The Crystal Empire was Sombra's. And as far as he was concerned, so were all the ponies within it.
Those who had different opinions tended to be given new headwear and then they stopped having opinions at all.
Not every crystal pony had one of Sombra's controlling helmets - there were simply too many for it to be practical, and existing under a constant haze of hypnosis was perfectly fine if you wanted a fearless soldier who obeyed without question. It didn't do so well when skills more complicated than 'guard' and 'get them' came into play.
It was by virtue of that which kept Citrine's mind her own. That and the fact she was wise enough to keep her mouth shut and her head down.
An army needed more than just bodies to function - smiths to forge weapons and armor; farmers and cooks to keep them fed; barracks and roads and warehouses built. Citrine's role was a bit different - once a sculptor, now she cast the bricks that made the roads for Sombra's armies - but it was enough to keep her own mind. The same could be said for her husband, Cordierite - he ran as a courier along those roads, bringing Sombra's word to the craftsponies and laborers. The demands of a tyrant king, where failure to obey without question meant losing the ability to question.
The niche was small - but it was enough. Enough for young Zircon to reach her first birthday. Enough for them to stay warm even as winter pressed in on the crystal city. Enough for the reckoning day to come.
Citrine startled as the door smashed open. A natural enough reaction, heightened further by the constant fear of living in the crystal city. Her first instinct was grabbing the hammer she used to secure the brick-forms for defense - then drop it again when she saw the lack of green-eyed helmets. "Cordy? Cordy, what's wrong?"
Knowing something was wrong was easy - even setting aside that he'd bashed down the door to his own home, Cordierite's blue-grey mane was matted with sweat. "We have to go. Now."
"What?" Citrine reached up to brush the mane from his eyes - he always did wear it shaggy.
He seized her hoof. " Now."
"What are you--"
"Equestria's at the gates," Cordierite desperately panted.
Citrine felt the need to ask 'what' for a fourth time but managed to restrain herself.
"Sombra's troops are going around town, clamping helmets on everypony to muster a final line of defense." He shivered - half from cold, half from memory. "I saw them grab the Ambergris twins at the smithy and I ran."
A shudder running up her spine, Citrine tried - and failed - to push down her panic. "What are we going to do? We can't hide, not for long. And there's nowhere to run that there won't just be more soldiers!"
Taking a deep breath, Cordierite pitched his crazy plan. "We run. Leave the city."
And it was instantly rejected. "Leave the city? Cordy, have you lost your mind? There's nothing but frozen wasteland for a hundred miles, we'd never survive! It's just ice and snow and..." Her pale eyes went wide as it hit her.
"And the Equestrians," he finished.
The plan he'd proposed suddenly made sense. "If we make it to them, we'll at least be able to go with them when they retreat." Citrine took a shaky breath. "Do we know what direction they're in?"
"South?" He shrugged. "We don't have time to find out more." Cordierite let go of his wife and trotted towards the side room. "I'll get Zircon, you grab the cloaks."
She nodded and they split. He to get the little off-white filly in the bedroom, while she retrieved their heaviest winter cloaks. One in his grey for her; one in her pale yellow for him. A small nod to their bond - each having the other's fur color to shield them from the cold. The third for their daughter was plain brown: she was growing too fast to spend on something fancy, if such frivolities had even existed under Sombra's rule.
Amethyst Rose next door screamed as soldiers burst into her home.
Then the screaming stopped with haunting abruptness.
Citrine's panic took over - as did Cordierite's. They ran.
Neither of the couple needed to say anything as they burst out the side door of their home and into the brickyard surrounding. There wasn't time to throw the cloaks on, leaving Citrine to carry them as awkwardly as Cordierite carried Zircon. The filly was half asleep still, too young to comprehend what was going on and hopefully too young as well to remember any of it later. It never came up between them who would carry their daughter - Cordierite was the courier and the faster of the two. If the moment came, he could get her away easier than Citrine could. Speaking that truth would only lead to lying denials - so neither said it.
When Cordierite had said that the Equestrians were at the gates, Citrine had been expecting it to be a bit less literal. There was not a sign of them close by. The city wasn't as war-torn as she thought it would be - there were no buildings in flames and hoof-to-hoof combat in the streets. Merely the ominous feeling of something big looming on the horizon and the soldiers. A seemingly endless parade of green-eyed soldiers, marching southwards in silence. Only stopping - only distracted - by pausing to roust ponies from their homes to strengthen their ranks. Young, old, infirm - it didn't matter. If the helmet fit, they were fodder for the lines. The Equestrians didn't seem to have penetrated the city at all.
