noticed the stallion turn around, "where do you think you're going, you bastard? Don't think you can just ignore us."
"That's right, we don't care if they are going to punish you later or I don't know what the hell they will do to you, but we will give you what you deserve here and now."
One of the guards rushed to take out the key that opened the cell's padlock, and when it fell to the ground, they soon entered the prison.
Although this was truly something the gray unicorn had seen coming, it didn't mean that the beating he had ended up receiving hadn't been painful, especially given how sensitive his entire body seemed to be.
Still, it was okay, a little beating from two guards smaller than him wasn't something he couldn't get over at some point.
Did it hurt? Yes, but he was fine, he would recover, he always did.
He was The King Sombra and he always came back.
The alicorn representative of the element of magic walked passively through the corridors of the crystal castle, getting lost in the radiance and clarity that it provided. After the argument with her brother, she had decided that the best thing was to clear her mind to think clearly and not get too stressed, since when she did, she did not make good decisions or do things very well.
She vaguely remembered the first time she had visited the place, it had been a while ago, approximately three years; She remembered perfectly every step she had desperately taken in order to find something that would lead her to the crystal heart and thus be able to save the empire. They were trying to stop King Sombra.
Which again led her to think about the complicated situation she found herself in.
She had no idea what the right decision might be. On the one hand she knew that her brother was right when he said that it was too dangerous and would put the entire empire and Equestria at enormous risk. And if things didn't go well and King Sombra attacked Equestria or any part of the kingdoms, it would be all her fault.
But on the other hand there was her consciousness, she knew practically nothing about King Sombra, therefore, she also did not know the reason that had led him to commit the acts he committed; and, taking into account the previous villains who had been given the opportunity to repent and change, it would be very hypocritical and unfair if the same options were not gifted to the former king.
It really wasn't something impossible if she thought about it, many former evildoers had been reformed and so far everything had gone well. Even Princess Luna had been corrupted by dark magic and yet she had been reformed and forgiven by everyone.
And she also had to be honest with herself, she could not deny that knowing a little more about the named King of Darkness and Nightmares was not intriguing to her; She knew that this pony couldn't have been evil all his life, that he had a past and a very interesting story to tell, which made her decide to give herself the opportunity to teach him a different path and give him the opportunity to take it.
The feeling was a little like when she had a new book to read that she knew nothing about other than its title, but she knew it would be a great experience, regardless of whether it ended up being good or bad.
As a result of having walked through the corridors of the palace without totally being aware of the path she was taking, she did not know when she had approached the lower parts of the castle, she only noticed how she was now in front of the door that gave way to the dungeons that were inside.
Suddenly she felt as if her senses had split, one part of her pulling her in, while another did the complete opposite. There was a great conflict in her mind, she heard hundreds of little voices, some telling her that entering was the most sensible idea, and others warning her not to take a single step there.
She was quick to wipe the sweat from her forehead that she hadn't even noticed had begun to break out.
She quickly pondered her options once more.
She took a deep breath and gained courage.
And on impulse, she entered.
The guards had not even asked her or said anything at all, they simply let her pass; She didn't understand why, if it had to do with the fact that she was now a princess, or maybe Princess Cadence had already warned them to let her pass if she came down.
No matter what the case had been, she was grateful that she didn't have any obstacles that would stop her from what she was doing and make her doubt her actions more, since she had enough doubts about what she was doing, but she wasn't going to leave without at least considering it.
As she walked through the surprisingly several hallways of the dungeons, she noticed the many ponies within it.
She decided to hurry up and not turn to see any of them, but in any case she couldn't help but notice some of the tired or sad looks that those ponies wore; others on the other hand did not even turn to see her.
There were also some who looked at her with confusion, she ended up assuming that it was because they had been imprisoned so long ago that they did not know of the existence of any other alicorn other than the three princesses.
A few more steps and that was when she finally reached her destination, and although she had not seen who was inside, she deduced it immediately when she saw the large number of locks that that single door had, and when she saw that there were two guards guarding it, for what other reason would they guard one cell and not the others?
She felt a chill run through her entire body, at the same time she felt her stomach turn and her extremities become very cold, her nerves almost didn't let her say anything.
She gathered strength as best she could and communicated with the tall guards in front of her.
"I need to see King Sombra."
One of her guards looked at her very harshly, which made her alicorn feel intimidated and very subtly lower her head.
But the other guard quickly told her companion that Princess Cadence had said to let her pass if she asked so.
"Pardon me, princess, you may go in." They opened the door and immediately bowed to leave her passage clear.
"Do you need privacy?" They asked once she was inside.
"Uh... It wouldn't hurt me."
Without saying anything, both stallions bowed and hurried to close the doors.
The moment the guards closed, the alicorn's nerves attacked again.
There was a dead silence in the cell, she could clearly hear the typical horror movie sound of water dripping and wetting the floor, although with no idea where it could come from.
The almost total darkness that reigned in the place was going to be a problem, so she cautiously turned on her horn, thus giving a magenta luminosity to the confinement.
With her increased vision capacity, she managed to see two unlit torches placed on the side walls, which she decided to light with her magic and thus finally give fair lighting to the place, which although it was still somewhat dim, it was enough.
Following this she observed the dark pony's cell, the bars were completely made of crystal; As she had seen in the previous cells, these were made of a very common metal that was all rusted, but she understood why this specific prisoner's cells had been reinforced in that way.
She saw inside the cage and could now visualize the famous king.
Needless to say, a wave of nerves took control of her again.
He was on his back, sitting, which made his nerves jump even more than they already were; As they had told her, the pony was asleep, but it seemed that he had already woken up.
"Why have you come here?" The unicorn asked suddenly, his deep voice echoed throughout the dungeon.
The purple one let out a frightened gasp at the unexpectedness of his speech.
"I... " She could swear that she heard her heart beating in her head, so fast that she felt like she wanted to get out of there immediately.
"You what?"
It seemed that everything had conspired against her, since she had not even thought about what she was going to say to the pony, not to mention that her fear and nerves had her completely immobile and unable to say a single word.
King Sombra could be scary.
It was needless to mention the tremendous regret she felt, it had all been a totally bad idea.
"Did I make you afraid, princess?" He asked with a notable tone of mockery and extreme egocentrism.
"I... No." She stated. "I have come to talk to you about something important." She replied. Where did she get the courage? She had no idea.
"Oh, yes? And what would that be, your majesty? Have you come to give me the date on which I will be executed? It doesn't seem very sensitive of you." The sarcastic and mocking tone of his were still present.
Even though he was at one end of the cell, his harsh and deep voice continued to echo throughout the room, making the alicorn feel like she was inside some kind of horror movie.
"Uh... Date of...?" She was taken aback for a moment, did he think they were going to execute him?. "No, of course not, in fact I think what I have to tell you is good news. Or so I guess."
"Really? In that case, I'm dying to hear it." Quickly and without the princess foreseeing it, the unicorn turned around, now facing her.
Of course, she had almost jumped in fright. She could now easily see his glowing scarlet eyes, staring at her, making her almost bend over her entire body, feeling very intimidated.
"She's the same pony as before."
He thought for a brief moment.
"Ah... Well... It turns out that... " She cleared her throat a little before continuing, even if she was scared, she had a pride and this would not allow the former king to see that he caused her fear, just as he wanted. "You could have a chance to redeem yourself."
"..."
The unicorn remained completely serious for a few seconds.
And then he laughed.
It wasn't a genuine laugh at all, it was a laugh that betrayed how silly what had just been said seemed to him.
Luckily, for the princess this was not something new nor something she had not predicted, it was almost the same with all villains.
"I have been given a mission, which is summarized in returning you to the right side." She began to explain, taking a firmer stance, completely ignoring the unicorn's mockery.
"To the 'right side'?" He repeated with sarcasm in his speech. "And which one is the right side? The side of the princesses and the colorful ponies who sing all the time and know nothing but happiness?" He slowly got out of bed and got closer to the bars, also managing to be closer to the princess.
The alicorn was about to respond, but she was interrupted.
"How can you ensure that that is really the right side? Besides, you can't 'return me', I never was." Twilight swore that she had seen how his eyes had lit up more when he mentioned those last words.
The younger remained with her mind blank for a few seconds, not really knowing what to respond.
"I admit this was funny, but get out of here, brat. I will accept my fate and let them finish me, I don't need to be on any 'right side'." He demanded, leaving aside his ironic tone, beginning to turn around, hoping that with this action the princess would get away from him and leave him alone.
"Do you actually prefer to lose the opportunity to redeem yourself and receive everyone's forgiveness than to simply resign yourself and die?"
Of course she wouldn't leave that easily, she already had in mind that the unicorn would refuse the first time.
"Forgiveness? Forgiveness for what exactly?"
The alicorn narrowed her eyes at him for a second, she couldn't believe he even dared to ask, knowing full well all the things he had done during his rule.
"'For what exactly'? Oh, I don't know, maybe for having enslaved hundreds of innocent ponies and putting a curse on them that lasted a thousand years? And as if that weren't enough... Having killed off the previous ruler of the Crystal Empire." She lowered her head and her tone of voice a little as she finished speaking.
The steed was slow to respond.
"Why don't you just ignore your mission and that's it? How are you so sure that I won't betray you and try to take over Equestria the second I leave here?" His characteristic arrogant smile once again appeared on his face.
"Uh... I... I don't know, would you do it?"
"What do you think?" He replied sarcastically and with a bit of annoyance. It was clear that the answer was a resounding yes.
"I don't know, I'm giving you the opportunity to change, risking many things, so with that I'm giving you my trust."
"So what? Why do you think I care about your trust or you giving me a chance?" He mocked again. "If you're taking a risk, that's not my problem, I haven't asked you for it, have I?"
She let out a quick stifled sigh, what he was saying was actually correct, he was beginning to put her in a difficult position.
"Well, you're right."
He responded with a short nasal laugh.
"But I just don't get it; I don't know what's going to happen after this, but it sure won't end well for you. I am giving you the opportunity to avoid that and you refuse to take it."
He just looked away.
"Are you seriously not afraid of trusting me and that I end up betraying you? I don't get that."
"Not really, as weak as you are, you wouldn't even have a chance." She responded using a winning tone.
"What would I gain from this?"
An inner spark was lit in the princess of friendship; For him to imply that, it meant that he was considering it.
"You can discover that by yourself. But one thing I can assure you is that you lose absolutely nothing." She insisted, her hope growing more and more, she was apparently achieving her goal.
The opacity of the light did not allow them to see much of each other's features. Knowing this, the former king smiled, plotting something.
"Well... Then I think I accept."
Through the bars, both of them joined their hooves, as if closing a deal.
"I'm glad, you'll see that you made the right decision."
"Yes, of course."
This could go right as well as it could go wrong, but taking into account the king's true intentions, the princess would possibly regret having dealt with the Lord of Darkness.
If Twilight was to be completely honest, she still wasn't sure about what she was actually doing.
Not even she herself could believe the pony she had just dealt with, she was committing actions that she knew would bring her very possibly problematic consequences.
But even knowing all this, she was determined to take that risk.
Unfortunately for her, if that had been her decision, she now had many things to face.
Example number one: her angry brother.
"Twilight, I assure you that I try to understand you but it is impossible, after everything I told you, you just ignored it and went to make deals with that...?" He wanted to call him something insulting, but he preferred to avoid it; instead he just looked away and formed a frown.
"Listen, I think..." Before formulating any sentence, her brother interrupted her again. She really hated that.
"No, you listen to me, you will condemn us all by freeing King Sombra. What do you think will happen when you do it? He will try to take over the Crystal Empire and all of Equestria." His rapid breathing and completely frowning gaze made it impossible for everyone not to notice that he was greatly angry. "After everything he did, why do you insist?"
"Well... Because I think he can change. Look, the map sends us on missions when our help is needed to resolve a situation. In this case I think the situation is to help him see that there is a different way of doing things, to reform himself. We don't even know why he is evil, maybe he went through difficult things that made him that way. We've reformed many ponies before, why couldn't I do it now? That map in a certain way is connected to the elements of harmony, I trust whatever it is trying to do." The purple alicorn responded in her defense, using a peaceful voice; She knew that if she got upset like her brother, they would get nowhere.
The unicorn snorted still annoyed, he preferred to turn around and return to his place next to his wife, who had been in the same throne room as well as the Royal Sisters, listening to the discussion.
