Click

by Ice Star

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance, King Sombra, Dark, Princess Luna, Drama
Length: 5903

Sombra answers a question that will change his life as he endures banishment in an icy prison.

Banishment by the power of the two sisters was supposed to be an agonizing experience. No ordinary mortal mind should have lingered on as the years passed. Anypony should have succumbed to the extraphysical nature of the kind of prison Sombra found himself in and found themselves reduced to pure instinct.

Sombra was no ordinary mortal, and he had all time he would need to plan revenge.

Only eternity awaits him.

An older piece I had lying around and now polished and prodded into being a standalone story and a sort-of side tale to Spare Him His Life. Preread into being a thing by the great Cynewulf. Contribute to the TVTropes page!

Published 2018-12-19 01:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2018-12-19 01:20:01 UTC

Wheels Keep Spinning

'Click' is a resounding sound that is faint and deceptive to those whose ears listen too hard or not at all. It is brief and dull to those creatures who pound the ground as they walk but ignore the world's whispers of the coming silence before the players move once more across their vast stage, murmuring their dialogues so such a small echo goes unnoticed, despite the weight it carries.

'Click' is the sound of something momentous, and often forgotten. The equestrian tongues call it 'eureka' when they have but a shadow of these. Immortal ears prick up in hopes of catching a fleeting hint of what is to come, provided they can hope to decipher the fragment.

There was no drastic variation to what was in this moment, it was the actions of those who brought about such events and the aftermaths that they forged that set new things in motion. Few had this occur in their life, for while they could acknowledge themselves as heroes in their own modest stories. The truth was they were far from even that, being bystanders at most, for their paths were plain as they were. Yet, there were those pony, god, or something else entirely who called the shots and obeyed no worldly script but saw fit to unravel whatever puppet strings that those who only appeared to be their peers held onto. This was in hopes of being guided to endings they gave little thought to, for they did not defy and their dreams were not made into something greater. They would not last, they would cease to transcend if they tried at all.

Each and every one of them would fail and continue to work out their small dreams and uncomplicated lives to which there was no remedy, until one day Fate's usually absent strings snagged them upward with a necklace of rope, and it would be there some amiable-seeming Reaper would collect them like flowers.

But the wayward burned and thrashed, refusing to cease even when they lacked any common restraints that would be the accepted burden to their placid kin. Those who fought nothing, gained nothing and those who sought nothing, learned nothing. Those who dreamed forever created nothing, and those who toiled forever duel wielding unnecessary humility alongside some other tool in hopes of creating something to represent themselves often never looked to see what they were, beyond the coat of a pony or feathers of a griffin.

Sombra was none of the above. He was neither bound by common order or a pony. He was the most wayward of all mortals.

And now he resided in what could have been nothing.

'Could have been' if he ignored the ever-present: everything, which had sprung from him in the first moments of what would be one thousand years as he sensed the cold that no ordinary mortal could hope to survive and that would even cause the gods to shiver, if they could in such a situation. Sombra's own presence would grow to fill most of this vast void that could rob almost every aspect of being and the mind from every sane soul that would face the same impossibly long stay, and one that would no doubt last longer than any mortal life.

Luckily, Sombra was one who had never known sanity.

...

This was a place where Sombra would never feel snow beneath his bare hooves, for there was no snow to fall, no sky for it to fall from, and no ground for it to fall upon.

Sombra also noted that he had no hooves as well. His body was gone, woven into shadow that appeared to have all but dissolved into an outer darkness, which he was then sent; alone. His body was gone for who knows how long, if there was a finite duration of time that one could be here. With his body gone, only he remained. And who was Sombra?

He had always been more, he was always better than what he was expected to be. Even in this otherworldly place that would not change. Sombra was a demon unknown to all but one mortal soul, and that was the soul of the child that had created him with a gamble, anger, and dark magic that had judged such a dim pony worthy of corruption.

The result of that corruption was Sombra himself, a defiant and reclusive sort who believed in the power of the mind and all the glorious insanity and genius that his had, something he had wanted to use in order to walk the world to find its farthest reaches, where no ponies plagued him with the misery their unwanted company brought.

Instead, the twisted desire of a crystal pony colt bent on unneeded vengeance and sadistic desire had held him hostage as the worst kind of weapon - one that could feel and see his own powers being abused and the blood that stained his hooves because of a lonely born-broken child who had never been properly dealt with, one whose impulsivity and utter stupidity was only countered by young Sombra's cold calculations and fierce intellect.

