Past, Future, and Present
The future ruler of the Crystal Empire didn't realize just how far her quest for a little solitude that fair Hearth's Warming morning had carried her until her eye caught the tiny hint of red poking from the fields of white that surrounded her. The sudden flash of so vibrant a clash snatched her from her temporary fugue state and she leaned down to get a closer look. She was still slightly in her own little world, so her parent's teachings of caution around mysterious and possibly malicious magical objects did not quite reach her mind in time to stop her from reflexively reaching out with her magic to lift the item for closer inspection.
It was a potentially fatal error, as it turned out.
The thing sucked at her magic like a damned leech, and she reeled back as years of combat and defensive training instinct kicked in. Her father's shield spell flashed into existence and severed the link between her and her discovery at once.
Not soon enough, it seemed.
A viscous, acrid blackness gathered about the red, forcing it from the snow and revealing it's true nature as the severed length of a crimson and curved horn. She watched as the blackness took a vague, hazy shape of a stallion and a face pushed through a kind of membrane to glare at her with red eyes that danced with malignant glee and sparked with embers of green magic. The thing's mouth laughed as the whole creature lunged at her...
...and promptly face-planted into the snow.
Flurry Heart couldn't help it. She laughed.
The shade that had once been King Sombra quickly stood and tried to regain his imposing bearing. "Laugh all you want, whelp. Once I have just a little more of your magic, I'll..."
"But you won't." Flurry's guffaws became giggles as she wiped her eyes. "That was a pretty neat trick, I'll give you that, and maybe if I was just some random unicorn you managed to catch unawares you could've gotten more, but me? Not a chance." She cocked her head as she finally recognized the specter. "Wait... aren't you supposed to be dead?"
Sombra laughed haughtily. "Death is a meaningless concept to me, child. My ultimate weapon; I can be destroyed again and again, yes, but so long as a single piece of me remains I will remain tied to this world. Ergo... I am eternal."
"So... how many pieces of you are left?" Flurry asked, thoroughly unimpressed, though politely trying not to let it show.
"As though I would impart such precious information to my enemies." Sombra snorted. "For all you know, there are pieces of me scattered all over the..."
"It's just the horn left, isn't it?"
Sombra stopped and glared at her. "I... You.." Each threat, each retort, failed to materialize. Finally, he let out a defeated sigh and hung his head. "Just finish me, girl. I grow weary of this world. Of the constant and bitter taste of defeat."
Flurry blew a raspberry and sat down, careful to keep her shield up. "Puh-leeze. I'm not going to kill you."
Sombra eyed her wearily. "Weren't you the squalling brat I once used to make your parents surrender the Empire?"
"Yup."
"Then why aren't you going to finish me? Surely your dreams are haunted by the day that I stormed your nursery like some ancient spirit of darkness and held you over your parents heads like..."
"Okay, two things." Flurry cut him off with an upraised hoof. "One; you barely cracked the top ten things that threatened my life as a toddler. Compared to Chilly the Pony-Eating Snowman? You're basically nopony. And two; are you talking like that because just you're a ghost? Or have you always done it because you think it makes you scarier?"
Sombra narrowed his eyes further. "Impudent whelp, aren't you?"
"I have heard that once or twice, yes."
Sombra sat on his ghostly haunches, his immaterial form not even denting the snow. "You still haven't explained why you aren't going to end me."
"Well, for one thing, it seems kind of rotten to kill somepony on Hearth's Warming."
Sombra rolled his eyes. "Hearth's Warming. Feh."
"Not a fan?"
"You could say that." He eyed her warily. "Given the snow, we're clearly beyond the protective boundaries of the Empire. What brings you all the way out here on this most festive of days?"
"Ugh. My family." Flurry mirrored Sombra's eye roll and glanced back at the path her hooves had made in the snow. "Like, I love them. I do. But all of them in one place? And at this time of the year especially? It's too much."
"Hearth's Warming has strayed so far from it's origins that it's hardly the same holiday." Sombra sulked. "Where in the fable of the founding does it mention the buying of overpriced gifts or covering everything in gaudy decorations?"
"I know, right?" Flurry laughed, part of her realizing the absurdity of the situation; commiserating on holiday misery with one of her family's oldest adversaries. "And don't get me started on the songs."
"Ugh, the carols." Sombra shivered, even though his current form had no nerves. "Anypony caught singing Hearth's Warming carols during my rule spent their holidays in the dungeons." He smirked slightly. "I hope the acoustics were to their liking."
Flurry laughed again. "Hey, who knows? Maybe when I'm on the throne, I'll bring that back."
At this, Sombra finally cracked a smile. "It would be nice to know that some vestige of my rule still remained in the Empire." He chuckled. "You know, this is rather amusing."
"What is?"
"Here we are, the ruler of the Crystal Empire's past and the ruler of the Crystal Empire's future. What an occasion."
"You could call it a Hearth's Warming miracle." Flurry suggested.
Sombra's smiled faded just as quickly as it appeared. "Miracles on Hearth's Warming don't happen. Especially for me." He glared down at the snow. "Wretched holiday."
