The Light of Despair

by Gordon Pasha

Rating: teen
Tags: Tragedy, Radiant Hope, Dark, My Little Pony Comic, Drama
Length: 47272

1000 years ago, before discovering the Umbrum, Radiant Hope faces another dilemma. An incurable plague, a town on the verge of annihilation, and an evil unlike anything she has ever known. Can she overcome it without giving in to darkness herself?

1000 years ago, the Crystal Empire disappeared, leaving one pony lost, homeless, and full of self-blame.

Dedicating herself to discovering what happened and setting things right, Radiant Hope departed for the Frozen North, looking to find and understand Sombra's people. What she finds instead is the frontier town of Whinnysburg, where a deadly plague is swiftly winnowing the population. It seems like it will be an easy task for such a powerful healer to halt the plague and save the town.

But when the plague proves immune to even Radiant Hope's powerful healing magic, she vows to use any means necessary in order to defeat it. In the ensuing struggle, she will encounter an evil unlike anything she has ever known. To overcome it, Hope may have to tread on darker paths herself, paths that may just lead to her alliance with the Umbrum and the near-demise of the Crystal Empire 1000 years in the future.

Featured on Equestria Daily on September 18th, 2018.

Published 2016-05-07 16:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-05-09 10:15:05 UTC

Celestia

Equestria, 1000 years ago.

“What is the matter, sister?” Luna asked as she stepped out into the morning air. It was rather chilly, she observed, but that was no doubt due to the high elevation. For she now stood upon the turret of one of the highest towers of the Castle of the Two Royal Sisters. Celestia was already there, staring out far into the distance, as though her gaze could take in all of Equestria.

“Sister?” Luna said, having not received an answer.

Celestia looked over her shoulder. “Oh, Luna, how long have you been there?”

“I just came up now,” Luna responded. “I know something is troubling you, sister. I caught a glimpse of it in your dreams last night. I have been waiting for you to confide in me, but you have not.”

“I’m sorry, Luna,” Celestia responded. “I should have told you immediately. But there is so much to come to terms with. The situation in Whinnysburg, for instance.”

“I understand why you would find that troubling,” Luna said.

“I just received another report today. The plague has claimed even more lives and we’re still no closer to ending it.”

Luna approached. “’Tis strange that none of our magic has any effect on it, but I am certain that we shall find a remedy in time.”

Celestia shook her head. “Still, it isn’t easy to wait. They look to us for a cure, but nothing we do helps. I am still not sure whether imposing a quarantine on the town was the right choice.”

“You did what you thought best,” Luna responded, putting a comforting hoof on Celestia’s shoulder. “Many more lives were saved by that timely action, no doubt.”

“Perhaps….”

Celestia once more turned her eyes northward and seemed to become lost to Luna again.

Luna steadied herself for what had to be said next. “Sister, I know you are not being fully honest with me. The plague, tragic though it is, was not the main import of your dream.”

Celestia was silent. Luna looked down at her hooves and let out a little sigh. It had become increasingly like this ever since the loss of the Crystal Empire. She and Celestia had been each others’ rock of support for as long as either of them could remember. But now, they were growing distant. Luna wasn’t sure why, or who was to blame, but it was happening.

“Sister, confide in me,” she said. “You cannot keep these things inside. You know that.”

“I know,” Celestia said quietly. “But it could have been just a dream.”

“It was not. We both know that.”

Celestia nodded. For a few moments, there was silence and stillness. Then Celestia turned to Luna. Luna surveyed her face. There was nothing but resolution there, firm resolution. This was Celestia being a princess, Luna knew. This was Celestia facing the truth. This was Celestia choosing truth over how she felt inside.

“I saw Hope,” she said.

Luna’s brow rose. This was interesting. “It’s been sometime since Radiant Hope disappeared into the Frozen North.” Luna felt like adding a incredulous 'Are you sure?' But it seemed like bad form after she had just demanded that Celestia be honest with her.

“I know, but I had supposed she’d return eventually, once she realized her quest to save Sombra was hopeless,” Celestia responded.

“But, if she is returning, perhaps she has,” Luna said. “Why are you so troubled?”

“She is going to Whinnysburg,” Celestia said.

Luna considered. “Hmm, that is rather distressing. But why is she heading there?”

“From what I could tell, she’s gone through all the provisions she took with her into the north. Whinnysburg is the closest town on the northern frontier. She’s going there to resupply.”

“I see. But perhaps it is a happy accident. With her great healing power, she might be able to–”

“If she reaches Whinnysburg, she will be lost to us,” Celestia said. “Whatever happens, she will never come back to us.”

Luna did not need to question it. That Celestia had interrupted her, the urgency in her sister’s voice – they both told Luna that Celestia was as certain about this as anypony could be about anything.

“Then we must prevent her from reaching the town,” Luna said. “Surely, the guards that have been posted on the roads are more than up to the task. She won’t be able to evade them.”

“Her choices right now are to restock her provisions at Whinnysburg or give up her search and come back south. And my sense is that she’ll do anything if she views the alternative as turning her back on Sombra again.”

“And between that determination and her remarkable skill with magic, you feel that she’ll manage to get into the town despite our guards’ best efforts.”

“Precisely.”

“But is there nothing we can do to keep her from Whinnysburg?”

“Nothing.” Celestia’s glance once more began to turn northward. “Unless….”

“Unless?”

Celestia gave a quick shake of her head. “No, I fear that even that would not work.”

“What were you thinking?” Luna asked.

“I was thinking, if I could just talk to her, maybe I could persuade her. But my feeling is that, if we could not even convince her to continue her studies, I won’t be able to keep her from Whinnysburg.”

Luna nodded. “Your fear is well-founded. But as I see it, you must try.”

“Even if I’m bound to fail?” Celestia asked.

Luna placed her hoof on Celestia’s shoulder. “Of course! If you give Hope every chance to avoid it, then you cannot be held responsible for what she chooses. You ought to do that much. You owe it to yourself to do it.”

“You’re right, Luna,” Celestia said. “I shall do it.”

But she did not seem very enthusiastic.

“Should I perhaps do it instead?” Luna asked.

“No,” Celestia responded. “This is something I need to do.”

Without another word, Celestia turned northward and began to spread her wings.

“Do you have any idea where she is?” Luna asked.

“I’ve got a hunch,” Celestia replied.

And, in a moment, she was gone, soaring into the blue noontide sky. Luna watched her sister closely until Celestia had disappeared beyond the horizon.

“Try not to blame yourself too much, sister,” Luna said, though Celestia could not possibly hear. “I’ve never met a pony more intent on going her own weird way than Radiant Hope. The consequences of that are Hope’s to face, not yours.”

'Whinnysburg.' The sign said, 'Whinnysburg.' That much Hope could make out. She could also barely make out what looked like a directional arrow. It seemed to point toward the left-most of the two roads that currently forked from her position. But the sign was so crude and so worn from the elements that Hope could not be sure. Still, there was no other indication to go on, so she would have to trust the sign.

A chill wind caused Hope’s cloak to whip and fly around her. With a spark of magic from her horn, she quickly pulled it back against her lavender coat. Not that she felt like she much needed it. It was cold around here, but not nearly as cold as it was deep within the bounds of the Frozen North. Why, the snow was even slowly giving ground to grass and shrubs, so Hope knew she must be nearing more temperate climes. Besides, crystal ponies seemed to have a greater tolerance of the cold than other ponies.

Still, it would be nice to get to someplace where she could sit in front of a warm fire for a change. Hope felt her stomach growl, a reminder of the fact that she had had to begin skipping most meals in order to conserve what was left of her foodstuffs. But even after that, they would only last another day or two.

So, Whinnysburg or bust, Hope thought.

She quickly brushed back all the strands of blue hair that the wind had thrown into her eyes and began to trot along the left road. She did not make it far before she heard a tremendous swooping sound nearby. Hope wondered what it was, but with her straits so desperate, she would have kept going regardless, if it had not been for that voice. Hope’s hood all but knocked out her peripheral vision, but the voice she heard was unmistakable.

“Radiant Hope!”

“Princess Celestia?” Hope asked in shock as she whirled around. “What are you doing out here?”

“Radiant Hope, I have come to see you,” Celestia answered, tucking her wings in as she strode forward.

“See me? But why?”

Celestia now stood before Hope. Or, rather, Celestia towered over her. Hope did not know why – maybe it was the regal posture Celestia had adopted, or perhaps the ground was merely uneven – but Celestia seemed even taller and more imposing than she had remembered.

“I had hoped that you were finally ready to come home,” Celestia said.

Hope let out a sigh and shook her head. “Oh, that’s why. I thought we were past this. You know I don’t have a home, Princess. I lost it.”

“You lost one home,” Celestia said. “But I could help you make another. Please, Hope, come back south with me.”

“I can’t,” Hope said. “Not until I’ve found a way to save Sombra. The answer is out there. I just know it is.”

“I know how much Sombra means to you,” Celestia said. “But don’t you think you can help him more by continuing your studies and getting a better idea of what we’re facing?”

“Studying can’t help me anymore. Whatever Sombra is, whatever happened to him, I’m not going to find out from books and lectures. But I just have a feeling that, somewhere in the Frozen North, is the answer to everything.”

“There are many things in these northern climes that are unknown to ponykind,” Celestia said. “And that is usually for the best. Did you ever consider that you might be better off not knowing what is hidden beneath the waste and snow?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Hope responded, her eyes shining, filled with resolve. “Whatever happens, I have to find Sombra and I have to save him. What happened with him, with the Crystal Empire, is all my fault. I have to make it right. I can’t let him down again.”

Celestia smiled one of those warm smiles of understanding that she was so well-known for. Stretching out a wing, she wrapped it around Hope’s shoulder.

“You have nothing to blame yourself for,” Celestia said. “Sombra made his own choices, just as we all do. What happened was the consequence of his own actions, not yours. If this has been about punishing yourself or trying to make up for what happened, you don’t have to.”

Hope tore out from under Celestia’s wing. “You don’t understand. Sombra is the only pony who has ever cared about me and I betrayed him when he needed me most. How can I just let that go?”

Celestia stiffened a little. “Hope, that’s not true. Sombra is not the only pony who ever cared about you.”

“Yes, he is!” Hope snapped. “That’s why I owe it to him to do whatever it takes to save him.”

“But you can do so much more for Equestria, for ponies, if you just–”

“What does any of that matter if I can’t save Sombra?”

Celestia was stern and silent. She did not answer.

Hope recovered herself. “I’m sorry, Princess. I shouldn’t have snapped or interrupted you. I do want to help other ponies. I do. But if I can’t even help my best friend, how can I help anypony else?”

“Hope, I don’t know how many more ways I can say this,” Celestia said. “You have tremendous healing power. There are so many ponies suffering from injuries, from diseases, that you could heal. There is so much suffering to alleviate. As much as you love Sombra, can you really put one pony’s life above that of so many?”

“But I’m not letting my healing power go to waste,” Hope responded. “I am still using it. Just the other day, I came across a pony that had broken his leg climbing a mountain. I healed him. He would have died otherwise. But I saved his life. And I’ll do that for anypony who needs it. But it’s because I have this great power inside of me that I have hope that I can use it to save Sombra too. And I need to try. Before I’ll ever be able to come back down, I need to try.”

The look on Celestia’s face was difficult to discern. Was it anger? No, no. Celestia was rarely angry, except with those that threatened her subjects. It was more likely that disappointment was beginning to crack through her stern façade. Disappointment perhaps, or the loss of hope.

“Maybe I can’t convince you to come back to your studies,” Celestia said. “But at least listen to me when I say this. Don’t go to Whinnysburg.”

“How did you know I was going there?” Hope asked. Celestia did have a penchant for overreaching knowledge, but still....

“Don’t go to Whinnysburg,” Celestia said again.

“But why, Princess?”

“If I told you, you would go to Whinnysburg,” Celestia said. “Please, Hope, just take my word for it. Nothing good can come from you going to Whinnysburg.”

“But I need provisions, and Whinnysburg is the only settlement this far north.”

“Perhaps I can help you. I can fly provisions to you.”

“Thank you, but no, Princess. I don’t want to waste any more time. I want to get to Whinnysburg, quickly resupply, and then continue my search. You are very busy ruling Equestria, and I don’t know how quickly you could be back here.”

Hope just managed to prevent herself from adding, ‘I don’t know if you’d even come back.’ It would, after all, be in Celestia’s best interest to stall her and force her to return south.

“Is there nothing I can say or do to convince you not to go to Whinnysburg?” Celestia asked.

“No,” Hope said. “That is what I have to do if I want to keep searching for Sombra. And I’m not going to give up. I think you know that.”

“Very well,” Celestia said. “I see I can’t change your mind. But at least let me help you this much.”

With her magic, Celestia floated something out from beneath her regal collar. Quickly, she pinned it to Hope’s cloak. It was a badge of some sort. A badge in the shape of the sun, exactly matching Celestia’s cutie mark.

“What’s this for?” Hope asked.

“That will allow you safe passage to Whinnysburg,” Celestia said. “Show it to the guards and they will let you pass.”

“Why are there guards on the road to Whinnysburg?”

“You will find out soon enough.”

“But if you don’t want me to go, why are you helping me?”

Celestia smiled. It was warm and kind, but also sad. Very, very sad.

“Because this is the last thing I shall ever be able to help you with,” she answered.

Hope felt a chill inside her at these words, a chill far colder than that coming from the whistling winds. If anything could make her turn back, that could. But Hope was resolved never to turn back. Not until Sombra was by her side again.

“Thank you, Princess,” Hope said. “But don’t worry. I know I can find out what Sombra is and how to save him. Then everything will be better! I’ll come back with him and I’ll resume my studies and I’ll use my powers to help ponies throughout Equestria. It is all going to work out! You’ll see.”

Without waiting for a response, Hope turned and once more began trotting down the road to Whinnysburg.

It was done. There was nothing more she could do.

Celestia held back a tear as she watched Hope go.

“If only, Hope, if only,” she said. Then, daring not another glance, she turned her back.

“Now you are lost to us forever.”

What awaited Radiant Hope in Whinnysburg?

Read on.

Whinnysburg

“Come buy, come buy!” shouted a tall, rather gaunt-looking unicorn, pale blue in color, as he went through the busy work of converting his house into a trader’s stall. Through the violet glow of his horn, a part of the wall rose up to become a wooden overhang, revealing a window underneath. From the overhang unfolded a sign announcing, 'Fallen Fortune’s One-Stop Cure-All Emporium.'

Cure-all business was good. Or so it seemed to Radiant Hope. This house was one of the few in all Whinnysburg, from what she had seen, to be two-stories. And it was made of brick; a far cry from the simple thatch hovels which seemed to make up most of the town’s buildings. And then, of course, there was the large crowd that seemed to appear out of nowhere the moment he had let out his cry.

Before she knew it, Hope was being pushed and jostled by all sorts of ponies. It was a bit of a surprise; Whinnysburg did not seem large enough to contain all the ponies that were now squeezing into the square. But here they were.

“Come, come!” said Fallen Fortune, having taken up position behind the window. “Don’t want to die of plague, do you? Come to me, and you never will! I have all sorts of remedies; potions, cures, panaceas. Why, this little beauty–” Here, the unicorn produced a vial. “–is guaranteed to cure both the plague and mane lice! Often at the same time! How do you think I keep this head of black hair so full and luxurious? Then there are these special pellets. Throw them into the fire, and no plague can come near you. You may have wondered how, despite my many ministrations to the ailing of this town, I have never caught the plague. That’s how. Two pellets into the fire of my study every night and the plague doesn’t dare touch me.”

“I’ll take a box of those,” said an earth pony as he approached. “Our neighbors just got the plague. They’ve been dropping like flies. Their home’ll probably have to be burnt, so we might as well get some use out of the fire.”

A bag of bits landed on the window-sill. Fortune floated it into one of the pockets of his long black robe.

“You speak wisely,” he said as he levitated a box of pellets over. “But please, do not come too close to me.”

The earth pony nodded as he pocketed the pellets and returned to the crowd. Soon, there were cheers and calls coming from all corners of the square.

“Yes, yes,” Fortune said. “I have all sorts of useful things here. Besides the potions of my own devising, I have magic spells for the unicorns in the crowd. Then there are these horoscopes I drew up, ready made and guaranteed to be accurate to the nearest celestial conjunction. Just come and pick one up! Or if your tastes in prophecy go in another direction, pick up one of these scrolls and discover the secrets of the future I learned from studying the flights of birds! Come buy! Come buy!”

The noise in the square rose to an absolute clamor as, like a wave, the crowd of ponies rolled toward the house.

Fortune had to raise his voice when he spoke next. “And, as always, each and every one of my products comes with a money-back guarantee! If you die of the plague, I shall refund you all your money, no questions asked!”

“My husband died from the plague,” said a mare in the crowd. “Do I get a refund?”

“Refund only valid for the individual pony him or herself. Spouses and relatives need not apply,” Fortune answered.

Hope just watched as the crowd worked itself up into a near-frenzy. “Does any of that actually work?” she said, more to herself than to anypony.

“Does it matter?” came a voice from beside her.

Hope turned to see a rather dignified-looking gold-colored pegasus mare. This mare with that impeccably styled yellow mane and tail and that look of subdued haughtiness in her golden eyes, exuded prestige. She wore a short red robe, little more than a jacket, but opulently trimmed with golden lacing throughout. Even her cutie mark, a red pendant on an orange-gold pole, suggested an aptitude for authority. She definitely seemed to be what would be called in later times a Very Important Pony.

“What do you mean?” Hope asked.

“We’ve been on our own for so long,” the mare said. “We’ve tried everything. We’ve had to burn down most of our buildings to try and stop it. But nothing stops it. Ponies have begun to give up.”

“What is it that is so bad?” Hope asked.

“My, what type of a question is that? The plague, of course! The worst plague any of us have ever seen. There’s been plagues in Equestria before, sure, plenty of them. But I doubt there’s ever been a plague like this. All the medicines, all the spells, have done nothing to stop it. Surely, you must know that. You must have seen what it’s done, the lives it’s taken. Unless you’re….”

Hope had by now fully turned her head in the mare’s direction. The mare, for the first time, got a good look at the face underneath the brown hood.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” the mare said, the tone of her voice growing more and more suspicious with each word.

Before Hope could respond, the mare knocked the hood from Hope’s head with her hoof. Now, Hope had never been one to care much about personal space, but this seemed too direct ever for her liking.

The hood fell and revealed Hope’s long mane of sky-blue hair and face of lavender. The sun’s light danced upon and shimmered off the crystalline surface of both.

The other mare was temporarily blinded. But when she recovered – or forced herself to recover – she said, “I thought not!” with altogether too much force for it to mean anything good.

Hope would have been concerned save that she had other things on her mind. More important things.

So that’s why Princess Celestia didn’t want me to come to Whinnysburg, she thought. But why wouldn’t she want me to stop the plague? I’m sure I’ll be able to do it like that, and then all these ponies’ lives will be saved. Why wouldn’t the Princess want that?

“I don’t know how you thought you’d go unnoticed, especially looking like you do,” said the pegasus. “We never got that many crystal ponies here, and there aren’t any in town now, other than you. Oh, but you must have done something pretty terrible up in the Crystal Empire that you were willing to try and hide out here!”

Hope tilted her head. The pegasus couldn’t know how close to the mark she had actually come.

“So that’s why there were guards,” Hope said. “It’s a quarantine.”

“You should have turned back, then,” the pegasus said, “because, though we may be plague-infested and fewer by the day, we Whinnysburgers are still a law-abiding folk! Just wait until you see what we do to ponies of your sort.”

This could have gone better, Hope thought.

“I’m not a fugitive!” Hope said. “I’m not running away from anything. I just came to Whinnysburg because I need to–”

“I’ve heard it all before, missy,” the mare said. “Lies won’t get you anywhere.”

Things were going from bad to worse, Hope recognized. She had two options, as she saw it. Either a): Teleport out of there and forget both about saving the townsponies and saving Sombra. Or b): Figure out how to get herself on this pony of authority’s good side.

It has to be b), Hope thought. I can’t just leave now. These ponies need me. And so does Sombra.

But how was she going to do this? As she turned it over in her mind, Hope remembered something. With a nudge of the hoof, the folds of her cloak shifted just enough to reveal the sun-badge Princess Celestia had given her.

“See this?” Hope asked. “This shows I’m not a fugitive. I’m here with Princess Celestia’s permission.”

The mare’s eyes grew wide and round, as round as the sun-badge reflected in them. Before Hope knew what was happening to her, the mare pulled her into a hug. She squeezed Hope so tight that Hope felt like her insides were being launched upward toward her throat.

“Oh, thank heavens!” the pegasus said. “They finally sent someone! The Princesses haven’t abandoned us after all!”

“Well, um, it’s not that simple….” Hope choked out. But it was all she could manage.

“We never thought you’d come!” the mare said. “They left us for so long to ourselves! They said they’d save us, that they’d be back when they had a cure! But we never saw them again. And then the blockades appeared on all the roads. We thought they were just going to let us die off, one by one.”

Why didn’t Princess Celestia and Princess Luna do anything? Hope wondered. And why didn’t Princess Celestia want me to do anything? And how long before my lungs pop out of my mouth?

But thankfully, the mare finally set Hope down. Hope wanted to say something, but couldn’t speak. Instead, she cast a small healing spell to repair the internal damage she was sure had been done to her midsection.

“Oh, but forgive me, since I haven’t introduced myself!” the mare said.

That’s what you want me to forgive you for? Hope thought as she rubbed her sides, making sure that the spell had done its work.

“I’m Oriflamme, Lady Mayor of Whinnysburg,” said the mare with a flourish.

“I’m… I’m….” Hope still found herself having trouble speaking, despite being, as far as she could tell, healed. She wondered whether the hug had inflicted emotional damage alongside the physical.

“So you’re here from Princess Celestia?” Oriflamme said. “You can help us?”

“I can,” Hope said.

“Excellent!” Oriflamme said with a decidedly undignified clap of the hooves.

“But it looks like you already have all the help you need,” Hope said, nodding her head toward Fallen Fortune and his (obviously very lucrative) business.

Oriflamme sneered. “If only. As far as I know, he’s never been able to cure a single pony. I’ve wondered whether he’s not helped one or two of them along with those ‘cure-alls’ of his.”

“Then why haven’t you shut him down?” Hope asked.

“It’s not that simple,” Oriflamme said. “We were never a large town, even before the plague. And the one or two doctors we had were the first ones to fall victim. We asked for help from the Princesses, but they never gave it to us. So here comes Fallen Fortune, and he promises that he can cure the plague. Well, none of us gave him much thought before. Nopony took alchemists like him very seriously. But what could we do? After the blockade, we couldn’t get help from the rest of Equestria. And none of us knew anything about healing. So we had to trust him.”

“That makes sense,” Hope said. “But it hasn’t worked out.”

Oriflamme let out a sigh. “You know, my mother was mayor before me, and her father before her. They had it easy. I thought I would too. But ever since this plague, I’ve had to make some tough decisions. He’s one of them. I know he hasn’t done us any good. I think all of them know it too. But we need to keep thinking that maybe, just maybe, he can save us. You see, it’s not really the tonics he’s selling. Do you know what he’s actually selling?”

“Hmm?”

“Hope, he’s selling hope. It’s not great hope, but it’s about the only thing that keeps the whole town from giving in to despair. The only thing we have left to us is hope, and I can’t let this town lose that.”

Oriflamme shook her head suddenly, “Oh, but forgive me, since I never asked. You must be somepony important for the Princesses to send you. Just who are you?”

“I am Hope,” Hope answered.

“You certainly are!” responded Oriflamme. “And a far better hope than that buffoon over there. At least, I hope you are.”

Hope shook her head. “No, my name is Hope. Radiant Hope. I’m a student of Princess Celestia’s.”

Once again, Oriflamme’s eyes widened. “A student of Princess Celestia? That must mean that you have access to some pretty powerful magic!”

Hope nodded. “My specialty is healing. I’ve never met an ailment I couldn’t fix. Some ponies think that I’m powerful enough to be a princess someday.”

“Then we are saved!” Oriflamme shouted. “They’ve sent a princess to save us! You’ll be able to heal us all!”

“No, I’m not a princess yet!” Hope said.

But it was too late. Oriflamme had been loud enough that several nearby ponies heard the pronouncement. Soon, the whole crowd was abuzz with it. Before Hope knew it, the good people of Whinnysburg had completely forgotten about Fallen Fortune and had set their eyes squarely upon her.

“On behalf of all of us,” Oriflamme said, bowing low, “I would like to ask you to use your considerable talents to bring us some relief from this dreaded plague, Your Highness.”

Hope looked swiftly around to see row after row of ponies kneeling to her. “No, no, I’m not a–”

“A new princess in Equestria?” came a sharp voice. Hope did not need to look, but she did. Sure enough, it was the one pony who had not knelt; Fallen Fortune.

“Funny, I had no news of a new princess in Equestria,” he said as he approached. “And a crystal pony, to boot? I had no idea that Princesses Celestia and Luna had taken such a leave of their senses. Or are they just governing the country by throwing darts and rolling dice now? Maybe they have a little wheel that they spin to make decisions.”

“Hold your tongue!” Oriflamme said, rising swiftly. “How dare you speak like that to a princess!”

“No, I’m not a–” Hope tried again. But it was still too late.

“If there was a new princess, I would know about it,” Fortune snapped back.

“How?” the mayor asked, incredulous.

“Well, I… um… there is a… I have in my study a magic… um… a magic mirror! Yes, that’s it! A mirror which shows me everything that goes on in Equestria. That is how I would know.”

“Oh, please!” the mayor responded. “The only thing you spend any amount of time looking into is the bottom of a tankard at the alehouse! I can still smell the fumes on you!”

Hope judged that, given the raucous laughter than erupted from the crowd, the accusation had some truth to it.

Fortune seemed very annoyed by the laughter. Yet, he quickly calmed himself. “Fine,” he said. “Maybe she is a princess. She’s not an alicorn, but then neither is Princess Amore, I suppose. They really do just let things slide up in the Crystal Empire, don’t they?”

Hope grit her teeth at the mention of Princess Amore.

“But before we take her word for it,” Fortune continued. “I suggest we put her to the test.”

“And what do you propose?” The mayor’s tone was harsh, and yet Hope could see from the look on her face that she was not totally opposed to the idea.

Fortune considered for a moment, rubbing his hoof against the small van-dyke beard that hung down from his chin. Something seemed to occur to him.

“It is a simple enough matter,” he said. “As you know, I’ve recently made some renovations to my modest home. The fellow who did it, Cross Beam the carpenter, his son has long been suffering. He broke his leg a year or two ago and it has never set quite right. It causes him tremendous pain and he walks with a limp. His father has implored me time and again to come up with something to help him. But, of course, being so busy treating the plague, I just haven’t found the time….”

“Of course,” the mayor said.

“But it should be no trouble for our ‘distinguished’ visitor here.”

“It would be no trouble at all,” Hope said. She considered whether she should make the point about not being a princess again, but decided that it could wait. Her magic abilities were real, after all, and that was what was going to be put to the test. Protest too much and the ponies might hear the wrong message. She might lose any chance of convincing them to let her help.

“Come forward, my friend,” Fortune called out.

Out of the crown stepped a tall, brown earth pony, thin but apparently not without some strength. His most notable feature was a rather pronounced beard, littered with wood shavings. He was covered in soot and dirt, but still carried himself with great dignity. His cutie mark was a hammer. He walked slowly so as to allow the young colt at his side to keep pace.

Hope felt her heart breaking as she looked upon this colt, barely older than a foal. He was rather plump, with the same brown coloring as his father. From underneath a very messy mane, two deep blue eyes were visible. His blue eyes locked with Hope’s blue eyes. She smiled a warm, reassuring smile. He immediately huddled against his father in fear.

The father put his hoof reassuringly on the boy’s shoulder. “Go ahead, son,” he said.