Those too, had been exploited by a twisted mind who wanted only to abuse power, ponies, and most of all Sombra himself - the demon he had unknowingly summoned and willingly stolen a name from.

And so begins the first year of the not-entirely-divided duo in the goddess-wrought void to house the two halves of the King.

...

There's a maddening dysphoria in no longer having a body or world to take shape in for all who lack more than one form. Sombra had always known what if felt like to dissolve into shadow.

It was better that way. The anger he felt now was a savage and all-consuming force that sharpened what senses still worked and etched every memory with the deadliest precision. Nothing would be forgotten for a long while. Later, he would ensure that nothing would escape his memory even if he wanted it to.

But for now, rage shook a realm with no boundary.

He was alive, at least.

And alone. That something that had always been a desire of his, an impossibility when the crown and another's dark wishes had dictated his life as much as the clinking of chains had governed the existence of crystal ponies. Now all of those things were gone, something that he would appreciate in time, when rage subsided and the silence after this storm tempered with his nature, and his ambitions were softened for much needed self-examination.

There would be plenty of time for that.

In time, there would be plenty of time for anything for somepony like him who had known only limitations and bitterness.

That would wait a long while. For one hundred years there would be nothing but the most brutal fury unleashed in a place where nothing could appear and time wore on in the darkness. His mind traveled forward with it, a world he could no longer see continuing to be outside the void where only the cold of ice seeped in and chilled him. Something far colder than ice would try to seep into his very mind and break it. Instead, he broke this otherworldly chill, defying it as he had defied everything else he had ever known.

When the horror of his fiercest and longest bout of temper - an anger that then was indescribable and almost eldritch in it's near infinite intensity - was able to be shaped into something else, his mind snapped to the task.

From nothing but the magic he was left with in this god-sealed prison made just for him, he wielded both his genius and his rage until his ambition-driven magic had forged the only thing he would need to remember everything...

...

Out of everything to focus on, one face was clearer than anything else. It was the face of a blue-coated goddess. She had beaten him and brought everything down with a single move. It was she he wanted nothing to do with - she was the younger one, the shadow of her sister.

The other princess.

Nothing she should do mattered.

And then she had done something that did.

He hated her for it and despised her with every fibre of his being. Luna - he would never forget the name of his greatest enemy - had somehow sneaked past his notice. How? He had seen her before him in their fight she always seemed to look away and spoke little.

She was weak. Unremarkable. Submissive. Stupid.

Utterly worthless.

This mare would never amount to anything and was a waste of the power she was born with. The mere thought of her ignited the feeling of fire through his mind.

She couldn't escape his focus any longer. After all, she was what had been overlooked before. Now, she would become his focus. Everything else was just another card to gamble away: as dull and predictable as possible. It didn't matter what these factors and mortal identities did, they could be beaten and broken. But, she was different: a challenge disguised as a compliant immortal. He couldn't account for her actions, and to say that troubled him would be the second-greatest understatement in history.

Sombra - for now, there was no title forced in front of his name that was now returned to him - would devote all mental energy not spent operating ethereal switches and functions to keep his memories of the past, present, and future intact on figuring out the perfect demise for Luna.

With enough time, he would be able to engineer the perfect torment for an immortal goddess and humiliate her with the burden of her own defeat. There would be nothing that could prevent him from this. Nopony was present to challenge him, the time he would spend here was bound to exceed that of any mortal equine's life, and no day or night hindered him here. Time could be unlimited here, for all he knew.

The same burning intent that was almost identical to his hatred for the twisted crystal pony colt that had brought him into this world would only urge him onward.

So began the first hundred years of unrelenting anger that outlasted any mortal fire as the cold wore on.

As always, Sombra endured.

...

No matter how weak or capable one's enemies could be, Sombra treated each of his foes as just another face, for that was what they were until they made themselves stand apart as they acted upon the urge to make some futile attempt against him.

All attempts had been futile, until she made hers.

The world was his enemy, and Sombra had always known this. From the moment he had been created, the young demon knew that his nature alone - regardless of his deeds and too-different mind - would earn him foes that reached numbers few would bother to count.