Twilight turned to look at the oldest alicorn, waiting for her to say something.
She took a few seconds to think quite a bit before speaking.
"It's your decision, Twilight, if you think it's best to give him a chance, you have our permission." She spared a glance at her sister and niece before addressing the younger alicorn again. "Though we still want to express our concern about all this, if you are really sure that you want to do it, we will support you, but you should always keep in mind that you are not dealing with Discord, Starlight or even Sunset Shimmer." The white alicorn walked a little until she was near her former student. "King Sombra has committed much crueler acts and cannot even be compared to them, he is capable of worse things."
Twilight only looked down in response.
"Him reforming and becoming an ally would indeed be a good thing," she continued when she saw that she would not respond, "but the risk is high; Personally, I'm not sure it's worth it, Twilight."
Twilight thought very carefully about the words of her former mentor, she knew that what she told her was true.
Still, it was a decision she had practically already made, and despite the risks she knew she was taking, she wasn't going to back down from giving the former king a chance.
She closed her eyes and sighed softly before speaking.
"I know, I understand... But I already thought about it and made the decision." She looked the elder in the eyes with a touch of insecurity, since usually she did not go against Celestia's wishes.
The one with white fur exchanged glances with the ponies behind her, and then sighed in resignation.
She didn't really agree with her final decision, but she respected it.
She took a short breath, she didn't look very happy. "Okay, let's free King Sombra."
The tyrant felt the satisfaction of being free running through his entire body as he watched and heard the pleasant sound of his cell opening.
In front of him was most of the royalty, also spectating his glorious liberation. Although clearly, from the look on their faces, they didn't think it was so glorious.
Either way, he couldn't care less what any royal or pony in general thought, he was a king and he was on his way to taking back his kingdom.
He had to admit that it was very surprising that the pony who had offered him his release had thought that with that insipid proposal he was actually willing to change.
She was very wrong.
He didn't even know who she was, just that she was a princess and that's it, but he didn't really care about that.
The plan was not very clear yet, but he did know that he had to be cautious, he should not attack the moment he was released, that would actually be very foolish and careless on his part, given that he was not even capable of invoking a simple lighting spell; Whatever the Crystal Heart had done to him, it really had almost completely finished him off.
So, seeing as the circumstances were not in his favor, he would try as hard as he could to pretend that he was truly changing and repenting as his magic was restored, while at the same time taking the opportunity to get to know his enemies better so as to to be able to attack them at their weakest point and when they least expect it.
He had a lot to thank for the ingenuity of the pony who had given him this great opportunity.
During their walk from the dungeons to the throne room, absolutely no one had said a single word; but with their looks, everyone had already made their thoughts clear.
At last they had arrived at said place. The princess of friendship and her brother, the Crystal Prince; They were the ones who had stayed to wait. The Crystal Princess returned to her throne and the other princesses stood next to her, except for the youngest, who remained in front of them.
With a still serious look, the pink alicorn gave a nod to the guards, this as a sign that they could remove the restraints that were holding the gray unicorn.
"King Sombra, Princess Twilight surely already explained everything to you really so there is not much to say; You will be released from your prison and the charges against you, so that you can change your path and amend your actions, do you accept?"
Although the aforementioned was already smiling, his smile spread further, which made the princess, and everyone in general, nervous.
"Yes, I accept."
"Good. You will understand that we cannot leave you free to do whatever you want without any supervision or precautions, so you will have to accept the conditions as well." She paused briefly, the former king's gaze was making her feel truly uncomfortable. "Princess Twilight will be in charge of you, you will stay with her in her castle, and you will not be able to leave or do things that she does not allow you to do. Should you break any of these rules, betray us, or try to harm us or any innocent pony, you will be immediately returned to your prison here in the empire with no chance to ever be freed."
"..." He did not provide a verbal response. By this point, his smile had faded.
"Are we clear?"
The pony thought twice, his plan seemed somewhat compromised with all the conditions that he had to meet, but it was that or stay to die in a Crystal Empire prison.
"Yes... Your Highness." He stated seriously and bowed his head a little, imitating a bow.
The princesses looked somewhat confused, but ignored it.
"I'm also afraid I must add one more thing... "
The unicorn refrained from grimacing; they were making things difficult for him.
"Even with all the security you will have, we need to be sure that you will not do anything other than work on your redemption." The ruler of the empire turned to see the older alicorn and nodded as if giving her a sign.
The one in white approached the unicorn and with her magic raised a small object that had the appearance of a ring.
"This is a magical item that Star Swirl the Bearded created while he was still alive. This can differentiate dark magic from white magic; We know that you are weak now and have no magic, but eventually you will get it back, so this will know when you try to use it for evil and it will stop you."
Without even time to react or say anything, the alicorn proceeded and placed the "ring" on the unicorn's horn. The only thing he felt was a small tingle when it came into contact with him.
"Well, that's all, I wish you good luck, Twilight... Now you can leave."
[...]
If it was satisfying to leave the prison, it was much more satisfying to see the faces of the guards and palace workers watching him leave without any type of chain, as if he were someone normal walking through the castle; He smiled arrogantly at anyone who crossed him, shamelessly bragging that he was free.
He couldn't wait for his plan to be carried out, he would never be humiliated again.
It had been hours since they had boarded the Crystal Empire train to Ponyville, they had had to wait a bit for that since it had been agreed that the best thing for everyone was that no one would notice that King Sombra was loose, certainly that would cause a stir throughout the entire Empire and everyone would be scared. So it was ordered that the next train come completely empty so that no one would find out or suspect the presence of the aforementioned king.
Both ponies were in the same line of seats, only one had been placed on the right and the other on the left. Neither of them turned to look at each other, each one was absorbed in their own thoughts, not to mention that they didn't really know or have anything to talk about and would only end up creating an awkward silence.
The princess, for her part, had her head leaning against the window, watching the speed at which the train didn't give her time to admire the landscape. It was more than clear what her thoughts were about, she didn't know how she would get the king to even turn to look at her, and being somewhat afraid of him didn't help either.
She knew the pony was deep in his thoughts, so she figured he wouldn't notice if she gave him a quick little glance. Trying to be sneaky and without moving her head much, she directed her gaze to him, but to her surprise, the unicorn immediately met her gaze with his, causing her to turn away from it in microseconds.
She closed her eyes and let out a silent sigh, she knew that, ultimately, nothing would be easy.
The last time she had seen King Sombra, he had a very different appearance, before his eyes were a very bright green with pupils similar to those Spike had but these were red, without forgetting the purple smoke that came out of them; Before, his horn was also larger and curved backwards like a tusk and tinted red at the end. Lastly she was not going to forget to mention his hair, it was the same color, but before it moved as if it were smoke, while his current hair was quite ordinary, she could tell.
In summary of his current appearance, he had the appearance of a more or less common pony, since even his horn was that of any unicorn, you only had to take away the fact that he was really tall and strong, almost like Applejack's brother, but he was a little more.
His eyes were a very deep and mysterious scarlet color—although there were certain ponies with that same eye color, they still made him look different—; And finally, this pony had fangs, which if you just looked at him out of the corner of your eye you wouldn't be able to notice them, but at the moment he spoke they were quite visible.
“To tell the truth, he is very attractive.”
Her wheel of thoughts paused for a moment and she opened her eyes in surprise at what she herself had thought. She couldn't believe that she had had such a thought when it came to King Sombra.
She mentally scolded herself, trying to ignore those kinds of thoughts.
She shook her head slightly to bring her attention back to the train window, there were still important things to think about, like what she would tell her friends once they noticed the pony with she was accompanied by. She was afraid of their reaction, but more so of Starlight's and Spike's. Starlight could get scared and cast a spell on the king. And Spike, after having helped defeat him, had been left with nightmares; She didn't want Spike's nightmares to come back.
Still, she wanted everything to go well, and a part of her felt calm, she knew that once she explained it to her friends they would understand, they always did.
Now all she had to do was wait.
The desire to run and escape as fast and far as he could had been inevitable, of course he had just wanted to get away and flee from that place and go to any mountain to plan his revenge; but that would just be a dumb movement.
If he had learned anything, it was that it was better to be patient and get what he wanted, than to act on impulse and be humiliatingly defeated. So that's what he would do, he would be patient.
After his audience where he had been judged and told the conditions under which he would be free, they had been escorted directly to a train—which, in his opinion, had taken too long to arrive—which was completely empty.
Upon entering they decided to use a car that was not so far in front but not so far back, the alicorn took a random seat where there was a window on the left, and the unicorn decided to sit in the same row of seats as her, but on the right; The truth is he didn't want to get too close to her.
Two hours after boarding the train, as entertaining as it was to fantasize about him being the king of the Empire and the entire Equestria again, he was starting to get bored, he even felt the need to crack his back.
With nothing else to do, his eyes focused on the pony in the opposite seat.
He didn't expect to catch that same pony looking at him, apparently he wasn't the only one bored on the train.
Being seated in a seat on the right and the pony in one on the left allowed him to observe physical details about her.
When she barely arrived at the cell to make her proposal, everything was noticeably dark, the light was too opaque, he could only notice fairly visible details such as if it had wings, a horn or anything easy to see, but he couldn't see the factions.
The first thing he saw were her eyes, dark violet orbs but at the same time bright; He found them relatively cute, plus they matched well with the color of the coat and mane, which was the next thing to notice.
He had to admit that he liked the type of mane in which colors were mixed, this pony's was a navy blue with two stripes in particular, one of a violet color almost the same as her eyes and another in pink; Without a doubt, an interesting type of mane.
When it came to analyzing her body, he knew that it was not something extravagant, she had a fairly ordinary body, although somewhat thin.
She didn't have a bad physique, he could easily find her attractive, but he wasn't someone who would rely solely on physical appearance to decide whether someone was attractive or not. He needed to find out a little more about her and then he would give the final verdict on her.
If he liked her maybe a little, possibly he wouldn't hurt her as much when he took back his kingdom.
After two more hours, the tedious and awkward trip was over, the princess had only packed one suitcase so that was the only thing to unpack.
Before leaving the train, the pony spoke to the stallion for the first time in the entire trip.
"Uh... King Sombra?" She called him by his name with a bit of insecurity in her tone.
The aforementioned looked at her, raising an eyebrow in response.
"I... Well, I need you to wear this." With her magic she took out a red and black cape from her suitcase, big enough to cover the entire unicorn. "You know... So they don't see you, at least while we walk through the town."
It took a few seconds to respond.
An 'aha' was his only word, taking the cloak and putting it on top of him with some difficulty, since he had no magic and he had to do everything on his own.
When he finished, he simply left the train, followed by the alicorn.
Now it was time to have the long-awaited conversation with her friends.
While she was still on the train, being thirty minutes away from arriving, she wrote a letter and sent it to Spike; The content only warned of her arrival, and she asked them to all meet at the castle, that there was something important to talk about.
Now, standing in front of the door of her castle, with King Sombra at her side, she sighed deeply and tried to let her nerves go away in that sigh. Because, yes, she was nervous.
“They'll take it well, I'm sure”.
"WHAT THE HAY IS HE DOING HERE, TWILIGHT!?" Rainbow Dash's scream echoed throughout the room they were in.
The aforementioned lowered her ears a little due to the force of the sound.
"Rainbow, calm down–" The alicorn tried to pacify her, but was quickly interrupted.
"I'm sorry, Twilight, but I'm with Rainbow, why is King Sombra here? I hope there is a good explanation." Applejack intervened, her serious look indicating that she was not very happy with the surprise.
"There is, I–" Again someone stopped her words.
"King Sombra? I don't understand, who is he?" Starlight noted her confusion.
"Well, if you let me speak–" It was not necessary to explain that she had once again not been allowed to continue.
"King Sombra is a tyrant who took over the Crystal Empire, eliminated its ruler, enslaved a bunch of beautiful crystal ponies, and made them disappear for a thousand years." Rarity explained with her usual elegance but annoyance in her voice.
"Girls... "
"And Twilight just brings him here as if he were just any guest and doesn't even explain anything to us." Rainbow Dash spoke again, apparently the most upset of all.
"Well, I would do it if–"
They all started talking at the same time, starting to make it difficult to understand what each one was saying. Soon the room was a complete bustle, everyone arguing and showing their discontent.
“What's wrong with everyone interrupting me?” The alicorn crossed her legs, frowning slightly, annoyed. She didn't believe how wrong she was when she thought they would take it well.
