The Shadow King Returns

"So this is where you'll be hiding me until my revival?" Sombra said in a befuddled manner.

"Yeah Cadence and I are the only ones who know about these secret rooms, so we agreed that if we ever needed to hide anything we would put it in one of them." Shining had picked a hiding spot close to his personal office for the sake of convenience.

"But if you agreed to hide things in them wouldn't that make them a prime place for her to look if she thinks that your acting strange?"

"That's the idea, if I don't act strange there is no chance of you being found. This way Cadence is the only pony that I need to worry about until you and I can cast the spell to revive you."

"I'm not fully confident that this is going to work." Sombra was starting to ponder the credibility of the prince, then something occurred to him. What was there to lose? He was a disembodied horn with barely any semblance of magic left, so why not just roll with it until he's back on his hooves.

"Actually Shining, this will due just fine. But secret room or not you will still need to cast a magic concealing spell on the room itself if you don't want any curious passerby to come and investigate while we are performing the resurrection spell itself. But I'm sure you could use a variant of your shield spell for it."

A smug grin could not begin to describe the look of pure elation on Shining Armor's face. Somepony recognized that his shield spell wasn't just for making shields, that it could be combined with other spells to create different effects. Not even Twilight complemented his spell like that before. Cadence hadn't ever noticed either... ouch that kind of stung. The look was starting to shift into a frown but Shining mentally slapped himself. No, don't mope just be happy that somepony thought that the spell was cool enough to take a closer look at and pay attention to.

"Shining are you alright? Hello?" Sombra had been trying to catch Shining Armor's attention for the past few minutes, to no avail. It is much harder to do when you are only a weak voice. It was much easier when he had hooves to wave in front of a pony's face or to slap them with if the need arose. Sombra was getting to the point that he wished he could do the latter when he decided to try and yell.

"PRINCE SHINING ARMOR I AM IN NEED OF YOUR ATTENTION."

To Shining's credit he did little more than flinch out of his daze when Sombra yelled. "Oh sorry Sombra I didn't mean to space out, what did you need?"

"I was going to ask when you were planning to perform the revival spell, but then I noticed that you were not with me mentally and I became mildly concerned. So what is on your mind?"

Shining became slightly embarrassed of his dilemma and his face started to shift from white to red. "Oh... I was ah, just thinking about that actually! Yeah, tomorrow I'm supposed to be training the guards in the morning so I could leave the lieutenant in charge as a 'test.' That would free me up until the evening when Cadence usually swamps me with papers. So in that time frame I would be able to get a book containing the spell we'll need and come back here to put it in place and perform the spell to revive you. Then we could just wait here until Cadence comes in and then you could introduce yourself."

Damn that was a nice save if I do say so myself and it seems like a well thought out plan too, it's perfect. The look of satisfaction Shining wore was genuine but was not there for the reason that Sombra thought it was. Nonetheless, he didn't see any major flaws in the plan so it was good enough for him.

"That sounds like a solid plan Shining." Sombra said, completely ignoring Shining Armors now fading blush. "It seems that we have nothing left to discuss about the matter so I bid you farewell until tomorrow."

"Yes, farewell to you too Sombra." Shining levitated Sombra's horn out and onto the floor, turned around and walked out the door. He made sure to hit the button to close the secret chamber that seamlessly blended in with the crystal tile floor. Shining looked around his office and noticed that the papers he had left on his desk were still right were he had left them. A heavy sigh left him as he trotted up to his desk to address the problem.

The sad look on his face soon turned curious as a thought came to mind. All of the papers up until this point did not have a single important thing on them, so if he were to reject the rest quickly nothing in the Empire would change for the better of the worse. Things were fine as they were and he was sure if the proposals got rejected they would be brought up again anyway. With that thought he quickly began stamping all of the papers with rejected. This surprisingly only took about ten minutes.

"Finally, I'll be able to get some fucking sleep. Awesome, so how long will I..." He stopped when he looked at his wall clock and saw that it was four o'clock. "Two hours... well better than nothing I suppose."

After a little walking Shining was so happy when he saw that his bed was within reach. So happy in fact, that upon collapsing on it he immediately fell into a deep sleep.