Know your enemy. It was only then that moves could be made against them, and the table they were so foolish to rest their hooves upon could be turned right under their muzzles. Then, every measure taken against them so nothing but hope remained within their grasp. That too, could break. He had seen it.

He had felt it.

Now, here he was having to know an enemy that could be fought with all the time to keep his mind intact and only improve himself in this situation. How could a goddess be so foolish to ensure her actions would risk something like this?

If there was one thing unknown to Sombra, it was the unattainable satisfaction of true revenge - a deprivation he despised so. Yet, if they were to meet again he could exact all the revenge he wanted against this deathless, cowering goddess. He told himself he would love that - and really, he would. Sombra would finally get a chance to hurt somepony that had thought she could get away with hurting him.

Luna was the most weak, unintelligent, compliant, submissive, and obnoxious creature that he had encountered, and he hated her.

However, to create the best way to torment her in order to push her past the breaking point 'till nopony could repair her, Sombra had to know Luna. The only way to do that would be to examine every memory he had of her hundreds of times over and deconstructing every facet of her behavior to map out the way she thought so she could be outsmarted.

For one hundred years, Luna would be his insane obsession.

...

There were lifetimes of information for somepony like Sombra, whose hypervigilant mind examined the goddess-princess, former apprentice Selene, and shadow of the sun in all her forms. She was a warrior, her skill in weaponry subdued and hidden to those who didn't scrutinize her every move before realizing one of them would be their last. Under her blue forelock her wide eyes that hid all the wonder she clung onto with a desperation to survive that seemed so savagely mortal and familiar in the latent desire to transcend her situation.

He observed a perception that could be caught in fleeting, sideways glances that appeared to predict just when those that surrounded her and falsely named her a peer would look away and catch only the smallest pieces of her unwavering, solemn gaze. With that eye for detail that allowed her to notice the smallest things and hear a hundred words unsaid in every silence she could make her supposedly meek demeanor appear completely honest and without effort.

Her honesty was another thing that struck him as odd - how she protested, sometimes silently, how she could never seem to find it in her to tell the smallest fib at the risk of an unnatural silence. She was unnatural - how had he missed such chilling skills of observation? Each hit in battle she landed was carefully calculated but equally furious in delivery.

Her power - in fragments he recalled the flurry of power that only a demon like him could sense and how it had clung to her, fitting her like a tailored cloak and matching her every movement and swirling with each bout of strong emotion that overtook her in their battle, invigorating her. He had thought that the power that she had been born into and twisted and fostered into something so befitting of her nature was wasted, though she was by far the most powerful creature he had met. That sense of power - and every ounce of hidden, measured strength - wasn't abused or squandered in order to exaggerate her nature and highlight her as goddess. For somepony who lacked the maliciousness and cruel cunning that Sombra had, she was remarkably good at accepting her feared power and dominating the magic that she radiated so her actions spoke.

This element that made her so unapproachable - this threatening, alien aspect of her - had piqued his interest. It would make her all the more interesting to fight, knowing she was more capable than she appeared. Sombra found this quality to her... addicting? No, that was not right. Luna - his enemy - had an odd allure to her and well-harnessed power with the intelligence to manage it? That feature alone was worth immense amounts of focus.

Sombra never thought to deny how magnetic it was - a proper rival had certainly be something he hadn't expected. Nor had he expected this horribly clever mare's looks to speak for her when she opted for silence upon re-evaluation.

There was something so obvious about the way she had looked at him in battle - those direct and vaguely bewildered looks in her wonderstruck eyes.

They had never met before. Though she lingered in many of Onyx's memories, Sombra had never given her much thought other than to acknowledge that she was one of the last Alicorns. And she had looked at him with an unmistakable recognition mixed with fear that haunted him. It was...

...heart-wrenching?

The void had stirred at this with Sombra's discontent over the choice. It wasn't a proper term to describe his enemy, but it was what he thought fit best. That was all that had mattered. Somepony sympathetic to Luna would find the looks she gave him - how troubled she was with every lasting moment they had looked at the other - to be heart-wrenching.

Any mention of a heart caused further disturbances in Sombra's presence as he recalled her winning move: the kiss that had confused him so much in its aftermath. Every time he recalled the event, it was with the sourness at knowing she was his enemy and how disgusted he was that somepony he dreaded had gotten that close to him with a mere twist-

Well, he did admit she was clever at the very least. Though his hatred for her burned on, ever brighter the longer he obsessed over this mare, the knowledge that she was intelligent enough to stand against him - or just intelligent in general, really - was pleasing. Sombra would know what pleasing feels like. Every act of retaliation against the mind that tried to bind his fate had been pleasing, but with a more vicious feeling to it.

