Sunlight

Chapter 6 - Stay With Me

It started out as such a nice day.

After taking a slow morning together, Sunburst was walking down the hall with Sombra. They were headed nowhere in particular, rambling on about something or another. Sunburst had just finished sharing an amusing story he’d heard sometime back in school. When Sombra didn’t respond, he glanced to his side and realized that the tall gray stallion wasn’t next to him anymore. He stopped, looking back to see where he’d gone.

“Sombra?” he asked, watching his friend with growing concern.

Sombra had slowed to a stop a dozen paces back. He was clutching at his head with one hoof, looking dazed. Then his eyes screwed shut as he started to tremble. Sunburst felt a strange dread and menace in the air around him, and for a moment he felt as if a dark shadow were passing overhead. Sombra fell sideways, legs collapsing underneath him.

“Sombra!” he shouted, running to his friend.

With a yelp, Sunburst sprang towards his friend. He just managed to catch him, but he let out a strained grunt as he did. Sombra was much too big for him to hold up on his own.

“‘m sorry.” Sombra mumbled faintly, weakly trying to pull himself off of Sunburst. “My legs, they ju… jus…”

He seemed to lose consciousness for a moment, his eyes becoming unfocused.

Sunburst, whose own legs were fast proving unequal to the task being set for them, did his best to gently lower Sombra to the floor. As he lay there, taking shallow breaths, Sunburst again crouched down and touched his side. To his horror, he found that Sombra’s bandages were wet. Then, worst of all, he heard Sombra let out a faint whimper. He’d never heard a sound like that come out of his friend, not even when Flurry Heart had shoved her sharp little hoof directly into his eye.

“Help!” Sunburst shouted, standing up and looking around. There had to be someone nearby, surely. “Someone help, please!”

Even before he finished calling out, he heard the clatter of hooves running towards him, and looked up. The guard that came rushing around the corner quickly took in the scene, then hurried over.

“H-He just fell over,” Sunburst stammered out before the guard could ask. “I-I don’t know what happened.”

As the first guard examined Sombra, other guards and servants who had heard Sunburst’s shout started to gather to them. Then Shining Armor appeared, pushing his way past the scattered crowd of onlookers. He saw Sombra on the ground, and hurried forwards. He went to take Sombra’s pulse… but he couldn’t seem to find it.

“Get the doctor.” Shining Armor said to a guard, who dashed off immediately.

“What happened?” he asked, now talking to Sunburst.

“I don’t know, he just…” Sunburst faltered, then told him what he’d seen and felt before Sombra collapsed. Shining Armor’s frown deepened.

The minutes seemed to stretch into hours until the doctor arrived. She quickly sat down next to Sombra, her face becoming increasingly drawn as she examined him. Her horn lit up intermittently as she worked, removing and then immediately replacing his wet bandages, as well as checking for internal injuries.

“I can’t stop the bleeding.” she said after a few minutes. “There’s something preventing me from actually doing anything to him.”

Sunburst’s mind was buzzing. That sudden feeling of fear, the sensation of a shadow passing by. No, not a shadow. The Shadow. Dark magic made manifest, parasitic, jealous. It was feeding on Sombra, even now. That was why he couldn’t heal, why he was… was…

Sunburst felt his heart rate spike, and felt his vision going fuzzy around the edges. His nose felt weird, and the back of his neck hurt. He felt really hot all of a sudden.

No. Not now.

Sunburst forced himself to take slow, deep breaths.

I have to focus. I need to be here.

He needs me.

Sunburst started running through everything that had happened to, or because of, Sombra. He’d read about Shadow Magic in those books, then started using it until the Shadow took over. He’d enslaved and terrorized the Crystal Empire. He’d hidden the Crystal Heart.

Interesting. Why?

The main reason, he knew, had been to keep its presence and power from giving hope to the Crystal Ponies. But why not destroy it, then? They knew that was possible - thank you for that extra trauma, Flurry! - so why not just smash it, and get rid of that threat to his reign of terror? Because he had still needed it to keep the Crystal Empire from being reclaimed by the Frozen North. So he kept it out of sight, but still within easy reach.

