The Absence of Light

Chapters

When Hope is Lost
Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here
Trial of the Umbrum
De Profundis

When Hope is Lost

“Enough talk about destiny, Sombra. I’ve never believed in it. You’re the only thing I’ve ever believed in.”

These words ran again and again through Sombra’s thoughts as he looked into the Crystal Heart. His own image glared back at him, the monster he had always been told he was. The monster he had always told himself he was.

He looked up. The air was quiet now. Only moments ago, a battle had raged throughout the streets of the Crystal Empire, the forces of friendship against the forces of darkness. Princess Twilight’s army against his own.

No, not my own.

Sombra looked around him. Twilight’s forces seemed to have been routed. They had certainly gone silent. But there were no shouts of triumph from the Umbric side. There were no sounds at all. Sombra realized everypony was looking at him. Princess Twilight and Princess Cadence, whose fates lay on the line. Their friends, by and large all defeated. Rabia and the Umbrum, waiting in rapt impatience for him to deliver the final blow. All the ponies who called the Crystal Empire home, and who had now suffered through his tyranny multiple times, and who had given up hoping to be rid of him this time. And then, off to the side, Radiant Hope.

Hope.

Sombra’s eyes locked with hers. Only hers. Of everypony looking at him, she was the only one who mattered. The only one who had ever mattered. She bit her lower lip, as though nervous about what he would do next. But her steely-blue eyes told a different story. They were calm and clear and firm. There seemed to be no doubt there. She believed in him. Sombra knew it. After everything, she still believed in him.

“Hope?” he said quietly.

“Sombra?”

“Thank you.”

Hope smiled.

Before anypony else had time to react, the Crystal Heart was in the air, breaking the stillness. Sombra had never been particularly coordinated, and even using his magic, his throw was not so good. Had the Heart been a normal object, the pedestal ornament it generally appeared to be, it would have missed its pedestal by a yard. But the Crystal Heart was no mere ornament. All Sombra had to do was make the initial effort, and the Heart did the rest.

There was a blinding flash and an awesome noise. Where once had been darkness, there was now light. The Crystal Heart shined like a blazing beacon, like Celestia’s sun but brighter. In what seemed like an instant, everything changed. The chains fell from Twilight and Cadence’s necks. The Princesses, Celestia and Luna, and Prince Shining Armor, frozen in stone, were flesh and blood once more. Piercing shrieks filled the air, all from the Umbrum. Even by their normal standards of speech, the sound was deeply unpleasant.

And then, in an instant, the Umbrum’s bodies fell apart, becoming not bones but mist. And like smoke blown away by a strong gust of wind, the mist dissipated, pulled back into the dark pit from whence it had come.

Sombra felt a pair of forelegs wrap around his neck.

“You saved the Crystal Empire,” Hope whispered into his ear.

“Only after I had been the one to put in in danger.”

“Oh, hush. You’re a hero, Sombra.”

Sombra could not help chuckling grimly. “Maybe. It’s a funny thought.”

Hope pulled back a little to look up at him. She was smiling, a very large joyful smile. He had only seen a smile that large from her twice before; the first time she had told him about the Crystal Faire and the second when she had received her letter of acceptance to the Royal Academy. And now he saw it again.

Sombra looked over her head. He saw the bright light emanating from the Crystal Heart and reflecting across all the crystalline towers of the Empire.

“So this is the Crystal Faire,” he said. “I finally got to see it. It only took a thousand years.”

“What do you think?” Hope asked.

“It’s beautiful.” Sombra was not lying. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Then he looked down at Hope, her eyes filled with tears of joy.

Well, maybe the second most beautiful thing.

Until the look in Hope’s eyes changed. The joy was gone.

“Sombra,” she gasped. Sombra did not like this change in her.

Then there was a loud thunk. Hope was on the floor of the Crystal Dais. Sombra looked down. He saw his body. But he could also see the twists and turns of the large snowflake pattern on the floor beneath it, and Hope lying on the floor next to it. He realized he could see through his own body.

Ir didn’t take Sombra long to guess at what was happening. He was an Umbrum. A creature of darkness. In his youth, the Crystal Heart had nearly killed him. That was its purpose. And it was fulfilling its purpose now. He would go the way of all the other Umbrum. He could feel it happening already.

“Hope, we don’t have long,” Sombra said. “Please listen to me.”

Hope got to her feet. She seem confused, unable to process what was happening.

“Hope, you have to promise me something,” Sombra went on. “It’s too late for me, but you have your whole life ahead of you.”

Hope was still confused, but slowly, she seemed to catch the drift of Sombra’s words. And she clearly did not like it. “What? No, Sombra, you can’t mean—”

“Hope, you have to promise not to run away again. There’s so much good you can do for this world. You can’t keep living for me anymore. You have to live for yourself.”

Hope was confused no longer. She understood well enough. But Sombra could see that she did not accept it. Her voice came, when it came, in a mixture of panic and resolve.

“I have to save you!”

“You already saved me, Hope. Whatever happens to me now, you already saved me. Now go live your life. Make it worthwhile. You have so much to offer the ponies of Equestria.”

Sombra felt himself rise into the air. He looked down, but could see nothing of his own body. It was all gone. He must be nothing more than mist now. It was a new sensation. Though he had by now managed to accumulate a vast experience in being bodiless over the past thousand years, it had never felt quite like this. It had never felt so empty.

The look in Hope’s eyes told the whole story. There was pain, anguish, perhaps even despair. No, not despair. Hope never despaired. She certainly didn’t now. And there was also something else in her eyes. Her namesake emotion. Hope.

She stamped her hoof upon the floor. “No, you are my life! You’re what made it worthwhile. And I will not lose you again!”

A beam of light, almost as bright as that emitted from the Crystal Heart, blasted forth from Hope’s horn and engulfed what remained of Sombra. He found himself encased in a sphere made up equally of brightest light and blackest darkness, locked in an even struggle.

“Hope, what are you doing?” he shouted out in alarm.

“You said I could do good. Now I’m doing it.”

Sombra used all of his remaining force to push his way through the bubble to look down at Radiant Hope. He could tell she was struggling. Even from this distance, he could see the sweat pouring down her face. Her legs looked about to buckle. The hair of her mane and tail were flying everywhere. Even her crystalline coat was losing its luster. And the beam she was sending out was only growing in size and intensity. It was larger than she was.

“Hope, stop!” Sombra called out. “You’re going to hurt yourself!”

“I won’t lose you, Sombra,” Hope called back, her voice strained but determined. “Not again. Never again.”

But even with all of her effort, the pull of the Prison of Shadows was too much. Sombra felt himself being drawn out of the grip of Hope’s magic. Hope could feel it, too. He could see it in her eyes. She looked desperate. Like she was ready to try anything. And Sombra knew the type of things Hope could do when she bordered that close to despair.

Hope closed her eyes and grit her teeth. Her hooves dug into the shining surface of the floor below. She steadied herself as best she could, even as the force of her own magic pushed her backward. Sparks were flying from the beam of light now. Sparks and then lightning. Sombra tried to call out, tried to issue another warning, tried to convince Hope to save herself and just leave him to his fate. Maybe he said all those things or maybe he only thought them. He could not be sure, because the rumble coming from the beam and the sphere was too much for him to even hear his own words anymore. Hope was on her own.

Sombra looked out over the crowd. To a pony, they all seemed to be stunned, silent, transfixed as they watched the spectacle unfold. He looked over to the four princesses, half-expecting them to do something, to intervene in some fashion. But they just appeared to talk nervously amongst themselves.

No surprise there, Sombra thought. Princesses are never there when you need them.

Hope really was all alone. She did not seem to notice. She was too focused, too hellbent on saving Sombra. Sombra noticed that, even under the intense pressure, Hope seemed to be gathering up her strength. He knew that she was about to try something. Something big.

For a brief moment, Hope’s eyes turned a pale white. A great final blast shot forth from her horn and pierced the sphere, surrounding Sombra with the most brilliant light he had ever seen, magnitudes brighter than either the Sun or the Crystal Heart. For a moment, it blinded him. He lost all sensation. Maybe he even lost consciousness. But then, it was over. And the first thing he felt afterward was pain pierce his entire body. It was the pain of falling from a great height.

It took Sombra a moment to realize that, if he felt pain throughout his body, he must have a body.