They ran. From the brickyard and into the street - south was out of the question with the sheer number of soldiers flooding that way. Instead they dashed westward, crossing between two mindlessly marching platoons. The one behind grabbed for the pair but fell short - the pair and filly ducked into a narrow alleyway between two rows of houses.
Sheltered for a moment, they paused and Citrine helped husband and daughter into their cloaks. "Cordy, how are we supposed to get anywhere? There's too many of them, and they're all going where we want to go."
Both were silent for a long, tense moment. Zircon yawned and shivered, curling closer to her father's chest.
"I don't know," he finally settled on. "I just.. I don't know."
A hesitation - then Citrine ventured a thought. "We can't go straight south or we'll get caught in the soldiers. But if we go west and then turn once we're outside of the city? The Equestrians must have come through the western pass, so maybe we can go around?"
Heavy-shod hooves stomped on cold stone, far too close for comfort. Both parents froze, tensely waiting for the soldiers to pass. Zircon snuffled, and Cordierite put his hoof over her mouth to prevent her from crying. The stomping faded - and the moment Cordierite moved his hoof, Zircon started bawling. "She bit me," he groused.
"She used to bite me all the time," came Citrine's retort.
They both laughed, letting out a little of the tension.
"...West then south," Cordierite confirmed. "We'll have to be careful, though. If we go too far and we're out too long, we'll freeze."
Citrine leaned in and hugged him. "Then we won't go too far."
They took a moment to steel themselves in silence - then they ran west.
They had gone too far. There hadn't been a choice - Sombra's legions covered more of the city's perimeter than expected, forcing the family to swing further out to avoid the soldiers. But they'd made it. Scuttling through alleyways, dashing between slow-marching platoons - they'd gotten out of the city and into the snows.
The land outside the crystal city was nothing but snow, of course. Endless wastes of blowing flakes and ice that hadn't seen the sun in decades. The winds were higher than normal, too - probably yet another sorcerous defense conjured by Sombra. Walls of whipping snow and poor visibility made for hard going even without having to worry about battle.
Citrine stumbled, hoof sliding on a patch of ice hidden under the snow. Cordierite turned to help, but she was back up before he could offer. "Just a bit further, I'm sure of it." She tried to smile at him, but harmony knew if he could see it through the blizzard. "We just need to make it to the Equestrian lines and we'll be safe."
He nodded, accepting the scrap of hope.
Stumbling further, they crossed the next ten minutes in utter silence. There was nothing to say until they made it to safety. Halfway up another rolling rise, Cordierite paused. "Do.. do you hear something?"
And then the blizzard was gone. A column of pegasi swept by just above, cutting through the clouds and the wind with the magic in their wings. Snow settled to the ground wetly, leaving the family covered - but their eyes clear as the sky.
The banners of Equestria broke up the white wastes with a riot of brilliant colors. The twin alicorn flag of Equestria itself, flanked by that of noble house after noble house - each standing tall over top of a war camp. Above floated fortress redoubts forged from cloudstuff, giving the pegasi total control of the air and - as the ones clearing away the blizzard indicated - of the weather. Lower, before the camps was stretched a long line of Equestrian troops, armored and arrayed for war. Opposite them sat the dark armored brigades of Sombra's green-eyed soldiers, set in defensive lines around the edge of the crystal city. A smoky cloud hovered overhead, magically shaped to resemble Sombra's head. Green flame licked from the eyesockets as he distantly shouted curses at the Equestrians. And between them? A wide open expanse of nothing as the armies stared each other down.
Both sides stood opposite each other, waiting tensely. The winner seemed obvious: the Equestrian forces numbered more than twice that of Sombra's, even with the desperately collected recruits he'd made. The question was only the willingness to pay the cost.
None of that mattered to the family, of course. The clouds had been cut, and they could see salvation. The Equestrian camps were only half a mile distant. The space between was empty.
Hope hit them with a sudden burst, energy sweeping up against the cold. Citrine and Cordierite broke into a wild run - up the rest of the small ridge and down the far side. Despite Zircon's extra weight, Cordierite pulled ahead - legs pumping hard, snow kicked up in his wake. Citrine wasn't far behind...
But she was far enough.
The distant smoke-head of Sombra shouted something - something distorted over the distance and lost in the ripping noise that came right after. The ice under the snow cracked, fracturing in jagged tears as black crystals rose through. Not high - just enough for the crystal to pierce the surface. Runes etched deep into the crystals blazed with dark green-purple energy.
Citrine flailed her hooves as she slid to a halt just inside the pulsing, burning ring of dark magic.