The boy hobbled over, made all the slower by his reluctance. Hope saw how serious his situation was. Despite the makeshift cast around it, the weird angle of his back left leg told her that Fallen Fortune’s remark about it “not setting properly” was an understatement. It had been mangled.

Hope stepped forward so that the colt did not have to walk. When she reached him, she lowered her head to his eye level.

“Hi, there,” she said. “My name is Radiant Hope. What’s yours?”

“Wood Chip,” he mumbled.

“That’s a nice name!”

“It’s not as pretty as yours.”

Hope smiled. “I’ll tell you a secret. I’ve never really liked my name. I’d much rather have one like yours.”

The boy smiled a little. But Hope could see he was still frightened. It would take more from her to get his trust.

“You don’t have your cutie mark yet, do you?” Hope asked.

The colt shook his head. “No, ma’am. My pa says it should come in soon, but sometimes the other children tease me since I don’t have one.”

“You want to know another secret?” Hope said. “I didn’t get mine until I was nearly full-grown. You’ve got plenty of time.”

“Weren’t you upset that it took so long?” the boy asked.

“No,” Hope answered, “because it just meant that mine was extra-special. It lets me help sweet little ponies like you.”

The colt seemed to brighten up considerably. He was still nervous, but Hope sensed that she was getting through to him.

“What are you going to do to me?” he asked quietly.

“I’m going to make you better,” she answered, as kindly and calmly as she could.

“Will it hurt?”

Hope forced herself not to grimace or frown. Healing spells accelerated natural healing, but they did not fundamentally alter it. It would be painful to put the boy’s joints back in line no matter how it was done. All Hope could do was to make it quick. She did not want to have to tell him that. She did not want to lose what little trust she had gained, nor did she want to frighten him. But she knew it would be better if he knew now rather than it being a terrible surprise.

“It’s going to hurt for a little while,” Hope said. “But I’ll go as fast as I can, I promise. And then after I’m done, there’ll be no more pain. So can you be brave for just a teensy bit?”

The little colt did not answer. He just looked at the ground, avoiding Hope’s face.

Hope thought for a moment. Then her horn lit up and her saddle-bag opened. Out floated a green lollypop.

“How about this?” she said, floating the lollypop in front of him. “If you can be a brave little pony, you can have this when I’m done. How’s that sound?”

The colt looked from Hope to the lollypop, from the lollypop to Hope. Finally, he gave a little nod.

Hope comfortingly put her foreleg around the boy. The light from her horn intensified. A beam of blue light came forth and enveloped him. It began to do its work.

Hope could sense that the colt was in pain. He was trying to be strong and hide it, but she could tell.

“It’s alright,” she said soothingly. “It’ll be over soon.”

Hope knew that the worst of it had not begun yet. This was not a new situation for her. At least the boy was not struggling, which would just have made it much harder for both him and her. Hope hated when ponies tried to fight it, because she would have to use more force and then it felt like she was deliberately hurting them.

It still felt like that. Hope almost did not want to push through with the final part of her spell. But she knew she had to. If her healing experience had taught her anything, it was that, no matter what, she had to push through. It might cause a little more pain, but it was just so that better things could come after.

So Hope pushed through.

She thought she heard the boy cry a little.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Then it was over. The magic from Hope’s horn dissipated.

“All done,” she said to the colt.

She watched the colt relax. The relief in his face was evident. The fear, she knew well, had been much more powerful than even the worst pain. And now that it was over, the pain was forgotten. The colt practically beamed.

Then his look changed. He tried to hide his excitement.

“That wasn’t so bad,” he said.

Hope laughed, recognizing the façade of toughness which young colts are apt to put on at that age. She remembered when Sombra used to do it.

Sombra.

Before Hope could think too much about him, she felt little forelegs wrap around her neck. The boy was hugging her. She quickly returned it.

“Thank you!” he said cheerfully.

“You’re welcome, little guy,” Hope said, just as cheerfully.

The boy let go. “Can I have the lollypop now?” he said, in complete earnest.

Hope let out another laugh. “Of course,” she said, as she floated it to him.

The colt quickly put the lollypop in his mouth and began to gallop back toward his father.

“Be careful!” Hope called out. “Don’t go so fast when it’s in your mouth!”

With a look back, the boy dutifully slowed his steps. But his father covered the remaining distance to pick him up into a large hug of his own.

It was only then that the sounds of hooves pounding the ground in applause finally made an impression on Hope. The whole crowd had erupted with them.

For a moment, Hope had forgotten that they were all there. Now she felt a twinge of guilt at having made the work of curing suffering into a spectacle for public entertainment. But, at least it had earned their trust.

Then her eyes alighted on Oriflamme and Fallen Fortune. The mayor was grinning smugly at the alchemist.

“How’s that for proof?” the mayor asked.

Fortune turned to Hope and approached. Hope caught herself as one of her legs began to step backward. No, she would not give ground to him. Even if that smile on his face unnerved her far more than when he had seemed so hostile.

“Maybe I was a little too hasty,” he said. “Now, by looking at you, I see you are the very picture of a princess! My, how the sun shines through your mane! How your eyes sparkle! Why, I don’t think Celestia in her youth looked quite so beautiful as you do now. You’re every inch a princess!”

“I’m not a–” Hope began again.

“Don’t let him flatter you,” Oriflamme said. “I heard him try those lines out on the mare that raises pigs the other day. She was covered head to hoof in mud at the time, too!”

I’m never going to get them to listen, am I? Hope thought.

“He tried that sun line on me!” said another mare. “And it was night when he said it!”

Fortune ignored the peals of laughter from the crowd. Instead, he moved his hoof toward the far end of Hope’s cloak.

“Yes, clearly, you’re a princess,” he said. “Any pony with that sort of healing talent must be. But, if you’ll forgive me, I didn’t get a look at your cutie mark. It must be something truly special with magic like that.”

He then fell to the ground. The mayor had slapped him with her wing.

“You’ll do anything to see a mare’s flank, won’t you?” she said. “Now, I’ve tolerated your antics when it was just the townsfolk, but I’m not going to let you treat a princess like that!”

“I’m not a princess!” Hope finally managed to say, practically shouting. But she was drowned out by the loudest round of laughter she had yet heard.

All of it directed at Fallen Fortune, lying prostrate on the ground.

“Now you’ve got the proper position of respect,” Oriflamme said.

Whereas Fortune had seemed unfazed by the taunts and jeers up until now, Hope could see that this last had gotten to him. He seemed genuinely hurt.

“Stop it, all of you!” Hope said. “He didn’t deserve that!”

Assorted ashamed whispers of, “Yes, Your Highness,” came from the crowd.

Hope rolled her eyes. She would have to disabuse them of this ‘princess’ notion sooner or later. But there was something more pressing before her. Hope offered her hoof to Fallen Fortune.

He did not take it. Instead, he lifted himself up as swiftly as he could and began to wipe himself off. All the while, he glared at Hope. She practically shivered to see the disdain in his grey-blue eyes.

But then he bowed his head and said, “Your Highness,” before disappearing into the crowd. Hope could not be certain, but she had thought she heard a sliver of anger in those words.

Before she could reflect on it further, Hope felt her spine once more come dangerously close to snapping. Oriflamme had pulled her into another giant hug.

“You really are going to save this town,” she said, her voice breaking up. “At long last, we’re saved.”

They do like to get all touchy-feely in this town, don’t they? Hope thought, in between wondering if her diaphragm was collapsing.

Hope felt tears landing on her shoulder. She smiled and, as best she could, returned the hug.

“I’ll do my best,” Hope said once she had been released – and thus could speak again, “Now, take me to the ponies that need me! If this plague is as deadly as you say it is, we don’t have a moment to lose!”

The square stood empty, and all the surrounding buildings were similarly vacant. Where there had been noises and shouts, there was now only the faint whistling of the wind. Other than that, all was silent. It was a deathly silence.

Everypony was gone. All of those gullible marks had left, taking their new savioress with them. They had practically carried her on their shoulders to the nearest plague-infected hut.

How revolting, Fallen Fortune thought.

He turned from the deserted square back toward his own home.

“At least I still have that bag of bits,” he said.

He put his hoof to the pocket nearest his chest and felt around. There was nothing there. Fallen Fortune’s next action was to pound his hoof against the window-sill.

“Blast! Some little fiend must have picked my pocket while I was pushing through the rabble!”

As he began to close up shop, Fallen Fortune shook his head and cursed his fortune. That, and the pony who had brought such an unexpected turnabout.

“Princess, my left hoof!” he muttered. “I’d bet money she’s just as much of a fraud as I am! I mean…. Oh, forget it. There’s nopony here to hear.”

Of course, he knew the whole town saw him as a charlatan. But when they had needed him, none of that mattered. That plague had been the best thing to ever happen to him. And now it seemed like he would lose everything it had brought. How could it all just vanish? How could he stand for that?

The answer was, of course, that he could not. He would not. Suddenly, as he looked upon the swiftly setting sun above, Fortune’s eyes lit up with defiance.

“No paper princess is purloining my post as town physician! That Radiant Hope had better be ready for a battle.”

What did Fallen Fortune have in mind?

Read on.

Plague

The room was dark. The room was quiet. The very air seemed to carry a tepid something. Not an odor, exactly, but more like a sense. A sense of contagion that seemed to contaminate everything and everypony that entered.

This was one of the nicer homes of Whinnysburg, as evidenced by the fact that it was the first structure Hope had been in that actually had separate rooms, with walls dividing them. All the hovels she had been in had none of this. There was simply the ground, the outer layer – “wall” was too generous a term – and the bundles of straw that made up the ceiling. In effect, each hovel was one large room – though, again, “large” was far too generous a term – and seemed rather similar to the yurts which the yaks of Yakyakistan dwelt in.

This house was different. It was an actual house. Hope felt the wood on her hooves and wondered whether she was tracking dirt and mud over it. They had made her wipe her hooves when she arrived, but she felt certain that quite a bit must still be there, given how much she had had to walk through. The room was painted beige or cream or something – the lack of light made it difficult to tell – and there seemed to be a fresco on one of the walls. A large window would no doubt have offered a commanding view of Whinnysburg had it not been covered by an even larger curtain. But the mere fact that this house had a second floor at all was probably the greatest testament to its opulence.

Not that Hope cared much for any of that. Neither did the plague, as evidenced by the pony laying in the bed at one end of the room. The sheets he lay on may have been of finest silk, but this pony, under the plague’s power, looked just like all the others Hope had seen. His head and legs were visible, and they all contained large boils, which ranged in color from a pinkish-red to brown, making them almost look like the result of searing. Hope knew from the past few hours’ experience that the rest of his body would have these same boils. All the ponies she had tended to had had these boils, and from what she could tell, the longer a patient lingered, the larger and more numerous they became. This pony probably did not have long to live. But then, the plague was so fast-acting that neither did any other pony that caught it. Hope was well-aware of that.

“Can you heal him?” Oriflamme asked. She was standing behind Hope, clearly afraid of getting too close, and behind her were members of this pony’s family – a wife and a brother, if Hope remembered correctly. There were also a few other prominent townsfolk, Oriflamme’s deputies, who had been accompanying their mayor throughout Hope’s entire tour of mercy.

“I’ll have him all fixed up in no time,” Hope said casually. She had now cured just about every pony with plague in the village, and so felt confident that this deadly disease was no match for her magic.

Without needing to look back, she knew the mayor and the others were at this moment holding themselves in the deepest suspense. This little drama had replayed itself at every single stop. Gasps and hushed, anxious breaths and then, at the moment the plague disappeared, a cathartic outcry of surprise and relief.

Hope smiled. This was serious, of course, but there was a part of her that found their reaction rather amusing.

Her horn began to glow and, his covering removed, the patient was enveloped in blue light. One by one, the boils began to shrink and disappear. Soon, nearly all of them were gone.

“Stop!”

The shock caused Hope to break her concentration. The door to the room had opened, throwing light upon her. She looked to see, as did everypony else, the source of the interruption. There stood Fallen Fortune, holding his head high in a posture of smug pride.

“What is the meaning of this?” Oriflamme demanded.

“I am this town’s leading expert on medicine,” said Fortune, “and as such, I should be present whenever a pony is being treated.”

“You’re not the leading expert anymore,” said Oriflamme. “We have somepony better qualified.”

“I do admit that our distinguished guest showed herself very proficient at healing broken limbs back there,” said Fortune. “But that’s not quite the same thing as curing illness, is it? Don’t you think that her spells might in fact do more harm than help? Shouldn’t we, just to be sure, keep to the known safety of potions?”

Fortune’s horn lit up and a small bottle rose from his pocket. “I happen to have one here that–”

“Where have you been?” Oriflamme said. “The princess here has been curing ponies up and down Whinnysburg. Her spells took care of the plague, no problem. Once she cures this last one, the plague will be just a distant memory.”

“Well, excuse me, but I was busy trying to create a new potion that would prove highly effective against the plague,” Fortune said. “It meant that I had to miss her little show. But I did create a new potion, a potion that I am certain will cure not just the plague, but all diseases and all ailments. And, as the ponies of this household have been my best customers, I thought it only fitting that they should get the first taste. Here, let’s have him try some.”

Fortune began to approach, but Hope stepped in his path.

“Please, don’t,” Hope said. “I know you’re trying to help, but it’ll be quickest if I just finish what I started. I’ve bought him some time, but he’ll get worse again if we waste too much. Please let me just save his life.”

“Afraid of being made obsolete by my potion, are you, little lady?” Fortune asked with a nasty grin. “After all, there is only one of you, but my panacea will soon be available across Equestria.”

“I hope that happens,” Hope said, “but I need to finish helping this pony.”

“Enough!” Oriflamme said. “I bet that potion’s nothing but what you scooped up from the gutter.”

“I can assure you that it is not,” Fortune responded. “It is a very powerful and potent tonic.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” the mayor said.

She lunged forward and tore the cork out of the floating bottle with her teeth. Then, with a flick of the wing, she caused the bottle to turn upside down. A luminescent green liquid tumbled out like a waterfall. Fallen Fortune flipped the bottle back over, but it was too late. The entire contents had poured out, making a hissing sound as they splashed upon the wooden floor.

Within an instant, the liquid ate through the floor, leaving a gaping hole that offered a fine view of the rooms below.

Fortune tried to hide his humiliation as everypony but Hope glared at him. “You have to admit, it will make quick work of those boils!”

“And everything else! I should have you put in the stocks for something like that,” Oriflamme said. “I’d have you exiled, if they’d let us send anypony out of this town!”

“That shouldn’t be a problem anymore,” Hope said. “Once I heal him, there will be no more plague.”

Fortune glared daggers at Hope.

Hope gave a small, bashful smile. “Not that I want you to get exiled, or anything!”

“Thanks,” Fortune said with a sneer.

“You’re welcome!” Hope responded, acting oblivious.

“To think, after all the potions and ointments and elixirs we bought from you!” said the brother. “For all we know, that could have been what got him sick in the first place!”

“We should wring every single bit we paid back out of you!” the wife added.

As Fortune hurriedly shuffled back toward the door, he said, “Did I mention yet that my refund policy doesn’t apply to spouses and relatives?”

“Oh, we weren’t going to be asking,” the wife said as both she and the brother menacingly approached Fortune.

Fortune gulped and, without another word, leapt from the room. The door slammed magically behind him.

“You weren’t really going to hurt him, were you?” Hope asked.

“No, just wanted to get him out of here,” the brother said.

“Speak for yourself!” the wife said, with an audible “Harumph!”

“I don’t think he was trying to hurt anypony,” Hope said. “He probably does just want to help.”

“Tell me, Your Highness,” said the mayor, “is blissful naivety one of the job requirements for being a princess?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Hope muttered to herself.

“Shouldn’t you be tending to my brother,” the stallion said.

Hope nodded her head swiftly. “Oh, right!”

She focused once more on the pony in bed. The blue light again encased him. The remaining boils grew smaller and smaller. Then, like a wave washing over him, they were gone. The blue light faded. He sat up and opened his eyes.

“What happened? I feel like I’m just waking up from a nightmare,” he said.

“All done,” Hope said with a large smile as his brother and wife sped past her to enjoy a reunion.

Hope heard the joyous shouts behind her and felt the many hooves patting her on the back and shoulders. But she did not care. Seeing the joy on her patient and his family’s faces was reward enough for her. She basked in that happy scene until the wife rose from her husband’s bedside and approached.

“Whatever we can do to thank you, we will,” she said. “We are not without means in this community. Just say what you want and we can get it for you, whatever it is.”

Hope thought about what she most wanted. It was a charming gesture, but she knew that it was far beyond even their considerable resources to bring Sombra back to her. She shook her head.

“That’s not necessary,” she said.

“Money, surely,” said the wife. “We have more of that than anypony. We can pay you.”

“No, that’s fine,” Hope said. “I didn’t do this for bits. Trust me, it’s all in a day’s work.”

Later, Hope lay comfortably in bed. It had been so long since she had been able to relax beside a warm fire, and now a rather impressive one was crackling in a fireplace just close enough to keep her warm, yet far enough to avoid being a danger. Hope had said she was fine with a simpler, smaller room for the night, but the mayor had insisted that she take the finest room in the finest inn in all of Whinnysburg.

Admittedly, there were only two inns in Whinnysburg, but it’s the thought that counts.

Hope reflected that it had been a most satisfying day. It is not every day that you rid a whole town of plague, after all. Oriflamme was so grateful that she had refilled all of Hope’s supplies without asking a bit for them. Which was a relief, given that Hope had refused all offers of monetary reward for her services. Of course, she felt it had been the right choice, but it made paying for supplies rather difficult on occasion.

So, all in all, a most satisfying day. Hope let out a deep, tranquil breath. Her smile widened. She had done a great job, hadn’t she? Sombra would have been so proud of her.

Suddenly, a chill tore through Hope’s entire body. It left her cold, and even the roaring of the fire could not warm her again.

Sombra. If only I hadn’t been so blind, you’d be here to share this with me! Why did I turn my back on you when you needed me the most?

The smile disappeared from Hope’s face. She stared up blankly at the timbered roof above. A single tear rolled down the side of her head.

She quickly wiped it away.

No! No crying! she thought. I’m going to fix this, Sombra. I really am. Whatever it takes, I’ll find a way to heal you. I promise.

And on that note, Radiant Hope drifted off to sleep.

Had Radiant Hope defeated the plague?

Read on.

Dead Ends

The sun was already high in the sky when Hope sleepily lifted her head off of the pillow. She immediately jumped up. She had not meant to sleep so late. But it had been so long since Hope had slept in an actual bed, in actual warmth, actually comfortable. The doleful chills of the Frozen North had been so incredibly conducive to sleep deprivation that Hope had begun to believe she had a natural talent for it. Apparently, her body disagreed.

Hope had wanted to be up at the crack of dawn so that she could get her things together and slip out of town without any of the fanfare she was sure would accompany her if the townsfolk knew it.

For all she knew, they would try to make her stay. And she could not afford that, not when Sombra was still lost out there somewhere.

But it was too late for that now. Hope threw on her cloak and saddlebags. She would just have to push on and endure whatever adulation the good people of Whinnysburg threw at her.

Admittedly, there were more unpleasant tasks….

But as Hope trotted down the stairs and into the great common room on the ground floor of the inn, she was not met with adulation. True, there were not many ponies there, but the ones who were barely seemed to acknowledge Hope. Oh, they looked, but then they quickly cast their gaze elsewhere, in that studied sort of fashion one does when one is trying to deliberately avoid making eye-contact with another.

It was strange, Hope thought. But it did not much concern her. She turned to the innkeeper and told him that she was done with the room upstairs. He merely grunted and went back to cleaning some plates and tankards.

It was all very strange. Almost as though there was something wrong. Hope wondered whether she had done something to offend the patrons of this inn. But what could she have done? She was a stranger in these parts and had not had the time or the opportunity to offend.

So, Hope shrugged it off and trotted toward the door. A quick bit of magic opened it and she passed into the open day.

Well, here I go again, Hope mused. As she steadied herself for another venture into the icy wilderness, she took a deep breath of the noontide air. It would, Hope assumed, invigorate her for the long and difficult journey to come.

She started coughing immediately, and did not stop. Hope had to cover her nose with her cloak before she could feel like she was breathing normally again. There was a rank, putrid odor in the air, stronger and more disgusting than anything Hope had smelled before. She had to do a quick healing spell on herself just to keep from becoming sick to her stomach.

Hope resolved to discover the cause of this sudden miasma. With cloak still wrapped around muzzle, she strode slowly into the street beyond the courtyard of the inn. It was not long before she met a sight she would wish she had never seen. Large wagons were passing by. On each of them were piles and piles of what looked like…. Bodies?

Bodies, ghastly and wan. Hope let out a gasp as she realized that she recognized every corpse she caught a glimpse of. They were all the ponies she had treated the day previous. And yet, every one of them was so completely covered with the boils, now dark-red, that nothing else was visible.

Tears began to cloud her eyes. She wanted to look away, more than anything. But she could not. She could not let herself. She had to find out what had happened.

There was Oriflamme, standing by the roadside and directing the procession.

“Is that the last of them?” she said. “If it is, take them all down to the cremation grounds. Then burn the hovels. You know the drill. Just like all the rest.”

Hope approached her. “What happened?” she asked.

“Plague,” responded the mayor. “Plague took them all between midnight last night and three in the morning.”

“But, but… I… I cured them!”

“Apparently not,” said the mayor.

Hope frantically shook her head. “No, no, I…. How could this happen? I used my best healing spells.”

“I really thought that it would be different this time,” said the mayor. “I thought the Princesses had finally sent us a pony that could finally save us from the plague. A pony who actually knew what she was doing, not like that lout Fallen Fortune. Guess I was wrong. That’ll teach me for having too much hope.”

“I… I don’t understand what went wrong,” Hope said, the tears now flowing like a mighty waterfall. “I did everything right! I did everything… just like I’ve always done! I’ve never lost a pony before!”

The mayor sighed. “Well, there’s always a first time for everything, isn’t there?”

Oriflamme now looked over to Hope and noticed the heavy saddlebags around her waist. “Leaving?” she asked.

Hope did not answer.

“I agree, it would be for the best,” said the mayor. “But they’re never going to let you leave.”

“The townsponies?”

“The guards outside the town.”

Hope looked down to the sun-badge still affixed to her cloak.

“Oh, that won’t help you,” said the mayor. “They may have let you in, but now that you’ve been in close proximity to the plague, they can’t let you out, even if you are a princess. It’s why Princess Celestia and Princess Luna never came back after the quarantine. Or maybe they just don’t care.”

“I’m sure they–”

“No, that might be it,” Oriflamme continued. “Maybe the Princesses haven’t done anything because they just don’t care. Them, up there, in their castle, why should they care about a little town in the middle of nowhere? If we live or die, it’s all the same to them. And you, they must have sent you as a joke. A big prank played on this town. Because, clearly, you have no idea what you’re doing. And the Princesses wouldn’t send a pony like that unless they thought it was funny.”

Hope was silent for a moment.

“The Princesses didn’t send me,” she said. “Princess Celestia didn’t want me to come. It was only after I insisted that she gave me this badge.”

Oriflamme's mouth spread into a caustic smile. “So, she really doesn’t want to do anything to save this town.”

“No, I’m sure that’s not–”

“And why did you come? Hot-shot little princess, thought you could fix everything where they couldn’t?”

“Honestly, I didn’t even know there was a plague until I got here. Celestia – I mean, Princess Celestia – didn’t tell me that. She just said I shouldn’t go to Whinnysburg.”

“They really don’t want to get involved at all, do they? Maybe they’re just afraid that the plague will get them next. I say, if only we didn’t need them to raise the sun and moon, we’d be better off without any princesses or rulers. I mean, we don’t need a pony ruling over us just because of power or who they’re descended from.”

“I thought you said that you inherited your position of mayor from your family.”

“Yes, but a mayor isn’t a ruler. Just a high-powered official with life-and-death authority over her little plot of land.”

“Oh…. How is that different?”

“It’s complicated. You’re a crystal pony, so I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

Hope decided to shrug that off. Instead, she said, “I was so busy with fighting the plague that I never thought to ask where it came from or what it is.”

“So much the worse for us, then,” Oriflamme responded. “Maybe if you had slowed down instead of gallivanting around town, those poor ponies would still be alive.”

Hope lowered her head a little. “Maybe. I don’t know. But I won’t make that mistake again. I’m asking now. What is the plague and where did it come from?”

“I… I don’t know,” Oriflamme said.

Hope’s jaw dropped. “You don’t know? But you just said–”

“Oh, I’m sure it comes from where these things normally come from. An imbalance of humors. Too much blood. Or maybe too little. One of the two, or both.”

“This air can’t be helping,” Hope observed. “Haven’t you thought about doing something?”

“Can’t burn the air,” Oriflamme responded. “Well, you can, but it never turns out well.”

“No, but you could have the pegasi clear it, or set up some windmills or something. Anything to keep it from infecting more ponies.”

“I don’t think you’re in much of a position to tell me how to do my job. Not after a failure like this.”

Hope looked at her hooves in shame. “I know. I just… I just want to help. Maybe I can’t make up for my mistake, but at least I could make sure it doesn’t happen again. Don’t you know anything about where the plague came from? When did it start? Was there anything different about that day?”

“It was some months ago. But the only big thing that happened then was we drained the swamp to have more farming land.”

Hope felt realization dawning. “Maybe there was something in the swamp–”

“Swamps don’t cause plagues,” Oriflamme said. “You’re just wasting my time, just like you’ve wasted all our time. I’ve got a mass cremation to preside over. So, if you’ll excuse me….”

Without turning around – she had not glanced at Hope once throughout the conversation – Oriflamme began to leave.

“Wait!” Hope said. “Isn’t there anything else you can tell me?”

“Yes,” the mayor called back. “Stay inside the inn today. I imagine, if you meet any of the relatives of the ponies you couldn’t cure, you’ll be in some real trouble.”

Hope felt all the spirit drop out of her. She said nothing in response. She just looked to the ground. Soon, she was alone again.

How? How could it happen? Hope thought. I failed. I failed Sombra and now I’ve failed all these ponies. Why do I keep messing up? And why do other ponies keep paying for it?

“What’s going on? And what is that horrid smell?”

Hope knew the voice. But she did not care. At this point, she did not care who she met. Even a horde of angry relatives could not make her feel worse than she already did.

“It’s all my fault,” she said quietly.

“What’s that?” asked Fallen Fortune.

“I messed up.”

“You must have. You look like somepony died.”

Hope closed her eyes to keep more tears from pouring out. “They all did. All the ponies… all the ponies I tried to cure…. They died from the plague!”

Hope was surprised by the sudden clap of hooves. Fallen Fortune let out a loud, exuberant laugh.

Hope’s eyes burst open. Through crystal tears, she glared at Fallen Fortune. “How can you be so happy? Don’t you care?”

“Of course, I do,” Fallen Fortune said. “But I can’t say it was unexpected, with them letting an amateur do magic tricks when those poor suffering innocents needed real help. If only you had let me take care of them, they would still be alive today. I guarantee it.”

Hope could not respond. She began to sob. Slowly, without really knowing it, she stepped toward the curb – or what passed for a curb in those days – and sat down. Fortune sidled up beside her, being careful to avoid touching the refuse in the gutter just below their hooves.

“There, there, it’s alright,” he said. “Nopony can blame you. You just thought you’d pull one over on the poor, superstitious populace. They are gullible, after all, and they bought it. ‘Healing powers,’ ha! What a lark!”

With that, Fortune flicked Hope’s horn.

“But it was just your bad luck that those plague victims had to die so soon. Just a few days more, and you could have cashed in and cleared out with nopony being the wiser.”

“I… I… do have… healing powers….” Hope said in-between her sobs. “I wasn’t trying to deceive anypony. I… I just wanted… to help….”

