The Forgotten Prince

Chapter X: A Heart of Courage

The air was freezing and impregnated with the awful stench of rusting metals and scorched flesh. In the distance, nothing more than bare and deserted landscapes, and tall dunes of rust coloured sand touched by a dark skyline which filled the broad veil above their heads. Not a single cloud, star or celestial body could be found in this sky.

The calm was quite deadening, which put all their senses on full alert. Although there was not a single breeze blowing, the grains of sand seemed to be moving leisurely, following them and converging underneath their hooves as they treaded.

At some point, they started seeing horrible intermittent mirages of countless decomposing bodies of mysterious, unearthly creatures, all impaled in tall iron spears sticking out of the ground, or hanging from metal gallows, wrapped in weighty chains. They flashed before their sights for merely a split second, disappearing right away, but it was all it took to make them feel a bit nauseous.

This was, beyond doubt, the Undone Dimension the book spoke about; incomplete, for its empty appearance resembled an earth where life never got to birth, and its sky a void where not a single star has ever ignited; broken, due to the constantly shifting reality, and the mirages of dead beasts that never truly existed in neither worlds.

Through the dead silence of their march irrupted a potent lightening strike, completely out of the blue, which clashed thunderously with the sand scarce meters ahead and forced them to a halt. Only Fenrir continued forward after the dust settled, putting himself in front of everypony else and spreading his wide black wings, as if shielding them.

Before long, the already familiar colossal dark dragon with six wings revealed itself from behind one larger dune in the horizon ahead, flying in their direction with an incredible haste, and landing a quite few dozens of meters away from them, lifting more dust below its giant paws.

From inside of his ethereal, smoky body came the second dark alicorn, wearing the same full-body armour, only now he looked more palpable than the last time he met with Fenrir and Luna.

The two identical selves began a simultaneous, quiet and patient walk towards each other, stopping with only a couple of meters between them, and placing themselves right between the other ponies and the fearsome faceless dragon, shaking its head and folding back its wings.

“So you’ve come...” reverberated the female screeching voice, projected from within the armoured pony’s mask, in a tone that sounded like it was deriding him.

“I have come to put an end to this!” Fenrir replied simply and serenely.

“We both know that this will only end ONE way: you’ll be complete again, and I... I will be freed, at last!”

“I would rather die than aid you escape from here. The reason I have come is solely to obliterate you from both universes forever.”

The shrieking voice laughed maniacally “Obliterate ME? I AM YOUR HEART! Have you forgotten? When a heart is destroyed, the body ceases to exist, which means if you destroy me, you’ll vanish as well! Are you sure that was what your beloved mother wanted of her son? Are you not going to accomplish... her dying wish?”

He gritted his teeth, feeling the rage building up. His eyes, blue as ice, burned with anger, pierced the black metal mask before him.

“You made me believe I was to blame for all those horrors, and you told me I had no other choice. If I am culpable of anything, it is for having let you deceive me all this time. But now I understand. My true destiny, what my mother wanted me to discover, has always been to free the worlds from fear. To free them... from you!”

He charged at his opponent at the speed of light, but the latter managed to dodge him, sliding to the side and preparing to retaliate relentlessly. So swiftly were they moving around the area, leaping high up in the air and clashing with each other, that they became two blurs leaving dark trails behind. Rapid shots of pale magic were exchanged from both combatants, and a torrent of incandescent cutting spheres rained recklessly.

“We’ve got to help him!” Luna shouted, promptly rushing to the centre of the battle to aid him, followed by her elder sister, the elements, Cadance and Shining Armor.

However, before they got too close, the gigantic dragon on the other side roared sonorously and quickly took off in their direction, forcing them to stop and turn around to run away from it.

It tried to grab them, like a flying hunter capturing its helpless prey on the ground, but missed its first attempt, so it took a narrow turn in the air, and proceeded to fly past them again.

This time, Celestia managed to scathe its massive body with a hurried, but effective strike. The beast growled in pain, even though it was not actually alive, yet the wound only irritated it further.

For his next attack, it flew to a greater altitude and, while hovering right above them, breathed an immense vertical column of fire downwards, too wide to be possible to evade it in time. However, the incoming inferno was immediately deflected by a combined shield conjured up by both the two alicorn sisters, working together once more.

