The Forgotten Prince

Chapter VI: Heartbroken

Luna sat in the hospital wing waiting room, already relieved from the weight of her silver armour, accompanied by the six elements, the young dragon and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, all sharing the same unease towards the elder alicorn sister’s critical condition.

All of them had already received some medical care for their minor injuries, and Rainbow Dash was able to walk and fly once more.

They had all been there in a deadening silence for almost six hours straight since they brought her to the medical facilities inside the castle, but she had not woken up yet. The doctors did inform them that her wounds looked quite deep and severe, and she had lost a great amount of blood; she would be very lucky if she even woke up...

At least neither the dark tempest nor the alicorn riding the smoke dragon had returned, leaving them only with the unpleasantly cold, grey mist that seemed to cover the entire land, but, nevertheless, it gave them a sense of relief, for it was a period of eerie calm.

The younger princess remained sitting perfectly still, leaning her head slightly forward and looking blankly at the floor. Her night-sky-blue mane was not even stirring like it used to; instead, it just fell to the ground straight and dull, covering her sorrowed face from the sight of her friends from Ponyville.

She was feeling more disorientated than all the others, for not only she was still dwelling with the shock of realising that she had almost lost her sister to the mysterious pony in the black armour, if she had not showed up sooner, but also the last thing he uttered before he withdrew from Canterlot had made her dive into absolute bewilderment and wonder: “Luna...”

To make it worse, his fearsome, deep and grave voice kept calling her name repeatedly in her mind, no matter how hard she tried to shrug it off. How did he know her name? And why?... Who was him?

Eventually, she succumbed to the discomforting heaviness of all the thoughts running through her head, and her eyes began to well up with large, stressful tears.

“I’m so sorry, my sister...” she muttered in silence to herself, closing her eyes as she did. The tears streamed down and fell to the ground “If only I could’ve been faster... you wouldn’t be in this state. It’s all my fault, I’m sorry...”

Luna let out a heartbreaking sob, interrupted by an unexpected hoof placed caringly on her shoulder. Twilight and her friends were all standing up and surrounding her, with their friendly and comprehensive eyes focused on hers. She knew they, too, cared for Celestia’s health, as well as for her own wellbeing, otherwise these amazing friends would not be here together, giving each other support in this difficult moment for everypony. No words were needed to express their feelings.

All of a sudden, their moment of silence was interrupted by a female nurse pony entering the room they were in, who got the immediate full attention from all of them, expecting to hear about Celestia’s condition and hoping to hear good news.

“Princess Luna,” she called in a soft tone “your sister has finally awakened.”

Those were the best words they could have heard to find some consolation for their gruelling anxiety. Sighs and exclamations of solace were heard, before the intern continued.

“Thankfully, she is fully conscious and able to talk. However, she is still very weak, and I’m afraid she won’t be able to get up from bed any time soon. She has requested to see all of you now.”

They exchanged glances of curiosity, before proceeded to follow the nurse through the door from where she came in, which led to a long corridor, all in white and with many doors along both side walls. It was adorned with simple paintings of peaceful verdant meadows and beautiful wild flowers, creating a serene ambient that contrasted with the horrible havoc and carnage just outside the castle walls.

Upon reaching the end of the corridor, the pony leading them pointed at a door to the left, where they entered as quietly as they could, with Luna stepping inside first.

The room was quadrangular, quite ample, also white and well illuminated by a big, round lamp hanging from the ceiling. There was a single, large rectangular window, closed firmly, from which it was possible to see the city below. On one side was the only bed of the room, where the princess of the day was laid down. Above the headboard hung another painting on the wall, this one of a stunning sunset, with the red sun gently touching the horizon as the sky began to darken and the first stars became visible above. Placed over her bedside table was one glass jar filled with water, and one modest white orchid in it.

Celestia was, indeed, awaken now, though she did look very hurt and weak. Some of the many bandages wrapping up her body were still visibly soaked with stains of blood from her cuts, which only stopped bleeding after much effort from the doctors and countless changes of bandages.

Disregarding that, all that mattered was the fact that she was stable and conscious, but, above all, she was glad to see her younger sister, her favourite student, and all her friends again. She smiled at them as they entered.