Sombra opened his eyes. He was laying in a small crater, no doubt caused by his impact. But there were his hooves. There were his legs. They looked solid. More solid than they have ever looked before. Solid as crystal. He had a body. He was here. He was saved.

Sombra looked around for Radiant Hope. He saw her, some distance away, lying on her side in a crater. Despite the pain, he forced himself to his hooves and hurried to her. Though he barely had a moment to think of it, Sombra was surprised. His movements were awkward and lumbering. It was as though he was having to learn how to move his legs again. For once, he wished he could simply move as fog.

Hope did not look good. The old threadbare cloak she used to wear had either been blown off or had disintegrated entirely. Her coat, already having lost its crystalline sheen, had faded even further; it was barely more than a dull grey. Her eyes were closed and her tongue, discolored, was hanging out of her open mouth. The hair of her mane came down like little wisps of smoke all over her face.

“Hope? Hope!” Sombra said, grabbing hold of her.

Hope did not respond, and Sombra feared the worst. But then, her eyelids slowly lifted and she stared up at him, blankly, with milky eyes and grey irises.

“S-S-Sombra?” she said at last.

Sombra hugged her to his chest, tears streaming from his eyes.

“Did I... did I....”

“You saved me, Hope! Just like you said you would. You saved me.”

Sombra pulled back. He saw Hope smile weakly.

“I saved you,” she said, her voice cracking with each syllable.

Sombra pulled her into another hug. “Yes, you did. I can hardly believe it, but you did.”

He felt almost as though he could break into laughter. But then Sombra felt something else. Or rather, he didn’t feel something. He realized that he could no longer feel Hope’s back, her shoulders, or her spine. In fact, it was almost as though.... Were his forelegs going right through her?

Sombra looked at Hope. She was fading. Actually fading. He could see right through her body. And a mist was forming around her hind legs and tail.

“Hope, what’s going on?” he said in alarm.

Hope did not seem to hear him. Or if she did, she did not choose to respond. She just smiled and said again, “I saved you.”

“Hope, what did you do?”

“I saved you, Sombra. I saved—“

Before she could speak further, Hope was torn from Sombra’s grasp. Sombra watched helplessly as Hope’s body, becoming mist, whirled into the air and away from him. He took to this feet. He charged after her, faster than should have been possible , especially for somepony struggling as much with basic motor functions as he was. But he kept pace with her, bellowing at the top of his lungs for her to come back to him. He pursued her into the throne room, down the flight of stairs in the middle of the hall, and into his secret study.

All in vain. As Sombra reached the entryway of the study, he saw Hope pulled past the doorway once hidden behind his bookshelf. The doorway to the Prison of Shadows.

“Hope, no!” Sombra let out a cry in anguish and fear. He lunged for her, in one last desperate bid to save her, one last forlorn hope charge. It was futile. Radiant Hope disappeared into the darkness, and the door to the Prison slammed in Sombra’s face.

What would Sombra do now?

Read on.

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here

Sombra didn’t know how long he stayed there, half-sitting and half-lying on the ground, slamming his hooves and his horn against the door which, now that the Crystal Heart had been restored, resolutely refused to budge. He could not keep himself from sobbing. He did not try. He was probably crying loud enough to be heard out on the Crystal Dais, however many stories up that was. He did not care.

“Hope! Hope! Hope!” he kept crying. He knew it was useless. Princess Amore had designed the Prison of Shadows to be impregnable. He was certain Hope could not hear him.

He felt a hoof on his shoulder. Sombra looked out and, through tear-filled eyes, saw Twilight Sparkle standing there.

“Get your hoof off of me, little princess!” he said, leaping up. “This is all your fault! You’re the one who caused all this! You had to start your little uprising and upset everything!”

Sombra knew this was a lie as he said it. He had been the cause of all of this. He had unleashed the Umbrum on the Crystal Empire and he had been the one to stop him. As much as he didn’t like Twilight, she would be well within her rights to tell him what-for.

She didn’t, though. She just stared at him. At first he tensed up. He expected another fight. Maybe she had come to finish him off now that Hope was gone and he was vulnerable.

But no. That look in her eyes wasn’t one of hostility or hatred. It was... pity? Did she pity him?

Sombra was in no mood to be pitied. He tried to stand up straight and project the proud, menacing air of the King Sombra of old. But he just tripped over his cloak and fell to the ground.

As Sombra tried to right himself, he saw a pair of long white legs standing before him. He knew which pony they belonged to.

“Sombra,” came Celestia’s voice, somehow both tender and stern at once. “We’ve all had a trying day. Further fighting will do nopony any good.”

Sombra looked her in the eyes. She looked back at him, her gaze firm and unmoved. But in her eyes too, he could detect the faintest hint of that same emotion he had seen in Twilight. Pity.

“Shut up, Celestia!” Sombra snapped. “I don’t need one of those lectures you and your students love so much. I need to save my best friend!”

“We know,” Twilight said quietly. “We want to help.”

Sombra could have laughed if he had been in the mood. “You? Help me? We are sworn enemies, little princess! Excuse me if I find your offer a little questionable.”

“Sombra, calm down,” Celestia ordered. “You’re only making things more difficult. This is hard for all of us. You’ve caused so much trouble for Equestria since your return, and we’re still trying to figure out how to fix things.”

“Fix things, Celestia? I’ll tell you what we need to fix! Hope is trapped in the Prison of Shadows. We need to get her out!”

“Calm down,” Celestia repeated. “We don’t know what happened to Hope.”

“She could be dead,” Princess Luna, standing behind Celestia, said matter-of-factly. Sombra had not noticed her before.

“Not now, Luna,” Celestia said.

“I was just stating the obvious possibility,” came Luna’s reply. “For even if Hope survived whatever it was that we just bore witness to, do you really believe, sister, that the Umbrum will show her mercy?”

“I said, that’s enough!” Celestia snapped back. But Sombra had to admit, as much as he hated it, Luna’s point was a good one. He did not understand what had happened to Hope. And he did not want her trapped anywhere with his kind.

“We can’t leave her there!” Sombra shouted. “We can’t!”

“We all agree on that, Sombra,” Celestia said. “But it’s not so easy to come up with a solution. None of us really know anything about your people.”

This, too, was true. Sombra reflected that, even being an Umbrum himself, he knew very little about them. And a thousand years of banishment by Celestia and Luna had hardly allowed him time for research.

Twilight now babbled on for a little bit. Sombra didn’t really bother paying attention to what she was saying. Something about how she had been reading through Princess Amore’s records while awaiting her execution. Whatever she was saying, it ended with the words, “designed to be totally full-proof.”

“The Prison isn’t full-proof, though,” came another voice. Sombra did not really recognize it. But when he looked over, he saw that it belonged to the last princess and the Crystal Empire’s current ruler, Cadance. She was standing off to the side from the others, looking absently through Sombra’s journal. Under other circumstances, he would have hated this casual invasion of his privacy. Now, however, he just didn’t care. But she looked unhappy, Sombra thought. Not like the others, not pitying, but genuinely sad.

“There is a weak point,” Cadance continued as she looked up, her eyes meeting Sombra’s. “In the frozen wastes just beyond the empire, there is a large red crystal. The barrier with the Prison isn’t as strong there. The Umbrum can’t escape, but a normal pony can come and go as they please. It is how Hope found them and how we entered and left the prison before.”

Of course! The crystal! Sombra remembered the crystal well. It was where he had first spoken with his “mother,” Rabia, where she had informed him of his destiny. No wonder they had been able to make contact. If what Cadance was saying was true, a normal pony could come and go. Hope could escape. Or he, Sombra, could go in. After all, he was a normal pony now.

He was a normal pony, wasn’t he?

After Cadance’s comments, the princesses had turned to talking amongst themselves, discussing the viability and dangers of mounting a rescue operation. Sombra had no time for any of that. Without a word, he galloped past all of them.

“Sombra, wait!” one of them had called. He was not sure whether it had been Celestia or Twilight. It didn’t really matter.

“Let him go,” Cadance had responded.

Sombra ran through the streets of the Crystal Empire. He was aware of the various Crystal Ponies, watching him with fear and whispering to their fellows. He saw a few guards move to block his path, only for their courage to fail them as he rushed forth, showing no inclination to halt. He felt the heavy armor weighing him down, and the large red cloak nearly tripping him up as it got caught under his legs. So he threw it all off piecemeal as he ran. Ponies dodged our of the way as armor flew past them, and then ran to pick them up as souvenirs. Sombra did not care. None of it mattered. None of them mattered. The only pony who ever mattered was Hope.

