Prologue: The Legacy of Shadows

Some may ask how I came to be. It's not a story I tell very often. For one thing, talking about how your parents met and fucked isn't something anypony likes to talk about. For another, that it happened over one thousand years ago makes it feel like ancient history. It is a time so far gone that dwelling on it is worth less than the worms that crawl underneath our hooves.

That doesn't stop ponies from asking, though. After all, when you're the son of the most evil unicorn in the history of ponykind, ponies are always rather curious, when they're not terrified.

King Sombra took the Crystal Empire by force, subjugating the ponies to do his bidding, and for nearly two decades, flew under the radar of the Canterlot princesses with his powerful magic. It was only the escape of one mare to plead for help from the royal sisters that brought his reign to a screeching end... but he hadn't been doing nothing the entire time.

Despite what many ponies believe, he wasn't needlessly cruel to his subjects. Some ponies think of him as everything wrong that a pony can be, but he wasn't really. He didn't murder his subjects with absolute impunity and he didn't rape ponies just to make a point and fulfill his endless desires. He was a creature of darkness, but he was also a creature of structure. Everything, and everypony, had a place where it belonged... which was right where he wanted it. It was only when ponies stepped out of line, and tried to move out of place, that action needed to be taken.

I don't actually know how he met my mother, Radiant Dawn. I do know that when he met her, he was so taken with her immense beauty that he took her in as his queen immediately, and that is saying something in a land where even the flesh and fur of the ponies glitter like the diamonds that the other races covet so. I'm also not sure how willingly she became his queen. He never mentioned it, and she always refused to talk about it.

I do remember, however, that on the day we watched my father destroyed by the Crystal Heart, I could hear her mutter "I'm free."

I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Ponies always expect me to talk about how terrible living in the palace with him was, or discuss the horrors of what went on inside. In truth, my life was easy, if confusing. I wasn't born just by accident, after my birth my father began training me, teaching me, as his future successor. He knew that even he, with his immense power, could not live forever.

I watched ponies die when I was five years old, executed for crimes against the crown, and while ponies want me to be revolted, I really didn't mind. It was just something that happened, something that everypony expected. No different from a pony being sent to prison for stealing an apple today. Death was a part of daily life in the Crystal Empire, something that my father used to keep the order he desires. It was something I accepted.

Yet the entire time I was being raised by my father during the day, my mother accompanied me to bed each night and told me stories of times gone by. Stories of heroes and virtue, of stallions who fought for their ideals against all odds. I didn't understand it at the time, but I think she was trying to ready me for some kind of revolt against my father, to turn me against him. That time never came, of course. The royal sisters appeared in the Crystal Empire before whatever she hoped would happen came to pass.

It was a strange time for me. I was seventeen when the royal sisters struck at my father. The attack came at night, so for me, it was as if I laid down to sleep with my mother's soothing voice in my ear, and the next morning one of the aides told us that Princess Cadence was in the palace. I wanted to go talk to her, to demand to know where my father was, but mother stopped me. She was afraid if I was discovered the princess would destroy me to get to him... and so we hid in the palace, waiting to see what would happen.

We waited for some time, being brought food by the royal aides in secret. Yes, as you might have guessed, I saw everything that happened outside the palace when my father returned. I must admit, despite being adjusted to his ways, despite loving him with all my heart, the darkness I saw rise out of the horizon frightened even me. But still, when the Crystal Heart activated, and I saw his body torn apart-

We'll just cut that part out. Anyway, after that we did eventually reveal ourselves to Princess Cadence. We couldn't just hide in the palace like rats feeding off of her leftovers, after all. It didn't go as badly as we feared. She is a notoriously kind soul who accepted our story calmly, and didn't show me any malice at all. She even allowed us to stay in the Crystal Palace despite knowing who and what I am, since we had spent my whole life living there. Part of me has to wonder if she did it so she could keep an eye on me and be able to get rid of me if necessary. If that was her intention, I was never able to find the guards she would have following me at all times.

It has been a year since then. I'm eighteen now, and still living in the Crystal Palace. I admit I haven't gone outside very much in the meantime. Princess Cadence has been shockingly cordial with me, but the Crystal Ponies outside the palace walls are a different story. Sometimes I think when they look at me they can only see my father. There is certainly a resemblance, I suppose, but I'm not my father.

In any case, that's the story of how I got here. I am Umbra Rex, the son of King Sombra, and the Prince of Darkness. Where I go from here... I guess only the future knows.

Author's Note

I've read quite a few pony Tumblrs over the years. "Ask Twixie Genies" and "Ask The Crusaders" for example, and most recently I was reading "Ask Firestarter Spitfire" when it occurred to me that, despite my usual attitude of sticking to stories about canon characters, most of these stories really didn't use canon characters. They used the names and likenesses of canon characters to tell stories about characters that were very much their own. And given the nature of the pony world, full of infinite possibilities with characters and lands we've never even seen in the show, it's rather silly to limit oneself entirely to canon when it comes to fanwork.

So here is the first time in my "career" that I've allowed myself to stray entirely into fan-character/OC territory. I'm not claiming it will live up to the best stories that the fandom has had to offer, but I hope to have some fun with it, and I hope you'll have some fun with me. And I promise it won't all be serious doom and gloom.