Tired of waiting for them to calm down, she stood up from her seat and raised her voice.
"Enough, girls!"
Immediately they heard the scream, they all fell silent and turned to look at the pony.
"Listen... King Sombra is here because he has been given the opportunity to reform." For some reason, she felt relieved to finally be able to say it.
While the others just looked like they were going to be jawless if they kept their mouths open for so long.
"WHAT!?" They all shouted in unison, including Spike, who had only remained thoughtful.
About to say something, someone beat her to it.
"Have you lost your mind, sugarcube?" Applejack addressed her, with a look still shocked but worried.
“Maybe.”
For the third time that day, she closed her eyes, releasing a heavy sigh.
"No... Listen, I... Yesterday, when I was taking care of Flurry Heart, the map called me; At first I hesitated to go because it told me to go to the Ice of the Arctic North, yes, where King Sombra had been banished. After thinking about it I decided that I would better obey the map, a guard from the empire accompanied me, we searched for a long time until we found something, or rather someone, and that was King Sombra." She stopped for a second to connect her gaze with the others, and indeed they still looked very worried.
"But he didn't do anything to you?" Fluttershy, who had preferred to remain silent until now, spoke for the first time.
"No, and that's what I was going for, just when we ran to see who he was, he transformed into the form we already know, but the second he did so his magic faded and he fell to the ground. The lieutenant called the guards and the princesses, and after talking with Princess Celestia, we discovered that the mission the map assigned me is to reform King Sombra. So I went to his cell and... I pretty much convinced him to give it a try, that's why we're both here." The alicorn sat down again.
The entire room was silent, everyone still processing what they had heard.
"So... Your mission is to reform him?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Well, yes."
"That's strange, normally friendship missions are not of this style, are you sure that that was actually the mission?"
"Rainbow is right, it's also strange that it only gave it to you, it seems to me that reforming someone like King Sombra would require more than just one pony." The white-furred unicorn agreed.
"I know we've reformed ponies before and it turned out well, I even took care of Discord, but I think King Sombra is much scarier, don't you think, Twilight?" said Fluttershy, joining the conversation with some uncertainty when it came to talk.
"Well... Yes, maybe, but even so it's already done, and I thought about it carefully before making the decision, I think I'm doing the right thing."
"If that's what you believe, then it's fine, we believe in you." Pinkie responded.
"Yes, thank you... Although I would still like to ask you something, if it is not too much, of course."
"What's happening?"
"Well, I know that the mission is mine, but I really need to know if I have your support in this, girls, I don't think I can do it all by myself; I know I just said I thought it through, but I don't know how this is going to turn out anyway."
"Of course, Twi, you don't even have to ask, we'll be there for whatever you need." The one with rainbow hair stated.
The others attended as a sign that they agreed as well.
"Well, then I guess he'll stay here with us, right?" Starlight questioned.
"That's right, I have to keep a close eye on him."
"Well, if all this is clear, I really have some stuff to do, I promised Applebloom that I would accompany her to the town theater and it's already getting a little late, so I have to go, girls." Next she got up from her chair "I know you're capable of doing this, sugarcube, but be careful, okay?" She suggested once again.
"I will, thanks, Applejack."
She just nodded before turning around and leaving.
Soon the other ponies did basically the same thing, excusing themselves that they had certain matters pending and had to leave, although not before also warning the three inhabitants of the castle to be cautious with their new "housemate"; little by little they withdrew, leaving only the three mentioned above.
"Ugh, what a day." Starlight complained, the whole situation had been quite unexpected "It's getting a little late, I think I'd better go up and get ready for bed." She got up from her seat.
"I'll accompany you." Spike followed her without exchanging a word with the alicorn, which she would have found strange if it weren't for the fact that her mind was actually very busy thinking about the new great adventure that she knew was coming, and that she wasn't exactly very excited about living it.
When the unicorn and the dragon came out, they both passed as far as they could from the king and looked elsewhere to avoid exchanging glances. The king had been sitting there behind the door during the entire discussion, with his arms crossed and his cape still put.
When Twilight was completely alone in the room, she closed her eyes tiredly, crashing her head against the table; She really needed a break.
She turned to look at the door that connected the main room—which is where she was—with the corridors, she knew that behind that door the pony that was causing her fatigue was sitting, and she wanted and knew that she should talk to him, but she just had no idea what she was going to say or how she should start.
She knew absolutely nothing about him, nothing that she could use as a topic of conversation so she could move on to something else and little by little get to know more about him. Since she would be lying if she said that outside of the mission, this pony didn't intrigue her, of course he did, it was like a mysterious book that she was eager to open, but at the same time she was scared to try, this was a dangerous book.
Ten minutes with her head lying on the table was enough to help her get up with better energy, so she did it, she went straight to him.
The sound of the door opening quickly brought the unicorn out of his thoughts, reflexively turning to see the being that had been responsible for.
His gaze connected with that of the alicorn, noticing how she quickly became nervous and showed how intimidated she felt before him.
"Ah... I'm going to take you to your..." She cut off what she was going to say when she realized that he was still wearing the cloak. "You know? You can now take off your cape. I'm going to guide you to your room, follow me."
The unicorn obediently did as she said, on the way to what would be his room he took off his cape.
"And... Here we are." She pointed with one of her hooves to the room, waiting for him to enter.
As she did so, he could clearly see her look away from him as he entered the room.
She didn't know the way it fed his ego that she felt threatened and intimidated when he was so close to her.
Once he was inside, she asked: "Do you like it? Is it comfortable enough?"
A rather unusual feeling invaded inside him, why was she asking him if he felt okay where he was? Why did she even care about that?
"Yes, that's okay." He finished by answering, feigning indifference.
The thick voice of the stallion still created a strange feeling in the alicorn that she couldn't decipher.
"I'm glad... And... If you don't mind, I wanted to ask you something."
He responded by making eye contact with her, waiting to know what she had to say.
"I can't help but notice that you didn't have those bruises and injuries when we found you in the snow, may I know what happened?" She finally asked, she had noticed these details as soon as she saw him in the Throne Room, but she decided to wait until they could talk about it in private, knowing that asking the question in public might not have been a very good choice.
And there was that strange feeling again, why did she care if he had gotten hurt or not?
"Nothing, I'm fine."
But she was not satisfied with that answer.
"It was the guards, wasn't it?"
"If you already knew, why did you ask?" He responded quickly and “defensively,” while he narrowed his eyes in some annoyance.
"I didn't know, I assumed it, it's different." Unlike him, she was not upset, she had realized that these behaviors would be common... And quite recurrent as well.
"Yes, it was them, are you happy? What are you gonna do?"
"I could get them disciplined or even removed from their position, after all, they didn't have the right to do that to you." She smiled confidently. "Even so, I asked you the question because I wanted to know if you weren't in a lot of pain; because we have a first aid kit if you'd like to use it."
"I'm fine... I'll get over it."
"Okay, if you say so, but–" she lifted a medium-sized white box with a red cross in the middle with her magic and placed it on the ground in front of him, "–if you change your mind about that, you can use it. I'm not a doctor, but some wounds seemed to be a bit deep." A small grimace of pain appeared on her face.
He looked down at where the box was, and then returned to look at the alicorn.
"Okay."
"Well... I hope you can rest, good night."
As soon as she moved a little away from the door, the stallion hurriedly closed it without answering her.
This being so, she turned around and headed straight to her own room, which was in fact in front of the stallion's.
When she was finally inside it and the sound that confirmed that the doors had closed appeared, the alicorn fell exhausted on her hind legs, releasing a breath that she did not know she had been holding.
It had certainly been a hard day, she needed a long rest.
She had no idea what would happen next, but she knew that this was just the beginning of many new experiences.
The sun began to slowly carry out its illumination process, marking the beginning of another new day. Another new day in which the purple alicorn hoped would not be a failure like all the previous ones.
For context, it had been a full week since they had arrived at the castle and she had provided lodging for the king.
Just the day after that, the princess had planned to invite him to have breakfast with everyone and thus be able to make him feel more confident; something she couldn't accomplish since the pony refused to come out.
Every time the alicorn went to knock on his door to try again, he responded that he didn't feel like eating or leaving his room, so she simply left some food for him at the door and then went somewhere else.
She wanted to insist, but if she wanted him to start feeling comfortable, she knew she had to give him space until he felt confident enough to at least leave the room.
On the other hand, during those exact seven days in which the steed had not wanted to go out, he had simply preferred to stay inside so he could think carefully about everything.
He didn't know how, but he had to return to the Crystal Empire and fulfill his mission: Liberate all the Umbrums, which was the idea from the beginning.
For different reasons, his mind felt like a puzzle with several pieces missing, there were things he remembered and things he didn't, and when he tried to remember, his head was attacked by some type of extremely painful and annoying migraine.
This being so, he actually wasn't very clear about why exactly he should free the other umbrums, he had almost forgotten it; but even if the reason was uncertain, he knew it was important, he could feel it.
Being locked in a single room for a whole week might seem like an exaggeration for any pony, but it wasn't like that for him.
A week in a room didn't compare to a thousand years in the ice, did it?
He could boast that he had more endurance than any other existing pony, he did not believe that there was any pony capable of withstanding even half of the things that he had experienced in his more than a thousand years of life.
Even if a few years had already passed, the experience of being contained in a huge piece of ice but unable to actually feel anything was still vivid.
He remembered how he was indeed alive, but he couldn't feel anything at all, he didn't know if this had been caused by the numbness that the cold caused to his body or because he simply didn't have one and was in his shadow form, but whatever the answer, he had always been aware of the environment he was in; He couldn't feel if he was breathing or not, he couldn't feel his heart beating, and at some point after a few years, he stopped knowing if his eyes were open or not. Everything around him was darkness, everything in his mind was darkness too; and that same darkness that once terrified him was what helped him maintain hope that one day, no matter how far away it was, he would be free again. The darkness ended up becoming his faithful companion.
But, even though after the first hundred years, he had learned to wait and be patient (as much as possible), this experience had been one of the worst tortures he had ever experienced, and he hoped he would never have to return. to ever live it.
Although well, that could perhaps compete with the time the crystal heart literally dismembered him and reduced his body to pieces; so that he then had to regenerate and each piece had to be put together one by one as if it were some type of board game.
But no, he was not so masochistic as to start remembering all his bad moments and make himself suffer by having to relive them.
That being the case, he preferred to continue wandering among his memories.
He quickly entered the memory of when he was a little pony, more than a thousand years ago, specifically that day when he went with his best friend to admire the crystal heart, which was supposed to show what would be your future, your destiny.
And whilst it had presented his friend with a beautiful future where she would become a powerful princess loved and appreciated by everyone, to him, it had only shown that his destiny was to become a being of darkness, an evil being.
From that precise moment, nothing in his life was ever the same, the days of being a colt full of joy and innocence had come to an end.
Suddenly, it was as if he was on the outskirts of the Crystal Empire again, feeling chills run through his body due to the freezing night, Radiant Hope had just given him the news that she would be leaving for Canterlot and leaving him alone. The only pony who made him feel safe and happy would leave him alone.
He had run as fast as he could to escape, he wanted to escape reality, he didn't want things to change, he didn't want to be alone again. But above all, he did not want the destiny that the crystal heart had shown them to come true.
That's how he had arrived, he had run for a long time until he couldn't take it anymore.
And that's where he found it.
The crystal, that red crystal that had marked a before and after in his life, that crystal that had revealed to him his true ancestry, and his true purpose in this life.
That was his destiny, to be evil, to harm others, to create nightmares; to be the King of Darkness and Shadows.
That was when he understood everything, he understood why his appearance was so strange, he understood why each crystal fair made him feel the worst pain, he understood why the crystal heart had shown him that horrible image, and he understood why no matter how hard he tried, he could never change his future, he would never be good.
He understood that his fate had been sealed long ago.
It was six in the morning, Princess Celestia had already raised the dazzling sun that was beginning to shine through the windows. The stallion focused his gaze on the ceiling, admiring the fine crystal decorations that hung from there, to tell the truth it looked somewhat like his previous castle, so he liked it, it was visually comfortable.
His mind remained active, his ears waiting to hear the same sound of footsteps that the Princess of Friendship was going to cause at any moment, just as she had already been doing for a full week. She would get up early and knock on his door in the hope that he would say "yes" to her request to join her for breakfast.