“Oh, face it, little lady,” Fortune responded, putting his foreleg around Hope. “You’re as much a charlatan as I am.”

Hope half-opened her eyes, just enough to look at Fortune. “I’m… I’m not a charlatan…. I never deceived anypony….”

“Oh, no? What about all that hullaballoo about being a princess? You’re no princess, are you?”

“I’ll be one someday,” Hope said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Not anymore,” Fortune said, his voice having become a parody of comfort. “Celestia’s never going to make you a princess. Not after a failure like this.”

Hope’s sobbing intensified. She buried her head in the folds of her cloak.

“Now, don’t be like that,” Fortune said. “It isn’t so bad. There’s still a way out of this, you know. Just leave town! I’m sure those old guards won’t be too hard to get past for a smart little schemer like you. Or, if you really can’t escape, there are other methods….”

Hope lifted her head out of her cloak. Her eyes met Fortune’s. His smile disappeared. He did not see the despair he had hoped for in her face. Instead, there was determination.

“I can’t leave,” Hope said. “I can’t run away. Not now. I can never leave these ponies to suffer. I did that once when a very special pony needed me most. I will never do it again.”

Just then, the mayor, Oriflamme came galloping by with her herd of underlings.

“What’s happening?” Hope called out.

“Another case of the plague just broke out,” said the mayor.

Hope’s horn began to glow. I'm an instant, she was gone.

Fallen Fortune, finding himself leaning on air, nearly collapsed onto his side.

Down the road, a blue flash brought the officials to a halt. Hope stood before them.

“I’m coming too,” she said.

“Do you think that’s the best idea?” Oriflamme asked.

“I know I let you down before,” Hope said. “But I did manage to turn back the plague, at least for a little while. So I’m the best hope you’ve got.”

“You’re the only Hope we’ve got,” responded the mayor.

“That’s putting it a little dramatically, but sure.”

“No, I mean, you’re the only pony in the whole town named Hope,” said Oriflamme.

“We do have a Wishful Thinking down in the fens,” said one of the petty officials, in a tone that suggested he genuinely though he was being helpful.

“It’s not really the same thing,” responded another.

“No,” Hope said. “I mean, I’ve had the most success – such as it is – of anypony in fighting the plague. You need me. And besides, I don’t intend to fail again. Now, come on! We’re wasting time!”

Oriflamme looked to the petty officials and then to Hope. She nodded.

“Very well. Follow me,” she said.

Hope did so.

A look of bemusement appeared on Fallen Fortune's face as he watched Hope and the officials disappear down the street.

“I don’t understand it,” he said as he looked down to the dirt path that passed for a street. “I chose my words so precisely. They should have destroyed her. Instead, she’s more invigorated than ever. What did I say wrong?”

As the alchemist pondered this, a carriage – Whinnysburg’s first predecessor to the taxi cab – whirred down the lane. As it rolled by, the large wheels rolled up an even larger amount of muck, completely showering Fallen Fortune.

“You menace!” he called after it. “They shouldn’t even allow those newfangled deathtraps on the road!”

Looking down to his now-brown robes, he whined, “Oh, but this cost me a fortune!”

Catching a last glimpse of the carriage, a sneer on his muzzle, Fallen Fortune shouted out, “Bah!” and then hurried home to change with what little dignity he still had left.

Would Radiant Hope fare better against this second round of plague?

Read on.

Ceaseless Striving

The sky had become a hazy purple as the remains of smoke hung in the night air, dimming the stars into nothing. Only the moon above was visible, if just barely. Not that it mattered much to Radiant Hope. As she slipped down the wall of the hovel, she barely even opened her eyes. She was tired. Incredibly tired. It had been days – Hope could not remember how many – since she had had that one decent night of sleep.

Her long blue hair fell in disheveled locks down the front of her face. Mud had gotten caked onto her; she had not found a chance to wash any of it off. Not that it made much of a difference – daily washing for most was an innovation centuries in Equestria’s future – but crystal ponies had a reputation for being much more hygienic than their non-crystalline brethren. So much the better to show off their trademark sparkling shine.

Not that Hope looked much like a crystal pony any more. Her coat and mane had both dimmed considerably, and there was no trace of the diamond-like grooves and glints that usually distinguished her kind. Hope put her head in her hooves.

She heard voices. Slowly, she lifted up her head, just enough to look at the ponies speaking. One was Oriflamme, who had once more come to check on her progress. The other was Fallen Fortune. They were not paying much attention to her. Which was strange, since she was the topic of their conversation.

“Not to put too fine a point on it,” said Fallen Fortune, “but she has singularly failed, day after day after day. All of the ponies she’s treated have, well….”

Hope did not need to be reminded of it. She had tended to countless ponies over the past several days. She had used her most potent healing spells. She had used seemingly every spell in her arsenal. And yet, events just repeated themselves. The ponies would improve, the plague would seem to be eradicated. And then, late in the night, they’d go terminal. And there’d be absolutely no clue as to why.

“What do you want me to do?” Oriflamme responded. “Boot her out of town? There’s a blockade on all the roads, remember?”

“I was merely thinking that maybe she should not be trusted around the infected. She clearly has no idea what she’s doing.”

He looked over Oriflamme’s shoulder and sent a friendly wave in Hope’s direction.

Then, more quietly, he added, “She’s a danger to herself and others.”

“Now, look. I’ve tried to be patient with you, but–”

“No, no, hear me out! I’m just suggesting that you allow a pony with more qualifications and a proven record handle them instead.”

“Then that rules you out, too.”

The fake grin fell from Fortune’s face. “May I remind you that I am a trained alchemist? Practicing for nearly ten years now!”

Oriflamme shook her head. “You know what I think of alchemy. I have no trust in it!”

“Perhaps not, but….” Fallen Fortune began rubbing Oriflamme’s foreleg with his hoof. “Do you have trust in me? Maybe that is something we can work on.”

The mayor slapped him with her wing, nearly knocking Fortune over. “You’ll try it on any mare, won’t you?”

Fortune picked himself up. “But you’re willing to put all your hope in Radiant Hope?”

“At least she makes the plague go away for a few hours before it kills them!”

“And that’s better?”

Oriflamme readied her wing. Fallen Fortune quickly blocked his face with his hooves.

“Get out of here before I do something worse than hit you!” the mayor said.

Fallen Fortune did not need to be told twice. Once he was gone, Oriflamme approached Hope.

Hope looked up when she became cognizant of the tall pegasus standing over her.

“Any luck?” the mayor asked.

“Same as all the rest,” Hope answered. “I’ve done my best and the plague seems to be gone, but….”

“But she has to make it through the night first.”

“Yeah….”

Hope wondered if anypony she treated would ever make it through the night.

“Thank you for sticking up for me,” Hope said. “I think Fallen Fortune really resents what I’m doing.”

“Oh, don’t worry about him,” Oriflamme responded. “There’s nothing stopping him from continuing his trade, other than the fact that nopony wants to buy from him since you showed up.”

Hope hit her head against her hooves. “But I’ve failed! Whenever I treat anypony, they don’t make it through the night.”

“They wouldn’t have made it through the night even if you hadn’t,” Oriflamme said, her voice suddenly soothing. “The plague at least reacts to your magic. It never did that for him.”

Hope stared at Oriflamme, her eyes full of confusion. “W-why are you being so nice to me? You were so mad… a few days ago….”

“I was just disappointed. I had thought for a moment that you might actually be able to cure the plague. And then, when you couldn’t…. But I’m over that now. You’re not the first pony who thought they could beat this thing. Fallen Fortune wasn’t even the first. We’re used to being disappointed, and it barely even registers for most of the townsfolk anymore.”

Hope thought back to the past few days. Indeed, that first day had been hard. Though nopony had said anything to her directly, she had felt glares of anger and betrayal wherever she went. She had tried to explain things to a few of the family members of those she had treated, but they would not even talk to her.

Then, the next day, everything changed. The fanfare was gone, the interest in having a “princess” in town was gone, but nopony seemed to single her out for any special attention. They were not friendly to her, by any means, but neither were they harsh. And, when new cases of the plague broke out, ponies still called on her to do her best against it.

Hope had never been able to understand it.

“I know everypony is disappointed in me,” she said, “but they keep coming to me and asking me for help. Why….”

Oriflamme smiled. “Why do they do that? As a princess, you should understand a thing or two about ponies.”

Hope was, by this point in her stay, a past master at guilt, but now she felt it for something which she had barely thought about. She realized that she had never corrected this particular misapprehension of her.

“I’m… I’m not a princess….” Hope said quietly. She felt like she could not look Oriflamme in the eyes.

“Yeah, that was becoming rather obvious,” said the mayor.

Hope jerked her head up. “You knew?”

Oriflamme tilted hers and lowered it a little closer. “I started to figure it out after the first few days. What princess comes to town with nothing but a beaten-up old cloak and a couple saddlebags? What princess could stand to be covered in dirt and mud for so long? And Celestia would be crazy to allow another princess past the blockade if her own powers were insufficient. So, yeah, you’re no princess.”

“I could become a princess someday,” Hope said.

“I don’t care,” Oriflamme answered. “I don’t care if you’re a princess or not.”

“Is that why you haven’t told the townsponies?”

Oriflamme briefly looked at the cluttered hovels behind this one. Then, she said, “The townsponies are the reason I don’t care. You could be Celestia’s prize pupil for all I know. Or you could be a conpony or a madpony that just forged that badge yourself. It doesn’t matter to me. Because those ponies believe you are a princess.”

“I don’t know about that. They must be starting to wonder….”

“Well, they want to believe it, then. And they don’t really have anything else to believe in. They made themselves believe in Fallen Fortune for so long, no matter how much he failed, because it was either that or give in to despair. And now that you’re here–”

“I’m the new Fallen Fortune,” Hope said glumly.

“You’re better. You’ve at least had a little more success. You’ve given them a little more to believe in. Oh, it’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. Hope is hard to find in this town, so I’m not going to take what little they do have away.”

Hope did not answer.

“I thought it would at least cheer you up a little,” said the mayor. “You are living up to your name. Admittedly, in a completely unspectacular fashion, but still.”

“I’ve always hated my name,” Hope said.

“Granted, ‘Forlorn Hope’ might be better than ‘Radiant Hope’, but what can you do?” the mayor said.

Hope rose from the ground. Every joint and muscle ached, but she had to stand up.

“I can get back to work,” Hope said. “I’m going to sit with this pony all night if I have to, but I’m going to make sure she makes it until morning.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” the mayor said. “You really should get some rest.”

“I have to,” Hope said. “I’ve never been there when the plague reappeared. When I arrived, it was always too late.”

“But you might not be able to do anything when the plague comes back.”

“I can try.”

“What if you can’t save her, though? Are you going to be able to stand seeing what happens to her?”

“I’m a healer. Nopony ever said it was a happy profession.”

Oriflamme sighed. “Is there anypony else with you? You know, in case you fall asleep?”

“She has no family,” Hope said.

“Will you be alright all alone with her, then? I wish I could stay, but I need to get some sleep. There’s a trial tomorrow that I have to preside over. I’d send one of my assistants, but they’re all so terrified of catching plague.”

“I’ll be fine,” Hope answered.

Oriflamme surveyed Hope. Despite being clearly exhausted beyond what most ponies would consider their natural limit, Hope seemed alert and determined. Finally, the mayor nodded.

“Very well. I’ll come to check on you in the morning.”

“Thank you,” Hope said, managing a large smile.

When the mayor was gone, she turned back to the hovel. The smile did not fade. Even though Hope felt the weight of all her previous charges, all the ones she could not save, on her, she was still smiling.

I wasn’t there for them before, she thought. But I’m here now. And I just know that, as long as I’m by her side, this pony is going to live.

With that thought, she trotted inside.

What would Radiant Hope experience that night?

Read on.

Serious Jests

Sombra looked so happy. He was young, innocent, and carefree. It was a breezy summer day, and he and Hope had just finished some made-up game or other. Now, worn out, they were sitting in the grass, catching their breath.

“Hope, you’re the most fun pony I’ve ever known!” the youthful grey colt proclaimed in excitement. “We should play another game before Ms. Chestnut makes us go in.”

“No problem!” Hope said cheerfully. “My fairy friends just helped me come up with another one today.”

“Another one? You just came up with it?”

“Of course! I knew you’d want one. And Radiant Hope never disappoints her friend!”

Sombra smiled at her, an adorable toothy smile.

“I can always count on you, Hope!” Sombra said.

Then, he began to change. His teeth grew longer and sharper. His horn curved and began to glow an eerie red. His eyes became red and green, with purple fog-like smoke bellowing from the corners.

Hope looked behind her to see Princess Amore. But not the strong, rather maternal-looking princess she was used to. No, this Amore was stone, motionless, a statue. And not even a pleasing example of the sculptor’s art, but a horribly disfigured grotesque.

“Sombra, what have you done?” Hope heard herself say.

Sombra answered. But Hope did not really hear him. Instead, all she could focus on was her sense of horror that her best – her only – friend had become this… this thing. Horror and something else. Something she had never felt in her entire life. It was a draining of the love she felt for her friend and of her hope for the future. It was….

Despair. Absolute despair.

“You are a monster!” she screamed.

Then everything went black.

“Hope!” came a voice in the darkness.

Then nothing but silence and sorrow.

And then, “Hope, wake up!”

Hope’s eyes flew open. She looked around her. While her surroundings were rather difficult to make out, she judged by the stream of light nearby that it was day. And standing above her, directly in the beam of light, was Oriflamme.

Hope’s eyes began to adjust. They were in a hovel. The light was streaming in from the entrance, where the wide flap had been thrown back. Hope thought to get to her hooves, but found that she was already on them. She must have fallen asleep while still standing.

Then, realization dawned on Hope. Cold, comfortless realization. She dashed to the bed.

Oriflamme pulled her back. “There’s nothing you can do, Hope! It’s too late!”

Hope shook. She could not believe it. She tilted her head just enough to see behind the tall pegasus. There, in bed, was a corpse where a life had been, and the corpse was covered in boils.

“But I was here!” Hope moaned. “I was here!”

Oriflamme gripped her tightly to keep her from looking back again and led her toward the entryway. “Let’s just get you out of here,” she said.

Hope became teary-eyed. “But I was here! I should have been able to save her! I shouldn’t have fallen asleep! It’s my fault she’s dead!”

“It’s not your fault. You can’t blame yourself. She probably would have died anyway, whether you were here or not.”

“No, I could have saved her!”

“You don’t know that.”

Hope felt the light of the sun blinding her as she stepped outside. The area was roaring with activity, as ponies came out of their huts to go about their daily routines.

“Look at them, they don’t care!” Hope said, tears now falling rapidly. “Why aren’t they staring at us? Why aren’t they angry with me? I just left a pony when she needed me! I said I’d never do it again, and I did! I was there and I could have helped her, but I didn’t!”

Even Hope’s tears had ceased to be crystalline by now.

“Just calm down, Hope,” the mayor said. “It’s been very tough on you, too. You can’t blame yourself because your body has limits, the same as anypony. You have to be understanding toward yourself.”

“Understanding?” Hope yelled. “She’s dead, because of me! And I could have saved her, but I didn’t! Just like with Sombra! How can I ever make it up to him when I keep doing it to ponies?”

“Who’s Sombra?” Oriflamme asked.

That name seemed to have a magical effect on Hope. She no longer shrieked and wailed. She became still and silent. Thoughtful. Brooding.

Oriflamme was not sure why, but she let Hope go. She even took a few steps to the side, so that Hope stood alone.

“You want to know who I am?” Hope said quietly. Oriflamme did not like the tone of her voice.

“I’m the pony that destroyed the Crystal Empire.”

The mayor’s usually unflappable features started to change. Her eyes narrowed and her jaw dropped a little. “What are you saying, Hope? The Crystal Empire is–”

“Gone! All gone! Because of me!”

“How could one pony destroy a whole city?”

“He did. And it was my fault.”

Oriflamme shook it off, as though coming out of a dream herself. “Hope, you’re tired and you’re upset. You don’t know what you’re saying. Come on, let’s get you back to the inn. A few hours’ sleep and a nice meal will make things seem better.”

Hope at first did not respond. Oriflamme was not even certain that her remarks had been registered. Then Hope suddenly, awkwardly, turned.

“No, no, we can’t,” Hope said. “There’s more ponies… more ponies need me…. The plague… I have to stop the plague! Where’s the next outbreak?”

“There’s… none reported yet.”

“But there will be! Every death is followed by a new outbreak! It’s going to happen again! We have to find those poor ponies! Time is running out! Every moment wasted if a life lost!”

So saying, Hope charged off in the direction she was facing. To her misfortune, in that direction also stood one of the larger hovels in the vicinity. Larger, and surprisingly sturdy. Hope practically seemed to bounce off of it before falling to the ground.

“Yeah, and you want to be a princess….” Oriflamme muttered.

Just then, another voice said, “And what do we have here?”

Oriflamme closed her eyes. “How does he do it?” she asked. “How does he constantly manage to pick the worst possible moment to appear? I swear, he should have a cutie mark for inserting himself into difficult situations and making them impossible.”

Sure enough, when she opened her eyes, there was Fallen Fortune.

“I was just taking my morning stroll, and what do I see?” he said. “Why, our resident miracle worker laying down on the job.”

“Not now, Fortune,” said the mayor.

But Fortune was undaunted. “And there’s just been a death, judging from the smell. But I guess you have nothing better to do than lay around and relax while others suffer.”

“Fortune, be quiet!” the mayor ordered.

Still, it had no effect on Fortune. “Tell me, do you also take naps while your charges are dying?”

There was a blue pop of light. Radiant Hope was now standing directly in front of Fallen Fortune. The look in her eyes was enough to cause Fortune to brace himself.

“Do you have any idea how much I’m trying to save everypony?” she snapped. “Do you? Have you been there when I’ve done everything I can to heal them, and I still lose them? Oh, I know you like to show up every so often and mock me, but did you ever stay to see what I was doing? When you were the main physician, did you ever even stay then?”

“Are you crazy?” Fortune said. “Those ponies had plague! You want me to subject myself to that?”

Hope let out a long, deep growl.

Fortune took a few steps back. But Hope took as many forward, and was still on top of him.

“Do you even know what it’s like? Do you know what it’s like to try and save them, day after day, and to fail? To do nothing but fail, after you’ve tried your hardest and your best? To fail, even though this is your special talent, what you’re best at in the world? And then, to know you can save one pony, if you just are there when you’re needed? But you’re not there, and you lose that pony! You lose that pony and your home and everything you ever cared about, because you weren’t there when he needed you!”

Fortune looked over to Oriflamme. “So, I understood roughly half of that, but she lost me near the end. Do you know what she is saying?”

“Not really,” the mayor responded.

“So it’s not just me,” said Fortune. “That’s reassuring.”

Hope let out another growl and shoved her face into Fortune’s. “You have absolutely no idea what it’s like! And you have no right to judge me!”

Fortune, instinctively, lit up his horn for a defensive spell. Hope acted quickly. A blue blast tore into Fallen Fortune at point-blank range and sent him flying. He too ended up crashing into a hovel. This one, however, was not so sturdy; Fortune flew right through the wall.

“That’s enough!” Oriflamme shouted, stepping in front of Hope.

A large crowd was beginning to form around the ruckus.

“Nothing to see here,” Oriflamme said. “Go back to what you were doing.”

The crowd did not disperse.

“Anypony who lingers gets a day in the cells,” the mayor announced.

That was enough. The crowd dispersed.

Fallen Fortune pulled himself out of the hovel. As he stumbled the mayor and Hope, he wiped his black robe with his hoof.

“I should stop wearing such expensive vestments,” he said. “Do you know how hard gruel is to get out of silk?”

Looking to Hope, he said. “As for you, I hope you’re proud of yourself. You just deprived one very short-tempered old stallion of his morning meal!”

Hope just glared at him.

“I said, that’s enough!” Oriflamme said, stepping in between them. To Hope, she said, “I’m personally going to take you back to the inn, where you will take a warm bath, eat a decent meal, and get a reasonable amount of sleep.”

“But what if there’s another plague victim to tend to?” Hope asked.

“You can tend to them once you’ve slept,” responded the mayor. “Since they only ever die between midnight and three in the morning, I’m sure they’ll keep until you’re rested.”

“But, we don’t know that! We can’t just–”

“You can’t do anything! Look at you! You’re in no fit state to help anypony. If you don’t want to rest for yourself, then do it for the ponies you’ll be better able to serve once you’ve recuperated.”

Hope fell silent.

“Of course, while she’s thus disposed,” Fortune said, “I’d be happy to help those poor unfortunates. I never need rest, after all.”

Oriflamme turned on Fortune. The look of anger in her eyes put that which he had previously seen in Hope’s to shame.

“As for you,” she said, “I’m having you put in the stocks for a few hours.”

“On what crime?”

“How about fraud, deceit, multiple lewd comments to upstanding mares of the community, not listening to the commands of the mayor, and making me late for the trial at which I am the judge? That last one, I think, counts as contempt of court.”

“But… but… I–”

“Any further objections and I’m confiscating all your wealth and property. I’ve had enough of you and your antics, Fortune. I may not be able to banish you, but if you keep up like this, you’ll wish I could.”

Fallen Fortune dropped his head. “You’re the mayor….” he said weakly.

“That I am, and don’t you forget it,” Oriflamme said. “Now, both of you, come with me.”

Putting one wing around each, with Hope too tired to resist and Fortune too frightened, she led them along, one toward the inn and the other toward the stocks.

Where would Radiant Hope and Fallen Fortune's disparate paths take them?

Read on.

The Darkest Night

Hope splashed water in her face. Not that she needed it. Even in her sleep-deprived state, she had managed to wash thoroughly, an old crystal pony habit coming back to the fore. But still, she did it, if only to snap herself out of the grogginess she was feeling. She had slept well, for hours upon hours. It helped, but it did not completely ease her exhaustion. Still, she felt she could at least function now.

Sleep had been easy. She had not dreamed of anything, quite thankfully. The only thing she ever seemed to dream of lately was Sombra. And Radiant Hope was not certain whether it was worse to dream of the happy life they had together, and then wake up to be disappointed by reality, or to dream of what he had become and wake up reminded that she was no closer to finding out what that was.

Still, sleep must have helped. Looking at her reflection in the small mirror above the wash-basin, Hope saw that the crystalline texture and the shine had returned to her features, if still rather faintly. She had to admit that she was feeling better, relatively speaking. At least she could think with some semblance of reason again.

Hope sighed. The guilt had not gotten better, though. If anything, she felt guiltier than ever. Getting this sleep only reminded her of the sleep she had gotten last night, when a pony in the same room died of a plague she was supposed to cure.

Hope shuddered at the thought.

And she felt guilty for what happened to Fallen Fortune.

He may be difficult, but I shouldn’t have used an offensive spell on him, she though. And then for him to end up in the stocks…. I hope he isn’t too badly hurt.

Hope stopped lifting water to her face and just stared at her reflection for a moment.

“How could I keep causing so much pain?” she asked herself. “What is it going to take to fix my mistakes?”

Just then, she heard a knock at the door.

“Your Highness, have you awoken yet? Her Excellency the Mayor sent me to collect you when you had. There’s been another outbreak of plague.”

“I’m coming!” Hope called.

She rushed over and, with magic, lifted up her cloak. As she began to wrap it around herself, Hope felt it. She looked at it. She could even smell it. All this told her the same thing.

“This cloak could really use a wash,” Hope said. She let it drop to the ground. “I’ll have to see if I there’s a pony here who washes clothes. I’ve never had much luck with it.”

More knocks came at the door.

“Not to rush Your Majesty, but it’s nearly midnight,” said the pony on the other end.

Hope whipped the door open with her magic. “We better get going, then.”

Fallen Fortune dragged himself up the stairs of his house. When he reached the top, he trudged forward until he came to a large set of double-doors. With one spark of his magic, they opened, and he stepped into the huge room beyond.

One side of the room was devoted entirely to book-cases, all of which were filled with books large and heavy, old and dusty. At the other end of the room was a large desk and a number of shelves. Between them, they carried a massive array of beakers, vials, and every kind of instrument needed for the mixing of two substances together. And there were substances, chemicals, and mixtures of all kinds, identified only by the arcane symbols painted upon their bottles.

Pale light streamed in courtesy of the moon, clearly visible through the large window that dominated the outer wall, giving the room an eerie appearance. This was only helped by the sparseness of the room itself, which contained very little other than the bookcases and the alchemical station. There was a large chair directly opposite the books, and a dark mirror directly beside the doors.

This was Fallen Fortune’s study, where he had spent countless hours pondering the mysteries of what alchemists called the “great work.” It was also where he had spent countless hours in experiments that never seemed to lead to anything promising. But tonight, it was where Fallen Fortune planned to spend countless hours drowning his sorrows.

He levitated up one of the books from the bookcase. It opened, revealing a hollowed out midsection and a flask. Fallen Fortune was not sure why he continued to hide it like this, since he had ceased hiring maids after they kept quitting in offense. But old habits die hard.

Fortune plopped into the chair. He let out a howl of pain. Hours upon hours in the stocks had not done his joints any services. As Fortune tried to curl into a posture that would be reasonably comfortable, he took the first swig from his flask. And then another. And then another....

With the now-empty flask cast down beside his chair, Fallen Fortune fell into a kind of stupor. He stared at the many books on the shelf across from him.

All I’ve accomplished, all I’ve accumulated, for what? he asked himself. All so that sparkly imposter can steal it away from me? Life was fine, until she came to town. Now I’m going to lose everything! The mayor has always been jealous of me, and now she’s going to find some excuse to confiscate everything I own, everything I’ve earned.

“I’m lost,” he said aloud with a sob. “What can I do? If only they still needed me…. But nopony needs me anymore!”

He looked to his desk. “Why do I bother mixing up these potions? Nopony buys them, not with a so-called princess that can do magic spells. Even if the mayor keeps her grubby hooves off all this, I’m not making enough money to keep it up. I’ll lose it one way or another. But what can I do?”

Whether it was the contents of the flask talking, or some dark part of his own mind, Fallen Fortune seemed to hear a voice. Get rid of Radiant Hope.

“That would solve everything,” he said, not caring that he was not actually talking to anypony. “But how would I do that? I’ve tried to get her to leave, but she won’t. And I can’t do anything to her, not when she’s so powerful….

The voice came again. There is a way.

“But I would need….”

Yes, a power greater than hers….

Fallen Fortune’s eyes fell once more upon the bookcase. They fell upon one book in particular, a large one with dark binding, its title in signs that bore no similarity whatsoever to the Equestrian alphabet.

Fortune rose. He approached the bookshelf and levitated the book toward him. He opened it. There, upon pages yellowed and torn, in a language that had died out long before the three tribes created a united Equestria, was what he needed.

In a whisper lower than most, Fortune began to recite. The words were like acid. It hurt to say them, as though they had never been meant for a pony’s mouth. But he forced himself to press on. Once he had finished, Fortune lowered the book and waited, expectantly.

And nothing happened.

Fortune quickly read over the spell again.

“Oh, it needs to be recited while one is in a state of rage.”

Fortune lifted up the book and thought about what would enrage him. The answer was simple. He merely had to think of Radiant Hope, that pony who had nearly taken everything from him.

So he thought of her. He pictured her in his mind, focusing on her until it was as though she was standing in front of him. He carefully imagined every part of her; the long blue tresses that rolled like the waves of the sea down her face, neck, and shoulders; that coat, the color of soothing lavender, that became luminous when it refracted the rays of the sun; those deep, piercing blue eyes with their perfect hexagonal shape; those….

“I think this is exciting quite the wrong emotion….” Fortune said.

He lowered the book again. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe I shouldn’t still be drinking from a flask I keep in a book.

But then, Fallen Fortune started thinking. He started thinking about how bad his life had become since that crystal pony came to town. He thought about how he had lost all his business. He remembered the confrontations with the mayor. He felt the stains upon his robes. His body ached still from the stocks. And he reflected that his life might soon get far, far worse. It all passed through his mind. And it was all because of her.

