Her Shield, His Heart

Shining held onto Cadence as they sat looking out at the balcony. He gently stroked her side as he held her. She leaned into him, no longer even pretending to be strong. The shield was holding outside and as he looked out he could see tents being set up. His sister had decided on a Crystal Fair to raise the hearts of the Crystal Ponies. There would be all kinds of treats, jousting, and crafts. Shining wanted to go and so did Cadence, but Cadence could barely even stand.

He heavily sighed. He felt weak. Weak and useless. He needed to be out there, in the thick of things. There was a knock on the door. Cadence lifted her head. "Enter."

Twilight rushed in in a complete panic. Her mane was wild, her eyes wide. Shining stood and so did Cadence. "What's wrong, Twily?" How much worse were things going to get?

"The Crystal Heart! The Crystal Fair depends on the Crystal Heart and my book didn't say anything about it being an actual relic!" She shook the offending manuscript in the air and flipped through it. Shining's ears perked up. Twilight stopped. "There was a page missing! How did I not notice?"

Cadence smiled kindly at her. "It's alright, Twilight."

Shining was about to stride forward with his head held high and volunteer to quest for the relic when Cadence's knee's buckled and the glow around her horn vanished. He caught her in his arms just as she collapsed. "Twily..." He whimpered, not caring how broken he sounded. He felt broken as he stared down at the exhausted body of his wife. The sapphire dome warped, twisted and was finally enveloped by darkness. A being made from living shadow loomed over the city, its bloodcurdling laugh echoing near the ancient towers.

Shining rushed forward, not sure what he intended to do, but needing to do something. "The empire is under attack." He said it as a grim statement, more to himself than anyone else. He rushed back to Cadence and helped her back on her hooves. They crossed horns, her presence reassuring him. All would be well. It had to be.

Cadence stared forward, her face changing from an expression of loving reassurance to steely wrath in an instant. Her horn glowed once more with sapphire energy and the shield shot up. Sombra screeched in a mocking approximation of pain as the shield sliced through his horn. Cadence's knees buckled again and Shining held her up, looking down at her with concern. He gritted his teeth together. This had to end and he was the one to do it. "I've got to find the Crystal Heart."

Twilight strode up to him. "No. I have to be the one to find the Crystal Heart. You stay here with Cadence. She needs you, Shining Armor."

Shining could not deny that. Twilight and her enthusiastic Pegasus friend took off, leaving Shining alone with Cadence. He laid down next to her, wrapped his hooves around her and began to lovingly caress her side. She leaned into him. "Well, things have been worse."

He scoffed. "When? And how?"

"At least we're together and you're not being used by a bug queen."

His muscles tensed. She nuzzled him. "Oh, Gods, Shining, I shouldn't have brought that up. You still blame yourself for that don't you?"

He nuzzled her back. "I'm getting better every day."

She nestled against him, securing herself in the shelter of his embrace. "And it's not eternal night. And Discord isn't here. Yeah. We've been through worse."

He couldn't help but chuckle at the dark humor of it. "This has not been a good two years to be in the guard."

"Nor to be a princess." She looked out at the city. The Crystal Ponies seemed to be in good spirits as they wandered through the fair. Shining noticed Twilight heading into the street. He called out to her to be careful then returned his attention to Cadence. "Cadence, I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Twilight's right. You do need me and I was about to run off to look for the Crystal Heart."

Cadence spread a consoling wing over his withers. "I don't blame you. If holding up this darned shield wasn't taking up all my energy I'd be out looking for it myself."

"Any idea where it might be?"

"'Fraid not. Mother sent me out of the Empire when I was only six years old." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Everything was burning. I remember that. Sombra had everything repaired. I was lost in time for who knows how long. Could have been years, or decades or millennia."

He wiped away the tears running down her face. "Cadence, you don't have to answer this if you don't want to. If you don't, I'll drop it and never bring it up again okay?"