And then, he was outside the city and among the snow-drifts beyond. At long last, there was the crystal, rising out of the waste and snow, glowing red with evil energy. Even though Sombra was galloping at full speed, the sight of it brought him to an immediate halt. As he looked upon it, towering before him, he felt a chill. It wasn’t from the frosty air or the sweeping winds.

Slowly, steadying himself, Sombra approached.

“Wait, you can’t go in there!” came a sharp cry from above. Sombra looked over his shoulder to see Princess Cadance land a few feet away.

“Come to stop me, Princess?” Sombra asked, his words dripping with contempt.

This did not get the rise out of Cadance he expected. Instead, she approached and put her hoof on his shoulder.

“You can’t go in there, Sombra,” she said softly. “Not alone.”

Sombra batted her hoof away. “So what, you’re going to come with me?”

Cadence nodded.

Sombra studied Cadance’s face. She didn’t look like she was lying or making fun of him. She looked sincere. This was strange.

“Why would you help me?” Sombra said. “I nearly destroyed your precious crystal ponies and everything you love.”

“I’m not helping you. I’m helping Hope.”

“But why?”

“I didn’t get to know Hope all that well and we were obviously on different sides, but I felt like we were starting to become friends.”

Sombra guffawed. “Excuse me if I have trouble believing claims of friendship from Princess Amore’s heir.”

“I know Princess Amore hurt you,” Cadance replied patiently, “but I’m not her, Sombra. I’m my own mare and I can make my own choices. And you need me. We don’t understand what Hope did to you but, if you can pass through the gateway, you’re not Umbrum anymore. If you’re a normal pony against all of them, you’ll need all of the help you can get.”

Sombra was growing tired of his enemies making good points. But Hope’s life was on the line, so he had to agree. He nodded. He wanted to say something tough and cool like, “Just don’t get in my way,” but who was he kidding? If anything, he’d be the one getting in Cadance’s way now.

And, secretly, he was glad not to have to do this alone.

So, Sombra approached the crystal.

“Hope,” he called out. “Hope, can you hear me?”

There was no response.

Sombra tried again. Still nothing.

“Stay behind me,” Cadance said as she approached the crystal.

“I can take care of myself,” Sombra said, despite not knowing if he could actually take care of himself.

Cadance shook her head, obviously not having time for any he-pony theatrics. “It’s not that, Sombra. My love-magic is the only power that can hurt them in their prison. We don’t even know what powers you still have. That is why I have to go first.”

Sombra bit his lip. He felt like he should apologize here, but he was not yet ready to begin apologizing. It was too soon in his redemption arc. He just nodded.

In a moment, Cadance was gone, having stepped through the crystal. Readying himself and summoning all of his courage, Sombra followed her.

The thing that he first noticed was the smell. The horrid, rancid smell. Sombra felt himself almost gagging. He took a moment to recover. How did Hope live here for a thousand years?

And then, as his eyes adjusted, the Prison of Shadows opened up before him. Sombra realized that they were standing at the top of a long staircase. From this high vantage point, he could see a vast cavern network below, leading ultimately to a rock-wall that looked suspiciously like one of the cell-blocks in a modern-day prison (or so Sombra had heard). Above him, massive stalactites of rock and granite loomed like the proverbial sword, only to be met by similarly vicious-looking stalagmites rising up from the ground and covering the length of a city block. Here and there were black, inky pools, like miniature swamps and bogs. Strange lights, appearing from out of the void, allowed Sombra to see all of this, though not to see it well. Otherwise, it was dark. Completely dark. But while philosophers and that sort have long said that darkness is but the absence of light, this was no absence. This darkness was a presence, visible and palpable. Sombra could feel it. He recognized it. It was the darkness that had until recently been inside him.

“Does it look familiar?” Cadance asked.

Sombra shook his head. “I don’t remember anything before they found me in the frozen wastes. This place is as alien to me as it is to you.”

“Well, it’s for the best,” Cadance said, as her horn began to glow. “This isn’t a place I like remembering.”

“Don’t make it too bright,” Sombra said. “I don’t think I want to see more of this than I have to.”

Cadance dimmed her horn so that there was just enough light for them to see their way. “That’s smart. We don’t want to be found out. Not yet.”

“Not ever, hopefully.”

“I don’t think we’ll have that luck. Remember, the Umbrum have a strange connection to everything in here. This place may be their prison, but it’s also their kingdom. They can read anypony who enters here like Twilight reads books. We’ll be in constant danger and we have to be very careful.”

As the two made their way down the long staircase, which wound in a circular fashion around a long, narrow piece of rock that formed a kind of pillar between the cave ceiling and the floor, Sombra felt the weight of Cadance’s words. He found himself, though he would never admit it, growing afraid. He had ruled these people, true, but had never been able to shake the feeling that he was only their emperor because they allowed him to be. And now, without his own powers, he wondered how he would match up against even a single one of them.

Sombra watched Cadance as she walked carefully down the stairs just before him. She looked ahead grimly, but there was no hint of fear. She seemed confident. Maybe, like him, she was just hiding how she really felt. From Sombra’s experience, princesses were past-masters at hiding things.

The way down was long. Too long, and made longer by anticipation of what would be found down below.

“I don’t know why I thought stairs like this were a good idea to put in the palace,” Sombra said. He did not have any real reason for saying it, but the mixture of monotony and fear was growing too potent and he wanted to break it up.

“Yes, we all wondered about that, too,” Cadance said, in a manner suggesting that she was only half paying attention.

“I never actually had to walk up them,” Sombra said. “I could always just turn into a black fog whenever I needed to get somewhere.”

“And the other Umbrum can all fly.”

“That... that is true. I don’t know why we even build stairs to begin with.”

“Must be some weird trait all you shadow ponies share. Some evolutionary throwback from before you all became pure evil energy vampires.”

Ouch. It wasn’t like she was wrong, but Sombra didn’t like it anyway. “Well, at least we don’t pretend to be something we’re not, not like Princess Amore.”

It was a stupid thing to say and, if Hope’s experience showed anything, demonstrably untrue. But Sombra was not very adept at banter. Having once been able to end any argument by turning his interlocutor to stone, he had had no need for it, and so had fallen out of practice.

Cadance stopped and turned on her hooves. For a moment, Sombra thought she had seen or heard something. But no, she was turning to face him.

“Look, Sombra,” she said, “I’m trying to give you a second chance. It’s not easy. In the short time since I became the ruler of the Crystal Empire, you’ve threatened me, my subjects, and my family twice. And normally the thing I can’t forgive is when you threaten my family. But I’m trying. I’m trying to trust you. But I need you to trust me, too. Do you trust me?”

Sombra was taken aback by her candor. “I....”

“We need to trust each other. The only way Hope and I got out of here the first time was because we were able to trust each other on the fly. If you and I don’t have trust, we won’t make it out alive.”

Sombra did not answer.

Cadance sighed and continued. “Look, I know you blame Princess Amore for a lot. And I get that you see her when you look at me. But like I said, I’m not her. I never met her and I don’t want to be her. So can you please get past it? Can you please just try to trust me?”

“Yes, fine. I trust you,” Sombra said. It was bad. He had been given a second chance, and already Sombra was back to lying.

But this uncomfortable conversation had served its primary goal of making the minutes seem less like hours. Before he knew it, Sombra was at the bottom of the steps, waiting for Cadance as she peaked around the stone pillar. She came back and shook her head.

Sombra was about to ask what they should do now — it was hard having to rely on another pony so much — but then he heard buzzing. The distinct buzzing, sounding like a whole hive of bees, that was characteristic of the Umbrum. Cadance pulled Sombra against the rock-face and turned off her light. Only the creature’s white eyes, ghostly orbs in the gloom, let them know where it was headed and when it had passed.

“Come on,” Cadance whispered.

“Do you think he’ll take us to Hope?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

Sombra did not. Cadance’s horn lit up just enough for them to see their way and the misty tail of the Umbrum ahead of them. She silently signaled for Sombra to be quiet, He rolled his eyes. The former King of Monsters did not need to be told such a simple thing as being quiet. He was not a fool, after all.

Sombra stepped forward and, smacking his hoof against a large rock, fell onto his face.