There was not a single bit of fool in him, he knew that she wanted to give him comforts in order to soften him and slowly make him change. But no, he wasn't willing to fall into that dirty trap called friendship.
However, he at the same time considered that there was also some gain in it; If he managed to have the princess' complete trust, there were infinite possibilities (not really) of what he could do with it. His ultimate goal could be facilitated; he could even convince her to accompany her on her next visit to the empire.
Of course it wouldn't be easy, neither he nor the alicorn were that naive, he wasn't going to soften, and the princess would never believe that he changed so quickly and that he would suddenly like to pay a visit to the empire. That was stupid, in fact, surely the empire was the last place the alicorn would want to take him.
If he analyzed his options, it seemed, unfortunately for him, there was only one way to approach the Crystal Palace and achieve his mission.
He quickly got up from his bed and headed to open the door, although not before rolling his eyes and sighing heavily.
The purple alicorn behind the door looked somewhat surprised, Shadow deduced that she had been about to knock based on the hoof she held up.
"Yes, I will accompany you to breakfast."
The princess and the unicorn walked together through the corridors of the castle, causing an echo with the sound of their steps.
She was a little excited, she had finally managed to get the unicorn to dare to come out of his room, which for her meant progress; a small one, but still progress.
Despite how happy she was, the castle was large and the silence was beginning to get awkward.
"So... What... What did make you change your mind?" she asked using a slow tone andlowering her head, curious about the answer.
"You."
She frowned quickly.
"Me?"
"Do you know how annoying it is that you knock on the door every day at six in the morning when I'm peacefully asleep just so I can accompany you to breakfast?"
The unicorn didn't even turn to look at her or show any expression.
The reality is that he was only trying to bother her, he didn't usually sleep in the mornings, he always woke up quite early.
The alicorn opened her eyes in surprise, realizing how true what the elder pony said was, everyone in the castle woke up early—not to say that she actually woke them up early—, she had not thought that maybe he liked to continue sleeping in the mornings.
The princess looked down, showing how ashamed she felt about that fact.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you... If you want, you can go back to your room and come back later to have breakfast; don't worry, we'll leave you food."
The unicorn thought about it for a few seconds.
"No, I'm fine like this." He continued on his way, leaving her behind.
[...]
To say that breakfast time had been awkward was an understatement, that had been more than just awkward.
Spike and Starlight were feeling scared and defensive, and they didn't bother to hide it, their looks made it very clear.
Twilight only watched as the three of them seemed to hate each other's guts, worried about how she could help improve their coexistence.
Finally, when the dragon and the unicorn had finished their meal, they both left the table as quickly as possible and without saying a single word or looking at anyone.
The princess watched them leave with some discouragement, she knew it wasn't easy, but she hoped they would at least try. She let out a sigh and turned to the only pony left at the table next to her.
"I'm sorry about that, Sombra... Can I just call you Sombra?"
The aforementioned turned to look at her with his usual serious look, giving himself a few seconds to respond.
"Mhmm."
Following that, he stood up without saying anything at all, taking his plate with his mouth since his magic wasn't working at all.
"Are you going back to your room now?"
The question took him by surprise, since he had thought the conversation had come to an end.
Since he couldn't say anything because of the plate in his mouth, he simply nodded.
"Wouldn't you like... I don't know... To do something?"
He raised an eyebrow, evidently not knowing what she meant.
"I mean... Isn't it boring to be in a room all day? Wouldn't you rather do something else?... I mean, you haven't been out in a whole week, you know?" She suggested with some nerves; Although she didn't want to force or pressure him into anything, she felt that spending seven days a week locked in a room doing (possibly) nothing was too much.
The pony dropped the plate he was carrying when he realized that he was going to have to respond verbally.
"What am I supposed to do?"
"I don't know, what do you like to do? Don't you have any hobbies that distract you?"
"I assure you that you would never allow me to do what I like to do." He replied, showing a somewhat malicious smile.
"Oh…" The princess didn't even know how much she should worry about that, so she decided not to overlook it. "Well, then–" Before she could continue, he stopped her words.
"You know what? Stop right there. Whatever you're trying to do isn't going to work, okay?" He looked at her intensely. "Or do you think that you are going to achieve all this nonsense of 'changing me' by inviting me to breakfast and being nice to me?" He asked skeptically and with a mocking tone.
The alicorn was speechless in a matter of seconds, not really having expected that.
The unicorn took the plate back and turned to leave when he saw that she wouldn't say anything else.
But she stopped him with her words.
"Sombra, I... I do this because I do believe that you can change, the fact that the map gave me the mission was just a push to realize that I don't know why you did what you did, I don't know if you're really just the villain in a poorly told story." By this point, she had managed to catch the stallion's attention. "Maybe you're someone who deserves the benefit of the doubt and you were going to die without it, because you know better than anyone that you wouldn't be able to withstand another Crystal Fair. Besides, I am not going to change you, I can't, you are the one who decides if you want to change or not, I just must and want to show you that if you do, you'll realize how beautiful it is to live in harmony."
It was the unicorn who was now unsure of what to say.
He still stared at the alicorn, but not in such a harsh way anymore.
The princess waited for some word or action from his part, but he simply turned around and left the dining room, leaving her alone.
Once again, her discouragement was beginning to take over, things didn't seem to be going as well as she wanted and expected.
“Why does this have to be so difficult?”
Suddenly, the sound of the doors opening brought her out of her inner thoughts.
A smile formed on her face when she saw who it was.
It seemed that, in the end, the former king had perhaps come to consider some part of the words she had said.
Although she wasn't going to have many illusions about it either.
It was satisfying for the unicorn to hear how the slow sound of his hooves as he walked echoed throughout the hallway. He enjoyed knowing that at that precise moment there was no one to bother him; It was just him and his thoughts.
He did not have an exact count of how long he had been hanging around the corridors of the small crystal palace, away from the living room and main rooms for various reasons.
But it wasn't something he cared to know either, even though he took into account how important it was to always keep in mind the reason why he had "accepted" the purple alicorn's offer, it had actually been difficult to avoid just disconnecting for a moment from reality and allow himself to feel without having to think about anything.
It was easy to just think and mention being locked in a frozen void for a thousand years, but experiencing it was a totally different story.
At first he believed that it would be easy to recover from the certainly traumatic experience, but as the days in freedom passed, the consequences began to become visible and made him have a somewhat different point of view.
It was very clear that that feeling of existing but without feeling that he really existed had not been pretty, and although he did not want to accept it, every time he remembered it, his body was covered with chills and he inevitably had to close his eyes to avoid thinking about it.
And yes, three or four years had already passed since he had managed to get out of his eternal prison, but he was never able to have time with himself to reflect on his life in general, since only a few minutes after having freed himself, he had run without thinking to try to conquer the empire once again.
And everyone already knew how that had ended.
It's not like he blamed anypony for that more than himself, it should be noted; It hadn't been a very smart move on his part.
Whatever the case, he now had a problem that was genuinely starting to stress him out.
Actions as simple as eating, walking, seeing, hearing, feeling or even breathing had taken on a much deeper meaning than he would like to admit.
His stay in his ice prison had been so long that sometimes the possibility crossed his mind that everything he was currently experiencing would end up being a cruel dream. That perhaps he had finally succumbed to madness from being alone for too long, not even being able to move; and that in the end he would end up waking up once again to his daily ordeal.
So much so that, deep inside, he even came to wonder if all the acts he had committed had actually been worth all that undeniable suffering.
He frowned in disgust at this last thought.
He didn't know what floor number he was on, but it was a fairly high one, enough that he could easily see much of the small town of Ponyville from the window.
He slowly approached the glass, taking a moment to visualize the details of the houses and streets, finding that they were actually quite different from those of the empire.
Having lived his entire life in the aforementioned place and due to his social and economic position, he had never really had the opportunity to visit other countries/kingdoms, not even Equestria, so everything was quite new to him.
Something quite peculiar that he could notice but he couldn't understand was how so many ponies managed to live together in such a small place and get along with each other.
Even if the city he used to reside in was large, it did not erase the fact that he had grown up in an orphanage, where regardless of whether he liked it or not, he had had to live and share his space with large amounts of children.
And, of course, they never managed to get along.
Wanting to forget about that specific topic, he made a gesture of indifference towards the townspeople before moving away from the window and thus proceeding with the exploration of the place.
He had to admit that he hadn't disliked the palace when he first saw it; Crystal being its main construction material, it gave it a quite familiar and pleasant sensation. Besides, it was undoubtedly quite pretty.
Without realizing it, he had soon finished going around the entire castle, finding himself again in the same place where he had started: in front of the library.
He didn't give it much thought, there was literally nothing else to do for the rest of the day and probably the week as well, so he just rolled his eyes slightly before pushing the doors open and walking into that room.
He was surprised by the considerable amount of books that were found inside, taking into account that it was a very small palace compared to others, he had not imagined that it had such a large library.
Of course, it wasn't even close to being a quarter of the Crystal Empire's library, but he still liked it, now he could be sure that he would keep himself busy for the next few days.
Maintaining a slow pace as he walked, he approached one of the shelves, specifically one located in the area titled “History of Ponies”, where he deduced that he would find the book he had decided to read.
He only had to search with his eyes for the space of the 'H' to—in less than three seconds—be able to find the book that he intended to use as a hobby/distraction and at the same time as a tool to learn a little about the new era in which he lived.
Whoever was in charge of organizing the books (or the library in general) seemed to have a very good sense of organization.
Being about to take the said book, he stopped when his ears managed to pick up two voices coming from a deeper subsection in the library, noticing how they became more audible every second.
"I don't understand why you behave like this, I just asked you to clean it." The female voice sounded somewhere between confused and annoyed.
He recognized that voice as that of the princess.
"And that's just what I'm going to do, what's the problem? " answered the one that Sombra deduced was the lilac dragon.
"The problem is that you responded too rudely." At this point the alicorn's voice could already be heard quite close.
"Ugh, okay," he complained, "I'm sorry. Happy now?"
"No, Spike, you're still being rude, what's wrong with you today?" Both the dragon and the alicorn were in his field of vision, so he could notice the worried face on the purple-eyed one when she asked the question.
"Nothing, it's just that... "His words faded once he became aware of the stallion's presence.
It didn't take long for the alicorn to imitate the minor's action, looking surprised once she had noticed it.
"Oh... Hi, I hadn't seen you since yesterday." She greeted him, smiling slightly.
"Yeah, hi." He didn't give it much importance, he looked away and turned around to put his attention on the book he was going to take before they interrupted him.
"Whatever, I'm going to my room," said the smallest one quite indifferently before the short greeting of both ponies.
Upon hearing this she stopped looking at the unicorn and returned her attention to the reptile.
"Wait, I really need you to clean the–"
"Yeah, yeah, I know." He sounded annoyed. "But, jeez, Twilight, couldn't you do it?"
The aforementioned mare's face seemed to change very subtly, instead of looking worried she now looked upset.
"I was clear when I told you not to eat ice cream on the reading tables for obvious reasons; Now that table is sticky and full of flies. So no, you go clean it yourself."
The look and tone that the alicorn had used to address him had only increased his anger even more, since she was evidently scolding him; But he could see that she was also quite upset and in truth he was afraid of answering something that would end up upsetting her more.
So he just started walking without saying a single word, but frowning at her as hard as he could and huffing under his breath quite furiously.
As he walked away from her and left the room, Twilight relaxed her face a little more, feeling no longer upset but sad, she felt very bad when she argued with the little dragon.
On the other hand, after having witnessed the short fight, the stallion had found interesting the way in which the 'conversation' had been generated and then concluded.
To be honest, he didn't have the slightest idea about the story of the dragon and the princess, therefore he didn't know the type of relationship those two had either.
But he could swear that what he had heard was a mother scolding her son.
Which was absurd and hilarious in his opinion, the dragons and the ponies had never been able to agree on anything, so their relationship was quite bad, to tell the truth.
Thus, it was almost impossible for this pony and that specific dragon to have such a relationship.
Now that he thought about it, she was somewhat intrigued by the story of those two creatures, perhaps he would ask the alicorn at some point.
"Do you need help finding something?" The princess suddenly asked.
"What?"
"You've been looking at the book for a long time without opening it, I thought maybe it's not the one you were looking for."
It was true, he had delved too deep into his own thoughts that he hadn't even opened the book. And he hadn't noticed that she had taken a seat either.
"Ah, no, I'm fine, this is the one I was looking for."
