Author's Note

This is only an interlude, nothing more, nothing less. I always planned on choices being part of an even bigger tapestry. One I will begin once I have completed several other projects. But the Sunless will rise, What they will do afterwards is anyone's geuss.

A Door Opens (an Interlude)

Deep within the Crystal Castle, within the Crystal kingdom, a door that had been forgotten opened. Inside was a circular table, four chairs sat equidistant from the others. Upon the back of each chair, was a cutie mark. Four Cutie Marks that matched four ponies, four ponies that were the masters of this room. The room had waited since before Sombra, but soon the Sunless ones would be coming home. Once more to make the powerful tremble, once more to do as they desired. The Room had waited, it would be content to wait longer. It's masters would not be rushed in their business, when they were done they would gather here, the room knew this, the masters new this. The Room had waited a long time, it could wait a little longer.

The Masters themselves began to stir, their slumber disturbed by one of their own. A mare, long confined too a straight jacket spoke her first words in years.

"So, Savage is the first of us to awaken. Why am I not surprised."

Her Nurse heard the mare's words and was lost to them, forever bound to her charge.

A pile of cloth shivered in a cave, far from all. Raising his head, the Male underneath smiled, despite the cold.

"It appears it is time for me to go home. I will have to properly thank Savage for ending my exile."

The Male rose, his masculine shape obvious even through the layers of rags, as he did, the inhabitants of Hollow Shades tossed fitfully in their sleep. Nightmares driving many to cry out in fear of the shape they all knew approached.

Others, too, felt the opening of the door, a goddess masquerading as a princess shivered and cried, the embodiment of love and her companion held each other tighter to drive back the darkness that clutched their hearts, a former Queen laughed maniacally as she felt the reckoning begin.

Finally a stallion of purest white, his eyes a palest blue, smiled through his coughing. All his plans were coming to fruition, and the best part was that Savage Grimm was the one that had started it all. The one that had made the sunless ones put down their power, manipulated into being the first to pick it back up again. Wiping the blood from his mouth, he spoke, his voice a quiet rasp.

Savage will come to kill me, and thus will be his greatest defeat. After all, a pony that has no tomorrow is the most dangerous villian of all.

Letting loose a wheezing laugh, one that deteriorated to more coughing and more blood, he glanced once more to a locked box. He couldn't wait for it to open.

Savage himself merely chuckled, joyously anticipating the fun he had planned for one and all.

Oh, they had best be prepared, for what is to come. Many things will be different once I am done. he said out into the night.

Handing a letter to a cross-eyed mailmare, he then went to prepare the first of his many surprises. Whistling a cheerful tune, he strutted off into the night.