In the darkness, Fortune’s eyes lit up green. His irises were red as blood. And from those now-changed eyes, something else emerged. A purple mist drifted upward and weaved around his head.

Fallen Fortune grinned wickedly. His face looked like that of a ghoul in the pale moonlight.

What was Fallen Fortune about to do?

Read on.

The Brightest Flame

Radiant Hope stood alert. It was nearly midnight. Fortunately, only one pony had contracted plague while she had been asleep. Had there been more to heal, she could not have been everywhere. She could not sit by every bedside as the fatal hours came.

Besides, had she more than one pony to cure, there would have been no time. She would not have finished healing until perhaps the coming of the dawn.

But there had just been one. Something to be thankful for, though Hope would be more thankful if the outbreaks ceased altogether. But she was here now. She was here and moderately rested. What was more, she was now aware of the dangers of sleep stealing in upon her when she least expected it.

She would not make such a fatal mistake as allow it to come. Not tonight.

Hope waited, solemn, silent, her eyes fixed unwaveringly upon the youthful pegasus in the bed before her. This hovel was one of the larger ones – which was not saying much – but the interior seemed rather impoverished. Luck, not means, seemed to have determined that this particular pony would receive this particular dwelling. She had nothing else.

Hope watched. And thought.

Does Princess Celestia know the conditions these ponies live in? she wondered. Things were never this bad in the Crystal Empire. But it’s normal for them. Maybe if somepony did something about it, there would be no plague in this town.

And why did Princess Celestia want to stop me from coming? If she had just explained more about it, I would know what I’m up against. Why wouldn’t she tell me? Why would she keep that from me?

It’s almost like… she doesn’t even know….

The pony in bed began to move. Hope teleported to her side. The crystal pony’s eyes grew wide as she saw little welts beginning to form across the victim’s body. And they were growing larger and larger with each passing second.

Somewhere outside, Fallen Fortune stomped toward the hovel. He had gone to find Hope at the inn but, finding her out, he had spoken to the innkeeper. A few bits was a modest price to pay for the information about the newest case of plague. So, after a suitable change into a new, unstained robe, Fortune quickly located the hovel.

He was standing outside the flap that passed for a door. He knew Hope was inside. The dark magic flowing through him told him so. He did not know how, he did not know why, but it seemed to have an adverse effect when it came within the vicinity of her magic. He felt almost sick.

But it was a sickness he knew how to heal. Just remove the healer, and it would be healed.

The pony in the bed began to shake and shiver as the boils grew larger. More and more appeared, growing faster and faster. Hope did what she did best; she cast a healing spell. And the boils subsided. But then new ones emerged. She cast another spell. Those boils were gone. But more boils replaced them. The boils were now appearing faster than Hope could banish them. Finally, she used her most powerful healing spell.

It seemed to have an effect. The boils subsided. The pony lay still.

Hope did nothing. She just stood and watched and listened. She saw nothing but her charge calmly sleeping. She heard nothing but the sound of her own breathing, heavy from the exertion. Hope began to relax. Maybe it was over.

And then the pony began to cough. It was strange and surprising. Hope had treated countless infected, but for all their many symptoms, none had been prone to coughing fits. Hope immediately tried another healing spell.

It did nothing.

Fortune grinned wildly at the thought of what he was about to do. A dark, sludge-like aura surrounded his horn. The flap moved backward. He peered inside.

Hope tried another spell, but it did nothing. The pony continued to cough. Once more, Hope cast a spell. Once more, there was no effect.

And then, the pony seemed to cough up something, as though it had been lodged tightly in her throat. It came shooting out of her mouth. But how could it have been stuck? It was merely a ball of light.

Hope stared at the ball. It was small and round and white, though with hints of blue and orange. She thought, for a moment, that she heard a laugh; a rude, merciless laugh, like one hears after a particularly mean-spirited prank.

And then she was blinded by a strong flash of light. Not just blinded, but sent tumbling. Hope crashed upon the ground. It felt as though all the wind had been knocked out of her.

Fallen Fortune shook his head. Whatever that light was, it had been blinding. But no matter. It was surely just another of Hope’s magic tricks. Now that it was gone, she would not escape.

As Fortune’s eyesight returned, he saw the crystal pony, laying prone on her chest, sprawled out, her eyes closed as though she was unconscious. This would be easier than he thought. He leaned his head into the hut. His horn began to glow a hideous purple and green.

Until Fortune’s eye caught sight of it. The golden staff, the intertwined serpents, the wings raised aloft. Radiant Hope’s cutie mark. Fortune paused.

Hope opened her eyes. She looked above her. The ball of light had grown. It was growing still. Growing and taking the form of a pony. But not a pony of flesh. A pony of fire, blue and orange. It now stood between her and the bed. It seemed to have no face, but Hope still got the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that it was staring into her.

And then there was that laugh.

“So, this is the little pony who's been using her little magic to hassle us, is it?”

The thing’s voice did not even sound like a pony. Rather, it was like the sound of fire crackling in the hearth, as though that hissing sound could be turned to speech. Fire made vocal.

“What… what are you?”

“I am one of my kind and we are the plague.”

“You’re causing the plague?”

“We are the plague.”

Hope shook her head. “How can that be? You’re fire. You’re… you’re….”

“Light?” said the creature, with a distinct tone of mockery. “Why, little pony, did no one ever tell you that not all evil hides in darkness?”

“E-evil?”

“Yes, to you little ponies at least. But then, your evil is our good.”

“I don’t understand. What are you? Why are you doing this?”

Another fiendish laugh from the fiend. “Why should I tell you that? You are nothing to us!”

Hope stood up. “Whatever you are, I cannot let you hurt any more ponies. If you try, I will stop you!”

The fiend clearly found this highly amusing. There was an even louder, raspy laugh, like the sound of flames as they lap upon wood.

“You are persistent, and you have courage. These are qualities we find lacking in most of your kind. Having an adversary is a novelty. Very well, since have done more than any of your species to… annoy us… I shall let you have a little understanding before you die.”

Die? Well, that had not been a surprise, really. Hope braced herself. She would have to fight. But for now, better to keep him talking.

“You may know of our kind,” said the flame. “There are many of us. In marshes and forests we prefer to dwell, where there is wood and where the air conduces to flame. Oftentimes, some lonely pony gets lost in the woods, stumbles into the swamp. This pony knows not how to get home. But then, a light appears in the distance, and the pony thinks itself saved. But it learns too late what we are. For no pony that follows our lights ever returns home.”

Hope gritted her teeth. She did not like standing here, so near this… this thing. It was not merely a distaste, either. She felt it, deep within her, though she could never explain quite what she felt. All that she knew was that she had felt it before. She had felt it every year, during the Crystal Fair, when Sombra had been at the height of his pain. And she felt it again that fateful night, when in the twilight he froze Princess Amore into stone and shattered her. And here, tonight, this midnight, the very air dripped with it, and Hope felt it like never before.

“But why are you here?” she asked. “Why have you…. The swamp!”

“Yes,” said the flame. “The foolish ponies, they drained our swamp, our home, for their own usage. We had to find a new home. But we are not bitter. You creatures, we find, are easier to burn from the inside.”

Hope’s brows rose in shock. “Burn?”

“Yes, burn. It is a shame that you burn out so easily. When our fire meets the heat in your own bodies, how strong we grow! How strong our fire burns! And it burns you up!”

“So… you need the heat in our bodies for… energy? But you must be able to get it from somewhere else. There must be another source.”

“Perceptive little pony. Another trait not common among you. Yes, we may burn up other objects. But nothing gives us such heat, such energy, as you do. By draining our swamp, you have opened yourselves to us, and what a feast you have provided! What answer to your hospitality would it be to refuse to partake?”

Hope struggled to find words. “But… but….”

“It is not so hard to understand, even for a pony,” said the flame. “We must eat, so we eat. It is as simple as that. Also, it is fun.”

Hope gave several little shakes of her head. “Fun? How can it be…. You’re hurting ponies! You’re killing them! How is that fun?”

“It is,” answered the fire.

There was another crackling cackle.

“But since you have been so persistent, we will grant you a favor. I will roast you alive.”

“How is that a favor?”

“Better to die quickly than burn slowly. Or so I assume. But then, maybe it is worse.”

This was what Hope had been preparing herself for. She was ready. Or she hoped she was. Swiftly, suddenly, her horn lit up and fired the most powerful offensive blast she had in her arsenal.

It did nothing.

But the adversary seemed to be caught off-guard. It took a moment to react. And when it did, it spewed forth a heavy burst of flame. But the delay had allowed Hope to ready her teleportation spell.

As she reappeared just in front of him, Fortune quickly pulled down the flap so that he would not be seen. But he could not resist keeping it open just enough that he might still see what was going on.

Hope launched another powerful blast. Again, it had no effect.

More crackling and more cackling. The fiend shot a beam toward her. Hope was not quick enough to avoid it. But to her surprise, it did not roast her. Though it burned, it did even singe her coat. Rather, it just held her still.

“Little pony, little pony….” the adversary said, its tone sounding like mock-disappointment. “Our magic is powerful. Yours is nothing. You can do nothing to us. Only a like magic can do us harm.”

Hope felt herself being shoved down. She collapsed once more onto her chest. There she felt a burning sensation. The pain shot like flame throughout her entire body. Hope felt beads of sweat beginning to form. But the perspiration would not cool her off. The fire was on the inside.

Hope knew she did not have long. She could handle the pain. But she knew it would get worse. And worse. And then, there would be no pain. There would not be anything, perhaps.

Hope could almost desire it. Almost, if not for him.

Sombra, Hope thought, I’m sorry….

Fallen Fortune had watched all this as though in a stupor. Still, he felt the power inside of him, the dark power. But his rage was dissipating. It would not last much longer.

Hope glanced above her as she felt her consciousness beginning to fade. She saw the entrance flap pull back, and she saw a pony enter. A pale blue pony with slicked-back hair and a small beard.

“Leave her alone!” she heard Fortune shout.

“And who is this?” said the creature. “And what is he doing? Do you not know that your magic is as useless as hers?”

“You haven’t seen my magic yet,” responded Fallen Fortune, his mouth curled into a long sneer.

He launched a blast at the creature. Like a flickering flame, it seemed to bend and contort. It certainly moved backward. It tried to reform.

But Fortune shot another blast. And another. The fiend was blown backward with each. Soon, it was at the edge of the hovel. It had grown smaller, and dimmer. It seemed to glare at Fortune with hatred. Hatred, but also anguish.

Fortune prepared a final blow. He knew it would expend the remaining dark magic in him. He just hoped it would be enough to immobilize the adversary.

But before he could do anything, the fiend let out a terrible shriek, like the whistling of a raging fire doused in water. It contracted itself back into a little ball of light and then burst through the wall, leaving a small hole behind. The edges of the hole had been singed black, and tiny strands of dark smoke slowly wafted, snake-like, toward the center of the room.

Hope quickly did a healing spell on herself. It felt cooling, as though rain was falling inside of her. She began to feel better. When she could, she got to her hooves.

Hope looked to the pony in the bed. She was sleeping peacefully now, more peacefully than Hope had seen among any of her other charges. And, most importantly, she was breathing deep, calm breaths. She was alive.

Radiant Hope turned to Fallen Fortune. There was complete silence. They just stared at each other, as though sizing one another up. But neither said a word.

Until Fortune smiled upon Hope, and he spoke. “I don’t know about you, but I could really use a drink.”

What was this new enemy Radiant Hope and Fallen Fortune had just encountered?

Read on.

Of Hope and Fortune

“Alright, two ciders, on the rocks,” said Fallen Fortune as he lowered the large, frothy tankards onto the table.

The inn was nearly deserted, which was not surprising, given that dawn was only now breaking out from behind the horizon. The innkeeper had just begun to ready his wares for the day’s business when Hope and Fortune had walked in.

When Fortune suggested a drink, he had meant immediately. But Hope had refused to leave her charge’s bedside until morning’s light, when one of the mayor’s assistants arrived to relieve her. That did little to spark conversation. The two of them had passed most of the night in silence. Which was probably for the best, as each needed a few hours of quiet to process what they had just been through.

But now, here they were, in more encouraging surroundings. The innkeeper had disappeared into his storeroom, leaving Radiant Hope and Fallen Fortune alone.

Hope felt a certain unease. She was now alone with the one pony who had consistently demonstrated a grudge toward her since she had arrived in Whinnysburg.

But Fortune seemed nothing but friendly. “Would you believe he demanded three bits for each cider?" he said as he joined her at the table. "I told him that this particular vintage was only worth one at most. Then he raised the price to five bits. So, I’m out ten bits. But what can you do? Coin is for spending, after all.”

Hope looked at the cider in front of her. Leaning in, she sniffed it cautiously. Then she gave Fortune a knowing look.

“Are you just doing this to get me drunk?” she asked.

Fortune shrugged. “Can’t blame a guy for trying. But if you don’t want it, that means more for me.”

Hope nudged the tankard in Fortune’s direction. He happily took a swig of it.

“What were you even doing there tonight?” Hope asked.

“I was going to kill you,” Fortune responded nonchalantly.

Hope was aghast. “You were going to… kill me?”

"Don't worry," Fortune said. "I'm over it now."

“I never had to worry about anypony trying to kill me before,” Hope said. “And now I’ve survived two attempts on my life in one night!”

“Two attempts at the exact same moment,” Fortune added.

Hope considered. “You know, it’s actually kind of exhilarating.”

“Come to think of it, it kind of is,” Fortune said. “I don’t remember the last time I’ve felt so alive! Either escaping death does that for you, or this stuff is really fast-acting.”

He took another swig of cider.

“But why would you want to kill me?” Hope asked. “I’ve never done anything to you!”

Fortune slammed the tankard onto the table. “Never done anything to me? Never done anything to me? How about ruining my life? Things were good for me before you came along! Then you gallop in like the white knight and everypony starts going to you for healing! My business goes to tatters, as does my reputation in this community! And you’ve never done anything to me?”

“I was just trying to help,” Hope said. “All I wanted to do was cure ponies. Maybe if you focused on that too instead of coming up with all your fake potions, ponies would respect you more.”

“Fake is such a loaded word. Can’t we just call them deceptively inauthentic?”

Hope rolled her eyes. “Fine. If you would focus on real medicine and not on your ‘deceptively inauthentic’ potions, you would have a better reputation and better business. It was sort of your own fault that you lost everypony's trust. If it hadn’t been me, some other healer would have come along eventually.”

Hope was prepared for an argument. It surprised her, then, when Fortune did not offer one. Instead, he was silent.

After a moment, he nodded his head. “I suppose you’re right. You know, when I came to this town, I did want to heal ponies. You may find that hard to believe, but I really did.”

“What happened?”

“Well, you know how the story goes. I was a hot-shot young alchemist, fresh from my studies with the great masters. I was considered something of a prodigy. Why, my last master even said that I was already one of the greatest alchemists he had ever met. Of course, during that very conversation, he also begged me to protect him from his tea-pot, which he was convinced was plotting revenge because he had written it out of his will, so….”

To Hope’s blank look, Fortune said, “As part of his alchemical work, he had been working with and ingesting mercury for ten years. I think it finally caught up with him.”

“Oh, that's so sad.”

“I’ll say! I’ll tell you how bad it got. He actually forgot to write that teapot out of his will or to write me in. I was the one who cared for him in his declining years, but that ceramic crook got everything!”

“I’m sorry to hear that….” Hope said, not sure what else to say. After a few moments, she blurted out, “I used to talk to fairies!”

Fortune just stared at her.

“I used to talk to fairies that only I could see,” Hope said, “so treating a teapot like it’s a living thing doesn’t seem so…. Never mind….”

“As I was saying,” Fortune continued. “I was young and cocky, so of course I believed all that high praise my master bestowed upon me in his mercury-induced ranting. So I set out to make a life for myself as a master alchemist…. But seriously, fairies?”

“Fairies, pixies, sprites, the odd puca or two, but those obviously don’t come out too often.”

“Obviously….” Fortune said.

“But what happened?” Hope said. “If you came to town to do good, how did you become….”

“A charlatan?”

Hope gave a cautious smile. “Yeah, that.”

Fortune sighed. “I quickly learned that being one of the world’s greatest alchemists didn’t mean a whole lot. All those years of study, of grappling with the theory behind it, all completely useless when curing real ailments. On most occasions, my cures simply didn’t work. Every so often, though, they made the recipient even more ill. All the opinions and the formulas of those learned alchemists, it turns out, weren’t worth the paper they were written on. I was the town laughing-stock before I knew it.”

“I’m sorry that you had to go through that. It must have been hard for you.”

“It was. Alchemy was, and still is, my only talent. I have never been particularly good at anything else. Here, look at this.”

Fortune lifted up his robe and pointed to his flank.

“Yeah, that would only work if I had gotten drunk,” Hope said.

“No, not my flank! My cutie mark! Look at it!”

Hope glanced at Fallen Fortune’s cutie mark. It was a large heap of golden coins.

“I thought this was for alchemy,” he said. “I thought it meant I would complete the great work of the alchemists, that I would be the one to turn base metals into gold. So, with my reputation shot, I retired to the seclusion of my study, and spent most of ten years trying to find that great secret that has so eluded all alchemists for centuries; the philosopher’s stone.”

“Philosopher’s stone?” Hope asked. During her brief studies with the Royal Sisters, she had come across mention of the philosopher’s stone, but had never found out much about it. Had she stayed, perhaps the Princesses would have explained more about it.

But Radiant Hope currently did not have much trust in the Princesses’ range of knowledge.

Fortune’s eyes lit up, becoming greedy, even ravenous. “Just think of it! Eternal life, endless wealth, the ability of a pegasus or earth pony to wield magic like a unicorn, all from one little red stone!”

But, suddenly, he became more reserved. Fortune glanced at Hope’s own cutie mark. “But then, I suspect you already know all about that, don’t you?”

Something about how he said it made Hope uneasy.

Fortune leaned forward, invading Hope’s personal space. “But I must be boring you. Tell me about yourself. What is your life story? How did you get that cutie mark?”

Hope was becoming very uncomfortable. “Um… um…. But you didn’t tell me…. You went into seclusion. But you came back out. How did that happen?”

Fortune leaned back into his chair. “Ah, yes. That was the plague’s doing. As you know, the doctors were the first to go. The town became desperate for anypony who could be a healer, or at least act like one. They started coming to my house in droves and begging me to help them. Now, after all these years of derision, I was not much inclined to do anything for them. That is, until I saw how much they were willing to pay for it.”

“I see,” Hope said.

“The funny thing is, my cutie mark had told me my talent was in creating wealth,” Fortune said. “I just never expected it to be by duping other ponies out of theirs. But then, even that collapsed around me in the end. Oh, my parents must have had a taste for self-fulfilling prophecy. Why else name a foal ‘Fallen Fortune'?”

“Try growing up with a name like ‘Radiant Hope’,” Hope said. “I hate my name.”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t doom you to failure, like mine does.”

“Names don’t doom us to failure. But just try living up to a name like mine. I have never felt particularly ‘radiant,’ no more so than any other crystal pony, and it has been very hard to be hopeful ever since….”

Hope broke off. She looked down, toward the table but not at it. She was becoming lost in her own head.

“Ever since the plague, you mean?” Fortune asked.

When Hope answered, her voice was small and distant. “Ever since, I betrayed him….”

Fortune’s face lit up with curiosity. “Betrayed who now?”

Hope suddenly returned to herself. With a sly smile, she said, “Shouldn’t you know already? Didn’t you say you have a magic mirror? One that shows you everything that happens in Equestria?”

Fortune shook his head. “I do have a mirror, and supposedly it’s magic, but I’ve never had much proof of that. But who is this him you speak of?”

Fortune once more leaned in close. Hope nervously pulled back.

“Come on, I told you my tragic tale,” said the alchemist. “You should tell me yours. It’s only polite.”

He had a point there. Fortune had confided in Hope. Not that it was a revelation that needed to be kept strictly secret, but it must have been hard for him to admit to it. The least she could do, Hope figured, was to respond in kind.

Hope took a deep breath and spoke. “What I told the mayor the other day was true. The Crystal Empire is gone.”

Fortune’s face filled with genuine shock. Hope could not recall seeing him so completely stunned before.

“The Crystal Empire? Gone?” he said. “When? Who? How?”

“The who is me,” Hope continued. “Me, and a friend of mine. He was my friend, though I don’t think he’d consider me much of a friend after what I did.”

“What did you do?” Fortune asked, literally on the edge of his seat. “It must have been utterly terrible for him to turn against you.”

“It was,” Hope said. “I betrayed him.”

“Ah, so this is the infamous him.”

“Infamous, yes. Or at least, that’s how future generations will remember it if I don’t fix things. You see, Sombra was a friend of mine.”

“Sombra?”

“King Sombra was what he called himself in the end, after he had killed Princess Amore and taken control of the Crystal Empire.”

Fortune’s eyes grew wider than seemed possible. “Princess Amore is dead? How?”

Hope looked down sadly. “Sombra was trying to do something with the Crystal Heart. I don’t know what. But she confronted him and he used his magic power to turn her to stone. Then, when I tried to heal her, he shattered her. I don’t even know where that power came from. He was never very good at magic, not like me.”

Fortune bit his lower lip – or what passed for a lip on a pony. Hope could tell that there was something he had to say. Yet he remained silent. She waited.

Finally, he said, “Your magic, maybe. But he might have been skilled at a very different type of magic.”

Hope tilted her head. “A different type of magic?”

Fallen Fortune quickly waved his hoof. “Just speculation, just speculation. Go on.”

“Sombra had always been alone,” Hope said. “Ever since they found him in the frozen wastes beyond the Crystal Empire. I had always been alone ever since I lost my parents. But then we found each other and we weren’t alone anymore. But then something started to happen to him.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know what it was. But every year, as the Empire began to celebrate the Crystal Faire, Sombra would get very sick. Every year he got sicker. Until, one year, I couldn’t bear to watch him suffer like that and I… I… healed him.”

Fortune's eyes were aflame with understanding. “And that is how you became a healer.”

“That is how I earned my cutie mark,” Hope said.

For a moment, Hope could trace what seemed like disappointment in Fortune’s features. Disappointment he seemed quick to hide when he noticed her noticing it.

"I see.... I see...." he said. "But do go on.... You were saying?"

“But Sombra… I don’t know….” Hope said. “One day, he just… disappeared…. We could find no trace of him. And then, he just reappeared. But he was different. He had power. He kept talking about finding his people and how we could rule the Crystal Empire together and get revenge on all the ponies that had hurt us our whole lives.”

“And you said ‘yes’?” Fortune asked.

Hope recoiled. "How... how could I?" she asked quietly.

Fortune just looked at her. His expression was somewhere between knowing and amused.

“I... I mean," Hope said, “I had just gotten into the Royal Academy. I was taking the first steps toward becoming a princess. I could have become a princess, or more than a princess, right then and there. But I didn’t want it like that!”

“It is a tempting offer,” Fortune said. “I’m not sure that there is anypony who wouldn’t consider it, even if just for a second or two.”

Hope shook her head. “I didn’t need to consider it. I knew it was wrong. I knew that Sombra was consumed by anger and bitterness, by….”

“Rage,” Fortune suggested. Then he bit his lip again.

Hope nodded. “Rage. He had such rage inside of him. I knew that. I saw it when he destroyed Princess Amore. And I ran.”

“Sensible,” responded Fallen Fortune.

Hope could not hide her disgust. “How can you say that? Don’t you see? He was so full of rage and pain that he could not think straight. He did not know what he was doing. I should have helped him. I should have stayed and helped him overcome that pain, that rage. I’m supposed to be a healer, but I never realized that he had never healed from the pain we had endured as foals. I healed, but he never did. I should have helped him heal. Instead, I ran!”

“Hope,” Fortune said, trying to be gentle. “I can see that you care deeply for this Sombra, but did you ever consider that he was more than just broken? Maybe he was… evil….”

“No!” Hope said, her voice suddenly filled with anger. “The Sombra I know is a good pony. He would never do what he did if he were in his right mind!”

“I know you want to believe that. And maybe it’s true. Maybe it isn’t. But, whatever his reasons, he made his choices. You can’t bear the blame for them, Hope.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I did next,” Hope said sharply.

Fortune sighed. “Fine, what happened next?”

“I went to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. I begged them for help, I pleaded with them to cure Sombra. And they, they….”

“I can guess what they did.”

“They banished him… for a thousand years….”

"That’s good, right?”

Hope glared at Fortune. She noticed him shiver a little.

“I mean, the Crystal Empire was freed,” he said, “and Sombra wasn’t destroyed.”

“The Crystal Empire wasn’t freed,” Hope said darkly.

“What do you mean?”

“Sombra never forgave me,” Hope said. “He never forgave me for betraying him. And just to punish me, he cast a spell. More like a curse, actually. He cursed the Crystal Empire to vanish with him, to spend a thousand years in oblivion. He did that to hurt me.”

“I take it that it worked.”

Hope shook her head swiftly. “It doesn’t matter. All the ponies of the Crystal Empire are going to endure a thousand years of suffering… because of me…. Because I was too blind to see when a friend needed help.”

Hope could tell that Fortune did not agree.

“Hope, I hate to be the one to say this, but maybe Sombra is not the friend you think he is. It is not uncommon for friends to upset each other, and then naturally one wants to get even. But this is not just getting even."

Fortune paused, but not, it seemed, to gather his thoughts. Rather, he appeared reticent to speak further. And yet, he did.

"Hope, this is an act of hate. It is an act of pure hatred. Whatever Sombra once felt for you, I think he feels quite differently now.”

“And maybe he should,” Hope responded. “I gave up on him so completely, maybe he should give up on me completely too.”

“Hope, listen to yourself! You did not give up on your friend. You tried to help him. You went to the Royal Sisters because you thought they could help.”

“Did I?”

“What do you mean?”

Hope turned her head to avoid Fallen Fortune’s eyes. Sorrow and shame competed for control of her features.

“Do you know what I felt when I saw Sombra shatter Princess Amore? It was like, all the love I had for him...."

Hope clapped her hooves together, and the sound reverberated throughout the inn.

"Gone, just like that. Just gone. Nothing left. I was empty inside, like this huge part of me had been torn out. But I didn’t feel anything for him. No pity, no compassion, no love. Nothing. He let me go. That was an act of love. But I didn’t feel anything. It was only after I had escaped the Crystal Empire that my feelings for him came back. But I didn’t feel anything when he needed me to love him the most. If you want to call what Sombra did hateful, say the same about me. Because leaving him there, that was an act of hate.”

“I don’t believe that,” Fortune said. “You felt what any pony would. You did what any pony would.”

“I should have done better,” Hope said. “He needed me to do better. He may hate me now, but I know that is because I did it to him first. For a moment, I stopped loving him. Had I just loved him when he needed it, he never would have been driven to do what he did. And if I can find him or his people, if I can make things right, I know he’ll be able to overcome his pain.”

“You do have a lot of faith in him, don’t you?” Fortune asked.

Hope nodded.

Fortune was silent, deep in thought. “I don't think you're misnamed. If anything, 'hope' isn't a strong enough word for what you have.”

Hope was rather hurt. She had thought that, after opening up like this, the least Fortune could do was focus on something other than her name. “Let's not get started on this again...."

“I wouldn't dream of it,” Fortune said. “But is there nothing else? Nothing to do with your cutie mark, perhaps?”

Hope cast a suspicious sideways glance at Fortune, whose own expression suggested a little too much interest. “What is it with you and my cutie mark?”

“You really don’t know the meaning of your own cutie mark?”

“It’s a symbol for health. What about it?”

Fallen Fortune's hearty laugh indicated that he found Hope adorably naïve. “That cutie mark isn’t just a symbol of health. It’s the symbol of the first alchemist, the only one who ever successfully created the philosopher’s stone. Surely, you must know.”