Sadly for him it did not last long as Cadence was trying to wake him up at six o'clock since they were supposed to get up at the same time.

"Shiny... Shiiiiiiny... Shining... Shining Armor... SHINING ARMOR... WAKE UP FOR CELESTIA'S SAKE." None of her attempts had woken up the log laying in her bed.

"Fine I guess this has to happen the hard way." Cadence got up from the bed and used her magic to get a bucket she kept under it for moments exactly like this. Which she had to use more frequently recently, odd, she thought. That didn't stop her from going into their private bathroom and filling the bucket with ice cold water. She leisurely walked over to Shining's side of the bed and took a moment to admire how he was sleeping.

He laid on his stomach, on top of the covers with all of his hooves splayed out, and had his face buried in his pillow. Aw he looks so cute when he's sleeping. Cadence took another moment to look over Shining's sleeping form before she emptied the contents of the bucket all over him and their bed.

The extremely high pitched squeal of the Prince was heard throughout the Castle and left many servant's trying to guess what had made such a noise.

"Glad to see you're awake Shiny, hurry up and get dry, we don't want to miss breakfast now." Cadence said with her easygoing smile, enough to lull anyone into a sense of serenity.

This was not the case for Shining Armor as he had lived with Cadence long enough to know that serenity was something that only existed in fairy tales, at least for him.

"I'll be right there dear go on ahead and wait for me in the dinning hall."

"Alright Shiny, try to hurry okay." Cadence trotted out of the bedroom with a winning smile on her face for being able to wake her husband up. Not something she hasn't done before but it doesn't get any easier the more it happens.

When the door closed Shining let out a sigh, rolled off of his bed, and trudged towards his bathroom to dry off. Why does she always do the bucket thing? Couldn't she just push me out of bed or even just let me sleep in a bit for once. Maybe she enjoys the squeal from her guard captain husband. Nope. Stopping right there, turning around, and never going near that train of thought ever again.

So how to introduce Sombra to Cadence. Just bringing him along and saying, 'hey Cadence look I made a friend,' would not work. So the direct approach is out. And having him help me with the workload without giving him credit isn't right. So the sneaky approach is out. What about a cinematic type reveal or something? Cadence is into plays and stuff, maybe that would ease the whole tried to destroy us at one point thing. That sounds good, just have him hide in the room for a bit after the spell and then bring Cadence in after her duties are done.

"Looks like I have a plan, now I just need to go to the library after breakfast to get it started." Shining finished drying off his coat and mane then headed out the door towards the dinning hall.

When Shining got to the dinning hall he sat across from Cadence at the small table that occupied the room at the moment. No need for an immense table if only two ponies are going to be eating. After Shining started to dig into his breakfast Cadence decided to try and keep the conversation calm since he had rude awakening."So Shiny did you manage to finish all of that paperwork I dropped off last night?"

Between mouthfuls of food Shining managed to get out an answer. "Yes I did and most of the stuff that you heard yesterday was redundant. There were a marginal few things that passed." He went back to his food after the interruption.

"Oh, how sad to have ponies waste their time telling me things that won't get through you."

"Cadence, I know that you know,not all ideas are good ideas. You don't need to hear everypony all the way through if their original proposal was ridiculous in the first place."

"But it helps with the image of a princess, the kind and noble being in charge of the Empire."

"Princess Celestia doesn't hear all of her subjects the whole way through. Does that mean shes not a good ruler?"

"No not at all, she has a much larger kingdom that I do and it would not be possible to hear everything. My, our, Empire on the other hoof is much smaller so such a thing is a reasonable request to the princess."

"As long as you can keep it up then I guess it is reasonable. I was just suggesting you act as a filter instead of a funnel. I'm the one who does all of that paperwork you know."

"I know Shiny but you can handle it, I'm sure most ponies would have collapsed under the pressure by now. Yet here you are doing just fine and still eating breakfast with your wife"

I'll be doing much better after today is over and I have some help. "Thank you dear, that means something coming from you." A bell rang out and Shining looked up at the clock, confirming that it was time to start their duties. "Alright dear we need to be going."

"Yes I heard, see you after court Shiny." With a quick kiss on the cheek Cadence was on her way to start her day.