In the meantime, Fenrir had just stunned the self-acclaimed embodiment of his own heart with an accurate kick on the head, though only for a brief moment, but enough for him to concentrate on the dragon, in the distance, about to incinerate the ten ponies.

Without wasting any time, he lit up his horn while pointing it at the enormous creature, which closed its mouth right away, ceasing the fire exhalation, and started emanating several beams of white light from within his body made of dense smoke. It wailed in agony and despair, but its suffering did not last long, as it ultimately burst from the inside out in a violent explosion of blinding radiance. Only one final roar echoed throughout the surroundings after the six-winged dragon had been defeated.

The armoured pony had just gotten back up, and proceeded to charge at Fenrir rapidly. Upon impacting against him with great brutality, they were both knocked down to the sand, landing with a loud dull sound. The battle continued on the ground, now with more heavy punches and kicks than magic.

Eventually, Fenrir’s opponent managed to subjugate him by standing on top of him, chocking him with his metal horseshoes. However, he could not hold him down for too long, as he was once again astounded by a flashing blaze fired up from the barest dark alicorn’s horn directly to his mask.

Now standing back up on their hooves, but showing no signs of exhaustion yet, they advanced towards each other, clashing their horns together like sabres. They had matching forces, so none of them could overpower the other in this struggle of merely physical strength. Each pushed forward with all of his might, though they did not move from their spot.

It was then that the others finally reached back to where they were heading before being chased away by the dragon, only a few meters from the two fighting dark alicorns.

“Fenrir!” Luna called from behind him, distracting him for a split second.

“No, stay away!” He demanded them, right before his eyes suddenly widened, his pupils narrowed and his mouth froze open like he was letting out a muted howl of excruciating pain.

The pony in the armour had just stabbed him in the abdomen with his lengthy, sharp horn, jabbing it all the way until its base.

As he removed the horn in a swift and careless motion, which was entirely covered in crimson warm blood and dripping, the fatally wounded alicorn collapsed from his tall legs and kneeled, panting heavily.

“NO!” Twilight joined Luna in a unison and teary cry, while all the others simply froze in shock, not knowing what to do. Fluttershy hid her face with her front hooves, cringing as tears formed in her eyes.

However, despite being down and at the mercy of his own heart’s embodiment, he refused to acknowledge defeat, trying to get up but only to fall again.

The princess of the moon quickly dashed over to him, holding onto one of his front legs, and touched his horn with hers, a warm, stunning white blaze quickly growing from them, covering his whole body.

“What manner of power is that?!” the sinister female voice sounded astonished “Ah, I see... a deeper sentiment, old rival of my domain.”

Once completely healed, he stood up once more, resolute and fierce as ever.

“A power I yearn for possessing!...” hissed the armoured enemy “We were born as one. You cannot disrupt the link which keeps pulling us back together!”

In a split second, the armoured pony dashed to his other self, giving him no chance of evading him, but, right before colliding, an astonishing and intense flash was generated between them, shining so brightly the others had to cover their eyes.

When everything calmed down and they looked back up, there only remained one dark alicorn, standing up with his wings folded and facing them: the one wearing the black metal armour.

Yet, before anypony could say anything, his mask fell off to the ground all by itself, detaching from the metal frame where it was fit. Inside the metal frame, they could see Fenrir’s distinct face, bearing a strange tranquil expression and with his eyes closed.

“F-Fenrir?...” Luna approached him carefully, only to be stopped by a sudden startle caused by the swift whipping motion of a long tentacle made of thick dark smoke coming from his back, which nearly lashed her body.

“Luna!” The others ran to help her get up, as she fell over trying to dodge the unexpected attack.

More fearful tentacles protruded from his back, and his form began to rise up slowly in the air, even though his wings remained recoiled, defying gravity. The way he was suspended there, stiff as a statue, was a sight they found inexpressibly terrifying. An insane laugh was heard in a horribly distorted voice, combining his own and a second, demonic and awfully high-pitched one, coming from his throat despite the fact that he did not open his mouth at all, nor did his lips move. His eyes then shot open, all jet black and with small red dots for pupils.