“Nope, never heard that one.”

“He walked the earth when the world was young, long before there was an Equestria. He was ancient when the Neighyptians were just taking their first steps toward civilization. And they say he was more than mortal.”

Hope was amused, but not convinced. “And you mock me for believing in fairies.”

Fortune let out an exasperated grunt. “Fine, don’t believe me. But can your healing powers be a coincidence? The stone can heal all ailments, you know."

Then his face took on a sort of frenzied glow, both ridiculous and terrifying. "Suddenly, it occurs to me.... Maybe, if we work together, we could do it. We could do what no other alchemist since the first has done. We could create the stone!”

Hope felt quite taken aback. This was not the type of uncomfortable proposition she thought she’d have to reject. “Yeah, no…. I’m no alchemist. I have no clue how to do any of that and, like you said, everypony else has failed. And I can heal ponies fine as it is.”

The refusal only seemed to double Fortune’s resolve. He leaned in, far, far too close. “But between that cutie mark and you becoming a princess–”

“Listen,” Hope said, being as firm as she could be. “Sombra assumed it was my destiny to be a princess ever since I saw it in the Crystal Heart. So did I, once. But I now know that I can never be a princess. If destiny can’t convince me otherwise, your little story certainly won’t.”

“What do you mean, you’re not going to become a princess?” Fortune asked. “Wasn’t it your dream?”

“Do you think I can really become a princess, after I’ve let so many ponies down?” Hope asked, her voice suggesting grief. “You have to be a good pony to be a princess, don’t you?”

Fallen Fortune fell back in his chair, as though all the air had gone out of him. He just sat there like that, almost dead to the world.

Until, finally, he recovered. Fortune gave Hope his best attempt at a reassuring smile. He was out of practice, but he thought that he managed it reasonably well. “Listen, Radiant Hope. I may not be a good pony, but I like to believe that they exist. And I don’t think I’ve ever met a pony as good as you. Just look at what you’ve done for this town. You kept fighting, trying to save every life, even when it seemed impossible.”

“And we saw how that turned out. I failed.”

Fortune shook his head. “You didn’t fail. Now we know what we’re up against, because of you. The lives that were lost, just like those in the Crystal Empire, are not your fault. You did the best you could. And your best is far better than that of any other pony I’ve known.”

Hope was silent for quite a while. When she spoke, she asked “Do you think Celestia and Luna are good ponies?”

“What?”

“I mean, Celestia and Luna are good ponies, aren’t they? They wouldn’t ever do anything to cause harm, would they?” Hope’s words became increasingly desperate the more she spoke.

“I don’t know. I’ve never met them. You know them better than I do.”

Hope sighed. “I thought I did. Now, I’m not so sure. Why did they let this go on? Why did they not do anything to help these ponies?”

“I suppose they either couldn’t or didn’t want to.”

Hope growled a little. “You know, maybe I don’t want to be a princess after all. If it means having a fancy title, but not being able to help ponies, I don’t want it. If it means not wanting to help ponies, I don’t want it. Why did they have to banish Sombra? Why couldn’t they save him? I’d do anything to save him! When they have so much more power than I do, why couldn’t they?”

Fallen Fortune shrugged. “I don’t know, Hope. I’m sure they have their reasons.”

“Sure they do,” Hope said quietly. “And they keep them to themselves.”

“Please don’t say things like that, Hope,” Fallen Fortune said. “I can say things like that about other ponies, since I’m already so far gone. But you, I’d hate for you to end up like I have. You still have so much light in you. I’d hate for you to lose that.”

“Light? What use is light if I can’t save the ponies I care about?” Hope said. “Didn’t you notice that… that… that monster was made up of light? He was nothing but light, and yet he was evil. He told me so himself.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“We crystal ponies think we are so special because of the light we reflect. But look at that… that thing! It didn’t just reflect light. It was light!”

“Evil often takes the form of light. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“But that magic you used to stop it. That wasn’t light, and yet it vanquished evil. It was darkness and yet it was used for….”

Memories flashed through Hope’s mind. Memories of Sombra. She could see him now, standing before her as he did in the twilight of Amore’s reign. Hope looked into his eyes. Then she thought back to the previous night and pictured the figure of Fallen Fortune standing above her. She looked into his eyes and saw the same thing.

“Your eyes… when you were using that magic….” Hope stuttered out. “Your eyes… looked just like Sombra’s. They looked like Sombra’s after he unlocked his power. Your power… is his power….”

“The power you saw, that is not my power,” Fallen Fortune said. “That is dark magic. And it is not good.”

“But, you did a good thing with it. Maybe Sombra intended to do good things with his, too.”

Fortune’s voice grew stern. “I was coming to kill you. Don’t you forget that. It was only because I was coming to kill you that I was able to use that magic.”

“But you saved me instead. Maybe we could use it to save the rest of this town.”

“Saving you was a happy accident. You won’t be doing the town any favors by turning to dark magic.”

Fallen Fortune could see in Hope’s face that she did not understand. He shook his head.

“Hope,” he said, “dark magic is evil. Do you know how I know? Because, to use it, you must feel true rage.”

“What’s wrong with that? We should be angry at what these monsters are doing to the ponies of this town.”

Fallen Fortune’s face suddenly became solemn. He looked as though he had aged by decades in an instant. The change caught Hope by surprise.

“No, Hope, this is not anger. This is rage. The same rage your Sombra felt, and maybe still feels. It nearly consumed me last night. Do you know why I didn’t kill you?”

“You were distracted by my cutie mark.”

“Yes, at first. But do you know why I didn’t kill you after?”

Hope shook her head.

Fortune lifted his. “I may be many things, Hope. I may be a charlatan and I may be conniving. And I certainly don’t care that much for other ponies. I’ve endangered them so often that I’ve become rather blasé toward their well-being. But I’ve never meant another pony harm. I’ve never actually meant to really harm another pony. Not until last night. I really wanted to harm you, and to harm you because you had done the good that I had never been able to do. That was rage, and it was very nearly that which is beyond rage, from which there is no coming back. Had I fallen into that, there would have been no hope for me.”

“Why didn’t you go through with it, if you were so rage-controlled?” There was a hint of skepticism in Hope’s voice.

“Because,” Fortune answered, “at that moment, freed temporarily from the power of rage, I felt what it was doing to me. It felt like a part of myself – like my soul, if you want to use the term – was about to be ripped from me. And that was something I could not stand to lose.”

“But….” Hope said slowly. “What about the ponies we could save?”

“No, Hope,” Fallen Fortune said. “I am done with dark magic. I want to be as far from that wretched experience as I possibly can be. It may be purely selfish, I admit, but I would not use it even to save all of Equestria. Nopony should have to give up something so precious as their very self to save another.”

“I would do that,” Hope said. “I would give up all that I have, all that I am, if it meant Sombra could be saved.”

“You should rethink that,” Fortune said. “Even gaining Sombra is not worth losing yourself. Remember that, Radiant Hope.”

The two sat in silence for what felt like ages. Finally, without a word, Radiant Hope stood up and went to her room. She did not even bother to walk up the stairs. She merely teleported, leaving Fallen Fortune to finish his two ciders, by now nearly empty, alone.

As Radiant Hope reappeared in her room, she considered what Fallen Fortune had said. Maybe he had a point.

But then again, she thought, do I even have a soul?

Would Radiant Hope take Fallen Fortune's words to heart?

Read on.

The Breaking of Things

Hope only slept a few hours. There was too much to do. It would not be long before those things struck again. And Hope had to be ready to face them. The town had to be ready to face them.

The first step was informing the mayor. Hope quickly threw on her cloak and headed out.

Hope did not have to go far, as it turned out. She quickly found the mayor in the central square, along with a crowd of other ponies.

“I need to talk to you!” Hope said. “I’ve found out what’s causing the–"

“Not now,” Oriflamme said. “I want to hear the rest of this.”

Hope realized that Oriflamme had not even bothered to look at her. The mayor’s eyes were fixed straight ahead. Hope realized, too, that they were in front of Fallen Fortune’s house.

Hope turned her head. There he was, at his window, with everything folded out as though open for business. But Fallen Fortune did not seem to be selling anything. He was giving a speech of some sort, which was normal for him. Hope had instinctively tuned it out. Now, she began to listen.

“As I said, I have done many rather disreputable things in the past,” Fallen Fortune said. “But recently, I have seen the light. I no longer wish to be the pony I once was. I want to be better. So, from hence forth, no more cheating, no more swindling, and no more lying. I shall live my life on the straight and narrow, and become a pillar of the community!”

There were two tall stallions standing at the front of the crowd. One of them called out, “We’ve all heard this before! Why should we believe you?”

“I know I’ve given you much reason to doubt me in the past,” Fortune said. “But I will earn your trust. I will show you that I have become a better pony.”

“And how are you going to do that?” called out the second stallion.

“Why, by doing things to help our fair community,” Fortune answered proudly.

“Like what?” the mayor called out. She did not notice Hope’s disapproving glance.

Fortune grew flustered. “What I’ll do is…. I mean, there is so much that this town needs…. The weaker members of our community need the most support, in particular…. I’ll build houses for orphans!”

“Work-houses?” responded the first stallion in the front, to general laughter.

“I’ll provide help to widows!” Fortune said.

“I think you’ve ‘helped’ widows enough,” replied the second stallion, to even greater laughter and even some applause.

“No, seriously, I will be a beacon for this community?” Fortune, now very shaken, said. “I’ll donate to worthy causes! To our poorer citizens I’ll give alms! Look! Look!”

He disappeared from his window. But he swiftly returned, with several bags of coins behind him. Leaning against the window, Fortune poured the coins into his hooves. Then he threw them out into the crowd.

“Here, here, take my wealth, needy citizens!” he said as he threw another batch. “You peasants need it more than I!”

“Watch out, they’re probably poisoned!” shouted the first stallion.

“I wouldn’t take anything from him!” added the second. “We’d probably all die from it!”

The rest of the crowd seemed to agree. They avoided the coins as though bombs were being lobbed at their heads. Ponies dashed this way and that to get out of their trajectory.

Soon, the whole square was deserted, except for Radiant Hope and Oriflamme. Hope approached Fallen Fortune’s window.

“I guess that didn’t go as well as I had hoped,” Fortune said when he saw the sympathetic look on Hope’s face.

“They just don’t understand,” Hope said. “They all are so used to seeing you as a… um….”

“It’s fine, call me what I am,” Fortune said. “I’m a fraud. Or, I was. I’m not hiding from that.”

“They just don’t see that you’re really trying to help them now,” Hope continued. “They will, eventually.”

“Truth be told,” Fortune said, “I’m doing it more for me that for them. I never want to feel again like I did last night. I never want to become what I very nearly did when I tried to kill you. I want to stay as far away from that as possible. And what better way to do that than by being the exact opposite? If I have to become a saint, as odious as that is, then so be it.”

“What, turning over a new leaf?” Oriflamme asked as she walked over. “I guess that means you’ll be giving all that fancy stuff in there to charity? I’ll take the house. It’s bigger than mine and I’m the mayor!”

“Don’t make fun of him,” Hope said. “He had a very rough night, last night.”

“It was a rough night for both of us,” Fortune said. “How come you're up so early, Hope? You should still be exhausted.”

“And you should have a hangover from all that cider,” Hope responded with a smile. "But I never did thank you for staying with me all last night. I really needed it after what happened."

"If you ever need a pony on top of you again, I'll be glad to do it," Fortune responded.

Oriflamme looked from Hope to Fortune and back again. "Well, I never thought that the two of you would...."

“The two of us, what?” Hope asked.

“Never mind,” Oriflamme said. “You said you found out something?”

“Yes, we did!” Fallen Fortune said. “Together, last night!”

Oriflamme shook her head sadly. With a plaintive look toward Hope, she said, “Him, I can understand. But I thought you’d have higher standards! Didn’t listen to my warning, did you?”

“Wait, what do you think happened with us last night?” Hope asked, confused.

Oriflamme looked incredibly uncomfortable. “Look, did you have something important to tell me or no? I’m a very busy mare!”

“I found out what is causing the plague,” Hope said. “We have to tell all the townsponies quickly, though, because I don’t know if I can stop it.”

Oriflamme was stunned. “You found… the cause of the plague? What… what is it?”

“I stayed with that pony after I healed her. She was fine until midnight,” Hope said. “Then the boils came back and I used my healing spells. Suddenly, this ball of light came out of her mouth. It then grew into this large pony made all of fire and it told me that there were more like it, that they were using the townsponies for energy, and when they do that, it causes the boils to appear. Once they take all of a pony’s energy, well… you know….”

Oriflamme nodded her head slowly. “Yes, I can imagine what happens next….” To Fallen Fortune, the mayor said, “How much cider did she have last night?”

“She didn’t have any,” Fortune responded.

“I wasn’t drunk!” Hope said. “I saw it! I know I did!”

“I can vouch for her,” Fortune added. “I saw it too.”

Oriflamme’s eyes narrowed as they landed squarely on Fortune. “You slipped her something, didn’t you? That’s low, even for you.”

“What? No!” Fortune said. “Didn’t you just hear my speech about being a new pony?”

“I’m not making this up and I wasn’t seeing things!” Hope protested. “This is what’s causing the plague! You have to tell the townsponies! You have to warn them!”

“Oh, yes,” the mayor answered. “I’ll just warn them not to accidentally swallow any fire-demons. Maybe I can even get placards put up with a face with horns and a line through it.”

“You’re not taking this seriously,” Hope said.

“You know, some towns are trying this newfangled thing of electing their mayors?" Oriflamme said. "I’m glad we aren’t doing that here. Could you imagine me getting reelected if I went around telling ponies that all they need to do to prevent the plague is to not eat little balls of flame?”

“Oh, when you put it like that, of course it’s going to sound ridiculous!” Fortune said. “Where’s your showmanship? Do I need to teach you how it’s done?”

“Aren’t you going to do anything at all?” Hope said. “The pony I saved survived, didn’t she? How do you explain that otherwise?”

The mayor smiled. “Look, Hope, I know you really want to save this town. And I know you’re doing your best to help. But maybe you’re not fully rested up yet. Maybe you should take another few days to rest and relax and avoid strenuous activity.” Oriflamme shot Fortune a disapproving look here. “And then maybe you’ll be better able to actually do something useful instead of coming up with these wild stories.”

“But I–”

“Just look at you! I see you took that bath, but you’re still wearing that filthy cloak!”

Hope looked down and was reminded that the cloak was as mud-caked as ever. “I just haven’t had a chance to wash it yet. I forgot that when I put it on this morning. I was in such a rush to find you that I just put it on without thinking.”

Oriflamme gave Hope a glance somewhere between understanding and condescension. “Of course, you did. But why don’t you take a few days off, all the same? From what we’ve seen, your healing powers aren’t going to save that many lives, anyway. I think you can afford a break.”

Hope was stunned. Her jaw dropped. She was speechless. But the mayor seemed satisfied with her pronouncement.

“Now, if you don’t mind, I have to make my morning rounds,” she said. “A mayor’s life is ever-busy.”

The mayor departed, leaving Hope and Fortune alone.

“Can you believe she didn’t believe me?” Hope asked.

“Well, it does sound a little far-fetched,” Fortune said.

“But do I seem like the type of pony who would make something like that up?”

“You did tell me this morning, completely free of any alcoholic influence, that you not only believe in fairies, but talk to them, so….”

Hope gave Fortune a harsh look.

“But she doesn’t know about that, so why she’d doubt you, I don’t know,” Fortune said with a nervous grin.

“What should I do? Should I tell the other townsponies myself?”

“Without the mayor’s backing, I don’t think they’ll believe you. They may be extremely gullible when they want to be, but they have their limits. I mean, look, they just refused to take free money because I was the one giving it to them. Just imagine the luck we'll have with the whole ‘fire-demon’ story.”

Hope gave him another harsh look.

“Hey, hey, I was there!” he said. “I’m not saying it didn’t happen. But if you weren’t witness to it like we were, it does sound too incredible to be true.”

Hope let out a grunt of frustration. “I suppose you’re right. But what do I do?”

“How about writing to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna? Maybe they could do something about it.”

“The last time I asked them to help me cure a pony who was suffering, they gave him a thousand-year sentence in who-knows-where, instead.”

A faint trace of a sneer formed on Hope’s face.

Fortune seemed a little taken aback. “Hope, I know how much you care for your friend Sombra, but I’ve been giving it some thought. You kept talking about ‘his people,’ and how he used dark magic when his power was unlocked. What if his people’s magic is dark magic? What if they are beings of darkness?”

“What if they are?” Hope said. “What if Sombra’s natural power is dark magic. What’s wrong with that?”

“But, Hope, the creature we saw last night–”

“Was a creature of light! You saw that! The ponies who hurt Sombra so much and made him what he was, they were crystal ponies, ponies of light. I’m a crystal pony, and I betrayed him. I’m starting to see that light doesn’t equal good.”

“Yes, but–”

“And if light doesn’t equal good, maybe darkness doesn’t equal evil.”

“But, Hope, dark magic is powered by rage!”

“So? Maybe rage isn’t such a bad thing. I’ve been thinking, maybe when it’s directed against… against things like that creature, things that hurt and cause pain for other ponies, maybe it’s not so bad. It’s all in how you use it, isn’t it?”

Fortune shook his head. “Maybe, but you haven’t felt what it’s like to be so consumed by that rage. Using it for good is fine enough, but you just can’t stop yourself when it starts to take you over.”

“You did,” Hope said matter-of-factly. “And I bet you could do it again. I was thinking, since the fire-creatures are so vulnerable against it, we could use it on them. We could use it to defeat them.”

“No! Never!” Fortune’s voice was just short of shouting. “I told you that I never want to feel like I did when that power was flowing through me! Didn’t you get it when I told you that the only thing that stopped me from hurting you was I just happened to see your mark? It was chance, Hope, mere chance. Unless you believe in fate or destiny–”

“I don’t.”

“Then you can’t say it was anything but luck that you aren’t dead now. Neither of us will be so lucky next time. The whole town can die, but I'm never going near that magic again. And that's final.”

“What happened to trying to be a better pony?” Hope responded. “You were ready to give up all your wealth just a little while ago.”

“My wealth, fine. But not my soul. Remember how I told you that it felt like my soul was being ripped out of my body? I was neither joking nor lying about that. And these ponies have no right to ask that I give up my soul.”

“Fine,” Hope said, unconcerned. “Teach me how to use that magic, and I’ll do it.”

“No, Hope, no!” Fortune said, his voice rising still more. “I don’t want to see you give up your soul either!”

“I think I already did when I stabbed Sombra in the back,” Hope responded.

“You’re a good pony, Hope! You’re probably the best I’ve ever met! You did not lose your soul. And you can’t give it up. Not even for Sombra!”

“I think I should be the judge of that!” Hope snapped.

Hope felt herself becoming angrier with every word. Fortune must have sensed it as well, for he quickly took a different tack.

“But maybe if you contact the Princesses, they’ll at least have some suggestions….”

“I couldn’t contact them if I wanted to. I don’t know how to get a message through the blockade, and I never did learn how to send it magically. I think you need a dragon for that or something,” Hope said. “Not that I would want to, even if I could.”

If Fortune had been trying to calm Hope down, he had failed. Hope felt even more upset that before.

“You know," she said, "when I was a foal, being a princess seemed like the greatest thing in the world. I figured you got to have all this power that you could help ponies with. But then, I got to know them. Princess Amore never tried to help Sombra, even though she probably figured out what he was. And then Princess Celestia and Princess Luna didn’t help him either, even after I told them that it wasn’t his fault. And then they probably know what’s going on here and they still won’t help!”

“You don’t know that. They might not know what’s causing the plague.”

Hope shook her head. “Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. But they know more about it than they were willing to tell me. I could tell Celestia was holding something back. Why wouldn’t she have told me more? Why does she always seem to know more than she’s willing to tell? Why do that?”

“Because sometimes knowledge is a burden, Hope,” Fortune said. “Whatever she knows, she probably thinks she’s being kinder by not sharing it.”

Hope growled. Her horn lit up a deep blue. Similarly, the sun-badge upon Hope’s cloak also began to glow that same shade of blue. It tore itself out of the fabric and landed on the ground with a loud clang.

“Hope, what are you doing?” Fortune said, shocked and concerned.

“I’ve had enough of princesses to last me a lifetime,” Hope answered. “If that’s what it means to be a princess, to have that power and that knowledge and not be able to help ponies, then I never want to be one!”

Radiant Hope’s hoof rose. It slammed down upon the badge, shattering it into countless pieces.

Fallen Fortune fell silent. Hope kicked the remains of the badge into the nearest gutter. When she turned to Fortune again, there was no sign of regret or remorse in those blue crystal eyes.

“I have to do something,” Hope said. “I will do something.”

“Then… then… come in…” Fortune said, still looking for words. “I’ve gathered an extensive library on these sorts of things. There must be some other way to stop the fire-monsters. And if it’s not in one of my books, it’s not anywhere.”

Hope considered. “You're not trying to proposition me again, are you?” Then she paused, something seeming to occur to her. “Oh, that’s what the mayor meant….”

Fortune shrugged. “Well, if everypony’s going to be thinking it....”

Hope gave Fortune the harshest glare yet.

“I mean, no, I’m not trying anything,” Fortune quickly said. “I just think it would be the best use of our time and resources. So much better than using dark magic.”

“I don’t know….” Hope said.

“You said you’d do anything. Just at least try this before going the darker route. How’s that sound?”

Hope nodded hesitantly. “Alright. But if there is no library up there, you’re going to be in need one of my healing spells.”

“Duly noted,” Fortune said. “Now, just come around to the door and I’ll let you in.”

Would Radiant Hope find what she was looking for?

Read on.

The House of Fortune

There was, to Hope’s very great relief, a library.

It was not a huge library, which surprised Hope for some reason. She had, only a few moments ago, been certain that there was no library. But, if there was a library, she had expected, or at least hoped, that it would be massive. Everything or nothing thinking, as they say.

But the number of bookshelves and the large tomes on them did make for a library, if perhaps not the largest or the most impressive. Perhaps there would be something here, after all.

Or, at least, that is what Hope chose to believe.

She took a look around the rest of the room. It was surprisingly bare.

“I expected there’d be more to it,” she said as Fortune walked in behind her.

“Why?” Fortune asked.

“Well, you do have all the other rooms covered floor to ceiling in expensive carpets and tapestries and things…. And you do like to wear fancy clothes…. And you do brag a lot about how much wealth you have….”

“I get the picture,” Fortune said. “But you have to understand, Hope, that this is my study. And a serious practitioner of the noble art of alchemy, as I once fancied myself, likes to keep his workspace as clean and simple as possible. It helps to keep his mind focused on the mighty task of transmutation.”

Hope gave Fortune a knowing look. He hardly seemed the pony who would consider extravagance and luxury needless distractions. He enjoyed them too much.

Catching Hope’s look (and her implied drift), Fortune glanced at the ground and began rubbing his foreleg. “And… it minimizes property damage in the explosions which inevitably result when a pony’s main occupation is mixing random chemicals together.”

“Seriously?” Hope asked.

Fortune pointed to the bookshelf. “I used to do my experiments over there. My impetus for putting up the bookshelves was to hide the massive hole.”

“Seriously?” Hope said again, her voice more incredulous.

“Didn’t you notice the unnecessarily large tapestry hanging on the other side when we walked by?”

“I thought it was just for decoration.”

Hope looked to the bookshelf. Fortune approached his new alchemy desk against the adjacent wall.

“Why do you even have books in here if it’s so dangerous?” Hope said. “They all look pretty rare and valuable too. Aren’t you afraid of losing them?”

“Not really,” Fortune responded. “I don’t do real alchemy – whatever that is – that much anymore. Oh, I still dabble, but not on so large or so dangerous a scale. Why, just recently, I thought I had finally cracked the mystery and discovered the philosopher’s stone.”

Hope noticed that Fortune, as he said this, was staring sullenly down at his desk, where there was a large mixing bowl. She joined him. Inside the bowl was what looked like milk, except that it had a slight silvery sheen.

“What is it?” Hope asked.

“That is a philosopher’s stone, or at least it was supposed to be.” Fortune shook his head. “I don’t understand it. It’s supposed to go black, then white, then red, and then it’s supposed to harden into a… a….”

“A stone?”

“You have a way with words, Hope. Have you ever considered becoming a poet? Yes, a stone.” He waved his hoof at the mixture. “But this, it just sits in the white stage. Now, they say a white stone can turn base metals into silver, but all this concoction has managed to do is to not evaporate or dissolve despite sitting here for weeks. I just don’t know what to do with it.”

Hope looked over to the cabinet of potions next to the desk. There were vials and bottles of all shapes, sizes, and colors in there. Hope’s eye caught on a short, fat one, emerald in color, that seemed to be made of pewter or stone or some such material. Hope’s horn glowed blue, and the bottle floated up from the cabinet and glided over.

She may have been no alchemist, but that did not mean she could not help a friend.

Wait, Hope said to herself, do I consider Fallen Fortune a friend now?

“How about this one?” Hope asked as she set the bottle down next to the bowl.

“Are you crazy?” Fortune said in alarm.

“Probably, but why?”

“You can’t just take a random tincture and mix it in. The results may be….” Fortune pointed a hoof toward the bookcases.

“Oh,” Hope said. “Then how do you do it?”

“I haven’t added in anything new yet. I want to be absolutely sure that I’m chosen the right ingredient before I do. Or, otherwise….”

“I think I know.” Hope pointed toward the bookcases.

“You’re a fast learner,” Fortune said. “It takes most apprentices years to figure that out. You see, this stage is very critical, so the books say. Introducing the wrong tincture at this precise point in the process is, in fact, the number one cause of work-related fatalities among alchemists. Why, half those books on the shelf there inform us that their authors died from that very cause. Which, now that I come to think about it, doesn’t seem to add up. If the authors died, how did they write the books…. Hope?”

Fortune noticed that Hope had completely lost interest in this line of inquiry. Instead, she was standing in front of the large, obsidian mirror hanging beside the doors.

Fortune walked up behind her. Hope did not seem to notice. She was transfixed by the mirror. And the image in the mirror.

The image was of a tall, handsome grey stallion with large green eyes and a mane of plenteous black hair. Fortune looked to the image, and then to Hope.

“Sombra?” Fortune asked.

“How did you know?” Hope said, in a dreamy, distant voice.

Fortune put his hoof under Hope’s chin and pushed up her jaw, closing her mouth. “Well, given how much you were drooling, let’s call it an informed guess.”

“Sombra?” Hope said to the image. “Is it really you? Are you alright?”

The Sombra in the mirror smiled.

“Are you still mad at me?” Hope said. “I never meant to hurt you! Honestly, I didn’t want what happened to happen. It was just… something came over me that night.”

“Hope….” Fortune said firmly.

Hope looked to him. “Is this real? Is he trapped somewhere? Can we get him out?”

“Hope, the mirror is–”

“You said that this mirror shows you everything in Equestria. Maybe, if we look hard enough, we can find out where Sombra is! Sombra, we’re going to save you! I won’t lose you again!”

But when Hope looked back, she saw that Sombra had changed. He was no longer the handsome pony she had known. Now he was the Sombra she had met on that night of destiny, the powerful, wicked figure with the glowing eyes and the red horn. Now, however, he also work a cloak – red with royal ermine trim, and an intimidating iron crown.

Hope gasped. Fortune gasped.

Other images followed. The petrification of Princess Amore. Sombra enslaving the crystal ponies. The arrival of the two Royal Sisters and the beginning of their duel.

“Why am I seeing this?” Hope said sadly. “I already had to live through it once. And that was painful enough.”

“I don’t know, Hope, I don’t know,” Fortune said. “On the plus side, I’m seeing it for the first time. Don’t tell me how it ends.”

The sisters blasted Sombra, causing him to dissolve into the blackness of the mirror.