She took a quick look at the cover.
"'History of Equestria Vol. 1'?" She read aloud, then turning to look at the stallion with some curiosity.
"Is it prohibited for me or...?" He suggested, not being able to recognize what she meant with her look.
"Oh, no, no, it's okay, don't worry." She hurriedly responded, letting out a nervous laugh. "I was just curious that you wanted to read that particular book."
He looked at the book once more and then at her, thinking about whether or not he should answer truthfully.
"I want to catch up with everything that has happened in these years, there are things that I don't understand because of how modern they have become, so I hope this helps me." He responded, simplifying everything.
"Oh, sure, I understand. Although that's Volume 1, it covers the history of Equestria since long before Princess Celestia was even born... And well, I assume she's older than you, right?"
"I don't know, it's probable." He answered vaguely. "Regarding the other thing, I'm aware of that, it's just that I prefer to read the context before everything."
"Well, it's valid."
"I also think that it is entertaining to read history books, it is important to have knowledge of what happened in the past."
The alicorn smiled at this statement, since she thought exactly the same; Usually most people found history boring and classified it as a waste of time unless you really needed to know about a specific event. But she had always been a fan of history books; When she was a filly, instead of reading fantasy stories before going to sleep, she preferred to consume a good portion of ancient reading, since she knew that everything she read were events that had actually happened at some point.
"I think the same; In fact, history books are among my favorites." She kept her smile.
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
"It's good to know that you do have a good sense of taste then."
Unexpectedly, he at the same table, in front of her.
"What are you reading?"
For many reasons, this question was surprising, but mostly due to the fact that, before, the steed wouldn't even look at her, and now he was interested in knowing something as trivial as what she was reading.
"Well, I'm reading an amplified version of the theory of space-time ruptures when doing magic, you know... That book by Twinkle Mark where she says that enough magic could break space-time and even allowing us to travel between dimensions and things like that."
"Ah, yeah, it's quite old." He looked at the cover, easily recognizing the book. "It was very popular at the time, but then Twinkle Mark began to lose credibility and be seen more as crazy."
She let out a short nasal laugh before responding.
"Yeah, well... I don't know if she was crazy or not, but everything she had to say is very interesting, it makes you question everything and see magic in a different way, I would say it's even thrilling."
"I don't know, I think the thrilling part goes away when you remember that they are just theories."
"You can see it another way, more like a fictional story that could (or not) be real."
He just shrugged, though seeming to agree with the alicorn's observation.
Without even realizing it, they began to spend time talking about different topics (mainly related to books), getting carried away by the slight excitement of finding someone who shared their interests and provided a coherent and valid point of view.
The only thing that brought them out of their bubble was the hunger that set in when night began to fall.
Inevitably they had to stop their quite interesting conversation that had been going on for hours.
When it was finally time to sleep, Twilight was feeling cheerful, something had changed slightly that day.
While it was hopeful that the stallion had evidently taken another step forward in his reform; Her joy was focused more on knowing that she had spent a very good time with the unicorn, she had gotten to discover a small part of him that she could never have imagined was there.
Which even filled her with more intrigue about him, she felt a peculiar curiosity to get to know him more thoroughly.
It had been a good day, she hadn't even planned anything and things had turned out better than she would have expected.
With a small smile on her face, her consciousness slowly faded into the background, marking the end of that day for the alicorn.
It was another quiet day in the Crystal Empire, the sunlight reflected on the great palace caused it to shine dazzlingly as usual; The ponies walked back and forth with smiles on their faces, which in turn caused the magic crystal heart to glow.
It went without saying that if they were aware of the latest events in the empire, things would be very different.
Even though it had only been a few years since they had been freed from the enslaving king, discovering that he himself was now on the loose was not going to be welcomed by anyone.
For this same reason, the rulers of both the empire and Equestria knew they had to keep the matter as discreet as possible, at least until they knew how to assure their subjects that King Sombra was not a threat and they had nothing to fear.
But, if they had to be honest, not even they themselves were sure that this was the case.
"Honey, do we really need to go?" Shining Armor asked his wife, who had her back turned while she was looking for something in her daughter's closet.
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye with a little tiredness and annoyance mixed, this being the third time that the unicorn asked her the same question.
"Yes, I had already told you, this is important if we want to maintain the ties between the Crystal Empire and Maretonia," she responded without turning to look at him, still opening several drawers at once and picking up articles of clothing in a disorderly manner.
"I understand, but we already went last week, is that not enough? Are we going to have to go every week?"
"Of course not, it's just these days that we're going to be a little hectic, but then things will calm down. Remember that it is necessary for the empire to recover its commercial relations, they have all been lost since... Holy cow, I can't find a single clean diaper for Flurry!" The Crystal Princess complained, raising her voice, at the same time abruptly closing the drawers, looking quite upset. "Shining, don't you tell me you forgot to buy them." This time she did turn to see the unicorn.
"Uh..." he felt a little unsure of responding when he noticed the fury in his wife's eyes, it was not the first time that he forgot to buy the things that the baby needed. "Well..."
Before he could finish, and much to Shining Armor's relief, someone interrupted by entering the room.
"Good morning, Your Majesties." A unicorn with orange fur and a pronounced beard greeted with apparent joy.
"How are you doing, Sunburst?" Shining walked towards him with a smile on his face, hoping that with his interruption his wife would forget about the diaper issue.
"Well, thank you, I hope I haven't kept you waiting."
"Not at all. Don't worry, Sunburst." Cadance joined the conversation. "In fact you'll have to excuse us, Flurry isn't ready yet, we forgot to buy her diapers." She looked undisguisedly at her husband next to her, who avoided her gaze at all costs.
"Oh." Although he realized what was happening, he ignored it. "It's okay, I can go buy them. You, on the contrary, should leave now; the train will leave in thirty minutes." He entered the room, greeting the baby who was in her crib when he saw her.
"Sure, thank you, and sorry again for bothering you."
"Oh, okay, it wasn't of much importance what was on my agenda this week... Still, hadn't you said that Twilight was going to be free these weeks?"
Upon hearing the question, both rulers looked at each other with insecurity.
Sunburst was always taking care of Flurry Heart, almost making him her official foalsitter; For this reason, not having so much work to do, Twilight had decided to offer to take care of the baby and thus help lighten his load, leaving the unicorn a little more free time.
But with everything that had happened, and Twilight now having the former tyrant of the empire with her, the baby's parents were definitely not going to allow her to be even a single meter close to him.
"Should we tell him?" The prince whispered to his wife.
The stallion in the cape managed to hear.
"Tell me what?" he asked as he lifted the baby with his magic, looking quite confused.
"Uh... You know the story of King Sombra, right?"
"... Yeah?" He raised an eyebrow in confusion, the question seemed strange to him, he didn't understand what that had to do with the topic they were discussing.
"He's back, and right now...he's with Twilight."
The days had passed quickly, the former king's attitude perhaps was not the best, perhaps he was not the most talkative or the most cheerful pony; but the alicorn felt that in those eight days that had passed, he was already ready to begin his reform.
And that brought her to the first lesson she had decided she would teach the unicorn.
Kindness.
She had been thinking about it for a long time, analyzing what would be the best way and order to teach him the main values that made up friendship, so that by knowing one, it would not be so difficult for him to understand the other.
So she decided on kindness. Without a doubt she was going to need Fluttershy's help, she represented the element of kindness, therefore there was no pony better suited for it.
Even so, the alicorn did not intend to leave all the work to the poor pegasus, who was surely going to be quite nervous and scared; After all, the mission had been granted to Twilight, and neither Fluttershy nor any of her friends had to bear it, so she was only going to ask for some of her help and the rest would try to figure it out by herself.
However, she well understood that she would not be able to make the unicorn learn to be kind in a single day; In fact, she knew that it could take him even months, the values of friendship weren't something that he could just learn, they had to be born from within and put into practice. Just as she had once done.
She stood up from the chair she had been sitting in, heading towards the library, where she knew the stallion was located.
It felt nice to have to go look for him in the library instead of his room; She would never have imagined that he would have any kind of interest in reading, but, ultimately, she had no complaints.
If she had to be honest, she was excited that he was slowly opening up more—even if it had only been one time that they shared a pleasant moment together—, she would be lying if she said she wasn't interested in getting to know him further.
Of course she didn't forget that he was a villain, but, to be fair, she didn't even know why he was evil, she didn't know why he had decided to take that path.
No one becomes evil for no reason, right?
"Sombra?" she called him by his name, quickly capturing his attention.
The unicorn turned to look at her in response, releasing his gaze from the book he was holding.
"I need you to be ready in five minutes, I had already told you that today we would start with your first friendship lesson, right?" She informed him, smiling a little.
The stallion nodded slightly and looked away from her to return to his reading, not seeming to have given it much importance.
Seeing that she would get no verbal response, the alicorn closed the door and headed elsewhere.
She didn't know how things would turn out, but she hoped everything would go as planned.
The princess was walking near the Everfree forest with the stallion a few steps behind her, heading towards the yellow pegasus' house.
The day after her friends found out about the mission that had been assigned to her, she had asked Spike to let each of them know that at some point she would come to their houses to ask for their contribution with the friendship lesson of the former king, only she had not told them exactly when.
It was a joy that the little dragon's powers were beginning to grow as he did, he was learning to be able to send more things than just letters, and to more people than just Princess Celestia.
Already finding both ponies in front of the door of the pegasus' house, Twilight sighed, mentally preparing herself and whispering an almost inaudible "Here we go."
She knocked on the door about three times, and it didn't take long for it to be opened, although quite subtly.
Behind the door, a yellow-looking pegasus with pastel pink hair peeked out, hiding behind her mane, like she usually did.
"Yes?"
"Hello, Fluttershy." She greeted with a smile.
"Oh, Twilight," recognizing her made her nerves diminish a little, "it's nice to see you, did you need anything?" Even though the princess was her friend and she trusted her, her tone of voice was still low.
"I'm also glad to see you, and yes. Do you remember when I told everyone that I would probably need their help with the reform of... You know who?" The alicorn lowered her voice more when mentioning the last thing, not wanting to disturb her friend.
"Yes, I remember." The pegasus hadn't actually immediately grasped what the alicorn's words actually meant, but when she did, her nerves visibly tensed.
"Well... " The alicorn left the sentence in the air and pointed to the stallion next to her with a hoof, allowing the silence to complete what she was trying to say.
The pegasus slowly and cautiously opened the door, revealing the terrifying unicorn (according to her).
"I need your help today." The princess kept her smile nervous, not being surprised by the reaction she would immediately get.
Well, it hadn't all turned out that bad.
Yes, it's true, Fluttershy had almost fainted three times in a row after seeing King Sombra standing at her door—despite having known in advance that this would happen—but other than that, everything had gone well.
After telling her a few words, and making her understand that the unicorn would not harm her, the pegasus managed to calm down, or at least breathe somewhat normally.
Twilight considered that perhaps it would be somewhat uncomfortable for the three of them to be inside Fluttershy's house, since the main room was somewhat small and with everyone inside, each one's personal space was reduced quite a bit, a situation that would perhaps make things even more uncomfortable for everyone, especially for the pegasus.
So she decided it was best to stay outside.
They had left and walked a little towards a quieter place, almost reaching the edge of the Everfree forest, since the pegasus lived a short distance from it.
They decided to stop when they were under a large tree that covered them well from the sun's rays and provided a peaceful environment.
It didn't take long for an awkward silence to fall between the three ponies.
The alicorn, knowing full well that if she didn't speak no one else would, began.
"First of all, Sombra, this is Fluttershy." She pointed with her hoof to the pony next to her. "She represents the element of kindness."
He only gave her a quick glance, without changing his serious expression.
"Well, Fluttershy, what I would like is for you to explain to Sombra what it means to be kind." The alicorn indicated, smiling to alleviate the anxiety that she felt, expectant of what her friend would respond next.
As she had planned before, she wasn't going to ask much of the pink-haired mare, she knew very well that she was nervous, she understood it and she wasn't going to put too much pressure on her.
She, being the Princess of Friendship, of course knew and could explain kindness; In reality, she could explain any of the five elements, but she felt it was better for the explanation to come from someone more expert on the subject.
The pegasus seemed to doubt what the alicorn said, turning to look at her for a second and then directing her gaze to the stallion in front of her, not being able to muster enough courage to face the strong and expressionless look that the taller one was giving her.
