The collar of your parka itches. Normally, this would not be surprising. Parka collars are fuzzy and usually do itch. But normally you are alive to feel that. Or, you usually would be. Right now, you aren't exactly sure why you can still feel the familiar jacket, just that you really hate statistics.
Like, really. Never again will you doubt that old ladies can be really dangerous. Especially since most old ladies usually don't drive a Hummer. Oh, and they usually drive a lot slower. A lot.
But that's not the point. The point of all this is that the reason you died in the first place is going to haunt you for the rest of... well, whatever.
You never would have had such a statistically probable death if you hadn't been doing such a statistically probable thing.
Your worthless ass was now a dead one because you had the audacity to jaywalk.
Death. By. Jaywalking.
In your heart of hearts you know that you are officially the worst fucking piece of manflesh to ever be born.
It's probably why the grumpy unicorn thing is staring at you. Grumpily. You gulp and cross your arms across your chest in a defense mechanism to hide your shame even though the horse lady has crimson eyes that pierce your soul.
She knows, you think. She knows that I called her a 'horse lady'.
In all honesty, you thought it fit her nicely. She had a little cape, boots, and crown that just didn't fit the label of 'mare'.
"Are you not humbled by my presence?" The oddly cat-like horse lady asked. You noticed that her voice was cute, in a little silly way. She sounded kinda British to you. And her stare was still scary. In an effort to look cool in a way that no person who died by jaywalking can you look around, eyes shifty and trying to look as distant and grumpy as the little horsie. To top off your unnecessarily moody behavior to cover up your pain you try to think about something deep - like that you're in an endless void. With a cat unicorn thing. With a funny horn.
"Is this hell?"
The unicorn blinks. "You didn't answer me. You have the nerve to fall into my void and you don't even bother to answer a single damned question, you entitled ape?"
You gulp and watch the unicorn's horn flare up with magic. Her eyes take on a much less pleasant appearance with red irises and purple smoke streaming from them. You move your hands to the ground, where you had (presumably) fallen flat on your ass like the pathetic piece of shit you are. Were. There may not be any dirt here, but when you dig your hands into the barely existent physical plane, it does feel a bit like dirt - the dry dirt of a lawn with too-short grass in summer.
Then you look and see that the unicorn mare is waving a slice of pizza at you. It doesn't matter if you're dead and there's nothing else in sight, because damn you really should have had breakfast this morning-
"YOU JUST THINK YOU CAN POP INTO THE VOID OF I, SOMBRA, WHENEVER YOU PLEASE? JUST WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE-"
"Well, um," you stutter out over the suddenly-imposing theatrics of the cute-in-an-I'll-totally-slit-your-throat-if-you-take-the-last-slice-and-damn-you-to-every-hell-known-and-unknown unicorn. Who had a name, "Hi, Sombra, I'm-"
"I don't care. I'm the only one with the nerve to manifest so strangely." Sombra took a bite of the pizza. You noted that it had pineapple - your favorite. That pizza metaphor was surprisingly relevant. She wasn't going to let you have the last slice.
You began to cry and Sombra stared at you with a judgemental glare that let you know that you were shit on her boots.
"What's your problem?" Sombra managed through a mouthful of pizza. Any shred of dignity you still thought you had crumbled at witnessing such skill.
You pointed a shaking arm as close to her snack as you dared, extended pointer finger trembling.
"Pineapple," you whimpered.
Sombra's eyes narrowed. "No, Pineapple, I don't love you. This slice is mine."
Sombra proceeded to entire the entire thing in three bites, making sure you had a good view of her fangs.
"Pizza is a god," she declared upon finishing, flashing a smug smile that made your heart tear itself apart at her arrogant cruelty. You knew that truer words had never been spoken, and yet a great sadness washed over you. The truth did hurt, and you hung your head in a reflection of this.
"...and I, Sombra am the demon who devours it!"
You looked at Sombra's triumphant finish in awe, she flashed you the same winning smug grin again, her cat teeth gleaming. This was the look of someone who drank the tears of six year olds by the gallon. In fact, you were quite certain that Sombra had most likely sampled your tears at some point. Probably. Your childhood hadn't been the best anyway. There was the time you half-accidentally ate a cockroach. That made you cry a bunch. Also private school.
Religious private school, the kind where you were ninety percent sure that everyone but the janitor had killed at least one person. So, in other words, a normal private school.
"C-Could I have some?" It was a foolish question. The slice of pizza was already gone.