“I just want to say, your telling of it was much better,” Fortune said. “This version did nothing for me.”

“I’m glad to see all my sufferings weren’t for nothing,” Hope responded flatly.

“Look!” Fortune said, pointing to the mirror.

There, Sombra reappeared. Slowly at first, as though he was reconstituting himself. Then, from behind him, several more figures appeared from the darkness. Large, hulking, mist-like creatures, with an appearance that combined the best features of ‘reanimated skeleton’ and ‘demon.’ Hope shivered as she watched them approach.

“What are those things?” Hope said. “And why are they surrounding Sombra?”

“I have a theory,” Fortune said.

But before he could elaborate, the mirror changed again. Now, the Crystal Empire, with the massive spire of the Crystal Palace, came into view. But it was distorted and darkened, as though seen through a fog or a murky pool of water. And there was mist everywhere.

Then it cleared up. The Crystal Empire was normal again. But not for long. Soon, the great spire of the Crystal Palace changed again. Now, it was….

Hope gasped again. “The Crystal Palace…. It’s on fire!”

The flame grew and grew until it ran up and down the whole of the Crystal Palace. The whole palace was engulfed by flame and there was nothing visible within the great conflagration. Slowly, the inferno formed into the figure of a pony.

Hope’s jaw dropped again, though now for quite different reasons. She shook her head. “No… Princess Amore?”

Indeed, there was the regal princess of the Crystal Empire, looking as Hope had known her, before being turned to stone. But not quite as Hope had known her, actually. No, Hope had never seen that much anger and rage on Amore’s face before.

Then that was gone. And Sombra reappeared, that terrifying King Sombra that was pure evil to anypony not named Radiant Hope. And the dark creatures returned, larger and more numerous. There seemed to be almost a swarm of them.

“I… I don’t understand….” Hope said.

Then, however, the black mirror ceased to be black. For but a brief moment, it became a clear shade of blue. And in that blue was Sombra, as Hope had once known him. Except he still wore that red cape and that crown. But they were changed, transformed, and no longer the accoutrements of a tyrant. They were something else.

And behind Sombra, where the creatures had been, there were a number of ponies like him, all tall and grey and black. And they all seemed as benign as he did.

Sombra spoke. The word could not be heard. But the shape of his mouth was evident. The single word he said was, “Hope.”

Hope was stunned. “Do… do you think those are Sombra’s people?” she asked.

Fortune was silent.

Then the blue light faded and, with it, the images. All that was left upon the obsidian mirror was black, opaque glass.

Hope turned to Fortune, her eyes plaintive, asking for an explanation.

“What is this?” she asked. “Is it my imagination? Is it the future? What?”

“Don’t worry about it, Hope,” Fortune said. “This old mirror’s never worked right since the day I bought it. When I said I could see everything in Equestria, I was lying.”

Hope could tell that, despite his words, Fortune was troubled.

“Where did you get it?” she asked quietly.

“Some old pony sold it to me. Kind of a spindly fellow, green in color. When I asked him what it showed, he just kept repeating this bit of gibberish. Now, what was it? Let’s see if I can remember. Ah, yes, it was….”

Fortune slipped into his best reciting voice,

Truest words are the least often said.

How little is true in what is revealed.

Trust not, for there is falsehood ahead.

Truest truth is the most often concealed.

“What does that mean?” Hope asked.

Fortune shrugged. “Like I said, gibberish. But now–” He put his hooves on Hope’s shoulders and turned her toward the bookshelves. “–we have work to do.”

And so they worked, and worked, and worked. The hours flew by, as did the books. Soon the shelves were bare and the hole behind them visible. As for the books themselves, they were strewn haphazardly across the floor.

There were only two books left on the bookshelf, a large black one and a small red one.

The black one glowed blue as Hope began to withdraw it.

“No, not that one!” Fortune shouted as he jumped up from beneath a pile of books.

“Why not?” Hope asked.

“Oh, I’m sure there’s nothing in that one! Look at it! How old and dusty it is! I’m certain we have no use for it! Why, I don’t even know why I keep it around! If I donate my library to the poor, that’ll be the first book to go!”

Fortune’s voice became more anxious with each sentence.

“Fortune,” Hope said sternly. “Why don’t I want to open this book?”

Fortune sighed. “Fine. That is the book of… dark magic….”

“Oh, I see,” Hope said with a solemn nod. She began to put the book back.

But then, quicker than Fortune could keep up with, the book flew down and opened in front of Hope. She swiftly took to reading.

“Hope!” Fortune said in alarm.

“I just wanted to see what was in it,” Hope said. “But I can’t even read this writing. What is this language?”

“One that was extinct long before Equestria came to be,” Fortune said. “As it is, all the information I have on dark magic is there, in that language.”

“Can you read it?” Hope asked as she flipped through the pages.

She could not make out much, but there were images. And the images, Hope had to admit, were rather troubling. Troubling in that they were bizarre – strange creatures and plants unlike anything Hope had ever seen. Unlike anything that any pony in Equestria had ever seen.

“Me? Of course not!” Fortune said.

Hope glared at him from over the book, unconvinced. “Then how did you know how to do dark magic last night?”

Fortune let out a longer, deeper sigh. “Yes, Hope, I can read it. But before you ask, I won’t. Not for you. Trust me, what’s written in that book isn’t worth reading. It can only do harm.”

“But what if there is something about the fire creatures in here?” Hope asked, flipping through a few more pages. “What if there is something that can help us?”

Suddenly, however, the blue glow around the book was overwhelmed by a violet one. The book snapped shut, much to Hope’s surprise.

As Fortune approached, the book rose and returned to the shelf.

“That book has only ever brought harm,” Fortune said. “It’s too dangerous to use.”

“How did you get a hold of it?” Hope asked, a hint of suspicion in her voice. “And how did you learn how to read it?”

“I had some friends who were into that sort of thing,” Fortune said. “Back when I was studying alchemy, they were studying necromancy and the use of dark magic. I must say, as a student of knowledge in whatever form it came in, I was… intrigued… by their work. They gave me this book and taught me how to use it. But then… let’s just say, bad things happened to them. After that, I stopped using the book. Until last night, that is.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your friends,” Hope said.

Fortune shrugged. “Well, they probably deserved it. They were huge jerks, now that I think about it.”

“They couldn’t have deserved whatever happened to them,” Hope said. “I’m sorry.”

Fortune just stared at Hope. “You’re amazing. Do you know that? Even if you knew what happened, you’d probably still think that.”

“Probably,” Hope said.

There was a moment of silence for lost friends, both those of Fallen Fortune and that of Radiant Hope.

“I suppose we should get back to work,” Fortune said at last.

Hope nodded. She magically pulled out the other of the last two books on the shelf, the little red one.

“No, not that one!” Fortune shouted.

“And why not this one?” Hope responded impatiently.

“Well, you see, that one’s not really so much for reading as–”

Hope did not wait for him to get farther. She floated down the book and opened it. There, in the hollowed-out middle, was a flask.

Hope rolled her eyes.

“Let’s say it’s decorative,” Fortune said.

Hope levitated the bottle up and shook it. There was clearly a liquid of some sort inside. She raised her brows at Fortune.

Fortune grabbed hold of the flask. “Decorative and functional.”

As he took a sip, there came a noise from outside, underneath the window. Hope perked her ears up. She listened. It was a voice she recognized, the voice of the mayor’s messenger. And he was calling, quite frantically, “Your Highness! Your Highness!”

“Does this window open?” Hope asked Fortune as she hurried toward it.

“There’s a latch underneath,” Fortune responded.

Hope opened the window and leaned out.

“Your Highness,” the messenger said, “the mayor told me you might still be here. There’s been several more outbreaks of plague.”

“I understand,” Hope said. “I’m coming.”

She withdrew from the window and looked to Fortune.

“Go,” Fortune said. “I’ll stay here and go through all the books again. Maybe I can find something we missed.”

“You have to do it all by midnight,” Hope said.

“Don’t worry. I can actually be very productive when I want to be. I just don’t often want to be.”

Her eyes drifted from Fortune to the black book on the shelf.

“No, Hope,” Fortune said, without even needing to look. “We can’t use that.”

“But ponies’ lives are on the line!” Hope protested.

“No.”

“Can’t you at least look through it and see if there is any information that could help us? You don’t have to use it if there isn’t. But we just can’t let ponies die! Please!”

Fortune nodded reluctantly. “Alright, I will. But I don’t expect that anything there will be the least bit of help.”

“Just look,” Hope said. “We need to try everything.”

Without waiting for another word, she enveloped herself in an orb of blue. There was a flash and Radiant Hope was gone.

“With a spell like that,” Fallen Fortune said once Hope was gone, “why does she even bother walking?"

Well, time to be productive, Fortune thought. He looked at the books scattered around him and picked up the nearest one. It was little and red, but it was only as Fortune began to leaf through it, that he realized what it was.

Fortune lifted the flask out from the book's center and considered it thoughtfully.

No reason not to be both productive and comfortable.

Would Fallen Fortune find an answer before midnight?

Read on.

Between Hope and Despair

Midnight.

Hope waited. And waited. More ponies than ever had been infected. And Hope had not heard back from Fallen Fortune. She did not know what she would do. She had healed them, but she knew it would not be enough. Any moment now, the boils would reappear.

Hope had extensively surveyed all the areas where the infected ponies lived. If she was lucky, and she managed to defeat the flame-creature at this particular hovel, she could quickly teleport into the others and hopefully be just in time to battle the creatures there.

Of course, that first required Hope to come up with a way to bring about the defeat of the flame-creatures. But one step at a time….

Hope stared at the pony peacefully sleeping in the straw bed. Any moment now.

The minutes passed. Nothing happened.

Hope waited. And nothing happened.

Hope wondered why nothing was happening. She realized that she was feeling tired. Exhaustion was once more getting the better of her. Hope felt her eyes slowly closing.

She quickly shook it off. There would be no sleeping tonight. Hope would not make that mistake again.

But then, when Hope opened her eyes, she saw it. There were no boils. The pony was completely fine. But between the pony and her was a small ball of light. Hope knew what this was. She readied herself.

It spread out, taking the form of a pony of fire. Hope noted that this one looked slightly different from the other. It was small and more feminine. It looked more like a mare.

“Welcome, little pony,” said the flame-creature. Hope noted that the voice was slightly, almost imperceptively different. It was softer. Rather more feminine too, somehow.

Hope did not answer. Her horn began to glow.

“You are as persistent as they say,” it said. “But what do you really think you’re going to do? You know your spells have no effect on us.”

Hope did not answer. She simply finished her spell and let it loose.

The blue bolt shot toward the creature. Within an instant, it had been absorbed into the raging flame.

Then came another one of those hideous, crackling laughs.

“Little pony, little pony, what do you think you can do? Little… Hope, is it?”

Hope felt the hair of her coat and mane stand on end. How that creature said it – it made Hope hate her name even more.

The crystal pony readied another blast and fired. Still nothing. Nothing except more laughter.

“So misnamed, little Hope,” said the flame. “No Hope at all. Utterly Hopeless. You were supposed to be this town’s last, best hope, and you failed them. You failed all that have died. You have failed all those who are dying tonight.”

“Nopony is dying tonight,” Hope responded.

Once more, a hissing, smoldering laugh.

“You think we would make it easy for you? We had this planned. While you waste time with me, others are dying.”

Hope’s eyes grew wide. Cold, painful realization came upon her. “But… why? Why are you doing this… to me?”

“You are so persistent, little Hopeless, little forlorn Hope, so stubborn. We wanted to know how long before you realize you are a failure, that you cannot save anypony. You cannot save this town, you cannot save your town, you cannot save your friend.”

Hope’s eyes grew even larger. “How do you know about Sombra?”

“When do you talk about anything else?” said the creature. “Even we have heard of it. And we have done this to make you see how… hopeless… your situation is. We want to see what you will do. We think you shall lay down and die.”

Hope shook her head angrily. “I will never lay down and die. Not as long as Sombra needs to be saved. Not as long as this town needs to be saved.”

Yet another wicked, burning laugh.

“Little forlorn Hope, little forlorn Hope, you know that I speak the truth. Our kind always speaks the truth. When have we ever lied to you?”

“You’re evil!” Hope shouted.

“So is your friend. You could not save him. You should have listened to him when he told you that. What is that old proverb your kind has? The devil always tells the truth.”

Hope grit her teeth, her face forming into a snarl. She focused intensely. Blast after blast sped toward the creature, each seeming to do less than the previous. Finally, Hope stopped. She realized that she had only exhausted herself. If she used any more power, she could not teleport out. And she was no closer to putting out the flame.

Hope looked down and felt herself about to collapse. She felt her body aching, the result of too much action and too little sleep. She thought of all the ponies she could not save, and all the ponies she would not save if she died tonight. Then she thought of all the ponies that would probably die no matter what she did. She thought of Sombra, and how she would probably never save him.

Hope felt weak. She felt more than weak. She felt empty. She felt almost as empty as on that grim twilight of the Crystal Empire.

The flame circled in the air around her.

“What now, little Hopeless? You have failed at everything. Failed as healer, failed as friend, failed as princess. What do you even have to live for? Your cutie mark, your friend, your princesses, they have all failed you. There is nothing left for you, nothing left to believe in. You shall never regain your friend, you shall never become a princess, you shall never save yourself.”

As much as she wanted to deny it, Hope could not. The fiend was speaking the truth. What did Hope have to believe in? What could counter this deep emptiness inside of her? Her name had never fit her, her cutie mark was confusing, her healing powers did not help her to save others – at least not in the important sense. She had known three princesses, and now she did know if she could trust any. And Sombra, what about Sombra?

Hope thought about him. It did look bad. Sombra had become a thing of darkness. Everypony knew it. Hope even knew it, partially. He had done terrible things. Destroying Princess Amore, enslaving her kind to his will, warring with the Royal Sisters. And now the Crystal Empire was gone, her countryponies doomed to a thousand years of torment, all simply because Sombra had developed a grudge against her. Could Hope even still believe in Sombra?

Hope did not know. Only once before had she ever felt this uncertain in Sombra. And she had vowed never to make that mistake again. Yet now, here she was.

But was it a mistake?

Hope wondered. She was inclined to say no.

“Little forlorn Hope, lay down and die,” flickered the flame.

Perhaps it would be better. Life did not seem worth living. Without Sombra, without her dreams or her “destiny” – though Hope had never put much faith in that, it was sometimes a comforting idea to pretend it existed – what was Radiant Hope? Why should Radiant Hope still live?

Oh, I wish that name would be blotted out forever! I can never live up to it!

Hope felt her legs bucking underneath her. But there was nothing pushing them down, nothing outside her. Not even the flame. No, it was Hope herself, slowly giving way. Slowly giving in. Slowly giving up.

Maybe I should just let myself die. Everything I touch collapses around me. Ponies get hurt because of me. Sombra got hurt because of me.

Sombra….

Sombra’s image flashed through Hope’s mind. First, it was of that young foal that had been her first and only friend. Her only real friend, not like those fairies she should have outgrown believing in by now. Then it became the young handsome stallion Hope had seen him grow into, the kind and caring pony only she knew him to be. Finally, she saw that dark, dark figure, the Sombra that brought down the Crystal Empire.

Hope cringed.

That is my fault too.

But then, Hope saw another Sombra. A different Sombra, the Sombra in the obsidian mirror. As Hope looked back on it, she realized that that was not the Sombra she had once known, the Sombra before the darkness took him. No, that Sombra had overcome his darkness and become a newer, better Sombra for it. And that could only happen if Sombra still had good inside of him.

Or so Hope had to believe. If there was one thing she had to believe in, it was Sombra.

But how had he changed? The key must be there. Think, Hope, think!

Then it came. In her mind’s eye, Hope saw Sombra mouth that word. That single word.

“Hope.”

Could it be that she would succeed? Is that what Sombra meant? Was she his hope, his only hope?

Was she truly a radiant hope? Maybe, maybe she could be, for Sombra.

Radiant Hope always said she didn’t believe in destiny. But she believed in possibilities. And, as long as the possibility was still there, she had to keep going. No matter what, she had to keep going.

Hope’s legs lifted her up. Her head rose and she locked eyes with the flame-creature. Maybe the flame-creature had eyes, maybe it did not, but Hope knew she had caught its gaze. And the fire in her eyes burned more fiercely than all the fire that made up the fiend.

“What are you trying to do, Hopeless?” said the flame. “You, failed princess, never to be what you were meant to be?”

Hope’s voice, when she answered, was deep and firm. “I may never become a princess, but I am Radiant Hope still.”

The flame-creature let out a loud screech. It began to glow brighter. Hope instinctively realized what was coming next. She had to act immediately.

Hope dashed past the fire and to the bed. Grabbing onto the pony there, she formed a blue bubble around herself. There was a flash, and they were both gone, leaving the flame alone. Alone and expanding fast.

Hope and the pony reappeared. She quickly dropped the pony to the ground and threw herself over him before covering her eyes and ears. Her horn began to glow, forming a protective shield.

The blast destroyed the whole hovel. When Hope looked up, the debris had landed everywhere. It would have hit Hope and her charge had the shield not been active. But, amazingly, the debris was not on fire. The flame creature was gone. Hope knew better than to think it had died. Still, she was glad to be rid of it, at least for now.

But Hope realized that she could not stop to celebrate. There were other ponies to save. A blue glow surrounded Hope and she quickly disappeared.

“Hope? Hope?” Fallen Fortune called out as he hurried through the streets and alleyways.

He had no idea where she had gone to and, given his considerable unpopularity, nopony to ask. He could only gallop through town and hope that he would find her.

He also had to hope that he was not too late.

But when Fallen Fortune came across the scattered and ripped-apart remains of a hovel, he knew he must be getting very close. Fortune's heart sunk as he pushed past the remnants of what had clearly been a terrible confrontation. As Fortune climbed over a pile of debris, he spotted the form of a pony, motionless and prostrate on the ground.

“Hope!”

Fortune rushed to the pony's side. With tears beginning to form in his eyes, he grasped the shoulders of the seemingly-lifeless body. He gave it several vigorous shakes. “Hope, wake up! Don't you dare die on me!”

“Wha-what?” came a gruff voice from below. "Stop that! Stop that! Let me go!"

Fallen Fortune looked down to see that he was holding tightly onto an orange earth pony, who was staring back up at him with clear disdain. The earth pony pushed Fortune off of him.

“What are you waking me up for?” the pony said as he got to his hooves. "I was having the best sleep I've had in ages!"

“I’m sorry,” Fortune said. “I thought you were a purple, female, unicorn, crystal pony. My mistake!"

The earth pony calmed down a little. “I can see how you could get confused,” he said with a shrug.

Suddenly, there was a blue flash. There was Hope, very much shaken.

“Hope, you’re alright!” said Fortune as he rushed toward her, intending to give her a large-but-this-time-totally-innocent hug.

“All dead,” Hope said. “All dead! They’re all dead!”

Fortune stopped in his tracks. He tried to form words. All he could manage was, “I’m sorry.”

Hope did not respond.

Fortune tried to put on a smile, for Hope’s sake. He pointed toward the orange earth pony. “At least you saved one.”

“It was my fault again,” Hope said, almost in a daze. “They said they did this to hurt me. Ponies get hurt when ponies try to hurt me. Why do I keep causing this?”

“Hope, this isn’t your fault. Evil doesn’t make sense. You can’t blame yourself.”

“I should have known better.”

“You’ve done the best anypony could have asked for. I doubt that there’s another pony in all of Equestria who could have stood up to those creatures like you have.”

“I could have done better.”

“Maybe you could have, maybe not. But none of us can know that until we’ve done it. You can still do better.”

“How?” Hope snapped. “How? I can’t stop them! I don’t have the power! I don’t have the magic! But you do! You could have saved them all, and you didn’t! You just let them die!”

Fortune remained calm. “Maybe I did. But I still believe that using dark magic would just destroy me, and destroy other ponies.”

“So what? We need to stop these monsters! We need to save this village! Who cares if we die? And ponies are dying already! We have to do something, no matter the consequences!”

Fortune slowly shook his head. “Hope, you don’t believe that. You’re just upset. You know you can’t die. Sombra still needs you. More importantly, you still owe it to yourself to live.”

Mentioning Sombra’s name was a tricky gambit. Fortune had put so much effort into breaking Hope out of that powerful attachment. But he knew that, as a tactic for getting the crystal pony to focus, it was unparalleled.

Hope seemed to calm down. Perhaps that was an understatement. Hope actually seemed to become just as still as that statue that had once been Princess Amore. Fallen Fortune watched her in concern. He did not know whether he had snapped Hope out of her moment of doubt or had just broken her more than Sombra had broken Amore.

“Hope?” he asked timidly.

“You’re right,” Hope said, in a voice near monotone. “You’re right.”

Hope walked slowly past Fortune. She seemed to be just dragging herself along, without any particular direction. It was not hard for Fortune to catch up to her.

“Hope, are you alright?” he asked.

“You’re right, Fortune,” she said. “I can’t die. Sombra needs me too much. Maybe I can’t save him, but everypony else won’t. So I have to try.”

Fortune began to smile. “Yes, Hope, that’s right!”

“And whatever it takes to save him, I have to do.”

It was not what she said so much as how she said it. Hope's voice had been quiet and calm, and yet it was as chillingly cold and bitingly fierce as the winds of the Frozen North. Fortune felt his legs suddenly transmuted into lead. ‘Stopped in his tracks,’ did not begin to cover it anymore. He now felt as petrified as Princess Amore as he watched Radiant Hope go.

“Please, Hope, don’t go that far,” he said, his voice growing weak. “Please, don’t give up your light! Don't give up your soul!”

She did not hear. Fortune did not have the strength to speak louder. And it did not matter much, he knew. Even had she heard, Radiant Hope simply would not have listened.

Could Radiant Hope still defeat the flame-creatures without dark magic?

Read on.

Chip Off the Old Block

Hope did not sleep much that night. And when she did, her dreams were troubled by fire-ponies. It was, quite frankly, a relief when Celestia made the sun rise in the east. Hope lifted herself up and yawned. She was not sure if the fog she felt herself in was from the lack of sleep or from the memories of the night before.

No matter. It was time to get up. Time to start a new day. Time to renew the endless, losing battle to the plague and the creatures of flame that were responsible for it.

Hope took her time getting ready. It was a full day before midnight, so it was not like there was any immediate danger. Admittedly, that had never been her attitude before. But the mayor had been right; she could do nothing to actually help. So why rush?

As she looked at herself in the mirror, Hope was surprised to see the shiny, reflective quality coming back to her coat. Why? Last night had, to her way of thinking, been an absolute failure. And yet, here she was, shining almost as she used to, in happier, long lost days.

Hope pondered it as she descended down the staircase toward the courtyard of the inn. She did not find a sufficient answer before she reached the bottom of the stairs and realized that she had a visitor.

The mayor.

Hope barely made eye-contact. Come to tell me to take more time off? she thought. Come to laugh at me for believing in ‘fire-demons’ now?

“Hope….” Oriflamme said. Her voice was strange. It had the quality of… sadness?

Hope was surprised. Any other day, she might have cared. Not today. Not after last night. Hope just looked straight ahead and kept going.

Then the pegasus stretched out her wing to block Hope’s path. “Hope, please, you need to hear this.”

Hope considered teleporting past Oriflamme. She certainly could. But then it seemed like a lot of work just to get breakfast sooner. So Hope stopped and faced the mayor.

Hope noticed that Oriflamme’s eyes were filled with as much sadness as her voice had been. Sadness and pity. Now Hope was beginning to sense that something was wrong.

“Hope, please listen,” she said softly.

Hope looked behind her. There was Fallen Fortune, sitting at a table, looking as though he was wondering when the innkeeper would arrive with a tankard of cider.

“What is this? An intervention?” Hope asked. Looking over Oriflamme’s shoulder at Fortune, she said, “Did you tell them about last night? About me?”

Oriflamme closed her eyes, apparently trying to remain composed. “Why is it always that with you two? This is about something much more important!”

Hope suddenly noticed that there were not just two ponies in front of her. There were three. One of them was a tall, thin earth pony with a beard full of wood-shavings. Hope recognized him immediately.

“It’s Wood Chip,” he said, “It’s my boy….”

“Don’t tell me….” Hope began. But she could not finish the sentence. She felt as though all the life had just been drained out of her.

Oriflamme nodded. “What Cross Beam is trying to say is that Wood Chip has come down with the plague.”

Hope’s gasp filled the whole inn. She had already surmised it, but hearing it was still unbearable. “No! Not him! Its never attacked foals before!”

“I know,” said the mayor. “This is new, even for me.”

“Your Highness, I know how busy you are,” the carpenter said, “but could you please come take a look at my boy? He just likes you so much.”

Hope barely heard him. But she did not need to. She shook her head repeatedly. “My fault…. This is… my fault…. They never attacked foals, not until I…. If I hadn’t…. I have to save him!”

Hope dashed past the mayor’s wing so fast that Oriflamme was sent spinning. Before the mayor could recover or the carpenter say anything, Hope was out the door.

“Wait!” said the carpenter as he chased after her. “You don’t know where we live!”

Hope was gone. Fallen Fortune watched the mayor steady herself. Slowly, Oriflamme walked over to the door, as though in a daze.

Fallen Fortune remained seated. “Did you ever notice that she has a bit of a savior complex?” he asked. "Hope, I mean."

“And what about you?” asked the mayor with disgust.

“Oh, I’m many things. Alcoholic, charlatan, maybe a compulsive liar – Or am I just lying about that last one? – but nopony would ever accuse me of being a savior.”

“Finally, something we can both agree on,” Oriflamme said as she walked out in a huff.

Fortune watched her go. He wanted to get in one last witty riposte before she left, but knew that he could not afford to get any more on her bad side. Besides, there were more pressing matters. Fortune looked around. “Where’s my cider?”

The innkeeper approached and set it down. “You don’t need to yell,” he said. “But don’t you think you should be going with your friends instead of getting sloshed in here all day?”

Fortune shrugged and then looked to the door. He thought about Hope.

“I guess so,” he said glumly. Then, looking up the innkeeper, he added, “Can I get this in a to-go tankard?”

Fortune arrived at the large hovel a little later. The mayor and the carpenter were outside. The carpenter was clearly distraught, leaning against the hovel so as to hide his tears. Oriflamme seemed to be trying to comfort him, but it was obviously not her strong suit.

“Is Hope inside?” Fortune asked.

“Why do you care?” Oriflamme responded. “I thought you had cider to drink.”

“I figured this was more important,” Fortune said. “And that innkeeper didn’t have a cup or something for me to take it with me. I tell you, if you want to actually do something useful as mayor for a change, you’ll make ‘to-go cups’ happen!”

Oriflamme seemed to be about to offer a retort of some kind. Then she once more caught sight of the carpenter. She restrained herself. “Maybe it is better if you go inside,” she said. “Anywhere that’s not near me.”

“Hope?” Fortune called as he opened the door. (This hovel had a door – clearly all the bits Fortune had paid the stallion for renovations had been put to good use.) “Hope, are you in here?”

He was greeted by a shush. He looked toward one of the bedrooms (And separate rooms, too! Maybe Fortune had been too generous in his payments….) there, he thought he saw a foal lying in the small bed.

Fortune slowly, quietly, approached. He pushed open the door. Sure enough, there was Wood Chip in the bed, asleep. And beside the bed, with one hoof upon the colt, was Radiant Hope.

“He looks well,” Fortune said, trying to put a bright spin on things.

“You know what will happen,” Hope said without looking up.

“Yes, I do,” Fortune sadly admitted.

Hope’s eyes suddenly shot up. There was a desperate, almost wild look in them. “If only we could–”

Fortune could not bear it. He turned aside. "You know my position on this."

“Yes, I do,” Hope responded quietly, once more turning to Wood Chip. Only then did Fortune feel that he could look at her again.

“He’s a sweet foal,” Hope said. “He almost reminds me of Sombra.”