The Umbrum spun around, almost looking like a little tornado as it did so. Cadance, her reflexes lightning-quick, spread her winds and, grabbing hold of Sombra, rose high into the air. The Umbrum heard the flutter of wings and darted around the area to investigate. Cadance had to fly fast and far to avoid his gaze. This meant recklessly zigging and zagging through the field of stalactites hanging from the roof of the cavern. One wrong move could easily have killed either of them. But, whether from luck or from Cadance’s skill at flying (Sombra had heard that she was a pegasus by birth), they avoided all of them. When they had gotten far enough away and past the worst of the stalactites, Cadance ceased her forward motion and just hovered above the Prison of Shadows, with Sombra in her forelegs.

“What was that, you idiot?” she asked.

“I’m still getting used to regular pony movement,” Sombra answered. “I’ve only had this body for a few hours.”

“Long enough for a big meal, from the feel of it.”

That hurt, but Cadance was clearly feeling the strain of holding him. Sombra could feel himself slowly slipping from her grip. This position was not sustainable.

That is when he saw it. Beyond the cliff-face that made up the actual prison, he could make out a light. A bright light. The kind of light he had quickly come not to expect from this place.

“Look, down there,” he said. He tried to point, but knew it was too dark for Cadance to see his hoof. It did not matter. He was certain she could see the light.

“Do you think that could be where Hope is?” he asked.

“We didn’t go in that direction when I was here before,” Cadance answered, “but I don’t know where else to look. It’s not like we can just tail an Umbrum again. Not after you-know-what.”

“I know, I know,” Sombra said, annoyed. “I said I was sorry.”

“You actually didn’t, though.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” There. Sombra had finally worked up the nerve to apologize. Sure, it was for something rather trivial. But he figured that all former villains must start somewhere.

Both he and Cadance knew that she couldn’t hold him much longer. So, without another word between them, they began their descent in that direction. As they got closer, a new landscape took shape. There was a strange river twisting through these parts. The water - if that indeed is what it was - was black as pitch and thick as oil and the whole shape of the river resembled nothing so much as a infinitely-twisting serpent. Along one of its bends were a number of jagged crags, the kind which would be a great danger to ships were there any ships to sail these waters. But among the crags was a small area of smooth sands, possibly the only level piece of terrain in the vicinity. It was from here that Sombra had seen the great light. As the light came more clearly into view, he saw that it was in fact a very large bonfire. The flame was much larger than it had any right to be given how it had been kindled from the brittle branches of the dead trees which here and there dotted this Lethean landscape. The color of the flame was an eerie shade of green.

As Cadance and Sombra got closer, they heard the buzzing. The dreadful buzzing, reaching a fever pitch. It was enough to make Sombra want to cover his ears. He had never heard so much buzzing even when the Umbrum had taken over the Crystal Empire. But then, maybe they had never been so concentrated in one locale before. For just about every Umbrum in the Prison of Shadows must have been here. Indeed, as Cadence alighted on one of the higher crags above this area, the Umbrum they had been tailing came up and joined his fellows.

Sombra took a moment to find his footing on the rough surface of the crag. He then joined Cadance, who was just close enough to the edge to get a clear view of the proceedings below, but far enough to avoid being easily seen. She held her hoof to her mouth, once again signaling for him to be quiet. Sombra still felt that he did not need the advice, but had been sufficiently humbled by the last time to take too much offense.

“What’s going on?” he asked as quietly as he could..

“I thought you were these people’s ruler,” she responded. “You should know better than me.”

“My reign was unfortunately not long enough to acquaint myself with traditional Umbric rituals,” Sombra responded. “But you have more experience observing my people in their natural habitat.”

Cadence made no retort. In the light of the fire Sombra could see her clearly, and her face was ashen. She was looking down. He did not need to ask what she was looking at; he could follow her eyes. He looked down at the assembly of Umbrum. There, directly in front of the fire, was Rabia, holding court like the monarch she had always told Sombra that he was. And beside her, chained up by a metal collar around her neck, was Radiant Hope.

What kind of danger was Hope in?

Read on.

Trial of the Umbrum

“Fellow Umbrum,” Rabia screeched, “we gather here for the trial of the traitor Radiant Hope, who we honored and sheltered for a thousand years and who, just as we were about to achieve our final victory, turned our lord Sombra against us and cost us our freedom, thereby ruining our work and dashing all of our hopes.”

A loud, collective hiss erupted from the assembled Umbrum. Sombra began to make his move. Cadance blocked his path with her foreleg.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“I have to save Hope. I can’t let them... put her on trial?”

Sombra stopped for a moment to think. “Who would have thought my people would be so litigious?”

“Lawyers, Umbrum, they don’t seem that different to me,” Cadance responded.

“Not a fan of judicial independence?”

“There’s a reason there are no law courts in the Crystal Empire.”

“And I thought I was the tyrant here,” Sombra said. “But I have to save Hope. It’s now or never.”

“No, not now or never. We have to be careful. We can’t engage them here. There are too many of them.”

“Is there anyone willing to stand up and defend the traitor?” Rabia said from below. There were no takers.

Above, Sombra continued the argument. “I thought you said that you had some sort of love-magic that could hurt them.”

“But I can’t take on this many. And neither can you, Sombra. You aren’t one of them anymore. You’re—”

“Useless?”

Cadance shook her head. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“You think I can’t save my best friend, don’t you?” Sombra said.

“We’re not going to do this again,” Cadance said. “We don’t have the time. Just don’t do anything stupid. I think I have an idea. But we can’t interfere now. We have to wait until they’re not all together.”

“So, we wait until after the trial?” Sombra said with a scoff. “Hope did the right thing and saved both of us. You want them to find her guilty for that?”

“It’s not a real court, Sombra!” Cadance said, obviously growing frustrated. “The verdict doesn’t matter! What matters is that we need to bide our time. I think I have a plan. Just trust me.”

Sombra concealed a snarl. He turned his back on Cadance and looked again to the trial.

“So, there is none of you willing to betray your own people and defend this disgusting excuse for a pony?” Rabia said. “Good. Then we can proceed with the verdict.”

“So much for proper respect for judicial institutions,” Sombra said.

“You know your people are the bad guys, right?” Cadance remarked. “I’m still not sure that you get that.”

“You called me a bad guy just a few hours ago.”

“And was I wrong?”

Sombra avoided Cadance’s gaze. He looked instead to Radiant Hope. She was standing there, with a large metal collar around her neck, from which hung two very large chains being held by two very large Umbrum. Sombra could not see her very well, but she did not look well. Her coat was dull and her hair disheveled. Maybe it was just the green light of the flame.

But she did not look terrified. She didn’t look utterly fearless, either, but there was a hint of steel in her bearing and demeanor. Whatever she felt inside, she seemed unwilling to let the Umbrum and their taunts get to her. As they laughed and jeered, she stood, unmoved, defiant, even proud.

Then, she spoke. Her voice was quiet, weak, but firm. “Don’t I get to defend myself?”

An awful collective laugh burst out from the assembled Umbrum. It was loud enough that Sombra and Cadance felt the rock under their feet shifting and cracking.

“You want to speak in your own defense?” Rabia said, clearly finding amusement in the idea.

“I am your Empress still, am I not?” Hope said matter-of-factly.

“You gave up that title when you betrayed us.”

“You betrayed me!” Hope snapped back.

Rabia growled and waved to the two Umbrum holding the chains. They gave them a hearty tug, forcing Hope to hit the ground hard, to general laughter and applause.

Sombra began to move. Cadance once again held him back. “Wait,” she said.

“I can’t wait! Look what they’re doing to her!”

“I know, I know. But we have to. It’ll be worse if we don’t. Trust me.”

Sombra contained himself. But he eyed Cadance. Could he really trust this princess? Why was she so hesitant, if she possessed the power she claimed she did? Did she really want to save Hope, based only on a brief acquaintance? Princesses weren’t that compassionate, in his opinion.

Hope got to her feet, undaunted by the mockery. “You did. You did betray me. I thought you were my friends. You were my friends. We were friends for a thousand years. I told you everything. I shared everything with you. Didn’t that mean anything?”

“We were never friends,” Rabia responded.

“Weren’t we? Some of it had to be real, right?”

Rabia signaled to the other two Umbrum again. They once more dragged Hope to the ground. It took all of Cadance’s might to restrain Sombra this time. He resolved that he would not be restrained again.

“You are abysmal when it comes to choosing your friends, little pony,” Rabia said. “You chose Sombra despite knowing what he was. You chose us, despite knowing what we were.”

