From the Shadows

Twilight, for the second time in the last few hours, pushed through her front door, less frantic and more exhausted than her prior entrance. Her eyes drooped, her ears as well, and she half-mindedly went through her routine, shutting the door behind her and greeting her assistant.

"Hey Spike, I'm back."

She was surprised when she wasn't answered. She figured he must be asleep; she would be the same way in a few moments. The sun had hidden behind the veil of the horizon, and the land had slowly begun its descent into darkness.

Twilight stepped over the crystals, left on the floor from a few hours of hosting the king the night before, as she tidied up the room; several books were left open, all of them about magic, as well as personal favorites of hers.

"Spike was reading these?" she thought to herself in surprise.

She was proud of his interest in the subject, but she would congratulate him on that after she had rested. She was almost too tired to wonder why the drake would want to learn about the elements of harmony, specifically the topics explored in the books.

She turned around from shelving the books in their allotted slots on the shelves, and began to plod upstairs. She topped their summit, and turned for her room, but stopped in her tracks.

Spike was seated on his hind, staring with massive, overwhelmingly green, crying eyes through the threshold in a familiar trance. His purple cheeks were tainted red and tear stained, and immediately, Twilight was wide awake.

"Spike!"

The alicorn rushed to the dragon's side, and shook him back to reality, saving him from the curse she remembered from the Crystal Empire.

He looked around terrified as he came out of his fixation, weeping and dazed, as the verdant glow receded from his eyes, leaving them red and moist, but normal. He gauged her carefully, making sure she was real, repeating the action to the home he was in once again.

"T-Twilight?" he asked aloud, touching her face slowly, hesitantly, then hugging her firmly with both arms as more tears flowed forth.

"It's okay Spike," she said consolingly, "you're home. It was a trick; it wasn't real."

Twilight held him to her breast, growing wetter as time passed with the dragon's tears; the door, his reaction, she had seen it all before, and she knew the culprit as well. But when did he cast the spell on the door?

Then, she noticed her couch, a bit off to her right, ruined as much of her friends' furniture had been by the king's repose by sharp, ragged, dark grey, opaque stones. It wasn't so when she had left; true, there had been a few, small crystals through the cushions, but now, it was ruined to the extent of the guest room's bed.

Sombra had been here, recently too.

Her fur grew wetter as Spike continued sobbing into her as a child to a mother, and another thought came to mind; if Spike had been transfixed by the door's curse, he couldn't have read the books.

"Oh no," she whispered under her breath, wishing she wasn't right.

She stayed with Spike until he stopped crying, and consoled him once again. Then, she made her way into the library's main room. The king had been here, which meant that his trail was now fresh; she could prove herself to the princess by tracking him down alone.

She thought how to do it at first; Twilight remembered learning a spell similar to the one Celestia used to trap the king, one that created a force field that was nearly impenetrable, and tuning it to match her mentor's in strength. She was confident that she could muster the spell from memory, and use it to detain the king.

Twilight checked that Spike was alright one last time; he was silent in his bed, still shaken, but not as effected as he had been the first time he had experienced the curse. She shut the door, trotted downstairs, and set off to redeem herself.

Outside, she eyed a few dark crystals circling around the base of the oak she called home, and set off after them in pursuit at a gallop.

****************

Sombra sat up on his bed as he heard the door slam shut. He smiled as he accepted that Twilight had once again left the house to him, alone, except for the harmless dragon.

The foolish princess; it was too easy to anticipate her. She was blinded by her own impulses, and for all her intellectuality, was stupid. She did not plan, she reacted, and blindly at that; she assumed that the cushion provided by the elements of harmony and her regal allies' strength would be substantial enough to compensate for her brash actions. Upon reflection, he realized he could have killed her by now if he'd wanted to, or at least trapped her, making her presence void.

Trapping her wasn't the issue, that would be easy enough; the time for it, however, was a conundrum. It would have to be done delicately, not too soon to avoid the elements of harmony's power while she still had spirit, not too late, lest she would not comply. It would have to be done carefully, wisely...delicately.