This was like a pause - a single moment of contentment - before his tempest of vindictive desire resumed and browsed each instance of Luna all over again.

Luna was a typical target of many of Onyx's cruelties. In his life the young colt had pursued her and stalked - for there was no intelligence in his desire to seek Luna out - the mare when she was far younger in her forays into the dense wooded area surrounding the tower Starswirl lived in.

For a creature so eye-catching and out of place in Crystalline castles and cobblestone towers, she didn't look completely hideous in that forest as Sombra would have thought of any other pony.

It was the moments like this - when Luna was free of woe, distress, and her many anxieties that troubled her in each memory, both Onyx's and Sombra's - that Sombra liked to observe her most. He found her most curious when she wasn't alarmed or trying to hide how extreme her emotions were that he could stop to watch Luna when she wasn't falling apart.

He never asked himself why, his focus always resumed soon enough but once or twice he found himself thinking about how her mane looked like the night sky when he met Luna for the first and only time. It was an obvious comparison to make, but he liked it. Anything to remind him of the sight of the stars - the only thing he missed - was always appreciated.

...

The longer he fixated on her, the more his focus steered elsewhere. He studied the memories of Luna meticulously and continued to assert she was his enemy - a statement he never doubted - before he stopped making such useless reminders all together, and became even more absorbed in studying what visions of Luna he had constantly, since there was little to distract him.

Small antics of hers never ceased to spark some feeling of amusement in him: the way she tilted her head when pondering something, how she looked when her surroundings seemed to dissolve before her whenever she was engrossed in a book of verse, the colder stare she had in battle, and the way she communicated to much with so little noise. He had always had a twisted appreciation for the last trait in his eternal selfishness.

Even if her loyalty to her sister was misplaced to him it was plain that she was a creature who, despite all her devotion and hidden passions wasn't as naturally inclined to such somberness as it seemed. Something was missing, and it didn't take long for Sombra to realize that he had never seen a memory where Luna smiled.

...

What Sombra found to be the most troubling about Luna, who he never called anything but her name, was that she wasn't stupid or commonplace.

Once he picked her out of a crowd or any other setting, it was impossible to forget the impression she made. No matter how much she tried to disappear or hide she only stood out more and more to him, even in memories he had viewed thousands of times.

She could see things that others never acknowledged.

She saw him.

She didn't see the King - and if she had, she saw past him.

She saw Sombra, and no matter how strange they were to one another she had always looked at Sombra like she had known him, like that had made it hurt so much to see him when they fought. Luna hadn't just suspected him of being somepony else - he had seen that too. She was able to see Sombra himself no matter how much he had tried to drown in the darkness and grudgingly accept that castle as his tomb,so as long as he died by his own terms. Everything about that was beautiful, but there was also something deeply horrifying too. The moment she kissed him felt like the invisible, imaginary gears in a clockwork world that only they defied had clicked.

The moment Sombra knew what everything he had put aside and all the reactions he overlooked amounted to, he thought that he could feel them click again, louder than before as he looked over that memory yet again. He felt the surge of cold that only he was sure he could withstand as he thought about Luna, the mare with the brilliant mind who had beat him.

Luna, with the greatest power he had ever witnessed.

Luna, who he couldn't control - and even if he wanted to he would feel something he hadn't before: guilt.

Luna, for whom he felt sorry for ever hurting.

She who was like nopony else, who held her own.

She had done the impossible: Luna had proved him wrong.

As one hundred years ran out and the gears of the world clicked again, Sombra felt them whether they were his imagination or not. He felt the cold sense of dread and dawning realization of what he had never imagined as everything fell into place within his mind.

He did know his enemy, far better than he ever thought he would.

Sombra knew that he loved her, and that knowledge felt like whiplash. He wanted to tear apart and desperately try to deny this conclusion because he simply couldn't believe it. Right then, Sombra was convinced that he had hurt more than anything he had ever known in his life could. He knew that it was right, and all denial would fall apart before he could even work on establishing anything that might counter this. Whatever this was - this feeling so like hatred, except for its core - was the strangest thing he had ever felt.