"Well, yeah. It's irritating, sure, but... it's not all bad." Flurry murmured.
"Yes it is." Sombra snapped, his eyes blazing with hazy vestiges of his green magic. "Hearth's Warming was always the hardest time of year to maintain control of my crystal slaves! Something about this cursed holiday inspired them, bringing whispered wishes of rebellion and salvation to shouts of revolution. And even those who were dealt with? They became martyrs, recalled fondly on this day in hushed voices around low burning candles. And what did it get them in the end? Nothing." He spat. "All their wishes for peace and happiness, and it only made my rule over them that much crueler and more horrible."
"But... their wishes did eventually come true, didn't they?" Flurry lowered her shield slightly. "I mean, yeah, they were sealed away for a thousand years, but in the end they got their peace and happiness. And for all your hatred, your greed, your need to control... what did you get?" She gestured at his horn, the only solid part of him.
He scowled. "I thought you shared my hatred of Hearth's Warning?"
"Well... parts of it, yeah. But there's still good things about it. The message is good. Peace in Equestria, goodwill toward ponies and all that." She smiled gently. "It's a time of year to put aside your differences, to share with your fellow being. We give and are given gifts, yes, but behind the most expensive gift is often a feeling of love. It's the meaning that counts." She stood as an idea formed in her mind. "Here; I'll prove it to you."
And she dropped her shield.
Sombra leapt to his shadowy hooves and prepared to finish what he'd started, to drain the magic from this foolish young alicorn before she had a chance to realize her folly. His horn lit...
...but Flurry beat him to the punch.
An arc of magical light stretched from her horn to his, pouring shining magic into his form. His body solidified, black fur replacing wafts of smoke. He breathed in and felt the frozen wind fill his lungs, and he laughed as the sense of life, real actual life, again filled his body. The feeling of Flurry's magic faded and he grinned at her with savage triumph. He reached deep for the dark magic that had filled him for nearly as long as he could remember, ready to strike her down and take the last scraps of magic from her...
...but the magic did not come.
Sombra blinked rapidly, confused. "What... what's happening?" But something was wrong with his voice. It was too high, too tinny. And his perspective was all wrong. Flurry Heart had somehow made herself... taller? "What did you do?"
Flurry smiled as she casually manifested a mirror and floated it to the former tyrant. "See for yourself."
Sombra stared at himself in the mirror, shocked beyond words. He... he was young. He'd been reduced to a colt. His scarlet eyes flew to his forehead and he gasped to see his horn, curved through years of practice in the dark arts of Saddle Arabian necromancers, was now once again straight and the same jet black as his coat. He shivered, as much from the shock as the cold assailing his newly shrunken form. "I don't understand."
"I've given you a second chance, Sombra. My Hearth's Warming gift to you."
"You... you've consigned me to death!" He yelled, hating how weak he sounded now. "I won't last a day out here on my own."
"You're right." Flurry nodded sagely. "Which is why you'd better come back to the Crystal Empire with me."
"Come back to the..." Sombra's jaw dropped. "But don't you understand? I can do it all again now! I can relearn my magic, once again rise and seize the throne! And now I have all the time I need to learn how to defeat you and the other protectors of Equestria." He laughed, the intimidating nature of it somewhat defeated by the childish throat it came from. "I can rise and rule again!"
"You could." Flurry Heart smiled down at him. "But you know how that path ends now. Wouldn't you like to see where another path might lead you?"
Sombra stopped laughing and turned to stare into the mirror once again. It had been so long... he hardly recognized himself. "If I did come with you... then where would I go?"
"We'll find you a home. It shouldn't be too hard for a handsome little colt like you. But that's for tomorrow." She extended a hoof. "For today? You can come spend Hearth's Warming with us."
Sombra looked at her, baffled and overwhelmed. He felt shame as tears filled his eyes. "...Why? Why would you do this for me?"
"Because it's the part of Hearth's Warming I actually like.There's a rhyme Sunburst taught me a long time ago. He found it in some old book on the holiday, and it's always stuck with me; 'one candle's light dispels the night.'" She breathed in the cold air of her home and sighed. "It says to me that one small act, one little gift, one second chance... it can chase away any darkness." She grinned. "And this second chance? It's my gift to you."
Sombra looked from her, to the offered hoof, and back again. "You... you're going to be a wise leader."
"Hey, I can't be worse than you."
Sombra smiled at the joke and touched his hoof to Flurry's. "Happy Hearth's Warning, Princess Flurry Heart."
"Happy Hearth's Warming, Sombra." She ruffled his mane and turned to lead him back towards the boundaries of the Empire proper.
Sombra, overwhelmed at the wealth of new possibilities that lay before him, could not stop the tears that welled in his eyes. This time, he felt no shame. "Bless you." He choked.
Flurry Heart looked back, the dancing warmth of friendship's flame in her eyes. "Bless us all. Everyone." She observed.
And together, the past and the future made their way home on a beautiful Hearth's Warming present.
Author's Note
