27

Soulless

Luna woke, breathing heavily. She stood alone in a claustrophobic cave. The rocks were shades of dark blues and blacks. She then noticed it was cold. Bitingly cold. She held her wings close and her ears flat. Her short fur fluffed out, and her sweat froze where it was. Every breath she took seemed to drain away heat, and it felt as though her blood had become slush. She felt something cold around her neck, but nothing was there. She remembered a spell which could warm her, but when she tried to cast it, her horn didn't even glow.

There was a blue light coming from behind her which illuminated the cave. Turning around, Luna saw a bright blue and white fire, much larger than herself. The flames shot forth from a fissure in the ground, and a little ash fell around it, leaving a thin layer on the ground. It crackled away invitingly. Shivering, she trudged towards it, but something was wrong. As she got closer, the air around her grew more frigid. The fire itself was cold.

Luna stopped, nonplussed. "What?" she muttered through chattering teeth. "What is this?" Looking up, she realized the ash was really snow. Now she was nearer, the crackle of the fire sounded more akin to crushing ice. Luna backed away, trying desperately to warm herself up. She looked around herself again. There was only her and this freezing fire in the small cave. A cold, dark feeling filled her heart. There was a gust of wind behind her, causing her to shudder.

"Luna."

Luna gasped. She recognized her sister's voice again, and for a moment she became excited, but something about her sounded different. Luna turned around apprehensively and saw Celestia, standing in front of the freezing fire and smiling at her. She looked as she had before her death—her mane and tail were no longer gold, her coat no longer glowed, and she even wore her regalia—but again a sense of unease filled Luna's mind.

"Tia?"

"Of course."

Luna squinted at her, trying to match anything to her doubts. "But how? Where are we? Why doth my magic not work? This is not the Elysian Isles, and thou art not as thou wert before."

"Even so. I am here."

"But where? Where are we, Tia?"

"It matters not. I am with thee." Celestia walked to Luna, her wings outstretched. Luna backed up a pace, the unease turning to dread. The back of her head started to prickle. She took another look at her sister's kind face, and she reluctantly let her sister hug her.

Immediately at Celestia's touch, the wind was taken from Luna's lungs. She felt as though she just plunged into ice water. Celestia grabbed her tightly, wrapping Luna with her wings. Luna pushed away, trying to breathe. She kicked at Celestia, trying to scream but unable. She finally wrestled away from her sister's grasp, shivering violently, and her lungs worked again. "Thou art not my sister!" she gasped. "Thou art not Celestia! Avaunt!"

Celestia's smile vanished, becoming a stern line. Luna's heart twisted, and she staggered to the ground with a yelp. Through freezing tears, she saw four scarlet stab wounds appear, one by one, on Celestia's white chest. Celestia remained stoic, blood now dripping onto the floor and oozing down her legs. Her mane and tail stopped flowing, becoming limp. A sharp crack sounded, and her horn clattered on the cave floor. Her wings tore themselves off slowly and rested on either side of her, her stubs bleeding. Blood ebbed from her mouth and nose, and cuts appeared all over her body. With eyes now fogged over, she still glowered at Luna.

"Thou couldst have saved me," Celestia said, her voice raspy and hollow. "Why didst thou run? Why didst thou abandon me? Why didst thou forsake me?"

"Thou art not my sister!" Luna choked out.

"No!" Celestia thundered. "I am Celestia! Look at me! I am dead because of thee! Look at me, Luna! Look!"

Luna's heart still twisted, and her ragged breath rose in front of her. Celestia began to walk in a circle around her, still staring. Luna's nose was soon filled with the smell of death. Celestia's face started to slip, showing more clearly her eyes and teeth. Hairs from her mane, tail, and coat started falling unceremoniously to the ground. Her cheeks became sunken, and her ribs and spine grew prominent. Her tiara and chest-piece fell with sharp clatters. Her coat made apparent the skeleton which hid underneath. Her eyes slowly withered away, leaving behind dark sockets, but she still stared. Luna looked away, her brain throbbing and prickling.

"No!" Celestia shouted, her voice rattling. "Look at me! Look!" Luna was forced by something unseen to watch again. Chunks of Celestia's skin fell, revealing yellowed bone and blackened carrion. Flesh began to drop to the ground underneath her as she continued to walk. Her now reddened shoes fell to the wayside. Her organs, no longer restrained by flesh, also fell, leaving behind empty cavities. With every step she took, another chunk of her body hit the ground with a sickening plop. Soon, all that remained of her body was a yellow skeleton and a blackened, beating heart. Celestia stopped in front of the freezing fire and faced Luna.