Instead of answering, she just cringed uncomfortably and tried as hard as she could to hide her face in her hair.
"Okay, uh... "The princess said with a little uncertainty when she saw the pegasus' reaction, realizing that (again) she was going to have to help her a little. "Let's see." She directed her gaze to the stallion. "Sombra, what do you know about being kind?"
The aforementioned let out a little air in annoyance, not wanting to answer that, plus it bothered him that the alicorn treated him as if he didn't know what kindness was or any of the other values of friendship, of course he did. He knew and understood what they were, he just didn't put them into practice because he didn't feel like it.
"Being good to others?" He almost drawled his words as he raised an eyebrow, failing to change his serious face and disinterested look.
"Well..." the pegasus muttered, still too self-conscious to stop looking at the ground. "Yes, but actually it's more than just that."
She had been playing with her hoof without even realizing it, this in response to how overwhelmed she felt. Twilight, noticing this, approached her and tried to comfort her by placing a hoof on her shoulder, silently encouraging her to continue talking.
"Being kind also requires empathy, knowing how to put yourself in the place of others in order to understand their feelings and actions. Sometimes being kind is not easy, there are ponies who can treat you badly, but if you show them a little kindness, they will also show it to you."
"...What if they don't?"
"Well... You can't do anything about that, but at least you will be at peace with yourself knowing that you acted in the right way. Being kind is not only something you do for the sake of others, but also for your own."
The stallion provided no verbal response, and instead only raised an eyebrow in confusion and skepticism.
The pink-haired one noticed this expression and looked away from him again, feeling intimidated and uncomfortable by the stallion's judging gaze.
The alicorn felt a little bad seeing the state her friend was in, so she decided to end everything.
"Okay, Fluttershy, we can finish here. Thank you so much."
The aforementioned only made a barely audible squeak as she nodded her head.
"But I would still like to talk about something else with you." The princess now addressed the unicorn who was still standing there, watching without saying anything at all. "Sombra, stay here please, I'll talk to Fluttershy for a few minutes, I won't be long."
He simply obeyed without responding or refusing.
Twilight didn't really know what to think about the unicorn's attitude. He was behaving in some ways very... Different than what she would have thought, so she didn't know whether to feel happy or worried that this was the case.
In other words, she had expected that maybe he would be somehow more arrogant, sarcastic, rude or something. She had hoped that at least he would say something, but the whole time he was silent, he had a vacant look on his face, he obeyed any order or request she made of him and did not refute it, he was too expressionless.
And she didn't know what to think or what to do against that, it was difficult to read it when all the time he kept the same serious expression.
Still, she trusted herself, she would figure it out, it was her duty.
On the other hand, thoughts very different from those of the princess were not passing through the stallion's head.
It's true that everything he did was to disguise that he was changing, but he didn't know if he was doing a good job. He wasn't quite sure how he should behave, he didn't want to ruin his own façade.
Today, according to the princess, had been his first “friendship lesson”, and of course he wanted to tease and say a few things to that yellow pegasus who was supposedly the “element of kindness.”
He had found it completely pathetic the way an adult pegasus like herself hid behind her own hair and looked like the kind of pony who was scared of her own shadow.
If there was something he couldn't stand, it was weakness. Being weak simply led to ruin, there was nothing more to say.
Despite all that, although he hated to admit it and would never tell anyone, he had found the pegasus somewhat cute, and somehow, attractive. He wasn't going to specify too much, but the way he looked like someone adorable and pure created some interest in the unicorn.
But something inside him told him that it was best not to think about it too much, for some reason he felt that if he did, he would only cause problems for himself.
Having been lost in his thoughts, he did not notice when they approached a restaurant and the alicorn took a seat at one of the tables outside.
"Sit." She suggested with a small smile.
Having obeyed and having already sat down in the chair in front of the alicorn, she placed her hooves on the table, staring at him.
The unicorn, seeing this, imitated her actions.
"Sombra, tell me, what do you think about today's lesson?"
The question took him by surprise, especially since it was clear that he wasn't going to tell her what he really thought about it.
"Uh..." He directed his gaze elsewhere, trying to come up with something convincing. "I don't know."
He wanted to slap himself for his stupid response, knowing that not even by a miracle that would convince the alicorn.
He had to admit that he liked that the princess was smart and not so easy to fool, but in situations like the one he was in, he wished that wasn't the case.
The alicorn sighed somewhat tiredly, of course not having believed the answer she had received, she was aware that the unicorn must have had some thought or opinion while the pegasus explained things to him.
"I need you to be honest, Sombra..." she stopped, seeming to think a little about what she herself had just said. "Well, we haven't had the honesty lesson yet, but it will be next; I know you're not telling the truth."
“Let it be known that you asked for it, Your Highness.”
He thought with some amusement before responding.
"It was stupid."
For the unicorn, the face that the pony in front of him had made was simply priceless, he had to endure the urge to burst out laughing.
"Excuse me?"
Yes, she had asked him to be honest, but he could have been less direct, and a little less rude.
"I just don't make sense of it, why do I have to be good to others if they are not good to me? Why is it wrong that I want to make them feel the same or worse than they made me feel?" The unicorn had risen a little from his chair, raising his voice and being driven by his emotions, without realizing that some ponies around him stopped talking among themselves to focus their attention on him.
The princess understood everything figuratively, but the unicorn certainly complained bringing out the scars that he had been carrying for more than a thousand years.
The simple fact of thinking that, even after everything they had done to him, he had to be good to them, made him feel truly furious. Were they seriously trying to convince him that even though they had been monsters to him just for being different, they deserved to be happy and treated with respect anyway? He wasn't going to accept it, ever.
"Well... " She seemed to be searching for an appropriate response, but the words just didn't come.
"You have no answer because I am right, and there is no way that what you say is sensible." He took a sneaky look at where the other diners were, noticing that they were already starting to talk about him; so he decided to adjust his chair and sit down again, acting as if nothing had happened.
"I'm hungry, did we come here to eat or just so you can ask me stupid questions?" He used a strong and annoyed tone, changing the topic.
"I'll call the waiter to take your order." The princess responded, still being somewhat disoriented by the unicorn's previous words.
After a few minutes of awkward silence had passed, Twilight found the words inside her to speak again.
"We have to be good to others even if they are not good to us. I know that even if you see it as something stupid now, maybe one day you'll understand it better; We don't have to be equal to them, if they are bad, we must be good and show them that this is the correct way of doing things. In addition, we must also keep in mind that no one is perfect, we all make mistakes and have good parts and bad parts; and that's okay, because we can improve." She paused briefly to drink some water from the glass on the table.
"Still, I know that learning to be kind is not something that can be achieved in a day, and it is also of no use to me if you learn to be kind and do it out of obligation instead of really wanting to be, I would like you to be kind in a genuine way."
"You'll have to sit and wait for that to happen." He crossed his arms, indifferent.
The princess was not surprised by his reaction, so she just sighed and smiled lightly.
"What do you say we start with something easy? When the waiter comes to take the order, be polite: say good evening, please, and thank you.
He didn't respond, preferring to keep his gaze away from her.
"I will order my own food, if you are hungry you will have to do what I ask you." She smiled slyly.
He kept his arms crossed, looked at her out of the corner of his eye, annoyed by her ruse, and ended up rolling his eyes and agreeing to her request.
Finally, when the waiter approached the two ponies, the stallion spoke up and ordered what he wanted to eat, using the polite words that the alicorn had suggested.
This had caused a smile from the princess, who was then the next to order.
When they both finished eating they headed directly towards the palace. To her surprise, this lesson had made the day go by so quickly that they hadn't even noticed.
And as much as he hated to admit it, the unicorn had thought deeply about the princess' words.
The unicorn with red eyes and gray fur looked attentively at the book he held between his front hooves, doing his best to appear too focused not to notice what was happening around him.
Unfortunately for him, the violet-furred alicorn didn't have much trouble deciphering this 'technique', so she didn't give in to him and continued trying to get his attention, just as she had already done three times before.
To go into a little more context, since the day he had received his first friendship lesson, the alicorn had asked him—forced, actually—that every time he came down to breakfast he would greet all the creatures present, regardless of if he only said a simple 'good morning', but as if that weren't enough, she had also asked him that every time he finished his meal, he thank whoever had prepared it—which most of the time was Spike—to which he, of course, refused; However, to his bad luck, the princess always ended up finding a way to persuade him and make him reluctantly agree.
Now a few minutes had passed since he had finished his meal, which meant that, just like the previous two days, he had to comply with the order to “be polite and grateful”, just as the princess had said.
"Sombra, I know you're listening to me." She repeated once again with skepticism and a frown. "It's not that hard, you just have to say thank you, the world won't end just because you're thankful for something."
The aforementioned did not lower the book, he kept it at his eye level in an attempt to avoid the face of the pony in front of him; Even so, his annoyed gaze shifted slightly in front of him, making him meet the one he was trying to avoid.
There was a short silence of about ten seconds while both ponies seemed to have a staring battle, which the stallion could not sustain.
"Ugh! I already did that yesterday," he lowered the book somewhat abruptly, "and the day before yesterday too!" He continued to complain.
"And you will continue to do it every day." She pronounced the last three words more firmly, looking at the unicorn in this same way. "This is just a small exercise for you to learn to at least be polite, is that clear?"
He just huffed and rolled his eyes as he crossed his front legs.
"I don't understand why you're so grumpy, I'm literally just asking you to say 'good morning' and 'thank you', stop complaining, you're acting like a baby." She stood up from her chair. "If I hear one more complaint about something as simple as this, I swear I'll make you sing and dance with flowers on your head outside the castle so you can complain about something real." She warned as she looked at him harshly, at the same time that she took her plate and took it to the sink.
She wasn't so serious with her 'warning', of course she wasn't going to make the unicorn dance at the entrance to the castle—even if it made for a funny scene—in fact, she wasn't even that upset that the stallion was so moody and complaining, but sometimes it irritated her greatly. She had even already tried to convince him in a softer and friendlier way, and apparently it hadn't worked either. Therefore, she had ended up deciding that she had no choice, maybe she had to be a little tougher on him.
The unicorn released the crossing of his front legs and turned to look at the princess with some disbelief at what she last said.
"You wouldn't dare..."
"Test me."
The stallion narrowed his eyes and began to feel some insecurity growing inside him, the way she had turned to look at him and had not hesitated to respond warned him that she was most likely being serious.
He wasn't afraid of the alicorn, of course not, but just imagining the humiliation he could go through if he didn't follow her instructions made him alert and think twice.
Once again he snorted softly, resigned.
"Thanks for the food, lizard." He drawled the words at a considerable speed, avoiding at all costs meeting the gaze of the lilac dragon, who had been sitting at the same table as them throughout the entire discussion and was now looking at the stallion with a raised eyebrow.
The small reptile cast a quick glance towards the alicorn, who only smiled at him in response, telling him not to pay too much attention to the unicorn.
"Yeah, whatever." He shrugged and walked over to the stallion so he could take his plate. "By the way, I'm a dragon." He snapped with some annoyance. However, the unicorn didn't even seem to listen.
"Won't you eat more, Starlight?" He asked the pink unicorn when he reached her part of the table, keeping his arm outstretched waiting to take the plate.
"Oh, no, I'm already full, thank you very much, Spike." She hastened to respond, after being somewhat disconcerted by having become too absorbed in the 'conversation' that the former king and the princess had had.
"Do you have plans for today, Starlight?" The alicorn asked once she finished washing her plate, apparently looking to start some kind of trivial conversation.
Whatever the unicorn had responded was completely unknown to Sombra, because at the moment of completing the order given by the princess, he had returned his eyes to the text of the book in an attempt to resume the reading that she had interrupted.
The voices of the mares around him slowly began to fade until they became inaudible, both due to the level of concentration he maintained on his book, and because they had apparently left the room.
Before the disturbance of his reading, he had been absorbed in a part of the book that, for some reason, had caught his attention quite a bit.
Certain descriptions, names of ponies, and places sounded strangely familiar, as if he had already read that story before, but from a different perspective.
Which had seemed absurd to him, the events recounted in the history book he was reading had occurred even before he was even inside his mother's womb.
Despite the confusion that this fact caused to him, he continued reading, trying not to pay attention to that familiarity that he felt.
But this only continued to make it difficult for him, and even more so when the book began to mention the name of a specific king more and more often.