“You tricked me! I didn’t know what you were,” Hope responded as she stood up. “I thought you were pixies. I thought you were oppressed!”

“You thought what you wanted to think to make yourself feel better!” Rabia spat back. “You saw what you wanted to see! And all because you failed. Because you are a failure. A failure who couldn’t save your home, couldn’t save your princess, and couldn’t save your friend. So you went looking for somebody to tell you it was alright, that you hadn’t failed, that there was still hope.”

Hope was silent for a moment. Then she smiled. “You’re right. Maybe I was a fool to trust you. I trusted Princess Amore and I trusted you. I trusted in friendship and I trusted in hope. And maybe that was wrong. Maybe that was stupid. But if there’s one pony I was right to trust in, it’s Sombra. You were wrong about what you said before. I did save him. I did save Sombra.”

Rabia let out a laugh. A very loud laugh, but to Sombra’s ears it sounded hollow. Not that he was much paying attention. He was still absorbing Hope’s words.

“Saved Sombra, did you?” Rabia said. “He’s the same as he always was, and the same as us. He let you take his place in the Prison of Shadows so that he could escape our joint punishment, didn’t he?”

Sombra dug in his hooves, causing the rock below him to crack and crackle.

“You still don’t get it, do you, Rabia?” Hope said, her smile growing wider. “The fact that Sombra didn’t end up here with the rest of us is proof that I saved him. Only shadow ponies are trapped by the Prison of Shadows.”

“Enough of this!” Rabia said with a growl. “Enough of these meaningless words! Your fate is sealed, Radiant Hope!”

“I don’t believe in fate,” Hope responded coolly.

“Guilty! The verdict is guilty!” Rabia barked. “Take her to her punishment!”

The two Umbrum gave a sharp tug on the chains. Hope stumbled a little, but quickly regained her footing.

“Please stop that,” Hope said, stepping between them. “I don’t care what you do to me, but if I’m stuck being the Empress of Monsters, I deserve some respect.”

The two Umbrum led Hope away as their compatriots howled and hissed.

“Good, it looks like they’re going to be alone with her,” Cadence said. “They’re big, but I think that with a little luck, we can take them. We just have to sneak down and— Sombra, what are you doing?”

Sombra barely heard her. He was already running down the crags. Rabia’s words, “He’s the same as us,” kept playing over and over in his head. “He’s the same as us. He’s not here. He let you take his place.”

“I didn’t want you to take my place, Hope,” Sombra said as he approached the gathering and the fire. “I did not abandon you! I’ll never abandon you!”

Cadence called out, “Sombra, stop!” from somewhere behind him. He didn’t care. All he cared about was saving the pony he loved.

And then, the rock beneath him gave way. Sombra found himself tumbling forward, breaking through crag after crag, and making a terrible racket. He knew before he landed at Rabia’s hooves that his cover had been blown. That didn’t make the landing any less painful. Or any less embarrassing.

Sombra pushed himself to his hooves with as much dignity as he could still muster. He was certain that all of the Umbrum were mocking him but he chose to ignore them. He only cared about Hope. As soon as he saw her, he felt a wave of happiness wash over him, the kind of happiness only the crystal ponies ever seemed to enjoy and which, he imagined, gave them their famous luster. He had her now. Whatever happened from this moment on, he would not lose Hope.

Hope, however, did not look happy. “Oh, Sombra....” she said quietly.

He ran to her. He grabbed at the collar around her neck and tried to tear it off. It wouldn’t budge. If ever Sombra needed confirmation that his old Umbric strength was gone, here it was. He let out a loud shout of frustration and, in desperation, he turned to magic. Not the dark magic of the Umbrum, but the natural magic he had been trained in as a foal. He didn’t know what he was doing, he had never been very good at pony magic, and a thousand years of disuse made him unsure if he could even do it. But he had nothing else to try.

The collar around Hope’s neck began to glow a light shade of blue, almost like the vault of the sky on a summer day. Funny, Sombra thought, I don’t remember my magic being that color.

No time to worry about that, though. He had to concentrate. He had to try and remember. He had to focus. Suddenly, the collar broke into a thousand pieces.

Sombra looked up at Hope. She did not seem relieved.

“Sombra, what are you doing here?” she said. “I thought I saved you. I thought you were free.”

“You did save me, Hope,” Sombra said, grabbing her hoof in his and turning to lead her away. “Now it’s my turn to save you.”

Sombra now remembered the Umbrum. He had been so concerned for Hope that he had forgotten all about his own people, even the two holding Hope’s chains. But now, as his eyes turned to them, he was certain that a fight would be brewing. He didn’t understand why they hadn’t attacked him yet.

And then he saw. They were all looking at him. They did not move. They did not make a sound. They just stared at him. Almost as if they were... stunned?

Then something caught Sombra’s eye. A gleam of light, the type which reflects off of a gem or a diamond. Or, to put it more bluntly, a crystal.

He saw another glint and then another glimmer. They were all a pale sort of green, obviously due to reflecting the light of the emerald flame. But where were they coming from? There was nothing crystalline or diamond-like in the Prison of Shadows, as far as Sombra knew. If anything, it reminded him more of how light was reflected off of everything in the Crystal Empire; the buildings, the landscape, the ponies.

The ponies.

Sombra glanced quickly at Hope. She was still dull. No light was reflecting off of her. Then, a crazy thought entered his mind. A strange notion. An impossible notion. For surely, it was quite impossible. Wasn’t it?

Sombra looked down at his own body. There, he saw the light dancing and reflecting off of his legs and chest. It was as though his coat was not made of soft fur, but of hard crystal.

Crystal?

“Hope, what did you do to me?” Sombra asked in a whisper.

“I saved you,” came her reply.

The Umbrum began whispering amongst themselves. The gist of what they were saying was, “He’s a crystal pony? How is it possible?”

Sombra did not know how it was possible. But he sensed an opening. He gathered together all of his confidence, stood up straight, and tried to project some of his old King Sombra authority.

“I may be a crystal pony,” he bellowed, “but I am still King Sombra, Emperor of all the Umbrum. And I order you to let us pass!”

They did not respond. They did not move. They simply continued staring at him.

Finally, Rabia spoke. “Sombra, my dear boy. Here I thought you had been left out in the outer world. But then, I guess you do belong here with us after all.”

“I don’t want to make small talk, Rabia,” Sombra said. “I’m leaving here with Hope. Don’t get in our way.”

Rabia’s face twisted into an unnatural, toothy grin. “It is amusing that you think you can just walk out of here. As though Amore’s magic will allow it.”

“I’m a crystal pony now,” Sombra said. “Amore’s magic has no effect on me.”

“You really don’t understand anything, do you?” Rabia said. For a moment, Sombra thought she looked past him, toward Hope.

“Enough of your mind-games, Rabia,” Sombra snapped. “Just let us pass. That is an order.”

“It would be very amusing indeed to watch you and your beloved Hope try to escape our prison,” Rabia said, “but I’m afraid I can’t let you go. You also betrayed us, Sombra. First by driving us back down here. And then a second time by becoming this... this disgusting thing.... You are no longer worthy of being our ruler and you are certainly no longer worthy of calling yourself my son.”

“That’s fine. We were never really family. Hope is my only family.”

Rabia did not bother to answer. Instead, she turned to her fellow Umbrum and said, “He’s a crystal pony now. Kill him.”

Immediately, the Umbrum all shot up into the air, covering the vault of the cavern and making the darkness above seem that much darker. As they dived toward him, Sombra positioned himself as much in front of Hope as he could whilst holding her hoof. He steadied himself and tried to prepare some magic. Let’s see if I can do this a second time, he thought.

“Hope, if you can, I’m going to need you to fight,” he said without looking back. “I’m going to need some help.”

“Sombra,” she replied, “you can’t—”

Just as the Umbrum were about to make contact, a blinding light filled the cavernous spaces. There was Princess Cadance, hovering in the midst of all of them, her horn a beacon of beautiful white light.

The Umbrum shrieked, grabbed at their eyes, and hurried into the few remaining dark corners in the immediate vicinity.

“Amore’s love-magic!” Rabia screamed as she flew to parts unknown.

“Sombra, you idiot,” Cadance shouted, “this is why I kept telling you to trust me!”

“What?” Sombra shot back. “It looks like you could take care of them fine, Princess.”