Luna still knelt on the ground, her heart threatening to rip in half. "Thou... art not... Celestia."

The skeleton cocked its head to one side. The black heart finally ceased, and it turned into shadow. Luna screamed, the pain in her chest shooting to every fiber in her body. She collapsed, and the pain stopped all at once. Luna lied there, wheezing, her heart quickly but weakly resuming its job. A cold, bony hoof tilted her head up to gaze at the skull. The skeleton slowly turned from yellow to black, and it too turned into thick black smoke. Everything which had fallen off also evaporated. The smoke churned in front of her, spinning faster and faster, and it coalesced into another figure. The smoke holding Luna's head was now a grey hoof. A pair of green eyes emerged and stared at her. He smiled.

"Luna."

Her eyes widened, looking at someone she never thought she would see again. "Sombra?"

Sombra let go of Luna, and her head hit the ground. Her brain stumbled with this new revelation. Sombra looked as he was before his fall. He was without his armor and red robe. His horn was not red and curved but was as a normal unicorn's. His eyes weren't red as before but were a light shade of green. She tried to pick herself back up, but, her energy sapped, she fell back down. Sombra sat down between her and the fire, as if waiting for her. While she lied there, shivering weakly in the oppressive cold, he didn't look the slightest bit uncomfortable. Luna finally found her voice.

"Brother?"

Sombra frowned. "Hm," he said. "After all that has happened, thou thinkest of me yet as thy brother?" Luna stared at him but had no reply. "Hm." Sombra stood and began pacing around her again. Luna slowly and shakily sat herself up, watching his movement. Her teeth chattered, and she held her wings and ears close to herself. She noticed her own mane and tail lying limp on the ground. She could not yet find the energy to stand.

"Where are we?" she asked.

He stopped again between her and the fire, and he gestured to the cavern with a wave of a hoof. "My hell." He titled his head in thought. "Well, to say that would be disingenuous of me. Our souls are within the amulet's gem. For the last millennium, this hell hath been my home."

Luna looked him again, still bewildered. "But how art thou alive? I thought—"

"Thy pawns killed me not," Sombra interrupted, "not utterly. When ye banished me—yea, tried to kill me—my soul fled here, to my amulet, and I have lived in it and through whosoever wore it. I was so desperate to live, but being in this infernal place for centuries only to be nothing more than a cold parasite to the world is a miserable existence.

"When my time had come, when the Crystal Empire returned once more, I was awoken. For a happy and brief moment, I lived in mine own body before your pawns came and took away my life. Once more, the amulet and its host were the only body I had. Most ponies who crossed my path I deemed unfit to wear the amulet. Gale, the griffon through whom I lived these past two years, was one of the few who not only knew and respected the power which he wielded but also took heed to my commands. He was a most proper host for me."

Luna still couldn't understand. "But why didst thou do this? Why cause all this suffering and destruction?"

Sombra stood and glared at Luna. "Darest thou cry to me of suffering and destruction?" He huffed and paced again. "I sought to reclaim what was once mine when I no longer needed merely to survive. I took advantage of the griffons in Griffonstone, learning of their avarice and resentment, and fired up their thirst for bloodshed. I knew the Crystal Empire and its inhabitants would be preserved in the Frozen North if the Heart were removed, as it had been for the last thousand years, so I had the griffons take it thence and bring it unto me."

He stopped again, but this time he was behind Luna. "For damning me for those centuries, I had meant to have both thee and Celestia killed, but thou didst survive. I presume it is better this way. I was able to talk to thee before I killed thee myself."

Luna looked at the blue fire in front of her and with wide eyes understood. She hastily stood and whirled around, facing Sombra, her breaths distinct in the air. Sombra was in her shadow now—she could only see clearly his green eyes. She became lightheaded and stumbled, and Sombra laughed.

"Ah!" he said. "Found thy second wind, no?"

"Sombra," she pled, "do not do this!"

He stepped forward, making her step closer to the fire. "Not so fun, is it, to be faced with utter destruction?"

Luna stood her ground. "Sombra, I know how thou feelest!"

"Lies!" He stepped right up to her so they were face to face. "Thou knowest not how a millennium of isolation feels! A thousand years of cold, of darkness, of hopeless despair!"

"I do know!"

"Lies, lies!"

"I speak truth!" Luna slowly walked around Sombra, away from the fire. "I too was overcome by evil, by hatred. I too was banished for a millennium by my sister, trapped in a dark and cold embrace—within my very moon." She stopped, placing Sombra between herself and the fire. "I harbored these terrible feelings of jealousy and hatred until Celestia and her friends showed great kindness unto me. I know how thou dost feel."