Shining trotted towards the guard barracks with a slight giddiness that would have been odd to see if he didn't know how to contain himself. Alright if I give the lieutenant control and set them out on border drills that should keep the majority of the guards occupied for the day, so there won't be too many around the castle itself letting me roam at my leisure. Then its to the library then to the room for Sombra's revival.

As Shining approached the barracks his troops were already lined up, courtesy of his lieutenant Lucid Lance. "Alright ponies here's whats going to happen today you are all going to run border patrol drills and border defense drills. Lieutenant Lucid."

"Yes sir?"

"You are in charge for today, show me that even if I'm gone our Empire will still be safe."

"Yes sir!"

"Good, as you were gentlecolts."

Shining turned and started to walk away from the barracks towards the library and the next part of his plan. That went over better than anticipated, no questions or concerns. Maybe it was the whole defend the Empire bit, that seemed to tug at the heartstrings more than almost anything else I've said to them.

Upon entering the library Shining immediately headed for the restricted section. The magical barrier that protected it was of his design so it was no issue at all to get through. After casually stepping through the barrier he took a look around. Dusty books on shelves and more dusty books on shelves, there was a lot of variety here. Shining chuckled as he started to browse the shelves. Finding a magic book specializing in revival spells did not take as long as he had anticipated.

It was a brown book, worn, and with paper that was more yellow than white. It also had some ancient arcane looking symbols on the cover but that was typical for most magic books.

That was item number two on the list and next up is reviving Sombra. It would probably be best to take a secret passage up to the study. It would reduce the chances of anypony following me. Shining carried the book using his levitation and left the restricted section to slip unseen into a narrow passage.

The trip took little to no time at all with the use of the shortcut and Shining stepped out of the corridor and into his office. He did a quick scan of the room and after confirming he was alone, Shining slipped into the hidden chamber behind his desk.

"Ah Shining, I was wondering when you would be back. Did you sleep well after the long night you had?"

"No Sombra, my wife woke me up with a bucket of ice cold water."

While retaining a neutral tone Sombra asked, "I see and what did you say to her about that?"

"Yes dear I'm awake, go on to breakfast while I dry off."

In the silence that followed a pin dropping could have been loud enough to wake an Ursa. Then all of a sudden Sombra burst out into a guffaw that set Shining on edge.

"What in the name of Celestia is funny about that?"

After Some time Sombra regained enough of his composure to answer while still trying to contain his laughter. "You, my white knight, are so whipped it could strike fear into any bachelor."

"I am not whipped to that extreme, sure I do what she says a lot but that's part of a marriage. You have to work with one another."

"Aren't you reviving me because you AREN'T working together? That also does not mean you have to lose your spine Shining."

"If you think so then help me with that when we're done. On the way here I was reading up on the procedure for casting the most basic form of revival spell, but I'm not sure if that's going to cut it."

"Do not fret Shining I have enough magic to convert your spell into the one that we need, if I start to weaken all you have to to is funnel more magic into me."

"Got it I'll cast the barrier spell so we can get started." With a flick of his horn Shining put a magic barrier around the room. The walls held onto the glow of his magic for a brief moment before losing the light and returning to normal.

"It's up, are you ready Sombra?"

"Yes Shining, whenever you want to get started."

Shining Armor levitated the book in front of him and started to read the spell aloud while focusing his magic in the way that the spell commanded. After the third line of text Shining started to feel Sombra's magic overtaking the spell. It changed into something else entirely, while Shining was holding the spell together he noticed new words replacing the old ones for the spell. He started to chant the incantations again while fueling Sombra with this magic to keep the spell going.

It was not long before a lavender glow started to envelop Sombra's disembodied horn. It grew to the size of a pony and slowly started to dissipate. Like dust in the wind the magic was gone and a large dark grey stallion with flowing obsidian hair was left. His sclera was white this time not green yet he still had the red iris and the snake like pupil.

When Sombra smiled Shining almost jumped back, forgetting that the previous king had fangs. The former ruler slowly walked toward Shining Armor while maintaining that smile of his. He stopped in front of Shining and wrapped both of his forehooves around the princes neck and pulled him into a hug.

"Thank you, Prince Shining Armor."