“Dark Soulman, the last king to rule the ancient Unicorn Kingdom before it was dissolved due to the alliance and union of the three kingdoms, which would later become one, called: Equestria.”
“Dark Soulman”, that name resonated in his head, being aware that he had heard it before, but not knowing from where exactly.
And, for some reason, it also gave him a strange feeling of disgust.
He closed his eyes and squeezed them tightly, at the same time he closed the book, he let out a sigh and threw his head back, feeling great frustration run through him.
This was not the first time something like this happened to him, he had already been trying to remember specific events in his life for several days but they just didn't come, they didn't appear, his mind went blank.
Every time he tried to remember events of great importance or that had a lot of impact on his life—like when he came out of the portal, when he waged a battle against Princess Celestia, or just some inconsequential but cute memories with his former best friend—the only thing he got was incomplete images and distorted and incomprehensible voices.
He had not wanted to delve too deeply into the subject, because deep inside he knew that in the end he would get nowhere and would only end up more frustrated, but the restlessness only grew day by day, which made his anxiety about not having accurate knowledge about his own past also increase.
"Who the heck is Dark Soulman?" He muttered, asking rhetorically.
"Did you say something, Sombra?"
The sudden appearance of a female voice in his hearing field made him quickly turn to look at its transmitter, looking at her with some surprise, but not holding the expression for long.
"What?" He looked disconcerted. "No, anything. I didn't say anything."
It was a somewhat obvious fact that he did not intend to tell the whole story of his apparent amnesia to the princess, so he tried as hard as he could to sound convincing.
Luckily for him, she just glanced at him strangely, but quickly proceeded to just shrug and seem to brush it off.
"And your unicorn friend?"
The alicorn frowned slightly with some suspicion, both because of the suddenness of the question and because of how strange it was for her stallion to ask it.
"Well, we were walking down the hallway and her cutie mark started glowing, so right now she's getting ready to go on a mission in Appleoosa." She explained slowly, still finding it strange that the unicorn was 'interested' in the pink unicorn's whereabouts. "Pinkie Pie will join her in a few minutes." She added.
The only reason the stallion had asked the question was to 'distract' the princess from what she had previously asked him, but there was something about her explanation that caught his attention a little.
"What do you mean 'her cutie mark glowed?' As far as I know, that's not normal."
"Oh, of course." It wasn't very difficult for her to realize what was happening.
Sombra did not know of the existence of the Cutie Map or its function, and the alicorn deduced that he did not have any knowledge of the Tree of Harmony either.
"Uh... It's a long story, you know?"
"Coincidentally I have the whole day, the week, the month and the year off, you know?" He smiled with quite clear irony, showing her that the 'long story' was of interest to him.
"Yeah, well... I don't know if..."
Before she was able to continue, the voice of someone calling her name interrupted her.
"Twilight!"
Both ponies recognized that voice without any difficulty.
"What's wrong, Spike?" She approached the reptile when he crossed the doors.
"Princess Celestia sent you this, it seems like something important." He stretched out his arm with a rolled-up parchment in his hand, handing it to her.
It didn't take her long to release the ribbon holding the parchment, and then read it. The content was not very descriptive, it only informed her that her presence at the Canterlot Palace was required, and that the topic to be discussed was related to her recent friendship mission.
"I have to go to Canterlot." She said out loud.
Before making any decision or movement, she gave herself a moment to think.
If it was so necessary for her to show up at Canterlot, she highly doubted that Sombra could accompany her, but leaving him unguarded in her castle didn't seem like a viable option either.
"I'm not going anywhere, if that's what scares you." The unicorn stated behind her, as if he had read her thoughts, at the same time taking a pear from the fruit bowl that was in the center of the table.
She turned to face him and raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
"Can I actually trust that?"
"It's not like there's anything fun to do out there." He took a quick look at the little dragon, who looked at him just as skeptically as the princess. "Plus your lizard is here, I guess he can 'keep an eye on me.'"
The aforementioned rolled his eyes with visible annoyance, refraining from repeating that he was actually a dragon.
The princess tried to think it through, but the strange smile that the king showed her did not inspire any confidence in her, making it difficult for her to make her decision.
Still, her intuition seemed to tell her that he was serious about not running away and not trying to do something bad, so, reluctantly and with traces of insecurity, she nodded and turned around to leave.
"I'll be back as soon as possible, please try to behave."
The alicorn had thought about taking the train, but she considered the not-so-long distance between Canterlot and Ponyville and decided that a short morning flight wouldn't hurt.
Upon arriving at the Palace, she was quickly greeted formally by the guards, who soon escorted her to the Throne Room.
Due to the lack of details in the letter, Twilight had thought that her meeting would be with the princess who had requested her attention, but she did not expect that she would actually be greeted by her brother and sister-in-law.
"Brother? Cadance? What are you doing here?" The surprise caused by their unexpected visit made her forget to at least say hello. She didn't know whether to feel confused, happy or worried.
"Where are your manners, missy? You don't even say hello." Her older brother scolded, not really being serious.
"Sorry, I was just surprised to see you here, it is not normal for you to come and leave the Empire without protection." She hugged both rulers in a replacement for the greeting she had forgotten.
"You're right about that, but we consider this something important," answered the one with blue hair.
"Something bad happened?"
"No, fortunately. Actually we wanted to know if you haven't had problems with certain evil unicorn that you are in charge of reforming."
"Wait... Did you come just for that?" She raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"Twilight, I don't know how you manage not to give this the importance it has, you are aware that you have one of the most evil, powerful and greatest enemies of Equestria living in your castle, right?"
"Well... I guess you have a point there, but it's still too early to see progress, it's literally only been two weeks, which is why I think the arrival is a bit... Rushed."
The crystal princess, who had not said anything, looked askance at her husband, as if saying with her eyes a clear 'I told you so'.
The reality was that after the conversation they had had with Sunburst regarding the story of King Sombra and the things he had done, the prince had ended up with more nerves and worry than he already had.
So he kept pestering his wife until she could agree to pay his sister a visit, just to make sure she was okay.
"Shining, I thought this conversation was over, you have to trust me, everything will be fine, I have it under control." She gave him a small smile, urging him to trust her.
"It's just... Twilight, it's not that I don't trust you, it's him I don't trust at all; It worries me that he's just pretending and might hurt you. It worries me that you might get hurt."
Twilight gave a sympathetic look to her older brother; She understood, thanked and appreciated that he was worried that something could happen to her, she couldn't blame him for that. But still, maybe it was best to find a solution to prevent him from worrying all the time.
"I understand, but I don't think you can come to Canterlot every week just to make sure King Sombra hasn't finished me off." At the mere mention of that, the unicorn shivered. "What do I have to do to make you feel calmer?"
The elder sibling thought about it for a few moments, until an excellent idea—in his words—came to his mind.
Twilight loved her brother, there was no doubt about that, but sometimes she really hated that he was so overprotective.
Initially she had traveled alone to Canterlot, and now she had eight guards behind her, following her back to Ponyville.
Yes, that's what her brother's 'big idea' was all about, hiring guards so they could be there and protect her in case the former king tried to plot something.
She had protested against the idea, but after thinking twice, she came to the conclusion that this was the way her brother would no longer be on top of her every week checking on King Sombra's process.
Although her brother had originally proposed twenty guards, she luckily managed to convince him to reduce it to eight.
Two to watch her room—although this was not at all comfortable—two to watch Sombra's room, two to watch the main entrance to the castle and two spares. All being guards belonging to the Royal Guard of the Crystal Empire.
As if the whole situation wasn't enough, she had had to wait for Shining Armor to meticulously choose each of the guards who would 'protect' her, adding that she also had to wait for the guards to arrive from the Empire, plus another bunch of things that had ended up taking her entire day without even being able to feel it
Finally, when they had arrived at the small castle, the guards wasted no time and took their assigned positions.
Upon reaching the living room, she was finally able to take a seat and relax, letting her head fall back on the back of the chair and at the same time stretching her wings a little, which felt slightly numb from the constant flight of that day.
All this until a voice brought her out of her moment of relaxation.
"Looks like you brought company."
"Oh, Sombra, these guards are..."
He was quick to cut her words short.
"It was just an observation, you don't have to explain to me, princess." The stallion did not spare a single glance at the mare, he kept his attention focused on the book he had between his hooves, just as he had done in the morning.
"Ah, yeah sure." She didn't give it much importance and let her head fall back again, beginning to feel more and more the physical consequences of the day she had had.
"Anyway, it always seemed strange to me that a princess didn't have a single guard in her castle." Before she could say anything, the stallion closed the book, startling the alicorn a little with the sound it made.
"Well... They never seemed so necessary to me, at least not for me specifically, you know?
"Why wouldn't they be necessary?"
"Because my castle is not like others nor am I like the other princesses. To begin with, their palaces are several times larger than mine, plus they have their own kingdom, a kingdom that needs to be protected and a single princess cannot do it on her own, so she uses the help of the guards to do that." She kept her eyes closed as she spoke, feeling too tired to even look at the pony she was talking to. "I don't have any of that, not to mention that everyone here knows me and, I assume, likes me. So I don't see the need to have guards, you get it?"
While the alicorn continued talking, the stallion had gone to the shelves so he could place the book he had been reading, now finished, in its place.
"I see the point, but you are still a royal, a public figure, you are exposed to many types of risks that other ordinary ponies are not."
"I don't know, I'm not so sure about that, but even if it were, I think I could defend myself. Plus, if you take away the royalty part, I'm also an ordinary pony."
At this last statement, the stallion turned his gaze towards the alicorn, noticing the strange position in which she was sitting on the chair: legs placed anywhere except where they were supposed to go, wings completely spread out and flattened against the backrest of the chair, head thrown back almost looking as if she had broken her neck, and finally, the way in which it seemed as if she were talking in her sleep, since she half slurred her words when speaking and her eyes remained closed, but still, the things she said made a lot of sense.
He couldn't help but let out a very subtle laugh.
Only it wasn't a mockery, it was more like he had felt genuine grace seeing her in that state.
"No, you're not." He finally responded to the alicorn's statement, taking a book between his hooves, which was apparently the continuation of the one he had previously finished. "Maybe you should take a more proper nap." He suggested as he approached the exit, ready to head to his room.
"Mhmm".
"I would like you to continue telling me about that map of yours tomorrow." He added, making sure the princess didn't forget.
Before finally leaving the room, he paused, feeling somewhat undecided about what he intended to do next.
"Good night."
Even though she was almost beginning to fall asleep completely, this phrase made the alicorn quite surprised; this was the first time that the stallion had done something as polite as saying good night on his own initiative.
"Ah... Thank you, good night to you too." She returned with a soft smile.
Once the black vision stopped being so intense and her head seemed to stop spinning and she regained consciousness, she was able to take a closer look at the place they were in.
Although the clouds covered the sky with a gloomy gray tone, they did not prevent the sun from shining brightly and casting a warm light on the scenario in front of her eyes, which she found annoying at the moment it began to make the snow transform into a radiant white that made her already hurt eyes burn.
Even when her body screamed for her to get up from where she was, it did not respond to the orders of her brain, and it was unknown to her whether this was thanks to the previous total draining of her energy and magic, or due to the numbness that the cold from the snow and the environment around her caused.
Or maybe both.
Making enormous efforts, she barely managed to make her limbs find enough strength and balance to make her stand up and maintain her equilibrium, however, she was unable to avoid closing her eyes and squeezing them tightly when she felt that her entire body was attacked by a burning, numbing, piercing sensation; causing her limbs to weaken anew and threaten to give way again.
She inhaled deeply and then exhaled, ignoring as best she could the burning irritation from breathing too cold air in her nasal cavity.
It wasn't the first time she had dealt with pain of such magnitude, and she had a strong feeling that it wouldn't be the last either.
Even with the piercing sensation persistent in her body—more concentrated in her extremities, it should be noted—she could not help but enjoy the satisfaction caused by the aroma and sensation of an air that her nostrils had not perceived for centuries, as well as the—although still painful—comforting vision that she obtained of the landscape colored in white and gray tones, totally opposite to the constant and torturous view of rough and jagged rocks spread out, coming from the walls of the large place that had been her prison.
She gently moved one hoof out of the snow so she could step forward, then doing the same with her other hooves. The stabbing and burning sensation intensified as the movement accelerated, her lungs ached with each inhalation and her vision occasionally doubled.
And yet, she wasn't going to stop.