“This won’t faze them forever,” Cadance said. “They’ll be coming back soon. We need to get out of here fast.”

“Well, Hope can teleport us!”

“Teleportation spells don’t work down here.”

“Then how do we get out?”

“Oh, now you want my advice?”

Sombra sneered. He deserved that, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “Let’s just figure out something. I’m tired of this place.”

“You take Hope to the stairs,” Cadance said, flying higher into the air. “I’ll fly a little behind and cover you. I can’t stop the Umbrum, but maybe my magic will be enough to keep them at a distance until we reach the exit.”

Sombra did not need to be told twice. With Hope’s hoof in his, he broke into a gallop. Though there were quite a few sharp crags in his path, it did not matter. The need to save Hope gave him the strength and coordination to find his footing easily. He worried that Hope, being much smaller than he, would have trouble taking them, but she did not fail to keep pace. He did not even hear her hooves on the rock. It was almost as though she was gliding behind him.

Soon, they had left the crags behind, and were now galloping through what appeared to be a vast, barren wasteland. There was nothing but dirt and sand. None of the black waters, none of the dead trees. Just wastes as far as Sombra’s eye could see. Admittedly, he couldn’t see very far. He knew that Cadance was keeping pace above them, because he could see at least a few feet ahead of him. But they were at the outer limit of her ring of light, and so beyond that, all was once again darkness.

Still, Sombra was glad that everything was flat and smooth, even as he found himself fighting back a massive cough due to the grey sand filling his lungs. It did not matter. He could deal with it. It can’t be that far, he thought.

It was, however, that far. It felt as though they were running for hours. Sombra could feel the sweat on his brow and his heart pounding in his chest, sensations which he had not felt in over a millennium. He had forgotten how annoying they were. And all the while, Hope kept trying to talk to him.

“Sombra, stop,” she would say. “Sombra, please listen.”

“Not now, Hope,” he would reply. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“No, Sombra. You don’t understand. I can’t leave. I can’t—”

“Not now, Hope. Let’s get out of here first. Then we’ll talk. We’ll have a lifetime to talk.”

When the conversation got back around to that point, Hope would inevitably fall silent.

Finally, after what had felt like a longer period than he himself had been imprisoned, Sombra saw the grand staircase emerge out of the darkness. He let out a sigh of relief — well, as much of a sigh as he could manage while breathing with all his might — as their means of escape became visible.

“We made it, Hope. We made it.”

“Sombra, no!”

Just as his hoof touched the first step, Sombra felt himself pulled backward. Indeed, the force was so great that he nearly toppled over onto Hope.

“Hope, what’s wrong?” he said, all the while keeping his eyes on the goal above. He could just barely make out the portal gleaming in the gloom.

“Sombra, I can’t leave. Sombra, you have to listen.”

“What do you mean, you can’t leave? The portal’s right up there. We just have to go through it. We’re both crystal ponies now. Once we’re through, the Umbrum can’t get us.”

“But Sombra, that’s just it. We’re not both—”

“What are you doing?” came Cadance’s voice from above. “Why did you stop? We’re almost home-free!”

“You don’t think I don’t know that?” Sombra snapped up at her.

The light was getting brighter now, and the whole of the staircase was illuminated, another indication that Cadance was getting ever-nearer. Sombra could even hear her wings fluttering above. But he did not care. He just kept starring upward. He tugged at Hope’s hoof, but could not get her to budge.

“What’s the problem?” Cadance said from directly above them.

“I don’t know,” Sombra said. “Hope doesn’t want to go for some reason.”

“Sombra, I can’t go,” said Hope behind him. “I wish I could. But I can’t. Not right now. Maybe not ever.”

“You see,” Sombra said. “She keeps saying stuff like this.”

“Sombra, look at me,” Hope said. “Look at me, please.”

“Can you talk some sense into her?” Sombra said.

Cadance let out a sigh of understated exasperation. Sombra couldn’t blame her for feeling frustrated. He was feeling frustrated too. And dealing with frustration had never come easily to him.

He heard Cadance alight behind him. The light came with her, throwing everything around Sombra into clear relief. He looked around. Everything, from the stone steps to the cavern walls, became a canvas for dancing, shimmering light. It was so vivid and clear. Indeed, it almost managed to make the Prison of Shadows beautiful.

“Now, Hope,” Cadance said, “I know you’ve been through a lot, but— Sombra, we have to go.”

Sombra did not like the sudden hint of panic in Cadance’s voice.

“Sombra, we have to go!” Cadance repeated, more loudly.

“I know that,” Sombra said. “Come on, Hope. It’s just up the stairs.”

“No, Sombra, you and I have to go,” Cadance said. “Without Hope.”

Sombra felt his temper getting the better of him. “What? Leave Hope? After all that, you just want to leave her? When we’re already free and clear? And you said I should trust you! You really are Amore’s heir after all!”

“Sombra, we don’t have a choice,” Cadance said. She was practically pleading with him now.

“She’s right, Sombra,” Hope said. “You have to leave me here. You have to let me go.”

“Why? The portal’s just up there!” Sombra protested.

“Sombra, look,” Cadance said quietly.

“And the Umbrum will be here any moment,” Sombra continued. “We don’t have time to play these games.”

“Sombra, please look at me,” said Hope.

“I know you like to play games, Hope, but this is really not the time. Let’s just get through the portal and then we can play all the games you want. We can pick up where we left off a thousand years ago.”

“Sombra, look!” both Cadence and Hope shouted together.

Finally, Sombra looked.

He let go of Hope’s hoof. He took a faltering step back, and stumbled upon the stairs, tumbling over. The pain barely registered. Lying on his back on the stairs, looking up, Sombra cursed the light, cursed its clarity and its vividness.

“I-I-I don’t understand,” he said. “Hope, what did you do?”

What did the light reveal?

Read on.

De Profundis

There, fully illuminated by Cadance’s light, stood Radiant Hope. But she was not the beautiful crystal pony Sombra had always known. No, now her coat was a dull grey with only a hint of purple. Her eyes, much smaller now, had no pupils but were only a dull, milky white. Her long muzzle could barely contain the sharp teeth pushing out from beneath her lips. Tall, spindly insect wings had sprouted from her back, and she was using them to hover a little off the ground. Her whole body seemed as though it was formed by a dark, unhealthy smog, and her hair, now a sickly pale white rather than blue, floated around her head like a haze. She hovered there, the pony he loved, looking nothing like a pony at all.

“I saved you,” she said, her voice taking on a buzzing quality. “It was the only thing I could do.”

“But... what... but how....”

“She swapped your essences, your natures, your... I don’t know what to call it,” Cadance said. “But you became a crystal pony. And she became an Umbrum.”

“It was the only way I could save you.”

Sombra could barely speak. “But... but how... how did you know how to do that? How could you even know?”

“I didn’t,” Hope said. “I just did it. It came to me naturally, like when I got my cutie mark, like the first time I saved you. I didn’t know I could do it until right when I did, but then it just felt right.”

Sombra leapt to his hooves. “Right? Right? How is this right? Hope, look at you! You’re a monster!”

Hope scrunched her snout. Then she turned to Cadance. “Can you please stop using Amore’s magic, just for a little bit? It’s hurting me.”

Cadance looked uncertain.

“Please?”

Cadance nodded. The brightness ceased, replaced by the low-light Cadance had used when she and Sombra first entered the prison. Freed from the glare of Amore’s love-glow, Hope’s Umbric features faded away and she resumed an appearance more like the one Sombra knew. Not quite the same as the one Sombra knew, but enough to where he could recognize his Radiant Hope again.

She took his hoof.

“When you were like this, I used to tell you that you weren’t a monster,” she said softly. “And I was right. You were never a monster. Neither am I.”

“But, my people are evil. You’ve seen what they did.”

“And I’ve seen what you did as one of them. Being a shadow pony is just another form of life. It’s what you choose to do with it that matters. Like I always say, we make our own destiny.”

Sombra shook his head sadly. “But, Hope, this? This is the destiny you wanted?”

Hope smiled and touched Sombra’s cheek. “My destiny was to save you. That is the destiny I chose. I have no regrets.”

“But now you’re trapped in here! You’re trapped in the Prison of Shadows!”

“I know. But it was my home for a thousand years. I’ve grown used to it.”

“But the Umbrum hate you now! They won’t forgive you for turning me against them!”

“I’m not afraid of them, Sombra. And they can’t kill me, whatever else they do. Umbrum can’t kill Umbrum down here.”