Cordierite spun around as the crystals surfaced behind him, still holding Zircon close. "Citrine! Jump!"
She hesitated, backing up a few steps to get a running start at it. The magic pulsed again. "I... I don't think I can make it!"
Panic flashed in his eyes as they darted between his wife, his daughter in his hooves and the black crystals.
Citrine set her jaw. "I'll try, though! Just hold on!" Her legs tensed, muscles gathering up strength for one last push. She charged - and the crystal runes pulsed. Citrine cried out in pain as she was thrown back.
"Citrine!" Cordierite lunged on instinct, only to be thrown back as well. He let out a yelp of pain; Zircon bawled as she too was stung.
Looking at each other across the black line cut in the ice, the two lovers tried to gather their wits. Another pulse flashed. Citrine smiled thinly. "Cordy, I--"
Cordierite shielded his eyes as the world was consumed in a flash. The air yanked back towards the crystal city for a moment, pulling at his cloak. And then... silence.
The world flashed, blinding Citrine. She yelled in pain again, flinching away. Around her a burst of wind pushed away from the city before everything dropped to silence.
It was gone. When he opened his eyes, it was all gone. The city, the army, Sombra himself - all gone. There was nothing ahead except a perfectly flat surface of bare ice. And most importantly to him, no Citrine.
When her vision cleared, the blinding spots dissolved into... nothing. Blank, open land. The Equestrian army was gone. So were Cordierite and Zircon. The settling snow had no trace that any of them had ever been there. Only the distant mountains - subtly different than they had been moments ago - remained.
Cordierite would have collapsed if Zircon hadn't been there. His child was still crying, nerves frayed from the chaos that she couldn't understand and the pain of the dark magic. He struggled to his hooves - leaving his heart on the ice - and slowly started towards the Equestrian lines again.
There was nothing ahead. Cordierite, Zircon, the Equestrians... they were gone. Citrine's heart shattered. Whatever Sombra did had wiped them from existence. And while the frozen wastes called to her broken soul, she knew she couldn't do that. Citrine wasn't strong enough - or weak enough - to listen. So she turned around, trudging back towards the Crystal City and the clamp of a helmet. What else was there to do? It would at least wipe away the pain.
The Equestrians were shattered as much as the ice had been - confusion and chaos ran rampant in their ranks. Discord would have been pleased, were he not sealed away for eternity. The city vanishing had sent half the army rushing forward to investigate and the other half scattering to guard every direction from an enemy who could be anywhere. Officers cried out, trying to regain control - and largely failing as the Equestrian lines became a churning, directionless mass of panic.
The army around the city was in disarray. Unexpected given Sombra's control over them - but it suddenly made sense as Citrine saw them prying off helmets. The green glow was gone from their eyes, and suddenly the disciplined army was nothing but a horde of confused, lost ponies. Some of them had been under the helmet's control for years - nearly all of them, their last memory had been gut-wrenching terror. Now they found themselves standing on the edge of the city, free and directionless. Citrine fit right in.
He made it to within two hundred yards of the lines before a panicked earth pony with a spear stopped him. The Equestrian didn't even get to shout for a halt before Cordierite called out. "Please, help! We were escaping and.." His mind stumbled, not sure what to even say. He thrust his hooves out, showing the Equestrian the sobbing foal in his grip. "Please. Help us."
She stumbled along with the others, just as confused as they were. She at least had witnessed what happened, even if she didn't know what that was. Then suddenly their attention was all drawn to the strangest whistling noise - to a bizarre contraption of wood and metal that sat in a clear path of snow nearby. In a daze, the crystal ponies staggered towards it in the hope of some kind of answers.
The Equestrian brought father and foal into the camp. Under guard - but inside and to a tent with a fire. A pot boiled over the flame, hints of oat and cinnamon sneaking out from under the iron lid. Zircon cried more no matter what he did to soothe her, but Cordierite was okay with that. It meant she was herself still - which was more than he could say for the others in the tent. Dozens of Sombra's soldiers sat around them, their helmets removed and the magic gone from their eyes. They lay like lumps - confused and listless - as the Equestrians gathered them up and brought them into custody.
One of the wheeled boxes behind the steaming contraption opened up. Out of the door came two ponies - one a unicorn of white and blue; the other a pink alicorn. She spread her wings wide as she advanced and stepped up atop a low rise in the snow, trying to project confidence despite her eyes betraying a total lack of it. All around Citrine, the crowd whispered. Not because of what the alicorn was - but because of the image of the Crystal Heart emblazoned on her flank.
