Moment of Kindness

Trapped

Beyond the Crystal Mountains, no ponies thought that a land past the borders of the Crystal Empire would exist or have been mentioned by anypony - but it just so happens that a unicorn traveled into a snowstorm where she discovered a crystal pony trapped in ice.

The land known as the Frozen Tundra was discovered today by Amethyst Star, during her expedition past the Crystal Mountains. Today, we take a look at her journey.

The ferocious wind blew snow across the sky and covered the Crystal Mountains in a white coat of snow. As Amethyst Star trudged through the snow, the soft, cold feeling beneath her hooves caused her to shiver in discomfort. A snowstorm that was scheduled today should have given her a warning to not go outside, but she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to explore the Crystal Mountains.

Snowflakes descended from the sky and dark clouds above, and she trudged further up to the highest peak of the mountains to keep her hooves balanced. She reached into her saddlebag for a rope and grappling hook to climb the rest of the mountain, and threw the grappling mechanism out. It reclined and hooked onto the highest peak of the mountain, a long strand of rope going along with it to keep the mechanism from falling off.

At the highest peak, Amethyst walked through deep snow. The place was so high that the falling snow was no longer present in the air. Her purple mane swung strongly to the icy wind that gave her chills, Amethyst observed the surroundings around here. The whole peak was completely white and she made a mental note to be careful; the place was steep and dangerous. There was also a dark cave with stalactites and water dripped from the ceiling of the cave, Amethyst thought that a cave would be the last place she would be in but it was time to overcome this.

She walked into the dark cave searching for a way out. The bats’ screech echoed throughout the cave, Amethyst pressed her hooves against her ears to block out the screeching. A light at the end of the cave brightened up the darkness inside, Amethyst trotted to the light and covered her eyes for her to block out the sudden brightness.

She removed her hooves from her eyes and looked at the other side of the mountain. Taking out her rope and grappling hook once again, Amethyst threw the grappling hook as it attached downward to the edge and the rope followed suite, where her hooves felt a frozen block of ice beneath them.

‘’I wonder what’s under here,’’ she thought to herself, brushing the snow away from the ice.

After she brushed the snow off, a block of ice revealed itself from the brushed snow and inside of the ice was a crystal pony trapped inside. Amethyst’s mouth gaped open surprised and narrowed her eyes at the ice pick next to the ice, she grabbed the pick and dug deep into the frozen snow. Bringing the pick down harder on the ice, she broke the ice down piece by piece until the crystal pony was released from the ice.

A pool of water was left behind from the ice surrounded the crystal pony, leaving her body wet. Amethyst tossed the ice pick to the side and moved about, then decided to stick a flag in the ground with a shining star on it.

‘’Looks like the Frozen Tundra was never discovered until today, somehow this crystal pony wandered out here. I have no idea how nopony noticed that she was gone for so long,’’ Amethyst inquired. She started down the same path she had walked up the mountain on.

        King Sombra looked across the Crystal Empire. His enslaved subjects trudged slowly in their ankle-shackled chains binding them; he was pleased to see the Crystal Ponies losing the will to provoke him or rebel against his rule. He walked from his balcony to his crystallized throne that was covered in sharp, black crystals.

        The tyrannical king furrowed his brow when he heard two ponies bursting through the door. One of the ponies held a crystal pony and dropped to her knees. The pony rolled on the hard marble floor in front of Sombra’s hooves.

        ‘’Why have you two intruded on my private business? Explain yourselves!’’ Sombra roared, his menacing voice sending chills running down their spines.

        ‘’I came here to return this pony to you.’’ Amethyst bowed before him before walking out of the throne room.

        The crystal pony opened her eyes and looked up at Sombra’s face, she was familiar with a face that she could never forget. All of the pain and suffering that she went through came flooding back to her. Her name was Maven.

        ‘’Since you’re a crystal pony, it would seem fit to get you acquainted with the others.’’ Sombra levitated a pair of chains with binding shackles and launched the chains at Maven. She quickly jumped up to her hooves and kicked the chains back at the king and made a beeline for the throne room doors in front of her.

        Sombra rose up from his throne, his horn lit up in its black aura engulfed in a violet haze. He shot a blast of his magic at the two doors and blocked the two doors with crystals protruding from the castle floor. ‘’You’re not getting away.’’

        The king approached Maven. His fear spoke volumes to those before him, and Maven was no exception. She cowered in a corner breathing heavily. She didn’t know how to respond to this, though nopony has ever dared to defy Sombra before without losing all confidence and will.

        He raised his hoof high and before he brought his hoof back down on Maven, he stopped his hoof. ‘’You know what, maybe you have your reasons for being here. For a thousand years, I’ve been enslaving your kind and there was nothing you could do about it.’’

Sombra’s eyes expanded as he looked back at his early years, from his early colthood.

‘’You’re not destined to be king, because you lack trepidation. Son, you lack the method of fear and using psychology to break down your opponent’s mind!’’ King Lacid addressed his son, shouting at the top of his lungs.

‘’Father, why do you always doubt my abilities? I know how to run a kingdom, it’s better to treat your subjects with respect,” Sombra waved his hooves around before pointing outside to the legion of his father’s subjects. Lacid’s subjects walked slowly amongst one another in a crowded space, their faces filled with grim, emotionless demeanors.

“Sombra, if you’ve learned about running a kingdom, you should know that my subjects and yourself are to abide by my rules. Nopony can be subjected to freedom!” Lacid turned his back to Sombra before he draped his royal robe over him.

‘’You are not my father! No father of mine has the right and the dignity to rule your own kingdom with an iron hoof. Consider yourself as nothing more than a weak, pathetic little worm of a king.’’ Sombra stomped his hoof down, both he and his father could feel the vibrations of the hoof.