Luna ran swiftly to her sister’s bedside and hugged her as gently as she could, trying not to hurt her. As Celestia hugged her back, tears fell from the younger princess’ eyes again, these of pure joy.

“Oh, I’m so happy that you’re okay, sister! You can’t imagine what a relief it is!”

“I’m glad, Luna.” They slowly let go of each other “I’m glad.”

After that, they all sat in front of the bed, eager to hear what Celestia wanted to say to them.

“So now that you’re all here, I believe I owe some explanations about these events that have been happening since yesterday.” She turned her gaze to Twilight, who had her ears perked up in full interest “And I apologise to you, Twilight, for trying to hide something like this from you. I hope you understand that, if I didn’t tell you anything sooner, it wasn’t because I didn’t trust you, but only that I wanted to protect you.”

She cleared her throat before continuing.

“As you already know, me and Luna were the original wielders of the Elements of Harmony, at least until Nightmare Moon... took over my dear sister, and the incident we all know occurred, which caused both of us to lose control over that power, since it required always more than one user, and that they were all in perfect harmony with each other. The power materialised into six jewel pieces, and they had been waiting for their right heirs to find them, which would be you six.

The reason we first sought out the power of harmony was simple: survival, since we were left all alone after our entire race was completely vanquished by an unknown force more than a thousand years ago. We were just fillies...

I do remember a few details of that horrible day, and we’ve never seen our parents again. I hoped that something like that would never happen again, ever... or at least until we were ready to avenge our forefathers. Only last night have I met its true source.”

“You mean... that dark alicorn?” the purple unicorn inquired.

“Exactly. In all my life, I’ve never seen a pony as powerful as him... nor did I even consider it was possible for such being to exist.”

“I still heard him claiming to be the last alicorn” Twilight recalled.

“I must admit that I, too, didn’t believe him at first. But after seeing such magic and fighting skill, I now have no doubt that he must be a third pure-blooded alicorn like me and my sister.”

“Wait a second,” Rainbow Dash interrupted, everypony suddenly turning their attention to her “third? What about Princess Cadance?”

“Cadance wasn’t born an alicorn, Dash,” Twilight explained to her in Celestia’s place “she used to be a unicorn like me or Rarity, until one day she found an extremely rare talent within her: she spread love and companionship between her family members, since they were used to fight with each other regularly over wealth and interests. After that, she earned her wings, but she still has the same life span of a mortal pony. Princess Celestia and princess Luna, on the other hoof, were born pure-blood alicorns, having their wings since birth, and unlimited life span.”

“That is correct,” her tutor confirmed “however, as Twilight said correctly, we are only granted with unlimited life span, which means that we can’t die of old age, but we still can contract diseases, drown or bleed to death like any other pony.”

“Princess, if I may inquire,” Rarity stepped in “what did you mean exactly when you said that you had doubts about this pony’s existence?”

“A pertinent question, Rarity. As you may know, there are two primary types of magic: white and dark. White magic is much more difficult to learn, let alone to master, but it compensates in the end, as it is also much more powerful, since it comes from the good sentiments inside one’s heart. Dark magic, on the contrary, is much simpler and easy to cast, but it comes with a cost, for it drains the caster’s very essence, ultimately consuming him.

The thing that intrigued me the most was that the spells he used for the change of climate and making both sun and moon disappear left a magical trail in the air, which me and Luna were able to detect. At first, I believed that it could only be the work of some rather powerful dark wizard, but it didn’t make sense as to how could just some dark magic user grow so powerful overnight, let alone the fact that all our attempts to cleanse the curse were useless.

Yet, when I was confronting the dark alicorn, right when our horns clashed with each other, I felt a sudden burst of a new kind of magic, one that not even me could replicate: it is a mythological type called ethereal magic, and it stands in-between both white and dark, differing from them by the fact that only somepony who has lost their heart is able to cast it, hence why I wouldn’t be able to.”

All their faces were suddenly enlightened by both astonishment and perplexity.

“Now, how’s that even possible?” Applejack spoke “Ah ain’t no medic, but how can a pony be alive if he doesn’t have a heart?”