And he was scared, or maybe excited. Anything beyond anxiousness he was uncertain of.

Maybe this wouldn't be as gods-awful as he anticipated it would be. After all, this is why he couldn't conjure up even half a plan to hurt this mare who was so beautiful when she stood alone.

Then, such a feeling was indescribable, but he didn't want anypony to take this away from even if he let them. Or, if there was somepony to try in the first place.

All this felt like drawing out poison. There was so much he wanted to know: what her smile looked like, what she thought about anything and everything, if she had seen all of the known world, if she would tell him about it, what their next meeting would be like...

The list went on and on as soon as he embraced this strange, addictive, and - in its own way - rebellious nature. Bit by bit, he could take his mind back ,and begin to overturn some of what had been done to him with something other than just sheer stubbornness and cunning. There was something else fueling him now. He would have to wait to see Luna - that was an ache he would need to bear - but for them it would be worth it. He had seen the ponies in the world - he had read about distant lands - but there was something unsatisfying about that now that that particular dream had been moved to second place, and a distant one at that.

He was the most selfish, arrogant, cunning, ruthless, thoughtful, ambitious and more. Absolutely nothing would get in his way to see the world, and in the end, her. There would be all the consequences he could imagine and even some he couldn't.

He was Sombra, the best the world had ever known and with the hope he never had before he would seek Luna, the brightest creature there ever was. So, the wait began. He remembered. He planned. He mourned. He burned with fury and everything else that he felt in droves.

And he hoped that wherever Luna was, she remembered him too.

...

This was the closest thing to freedom Sombra had ever known, and as tragic as that was to anypony else, Sombra only found this experience to be riveting. He was the center of the world, alone and not as restless as he had once been. While he certainly wasn't happy or even relived, he felt relatively unburdened and had accepted as much of the present and future here as possible, even if it dragged on time wasn't much of a bother to him. For once, Sombra's life wasn't agonizing. His mood wasn't nearly as volatile as it had once been. If he had cared to term it as anything it would be 'safe'. Like love, it was an entirely new experience and even if he preferred the former, safe wasn't a horrid thing to be - though it could be jarring.

Sometimes, after a few decades meddling with magic systems and imagining anything that happened to cross his mind in a cold and unforgiving void of constant darkness, Sombra would be overtaken by long bouts of paranoia and hurriedly deconstruct his experiments. Ethereal constructions gleamed when his presence neared them and vanished faster than any mortal creature could blink as he waited for harm to come to him. On occasions like this he would have to shake his worst memories and the sensation of searing-hot magic tearing him apart. It was almost stunning when nothing hurt him. He could go back to rebuilding everything better than it had been before.

His constructions made no sound, but nothing else did, or could. The only thing close to sound being memories of others and his own tone, twisted from his equine voice into the rumbling of his shadow form, even if he lacked that much substance here. Sombra was never bored, despite these conditions. He had never been one to get lonely, either. There were some things he missed and not being able to control these things angered him. He was not free from episodes of frustration that had devolved into anger. Like love, he embraced almost any emotion he felt.

Oftentimes he just longed to hear his own voice again. Or flip his mane the way that made Onyx seethe. Seeing colors again would be something he looked forward to.

He missed the sound of her voice, too. Sometimes he would be quieter than usual, and for months he replayed the only instances of he talking where she wasn't scared or mournful. There weren't very many of those but whenever Luna sounded sad, it hurt him more than he would ever let anypony know.

If he didn't already know the answer and he had somepony to ask, he would inquire to whether anypony cared about her.

Sombra certainly did.

...

Sombra could withstand each passing year with increasing ease after his epiphany. As expected, he slipped in and out of periods of mania, depression, and other things he wouldn't dare name. Mostly, it was the lower moods - they were the most familiar to him. He knew that this was far better the alternative, or having had a normal mind in the first place. Had he been anywhere close to sane, his mind would have unraveled before him until only distorted instinct remained.

It had been centuries since he had ended up here, and he had fully embraced his feelings for Luna. His obsession had worn down to something else that wasn't as maniac in nature, something that felt much more thoughtful and caring, if he could describe it to anypony that had been there.