“See how completion makes us the perfect being!” he hissed loudly in his dual voice, right before throwing his tentacles to the ground and quickly wrapping up the ten ponies below him, lifting them all up to his level.

They writhed and struggled to free themselves, but with no effect, for the grasp was only tightening up slowly and painfully, expelling the air out of their lungs.

His possessed eyes were focused on Celestia and Luna, suffocating right in front of him.

“Ah!... Nebula and Galaxia’s daughters. I made sure your parents squirmed and crawled before me, as they pathetically pleaded for their lives in their last moments. Do you know why? Because, as all living things, divine or not, they were scared to die!”

“That’s not true...” the elder sister managed to reply with what little amount of oxygen she had left “they wanted to live... because they wanted to see us again!”

“Is that so? Well then, I guess I’ll be doing you both a favour by sending you back to their presence!”

The younger sister just cried profusely, giving constant and heartrending sobs. He turned to her next, in a scoffing tone.

“What’s wrong, princess of the night? Do you fear death?”

Her answer could barely be heard, stifled by both the tight grapple and the sobbing, which was becoming more difficult from the lack of air. Her saddened blue eyes, slightly diffused by the welling tears, stared at him pleadingly.

“Fenrir... we’re friends...”

At that moment, everything appeared to have frozen in time, as the tentacles had suddenly stopped tightening up, then beginning to phase out like smoke in the air. As they did, all the hung ponies were released to fall a couple of meters down, landing on the sand below and gasping desperately.

As soon as they finished catching up their breaths and got back up on their hooves, they looked above their heads to see a powerful pale beam irradiating from the hovering Fenrir’s horn and eyes.

Something happened at that moment nopony could predict nor explain; time appeared to have halted, space shifted infinitely, and all witnessing the blinding phenomenon around the dark alicorn felt their minds simultaneously assaulted by series of memories which did not belong to either of them.

It all began with the forging of the Undone Dimension, and the consecutive imprisonment of the evil goddess of the ancient times, marked by a luminous explosion of epic proportions. Thirteen mighty horns concluded their combined spell by dimming down their respective magic auras, all dispersed around the circumference of the ample blast radius.

However, an unexpected multidirectional gale was generated from the very core of the closing interdimensional gates, throwing all of them violently far away through the air.

Some managed to recover from the harsh landing just in time to witness the very last flash emanated from the massive column of light that was the phasing gates acquiring the monumental shape of a mystical symbol: a brilliant white key, standing vertically, with three pairs of wings as the bow, one pair folded, one half spread, and one spread wide. It only shun for a couple of seconds before vanishing completely into thin air, but none of them had the interest to decipher its meaning.

A peaceful silence and soothing quietude took over the atmosphere at last, confirming that their mission had been a success. The thirteen brave warriors got up and gathered back together at the centre, where a large depression had been created in the ground. The shattered rocks and uncovered buried minerals there were still fuming from the great amount of energy released on that spot.

“Brothers, sisters...” spoke the strong, imposing voice of prince Nebula, in a triumphant tone “the spirit of fear has been sealed away. We stand victorious! Our people is, at long last, free from their terrors!”

The air was filled with rejoice and exclamations of victory and relief for a brief moment, until one rather peculiar, but weak sound nearby caught the attention of one of the youngest females, as she immediately perked up her ears and alerted the others.

“Hold, my brethren! I hear something...”

“What is it, Aqua?” questioned princess Galaxia, who was standing beside Nebula.

Instead of responding, she rushed to where the noise was coming from with such a hurry that it spiked up all the other alicorns’ curiosity, and propelled them to go after her. She searched in the middle of the ashes and debris anxiously, always followed closely by her brethren, until she finally found the source of the faint sound, yet that discovery brought only immeasurable bewilderment to everypony.

“A foal?!” Nebula observed, after Aqua lifted up the little form of a crying baby dark colt, with a pair of tiny wings and a petite horn, and laid him carefully on her front hooves, like she had always known how to carry a baby around. Once in her lap, he immediately stopped crying.

“H-how did he get here?”

“Look at his cutie mark!” a flaming red alicorn pointed to the colt’s flank, which showed the exact same symbol they had seen before the remains of the explosion had faded away: the six-winged waxen key.