‘’ Get out of my castle and my kingdom, I hereby forbid you to return here ever again. Guards, see to it that my so-called son is sent far away from here.’’ Two guards charged into the throne room and restrained the young Sombra’s hooves back into the wall.

‘’I won’t be going anywhere, father.’’ Sombra bucked his hind legs out to the two guards, kicking them both down to their knees. They winced and held their hind legs on the marble floor as Sombra charged forward into both of them and thrusted his horn through their stomachs. He pulled his horn from their impaled stomachs and watched as their bodies lay punctured with one hole in them. He turned his attention back to his father and both of their eyes narrowed. They glared into each others eyes with burning hatred for each other.

‘’ Son, you were always a disappointment to your mother and I. That is why you will never rule the throne when I depart from this world.’’ King Lacid charged the magic in his horn and the dark yellow aura surrounded his horn. He shot out a dark blast as yellow crystals surrounded Sombra on all sides.

‘’ Father, you’ll see why you should never doubt your opponent. Even your own son can pose as a threat to you,‘’ Sombra closed his eyes and concentrated on the magical pinpoint to unlock his full potential. Dark, shadow-like horses trotted around Sombra in a circular motion. The legendary Shadow Horses sat down on the marble floor as three dark dots appeared on the floor. They connected from three opposite sides and blasted Sombra’s horn with the shadows rising from the dots.

He felt the dark shadows flowing through his body and his own magic mixed with the magic signature that they possessed. His horn was engulfed in a dark violet aura and aimed directly at the yellow crystals around him, the young unicorn shot the crystals as fragments of the crystals were scattered across the floor. ‘’ Like I said, never underestimate your opponent,’’ he said through gritted teeth.

Both of them stared each other down as they aimed their horns and shot out their magical blasts, both blasts careening at their maximum level evenly matched in terms of magic and power. When it looked like King Lacid’s blast was outweighing his son’s, the shadow horses gave Sombra the rest of their magic as they slowly faded away in front of Sombra’s eyes. His eyes completely changed into a white, milky-like state where his magical aura’s blast rose up from its original state and overtook Lacid.

‘’ It’s time to say farewell, for good!” The magical aura stretched over Lacid  with a bright, white light flashing before his eyes. His grey, hardened armor crumbled before him on his royal marble floor with his body laid stretched out on the floor.

Sombra walked up to his fallen father laid before his hooves and blood leaking from all over his body with marks cutting deep into his fur. ‘’ If you believe that I’m going to show mercy, you’re wrong father. Instead, I’m going to bury you beneath the catacombs of your own kingdom.’’

‘’ Even in death, you’ll always be a failure in my eyes. You wouldn’t dare do this to your own father,’’ Lacid stretched his hoof out slowly to reach for his crown, only to be stopped by Sombra’s hoof applying his weight down on it and crushing the bones beneath him.

‘’ Watch me,’’ Sombra rolled his eyes back in his skull and his regular irises were replaced by scarlet eyes overtaking his old black eyes. He charged his horn as a violet haze and black aura hovered around his horn, and the bottom of the floor below his father opened up gave way to his weight. Lacid clung to the gaping hole below him and, not allowing himself to let go of the opening, Sombra brought each of his hooves down and crushed both of the bones in his father’s hooves.

‘’ Insolent little pest, accept your fate.‘’  Sombra’s aura brought the deformed yellow crystals up from the marble floor that encased him, and formed a crystallized sword that amazed his father even before he was about to take a plunge down to the catacombs of his own kingdom.

‘’ I’ve grown bored of your trivial attempts, time to end this.’’ He clenched the sword between his teeth and swung the sword forward into his father’s throat. Sombra pulled the sword back from the blood-filled hole in his father’s opened throat; his father’s head was removed from his long, slender neck.

He removed King Lacid’s head from the sword and threw the head down into the catacombs of the Crystal Empire, his decapitated body falling down with it. ‘’ Good riddance.’’

Sombra flashed back to present time as Maven looked at the king, still puzzled from him coming back to reality. ‘’I’ll allow you to leave peacefully, I’m sorry for trapping you.’’ He lit his horn up and removed the crystals from the throne room doors. Maven ran away with her tail between her legs, which left the king all alone on his throne.

Sombra walked over to his balcony looming over the empire that he will continue to rule for another thousand years. His father doubted his abilities to hinder his own son from being next in line to the throne, little did he know that his own flesh and blood betrayed him. ‘’That’ll teach you a thing or two, father.’’

He turned around where a mirror was floating in front of him, showed him his own reflection of what he once was and what he is now. A ghostly image of his father appeared in the mirror where Sombra’s guilt started to set in. They glared daggers into each others eyes.

‘’See son, I’m here.’’

‘’I thought I killed you and left your body to rot underneath the Crystal Empire, there is no logical explanation that you survived.’’ Sombra explained as he gritted his teeth, snarling at the image of his father.

‘’I’m still here in spirit, look at what you’ve become. A monster of your former self and what you used to be, a kind and humble young king-to-be.’’ Lacid held a picture of Sombra and his wife in a family photo at the old Crystal Empire. A plethora of tears came streaming down Sombra’s face and the tear droplets splashed across the mirror.

‘’Reclaim what you once were. Avenge me,’’ Lacid spoke softly to his son.

‘’No,’’ King Sombra said solemnly.

‘’Avenge me!’’ Lacid yelled through the mirror, his voice echoing in his ears.

‘’No!’’ Sombra’s scream left a lasting impression towards his father. His magic circled around the mirror and shattered the mirror, and shards of glass flew from the mirror.

‘’This is where our little conversation ends.’’ Sombra’s robe flapped in the whirling snowy winds from the Frozen Tundra.

The End