Yet something like mercy - or bored indifference tinged with confusion and really mild annoyance at you even daring to get your hopes up - spread across Sombra's face. Her ears pricked forward and indifference melted into slight curiosity. No cat pictures had ever prepared you for this sight. You even swore that you heard a faint trill in Sombra's throat - the noise of any cat who was curious and dangerously adorable.
Sombra promptly slapped your hand away from her - it hadn't been that close to her, and her metal boots hurt. A lot. You hadn't even realized that you still pointed at her. Sombra certainly looked royal too, and royals certainly weren't the sort who liked to be pointed at. You were partially certain of this.
You were more certain that royal demon horses that would just come up to the middle of your chest when standing could slap their metal-clad hooves at all the hands they wanted and get away with breaking fingers too.
You screamed like a little baby. Sombra just scowled and lit her horn again, this time with a sparkling cloud of magic that shimmered with the same crimson as her eyes, only with a thousand times less of that weird mixture of apathy and grumpy disdain that spoke of what could be possibly centuries worth of coffee deprivation. She was lethal.
And she was scowling at you, who only screamed and looked at your finger with horror, wondering if horses - even demon horses - could drink coffee.
She narrowed her eyes at you again, the dark purple eye shadow gracing them only magnifying her grumpy looks.
You watched - also screamed - while she tugged your arm closer to her, the sensation of magic prickling you like cold rain against bare skin.
She stared down at your hand glumly, magic enveloping the broken digit.
Sombra promptly yanked it back into place, not even cringing as you cried out for your mother.
Then she did something to the bone - you weren't sure what - but it started to feel slightly better as the magic dimmed and the feeling of utter agony wore off.
She scowled harder at you, and you took it as a smile in your pain-dazed state.
Then you passed out.
...
You woke up slumped over a table in the same void you saw Sombra in. It was extremely easy to remember Sombra mostly because she was sitting at the other side of the table, whose distance could not separate you two forever.
Because Sombra was glaring at you again.
This time, you were not certain being a dead man was a good thing. Only red checkered cloth divided you from her. Red checkered cloth that you had drooled on.
And it was Sombra's. Uh-oh.
Across from you, Sombra was eating another slice of pizza, topped with pineapple and green peppers, in the most judgemental fashion fathomable.
It made you feel like filth.
You were filth.
"H-Hi."
Sombra swallowed and blinked, then she cocked her hear up and smiled at you. A faint but deep purr rumbled deeply in her throat briefly.
Her mouth spread it what looked like a genuine smile, eyeteeth aside. "Hello yourself."
"Umm." In life, you had always been very good with words, which was just another way of saying that even you were surprised that you'd only said 'umm' once so far instead of scattering it throughout one-sided conversations on half a dozen occasions.
"You like pizza too?"
You couldn't meet her gaze, and instead decided to look at your hands instead. "Yes."
"And you like pineapple?" Though you didn't look at Sombra, you could hear a sassy eyebrow raise in progress. A quick look up that you hoped was discreet confirmed this.
"Yeah. It's, umm, my favorite topping. So, uh, you're a horse, right?"
"Demon," Sombra said flatly. You noticed that her gaze almost fell for a moment, as if there was something wrong with that. "I'm dead too. Got blown up by some silly rock candy a while back-" Sombra puncuated her sentence with a shrug of her withers, "-and here I am, in a void. Occasionally I can summon mundane things and pizza, or even catch glimpses of what's happening the world. Nopony has shown up here, but I don't mind. Maybe if I were to just start traveling, I'd find somepony else to put into existential terror and endure the sass I'm known to bring, but I'm content to just stay in one place for now and practice my magic, seeing what I can and can't pull from wherever and such, I'm still a master mage after all."
You blink, unsure if the rock candy part was a joke. "That's... deep."
"I, Sombra, former king of the Crystal Empire, have a habit of being so."
"Err... king? I thought that- umm, you look like-" How do you tell a horse-demon that they don't know how genders work?
Sombra gives you a look without any trace of humor. "I used to be a guy."
"I'm..." You gulp, wondering if your next words will be your last, "...sorry to hear about your loss?" Your parka collar was itchy again.
Sombra snorted. Then laughed - the second part caught you by surprise. Sombra didn't seem like someone - err, somedemon who would laugh very often.
"It was my own doing, to manifest myself like this. Master mage. World class. Does that mean nothing to you? As a genderless demon I can choose whichever form I please." Sombra ended with another one of her piercing glares in your direction. "Will that be a problem? Because if it is..."
A wicked smile spread across Sombra's muzzle and you watched Sombra lift your hand into the air, pressure building on your newly mended finger...
