Sombra’s reign over the Crystal Empire was hellish. It was cold and tyrannical and cruel. No matter how much she wanted to escape, Radiant Hope knew that she’d always fall back to her childhood friend, through the good and the bad (though it felt as though the bad would never leave at this point).

He wasn’t always like this, she always tried to remind herself. It was because of that terrible incident with the Crystal Heart that he’d been forced to see this future and fulfill it (it wasn’t terrible. Sombra always had options. He just chose to go with the worst of the options). Sombra had followed the cruel destiny of joining the Umbrums, letting them corrupt him and take over the empire he once adored.

Trapped in her chains within the Crystal Palace, Radiant Hope couldn’t do much else than hope he would soon come to his senses and free the citizens of the Crystal Empire, letting them return to their happy lives rather than this reality of slavery and misery.

“Radiant Hope,” Sombra hissed above the young Unicorn. Never cowering under his gaze, Radiant Hope stared up with the last of the shimmer in her eyes, always trying to see the best in her childhood friend. “Have you changed your mind?” His grin was all teeth and completely ingenuine. Lowering her ears, Radiant Hope slowly shook her head. Sombra’s sinister expression dropped to one of disappointment.

“You can’t rule with an iron hoof, Sombra,” blue eyes looked up with judgment deep within them. Sombra scoffed, black mane billowing in the nonexistent wind that always seemed to follow him.

“You underestimate me, Hope. I shall rule this puny empire as I please and you’ll stand by my side no matter what I do. We both know it,” The Umbrum brushed the side of Radiant Hope’s cheek with a hoof and she flinched out of the way. She hated seeing him like this.

Sombra huffed, clearly irritated at the constant rejection from his childhood friend and stalked away, disappearing somewhere else in the crystal palace, far away from Radiant Hope. The purple Unicorn sighed, relieved she was alone once more.

“We’re okay,” She spoke softly to herself, curling her hooves against her body, stomach protruding only slightly.

To the average guard, Radiant Hope looked no different– cyan mane still shimmering, purple coat clean as ever. Her brown cloak covered her body just fine, as well. It was hard to notice any small detail about her body unless someone was truly searching for it.

That of course meant that the bump that was starting to form near her stomach wasn’t noticeable. No one knew that Radiant Hope was pregnant.

It was another few months before the Princesses of Equestria freed the citizens of the Empire from Sombra’s cruel hoof. Or at least, they attempted to.

Radiant Hope, still trapped within the confines of the crystal palace, now visibly with child (though she had still managed to hide it from Sombra), was unable to do anything but watch on as her former best friend fought viciously against the two sisters, magic blasting through the air for hours on end.

A kick was felt in the mare’s stomach and she pressed a hoof over it, groaning at the sudden movement.

“I know, darling,” She spoke softly, wondering if the child within her would be a colt or a filly. “We’ll be free, soon. I promise.”

Sombra had no idea it was his child that Radiant Hope was growing more and more pregnant with. It was a shame that he wouldn’t be able to help her raise the foal, but at least Radiant Hope would be able to raise the poor thing in a place that wasn’t freezing and ruled by a tyrant. Or at least, she hoped.

Midway through the battle, Sombra turned suddenly, eyes gleaming with corrupted power, and blasted his magic directly at the Empire itself, shocking everyone within its borders. Radiant Hope’s eyes widened as she watched the princesses cease their attempts at subduing the stallion, their own expressions now ones of horror.

“Foolish Princesses,” Sombra hissed, grinning viciously. He stopped his fighting and allowed Celestia and Luna to aim yet another blast of magic at him, taking it with a groan, “Your attempts to defeat me are futile if you want to see the Crystal Empire survive without me.”

“What does he mean, sister?” Luna cried to Celestia, who had a furious look on her face, so unlike how the princess of the day normally appeared before her subjects.

“I’m not sure, dear sister! But we must defeat him!” Celestia responded, blasting more magic into the air, combining it with Luna’s as it grew into a large blast, about to collapse down onto the Unicorn King.

Sombra laughed maniacally, no longer defending himself and staring up at the blast of magic expectantly. “You shall never see the empire again, princesses,” He hissed. “On the thousandth year of my absence, only then shall it return! And I shall return along with it!”

No longer listening to what they thought were empty threats, Luna and Celestia cried out as they blasted a final white light directly at King Sombra, encompassing him within the magic, and he was gone.

Radiant Hope wasn’t anywhere. There was no palace to see, no fellow citizens of the empire to speak to, and not even her own reflection in the crystals surrounding her in the dungeon. She was nowhere.