She nodded. "Okay." She knew what he was going to ask.

"Who is Sombra?"

She stared out at the city. Her city. The city her ancestors had built through blood and sweat and tears. So many tears. Too many tears. The jeweled towers rose up and sparkled in the sun just as they had for years beyond count. She could hear the laughter of her people. Her ancestors had led and defended this empire for generations.

She called on her ancestor's strength and leaned into Shining. "Sombra..." She shuddered. "Sombra is my father."

He did not push her away. If anything, he held onto her tighter. She was thankful for the affection. "Go on."

"You know I lied to you, don't you?"

He touched his horn to hers. "Cadence, it doesn't matter."

"I think, part of me, wants to remember it like that. That Sombra killed my father. That...that creature outside the shield is the creature that murdered my father. My father, King Sombra, was the kindest stallion that ever lived. He's dead now. A shadow is all that's left."

"What happened to him?"

"My mother was dying. He became obsessed with trying to heal her. I don't know what happened. He began using dark magic, made pacts with demons. My mother's life was saved, but Father was changed. I strongly suspect that what you're looking at as Sombra is nothing more than a demon wearing my father's face."

He returned to stroking her side."You were six when all this happened?"

"Silver Scroll explained a lot of this to me recently. But I do remember him changing. He became less patient, had no time for me. He stopped holding me in his lap and reading to me. He'd yell at me if I went in his library." She paused. "I understand now. He was trying to protect me from his research. Maybe he still had a spark of goodness left in him." She trembled. Shining wiped away more of the tears that were falling down her face. "Then one day, he marched in with these soldiers. They massacred the nobles, the mages, the imperial scholars. Everyone. They even...Mama..."

Shining ran a hoof through her mane. She wept into his neck as he laid his head atop hers. After a while, she stopped. "Wow. That feels better. Been holding that in for a long time."

He kissed away the remaining tears. They leaned into each other. Outside of the shield, a storm was brewing. Excited chatter from the fair continued making its way up to the balcony of the palace.  Shadows continued to swirl outside the shield. A boom of rolling thunder crackled through the air. The shield shook.

Shining felt his foreleg twitch just as Cadence's wings twitched. Shining shook his head. Cadence growled lightly. "Wish I could get out there. I'd tear him apart." She flapped her wings. I'm pretty sure I could still fly. Or glide at least."

For one brief moment, an idea flashed across Shining's mind. It was too crazy though. Cadence would laugh at him if he suggested it. Cadence tried to stand and then went back to laying. "Come on, Twilight. Please find the Heart. Please..."

They sat in silence for a while as they looked over the city. The Crystal Ponies had not yet noticed the danger, the approaching storm. They did not see the shadows swirling in the snow, the approaching hoofsteps of a tyrant.

Cadence grasped his hoof. He squeezed back, laying his neck across hers. "Shining? Wanna know something that scares me?"

"What?"

She stared at the shadows. "There have been a lot of tyrants in my family, Sombra wasn't the first one. He was a foreigner, a noble from a long gone Unicorn kingdom the Empire wanted to make an alliance with. But I've had family members on my mother's side who have also slipped into madness and the worst kinds of evil...What if..." The shield trembled and so did her voice. "What if it happens to me?"

Shining laid a hoof upon her withers. "It won't. No matter how far you fall, I will catch you."

She leaned against him. "I feel so weak. Ever since I've come here I feel as if I've been one minute from a complete breakdown. I have a lot of awful, awful memories of this place. But, I also have a lot of good memories. Its my home, but I've been away from it for so long it doesn't feel like home anymore."

Shining sighed. "I had the same feeling after I came back from the Roan War. Canterlot just didn't feel like home anymore. It was the same, but I had just changed so much."

Cadence shuddered. "Something's happening."

The fluctuations in the shield were getting more frequent now. The shadows were getting thicker and longer, tendrils of pure darkness spreading across the snow, threatening to envelop the shield altogether.