Sombra eased his laboring mind for a moment. The room was dark, as was the window, his self-built crystalline staircase leading out into the outside world through its threshold. More crystals littered the room; they rose in columns to touch the ceiling, and marked the paths through the floor he preferred transgressing. They were dark and opaque, mysterious, and yet, for what they lacked in gleam, they made up for in their rigid strength; they were his creation alright.

He sat with his head erect, his body lying on the limpid mattress with his legs tucked underneath him, and his eyes provided a slight glow in the otherwise shadowy room; it almost felt like home. No, home was half a continent to the north, or at least it used to be. He was homeless now, exiled from his fatherland, unable to return; at least, for now.

The silence in the home was wonderful. It gave him the quiet he needed to hear himself think, and Sombra made the most of it.

He closed his eyes as he grew lost in thought. The time for action would come soon, when his enemies were sound asleep and his pursuers tired and deluded. They would be soon; the trail he'd left was impossible to unravel, and the moon beckoned tired eyes shut. It was a time for thinking; the time for action was coming. A time for thinking, and learning.

His heart said to act now, but in the silence, his thoughts were louder than his absent pulse, and they told him to wait, to use patience and timing and strategy. Passion told him to unleash his power, but wisdom bid him to wait. Passion demanded him to punish, but wisdom convinced him to calculate and weigh his methods, to be sure of what was right and when it would be ripe to employ.

And in the quiet, his thoughts were louder. They were wise while his heart was fiery, and now, he wisely chose to obey his thoughts. On any other night, he may have listened to his heart; he had in the past, and it had served him well.

But the past was when he was a king and a warrior; now, he was nothing more than a shadow, trying to earn a life once lost, and trying to learn how to do so. On any other night, he may have listened to his heart, but not this night. He was a thinker now, not a fighter; the time for that would come, but that time was not now. Now, he needed to think, and learn.

But what else did he need to learn about?

He knew Honesty's, Generosity's, and Magic's wielders, as well as the enigma of their weaknesses, solved in mere minutes of conversation and observation. He believed he'd figured out the wielders of the other elements; the vibrant fool, the pink one, was most definitely Laughter. It took the brunt of his power and the sting of fear to get her to stop giggling like a foal in the bakery earlier. Yes, the pink one was definitely Laughter; but the other two?

Kindness and Loyalty, the last of the six elements told of in the books, graciously provided, however unwillingly, by the library's master, but which mare wielded which? The yellow one was utterly silent; Sombra knew so little of her, that he couldn't recall the sound of her voice, let alone what she looked like. Pink mane, yellow fur, that was all he could manage; it was hard to remember the details of something that tried to recede in the face of company.

But the other one, the Pegasus, the one with a spectrum in her mane. Her personality was obvious enough, and it definitely was unkind.

The yellow one had to be Kindness, and the other one, Loyalty.

He knew their features, he knew the roots of their personalities, he knew their elements, and he could guess at their fears. But, fear as a thing, he knew well.

And fear, in its many forms, often was most powerful in the form of loss, be it loss of life, possessions, image, family or friends. The most intense fear came from losing what is most valuable; to Honesty, it was family, identity in the form of the land she owned and cultivated, and honor; to Generosity, it was beauty, purity, and image; to Magic, power and esteem; to Loyalty, strength, and image as well as her alabaster companion, but mostly success; to Laughter, happiness and joy, simple things in accordance with her simple beginnings; and to Kindness... what did she value?

Sombra realized he did not know enough, and so, his eyes opening, he drifted outside his room in silence and among the shadows to solve the problem.

No more books; he'd scoured the shelves for anything useful earlier and found worthy material, but there was little more he could learn about the properties of the elements, their history and their power, the organization of the Equestrian hierarchy, the roles of the princesses, the royal guard or each species of pony, the alicorn sisters' influence over the modern Crystal Empire, how order was maintained peacefully, the history he had missed or the customs he had been absent to learn, or how the forces of good seemed to be accepted as that which kept the two kingdoms in tact. An afternoon of reading had yielded its reward, and he was wiser because of it, but he plenty more to learn before the time for action came to be.