'And we know how happily that turned out!' Fortune felt like saying. But he didn’t. What he did say was, “I’m sorry, Hope. I know that you two became rather close when you healed him.”

Hope did not answer.

Fortune slowly approached her. “You understand, don’t you, Hope? I don’t want him… I don’t want him to die any more than you do. But dark magic, it’s dangerous. It’ll just cause more pain than it heals. That’s why I can’t use it, and that’s why I can’t let you use it.”

Still no answer.

“Hope, it corrupts things. Maybe that doesn’t mean that much to you. It certainly didn’t to me, not until I tried it. Then I felt it, I felt it trying to take some part of me I didn’t even know I could lose. And I don’t want to lose it. Life would not be worth living then, for any of us.”

Hope still did not answer.

The carpenter slowly poked his head through the door. “Your Highness, how is he?”

Hope forced a smile. “He’s doing fine, but I’ll stay with him. And you don’t have to call me ‘Your Highness.’”

“But you’d done so much for us, Your Grace, that I–”

“No, not that either. I’m just a mare. Just call me Hope.”

The carpenter, a little abashed, nodded. “Thank you, Hope.”

“It’s the least I could do,” Hope responded.

The carpenter left.

“Now, Hope, you know that you’ve done all you can,” Fortune said.

Hope did not need to say, ‘There is something else I could do.’ Her eyes said it all.

“Hope, I don’t know what else I can say to–”

Hope rose. “It’s alright. I know you think it’s for the best if we don’t use dark magic. I just wish there was something else we could do. How did you research go?”

Fortune shook his head. “Nothing, I’m afraid. Not yet at least.”

‘Not even in the black b–”

“Nothing, Hope, nothing,” Fortune said curtly.

There was a small noise. Both Hope and Fortune saw the youth beginning to stir.

Wood Chip opened his eyes. “Princess, can I have another lollypop?” he asked.

Hope looked around her. “You know, I forgot my saddlebags. But next time I’m here, I promise to bring you one. How’s that sound?”

“Alright, I guess,” the boy said. “Princess?”

“Please, just call me Hope.”

“But you are a princess and I’ve never met a princess before.”

Hope approached the bed. “You want to hear a secret.” Of course, every foal loved to hear secrets, and Wood Chip was no different. His eyes grew wide and his head bobbed up and down in excitement.

“I’m not really a princess,” Hope said. “I was supposed to be, once. But not anymore.”

“Why not?”

Hope sighed and looked out the small window above his bed. “It just wasn’t right for me. Turns out that, being a princess, I couldn’t do what I wanted to do.”

“Who wants to be a princess, anyway?” said the foal. “That’s girly stuff.”

“A young misogynist,” Fortune said. “How charming….”

“You haven’t spent much time around boys, have you?” Hope asked.

“My mother insists I was one at some distant point in time," Fortune responded. "I’m happy to say that I’ve since grown out of it and whole-heartedly regret the phase.”

“It’s okay, Miss Hope,” said the foal. “You’re still a princess as far as I’m concerned. And not the girly kind. The cool kind.”

Hope smiled. “Well, I’m glad to know I’m the cool kind.”

“Miss Hope, will you read me a story?”

Wood Chip motioned toward a stack of foal’s books. Hope levitated one from the top and brought it over so she could see it. It was a fairy tale with a handsome unicorn knight and a large, fearsome dragon on the cover.

“Oooh, I had this one when I was a foal!” Hope said. “It was my favorite!”

“It stereotypes dragons, if you ask me,” Fortune said. “All that guarding a hoard of gold, flying off with the princess, threatening the kingdom….”

“What do you know about dragons?” Hope asked.

“Nothing, but I choose to believe that it is not the number of your scales, but the content of your character that counts!”

Hope waved Fortune off dismissively. “It’s a foal’s book. A fairy story. You aren’t supposed to take it that seriously.”

“Says the pony who still believes in fairies.”

“Fairies are real!” announced Wood Chip from the bed.

Hope smirked at Fortune. “Looks like you’re outvoted.”

Fortune let out a sigh. “I can see why this new ‘democracy’ fad just isn’t catching on.”

Hope returned the book to the top of its stack. A look of sadness crossed her face, but she did her best to hide it from Wood Chip. Her magic lit up his covers, and she pulled them back over him.

“I’ll read to you later,” Hope said. “Right now, though, you need more sleep.”

“But I’m not tired and I feel fine! I’m not sick anymore! You know that! You healed me!”

Hope smiled a reassuring, albeit fake, smile. “Yes, I healed you. But you still need your rest if you want to recover your strength. Just sleep for a little while and, when you wake up, I’ll give you a lollypop and read you a story. How’s that sound?”

Wood Chip considered the bargain. Despite having to endure that particular unpleasantness known only to children who are sent to bed when they are not tired, he nodded in agreement. “Alright,” he said. “Just promise.”

“I promise,” Hope responded softly.

The foal lay back in his bed and quickly drifted off to sleep.

“A lollypop and a story must be a very great bargain when you are a child,” Fortune observed in disbelief.

“Of course they are! Don’t you remember when – oh, look who I’m talking to….”

Fortune thought there was hope for Hope. She seemed to be in a decent mood. But with these last few words, a new darkness came over her. It wasn’t physical darkness, the kind that would dim her shining coat. It was a different sort of darkness; a sadness, a sorrow, across her still glowing face.

“What am I going to do?” she said in a whisper. It took Fortune a moment before he was sure she had said anything at all.

Quickly, he put on a fake smile of his own. “All hope isn’t lost, Hope! I still have my research to finish. I’ll even look into the black book again, just for you. And I won’t return here until I find something!”

Hope smiled weakly at this. She tried to look in Fortune’s direction, but gave up before her head even made it halfway.

“Alright, I’ll go,” Fortune said, speeding out of the room. As he approached the doorway at the front of the hovel, he looked over his shoulder one last time. He looked to Hope, silently looking down at the colt beside her, her eyes half-closed in sorrow.

Fortune was not sure if he wanted to go or not. And if he did, he was not sure whether he would even look into the black book. As much as he hated admitting it to himself, he was not sure whether he wanted to return.

Would Fallen Fortune return?

Read on.

Caught Between Innocence and Experience

It was growing darker now. Night was coming on. But Luna was slow at bringing the moon up tonight, for some reason. So the sky was cast in the reddish hue of twilight. Hope remembered the last time she had seen such a twilight. The twilight of the Crystal Empire had been such a twilight.

Hope looked at Wood Chip, once again asleep. He had awoken earlier, and Hope had read to him, as promised. But she had to default on the lollypop, since she had never left his side to get it. Hope would have asked Fallen Fortune to swing by the inn and take one from her saddlebags, had he ever returned. Which he did not. Hope did not know if she had really expected him to. So, in lieu of payment, Hope had agreed to play with Wood Chip until he got himself tired once more and collapsed into bed.

It had been fun. It had just been like being a foal again herself. For an hour or two, Hope had been able to pretend like none of it had happened, not with Sombra, not with the Crystal Empire, not with Whinnysburg and the plague, and not with Wood Chip. He had seemed like such a happy, energetic pony that it would have been hard to believe that he still carried the fatal infection, the fatal presence within him.

But Hope knew better. And now that Wood Chip was asleep, she could think of nothing else. She sat beside him, looking out the window at the slowly setting sun. In just a few hours, she knew what would happen. She could not let herself think about it, and yet she could not stop thinking about it. And worst of all, she did not know how to stop it.

If she lost Wood Chip, Hope did not know how she would go on. It would be like losing Sombra all over again. Hope knew that she didn’t lose Sombra that fateful night. She had already lost him. She lost him slowly, as he suffered in silence, unable to open up to her for reasons she could not even begin to guess at.

If Sombra had become a monster like everypony kept telling her, Hope knew that it was because that sweet, innocent, shy little pony had been made a monster by… by something….

Now, something else was trying to destroy another sweet, innocent pony’s childhood. And Hope knew she could not stand by and let that happen. That would probably break her completely. She had come close before, but had always pulled herself back. This time, she was not so sure. Maybe not even the thought of Sombra could save her.

Suddenly, it all made sense.

That must have been why they did it. That must have been why they chose him. They did it because I told them, “I am Radiant Hope still.” Radiant Hope is precisely what they want to destroy. Not to kill me, but to destroy whatever sense of who I am I still have.

Fortune had never returned. It was getting late, and hope was growing dimmer every hour. There was no mirror for her to look in, but Hope was certain that she was growing dimmer every hour.

There was only one thing left to do.

Radiant Hope wondered if she had the strength, the resolve. She looked inside herself.

Yes, she could do it. She would do it, no matter the cost.

Hope leaned in, toward Wood Chip’s throat. Magically, she lifted the ends of his pillow so that it covered his ears. Then she spoke.

“I know you’re in there,” she said, as firmly as she could in such a quiet tone. “I know why you’re doing this. You’re doing this to punish me. Fine. Just, when it happens tonight…. When you do what you’re going to do…. Don’t start without me. You and all your friends are going to want to come around. Because it ends tonight. It either has to be you or me. I won’t run anymore. Whatever happens, it ends.”

Hope thought, for brief moment, that she heard a raspy voice from inside Wood Chip’s throat whisper, “Agreed.”

Hope’s horn lit up. She hated to leave Wood Chip like this, but it was absolutely necessary. And Hope would do whatever was necessary. In a flash, she was gone.

Fortune felt himself growing tired as he pored over book after book. He had read through them all forwards and backwards several times each. And he had found nothing. Fortune looked up to the bookshelf, up to the one book he would not look through, the book he dared not look through. He shuddered.

Am I doing the right thing? he asked himself.

As if to answer him, there was a knock on the window. Well, not so much of a knock, as a large bang. Fortune’s head shot up from the book he had been reading. He listened, wondering what could have caused it.

Maybe it’s just my imagination playing tricks on me, he thought. Been hitting the books too hard….

And then there was the second, much louder bang. The sound of it nearly knocked Fortune from the chair beside his desk. He fell to the ground and, in a panic, quickly crawled over to the window.

Looking below him, he saw Radiant Hope. And she was levitating a stone. A very large stone. Under certain circumstances, it might even have qualified as a very small boulder.

Oh, no, she must be furious with me! Fortune thought. She’s going to seriously injure me!

He unlatched and opened the window. Without putting his head into view, he called out, “Hope, Hope, what are you doing? Do you know how much this window cost to put in? And that’s not even getting into the price of glass!”

Fortune expected that Hope would really tear into him now. He prepared himself for it, dropping down and huddling beneath the window, forelegs over his head.

But when Hope spoke, there was no anger in her voice. “I was just trying to get your attention, silly. Can I come up?”

Is it a trick? Fortune asked himself. Is she just doing this to lure me into a false sense of security? When she gets up here, is she going to make me regret it?

Fortune realized that the answer may well be yes. He also realized that it was still preferable to what Hope might do if he didn’t let her in.

“Come on up,” he said nervously. “You know that I’d never block you from my study!”

There was a pop, and Hope was there. Fortune leapt up at the suddenness of her appearance, hitting his head on the latch of the window as he did so. Pain shot through his head. But that pain was secondary to the fear he felt as he apprehensively watched the crystal pony, watched her for any signs of hostile intent.

“Now, Hope, I know I said I’d be back! And I will be! I’m just–”

“I know how hard you’re working,” Hope said softly. “And I thought you might need a break. So I brought you a little something to help you relax….”

There was kindness, friendliness, playfulness in her voice. All of these, Fortune had heard before. But he also detected something new.

Hope levitated up two tankards beside her. Two tankards with small, metal lids.

“It’s something new at the inn,” she said. “They’re calling them ‘to-go cups.’”

Fortune stood up, rubbing his head. “The mayor certainly acted quickly on that one. I guess she really doesn’t have anything else to do since losing so many townsfolk.”

“Oh, come on,” Hope said, forcing a tankard upon him. “Let’s not talk about such morbid things right now. I need a rest from that. So do you. How about we rest together?”

With a start, Fortune realized what that ‘something new’ in Hope’s voice was. “Wait, Hope, wait! Are you saying what I think you're saying?”

Hope shrugged playfully. Her eyes narrowed and a smirk appeared on her face. “Well, if the whole town thinks so....”

“But, Hope, now? What with the plague and with your young friend and–”

Hope touched Fortune's chin. “I told you, I need a break from all that. Besides, there’s nothing I can do for him. You were right. I can’t help him. I can’t get Sombra back. So why should I keep denying it to myself?”

Fortune shook his head slowly. His jaw began to drop. “Hope… this doesn’t sound like you!”

Hope circled Fortune, brushing her body up against his. "What? Don't you like it?"

Fortune fought hard to maintain his composure. “No, it's just... this doesn't feel right....”

“Oh, who cares about right and wrong anymore?” Hope said, taking a sip from the other tankard.

Fortune managed a small, “I do….” but he didn’t think Hope heard. She certainly acted like she didn’t hear.

“Besides,” she said, clinking her tankard against his, “can you really let all this cider go to waste?”

She had him there. Fortune knew he could not….

The rest of the night was a blur for Fortune. He drank the cider. He could tell that it was that particular specialty of the local innkeeper, the one that gave a pony a buzz – and much more than a buzz – near instantly. It worked its magic on Fallen Fortune. Immediately, all became darkness.

Darkness punctuated by periodic bursts of light. In one, he felt himself unable to stand and collapsed into his chair. In another, he saw Hope remove a book from the bookshelf, a big, black book.

In yet another, he saw nothing, but heard Hope’s voice. “I’d really love to finally be able to do that spell you did the night you saved me. What was it? Was it this one? It was this one, wasn’t it?”

Fortune felt himself nod.

Then he saw Hope again. She was before him, on her haunches, pressing the book into his lap. She had that look in her eyes, the pleading look.

He could not resist.

“Teach it to me,” she said.

Something in the back of his mind told him not to. Something distant, foggy. What was it? Fortune, in his current state, could not begin to say. It was an annoyance, that was all.

Hope pressed the book on him again. It was open to a certain page, a page that looked rather familiar. Fortune could not remember why. But he remembered the spell written on it.

He began to speak. Then, something stopped him. That nagging feeling again. What was that?

“Go on, please,” came Hope’s voice. It was warm, soothing, encouraging.

He could not resist.

Then, everything was darkness….

Did Radiant Hope unlock the secrets of dark magic?

Read on.

Not Light, But Darkness Visible

Midnight.

Wood Chip’s room was filled with light. Orbs of light floated over his bed, dashing to and fro in strange, zig-zag patterns. Their mazy movements made it seem as though there were not twenty orbs, but a thousand. It may have been the blackest darkness outside, but inside, it was practically day.

“Where is she?” said one orb to another.

“She will come,” said the other, the largest orb of all. “She will come.”

“Perhaps she has grown wise,” said a third. “She will not come.”

“Grow wise? She will not?” said the large orb. “Remember, she is a pony.”

There was a hiss of laughter from the many assembled orbs. Then, they all seemed to talk at once, such that an observer could not say which was speaking when.

“Perhaps she is afraid, then. Perhaps she fears for her life, and will not come.”

“No, she shall come. She has not been afraid before.”

“Perhaps now she finally knows she cannot defeat us.”

“She has known that already. She shall come.”

“We were set to drain all the energy out of so many, many more than we ever had. But she said she would come, so we abandoned them, abandoned them for one foal.”

“The prize is larger.”

“What do you mean?”

“What our brother means is that she possesses such great power, such great life force, such great…. What do these ponies say it is?”

“A soul?”

“Yes. Imagine drawing that energy from her.”

“But she shall die before she lets us have it.”

“That is why we shall make her a deal. We shall say that we shall let them all live in exchange for her. If she lets us feed off her, than we shall drain out her energy. And then drain out the energy of all the rest.”

“But we would have to lie. Our kind does not lie.”

“Ah, yes. That is so. Perhaps we shall just take her energy by force, then. Her power, great for ponies, is weak and useless compared to ours. She shall not be able to stop us.”

“Where is she?”

“She is coming.”

“She will not come.”

“She shall.”

“We should finish off the foal. She will not come.”

“She shall.”

“She should be here, then. She is not here.”

“Yes, I am.”

All the orbs began to flicker and whirl. There, at the door to Wood Chip’s room, was Radiant Hope. She stood in the darkness of the hovel and did not step into their light.

“Where were you?” the largest orb demanded. “Where was little lost Hope?”

Hope stepped forward. As she came into the light, her eyes were revealed, green eyes with red pupils. A purple mist seeped from them and floated upward toward the ceiling. The same purple mist was emanating from Hope’s horn.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I was practicing.”

The orbs were all aflutter.

“Look at her eyes!”

“She knows the magic! I thought you said she could not use the magic!”

“Only the fool alchemist could. And he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t teach her.”

“It cannot be. It cannot be our–”

A bubbling, sludgy beam tore across the room, into the largest orb. The orb careened around the four corners, barely managing to avoid any of the walls before coming to rest just above the floor. It smashed and crashed into the other orbs as it made its violent circuit. It looked as though Hope was playing marbles or billiards rather than battling malevolent spirits.

The orbs quickly recovered. They darted all around Hope. Some of them began to assume the forms of fiery ponies.

Hope was undaunted. She kept blasting and blasting. She even eschewed beams in favor of waves, incapacitating several fire-creatures at once.

Radiant Hope felt she had finally lived up to part of her name. She felt the power radiating from her. She had never felt such power before. Everypony had told her that her healing power was great, but it felt like nothing compared to this.

Was this how Sombra had felt when his power was unlocked? If so, how could anypony blame him for what he had done? It would be so easy to go overboard. The power felt so good….

Fallen Fortune shook his head. He opened his eyes and put his hoof to his temples.

“Ooooh….” he moaned. The headache was intense.

What did I just do?

Fallen Fortune sat in a stupor in his chair for what felt like an eternity, unable to even think clearly.

That’s it! I have to give up cider! Or at least find a less-potent variety.

As he leaned back in his chair, convalescing, Fortune’s eyes stared blankly forward, toward the bookcase. Something about it seemed... wrong. Something was not right. If only Fortune could tell what it was. But he could barely even see straight.

Then the mental fog began to clear. Fortune’s eyes began to focus. They focused in upon the books. But the books did not keep his attention. No, it was the large empty space where a book had once been. A very particular book.

Fortune sat up straight.

The book! The black book! It’s gone!

Things quickly came back to Fallen Fortune. Images flew threw his mind. They were jumbled images, but even in his current mental state, he could piece together enough of them to begin to comprehend what had happened.

There were two tankards on the floor. One, empty and on its side, had been Fortune’s. The other, still full and set neatly down, was Hope’s. Fortune lifted it up. He pulled back the metal lid and sniffed the contents.

Water. Just water.

“Hope!” he called out. “Hope, are you still here?”

No answer.

Fortune jumped to his hooves. He staggered toward the double-doors. He had to find out if Hope was still in the house. If she was not, he had a very bad suspicion as to what had happened and where she might be.

Before he could even reach the threshold, however, Fortune fell to the ground. He had tripped. Fortune landed in front of his desk, just barely managing to avoid hitting his head against the edge. As Fortune lifted himself up, he saw it.

The black book. It was on the desk. It was open. Open to the very page Fortune had read from the night he had gone to destroy Radiant Hope. It was open to the very spell.

Fortune felt his heart sink. “No!” he said, trying in vain to reassure himself. “She couldn’t…. She doesn’t understand the language…. Unless….”

A dark memory came upon Fallen Fortune. “I taught it to her….”

He pounded his hoof on the desk.

Maybe Hope isn’t lost yet. Maybe, if I can just get the mayor…. Maybe, if we can just find her….

Fortune tried to make a dash for the doors. But he fell down again, in the exact same spot.

“What keeps tripping me up?” he said in frustration.

Fortune looked to his legs. There was his mixing bowl, overturned. There too was the vial that Hope had put next to it the other day. And then, there were the red hoof-prints beside it, leading toward the doorway.

It was not hard to figure it out. Hope, in her haste to put the book down and leave, must have knocked both the vial and the mixing bowl off of the table. Judging from the hoof-prints, she had gotten covered in the liquids as their containers fell to the floor.

That’s another few months of work down the drain, Fortune thought. Why does she keep doing this to me?

But self-pity would have to wait. Fortune had to hurry. Carefully picking himself up, so as to avoid the bowl and vial, Fortune once more made for the doors.

The orbs darted. The orbs swarmed.

Hope fired at one after another. But they were beginning to learn her patterns and adapt to them. They even seemed to laugh as they swerved past her beams.

“Little forlorn Hope thought she could play a trick on us!” half of them said in semichorus. “Foolishly persistent to the end.”

“Now all ponies shall pay for her little tricks,” answered the other half. “Starting with this worthless foal.”

Hope gritted her teeth. "No," she snarled.

She felt the anger rising within her. She had thought she would have stopped them by now, but it was harder than she had expected. And if she did not succeed soon, those monsters would hurt Wood Chip. Then they would hurt everypony else.

As the anger climbed within her, Hope felt something strange. Her power was growing. She felt it surging upward like a fire, almost like the fires she was fighting. She did not even have to think about what to do next. It came easily.

Hope launched another beam, larger and darker than before. It was like a black hole, pulling the orbs and fire-creatures toward it. They tried, but they could not escape.

The black bolt carried them along as it tore apart the wall of the hovel. Like a meteor, it came down somewhere in the distance. Smoke rose from the spot.

There was a scream. “What’s going on?” a frightened Wood Chip called out.

Hope looked to him, the innocent filly cowering in his bed. He looked at her, the mare he had come to know so well, the mare he had come to trust. There she stood, with eyes monstrously green and red, eyes spewing forth purple smoke, eyes filled with hate. Where those reassuring smiles had been, there was now nothing but a menacing sneer. Her once-beautiful face had been contorted into something unnatural.

Wood Chip broke into tears.

Hope’s first instinct was to comfort him. She briefly approached, but it only caused him to cry more heavily. From the other room, Hope heard the carpenter jump out of his bed. In a moment, he would be here, and she would have to explain herself, assuming he would even listen. Hope knew that she did not have the luxury of dealing with this. Not now.

She was gone in a flash.

“Wake up! Wake up!” Fallen Fortune said as he pounded on the door of a house not particularly large, but still suggesting refinement and stateliness.

The door opened. “What is the meaning of this, and at this late hour?” said the equally-refined and stately pony on the other side.

Fallen Fortune pushed him aside and galloped past. He knew he should have looked to make sure he had not knocked the pony down, but he did not. If that meant he was still a bad pony, so be it. This was too important, and time was running out.

Fortune was fortunate, for Oriflamme was just descending the staircase as he rushed in, her attire suggesting she had just been woken from sleep.

“Fortune?” she said in anger. “What do you think could possibly give you the right to barge into my home like this so late at–”

“It’s Hope!” Fortune cried out. “She’s in trouble! You have to come with me!”

The remaining orbs formed themselves into fiery-ponies. They all still lay on the ground, as though stunned and dazed, almost lifeless, if that were possible. Slowly, some of them began to rise. But it was difficult; they flickered dimly. Most of them, though, just lay there, unmoving, undarting.

There was a blue flash. Hope was standing over them.

“Like I said earlier, it ends tonight.”

Her horn began to glow. One of the fire-creatures, the largest, managed to get up and take to the air, though it seemingly could only rise a little off the ground.

“What do you think to accomplish, little Hopeless?” it said.

“I’m putting a stop to you so that you can’t hurt anypony ever again,” Hope said.

It laughed. Or rather, it tried to. But what came out was more of a wheezing sound, like when a dying fire is smothered in a blanket.

“You may have harmed us,” it said. “But you know not the power of that magic you are using. You shall never be able to stop us!”

Its words seemed to inspire its fellows. They all rose into the air, soaring higher and higher until they seemed to fill the sky with flame. They hoped, perhaps, to scare Hope.

Hope smirked. “You want to bet on that?”

Fallen Fortune saw the flames rise into the sky.

“What in Equestria is that?” Oriflamme said as she galloped beside him.

The other ponies – for several had heard the commotion and, seeing the mayor running in a panic, had decided to follow – gasped and shrieked.

“That would be the plague,” Fortune said.

Oriflamme struggled to speak, and not only because she was not used to galloping at such a pace. “Hope… Hope was right? There really are fire-demons?”

“I was right, too,” Fortune said.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Oriflamme responded. Her voice was distant, and her eyes were held entirely by the flames, which had now positioned themselves into the formation of a diamond.

“This way!” Fortune said as he pointed toward the small alley he knew would lead them to Hope.

Oriflamme took flight. “I’ll try to cut them off from the air!”

“No, don’t engage them!” Fortune said. “There’s nothing you can do. It’ll only cause you harm!”

“Then why did you get me out of bed in the first place?”

“For Hope. I’m going to need somepony to help me talk her out of it.”

“Talk her out of what?”

The giant diamond formed in from of her. Hope’s smirk widened.

“Is that the best you’ve got?” she asked derisively.

“You shall see the best we have,” said all the flames together. “You shall regret being our enemy.”

“Doubt it.”

The sound of a loud explosion blasted Hope’s ears. But there had been no explosion, not yet. It was merely the twenty flaming creatures, all screaming in unison some ancient, unknown battle-cry.

Hope braced herself. All at once, the diamond lunged toward her, getting smaller and smaller as the fire-creatures joined shoulder to shoulder. Now, they were like a giant, flaming spear hurling toward one little crystal pony.

Hope thought about everything they had done to this town. She thought of all who had died because of them. She thought of all the ponies she could not save. She thought of Wood Chip.

And then she thought of Sombra.

Hope felt something surging through her, something she had never experienced before tonight. She felt rage.

And with rage came power. Great, great power.

Hope’s face took on a look of absolute, blind hatred. Her horn glowed almost black. She fired a very large beam.

The beam met the spear. And nothing happened. Or so it seemed. Everything, the beam, the flaming creatures, was frozen in place. It was as though the battle had been paused.

This had been Hope’s intention. The flaming creatures tried to struggle, tried to move, but they could not. They were trapped.

Hope smirked wickedly, raising her brows. “What was that you were saying?”

“So you trapped us with another trick!” the largest creature said. “All you have is tricks! You cannot destroy us! You do not have the mastery of dark power needed!”

Hope tilted her head, causing the beam, and the creatures in it, to tremble from side to side. The creatures let out a crackling moan.

“Maybe not,” Hope said. “But it isn’t my only source of power, remember. I wonder what would happen if a pony were to, say, combine the healing power of the light with the destructive power of the darkness.”

“Hope, no!”

Hope turned her head just enough to see the speaker without losing her hold on the beam. There was Fallen Fortune. He looked tired and out of breath. He must have gone as fast as he could to get here. But now, he just stood there. He stood there, motionless, watching her. What was that look on his face?

Horror? Fear? Disappointment? Sorrow? All of the above, perhaps.

Behind him, a large crowd was forming. It looked as though everypony of the town was there. Hope then noticed the mayor, Oriflamme, hovering in the air above them, her eyes wide with disbelief. Wisely, she was keeping a safe distance.

“Hope, don’t do this!” Fallen Fortune called out.

“That’s enough, Fortune!” Hope shot back. “Just because you didn’t have the courage to do what has to be done, it doesn’t mean I’m going to let them hurt any more ponies!”

“I know you think that this will save Wood Chip, that this will save the town. Maybe it will. But the cost, Hope, the cost….”

“What cost? I feel great!”

“No, you don’t! Hope, this isn’t you! This anger, this rage, giving in to it…. That’s not the pony you are! Can’t you feel it, Hope? Can’t you feel that… that sense of identity being torn out of you?”

“I haven’t known who I am in a while. Why should this make any difference?”

“Fine. But try to feel it! Can’t you feel it? Hope, if not your identity, what about your soul? Can’t you feel the darkness ripping into that?”

Hope kept her vicious smirk, silently reproving Fortune for such naivety. Then the smirk was gone, replaced by uncertainty. The black beam began to falter. The fury started to disappear from Hope’s face.