Shining squinted his eyes as he noticed dark crystals growing around the shield. He reached up a hoof and touched his horn, feeling the dark crystals encircling it. "Cadence, what are those things?"

Cadence gulped. "Those are crystallized manifestations of anger and hate."

Even as she spoke, the crystals were getting larger and forming complicated patterns, sharply angular. They twisted and writhed as they grew, as if they were living things. The tendrils of shadows grew ever wider, stretching out like the demented wings of a demonic raven. Cadence closed her eyes and focused, trying to strengthen the shield. Her magic was getting weaker.

Suddenly, she realized the problem. The dark crystals were draining her magic, absorbing the love and light from her soul. She groaned beneath the weight of the shield as she felt her soul being drained. She was only vaguely aware of Shining caressing her side. She took comfort in his presence.

His loving presence strengthened her. She thought of all she loved. She loved Shining, Celestia, Luna and Twilight, the only family she had left. She loved her friends though it had been too long since she had seen them. She loved her adopted nation, Equestria. She loved its fruitful hills and peaceful meadows. She loved this land of her birth, its crystal towers and storied heritage.

She drew strength from the memory of her family's love, her friends' love, the love of her nation. She closed her eyes, remembering every kind word and gentle caress Shining had ever given her, she remembered sleepovers with her friends and shared laughter, she remembered her aunt Celestia holding her when she was scared and caring for her when she was sick, she remembered conversations about love and dreams with her new aunt Luna, she remembered happy times playing with Twilight.

She drew strength from her love for her two homelands. Equestria, the land of harmony and the Crystal Empire, the empire forged from love. Drawing up love from her very core, she charged up her horn. The shield pushed against the shadows, driving them back from the empire. Her hair turned ethereal, shimmering and waving. She stood, spreading her wings and her eyes filled with cosmic, sapphire energy.

Shining stood by her, wanting so much to join his power to hers like they had at the wedding to drive back the Changelings.

Suddenly, her knees buckled and she crumpled.

The shield wavered as if it were about to buckle just like its caster.

"Cadence!"

Shining caught her before she hit the hard stone. This had to end and it had to end soon. He laid down beside her, first checking her pulse. It was weak, faint.

She was near death. The shield was killing her. Shining felt tears in his eyes. If only he could use his magic. Together, they could defeat Sombra. If only he wasn't so weak, so weak and pathetic. A torrent of negative thoughts thundered in his mind. Cadence reached up and ran a hoof through his mane. "Shining, those dark crystals...its infecting your thoughts. Don't listen to them."

Shining snorted. "It's hard not to."

"Try. He draws strength from negativity. Sadness, despair, anger, hatred, self-loathing. Those things..." She broke away in a coughing fit. "Those things give him strength."

The shield was now a shell of its former self. The Crystal Ponies had begun to notice. Shouts and panicked screaming reached the balcony as their herd nature took over. The Crystal Ponies began to stampede, trampling over each other in their haste to get away and escape the danger.

But there was no escape. The shield that had once been an emblem of hope, their defense against the darkness, had become their prison. Shining squeezed his eyes trying to summon up his magic and strengthen the shied. "This is torture. I want to defend them, I want to defend you...damn it, damn it..." Tears trailed down his face.

Cadence wiped them away. Applejack and Rarity were trying to keep everpony calm, but their shouts were falling on deaf ears. The Crystal Ponies continued to run and scream, frenzied shouts filling the air.

Shining growled. "If I ever get my hooves on Sombra, I'd strangle him to death."

He held Cadence close, it was all he could do.

The shield cracked and then it shattered. A maniacal laugh rang out over the empire as the sky took on a sickly shade of yellowish orange, a mockery of sunlight. Jagged and wild forests of dark crystals sprouted all around the city and the towers turned to obsidian.