“A key?...” Nebula thought aloud “Could it be... no, it cannot be possible!”

He was interrupted by a sudden potent beam of light shot from the young foal’s eyes, which forced them all to protect their sights. When it dimmed down, his cutie mark had disappeared mysteriously.

“Nebula, what does this mean?”

“It means... that our efforts are still far from conclusion. This foal was created by unnatural means to be the bearer of the power to unlock the gates once more. His very come to existence is threatening the piece we have won tonight.”

“What do we do with him?”

“It is obvious: we must ensure that the gates remain locked for eternity. This broken miscreation must be destroyed!”

The ocean princess reacted instantaneously at those last words, backing down hastily and pressing the baby alicorn against her own body.

“No! You cannot do that! How can you even consider doing such a crime against an innocent foal?!”

“Aqua, he is not like us, nor like any other earthly being. He is a mistake, he should have never existed!”

“He wields a power so great not even he will be able to control it” Galaxia added up.

“It is for the best...”

“No! I refuse to let you do it! It just... does not feel right! He may not have been born by natural means, but neither were any of us, brothers and sisters. Remember that we are all descendants of the remnants of genesis; we have come to embody the primal forces that set this universe in motion.”

“That was different, Aqua...” Nebula persisted in trying to show her reason “we profaned genesis and ourselves the moment we created that alternate dimension, even if it was the only way to hold our foe. By putting ourselves in a place not meant for us, we have been cursed with this aberration.”

As Aqua turned her face to look at the colt on her lap, she saw him wiggling happily and giving an adorable baby laugh. Only then had she noticed his icy blue eyes for the first time. At that moment, she felt overwhelmed by a wonderful feeling that was entirely new to her. Somehow, the simple act of staring at each other’s eyes had created an empathic bond between the two of them, and so the princess knew for sure she would never want to separate from this colt.

“I see no deformities, nor aspects of a curse. In a way, he was born to the thirteen of us. Our son; our brother.” She then faced the others with absolute resolution “If you fear his presence, then I shall take him with me, far away to the north, where I will raise him and teach him to control his powers.”

Nebula gave an impatient sigh, but ultimately consented.

“Very well, sister. But if he is ever seen straying alone, we will take our own measures.”

Princess Aqua arrived with her adopted son to the northernmost tip of the entire land, where they met with an immediate warm reception from the native earth ponies, who recognised the princess as one of their saviours from the evil spirit’s recently-ended reign of terror, and gladly accepted her as their beloved ruler.

Over the course of a few months, what began as a vast, unnamed native settlement would see numerous houses edified, a high wall raised all around the periphery, and an imposing, tall castle built in the centre. Since there were no other raw materials available there besides snow, ice and crystals, everything was constructed out of the latter, for it was the most resistant, and hence the name by which they baptised the newly-lifted realm: Crystal Empire.

It was one particularly radiant night, with a beautiful aurora borealis adorning the dark, starry sky, that when the ice wolves howled to the full moon in the distance, outside the great city walls, the young colt, sitting on her mother’s lap, had the most peculiar reaction to their call.

His tiny horn lit involuntarily, though princess Aqua never feared these spontaneous bursts of magic, which would be frequent in his first years, this time summoning a soft white magical string, which waved graciously throughout the castle corridors and halls, and materialised into several spectral wolves where it passed. They howled in a rather precious, beautiful and soothing symphony for a time, before the magical pack eventually vanished like smoke.

Princess Aqua looked at him, her ocean blue eyes glowing with pure joy.

“The wolves’ call is sadly misunderstood and feared by many; yet to you, it seems almost... familiar.” She smiled and reached one of her hooves for him to play with. “You need a name, one that holds the courage and might of legends of old. Folklore amongst the ponies of the north speaks of a mythic, great wolf-god by the name of Fenrir. May this name grant you strength and fortune, my dear son.”

It was already dark, and the ocean princess had just laid the tired baby colt in his cradle, in their new home that was the crystal castle. She used to sing to him a lullaby every night, in her young, melodious siren voice.

