So this is what life has come to.

You sit on a comfortable couch, and your eyes keep latching desperately onto Fluttershy’s or Sombra’s, because the alternative is to allow them to be drawn to one of two impossible things: Discord, under the yellow pegasus’ wing, or the fact that you all sit on the ceiling.

Sombra seems to notice your discomfort, and his grip about you tightens reassuringly. You relax noticeably.

Your friends back in Hoofington had warned you that Ponyville was a magnet for trouble, and that it was a miracle it hadn’t been wiped off the map since the return of Nightmare Moon. That was silly, you’d replied. It’s a small town; nothing bad, or even strange, ever happens in a town like this. So emboldened, you moved here.

You are now in the home of one of the Elements of Harmony, and her other guests are a purportedly-reformed manifestation of chaos and a stallion with a reputation so reviled that the whole of Equestria believed that his one alleged death hadn’t been enough.

You can hear your friends’ laughter already. At least Discord isn't an elephant anymore; he's coiled like a snake and curled up by Fluttershy.

“Do we have to be on the ceiling..?” you inquire meekly.

“Of course!” answers chaos incarnate, his tail taking another cookie off of the plate he’d carried in. Of all the things in the room, that plate is the only thing right-side up, so it looks like the treats are hanging from the bottom until somepony reaches for one. It’s giving you vertigo after walking up the wall and across the ceiling had failed to do so. “I thought that of all the ponies here, you’d appreciate it the most. Surely you must feel as if your life is upside-down. I’m just helping the rest of the world catch up to you!”

He’s not wrong there. You open your mouth to make a remark about literal and figurative upheavals of perspective, but somehow you find one of his cookies stuffed in your muzzle. It isn't bad by any stretch, though you have a hard time deciding if this one tastes more like cinnamon or butterscotch. Its chewy texture does, however, prevent you from speaking until you can finish it.

"Perhaps we should fill her in on our arrangement," suggests Sombra, a bit firmly.

"Oh, I'm sure you'd enjoy filling h-"

Whap.

Despite looking directly at the other couple, neither you nor Sombra actually see the initial motion, but Discord rubs at his side with an obvious wince as Fluttershy straightens her wing and folds it back around him like it had never left.

"Fluttershy, you will be a wonderful mother some day," chuckles Sombra.

"Yes, she's already mastered the ancient art of la chancla," grouses Discord.

Your throat clears almost of its own accord, and you shrink into your seat as you feel the eyes of three of the most powerful forces in Equestria turn to you. Fortunately, Sombra speaks, ensuring you don't have to.

"I believe I can tell this part clearly," he says with a nod, taking one of the cookies for himself, and one that he offers to you. This one looks identical, but tastes of mint. "I was not mobile, but I did regain consciousness..."

Sunlight, Sombra thought again. He could feel it, but even from behind closed eyelids, it was more real this time, less delirious. It brought to him one of the first genuine smiles he'd felt in what must have been decades.

And like that, he realized all over again that he was not in the Crystal Empire. His eyes shot open and he tried to sit upright, but immediately regretted it. Instead of leaving his prone recline, pain lanced through him, erasing his smile in favor of an agonized wince, and he let out a groan.

"Don't move," came a voice far softer than any he'd ever heard in the Empire. It was comforting, and yet somehow familiar in a way that put him on edge. She spoke with authority, however, and he was compelled to obey.

"Mant-" A coughing fit, with accompanying pain, was all that came out in lieu of words. Hooves on wood approached.

"Don't try to speak, not yet. You couldn't drink much while you were asleep."

He heard the tell-tale sound of a cloth dipped in water being wrung out. It was a humbling experience as he realized he was being cared for as if an invalid. Still, he would accept this, he decided; just a moment came between the thought's conclusion and the touch of cool, smooth cloth pressed to his muzzle.

He drank.

It was a relief akin to being out in the frozen wastes for days, and then returning home, passing through the shield and into the city's warmth. The cool caress of water was paradise, and a pleasant sigh escaped him as he bled the cloth dry.

"More?"

He nodded. There was more trickling and splashing from close by, and the cloth returned, bringing its cool relief once more, leaving his muzzle dampened, and even that was its own uniquely enjoyable sensation.

"A manticore," she spoke as he drank, finishing his thought from a minute ago. "I heard the noises, and found you just after it left you there..."

"You...saved me..?" he asked, testing his voice. Rough, but better than it had been. Talking was no longer an exercise in agony.

"Well...w-why wouldn't I help somepony in trouble?"