Sombra scoffed. "And yet thou hast done nothing to help me."

A sense of guilt filled her chest. "I could have been thee, Sombra. The only difference between me and thee was her. I had her. Thou hadst no one."

"Because ye both forsook me!" Sombra shook in anger. "Where where ye? How did ye respond when I returned the first time? Ye were not there, save your pawns. They killed me! Killed me, Luna! Why did Celestia save thee and not both of ye me? Were ye unable?"

"No—"

"Was I not worth saving?"

"Sombra—"

He stomped on the ground, cracking it. "Answer me, Luna!"

"I did try to go! As soon as I heard thou hadst returned with the Crystal Empire, I begged Celestia to let me help thee!"

"And Celestia wanted not to save me?" Luna didn't answer. Sombra spoke again. "Why didst thou not come of thine own accord?"

"Celestia told me to stay."

"Thou didst act solely upon her words?"

"I trusted her!"

"But why didst thou forsake me?"

"Thou wert evil!"

"No more than thee!"

"I changed!"

"As would I, but ye gave me not the chance!"

"Thou wert never penitent in the first place!"

Sombra threw his head back and roared. "That did not give thou and Celestia the right to take from me what I loved most!"

"What?! The Crystal Empire was cursed by thee!"

"No!" he thundered. "Not them! My daughter!"

Luna gasped softly. "Meanest thou Cadence?"

"Speak not her name."

Luna squinted at him. "What business hast thou with her?"

"What business?" he asked incredulously. "She is my daughter!"

"She never knew thee as her father!"

"I never had the chance to be one to her! Ye took my chance away from me!"

"We never took her from thee! Thou didst curse her to the future when thou didst condemn the rest of the Crystal Empire to the Frozen North!"

"To protect her from their fate!"

"She lost countless years with her fellow ponies, Sombra. She had to grow up in a world she was never to be a part of. She asked Celestia and I countless times who her real parents were, and we had not the heart to tell her of thee. Think of how she would feel, knowing who her father really was, why he was not there for her."

"Ye told her not even of her mother?"

"No, for we feared it would lead to more questions of thee."

"She had a right to know the truth!"

"The truth of what? That her mother died in foaling and her father became a fallen king because of it?"

"Silence! I shall not hear any more of this!" He shook slightly, but Luna sensed it wasn't anger anymore.

"How would we have explained to her what thou didst, how thou didst turn to dark magic and let its power consume thee?"

"She would have known how much I loved her mother, that I sacrificed myself for both of them!"

"By losing thyself to the darkness, Cadence lost both of you! Who truly sacrificed here?"

Sombra closed his eyes and stamped the ground. "Thou dost not understand! I tried! I tried to resist! I tried, but I could not! When I was unable to resurrect her, I could no longer fight the dark magic's temptations!"

"And now thy daughter lieth dead in the Frozen North because of thee!"

"No!" Sombra yelled, taking a step towards Luna. "That was never my intention! It was that damned griffon who broke the Crystal Heart!"

"Knowest thou she had a daughter?!"

Sombra's retort died before it escaped his lips. The look of fierce anger on his face slowly gave way to one of shock. To Luna's surprise, the cave grew colder, and the fire's flames shuddered. "What?" he asked quietly.

Luna lowered her voice. "She had a foal, not a few months old."

"No." He looked about Luna's face, as if looking for a sign of deceit. He shook his head slightly. "No."

"She was a little pink filly with a purple and blue mane."

"No..."

"She had the brightest blue eyes thou wouldst ever see."

"S-stop..."

"She was an alicorn, the first in so long. She was loved so dearly by Cadence and Shining Armor, her husband."

"Please..."

"Her name was Flurry Heart—Flurry for the Frozen North, Heart for the Crystal Heart." Luna, unable to think of anything else, shrugged. "Now she is dead, lost to her namesake because of her namesake." The cave grew colder.

A glistening tear rolled silently down Sombra's face. "I knew not Cadence had... had wed somepony, let alone had a foal with him." He sat and looked down. "In my mind, she was still my little filly. She had just learned to walk when I sent her away." He started to choke up but cleared his throat. "When I finally found her after so many years, I... I hardly recognized her. She was an alicorn, something I could not attain, something I always wanted her to achieve. I was so proud of her, and I hated myself for being absent from her life." He sniffed. "And now thou tellest me she was a mother also?" He closed his eyes, forcing out the welled-up tears.