“Come, stop your crying, it’ll be alright

Just take my hoof, hold it tight

I will protect you from all around you

I will be here, don’t you cry

For one so small, you seem so strong

My wings will hold you, keep you safe and warm

This bond between us can’t be broken

I will be here, don’t you cry

‘Cause you’ll be in my heart

Yes, you’ll be in my heart

From this day on, now and forever more

You’ll be in my heart

No matter what they say

You’ll be in my heart, always

Why can’t they understand the way we feel?

They just don’t trust what they can’t explain

I know we’re different, but deep inside us

We’re not that different at all

And you’ll be in my heart

Yes, you’ll be in my heart

From this day on, now and forever more

Don’t listen to them, ‘cause what do they know?

We need each other, to have, to hold

They’ll see in time, I know

When destiny calls you, you must be strong

I may not be with you, but you’ve got to hold on

They’ll see in time, I know

We’ll show them together

‘Cause you’ll be in my heart

Yes, you’ll be in my heart

I’ll be there from this day on, now and forever more”

He fell asleep peacefully. She approached his forehead and kissed it tenderly, before whispering to his ear “Sweet dreams, Fenrir”.

Years of peace and prosperity had passed, during which the other members of the ancient alicorn race had scattered throughout the land, founding their own realms. In the meantime, Nebula and Galaxia were blessed with a second daughter, having their first been born three months after the great battle.

Princess Aqua, on the other hoof, lived isolated, but merrily with her son in the Crystal Empire. He had grown to a young, intelligent and handsome colt, who loved reading, learning magic, and flying around the skies above the crystal city. He had always shown to be a very kind and cordial prince, as he was very fond of everypony, and everypony liked him very much, but he especially loved his mother more than everything in the world.

The crystal ponies never feared him, despite knowing very well the uncanny conditions of his birth, as the princess of the ocean had always believed that no truth should be hidden from the people, an ideal which was the main pillar that supported the rapid growth of the majestic empire of the north.

Eventually, the prince had developed a great fascination for the night, and began wondering who could produce something so beautiful. Her mother had never told him anything about the other alicorns, though she was fully aware of everything that happened on the other realms, thanks to the sporadic letters she would receive from her brethren, which she kept away from her son, afraid that he would want to meet them and they would harm him.

But the young dark alicorn’s curiosity was insatiable, so he started leaving the castle silently at night, when princess Aqua thought he was already asleep, and went exploring the vastness of the land, far beyond the boundaries of his empire. It was on one of those nights that he found Luna, who he later befriended. He had never told her mother about her, choosing to keep their friendship and late meetings a secret.

However, a terrible event was bound to happen one day. After prince Fenrir experienced a sudden unleashing of a massive amount of energy he could not control, shooting out of his eyes in the form of powerful beams, being the first time such had happened on the very day he was born, right before his cutie mark had inexplicably disappeared, and now would reappear once again, he was unwillingly sent to the Undone Dimension.

Once there, he was quickly found by its residing lonely prisoner. Instead of devouring or torturing the unexpected visitor right away, thus feeding on his pain and horror after years of starvation, the evil goddess came up with an intricate, maleficent plan to use him to spread her power in the world she was sealed away from.

“W-who are you?” he inquired in a trembling voice the frightful being before him.

“Do not fear me, child, for I am the one who will give you purpose.”

Using a rare dark magic, she isolated her own heart, and merged it with the little prince’s, ensuring, that way, that a part of herself would remain within him after he would return to his home world.

As soon as he came back, he started hearing dire voices inside his head, which slowly drove him insane, until he finally succumbed and allowed her essence to take over him. He transformed into an adult armoured pony with dark tentacles protruding from his back, who controlled devastating tempests, and whose tremendous power was utterly under the control of the cruel goddess.

Once more were the thirteen alicorn warriors dispatched to battle this new thread, only none of them was expecting an enemy this powerful. This was not just the prior evil being they were dealing with, but an entity forged from the combination of two powerful beings; an absolutely flawless, divine existence. One by one, all of the alicorns would fall dead.

He was only defeated when the last remaining princess warrior made an ultimate sacrifice. Princess Aqua united her horn with that of her possessed son, and reached to his dormant heart, releasing it from the influence of the wicked spirit. Sadly, such endeavour ended up taking her life.