The authority was diminished somewhat in her voice. He was unable to resist the urge to look, and so he did, cautiously. There was so much yellow and pink, but it refused to coalesce into a shape. "May I see you?" he asked.

His savior drew closer, but before he could really get a good look at her, she brought another cloth up and with a murmured warning to close his eyes, gently brushed what must have been days of congealed sleep from their lids. Her touch very keenly marked her as one experienced in caring for the ailing.

When she drew back, he looked at her again. While he wasn't as concerned as to genuinely wish he had still been fighting a manticore, he wondered if another round might not have ended differently. "I recognize you," he said, with some resignation. "From the Crystal Empire. And I know you must recognize me."

"I-I do," she squeaked, hiding halfway behind a curtain of pink mane.

"And you chose to save me. To carry my envenomed carcass to safety from those accursed woods. To treat my wounds and nurse me to recovery." He sighed, and at that moment his throat chose to rebel against his excessive use of his voice. Before he could even be through the coughing fit that ensued, the pegasus was back at his side with yet another cloth for him to drink from, to soothe the stinging.

"I couldn't just...leave you there," she answered at last, as though that explained everything.

"You could have," he countered, and spoke the last he would for hours after. "Your kindness is overwhelming."

Time passed in quiet, but now that he was awake he was able to focus some of his energy on mending himself. It was almost unnecessary as his savior had already done much. Antivenin had stayed the progression of the otherwise lethal dose he'd taken in his fight. Bandages covered his wounds and keep him from worsening them with movement, when he finally would be able to get up and about. He'd have evanesced only to reform, but his raw power was lessened. His most potent (and, by extension, darkest) magics seemed lost to him, at least until he was hale and whole, and so his efforts amounted to a weak feedback onto himself, and little more than meditation.

He'd not done that in a long, long time. Not since...well, since before he ruled over the Empire. He pushed that bundle of memories aside and tried to focus. His mind was quite disciplined but he had so many questions that his thoughts would not be stilled for long. Eventually, once the sunlight came in from a different side of the room, he had to break the silence again.

"May I know your name?"

"Fluttershy," she replied after a moment, and there was a sliding of paper as she marked her spot in a book that he hadn't realized she was reading as she sat next to him.

"I did not mean to disturb you. I am simply curious."

"No, it's...it's alright," she assured him. If she displayed any surprise at his politeness, she kept it well hidden.

"Are you a doctor, then, Fluttershy?"

"S-sort of. I don't...I'm really shy around other ponies, but I have lots of animal friends. Any time they get in a fight, or get sick, or anything like that, I take care of them."

"A veterinarian. Fitting, somehow. You still could have been rid of me if you'd brought me to the nearest hospital," he pointed out, noting that his voice was far smoother, and more like it had been before...everything.

"Ponyville General doesn't keep much on hoof to treat manticore venom."

Sombra took note of how much more comfortable she was in talking about her profession than she was with small, pony-to-pony talk, and he pressed on. "Are there many manticore attacks around this Ponyville?"

He learned much in a relatively short conversation. His rescuer kept the antivenin on hoof because most of the Equestrian population of manticores lived in the Everfree Forest. Anypony going into the Everfree--a forest where ponies held no sway whatsoever--would check in with Fluttershy, and they did this because she chose to live immediately next door to the eldritch woodlands.

As to why anypony would go in willingly, there was a zebra shaman living in the thick of it, and at least one local filly was training as an herbalist and alchemist under her tutelage.

"Fluttershy."

"Y-yes?"

"...are all of the ponies in Ponyville crazy?"

Fluttershy stifled a laugh all too late, and Sombra shot her an inquisitive look. "It's, um, just that you're the second pony I know to think that."

"I hope to meet them someday. Perhaps we have much to talk about."

His eyes closed as he spoke, and didn't see her wince. Fluttershy didn't have the heart to tell him just then who exactly that was. More time passed. He slept at length, and when he awoke at last sometime the next day, he felt substantially less pain when he attempted to shift, and so he grew bold enough to try and slide off of the couch.

It was a horrible mistake. He couldn't hide his groan as hooves made contact with the floor. The soft carpet met his barrel as he relented to gravity's embrace, and while it was a rather painless descent, it fully framed for him just how stuck he was here.

"Um...you really shouldn't have tried to move," came the now familiar voice of his caretaker--whom he surmised must have simply not left his side even as he slept--and he sighed again, wincing in anticipation of pain that didn't come as she helped him to his hooves, and he returned to his side on the couch with another groan.

"Being mortal...again...is beginning to truly vex me."