"No!" Your voice cracks as you scream. Yep, no dignity alright. Even in death you sucked. "Not a problem, sir!"
"I'll gouge out your fucking eyes."
You yelp. "No ma'am! It won't be a problem, ma'am!"
Sombra's magic aura changes from a reddish mist to the swirling, more aggressive magic you saw before. It looked dark, and admittedly a bit scary. You watched it grow into flame that was colored violet and green, slowly inching toward your hand...
"NO, YOUR MAJESTY! THERE WILL BE NO PROBLEM WITH THE FACT THAT YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR SEX, YOU WEIRD HORSE DEMON SIR-MA'AM!"
Sombra's horn dimmed and she folded her forehooves under her muzzle, staring at you meaningfully, gaze enigmatic.
There was a long pause between you two.
"You're a worthless piece of shit, aren't you?" Sombra asked, tone level and reasonable.
"Y-Yes, Sombra." It was the only thing you could think to call her left and you sighed in relief when you saw Sombra's eyes flicker with something like tolerance.
"That's it. Perhaps you can learn something after all. I'm going to need something to profess my stunning good looks to during the course of eternity, won't I?"
"Sure?"
"Definitely," Sombra corrects, drumming one of her forehooves on the table. "And have you ever seen a conjuration spell, by any chance, you..." Sombra looked you up and down critically before shrugging one shoulder a bit. "Well, whatever you are. Your name is Pineapple now, in case you didn't know."
"I-"
"Pineapple!" Sombra chides, her glare intensifying. "I'm the defiant one around here - you'll be doing whatever it is I demand from now on. Mostly suffering through my jokes and ramblings. There's also the matter of conducting experiments with magic now that I have a test subject-"
"Sombra," you hurriedly interrupt in order to save you from a future of whatever weird science that this demon would have your go through, "I was only going to say that I hadn't seen a chemistry spell!"
"Conjuration," Sombra mutters. "Pineapple, you're going to need some magic.... if you can. And I suppose you'd make an okay servant too."
Before you can properly interject, Sombra's horn is lit again and a platter of pizza - plain pineapple - appears before you.
'Tempting' doesn't even begin to cut how you feel about magic pizza... Everyone always says that they're starving or that they feel like they haven't eaten in forever... but for all you know, you haven't!
Sombra smirks. "Well? I'll actually share this one. You'll soon find that you don't need to eat here, but infinite pizza isn't exactly something to pass up."
You reach out and pick a slice of pizza. It's warm, but not too hot, so you can easily pick it up without burning yourself and embarrassing yourself in front of the judgemental demon who is likely going to try and sever your soul from... something... at some point in the future, but for now, you'll enjoy a nice pizza.
Sombra busies herself with obtaining her own slice and eating it at the same ungodly speed as before. You try not to look as you casually chew your slice. It's divine, the cheese alone deserved epics sung about it. Unfortunately, you can't sing and you're pretty sure Sombra can't either. All the cheese related ballads will tragically have to remain unsung until one of you learns.
"Hey, uh, Sombra," you mumble through a bit of cheese and pineapple.
"What?" Sombra asks gruffly, tone as direct as ever despite being on her fourth slice... at least, you were sure that it was her fourth slice. It was hard to keep count of how many slices ended up in Sombra's mouth when cheesy goodness and perfectly toasted crust flavor exploded in yours.
"Could we be friends?"
Sombra swallows whatever slice of pizza she was on far too slowly for your taste, a direct, unreadable stare bores through you. You look away from that steely crimson gaze that would burn what's left of your life essence to ashes for her metallic boots to stomp on.
"I guess," Sombra says. When she shrugs, her scarlet cape ripples over her withers. She flicks a bit of her untidy black mane to the side and stares up at you through messy black bangs that didn't seem out of place on her despite her apparent royal status. Her eyes twinkle with a calculating look that outshines the crown on her brow. "I've never had a friend before, so I imagine that it might be worth investing some time in. I was originally thinking of other things - one of which was dismembering you, oh, and another plan was to see if your kidneys had any magical properties... but... friends is okay too." Sombra paused. "Maybe."
A rumbly purr sounds in Sombra's throat again, a small smile spreading across her face. You swallow, unable to resist the sound of a demon-horse purring and reach out a hand - which you were careful to wipe free of any pizza grime - and pat her on the head, taking care to scracth behind a fuzzy gray ear - a gesture that makes Sombra's purr deepen.
"Maybe, huh?" You echo, unsure of why Sombra added that single word.
"Well, yes," Sombra began, her tone casual. "It'll be a while before I decide to see if it's still possible to kill you while you sleep."