Sombra felt tears welling up in his eyes. “No! You can’t stay here! You can’t stay with them! We’re supposed to be together now! That’s what’s supposed to happen!”

Hope lost her smile. “I know. But life has never happened like it’s supposed to. Not for us.”

Sombra stamped his hoof. “I won’t leave you, Hope! Not now, not after just getting you back! I won’t lose you again! I’m taking you out of here, one way or another!”

“You can’t,” Hope said. “I’m an Umbrum and the Umbrum can’t escape the prison on their own. That’s why they needed me. That’s why they needed you.”

“But there must be a way. Amore’s magic made this prison, it has to be able to undo it.”

“Nopony really understands Amore’s magic. Only she did, and after what you did to her when you... well.... Not even Cadance understands it.”

“Thanks,” Cadance said gruffly. “But she’s right. Even I haven’t mastered love-magic to the extent that Amore did. I couldn’t build a prison like this and I certainly couldn’t undo an enchantment of this magnitude. Even if I wanted to.”

“Even if you wanted to?” Sombra said sharply.

“I have the safety of my subjects to consider, Sombra,” Cadance said. “I couldn’t just undo the enchantment and let the Umbrum run free.”

“So you’d leave Hope down here to rot, would you?” Sombra snapped at her. “I was right about you the first time.”

“So you keep saying,” Cadance replied.

“Please, Sombra, she’s right,” Hope said. “There’s no way to save me. Not right now.”

“Then I’m staying with you,” Sombra said. “If you stay, I stay.”

Hope shook her head. Sombra could see tears beginning to form in her eyes. “No, Sombra, you can’t do that. I don’t want you to do that. If you stay down here instead of living the life I gave you, then it was all for nothing. You need to go up there and live in order to make what I did worthwhile.”

“But I can’t live without you, Hope!”

“You can, Sombra. I know you can. I’ve always had faith in you. I’ve always known you were a good pony. Now you need to go out and prove it to yourself.”

“All that was good in me came from you, Hope.”

“Maybe.”

“And without you, I can’t be good.”

“Now, that’s not true. And besides, I’ll always be with you, even when I’m stuck down here.”

Sombra wiped his tears. “No. No sentimental cliches. I can’t leave you. I can’t live without you. I love you, Hope.”

Hope smiled through her tears. “You love me? You’ve never told me that before.”

Sombra himself began to smile. “It’s true. I don’t care if you’re an Umbrum or a crystal pony. I love you.”

“Oh, please,” Cadence said. “I mean, I’m the Princess of Love and all, but is this really the time?”

Hope and Sombra barely heard her. All their focus was on each other.

“I love you too,” Hope said. She leaned toward Sombra. Instinctively, he responded in kind. Their lips grew closer, moving into their first kiss in a thousand years. Their first true kiss, perhaps. In just a moment, it would happen.

There was a loud crash. Sombra jerked his head up. Princess Cadance was laying on the ground. He could see several long, bloody gashes running down her side. Teeth-marks, by the look of them. And there was only one creature who could make teeth-marks like that.

“You really have changed, Sombra,” came Rabia’s sinister voice. “Using a descendant of Amore to fight your battles? And a pregnant one, at that? Did becoming a crystal pony make you a coward as well?”

“Pr-pregnant?” Cadance said weakly before lapsing into unconsciousness.

Hope grabbed Sombra. “Sombra, you have to go now! If Rabia is here, the other Umbrum can’t be far behind.”

“No, I can’t leave you!” Sombra said.

“You have to! If not for yourself, then to save Cadance. You might be able to survive down here, but she won’t. Not with those injuries.”

Sombra looked to Cadance. Rabia was hovering over her. Sombra knew that it wouldn’t be long before she went in for the kill. He looked at Cadance on the ground, broken and bleeding. Then he looked to Hope.

“Please, Sombra,” Hope said. “I know it’s hard. But Cadance was willing to sacrifice a lot for you and for me. You can’t just let her die. And if what Rabia said is true, it’s not just her. You can’t let two ponies die, Sombra! Not for me!”

Sombra looked once more to Cadence. He felt a tremendous pain in his heart.

“What do we do?” he said, unable to bring himself to look at Hope again.

“I can hold off Rabia, at least until the others come. You get Cadance and escape.”

“I’ll come back for you. Once she’s out of here, I’ll come back.”

“No. Her wounds are bad. She’ll need you. Besides, the Umbrum will be swarming the area by then. You won’t be able to come back. You’ll have to leave me for now.”

“But what if I can’t help her once I get her out? What if I don’t know what to do?”

“You’ll know what to do. As soon as you get out of here, you’ll know what to do. I have faith in you.”

Sombra looked once more toward Cadence and Rabia and then looked back to Hope. “I can’t! I just can’t leave you! We’ll never see each other again! I can’t handle that!”

Hope nuzzled his neck. “We’ll see each other again. Someday. Someday we’ll have the happy ending we deserve. You just have to believe that.”

“And if I can’t?”

“You have to. No matter what. You just have to have hope.”

Hope. Why did it always seem to come back to that?

No time to ponder it, though. Sombra heard the distinctive noise of Rabia swooping downward. He knew what it meant. Cadance was in trouble. He dashed toward her with all of his speed. He grabbed her up, tossed her on his back, and galloped out of the way just before Rabia made contact. Pieces of rock flew everywhere as the Umbrum made a hard landing.

“You’d save the life of your people’s greatest enemy?” Rabia squealed as she rose out of her self-made crater. “Of Princess Amore?”

“She’s not Princess Amore,” Sombra said. “She’s my friend.”

He was just glad that Cadance wasn’t awake to hear it.

Sombra took to his hooves and made for the staircase. He looked over his shoulder to see Rabia coming quick behind him.

“Too bad you don’t have our ability to fly anymore,” Rabia taunted. “Pony legs aren’t made to handle the Prison of Shadows.”

“Oh, won’t you just shut up, already?” Another dark mass slammed into Rabia, knocking her sideways. She snarled and righted herself to fight the new enemy. Sombra could barely make out their forms, but he still recognized the voice. It was Hope.

His heart sunk, even as he ran up the staircase. He knew he really had lost her now.

Whether it was because of the adrenaline or because of all the complicated emotions he was feeling, Sombra made his way up the stairs much more quickly than he had his way down. Before he knew it, the portal was only a few steps ahead. Below, he heard the sounds of Hope and Rabia struggling, though looking backward he could not see a thing. He looked ahead once more and steadied himself for the final plunge.

Then, Rabia’s voice pierced the darkness. “That’s right, Sombra. Run away! Run away and abandon the only pony you ever loved! You betrayed us, now betray her! Prove to her at last that you are what we always said you were; a monster. Or if not a monster, then at least a coward. A coward is worse than a monster.”

Sombra sneered. He stopped in his tracks. His hoof tore at one of the steps, causing a few pebbles to bounce down the stairs with a long rattling sound. He could feel the weight of Cadance on his back. He could feel her blood pouring down his crystalline coat. He knew that she was in bad shape. But he did not care.

He turned around and readied himself. “Hope, I’m coming! Hold on!”

“No, Sombra!” came Hope’s voice from the darkness. “Don’t listen to her! Cadance needs you to get her to safety!”

“I can’t, Hope! I can’t leave you!”

“You can! You can do it because it’s the right thing to do! You know that!”

“I know,” Sombra said. “But I can’t. I can’t do any of this without you.”

Suddenly, there was the sound of another loud crash. Sombra bit his lip. He was afraid. Had Rabia gotten the better of Hope? Sombra couldn’t bear to think of it, but he couldn’t get himself to think of anything else. And then, he saw a dark form rising directly in front of his face. The form of an Umbrum. Sombra readied himself as best he could. He expected the worst.

“That’ll take care of her for now, but we don’t have much time. She won’t stay down for long.”

Sombra relaxed. It was Hope.

“You can do this, Sombra,” she said, “I know it’s hard. I know it’s not fair. But you can do it. Do you know how I know you can do it? Because you’re going to do it for me.”

“Do it for you? But how am I doing this for you?”

Hope smiled and touched Sombra’s cheek again. Even though it was the harsh, gnarled hoof of an Umbrum, he could still feel the warmth, the love of her touch.

“Because you’ll do it to prove to me that you are what I always said you are: a good pony. The type of pony who can sacrifice his happiness for the sake of others. Prove to me again that you are good. Prove it to yourself. Do the right thing.”