If he could divide how he spent his time into two absolutes it would be a rather neat divide between craving further isolation as he obsessed over future machinations, and thinking about Luna. Since he lacked any knowledge of what became of her after their one and only encounter, whenever he was at his lowest moods he found himself coming back to it time and time again. The thought of her was one of comfort.

He had already studied their confrontation tens of thousands of times. It was familiar, nostalgic, and no matter how many times he looked at this memory he hadn't been able to figure out one thing: Why somepony as smart and well-versed in magic as Luna had failed to defeat him by exploiting the fact that he was - and still is - a mortal? In the aftermath of their kiss she could have easily taken her blade to him or forced him to help find her locate her elder sister and have them both smite him. Sombra was the most powerful mortal they had ever encountered - he was certain of that - but that didn't mean that Luna wasn't presented with more than enough opportunities to end his life, and ones that she would have seen.

Why didn't she?

She wasn't incompetent as he had first thought, was more likely to break rules and entice any form of rebellion than her sister, and she was more likely to fight unconventionally or even use dubious tactics.

So why would he be here, where he was preserved instead of reduced to ash in the snow after a much more prolonged siege? There were plenty of times that could have been the outcome. Yet, her actions acted as the focal point where everything rippled out of control. Luna and her sister may not have been as skilled as they could have been for goddesses, but they were still just that, and they would not tire as easily as he would.

She had seen him - however briefly - in all his unstable rants and sudden displays of temper. How could she allow Sombra to have any chance of survival or any kind of preservation at all? Why would she not see that being sealed in a soul-chilling void where he couldn't physically age or be burdened with any physical needs at all was more of a mercy than a punishment, assuming he survived?

She had seen him! She could see past all the regalia that had been forced upon him and yet she couldn't calculate such a simple possibility? That was outrageous!

He wanted her to look at him now! He loved her! He was smarter! His temper had gone from monstrous violence to something much more like an abnormally angry stallion's. He wasn't as violent any longer. He had time to think about everything, to be better. He was the center of the world. He could barely sense Onyx anymore. Sombra had long since deduced that he was suffering the same fate Sombra himself was enjoying so much, for he had braved the cold and so much more.

When he got out - if he did at all - he was going to use the short amount of time he would have to live to tell her how sorry he was, and that he loved her. Maybe they could see the world before the effects of being in here took their toll. He could see the future, and maybe he would get to see her smile...

But he might not tell her at all... he knew that mare, and if she loved him back then he knew she of all immortals wouldn't be able to handle his death, unless he managed to avoid the clutches of Tartarus.

He'd find the Book again and give her any clue to what happened to the other gods. Maybe he'd get an answer as well.

None of this would be possible if it weren't for her mistake.

Except...

Except maybe it wasn't a mistake at all...

That thought - a second revelation - had more impact on him than falling down the entirety of the winding staircases he had made in the Crystal Empire.

Of course...

She couldn't have possibly known everything, but because of her...

Luna had saved him.

Luna, the mare he loved more than he loved himself, was his savior. Because of her the only destiny he had was his own. Even though he would be bound Onyx forever, the godly magic used to send them both here had weakened their ties, ever so slightly.

But by the very stars that dared mimic her mane...

His destiny was his now, if he had a 'destiny' at all.

This... This changed everything.

It was his and his alone and he could make it as grand or terrible as he wanted it to be. Any dream he ever had...

Just maybe, maybe it could be true now. Luna was the reason he was alive, and though his own guile may have aided him in weaving this fate, she was the one who had sealed it. For this, he loved her again. He now had freedom - or something like it.

She was trapped when she last saw him, and if she was still trapped when he found her, then he would return the favor and set her free as well. To the best of his ability, he'd help her find who she had been forgetting, who she needed most: herself.

Sombra didn't care if he could never be happy or truly free because he now had a life to make his own and a fight to win. He would wait and fight on. He would defy as Luna defied all his expectations. He would plan and he would continue to be always rebellious, no matter how big or small the challenges he faced would be.

And for the first time in a long, long while, Sombra wanted to live again.

Author's Note

Though this story previously appeared in both Favorable Alignment and Missing Pages and Scrawled Footnotes, though in differing forms, I did get permission from a member of site staff to post it as its own thingo and such, way back when. The anthology version has an extra 900 words or so, and I always intended to post a standalone version of the flashback ones. This, hopefully, is a nicely spruced up version of that. It reflects the edited version that can currently be found in Favorable Alignment's 30th chapter as well.