It was only a few seconds ago that Celestia and Luna had defeated Sombra, right? The Unicorn looked down upon herself, noticing her stomach still just as round as she remembered. The mare sighed, thankful everything seemed to be normal. Or, at least, everything apart from her present location.

“Hello?” Radiant Hope called out, looking around the dark room she was trapped inside. There was no response. In fact, there wasn’t even an echo to be heard. It was as though everything had just… stopped. “Hello!” Radiant Hope cried out again, this time louder and slightly more panicked. No response.

Walking around the room yielded no answers, as well. Everything was dark and nonreflective. Until she came across a singular reflective surface: a puddle. Astonished at the single anomaly within this strange place, Radiant Hope ran toward it, looking down at the puddle and realizing it wasn’t reflective, but it looked more like a window out to some blurry, snowy landscape. She touched it with her hoof and the liquid rippled. Some noise that sounded like a groan of annoyance came from everywhere all at once. Radiant Hope gasped, pulling her hoof away suddenly.

“Hello?” She called out once more, this time with concern laced in her voice. A groan turned into a chuckle and Radiant Hope felt her stomach drop as she remembered who it sounded like.

“It worked,” A voice hissed. A sinister laugh filled every space within Radiant Hope’s prison. Sombra was here. “Wrong, Hope. I am not just here, I’m out there. I’m outside of the Empire. Who would have thought one thousand years would pass so fast!”

“What?” Radiant Hope gasped, “It can’t be… it’s been minutes!”

“You poor, poor soul. You should simply agree to rule alongside me, Hope. Then you wouldn’t be trapped in this prison I’ve created.”

Prison? This wasn’t right. Something was wrong and Radiant Hope didn’t have any resources to look into it. She was trapped somewhere with no light apart from a single puddle that now showed her… “The Empire…” Radiant Hope breathed, putting things together.

Before his banishment by the princesses, Sombra had cast some spell upon the Empire. It must have made everything disappear with him, making Radiant Hope disappear and reappear suddenly.

“Am I… inside of your head?” The mare approached the puddle once more, looking out and watching the ground below as a storm grew and grew, black smoke seemingly coming from nowhere. (It was coming from Sombra. He was in the sky and Radiant Hope could do nothing but watch on from within his mind.)

“How else would I keep you and our child safe?” Radiant Hope’s stomach fell. She wanted to keep the foal hidden, but clearly Sombra was smarter than she’d believed.

“Those princesses won’t be able to defend themselves this time. With no Crystal Heart, the Empire will fall without my leadership.”

Sombra would be defeated once more.

And again.

And he would be defeated and reappear again and again. Radiant Hope would be helpless, disappearing and reappearing with every defeat of the Unicorn King, even though he had since lost his position as leader of the Empire.

Radiant Hope watched through snapshots as a new leadership took over, love finally ruling over all. She watched villains fight against a band of friends and lose, she watched hope grow in the world that she wished she would one day return to. This curse Sombra had placed on the pair, forever stuck together, had to end sometime, right?

It was only one thousand years later– two thousand years after the initial banishment of King Sombra– that Radiant Hope was finally freed from within his mind.

His final banishment, coming from Princess Twilight Sparkle– banished all magic from within him, including the curse that kept Radiant Hope in his head. For just a moment, she was watching six ponies take over Equestria, providing some of the best leadership she’d ever witnessed.

Things changed in a flash, though. It must have been some anomaly with the magic, or something within Radiant Hope herself. She knew she was different and far more advanced than the other Unicorns in the Crystal Empire. Her mother had solidified that fact in her brain. The purple mare watched as things moved almost in a blink, she moved from standing in a field to standing in a home to standing in a puddle of something.

Oh. Hope looked down. Her water had broken.

Time was moving so fast that there was hardly a recollection of what events had preceded the birth of her child. All Radiant Hope knew was that she was in a hospital, no longer trapped in the head of a tyrant, and she was holding a wonderful baby in her arms.

She would have to figure out what had happened and how she’d suddenly appeared in… present day? Were Celestia and Luna still the rulers of Equestria? It didn’t matter. Radiant Hope signed the birth certificate, not answering any questions about the absence of a father or any family for that matter.

She smiled. Hope was finally free from that awful curse that had kept her prisoner for thousands of years. She grinned as the final signature was placed on the birth certificate for her baby– Irradiance.

Author's Note

lol sorry for months of absence.... engineering major is supa hard. enjoy the twist that was revealed super fast :p