A flap of the tent moved aside, letting in two more guards - ones in golden armor, this time. And behind them came an alicorn. Whiter than the snow, regalia gold as the sun's rays. Every crystal pony in the room tensed up as Cordierite did, no matter their previous state - this was Celestia, Equestria's ruler and Tyrant of the Sun. Sombra's mortal enemy and the one who had brought war to the Crystal Empire. The one they had been told of at every turn was the enemy. And yet her smile...
The pink alicorn waited for the whispering rumble to die down before she spoke. Her words echoed out, projecting with the force of an avalanche. "Citizens of the Crystal Empire! I am Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. I welcome you back to the world, for you have been absent and you have been missed! Long ago King Sombra cast a spell, tearing the Empire away from reality and sealing it outside of time for a thousand years. For you, it has been but moments - but for the rest of us, you have been missing for many generations. And now that the Crystal Empire has returned, I - as descendant of Princess Amore - have come here to help bring you back into the world and return the Crystal Empire to the shining jewel of the north it once was!"
The white alicorn smiled wider. "Hello, my little ponies." Her voice was soft and gentle - motherly, as if stroking each fearful pony's mane to comfort them. The crowd of crystal ponies shifted uneasily. "I am Princess Celestia, and I am glad that all of you are safe. I understand that you're probably very confused right now and that you want to return to your lives. But I fear you must bear with us for a little while longer. King Sombra - to prevent the Crystal Empire from being liberated from his control - has chosen to teleport the entire city away and seal it outside of time." She hung her head, letting out a weary sigh. "I assure you that we are trying our best to undo what he has done and return you home. For now, we ask your patience. You will be fed and warmed as best we can, and treated as guests. Equestria bears you no ill will and means you no harm. You are not prisoners - you are but momentary refugees before you can take back your normal lives once more."
All around Citrine, voices rumbled. Nopony knew who this alicorn was, but her words were hopeful. Just what a thousand years meant was too much for any of them to grasp, but freedom from Sombra? A return to normalcy? That was something all could understand - and something all wanted. Aside from Citrine. She pushed to the fore, waving a hoof in the air. "Wait! What about the others! My husband and foal were outside the crystal ring - what happened to them? Where are they?"
Holding Zircon close, Cordierite rose and pushed forward. The guards closed ranks around Celestia - but she raised a hoof to have them stand down again. Holding his daughter close, Cordierite bowed his head in respect and a healthy amount of fear. "Your Highness, please. My wife - we were escaping the city when the spell was cast. She was... she was inside when it happened. Is there hope? Will my daughter have her mother again?"
Sadness passed over Princess Cadence's face, even though she tried to suppress it just as she had tried to suppress her fear before. "I am sorry, madam. I don't know about your family in particular, but thirty generations have passed. I'm.. I'm sorry, but... they're almost certainly gone."
Princess Celestia smiled benevolently at Cordierite, but he could read the true emotions behind it. "There is always hope," she lied with the best of intentions.
Citrine's legs gave out under her, and she collapsed crying into the snow.
Cordierite held Zircon close to his chest as he fell back onto his haunches and wept.
Author's Note
The original script for Cleaved included an additional scene: Citrine in the Crystal Empire after its return, being visited by a descendant of Zircon's. I ended up cutting that on review - it cushioned the emotional blow and the raw, jagged close here worked better.
Also, a quick thanks to Jinzou for helping me proof-read!
And finally credit where due: I totally stole the bit with the text fading from Scampy's Last Light. Couldn't figure out quite how she pulled it off in that one, but this worked well enough.
Edit: An additional thank you to _Undefined_, who did point out how it was done and let me improve the story through it!
Bonus Chapter - The After
The city was far warmer than it ever had been under Sombra's rule - the Crystal Heart assured that much. So long as there was love and hope in the city, the Empire would remain a bastion of warmth in the middle of the snow.
Citrine's home was frigid.
She'd sold off the brickyard, of course - she'd only worked it to avoid Sombra's leash and it had too many memories besides. Now, a handful of months later, Citrine lived near the outskirts of the city. The yard was, generously, a mess. In the time since the city returned, she had tried to go back to sculpting again - but all she had to show for it was a pile of stone and crystal shards, a dozen pieces that weren't even quarter-completed, and sore hooves.
In truth, she didn't care. Her new neighbors avoided Citrine's dreary little crystal bungalow - it only took a month before they stopped trying to start conversations and recently they'd even given up waving hello. That was okay. It didn't matter, after all.
It was Tuesday - Citrine knew that because the delivery colt dropped off a basket of food. She honestly wasn't sure where it came from or why it kept showing up - she wasn't paying for it - but it was there like clockwork and there was no sense in wasting it. The tip-off that this was not a normal Tuesday was that there was something else with the basket when Citrine came out to collect it.