As the metal pieces of the armour fell to the ground, the little prince woke up in the middle of endless ruins, and quickly landed his gaze upon the heartbreaking sight of his mother’s fallen and motionless body.

“Mother! W-what happened?”

“Fenrir...” she spoke with difficulty, barely opening her eyes “you’ll have to be strong, my son... find your true destiny, find your shore...”

“Mother?... Please don’t leave me...”

“I love you” were the very last words to escape from her mouth, right before she stopped breathing and closed her eyelids softly. The ocean princess was dead.

Shaken by witnessing her mother’s demise, the young colt unleashed a power nopony ever thought to even exist, originated from the deep and unceasing sorrowfulness within him, which resulted in his fission: his heart was reclaimed by the evil spirit still residing in it and absorbed back into the parallel dimension, while his body dove into the depths of his own mind, where he remained imprisoned for more than one thousand years, in his sleep.

He was awaken by the chant of a familiar voice, only two days ago from the present day, like he himself had already explained in his conversation with Luna. What has yet to be told is that, on the night he finally woke up, he had a dialogue with the voices hissing inside his head, which deceived his oblivious and outdated mind into bringing the events once again.

“You were the responsible for their deaths, all of them. You murdered your own mother. But don’t regret... she claimed herself, as her dying wish, that she wanted you to find your destiny. This is it! You’re the last alicorn; the one who must survive the final battle against his own kind, and then bring about the end to all. Now awaken, heartless beast. My prince of fear, harbinger of death.”

At last, the blinking fragments of distant past came to an end as armoured dark alicorn got his hooves back on the ground, his horn and eyes still enlightened and increasing in intensity, yet his body remained statuesque and firm.

They all heard Fenrir’s normal voice again, roaring thunderously in a tremendous amount of force.

“I will not let you use me again! GET... OUT... OF MY HEART!”

Another powerful, blinding flash irrupted from within his entire form, obfuscating the sights of everypony around him.

This time, the following calmness revealed the whole black metal armour falling in parts, detaching gradually from his body and dropping on the sand. He opened his eyes, revealing them of the usual bright sapphire blue, and so they all knew for sure he was himself again.

“Fenrir!” Everypony called at the same time, with Luna running to hug him without delay, sighing in great relief and bliss.

“Look, your cutie mark!” Twilight pointed to his flank.

There it was again: the white key standing vertically, with three pairs of wings as the bow.

“The cutie mark is said to be also connected to one’s heart” Celestia informed.

“Do you feel it?” Luna asked him, placing a hoof over his muscular chest “Do you feel your heart again?”

He gently put one of his front hooves over hers and looked at her deeply in the eyes, making her blush quite a bit. His facial expression had changed from blank to a visible contentment, as his lips curled into a simple, but sincere smile.

“I do.”

All of a sudden, before they could savour the moment any longer, a concentrated tempest rose quickly, centred a few meters in the distance. Black dust flew and swirled in the air, forming an immense, sky-piercing tornado, from which numerous dark tentacles were thrown at them, only to be readily shielded by Celestia, Luna, Fenrir and Shining Armor.

Before long, the tumult began settling down slowly, and a large silhouette became observable coming from the core of the whirlwind in their direction.

Upon catching a clear glimpse of its true form, they felt immediately overwhelmed with an indescribable horror and unease, freezing completely where they stood and widening their eyes. This was the most horrendous and appealing creature they had ever seen. Not even in their worst nightmares would anypony ever be able to come up with something so terrifying.

“It’s her!...” Twilight squealed.

Bearing many resemblances to an adult female alicorn, with six bat wings spread wide, she was abnormally tall and thin like a walking skeleton lined with deadly pale skin, covered in white short fur. She wore a long, weightless dark cloak like silk, wavering softly as she treaded. And her face... it looked perfectly normal on one side, but a horrid, gruesome half skull on the other. Her eyes were two jet black eyeballs with shining red pupils, and long, dark hair grew on the “normal” side of her head, as well as her tail, wavering like blown magically.

Only Fenrir faced the demon fearlessly, and uttered her name without flinching.

“Hel...”

“How dare you pronounce my name?!” she shrieked infuriated in her high-pitched voice, as the sands started moving viciously beneath their hooves.