Luna sat in front of him and laid a hoof on his shoulder. He was like ice, but she ignored it. "Is this why thou didst all this? The war, the killing, the destruction? For Cadence?"

He looked at Luna and nodded quietly. "I wanted to be her father, to be the father she never had. She never stopped being my daughter. I never stopped loving her."

"Sombra, this was not an act of love. This was selfishness."

Sombra looked down again, his voice a whisper. "Was that too great a request, to finally be a father to my daughter?"

She put her hoof back on the ground, sighing. "Sometimes, for those we love, we have to give up what we want the most, yea, even our greatest and most sincere dreams and desires."

He looked up. "And if they are one and the same?"

"Was thy happiness worth hers?"

Sombra winced. "No." He shook his head slowly and wiped his eyes. "No, it was not. I realize now, but far too late for her sake. Now she is dead. Dead, along with a family I never knew."

Sombra idly traced with his hoof in the thin layer of snow. "How many more have I killed for my selfishness? How many lives have I cut short, stolen away? How many families have I shattered? How many parents are without children and children without parents because of mine actions? How many graves have I caused to be dug, names to be etched, coffins to be sealed, farewells to be given? How many have died by my hooves?"

Luna sighed. "I do not know." She stood and offered a hoof. "But there is yet hope for thee, Sombra. Let me help thee."

Sombra shivered slightly. "What hope?" His two quiet words echoed in her mind, and she winced. He continued quietly. "I had hoped I could save my wife. I had hoped thou and Celestia would help me. I had hoped I could be a father. I had hoped I could save her. I had hoped there would be few who died. I..." He choked up, and, after a moment of stuttering and fighting it, he silently cried.

Luna had the split-second thought to hug him, to comfort him, but she remembered the feeling of an icy drowning. She looked over Sombra, who paid her no mind. She could feel the air becoming more and more frigid, as if the cave and fire matched Sombra's grief. Bracing herself, she hugged him, but to her surprise, nothing happened. Sombra weakly hugged back, now openly sobbing on her shoulder. They held one another for a long time, not speaking. When Sombra finally quieted and let go of Luna, he looked exhausted. He hung his head and breathed raggedly.

"There is hope, Sombra," Luna said. "When I returned from my banishment, I could not look Celestia in the eye. I thought she would surely destroy me then. I believed myself beyond forgiveness, beyond mercy, because I had shown none unto her nor others. Yet she did. Celestia welcomed me with an open heart and bore no ill will towards me. She was overjoyed at my return."

"Didst thou kill anypony?" Sombra asked weakly.

Luna hesitated and sighed. "No."

"Then of course thou wert forgiven. I cannot seek forgiveness from the dead. There is no hope for me." Sombra shakily stood and slowly walked to the freezing fire.

"Sombra?" Luna asked, standing. "What art thou—"

"This fire destroyeth souls," he said, stopping. "When I pass into it, as I ought to have done when I first fled here, no part of me shall exist." He turned around, facing Luna. She could only see his mournful green eyes in his silhouette. "I have done so much wickedness unto thee and unto countless others. There is no redemption for me."

"No! Sombra, please listen to me!" She took a step forward, but the cold already was unbearable. She reached out to him. "Do not destroy thyself! Thou canst still change and do good! I thought I had lost thee once! Do not leave me again! Please, Sombra!"

A single tear fell. "Forgive me, Luna."

"Sombra, no!"

He turned and leapt into the freezing fire. He was swiftly lost in the blinding white, but his screams echoed sharply in the caves. Luna ran closer to the flames, looking desperately for him, but the fire's cold was like a wall, and she backed away shuddering. The fire burned brighter and colder, and Luna held a wing up to shield her face. His tortured screams finally died out as Luna's vision became white.

She blinked furiously, trying to see. She immediately was surrounded by warm air, which shocked her. She breathed in the air deeply, and her whole body filled with warmth. She was hovering again, and there was nothing around her neck. She could feel again her injuries, and she winced. She heard worried voices below her.

Her vision coming back, she saw the audience of pegasi, griffons, and dragons she and Sombra had left behind. Sombra's crystal body had shattered on the ground below her. Nothing had moved—not the crowd below, nor the moon above, nor a surrounding cloud—as if no time had passed. The audience all hushed, looking at her attentively. Looking at her hooves, she was surprised to see the Dragon Scepter still in her grasp. She looked back at the crowd, sighing deeply.

"Sombra," she whispered, "I hope thou hast finally found some peace. I am truly sorry for how it all had to end."