"Hello," gently ventured the Princess of the Crystal Empire.
Citrine stared dumbly, eyes blinking slowly. "Um."
Leaning in a little, Cadence tipped her head to the side. "Is this a bad time?" She laughed uneasily. "Of course it's a bad time. You don't have other kinds of time, do you?"
Thoughts swam through Citrine's head right up until those words - how she couldn't remember the last time she'd brushed her mane, or that she didn't have any food prepared to offer the Princess, or why did the Princess know to show up now with the basket, or that her breath probably wasn't very good and this was royalty and-- And something about those words snapped it all back into perspective. This wasn't Sombra (so being unprepared wasn't going to be harshly punished) and the words were a reminder of the crumpled newspaper of a life Citrine had.
An instant of panic faded into an energy-less frown. "What can I do for you, Your Highness?"
"Oh!" Cadence smiled broadly - a fake one that barely covered the new monarch's obvious unease. "There's somepony I wanted to introduce you to."
The door slammed shut with enough violence to crack it by the upper hinge.
Blinking, the Princess was momentarily stunned. "I, uh... Not like that! I know I'm the Princess of Love but I didn't mean 'introduce you to' that way!"
The door didn't open back up.
Frowning, Cadence considered her options. Breaking down the door was both well within her capabilities and technically not illegal since she was Princess - but it was quite rude and probably wouldn't make the next part any easier. And it was rather unlikely that Citrine would open the door again any time soon. Since blind-teleporting Citrine out of her home was exceptionally unsafe, that only left continuing the conversation through the door.
Lighting her horn, Cadence cast a quick repeater spell - her Royal Canterlot Voice had never been as strong as Celestia's, so instead Cadence had relied on the spell to rebroadcast her words from other locations. Here, it would suffice. "Citrine, I'm sorry but please be assured that this is important. I'd like you to talk with this pony - or at least listen to her." Stepping aside, the Princess of the Crystal Empire nodded to her companion.
Stepping up and out of the shadow of the alicorn was a fairly petite earth pony - a mare with pewter-grey fur and a periwinkle mane cut in a short bob. She hesitated, glancing back to the Princess. Cadence smiled softly and nodded - that encouragement was enough for the mare to inch up to the door.
"Um. Hello there. Princess Cadence said that your name is Citrine. I'm wondering if that's Citrine Star?" She paused uneasily, unsure if there would be a response - there wasn't. "My name's Lucky Jewel. I'm from Fillydelphia, but my family's originally from Vanhoover. And, um. From the Crystal Empire before that. My hobby's genealogy, which is why I know! I've been tracking back our family's history almost forty generations until I hit a dead end with, um." She took a deep breath. "With my ancestor Zircon Star."
The air hung thick with silence. Lucky Jewel shifted uneasily from side to side, looking to Cadence with concern. Cadence, for her part, held her breath.
Silence evaporated around the miniscule sound of the door scraping open. Only a hair, but enough for Citrine to peek out. "You're.. what?" Her voice trembled, taut.
"You're my great-to-the-fortieth-power grandmother," Jewel simplified. Eagerly, she pulled a bulky scroll out. "I can prove it! Really!"
The door opened wider. Citrine's head turned not to Lucky Jewel but to Cadence. Cadence, who was smiling gently and gave a small nod.
Citrine took a long, deep breath. "Jewel, can you... can you tell me what happened to my family?"
There was a slight waver in Jewel's desperate smile. "A little. It's been a long time so the details are, um, not detailed. But I do know some things! Like how they moved to Vanhoover with a lot of other Crystal refugees, and how Zircon became a ceramic artist!" She took a tiny step forward. "Can... can I come in, Miss Citrine?"
The Crystal pony closed her eyes for a moment, processing those tiny, precious scraps of information. When she opened them, she managed a wan smile. "I suppose that Grandma will do."
Lucky Jewel let out an unrestrained squeal of glee as she bounded through the door. "I can't tell you how excited I am! When I traced our lineage back to the Crystal Empire two years ago, I'd never have expected I'd get the chance to follow it further, let alone actually meet one of my ancestors!"
The door closed.
Cadence's smile grew wider as the dullness of the house's crystal took on just a hint of a shine.
Author's Note
As mentioned in the previous chapter's author's notes, this chapter is non-canon to the story (such as it is). I'd originally cut it because I felt the story ended better with the harsh, raw finale of the prior chapter. But I've had several requests to flesh out the epilogue and I had it half-written anyway, so why not!