“It’s not that kind of heart, Applejack...” Luna responded “some also call it soul, but in reality it is a pony’s true essence, our feelings, good and bad, and what makes us different from each other. Without a heart... you cannot even exist.”

“Woah, so how’s it possible that he’s still around, causing all this trouble?” the farmer pony retorted.

Celestia thought in silence for a moment, before having come up with an answer based on uncertainty and mere speculation.

“It is possible that his body and heart have been separated. But if that is the case, his heart must be still alive somewhere. For when the heart dies, the body, too, ceases to exist.”

At that moment, Twilight remembered having read something about the connections between magic and the heart, some time ago, but it was always a subject that she found a little too bizarre and somewhat frightening to study.

“How’s it like? How does it feel to... not have a heart?”

“I cannot describe you exactly how it feels like, Twilight, for even I never actually seen anything like it before...” the princess of the day responded “but, in theory, imagine that you are unable to feel love for what you hold most endeared, or compassion towards your friends, or anypony who has ever been close to you. Without friendship or love, all you have left are the memories of once possessing emotions, and the unreachable desire to feel again.”

“How awful...” Fluttershy whimpered sorrowfully “poor thing, he must be suffering...”

Twilight rapidly turned around to face her, incredulous that she was actually feeling empathy for the one responsible for all the obliteration and death happening in every single corner of Equestria.

“You can’t be serious, Fluttershy! That... that MONSTER destroyed our hometown, took the lives of so many of our friends, nearly took princess Celestia’s too, and you’re even considering feeling sympathy for HIM?”

The shy, sensitive pony backed down a bit at her shouting, facing down with saddened, repentant eyes, in a gesture like she was pleading for Twilight to forgive her silliness.

As the purple unicorn calmed back down, she turned again to Celestia, with a determined expression on her face while she spoke to her.

“Princess Celestia, we want to help you in any way possible. Is there anything at all that we could do to possibly stop that evil pony?”

The bedridden monarch smiled, admired with her pupil’s firm and strong-minded attitude. She began to recall some of the last reports she had received from her messengers from every part of Equestria before she had left the castle to battle along with her sister, searching for something that she would find of great relevance, and a mission suitable for Twilight and her friends.

“Alright, Twilight. There is something I would like all of you to go investigate...”

The six elements approached the bed footboard in order to listen attentively.

“Shortly before the second storm came, a messenger arrived from the Crystal Empire. He said that, though Shining Armor and Cadance had successfully managed to keep the dark forces from breaking inside the castle so far, they were baffled to state that the Crystal Heart appeared to be, according to their description, melting.”

Another collective gasp of bewilderment was heard inside the room.

“So... is that it?” Twilight said “You want us to go to the Crystal Empire right away?”

“Yes. Let’s take the chance that no other storm has come yet. You should depart immediately.” She then turned to her younger sibling, sitting right beside her “Luna, would you do me the favour to order the guards to prepare a flying carriage?”

“Of course, my sister” she willingly acquiesced, promptly getting up and leaving the room back to the lengthy corridor.

“This will be a difficult task for you...” Celestia continued, after landing her gaze upon the young dragon and the crusaders, bashfully squeezed against each other, quietly behind the six elements “I do not think it would be safe for the young ones to go as well. Spike and the three little fillies should stay here, in the safety of the castle, while you go. Luna will stay too, to defend it in my place.”

“You can count on us, princess!” Twilight affirmed cheerfully.

“I know I can.” She smiled affectionately “I wish you all the best of luck.”

Only a few minutes later, the six friends were already leaving Canterlot inside a majestic, expensively ornamented carriage that hovered in the air as light as a feather, as if by magic, pulled by four sturdy pegasi class royal guards. Despite being a large vehicle, it was incredibly aerodynamic and fast, so they calculated that they should arrive their destiny in no longer than a couple of hours.

The orange country pony took a quick peek outside the window, only to notice the immense mist extended throughout the entirety of the land, as far as the eyes could reach, and even to the great altitude at which they were flying. She wondered how the ponies pulling them could know exactly where they were heading.

“Ah just hope we don’t get lost or anything...”

“Don’t worry, Applejack,” Twilight assured her “they are accustomed to travel to all sorts of places, some more difficult to find than others. As long as the fog is all that we have to worry about, we should be fine.”