“I… I feel it… maybe….” she said. “I don’t know….”

Then, however, that resolve came back into her eyes. Hope looked up at the flaming creatures. “But I’ve failed everypony! I’ve failed the Crystal Empire! I’ve failed this town! I’ve failed Sombra! I can’t let myself fail again! I can let any more ponies get hurt because of me! I have to end this!”

Fortune forced himself to stand taller, be firmer. “But can you, Hope? You don’t want to hurt any more ponies. But look at them, those flame-demons. I don’t know what they are, but they are ponies. Or, they’re something at least like a pony. They may be evil, but they aren’t without feelings. Can you really hurt them?”

The beam began to falter more. Even from this distance, Fortune thought he could see tears forming in Hope’s eyes.

“Are you going to help me talk sense into her?” he shouted to the mayor.

Oriflamme just looked on. “I don’t know,” she said. “If it saves the town, maybe she should do it.”

“I should do it, if it saves the town,” Hope said quietly.

“No, Hope!” Fortune said. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but dark magic only leaves suffering in its wake! You may save this town, save a few lives. But you mark my words! If you give into this, more ponies are going to suffer than if you didn’t! I don’t know how, I don’t know when, and I don’t know where, but it will happen! I’ve seen it happen!”

The beam began to dissipate. The creatures began to loosen themselves.

“But… but… I don’t know how to save everypony,” Hope said.

“You can’t, Hope!” Fortune responded. “Nopony can! That’s just the way things are! Don’t do this to yourself because of it! Don’t give up your soul to them, to this rage! If you do, then we’ll lose more light than if we had lost a thousand other ponies.”

“Oh, forget about her light,” Oriflamme said. “If it saves my town, I want her to do it! Do it, Hope!”

“Not helping!” Fortune scolded.

The beam intensified a little.

“No,” Hope said. “I need to do this. I just want to save everypony.”

Fortune realized that he was losing her. He could not afford to let himself lose her. He approached.

“Hope, we can still save them,” he said softly.

“No, we can’t! Not unless I do this!”

“There has to be another way! Let me go back to my books! I’ll find something eventually!”

“And what is she supposed to do until then?” Oriflamme said. “Just hold them in place? She’ll get a cramp or something eventually, and then we’ll all be dead!”

“Still not helping!” Fortune responded.

“We haven’t found anything else,” Hope said. “We’ve looked and looked. There is nothing else.”

“There has to be something! There always has to be another way, Hope! We’ll think of something else! Maybe you could imprison them! In a tree, or a cave, or underground, or in swine or cattle! Just use the power to imprison them! Nothing else!”

“They could still break free!” Hope said. “I wouldn’t be saving anypony then, because they’d just come back and kill them all!”

Fortune had nearly reached her. “We don’t know that, Hope! We can’t! The only thing any of us can do is the best with what we know! That might help ponies, it might hurt them, but it’s all we’ve got!”

“That’s not good enough!” Hope said. Once more, the beam intensified. The flaming creatures began to writhe in agony.

Fortune was directly beside Hope now. “What do you plan to do to them?”

“I’m going to combine my healing magic with the dark magic,” Hope said. “If I understand what you translated correctly, dark magic mixed with other forms of magic produces a reverse effect to what those forms of magic normally would do. My healing magic might not have worked, but….”

“Draining magic could,” Fortune said, the cold realization coming upon him. “You’re going to drain their energy into you.”

“It’s the only way.”

“Oh, so just like that, you’re going to kill them?”

“I’m going to stop them!”

“You’re going to kill them, Hope! Is that who you are, a killer? Is that the Radiant Hope who devoted her life to healing ponies? Is that the Radiant Hope who remained loyal to her friend even after everypony else said he was evil, said he was a monster? What makes them so different from Sombra, Hope? What makes them so different?”

The beam disappeared. The creatures were free.

Hope looked to Fallen Fortune. Her eyes were filled with tears. The darkness in them was beginning to fade.

“How could you say that to me?” she said. “How could you even compare them to Sombra?”

“You know it’s true,” Fortune said. “In your heart, you know that you can’t say there is much difference. If you want to have so much faith in Sombra, if you want to believe he isn’t evil, how can you just decide that you can judge these creatures?”

“I can’t,” Hope said, her voice a whisper. “I know I can’t. Not without giving up on Sombra.”

Hope lowered her head and wiped her eyes. Fortune put his hoof on her shoulder and smiled.

“I knew you’d make the right decision,” he said.

Then Hope saw, out of the corner of her eye, a flicker of light. She swiftly turned her head. The flaming creatures had reformed into their giant spear formation. Like the embers of an inferno, they were darting down toward Hope and Fortune. There was no time to teleport. Hope pushed Fortune out of their path. She took the entire blow herself.

Hope went flying back. She cascaded down into the dirt. The impact released a massive cloud of dust. As it settled, the crystal pony lay, seemingly unconscious, in the middle of a large hole.

A sickening, sinister hiss and then a crackling cackle filled the night air. The creatures were laughing. One by one, they turned on Fortune and the townsponies.

Fortune quickly took steps backward, trying to put distance between himself and the creatures of fire. So too did the crowd of townsfolk. But it did not matter. The creatures were easily covering the distance. If they had not attacked yet, it was only because they were enjoying watching their prey panic.

As she tried to fly to a safer distance, Oriflamme called out to Fortune, “Didn’t think this one through, now did you?”

“Maybe there was a small miscalculation on my part,” Fortune said. “But if you would just have helped me talk sense into Hope, we could have found a more constructive solution.”

There was one pony who did not believe that a more constructive solution was possible. As Radiant Hope lay in the hole, she could hear the screams of the frightened townsfolk and the evil laughter of the flaming creatures. Once more, she thought of all the harm they had done, all that she should have been able to prevent.

And the rage returned.

The flaming creatures had caught up with the townsfolk and were now hovering over them like a cresting wave. Even Oriflamme found herself forced to the ground by the incoming flames.

The crackling laughter became deafening. The wave swooped down.

And then it halted. Just before it was about to douse the townsfolk in flame, it came to a complete halt. The creatures let out shrieks of pain as they were jerked back into the night. A large, black beam enveloped them.

“This ends now,” Radiant Hope said.

She concentrated. It was hard to summon her healing powers. The rage seemed to be overpowering them. But she focused. Hope focused on everything that had gone wrong in her life, all that she had lost, all that had been lost because of her. But most of all, she focused on Sombra.

Blue streaks shot through the black beam. The creatures let out a mighty howl, a howl like the crack of lightning and the scream of the winds. They began to shiver. They began to writhe. They began to wither.

“Hope, no!” Fortune called out. But it was too late.

The beam devoured the creatures. As it returned to Hope’s horn, their flames submerged within it, quenched by its smothering embrace. Soon, all that was left was the darkness.

The blue-black beam retracted into Hope’s horn. Then, with mighty force, it launched outward again, shooting deep into the sky. Like a massive firework, it exploded there with a powerful boom and was seen no more.

There was silence.

Slowly, the townsfolk began to recover themselves. As though in a daze, Oriflamme approached Fallen Fortune.

“Still think she should have spared those monsters?” the mayor asked, when she could speak again.

“Didn’t you hear that?” Fallen Fortune asked. “When she destroyed them? When she killed them? What did you hear?”

The mayor was dismissive. “I heard them screaming. And serves them right, too! Nothing else. What do you think you heard?”

“It sounded like the earth itself let out a moan. I thought I felt it groan and shake beneath my hooves,” Fortune responded.

In the distance, a pony approached. Her steps were slow and shaky. She seemed barely able to stand.

As the townsfolk recognized their savior, they began to pound the ground with their hooves; a hero’s welcome. All of them except for Fallen Fortune.

Radiant Hope did not seem to notice. She did not even look at any of them. The only gaze she returned was that of Fallen Fortune.

“Fortune, Fortune, what have I done?” she said.

Radiant Hope collapsed into Fallen Fortune’s hooves.

What had happened to Radiant Hope?

Read on.

The Mare Who Lost Everything

It was morning. The last morning Radiant Hope ever intended to spend in Whinnysburg.

She had stayed for the past several days only because that was how long it had taken for her energy to return. The prevailing theory was that such an intense energy discharge, alongside inexperience with that weird kind of magic, had been the culprit of her collapse and subsequent lethargy.

But Radiant Hope had other ideas….

Hope packed her saddlebags. Even as she tried to put as much focus into the packing as she could, she felt distracted, as though in a kind of a fog. She had felt like this ever since awakening. They all insisted it would get better, that this sadness would depart from her on its own.

It never did.

Hope looked at herself one last time in the mirror. Her coat still shined bright, much to her surprise. She felt like it should not be allowed to, somehow, as though it should be the outward show of what she felt inside. Yet, it continued to shine and sparkle, beyond all reason.

Why is my coat still shining, even after everything I’ve done? Hope pondered. Don’t those things affect me anymore? Have I changed that much?

Hope considered this particular characteristic of her people. Crystal ponies’ coats dimmed due to profound depression and sorrow. While Hope did feel these, what she felt most of all was emptiness. And apparently, her coat was not responsive to emptiness.

Hope threw her cloak around her and lifted the hood up over her head. The mayor had had it cleaned free of charge in return for Hope’s actions. As much as Hope had tried to insist on paying, the mayor would hear none of it. The cloak was now cleaner than it had ever been and soft to the touch, but Hope could not enjoy it. Its very softness felt hard on her back. Its cleanness felt like dirt.

Hope descended the staircase. As she did so, she was met with cheers from the patrons of the inn, raising their tankards to toast her. She ignored them. The innkeeper knew she was leaving, so she did not have to share words with him. Hope was thankful. She did not want to share words with anypony. But there was one pony she knew she had to talk to.

Hope pushed through the door, past the courtyard, and into the street.

“There she is! There’s our hero!”

Hope was surprised to see Oriflamme, the mayor, standing before her. And Hope heard music, joyful music. She must have been too caught up in her own thoughts to hear it before. Hope looked down the street. There were streamers and banners set up, and all sorts of ponies crowding the thoroughfare. And they were all happy.

“It’s good to see that you’ve decided to come out for the festival,” Oriflamme said.

Hope said nothing.

“It’s almost in honor of you,” said the mayor. “Well, actually, it’s a festival of thanksgiving. But it’s thanksgiving for being saved from the plague. And that was all you.”

Hope still said nothing. She did, however, notice that Oriflamme held a tankard in her hoof.

Oriflamme pressed the tankard toward Hope. “Here, have a swig on the mayor! You deserve it.”

Hope was silent. She did not even bother to push back the tankard. She just walked in the other direction.

The mayor’s cries of, “Hope? Hope!” were ignored.

Hope did not get far before she heard a voice say, “It’s amazing how much new life has been breathed in this town. It’s like we’re coming back from the dead.”

She recognized that voice. She looked up. It was the carpenter.

“Oh, Mr. Cross Beam,” she said weakly. “How is Wood Chip?”

“Greetings, Your High– er, Miss Hope,” he answered. “We’ve been worried about you. You seemed to take it so badly with all that happened the other night. But I’m happy to see you’re up and about. And, if I may be allowed to say, it’s quite gracious of a princess such as yourself to join with us common folk in our simple celebration.”

Radiant Hope felt herself clench up a little. Once more, she was reminded that she had never managed to dispel that fiction. She wanted to finally say to all, ‘I’m not a princess!’ But she did not have the strength.

Instead, she just repeated her question, “How is Wood Chip?”

“He is doing very well, due entirely to Your Highness’ services. Thank you again. I don’t know what I would have done if I lost him. You saved two lives that day. And don’t worry about the damage to the hovel. You don’t need to pay for it. I’m a carpenter. I can fix it myself.”

“Maybe I should go and see him before I leave,” Hope said.

She noticed a change in the carpenter. He tried to hide it, but he had become uneasy.

“Not that I and my son don’t appreciate all that you’ve done for us,” he said, “but Wood Chip is a little… shaken by what he saw that night. He keeps talking about you with green eyes and a dark horn, nonsense like that. I talked to him about inviting you over for dinner, to thank you. He seemed to become all upset. He was shaking, like he was scared. I don’t understand it myself, but you know how kids get.”

“I understand,” Hope said sadly. Her horn began to glow. A lollipop floated out from her saddlebag. “Can you give this to him, from me? It’s my last one, and I promised him.”

The carpenter took the lollipop. “Why, thank you, Miss Hope! I’m sure he’ll love it. Don’t worry, he’ll get over this skittishness sooner or later. You’ll see, he’ll be as friendly as ever.”

“I’m leaving Whinnysburg today.”

“Oh. Well, when you come back, just let me know. You come to dinner then, and he’ll have forgot all about whatever got to him. I mean, if our simple fare isn’t too unsatisfactory for a princess, that is.”

Radiant Hope did not have the heart to inform the carpenter than she planned never to return to Whinnysburg.

Hope trudged through the busy streets, the happy streets, the streets where ponies celebrated. She eventually made it to the central square. This seemed to be the locus of the festival. In the middle of the square, ponies were hard at work putting up a stage.

Hope’s brows rose. Among them, she spotted Fallen Fortune.

She had merely intended to stop by his house. She had not expected him to be out among the other ponies. He was the one pony she felt the need to talk to. But not in front of everyone.

Maybe I should just leave, Hope thought.

Too late. Fortune had spotted her. He rushed over.

“Hope!” he said, his voice filled with joy. “You’re up!”

Hope could barely meet his gaze.

“I didn’t think you were the type to get involved in something like this,” she said.

“Well, you know,” he answered, “I said I was turning over a new leaf. And recent events have only convinced me of the necessity of it.”

“By recent events, you mean….” Hope could not finish the sentence.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that,” Fortune said. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m not stuck in bed anymore,” Hope said.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“I know. I need to talk to you.”

Fortune nodded. “Alright.”

Hope looked at the surrounding ponies, some of which had begun to take an interest in the conversation. “Can we do it somewhere more private?”

“Of course,” Fortune said. “Let’s walk over to my house.”

Behind them, ponies began whistling rather inappropriately and shouting, “Go get her!” Fortune ignored them. Hope barely heard them at all.

“I’m leaving today,” Hope said, with hood lowered, as they stood together in the shadow of Fortune’s house.

“Leaving?” he said. “Are you sure you’re up for it?”

“I can’t stay here any longer. The guilt is just too much.”

Fortune nodded in understanding. “I see.”

Hope looked past Fortune to the ponies busily raising the stage.

“You were right,” she said. “I didn’t feel it until after I had done it. But you were right. Something’s missing. I feel so empty inside. I feel like the pony I was, whoever that was, is gone. I thought I felt real emptiness when I lost Sombra, when the Crystal Empire vanished. But it wasn’t like this.”

“I know it’s hard, Hope,” Fortune responded, putting a hoof on her shoulder. “But you can get better. You can overcome it.”

“Can I?” Hope asked. “You were right, when you said it would feel like a part of my soul was ripped out of me. That’s exactly how I feel. Those where living creatures, just like you said. I had no right to hurt them, I had no right to….”

“You don’t have to say it if you feel like you can’t.”

“I killed them.”

“Well, we don’t know that. Those creatures are so strange. They might have survived. Their energies were dispersed, but that might not be fatal for them.”

“No, I killed them. I’ve never killed anything before. I didn’t think I could.”

Fortune smiled a reassuring smile. “Hope, that doesn’t change who you are. You are still the best pony I have ever met.”

“How can you say that?” Hope responded, now looking Fortune in the eyes. “After what I did, after I gave into rage, how can you say that?”

“I’ve seen you at work, remember? I know how much you care about other ponies. How much you care about Sombra. What you did, you did because you thought it would save the ponies you care about. That made it easy for the rage to take control of you.”

“But it didn’t take control of you. You stopped yourself. You didn’t kill me, even though it told you too. I wasn’t as strong as you were.”

Fortune shook his head furiously. “No, Hope, no. It’s not the same. What I was doing was for selfish reasons. You wanted to save this town.”

“If I’m such a good pony, I should have been better. If you could see it at the last moment, I should have. You are stronger than me.”

Fortune firmly set his hooves on Hope’s shoulders. He locked eyes with her. “Hope, listen. Me, I’m mediocre. I know that and I accept that. And a mediocrity is always going to be a mediocrity, no matter how much he tries. But you, you’re so much more than I ever could be. You have the potential for greatness that I never did. But that also comes with greater temptation.”

“You sell yourself too short,” Hope said. “You could be a great alchemist. You just need to get back to it. I’m sure you’ll find that philospher’s rock you’re looking for.”

“Stone, Hope, philosopher’s stone,” Fortune responded. “And I might be closer to that if somepony hadn’t knocked over both the mixing bowl and one of the vials the other night.”

Hope smiled bashfully. “Sorry about that. Sorry about all of it.”

“Hope, I’m just joking. You don’t have to apologize.”

“But I want to. And with the bowl…. It would have been ruined anyway. I accidently knocked the potion into it first. When I tried to fix it, I knocked over the bowl and spilled it all over myself. But hey, at least we know that particular combination isn’t poisonous.”

“That is something,” Fortune said. “Too bad it wasn’t the right combination. With that, you could live long enough to see the Crystal Empire return. You’d just have to wait, and you’d see Sombra again.”

“I can’t wait that long,” Hope said. “I have to find out what he is and what’s happened to him. Then I’ll do whatever it takes to save him, even if that takes a thousand years.”

“So, you are still going to try to save him?” There was a hint of disappointment in Fortune’s voice.

“Those creatures,” Hope answered, “they nearly made me give up. Give up on everything, give up on life. That’s what they wanted to do; they wanted to break me before I died. But do you know how I kept going? I thought of Sombra. He’s the only thing I can still believe in, especially now that I can’t ever believe in myself again.”

“Don’t say that, Hope. Not about yourself.”

“The pony I was is gone. I don’t think I like the pony I am now, but I can’t go back. I can only go forward. The only thing left to do is to focus on what I believe in, and that’s Sombra.”

“But Hope, there must be something else to believe in!”

“Like what?”

Fortune was silent.

“Do you want to know what the worst part is?” Hope asked.

“Hmm?”

“I don’t even know if I’m sorry. Isn’t that strange? I feel guilty, but I’m not really sorry. I look at all these ponies, and how happy they are, and I just know it couldn’t have happened unless I did what I did. So I can’t feel sorry, even if that makes me a bad pony because of it.”

After a few moments of mutual silence, Hope added, “And I’d probably do it again. Maybe I’d even go further, if somepony needed me to.”

“You mean, if Sombra needed you to?”

The look in Hope's eyes was calm and clear.

“Of course. "

Fortune did not know what more he could say. “Where will you go?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Back into the Frozen North, probably.”

"I know you think you’ve crossed a line, that you can’t go back. Maybe you can’t. But you don’t have to do this.”

“I do. If there’s been one benefit to all this, it’s that I now know that, after what I’ve done, I could force myself to do anything for Sombra. And if he’s the pony of darkness everypony claims he is, maybe we’d fit together even better. We’d be the same!”

Fortune gave Hope a look unlike she had ever seen from him. A look she had never expected to see from him. A look of pity.

“You’re not a pony of darkness, Hope,” Fortune said.

“There’s darkness in me,” Hope said.

“Maybe there is. But it doesn’t have to define you. I want you to remember that, Hope. You can come through this darkness. I think maybe you can even become better for it. The greatest ponies, I’ve heard, are those with both great light and great darkness inside of them. Or maybe we all have that inside of us. The great ponies might just be the ones who are able to balance them the best.”

“I’m not great,” Hope said.

“Not great? You could become a princess, but you’re not great?”

Hope shook her head. “You know I don’t want to become a princess any more. Besides, I never could. I’ve fallen too far.”

Fortune once more put a hoof on Hope’s shoulder. He smiled. Hope had never been sure whether his smile was genuine or not before. Now she was certain that it was.

“You know what they say,” he said. “Only once you’ve fallen completely can you truly rise again.”

Hope and Fortune shared a moment of silence.

“Oh, but come on,” Fortune said. “This is a happy day! We’ve got food, wine, pretty mares….”

Hope chuckled a little. “The more you change, the more you stay the same.”

“I could say the same about you. But I’ve discovered something you might find interesting. I was looking through the book again and I think I found a page on our fiery foes. Do you want to come up and take a look?”

Fortune realized immediately that it was a mistake. He saw the faint traces of happiness depart from Hope’s face. He had thought that going back to the research might help keep her mind off of her sorrow. But how could it not remind her of what had happened? If what she did?

Still, he was on this tack now, so he would have to see it to the end. Hope probably would have advised him to ‘push through,’ had it been anypony else.

“I don’t really want to read about them,” Hope said.

“Come on,” Fortune said. “It might make you feel better. Maybe we’ll learn that they were all monsters, or that you didn’t destroy them.”

“Or we might find out that they weren’t and I did.”

“Don’t be like that. You know the importance of staying optimistic. You know the importance of, no pun intended, holding on to hope.”

“I think there was a pun intended there,” Hope said.

“Maybe there was. But come on. Let’s go up and take a look at the book.”

Hope looked at the house. “I’d rather not go in. I want to leave Whinnysburg soon, and it might just delay me.”

That’s what I was hoping for, Fortune thought. But he knew he couldn’t argue with Hope.

“Fine, fine,” he said. “I’ll go up and get it. Then we can look at it here.”

Fortune trotted over to the door of his house and opened it. Hope followed. Fortune entered the house. Hope remained on the threshold.

Fortune went into his study. The book was on his desk. It was turned to the first in a long section on the fire-creatures. The heading of this section consisted entirely of one word; "Ignes."

Fortune lifted the book up with his magic, being careful to keep the page where it was. He was turning to walk out when he tumbled over. That mixing bowl had once again been his downfall.

“I really need to pick that up,” he said.

The mixing bowl was enveloped in a violet aura. Fortune lifted it up. He gasped. The mixing bowl dropped again, just a few inches from where it had previously lain.

But a few inches was enough to uncover the small, red stone beneath it.

“The… the philosopher's stone!” he said in shock. Fortune crawled over and scooped it up. “B-but how?”

Then he noticed the hoofmarks, the dried hoofmarks that he had never gotten around to washing off the floor. Hope’s hoofmarks. It only now occurred to Fallen Fortune that they were a ruby red, the same color as the stone.

"It was the right combination after all!" Fortune exclaimed. "She did it! She found the stone! And all by accident! It must have fallen over while it was hardening. That explains how some of the liquid got on her."

Something else occurred to him. "But, if the liquid got on her…. Come to think of it, nopony should have survived that blast from the ignis without some sort of protection…. But does that mean….

Fortune turned around, filled with excitement. He could not wait to share this wonderful discovery with Radiant Hope.

"To think, the secret of the ages, and she discovered it completely by mistake! And she didn’t even believe me when I unfolded to her the real meaning of her cutie mark!"

But before he could get far, Fortune came upon the book. In his enthusiasm, he had forgotten all about it.

It was still the same section, the one on the ignes, but a few pages had been flipped over when it hit the floor. One passage immediately caught Fortune’s eye.

“The ignes, ponies of fire and light, are believed to be relatives of the umbrum, ponies of mist and shadow, with whom they share an affinity for so-called ‘dark magic.’ The ignes have a wider range of habitation than the umbrum, which are native to the Crystal Empire and its environs only. Also, the ignes continue to range free while the umbrum were imprisoned beneath the Empire long ago. Still, should you encounter either, proceed with extreme caution. Both species are considered highly malevolent toward other forms of life.”

It all clicked in Fortune’s mind. Sombra was one of the umbrum!

He had to tell Hope immediately. He had to stop her.

Hope stood at the threshold and looked into the distance, in the direction of the sun. She lifted the hood of her cloak over her head.

“I wish it all could have been different,” she said. “But it can’t be. I am whatever it is that I am, and I have to do what I have to do. There is no turning back.”

Hope turned her gaze toward the stairs. She had been waiting for a while, and was beginning to think that Fortune had gotten involved in something and forgotten about her.

Should I go up? she wondered.

Hope banished that thought. She knew she could not go up. She knew she could not stay here. She had felt like Fortune was trying to keep her here, trying to keep her from leaving the town and disappearing into the Frozen North.

And the worst of it was, Hope partially hoped he would succeed. She was tempted to stay a little longer.

But I can’t. I’ve lost everything already. I have to find Sombra. He’s all that I have left.

Hope sighed. I have to leave. If he keeps me here longer, I might never convince myself to go. It’s best to just get it over with.

Hope turned her back toward the house of Fortune and looked out at the sun once more. If there had been one benefit to having been in bed for so many days, it was that her magical energy had had a chance to replenish itself. She felt like she had saved up enough to make her farthest teleportation yet. Maybe she could even clear the bounds of this town. Then she would not have to see any pony that could turn her around.

“Goodbye, everypony,” Hope said quietly. Then there was a blue flash.

Radiant Hope was gone.

“Hope! Hope!” Fortune shouted as he bounded down the stairs, the book flying beside him and his great prize held tightly against his chest.

He saw the door open and the house empty. Fortune came to a halt. He could detect the traces of magic, the same residue from whenever Hope teleported. She must have teleported again. Wherever she had ended up, Fortune knew that he would not find Hope before she had left Whinnysburg.

“No, she’s gone,” he said. “Hope… Hope’s gone.”

As Fallen Fortune forced himself back up the stairs, he fell to thinking.

She’s going to go back to the Frozen North. She’s going to find the umbrum. She loves Sombra too much. Because of that, and that guilt she’s feeling, she’ll never see the umbrum for what they really are.

He let out a moan. "Oh, Hope, you’re truly lost now!"

Fortune threw the black book and the precious stone onto his desk. He fell into his chair and buried his head in his hooves.

“Lost, lost, Hope is lost,” he said. “Oh, Hope! I can’t bear to think of what will happen to you now.”

Fallen Fortune sat there, in silence and sorrow, until the sun began to set and the twilight came on. Then, by chance, he happened to look up. His eyes alighted upon the obsidian mirror.

There, he saw two ponies, a large grey stallion and a smaller lavender mare with a sparkling coat. Sombra and Radiant Hope. They smiled in Fortune’s direction and then to each other.

Fortune smiled too. He was not certain what the mirror was showing him, but at least Hope seemed happy here.

They were happy and proud. Sombra seemed greater and more regal than he ever had when he called himself "King Sombra." Hope looked more dignified and strong than any princess. Around them were a number of other ponies, all of which had the same coloring as Sombra. These ponies were looking up to the happy pair as though for guidance, and in reverence. Fortune did not recognize where they were - the land seemed strange and unknown - but it must have suited them. They all seemed so joyful.

Who were these ponies? Were they Sombra’s people, and were they not evil? Had Hope been right about Sombra all along?

Fallen Fortune did not know. But he had never seen Radiant Hope shine so bright.

“Maybe this will happen instead,” he said to himself. “Instead… or after.”

Fallen Fortune sat back in his chair. He then looked over to the red stone still sitting upon his desk. It seemed to practically pulsate now, its glow reflecting that of the glorious crystal pony in the mirror.

Fortune raised his brows. "Maybe I will see you again someday, Hope. Maybe, even if it takes a thousand years."

It was a nice thought. Impossible, perhaps but nice.

Still, one had to keep moving forward, hoping for the best. Radiant Hope had taught him that. That, and to never lose faith in the ponies he cared about.

And there was really only one pony Fallen Fortune cared about.

Fortune got up and grasped the stone in his hoof. He gave the smiling crystal pony in the mirror one last, wistful glance.

"Maybe you will fix it all in the end," he said. "I don't know. If any pony can, though, it's you. I believe in you... and I love you."

The pony in the mirror faded away.

Fortune smiled a little. “Look at me, of all ponies, talking about love. Maybe there is still hope for an old charlatan yet. Yes, that's the word for it. Just like the old saying. Where there’s life, there’s....”

Fallen Fortune spoke the last word with a kind of reverence he did not think himself capable of.

"Hope."

Completum est.