Why out of sight? Again, to keep it from being a beacon of hope to the enslaved. But it was out of his sight too. Was it, maybe, to keep him out of its sights? What if the Shadow had been protecting itself from the Crystal Heart’s power? Terrorize the Empire, weaken the Heart, hide the Heart to protect itself from it…

Protect. The Crystal Heart’s primary function was protection. It kept the endless winter of the Frozen North out of the Crystal Empire.

It protected the Empire from evil.

What could be more evil than the manifestation of dark magic?

Sunburst snapped back to reality and jumped to his hooves. He looked around him, hoping against hope to find the pony he needed was here.

She was.

“Starlight!” he shouted. “Starlight, I need your help!”

“I’m here, Sunny.” she said, rushing to his side. “What do you need?”

“We have to take him to the Crystal Heart.”

She was silent for a solid fifteen seconds. “What?”

“It’s the only thing we haven’t tried!”

“But is it safe to bring him right to it?” asked Shining Armor. Sunburst realized that, despite all of Sombra’s apparent progress, there were still lingering questions about his sincerity and trustworthiness.

Shining Armor wasn’t the only one with lingering doubts, it seemed, because several loud protests came from the small crowd around them. The doctor was equally unhappy, but with the idea of moving Sombra so far in his rapidly deteriorating condition.

“Sunburst, are you sure that’s a good idea?” asked Shining Armor. “I… it’s just…”

“Shining Armor, please -”

“It is.” A calm, authoritative voice said from behind them.

The crowd quieted down, parting to allow Princess Cadence to pass. Shining Armor looked at her questioningly. Cadence looked between Sunburst and Sombra, eyes somehow both soft and piercing. Then she looked back at her husband, and nodded. He seemed to understand something Sunburst did not.

“Alright.” he said, nodding back. “Sunburst, Starlight, help me here. Doctor, do you have a stretcher we can use?”

“Guards, clear the plaza.” Cadence commanded. “Everyone else, make a path.”

They carried Sombra down through the castle and to the wide plaza beneath the castle. The Crystal Heart was suspended mid-air between the two spires that rose from the ground and descended from the castle above. The glittering crystal cast a faint glow around itself, even in the powerful mid-day sun. But the sunlight seemed to fade around them as they went, and a strange, directionless fear grew in their hearts. The closer they got to the Crystal Heart, the stronger the feeling of dread became. As they laid Sombra down near the pedestal, it was as if there was no sun, and no moon, nor stars to light the sky. A faint red tinged the darkness around them, but it felt less like a color than an inexplicable absence, a stark, ravenous emptiness. Only the Crystal Heart beside them seemed to cast any light.

“What’s happening?” Starlight asked, stepping closer to Sunburst.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I-I was kind of hoping being near it would be enough!”

Being close to the Crystal Heart did seem to help somewhat, because Sombra stirred on the ground. Sunburst got down next to him, checking his heartbeat. It was so weak, it was getting hard to hear it. His own heart was pounding in his chest, but he paid it no mind. Sombra’s eyes were half-open, and he let out a quiet cry of pain as he tried to move.

“Stay still.” Sunburst told him, touching his shoulder before looking around them.

“What do we do now?” Starlight asked, voice rising in volume as the darkness seemed to creep inwards. “Why isn’t the Crystal Heart doing anything?!”

“It’s tied to him, I think.” Sunburst said, reaching out and touching Sombra’s chest. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? It won’t let you go…”

Sombra was barely breathing now. Weakly, he raised his hoof and laid it on Sunburst’s. He opened his mouth, trying to speak, then curled in on himself as a racking cough left him whimpering in pain.

“Should he touch it…?” Shining Armor asked hesitantly, stepping towards the Heart.

Before he could go any further, the shadows around them seemed to loom inwards. Out of all of them, only Cadence and Sunburst seemed to be unaffected. Sunburst could understand why Cadence might be alright - or at least, be able to look like it. What he didn’t understand was why he suddenly felt no fear at the sight of dark magic taking form. He felt Sombra’s hoof touch his own again, and looked back down at his friend. Sombra’s red eyes gazed into his own, struggling to stay focused through the pain.

“There’s no Crystalling to empower the Heart, no festival to charge it up.” Sunburst whispered, taking Sombra’s hoof and squeezing it against his chest. “What can we do?”

“I… I don’... don’t think… there’s… anything you… can do.” Sombra’s words came with great difficulty, interspersed with faint, gasping breaths.