Sombra tried to hide back further tears, but a few found their way through. Hope wiped them from his cheeks. He looked to the portal and then to her. He knew what he had to do. He did not like it, but he had to do it. He turned away from Hope.

Sombra made his way up the last few steps. The portal was right in front of him. He looked at it and made himself as ready to leave behind his past — his whole past, the bad but also the good — as he could. But just as he began to step through, he looked behind him once more.

There was Hope. She alighted on a stair a few steps down and resumed the form that was more like her natural pony self. Sombra could see now that she was crying. But she tried to smile through the tears.

“I’ll find a way to save you,” Sombra said. “I promise.”

“I know,” Hope responded.

From somewhere below came a great tumult and cry. The rest of the Umbrum had arrived.

“Go now!” Hope said urgently.

Sombra just stood there, looking at her.

“It’s not the end, Sombra. We’ll see each other again. Just have hope.”

With these words, Hope disappeared into the darkness.

With the dreadful noise of the Umbrum getting closer and closer, Sombra turned back to the portal and, with Cadance snuggly draped upon his shoulders, jumped through.

The next thing Sombra knew, all he could see was white. All he could feel was cold. For some reason, before remembering where he was and what had happened, he thought he was dead. But then his strength returned and he was able to lift his head up. There, in the distance, he could see the spires of the Crystal Empire gleaming against the twilight.

He got to his feet and looked around. It was the frozen wastes again with their biting cold. Sombra had to admit, the cold felt good. Everything felt good. Just being alive felt good as he remembered the horrors that he had just managed to escape from. Then he remembered Hope. And nothing felt good.

He also remembered Cadance. He looked around and saw her lying in a snow-bank a few feet away. Sombra rushed to her. Her eyes were partially open but she did not respond to shouts of her name. She was still bleeding from her side. Sombra did not have Hope’s extensive medical knowledge, but even he could tell that she was not in good shape.

Sombra panicked. He did not know what to do. This was one of the situations when he wished he still had Hope by his side. The first of many in the years to come, he suspected. He thought he should try to take Cadance back to the Crystal Empire. But she looked like she was fading fast. He surmised that there was no way he could reach the Empire in time.

He did not know what to do.

And then, suddenly, he did. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did.

A blue glow enveloped Princess Cadance, just as it also enveloped Sombra’s horn. He put all of his might into the enchantment. He struggled, he squirmed, he forced, he fought. This type of magic was not easy. But then, he heard Cadance let out a loud, peaceful sigh. He looked and saw that the wounds along her side were all gone. All that remained as proof that they had ever been there were a few fainr drops of red blood on the white snow.

Cadance, looking as though she was coming out of a long, deep dream, lifted her head up. Slowly, she shook off the grogginess and got to her feet. She rubbed her side with a wing, and looked at it with a mixture of surprise and relief. Then she grabbed her stomach.

“Cadance, what’s wrong?” Sombra said in alarm.

“I think I feel the kicking,” Cadance responded with a smile. “I guess Rabia wasn’t lying. Finding out about your new baby from a living force of evil must take the cake on pregnancy stories, though.”

Sombra allowed himself to smile a little in relief.

“But what happened?” Cadance asked, stretching her legs. “I felt Rabia tear into me and I was certain I was a goner. But now, I can’t find a scratch.”

Sombra looked away bashfully. “She did, but... I, well... I healed you.”

Cadance’s jaw nearly dropped. “You healed me? But how?”

“I... I... don’t know....”

Cadance looked Sombra up and down until her eyes settled on his flank. She smiled. “I think I know.”

Sombra looked down. His eyes grew wide. He found himself nearly stuttering and gibbering. He could not believe it. There, on his flank, was a winged staff around with were entwined two serpents.

Hope’s cutie mark.

“You didn’t just exchange natures or whatever,” Cadance said. “You exchanged powers. She gave you her healing power. She took in your darkness and gave you her light.”

Tears filled Sombra’s eyes. “Hope....” he said.

And then, in an instant, he spun around and galloped back toward the crystal. “Hope! We can still save her! There’s still time!”

But just as he was about to reach it, a light-blue light enveloped the crystal. It shattered. Sombra was lucky to avoid the shards flying all around him.

“No, Sombra,” Cadance said firmly.

Sombra wheeled on Cadance. “What did you do?” he bellowed.

“What I had to do,” Cadance answered. “What I had to do to protect my people. I’m sorry, Sombra, but that weak point is a danger to the Crystal Empire. My first priority must be securing the lives of my subjects.”

Sorrow and anger filled Sombra in equal measure. “But... I thought... I thought you were different! I thought you were better than Princess Amore! You really had me believing that! And now... you’re not better. You’re exactly the same.”

“For the last time, I never knew Princess Amore. I don’t know if you’re justified in hating her as much as you do or not, but if she did what she did to protect the crystal ponies, then I’m not ashamed to be like her, at least in that respect.”

“So you don’t care! About me, about Hope, you don’t care!”

“Of course, I care, you idiot! But I have to look at the big picture! I have to do what is right for my people. You would understand that if you had ever been a real king and not just a tyrant!”

Sombra let out a growl. His horn began to glow. He could fry this princess right now, he was so angry. But then he remembered Hope and he turned away. Sombra turned his back on Cadance and tried to hold back his tears.

Cadance walked up beside him and put her hoof on his shoulder. When she spoke, her voice was softer. “I’m sorry. But this is the right thing for everyone. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but it is. If you would have charged in there just now, you would either have lost your life or the Umbrum would have used Hope to get you back on their side. Either way, that’s not what Hope wanted for you. That would just be a waste of her sacrifice.”

“Don’t talk to me about her sacrifice.”

Cadance chose to let this go. Instead, her voice grew even softer, even sweeter, very much like the mother she was soon to be.

“We’ll find another way,” she said. “I promise you, Sombra, I will put all the resources, all the knowledge, all the magic of the Crystal Empire to work finding another way. And I know Twilight, Celestia, and Luna will do what they can. Just come back to the Crystal Empire. Come back with me.”

Sombra pulled away. “Excuse me, but I’ve had enough of princesses for one lifetime. Besides, I don’t need the crystal ponies’ hate. The Crystal Empire is my past. Best to leave it there.”

“But where will you go?” Cadance said in concern.

Sombra picked up a shard of the shattered crystal. “I didn’t kill Amore. I know everybody thinks I did. But I just turned her to stone and shattered her.”

“Oh, is that all?” Cadance quipped,

Sombra was not in the mood for more banter. “If I find the pieces, I think I can bring her back. Using Hope’s magic, I’ll be able to bring her back.”

Cadance was overjoyed, “That’s great news, Sombra! I can send out the crystal guards to help—”

Sombra just sneered at her. “Listen, Cadance, go back to your palace. Raise your child. Love your little family. Rule your empire. Enjoy all the things that I’ve never been allowed. I’m not doing this for you, I’m not doing this for Amore, and I’m not doing it for the Crystal Empire. I’m doing it for Hope. I’m doing it to get answers about that prison and to find a way to get her out of there. And—”

Sombra held the shard up in front of his face. For a moment, he thought he saw Radiant Hope’s reflection appear in the crystal. She looked downward, not meeting his gaze, while a single tear ran down her cheek. Sombra felt his heart breaking again. He rested his head against the image and fought back more tears.

“I’m doing this to prove that I’m the pony she always said I was. A good pony. That’s the only way I can live with knowing she sacrificed herself for me.”

Sombra did not wait for Cadance to respond. He did not care what she had to say. There was nothing left for him here. So he left. Without another word, he walked into the uncharted depths of the Frozen North. Behind him, Celestia’s sun plunged below the horizon, bathing the world in Luna’s cool, sombre night.

Completum est.

Author's Note

Well, here we are.

I know this isn’t the story I said I would write if I ever came back to FimFiction. But I had an idea for a story a few days ago that I wanted to get out. This... is not that story, either.

It began as what was supposed to be a short prologue to that story, but ended up growing into a full-fledged story in its own right. So, yes, this is the story I wrote instead of the story I was going to write instead of the story I said I would write.

But, like I said, here we are. After I finished this one yesterday, I figured It stood well enough on its own to put up on the site. If life permits and inspiration comes, I might circle back and try to do the story that follows from this. We’ll see how things go in the new year.

So until then, and to anyone who reads this story, happy holidays.