Once upon a time, there was an empire of crystal. The ponies of this land had from them stricken the memory of a time before the cruel king. Such was the reign of the king that fear ruled the ponies beneath a steel hoof.
Once upon a time, hope came to an empire of crystal. The king was cast out from the land. A brilliance that sundered the king's dark form put to rest once and for all the terrors that had plagued the ponies of the empire.
Once upon a time, there was a stallion. Broken and alone.
***
It was a curious thing, the stubborn remaining ember of warmth that refused to be silenced within his chest. Beside curiosity there were other, less noisome, remnants of emotions and notions. Bits of regret were being smothered as ash fell upon mane and fur. Dribbles of rage were soaked up by the cold comfort of a royal-crimson cape that long had long since faded to grays. Ire had been caked over with apathy that closed the eyes shut.
What sensations were left could barely remind him of the ever-decaying tree he rested his back upon. The cracked and cool clay of the ground he sat. Even to his ears were dimmed the moaning groan of the wind as it passed through the crippled bark of cracking glass.
There was no motion to even stop the symbol of his office from slipping off his brow. No care as the circlet of freezing metal struck the muzzle. No reflexive twitch as it struck off his armor and cracked the clay beneath him. These mild and dying sensations were pushed aside without preamble, only for him to focus on that last bit of errant warmth.
Time would have been meaningless to the stallion, were it not for the desperate and tenacious warmth. Where it came from, he knew not. Why it remained, a conundrum. It should have died off like so many other pointless things, like joy and dreams.
Oh how simple it should have been to simply cease to be. To simply fade away in this place he knew not of. The stallion would have given himself over to the gloom of apathy and silenced the warmth if it were not for that remaining curiosity.
From what, did that warmth derive?
Surely it could not have been there before... Before something. Something that knocked enough of the gray gloom from him to remind him that he was a HIM at all. Was it there from the beginning? Was he sitting there the whole time he was in this place? Why was he sitting beneath the ever-dying boughs of a glass tree?
Questions, questions, questions; and not a one of them gave an answer to the warmth.
The stallion shuddered, his first shaking breath sent a cascade of ash and dust to fall from his form. A second breath and his eyes cracked just a sliver. Enough that a glowing mist of violet spilled forth. With a third breath an armored gauntlet, that had been caked with the grime of time past, rose in quiet complaint.
The motion ceased in mid-rise, and with a shaking shudder the stallion's right arm fell down to meet the parched clay. Eyes clenched shut, the stallion knew leaving his place was a futile effort. There was nothing more for him elsewhere. Nothing to stand for. Nothing to fight for. Nothing to rise for. And certainly nopony to seek comfort with.
Nopony.
He was, alone.
Though he could not think of why that was.
Another breath taken, the left arm clawed up from it's rest in protest of the rust of ages.
Another breath stolen, the armored fingers opened to seek out what had changed.
Another breath conquered, the warmth in the stallion's chest blazed as fingers met horn.
The dark-cutting curve who's tip had cooled back to a dark indigo.
Red eyes snapped open, surrounded by a field of green that at the edges bled a violet mist.
Dust and ash fell in cascades as two hands met roots of dark glass and crystal. A body covered in armor and ancient cloth began to rise as the stallion slowly began to stand. The creaking tree became a perilous support as an armored hoof made a single step forward.
The stallion paid no attention to the crunch of a circlet's demise.
Eyes that had been blind to all finally took survey of the stallion's surroundings. The dark and twisted glass tree had been his resting place atop a hill. Surrounding that hill was a forest of gruesome and decaying wood. At the base of each of those trees, did the stallion finally see, was a form covered in the debris of unwashed apathy of time.
Lungs finally remembered their function, and the stallion erupted into a coughing fit. Brought back to his knees, the figure retched a pustulant mass of vile amorphous matter. There were moments spent there he knew, but he could not discern of what stretch of time those moments meant. At least, not until the warmth in his chest began to ever so slowly begin a hesitant rhythm.
Standing was an effort, thinking of leaving was an effort, and keeping his eyes and senses open was an effort. Yet, as the stallion stood bowed and shaking of body, did a thought occur to him. Others were alone in that forest, each beneath their tree.
Others were here.
Alone.
As alone, perhaps, as he was.
Yet, he saw none of them rise.
For a time, perhaps a minute or so, did the stallion stand there until the warmth in his chest beckoned him onwards. To where, he knew not, though there was a path in the forest now. A path, he could not believe he did not see before. That path had to each side a wall of razor-edged vines and blood-spattered brambles.
So, with one step of a hoof, followed by another, and another, did the stallion begin to walk. The path would be his, perhaps his alone. For how long alone, he knew not. Nor, did he care.
He was done with sitting beneath his tree for the time.
The stallion gave only a slight thought concerning the crushed circlet that now withered amidst the crystal roots.
Here, he was not King.
A glimmer of white emerged as the stallion's fangs were bared in between a low chuckle and a cough.
There, as he walked the path of thorn and razor-vine, did he remember.
He is Sombra!
A new question came to he,
What can warm the heart of a pony?
***
My Little Pony, Friendship Is Magic
with
Dungeons & Dragons
Sombra's Inferno