“So what are you planning to do once we get there?” Rarity asked.

“First, I want to take a look at the Crystal Heart with my own eyes. You know, so I can have an idea of what we’re dealing with. I’m wondering if it’s also connected with the rest of the events. Then, if it happens to be necessary, we’ll use the Elements of Harmony on it.”

“Speaking of which...” Rainbow Dash interrupted abruptly “Where are the Elements? Weren’t they supposed to be back at your house?”

“Nope!” Twilight opened the satchel she carried on her back since the previous day, revealing a glimpse of the golden artefacts shining inside. “See, right before I left my house yesterday morning, I took some precautions in case the Elements would be needed.”

“That was real smart of you, sugarcube!” Applejack congratulated her friend’s prudence.

When they finally arrived, the climate still had not changed from the appearance of a world made entirely of haze. Even the once brilliant and spectacular buildings made of crystal were not noticeable from the distance, covered by the massive, dense grey wall.

Once they stepped out of the vehicle, a sudden, unpleasant chill hit them right in the face, freezing their cheeks. It seemed to be getting even colder than before.

At first, they wandered through the streets almost blindfold, unaware of their environments, and expecting to find something that might serve as a reference mark to find the castle, where they intended to go.

The city was completely empty, like they had already deduced, the morbid silence giving it a surprisingly sinister and frightening atmosphere, so much that they were not squeezing tightly against each other solely because of the cold air anymore.

Before long, however, they were found by Twilight’s brother, who had been patrolling the perimeter.

“Twily!” he called, making her turn her head swiftly in the direction where the familiar voice came from.

His silhouette quickly became fully visible to all of them, as he approached scampering. He wore his standard captain of the royal guard armour, all in tones of gold and lavender, and carryed his helmet with feathers under one of his front legs. The chest plate had a few gaps in it, and he himself had a few cuts and bruises all over his body, but, nevertheless, his determination to keep on fighting and his contempt to see her little sister there were quite appreciable.

“Shining Armor! I’m so glad to see you!”

“Me too! Princess Celestia replied to our message, claiming that she would send somepony to investigate our problem, but I never actually thought she’d send you!”

“She’s been injured... badly, that’s why she sent us!”

“Oh no, what happened?”

The six friends explained to him minutely everything since their exodus from Ponyville until their unexpected meeting with the mysterious armoured dark alicorn, riding the gigantic, six-winged smoke dragon, and how he subjugated the princess of the sun, nearly killing her.

“I see...” he said afterwards “well then, follow me. I’ll lead you to the castle. Cadance is there, in the Crystal Heart chamber, trying to figure out what bizarre phenomenon has befallen on it.”

Before they knew it, they were inside the castle, passing by the enormous hallways and the elongated corridors made of bright, limpid crystal, all as empty and dead as the city outside. The castle was not very lit, for all the chandeliers, lamps and torches were off, being the strange, unnatural scarce amount of light somehow associated with the fog the only source of illumination, coming from outside the tall stained glass windows.

At some point, they heard rushed hoofsteps coming from the end of the corridor they were in. It was Cadance who was coming to meet them, clearly tense, but still happy to see Shining Armor, and that he had brought Twilight and her friends. She also wore a battle armour, hers in golden, pink and white hues, and in slightly better state than that of her husband. She approached them and they greeted each other, before Shining Armor summarised what her sister and her friends had told him moments ago about the whole situation in Ponyville and Canterlot, and the circumstances that got them there.

“So Celestia has sent you all to go inspect what’s wrong with the Crystal Heart?” Twilight’s former foalsitter inquired.

“Yes, she mentioned it was... melting?”

“Come this way, you’ll see it for yourselves.”

A couple of more twists and turns inside the labyrinthine hallways of the castle, and they reached a big door that led to a spiral staircase heading downwards, which they hastily proceeded to descend. Shortly after, they began to notice how the faint light seemed to be dimming as they went further down, until it was almost pitch black and they could not even see the steps beneath their hooves.

Finally, they stopped right before another door, which the captain of the royal guard pushed open, revealing an ample and gloomy circular chamber, where the only source of light was the vague, dying blue beam of the Crystal Heart hovering perfectly static in the centre.