Before they knew it, an enormous fissure had opened, delimiting a circular area around them, while all the rest of the earth seemed to have fallen into an endless murky abyss, merging with the shadowy skyline. They were standing on top of a piece of rock in the middle of infinite darkness.

Hel shot a massive ray of blood-red magic aura from her horn directly at the dark alicorn, which he managed to intercept right away with a powerful white beam of his own, uniting with hers in midair.

“Since you refuse to submit to my will, your body exhausts what use I could give to it; because your heart disregards fear, it has no value to me. I’ll do what I should have done from the beginning: slay you and rip the power to free me from your dying carcass!” she screeched, before putting all of her might on the spell.

Fenrir took one step back, as he did not seem to be capable of holding her attack for much longer.

Suddenly, two spheres of pure energy flew out of the Crystal Heart on the purple unicorn’s hooves and from Luna’s chest, and began orbiting around him in broad circumferences. After that, several luminous archaic symbols appeared all over his dark coated body, and, ultimately, a third light irradiated from his chest, and ascended to his horn, where it remained scintillating.

Celestia gasped with her face frozen in shock.

“That’s it... the only way to destroy her” she mumbled quietly to herself, but was heard by Luna.

“What? What’s happening to him, sister?!”

Everypony turned to the elder monarch.

“Even though he has regained control over his heart, her essence must still be alive inside of him. He’s going to use that to his advantage... he’s going to strike her down with her own heart!”

“But if their hearts are still fused together, that will destroy him!” Luna turned to him swiftly “FENRIR, DON’T DO IT!”

Through his unbreakable concentration on the battle, he managed to slip a quick glimpse at her.

“Goodbye, Luna.” He purely smiled.

She was completely petrified, with tears at the edges of her eyes, as they all witnessed him summoning all his strengths to push forward towards the goddess, until their horns finally touched each other, and an epic and sonorous explosion of light and winds was generated.

A heavenly tranquillity and quietude filled the atmosphere afterwards. The two light orbs had flown back to where they had come from, one to the Crystal Heart and the other to Luna’s chest.

The ten ponies uncovered their sights unhurriedly and looked around, immediately realising that the evil spirit had vanished at last, and that the whole world appeared to be fading away, like ashes blown by the wind.

“Fenrir!” Luna rushed to a fallen and inert dark alicorn, lying scarce meters ahead. All his mystical, luminescent tattoos had disappeared, as well as his cutie mark, and his black coated form was slowly fading away, exactly as the entire dimension, dematerialising in fine, weightless ashes. She lifted his head up and rested it on her lap, while the others gathered around them “Please, say something!”

“Why...” he spoke in an awfully feeble and slow voice “why do you cry? You know I never liked... to see you crying.”

She tried desperately to unite their horns like before, but not even a single spark lit between them.

“No! Why won’t it work? It has to work, come on!”

“I’m afraid it’s not possible, Luna.” Celestia placed a kind hoof over her sister’s shoulder. “His heart has been destroyed, which means he cannot use magic anymore...”

“No, I don’t want you to die! Please, don’t leave me again!...”

“You will never be alone, Luna. You are a wonderful mare, capable of showing compassion and loved by more than you realise. You have your sister, who has always cared for your safety and well-being; you have ponies who love you simply for who you are, and would not hesitate to come in your aid, and share your pain in more difficult times. Never doubt that you are a precious friend; you have shown me that.

I wish to show my gratitude to the brave ponies who undertook my test in the world that served as my prison for a thousand years. Hel made me believe dead all of those who I cared for in the past, and doubts raised when I found Luna that night, in silver armour, gazing me like a stranger. I would have never dared to approach her after so long, drowned in so much guilt. Your endeavours showed me how firm friendship can really be.

And Celestia... I just wish I could be deserving of forgiveness for everything else I have done.”

“We forgive you, prince Fenrir.” The princess of the day was trying to hold back her own tears.

“Thank you.” He closed his eyelids leisurely and took one final breath.

Luna was desperately trying to swallow her shattering sadness, when her sorrowful heart felt the need to make his final moments memorable. For both him and herself.

“Why can’t they understand the way we feel?