"You get used to it. And you will, soon," she assured him. "You've recovered faster than anypony else I've treated for manticore venom. Some..." She trailed off.

"Have taken longer to be on their hooves again, I expect."

"Haven't lasted until I got them back," she corrected, eyes falling to the floor. "Most just aren't that strong. Most don't talk for a day or two. They can't move until a week later. Only a couple have...well." She scuffed a hoof at the floor. "It's always hard. But I have to try."

There was a moment of silence as Sombra took that in. This was a pegasus who looked like a stiff wind could carry her away, and she had carried more than one pony back for treatment, only to witness at least a couple of unfortunate souls expire as she hauled them back.

And yet she kept trying.

"I...rescind my thoughts on being mortal," he spoke quietly. "Or perhaps you yourself simply are not mortal, and are a Princess in hiding. I shall await my trial in that case."

"No...but I have to ask you. Are you, um....going to try to hurt anypony again?" asked Fluttershy. "You...you had a lot of ponies scared and hurt."

"To oppress and wound was not my goal," he sighed. "What I did was a means to an end, and there was no other way I could see. History, I am sure, has already judged me as a tyrant."

She didn't need to tell him he was right. "Have you thought of where you'll go? Once you're better?"

"I cannot truly go anywhere, can I? Eventually somepony connected with the Royal Guard will recognize me, regalia or none."

"If you don't mind me asking...what made you want to-" She caught herself, and amended her question. "What made you have to do such terrible things?"

"What does any ruler want? To have a kingdom, to keep their subjects secure from those who would do them harm."

"But..." It was not an interjection; rather a prompt to continue.

"But they were not safe from me. Once galvanized behind another who proved she could protect them from me, they would never have me again as their King, regardless of my motives. I cannot go back. Nor could I oppose the two...three Princesses."

"Four."

"Four..?"

"Twilight Sparkle is a Princess too, now."

Sombra felt his sanity slip just by a hair.

"She's, um...the Princess of friendship?" Fluttershy offered helpfully.

"What little that does me," he finally replied, a bit more bitterly than he intended. "She is simply more powerful, to hasten my utter demise."

"She wouldn't, I'm sure..."

Sombra's eyes opened and focused on the doorway to the next room. "He is a cute rabbit."

"Angel?"

"Ahh, that is his name. Regardless, I believe he would cook up nicely," he chuckled, licking his lips and, in the process, showing off his prominent, almost predator's fangs.

"You wouldn't..!" Fluttershy gasped. "...w-would you?"

"Perhaps." Fortunately she seemed to pick up on the teasing, and the example, but he drove it home. "If I meant to...would you not do anything to prevent that from coming to pass? Would you use force if no other option existed?"

"Um...m-maybe."

"You seem stronger than you think. You would not hesitate to end a threat to those you care for," spoke Sombra with conviction, closing his eyes again as he rolled to lay upon his back. "Twilight--Princess Twilight Sparkle does not consider where I may go from here. She does not know that I am not so foolish as to attempt, in my weakened state, to make a bid for my old kingdom. She knows only that I once ruled over the Crystal Empire, and it is a logical conclusion that I would return there. And I can assure you that she would protect it even more staunchly than you would defend your companion."

"Um...I-I could tell her-"

"No!" He realized in an instant that he'd likely startled Fluttershy, and brought his tone under control. "No, you would be left suspect, and I would be immediately discovered."

"It wouldn't be the first time," she murmured.

"Do your friends not trust you?"

"Oh, they do. But, um, they find it hard to believe me when I have to vouch for someone they've...well, had to fight in the past."

His eyes opened again, and he slowly turned his head to face her. "You have experience with this, Fluttershy?"

"Well, it's actually just been Discord so far."

"Discord." He wasn't sure whether he'd heard right. He desperately hoped he hadn't, but his own words came back to him: Are all of the ponies in Ponyville crazy?

"Yes?"

"You vouched for the spirit of chaos. The manifest opposition of harmony."

"That's my name," came a voice that sent chills through the stallion's prone form. One he recognized from his all-too-recent memory, and one he'd hoped never to hear again. "Please do not wear it out."

"Well, I was wondering when you would get to the good part."

Author's Note

Sorry this took so long, everypony! I had a bit of it hammered out almost...jeez, months ago, but the rest refused to flow. I finally just barreled through it, then had my most trusted greypony, my shadow and a fluttershi give it a read-through and tear it apart for me. Thanks to them all for pointing out in early drafts where I was being a derp, and for making this chapter--and the next to come--as enjoyable as I hope it will be for you all!