“You can’t go now.” Sunburst said, leaning over Sombra. “Please, don’t go…”

“It’s okay… Sunny.”

Shadows swirled around them, and streaks of dark not-lightning-not-red seemed to shoot through them. The very air was alive with an aura of fear. Within the darkness around them, they could feel an undeniable, intense hatred of light, and life, and love. How it wanted to rip and shred and empty out the world, how it hated all those things that kept it at bay. The Crystal Heart protected them from the worst of it perhaps, a dim but unshaken light in the dark. But it did no more. It just hung there, suspended between the needle-sharp spires. Why did it do nothing?

“Y-You’ll be okay!” Sunburst sniffed, feeling his eyes growing wet.

The Shadow has its claws in Sombra, and even the Crystal Heart couldn’t seem to keep it out. He watched, felt it even, as the Shadow in Sombra’s heart became a thing of pure torment, like red-hot iron nails buried deep in the flesh, or the sharp pain felt from a sudden flash of bright light in the eyes. Sombra cringed feebly, trying to hold down his cries of pain.

“You can’t… please…” Sunburst was crying now, desperate and afraid. “Please…”

He felt more than saw Starlight step next to him. She reached down to hold his shoulder. Trying to comfort him, maybe.

“Please, please, don’t go.” Sunburst said softly, choking back the tears. “We’ll go anywhere you like!”

Sombra, wracked with pain, was struggling to stay conscious. Trying with all his failing might to keep his eyes on Sunburst. He didn’t want to look away. He couldn’t.

“I… I would like… th… that…”

Sombra started to slip into unconsciousness, his vision dimming as a sound or feeling of rushing water seemed to press in on him. He knew, faintly, that he was on the very edge of death now. The crushing weight of the Shadow was bearing down on him, and he’d lost too much blood.

Sunburst couldn’t even cry now, it hurt too much. Nothing felt real. He didn’t feel real. Something had broken in the world, and everything felt like a strange dream, numb and flat. Holding his head carefully, tenderly, Sunburst leaned down and pressed his forehead against Sombra’s.

“Stay with me.” he whispered.

All was Night.

…

…

…

But Day must always follow.

Sunburst looked up, shielding his eyes as the Crystal Heart, spinning and slowly picking up speed, burned with increasing brilliance. The shadows around them seemed to harden in response, and a crystalline ringing filled the air. The Heart thrummed with a deep bass note and light flared from its very core. The dark presence around them seemed to waver, then the Heart thrummed again. And then again, growing louder until it seemed to vibrate in their chests. There was a sound like the blowing of a distant horn, and the shadow started to break up and burn away. Fractured tendrils writhed and faded away, as if they had never been.

Sunburst looked down at Sombra, a mix of honest fear and desperate hope filling him almost to the bursting. Before his eyes, Sombra’s wounds began to close, and his injuries to heal. As the last traces of his hurts faded away, there was a new lightness to him that defied explanation.

The Crystal Heart slowly dimmed, until it again shone faintly in the mid-afternoon light.

Sunburst bent down and pressed his ear to Sombra’s chest. He found a steady heartbeat, and soft, normal breathing. He let out a sob of relief. He sat up, then tenderly placed his hooves on either side of Sombra’s head.

“S-Sombra?” he said quietly.

Sombra stirred, took a deep breath, then his eyes flickered open. For a moment he struggled to focus, then he locked his eyes on Sunburst.

“How… h-how are you feeling?” Sunburst asked, suppressing a fresh wave of tears and bad thoughts. Not now. Not now. He was needed here and now.

“I… I feel… better…?” Sombra said, barely above a whisper. “But… ’m s… s-so… tired…”

“Shh…” Sunburst hushed him softly, stroking the soft fur of his healed cheek. “I-It’s okay now. Sleep. I’ll be here.”

“I… know you will...” Sombra reached up and took Sunburst’s hoof in his own. “Sunburst, I…”

“It’s okay.” Sunburst said, leaning in closer. “It’s okay.”

“I know.” Sombra murmured. “You’re… here…”

Sunburst, trembling, leaned down and kissed Sombra’s forehead. The gray stallion smiled and tried to laugh. With some effort, he squeezed Sunburst’s hoof. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t seem to get the words out. He was so tired…

“It’s okay.” Sunburst said again, still caressing Sombra’s cheek. “Sleep.”

And Sombra slept.