The tyrant of shadows laughed, the cackling sound echoing on the towers and mixing with the terrified screaming. One mare rushed directly towards the exit to the city, only for Sombra to block her way. That's when Shining and Cadence saw something they thought they would never see.

Shining blinked. "Is that...Spike?"

The young dragon was holding onto the Crystal Heart as he soared through the air.

Shining and Cadence exchanged a look. Shining calculated the trajectory. "He's never going to make it...he's going to break his arms from that angle..."

Cadence flapped her wings. "I can catch him. Throw me."

The idea had crossed his own mind. "Sure?"

"Now or never, Shining."

Cadence crawled onto his back and spread her wings. He tossed her as hard as he could. She caught the air currents and soared, picking up speed as she flew. Spike landed on her back, the crystal heart floating ahead of them. The relic had a mind of its own and it knew its place.

She landed in the center square, shattering a stone heart, to the amazed shouts of her subjects. The Crystal Heart landed on the pedestal. Cadence turned to her subjects. "The Crystal Heart has returned! Use the love and light within you to insure that Sombra does not!"

As one, the Crystal Ponies knelt, energy radiating from them and towards the Heart. The streets of the city began to glow a sapphire light as the Crystal Heart was charged. The energy filled the heart and radiated from it as the entire city glowed. The Crystal Ponies coats shimmered as the dark crystals shattered.

Sombra cried out. Cracks appeared all over his body. With one last shout, he shattered and was no more.

                                                                                                                                      ...

It was over. Twilight Sparkle and her friends had returned to Equestria, though Twilight had promised to visit the next week. Cadence had taken a solid, twenty-four hour nap. Now, she was awake. She strode through the grand, diamond hall. Sunlight reflected on the wall created a rainbow of colors.

Shining was beside her. There was a row of statues on either side of her, her royal ancestors. Most were Crystal Ponies. A few were Unicorns. The last few were Pegasii, the result of the son of a Pegasan noble running off with a Crystal princess.

Cadence and Shining entered the throne room and sat down upon the thrones. The crown felt unusually heavy on her head, as if she were but a pretender. "Bring in the prisoners."

The guards dragged in ten Crystal stallions, wrapped together in chains. Their faces ranged from impassive to defiant.

She cleared her throat. "You have been accused of treason, mass murder in the first degree and supporting a foreign tyrant. Each crime carries the death penalty under Imperial Law. How do you plead?"

Silence reined in the great hall. "I ask again. How do you plead? Silence will be taken as an admission of guilt."

One stallion, a red one with a jagged scar over his left eye, sneered at her. "We recognize no lord but Sombra." He spat on the floor.

A guard punched him in the face. She held up a hoof. "Please. We've seen more than enough violence. No more. You were Sombra's ten generals. You carried out his orders and fought against the guards who remained loyal to my blessed mother. You broke your oaths and turned against your brothers-in-arms. Your comrades have fled. Why did you not?"

The red stallion, their spokespony she presumed, looked straight in her eyes. It chilled her. "Because when he returns he will grant us power beyond all imagining."

"Sombra is dead. You will not try to speak up in your defense?"

He shook his head. "No."

"In ancient times you would have been beheaded. I am strongly tempted to order such or do it myself." She closed her eyes, breathed. "I will not. I cannot. It would go against what I was taught, the way I was raised. It would not bring back the dead, nor would it heal this empire. No more bloodshed. I hereby sentence you to banishment and imprisonment for life on the Isle of Thule."

Thule was a frozen island used as a prison by Equestria. In ancient days it had been an outpost of the Crystal Empire and had served the same purpose then as it did now. "Get this trash out of my sight."

The guards escorted them out. "Court is adjourned for today."

She rose, stretched and walked past the Hall of the Emperors, Shining following at her side. They reached their bedroom. Cadence walked in and slipped off her golden horse shoes, slid off her torc which she placed on the chest-of-drawers and laid her crown beside it. She smiled at Shining. "It's over. Thank the Gods, the long nightmare is finally over."