As they stepped in, they heard small splashes underneath their hooves, which also made echo in the emptiness of the room. The whole floor was flooded with no more than two centimetres of crystal clear water, whose source was no other than the magical jewel. Drop by drop, the transparent liquid would constantly and slowly fall from its bottom tip into the large pond below.

“It’s really strange, isn’t it?” Cadance asked, as they got closer.

“Hmm... I can’t seem to pick up any signs of a curse around it...” Twilight observed, scanning it carefully with her horn “which is really strange, since my first thought was that this was just another one of the strange events happening since yesterday... but the Crystal Heart doesn’t seem to be affected by any type of magic at all!”

“So... is it melting all by itself?” Shining Armor suggested, confused.

“There’s another odd thing right there: see, I don’t believe it’s melting, or its volume would’ve decreased a lot by now. It’s actually generating water around itself.”

Their curious eyes focused on the suspended gemstone, as they watched quietly the drops forming around its cold, barely lit blue surface, then rolling down leisurely, and ultimately falling to the ground in a dull and simple way.

“It almost looks like it’s... crying” the timid yellow pegasus muttered, unexplainably feeling terribly lugubrious from the sight.

Suddenly, a hoofstep was heard splashing in the water, which echoed throughout the entire room. It appeared to be coming from somewhere in the shadows that swallowed the most part of the chamber, which put the captain of the royal guard on full alert. Another splash followed: they were definitely not alone in there.

Shining Armor turned his head to where he believed the sound was coming from, and immediately landed his gaze upon a large amount of stirring shadows moving towards them, which eventually revealed the distinctive form of the fiend pony Twilight and her friends had already met before.

“Oh my goodness... it’s him!” the purple unicorn said with her voice trembling in panic and horror.

There he was again, advancing slowly in their direction, only this time he had his wings folded and was not wearing his full-body armour, but merely one smaller chest plate, two pairs of lofty horseshoes, and the same thin crown, all of black metal. His coat was utterly dark, so as his lengthy, straight mane and tail. They could not see his eyes, for his fringe covered them, and he had no cutie mark at all.

Without making any questions or thinking twice, Shining Armor bravely charged towards him in vehemence, only to see his excessive confidence being thrown to the ground like his dormant body, after his adversary easily threw him through the air just by using the same spell he had used to repel the royal guards back in Canterlot, before confronting Celestia.

“Shining Armor!” Cadance cried, as a blinding light illuminated the whole room for a split second.

After the intense flash dimmed and their vision readjusted, Twilight lit her horn and, without wasting any time, made the six Elements of Harmony fly out from the satchel, quickly placing the five necklaces around their respective owners’ necks, finalising with the crown-like one on her own head.

They charged up the power of the Elements and fired a massive rainbow-coloured beam, hitting directly their target. There was no way he could have survived that powerful strike. Yet, Twilight could not help but to feel that it all had been too much easy... he did not even tried to evade their attack.

After the dust settled, they could see that he was still standing on the agitated water, without even a single a scratch to be found.

“Oh no!...” Twilight whimpered desperately. She knew he would retaliate.

He reared up imposingly, and then clashed his front hooves vigorously with the ground, splashing some more water. This generated a small earthquake, and, as the shock waves got to where they were standing, they heard the Elements starting to crack.

“W-what’s happening?!”

“This... this isn’t possible!”

The six ponies witnessed all their hopes shatter into pieces like Elements they carried in a split second. That was it... he was more powerful than Celestia, and, not only he was immune to the power of the Elements of Harmony, he had just destroyed them with the greatest ease. Princess Cadance just sobbed uncontrollably while holding the head of her unconscious and possibly concussed husband on her front hooves.

His mighty voice echoed in the chamber as he spoke in his serene tone, but still loud and firm.

“You bear these symbols of friendship. So shall I put yours to the test.”

The dark alicorn enlightened his horn with his distinctive white magic aura and created a black mass of opaque smoke, which rapidly spread around and involved all of them completely.

When the spell was finished, the smoke phased out and everypony but him had disappeared. Only he remained alone in the chamber now, staring blankly at the faintly lit Crystal Heart.