They just don’t trust what they can’t explain

I know we’re different, but deep inside us

We’re not that different at all

And you’ll be in my heart

Yes, you’ll be in my heart

From this day on, now and forever more”

As the tears streamed down her cheeks from her closed eyes, she slowly approached her muzzle to his, about to surrender a timid kiss on the lips, but only reaching air, for he had just faded away completely at that exact moment, and, with him, the entire Undone Dimension.

They were again stepping on the soil of their home world, in the middle of the dense woods. The fog was finally gone, and the sky was blank in a vast veil of darkness, waiting for the sun and the moon to be raised by their respective princesses once more.

Celestia hugged her sorrowful sister compassionately.

“There, there... it’s alright, Luna.”

“He truly was a good pony,” Twilight spoke up “even though he didn’t have a heart, his memories alone guided him to make the right decisions.”

“Yes. He’s reunited with his mother again” Fluttershy concluded, smiling at the sky.

“Berry Punch! I’m so glad you could make it! Come in!” Pinkie Pie held the door open to the Sugarcube Corner pastry shop, where she was throwing the biggest party Ponyville had ever seen. All of her friends were there, including Spike, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Big Mac and Granny Smith, among many others.

After their return in the previous night, they had discovered that no city, town or village had any vestige of the past events, and that everypony was alive and perfectly healthy. Everything seemed to have come back to normal, as if those terrible experiences had been nothing but mere illusions, now erased from everypony’s memories except those who stood within the Undone Dimension at the time of its wane.

Right now, colourful balloons and streamers, nice music, and table filled with delicious pastries and punch were exactly what the six elements needed to forget all about the confusion and tension in the last couple of days.

“Great party, Pinkie! As always!...”

“Thanks, Dashie! Hey, has anypony seen Twilight?”

“Ah think she went upstairs to write a letter to the princess.”

“Dear princess Celestia,

These prior two days certainly have been intense, life-threatening, and even traumatising, that is something we can both agree on. But, nevertheless, I believe they were plenty of lessons about friendship and life for us all.

Firstly, I learned that confidence is something of great importance if you want to keep firm the bonds between friends, a teacher and a student, or even family. It is alright to want to protect those you love from harm, but doing so by leaving them in ignorance may not always be the right way to do so.

I also learned that you should never be afraid of what you do not understand, that not everything, or everypony, is actually what they appear to be, and they all deserve the benefit of the doubt, no matter what we have been told about them.

But what I consider to be the most important lesson is that everypony is worthy of forgiveness, if they ask for it sincerely.

I would like to end this letter with a simple request of your highness: please, remain close to your sister. I know she must be suffering very much right now, after losing somepony so dear to her. Make her feel that she is not alone, that she is loved. That is what prince Fenrir would want.

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle”

A door opened to the small and faintly lit room where the unicorn was writing the correspondence, and through it jumped in the vivacious pink pony.

“Come on, Twi! We’re all waiting for you downstairs!”

“I’m coming!” She left the parchment on the secretary to be sent to its destination later. For now, she only wanted to have some fun with all of her friends, celebrating the return of peace and harmony.

Weeks had passed, and the princess of the night sat alone on the balcony of the Canterlot castle, staring quietly at the beautiful dark sky filled with stars and enlightened with a stunning full moon high above.

The elder sister came outside and sat beside her. The two remained in silence for a few minutes, savouring the gentle, chilling breeze blowing through their manes, and the peaceful setting after the past endeavours and sufferings.

“I will never forget him” Luna spoke at last, facing her radiant moon delighted.

“I know, Luna. After all, it’s harder to forget somepony we have evidently fell in love with...”

“What?!” Luna suddenly blushed and flinched away, looking embarrassed at Celestia, who simply smiled at her “I-if you’re talking about that kiss... it’s not what you’re thinking, sis!”

“It’s alright, it only means that you’re growing up. I know it will be difficult for you to move on, having nurtured feelings for him, but I believe he would want you to live your life merrily more than anything.”

“You’re right. He will always live inside my heart.”

That said, they both got up and headed back inside the tower. Luna yawned and leant her drowsy head against Celestia’s warm body.

Neither of them noticed the long, dark feather, blown by the wind from a far distance, dropping subtly on the cold stone floor of the balcony.

The beginning...