Now was a time for learning, and thinking; so, Sombra searched the library for a source he had not yet devoured.

He searched the house over, but it wasn't until he intruded on the princess's quarters that he found something of use and purpose. It came in the form of a diary.

****************

Twilight rounded the corner, following the trail of crystals as it led down yet another alleyway. It was dark out, but the alley was darker.

Her mind told her to turn, but her heart told her to press on.

Any other day, she may have listened to her mind. But now, with adrenaline born of the pursuit of success, her heart's voice was louder than her thoughts'. She listened to her heart.

She sparked another glow from her horn, slightly illuminating the gap between the two homes. She told herself that the king, as well as accomplishment and proof of her competence, may be just around the corner, and pressed on.

There was no time to think, only to act.

Any other day, she may have listened to her mind, but now, her heart was louder. Now, she was a warrior, a princess. Now, she was fearless. Any other day, she may have listened to her mind, but her heart told to go down the alley.

She listened to her heart.

****************

Sombra flipped another page of the diary, and found it rich in secrets and knowledge, just as the pages before it. It was not the knowledge offered by an encyclopedia; this knowledge came in the form of stories catalogued as they happened, and once unraveled, unveiled unequalled knowledge on his adversaries.

The reality behind Honesty's lack of parents, likely revealed and transcribed as a secret between friends. Kindness's value of the lives of fauna and flora, her love of the forests especially. Generosity's humble beginnings, championed by hard work and a smidgeon of luck to lead her to becoming a mare of elegance and sophistication. Laughter's near sociopathic tendencies, discovered when her friends denied her companionship for a day to hide a secret surprise party. Loyalty's dreams of becoming a member of a globally known military stunt flight team.

And all of Magic's secrets as well; her past, her thoughts and beliefs on the subjects of companionship and magic, her aspirations and hopes of a successful, regal future in which her friends, mortal companions to an immortal ruler, would linger. And, reiterated to the king, her value for flawless success.

The king suddenly jumped as he heard a *whoosh* from the corner of the room, and in a defensive instinct, faded to a shadow on the ground. He had thought the drake asleep in his miniscule bed, and upon a second look, realized he still was. Smoke lingered in the air around the dragon's dormant head, and a scroll now rested on the hardwood in front of his snout.

Sombra retook the form of his body, abandoning shadows and stealth in the process; after all, there were no eyes around to see him. Silently and confidently, he laid the diary down where he'd found it on the nightstand, willing the drawer it was concealed in to make no noise as he pushed it shut. It obeyed.

Making no noise as he walked, he strode to the drake's bedside. He made sure, twice, that the reptile was indeed asleep before he retrieved the scroll. Somehow, the dragon seemed to be a teleportation gate of sorts, as the scroll was a letter embroidered with the royal seal; a response from the princess, intended for Princess Twilight Sparkle, but received by the king of shadows himself.

He read the note quickly and quietly, taking care not to disturb and wake the only potential compromise to his stealth in the night.

"Dear Twilight,

It is good that you feel you and your friends can bring Sombra in alone, but please do just that. Bring him in, do not expel him. By this, I mean do not use the elements of harmony against him. We still need him, specifically, his knowledge.

My sister and I are coming closer to finding the source of the dark magic, but we must be careful not to be overconfident. Deal with Sombra as you deem fitting, but do not use the elements unless you have no other options.

I know you will not fail me,

Your mentor and friend,

Princess Celestia."

Sombra rolled the scroll and placed it back where he'd retrieved it, and drifted out the door. The grandfather clock struck nine o'clock. No longer was it a time for learning. No longer was it a time for thinking. The king closed his eyes as he faded into a shadow on the ground, and passed underneath the front door, moving along the surfaces of the world as a remnant.

Now was a time for action.