Something had brought her to where she was, the same thing that had kept her alive for so long, a reason that until it was carried out, not even the end of the world was going to be able to put a stop to her.
Thus, making that the main thought in her mind, and repeating it once, twice, three and as many times as necessary, she was able to use the willpower that it provoked in her to be able to maintain her pace and continue with her journey, without not really caring how long it might be.
Having had to endure an untold amount of time within the same dark and spacious but enclosed place, the notion of time was something of which the only thing she remembered was its definition.
Still, with the help of certain really old memories, she knew that when she opened her eyes for the first time, it was some hours in the afternoon or noon. Thanks to these facts, she was more or less able to keep track of the hours she had already been walking.
Yes, hours.
The chills and tremors in his body became more and more constant, there were specific parts that she couldn't even feel anymore due to the numbness. Dark bags cradled her eyes, her hair looked worn and fell in a messy and undirected manner across her face, which also made it difficult for her to see; However, even if she wanted to, it was impossible for her to move her front hoof even a centimeter up to try to remove it, due to the automatic movement that her limbs had adopted with the constant movement forward and the neglect of the severe pain she presented.
She moved her head slightly to look back so she could calculate how much ground she had advanced, frowning when the only greeting to the sight of her was the same expanse of frozen water that she had been seeing for more than four hours.
She let out a huff of annoyance as she looked forward again and realized that her neck had also joined the list of injured body parts.
Little by little the tone of the sky began to become duller and the sunlight dimmed, giving way to another, not so intense light coming from the moon.
The desolate snowfield stopped being desolate when a few small plants also covered in snow began to appear, followed not long after by steep, rocky mountains that could be seen in the distance, the snow covering their peaks and slopes also being notable.
Although she wanted to take this as a good sign, she also knew that she could not begin to place her hopes in just a few nascent life forms, so she downplayed them and decided to continue on her way without getting any illusions.
Just a few steps ahead, she decided to take another look at the path that awaited her ahead, noticing that now not so far away lay a rock formation that also seemed to be covered in snow, at the same time noticing the mist that little by little began to be noticeable.
When she tried to return her gaze to the ground, as she had been doing throughout the journey, something caught her attention.
A peculiar noise manifested itself, one that did not belong to the environment, something like a squeak or a scream.
Her brow furrowed slightly and her eyes narrowed. She had analyzed the place again and again in view of having nothing else to do besides walk, and she had not been able to spot any trace of another living being around. It was known that these places were completely uninhabitable due to the temperature they expected, so it was obvious why there was no one else nearby.
However, she could now swear that she had heard a noise.
Her steps stopped softly and cautiously, trying not to make a noise. She sharpened both her vision and her hearing as much as she could and turned in the direction from which what had caught her attention seemed to come.
Still, despite her attempts, absolutely nothing happened and he couldn't notice anything out of the ordinary. So she just let out a sigh that took out all the air she had intentionally been holding in and resumed her steps.
However, a small, quick flash caught in the corner of her eye and coming from the same place she had turned to before made her stop in her tracks again.
Her gaze did not hesitate to automatically and immediately turn to look in the direction of that flash.
Her heart seemed to beat harder and faster in response to the satisfaction of having been right all along and knowing that. Unexpectedly, her ticket out of the tortuous eternal snowy wasteland had arrived without her even having to bother looking for it.
The corners of her lips lifted in a mischievous smile.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and channeled all the magical energy she was capable of, not taking a second to feel a burning pain spread from the tip of her horn to each end of her body, but at the same time being, again, able to bear it.
Quickly her body began to evaporate, ending up turning into a magical form of black smoke.
She started heading towards where she had seen the flash as soon as her now intangible body was ready to start moving.
She had finally set his prey on her, and no one would be able to stop her.
"Damn it! I can't believe it, it was only a minute, a miserable minute!" The loud angry voice created an echo large enough to scare away a considerable number of birds.
The owner of the voice walked at a slow but heavy pace over the snow-flooded wasteland that made up the well-known Arctic North.
She cursed loudly as she continued on her way towards some place that she could use as a refuge, so that she could then look for a solution to her problem.
Even though the clothes she was wearing were appropriate for the type of climate she found herself in, the freezing temperature was beginning to penetrate the fabric, getting worse with each passing minute; The bulky luggage on her back was no help either, both her back and her hooves ached and screamed for a break, her steps felt increasingly heavy and her limbs occasionally wobbled.
She stopped for a second to be able to observe the sky and calculate what time it was, letting out a sound of worry and demotivation when she noticed that twilight was beginning to appear, announcing the arrival of nightfall.
This fact encouraged her to hurry even more, quickening her pace in the hope that she was going in the right direction and that at some point she would reach a place where she could be safe and sound.
It wasn't long before the sky began to take on a tone that made it impossible to see her; The pony let out a snort, followed by a new insult in response to the poor results of the events from earlier that day. She couldn't believe that stopping for a minute to adjust one of her boots would cause her to get lost from the group of mountaineers she was with. She couldn't believe that not even her "friend", the leader, had realized that she was no longer keeping up with them.
Remembering this once again, she couldn't help but curse one more time. A simple action was costing her too dearly.
She tried to calm herself and concentrate; Walking a little further forward, a huge figure made of rock appeared before her eyes, it was not very difficult for the pony to recognize that this was a small cave. A shaky sigh of relief escaped her lips and she hurriedly ran towards the aforementioned cave.
The warmth of the interior of the cave did not take long to embrace her the moment she entered, which although it was not a big deal, was a temperature ten times better than what the outside expected.
Finally, feeling that she was safe inside the small cave, she undid the straps that secured the luggage to her back, let the heavy package fall to the floor and then took a seat on the floor, feeling immediate relief run through her entire body.
Despite still having several things to think about and resolve, the pony decided to lie down on one of the walls of the cave and relax, without taking long for fatigue to take her consciousness away.
[...]
Resting after having had such a physically and mentally exhausting day was undoubtedly one of the most satisfying things in the world; However, the pony could not do this for long.
A strong and somewhat noisy breeze brushed against her skin and made her fur stand up slightly, also causing her consciousness to return to the real world and her eyes to slowly begin to open.
She blinked about three times before the slight burning in her eyes stopped being so bothersome and she glanced outside the cave. She had no idea how long she had slept, but it had been enough for the sky to turn completely dark, with only a few stars adorning it and a moon that looked somewhat blurry but kept the light as radiant as ever.
The same breeze that had woken her up blew through again, only a little stronger this time. She didn't have to be very smart to realize that the strength of the weather and temperature increased as it grew later.
Her body experienced an involuntary tremor and reflexively her front hooves wrapped around the upper part of her body, trying to keep some of the natural heat inside.
"If I'm going to sleep here, I'd better do something about the cold."
With that said, she didn't waste much time and she got up from where she was and then headed towards where she had left her suitcase.
She unzipped it and began searching inside for a lighter that she remembered packing the night before leaving her home.
"For Celestia's sake... Please no."
A tiny bead of sweat passed over her forehead due to the nerves she was slowly beginning to feel. The small compartment she remembered using to pack said lighter was empty.
"No, I can't have that much bad luck in a single day, it's not fair, please." She pleaded into nothingness as her front hooves hurriedly moved inside the backpack/suitcase hoping that she had just opened the wrong compartment, caring little if she messed up everything inside.
She stopped her movement and closed her eyes tightly, her lungs filled with air and she prepared her throat.
And she let it out.
A rather satisfying (for her) and soulful scream, one that almost brought out all the frustration that the things she had had to go through since the moment she had woken up had caused her.
Was it a curse?
Was someone playing some kind of extremely practical joke on her?
Although maybe the latter wouldn't be so bad; Rather, deep inside she wished that everything was a joke of a very bad taste, she would really appreciate it.
And of course she would then try to kill whoever was making it.
But she knew it was no joke.
It was all quite real, she was having a quite disgusting day and night.
She knew it was real because after not-so-subtly yelling, her mind brought back an important memory: she had packed her entire suitcase the day before leaving, she had packed everything she was going to take, including the lighter. Nonetheless, the next morning she had needed it to prepare breakfast pretty quickly, and when she finished eating, one thing led to another and she completely forgot that she should pack back the lighter in case of situations like the one she was experiencing.
A sigh of very clear annoyance left her lips and she murmured:
"I should have listened to my mom and become a doctor."
She once again rummaged through her backpack and grabbed a flashlight that, fortunately, she had not forgotten to pack, following which she headed towards the outside of the cave.
She felt obliged to light the bonfire the old-fashioned (not so old-fashioned) way.
It was not that difficult to find the rocks that she was looking for to carry out such a task, several of them were near the end where the formation of the cave began.
When she bent down a little to be able to take the rocks, she realized that she would first have to release the flashlight that she was carrying in her mouth, which she tried to do; However, the bad luck that had followed her throughout the entire day apparently had more stunts for her.
The device fell to the ground and made a somewhat loud sound, indicating that, instead of snow, it had collided with a hard surface, which at the same time had also caused the light it emanated to abruptly go out.
The pony's eye twitched and she was about to complain again, however, this time she managed to stop herself before doing so. All day she had had a bad time and throughout the day she had complained about it, and yet her problems did not stop. Whether she complained or not, it wouldn't change anything, so there was no point in doing so.
She hurriedly took a sufficient amount of rocks and put them in a small bag, and then approached the lantern lying on the ground again.
Apparently only two hits were going to be enough to get it working again. After blinking twice, the light became stable.
Having absolutely everything ready to go back inside, she began walking back to the cave.
Her steps slowed when a breeze much stronger than the previous two attacked again, so much so that, instead of a breeze, it could better fit as a current of air.
A very strange sensation was planted inside her, something very deep inside her began to suggest that she seek refuge.
She swallowed with some difficulty, there was something different in that breeze, in the general atmosphere; quite suddenly it felt heavy.
She decided not to think about it too much and walk at a slightly faster pace towards the cave. Trying to ignore as best she could the sudden urge her legs now felt to start running as far as she could without even looking back.
"It's okay, it's just your imagination. Tomorrow you'll leave here, you'll arrive home and this will be just a horrible memory that may generate trauma for you. Everything will be fine." She directed the words at herself and did her best to keep her mind occupied with another matter, trying to ignore the increasing speed of her heartbeat.
She used the technique that she had learned with her fellow mountaineers to light a campfire with just wood or rocks and managed to light the rocks on fire, making the sensation of heat reach her quickly.
To then leave as quickly as it had arrived.
The draft attacked once more, stronger than any she had ever felt.
But this time it seemed to have brought someone with it.
She felt like air was stuck in her airway for a second and her heart raced like never before.
She didn't want to accept it, she didn't want to accept the likely danger she was now in.
The pony didn't move a muscle, she didn't even try to breathe; she could feel the heavy, shadowy presence right behind her and didn't even care to find out what its appearance was.
Her limbs began to tremble involuntarily and break out in cold sweat, her eyes following their example as she began to shed light tears.
The wind whistled around her and her eyes caught a black smoke that began to surround the entire interior of the cave, followed by this she could hear the sound of hooves taking a few steps.
When the footsteps stopped it was as if everything else had stopped too, the wind stopped its whistling and the smoke stopped rotating to become almost static.
And then a cold but at the same time warm surface came into contact with the skin of her shoulder.
Without stopping to think about it and as a reflex, she turned around quickly. But she quickly wished she had never made such a terrible decision.
Her vision was greeted with the figure of someone who looked like a much taller than average pony, with fur that resembled ash and who kept his gaze on her as if she were the last bottle of water in a desert.
Its eyes looked like two light bulbs combining extravagant colors; The sclera were covered in such a neon green that it felt like it was hurting her eyes, its pupils were ruled by a red as dark as blood and there was a kind of purple aura coming out of the corners of its eyes that just completed the sinister vibe.
When her voice was about to come out of her in the form of a terrified scream, it got stuck in her throat.
She felt as if a grape had gotten stuck, she had every intention of screaming, but she never managed to express this.
Her eyes opened wide and tears began to flow from them when the being smiled broadly, showing its fangs. She could guess the future that awaited her.
The last thing the little pony could see was the apparent horn of the being lighting up in a blue aura that quickly transitioned to black, and then she felt how her body was suffering an unbearable and impossible to describe pain and her energy seemed to escape from her as if it were of air.
And yet, she couldn't scream to at least suffer properly, she couldn't ask for help; no one would go looking for her because they didn't even notice she wasn't there in the first place.
