Embers of an Empire

Chapters

1 - Awoken
2 - Once and Future Queens
3 - Fetch! Roll Over! Good Boy!
4 - Free Real Estate
5 - Heroes of Legend
6 - Just a Small Town Girl
7 - Heir to the Empire
8 - Gambling With Devils
9 - A Late Birthday
10 - Love Me

1 - Awoken

Daring Do was dreaming of her stallion again.

It had only been six days since the visions started, but she already felt as if she’d known him her whole life and knew she never wanted to be loved by any other stallion ever again. Thrice he had mounted her from behind, giving her the sweetness of his words and the fierceness of his loins, but not his name or face or identity. On the fourth night, she’d drunk a powerful sleeping potion, hoping the visions would become clearer, but instead the traitorous drought had stopped her dreaming entirely.

Last night he'd straddled her belly, kissing her on the lips; but for some reason, she seemed to be wearing a blindfold. She wanted to see, but like all her other dreams she was moved by another's will who made no effort to see her mate.

Was he… shy? Horribly disfigured by fire or acid so he dare not let even his beloved look on him? No, that wasn’t possible. With the fierceness of their passion, there was no way she could not love him, even if he had no face at all, with the trust she felt between them there was no way he could not know that.

Tonight, she finally saw him. Tonight, she mounted him in a body younger, stronger, and more regal than her own. She gazed into his beauty: the twined horn of an arch-mage, the gray coat of a soldier, and the fangs of a true ruler. She knew that she loved him. His name was Sombra and he was her king. He said that he loved her. He called her Somnambula and she was his Queen.

…………………………………………………………………………

A hoof shook Daring out of her dream and she very nearly sliced it off. Her vision cleared to her dingy wagon and saw Pawn Picker offering her some freshly cooked corn cobs. “… You overslept… I made breakfast.” he stammered looking at the knife she had pressed into his fetlock.

She released him and he left without another word.

Picker was Daring’s serf her family had sent to attend her… no that wasn’t true. Both her parents were dead. Picker was… her friend? She’d invited him to help her excavate the ruins of an old palace in the desert but why she’d done this she couldn’t remember. Had she… been attracted to him?

The thought was preposterous but she clearly remembered hoping they could get to know each other better doing a project they both loved and maybe one day becoming more than friends. How she could have fancied him was beyond her when a stallion like king Sombra existed: the majesty, the power, the brilliance; Picker wasn’t fit to clean Sombra’s hooves!

Her stomach grumbled and she looked at the corn cobs dripping in butter next to her. She could eat… or she could skip breakfast and then being tired would make it easier to take a midday nap with Sombra.

She ignored the corn, ignored Picker, and went back to the dig. She’d found the first earring here last week and she knew it had to have a twin somewhere waiting to help her see more clearly; maybe send her back in time entirely to before Equestria’s unification so she could be with Sombra.

Maybe - ‘crack’ she found something. A pot broke under her shovel and through the weak light she could see the glimmer of glowpaz and she started sifting through it. A hairpin, a fork, and a bracelet she tossed behind her searching for – THERE! Daring lunged forwards and pulled out from the mess a glowpaz earring, identical to the one she was already wearing which hummed in recognition of its sister. Daring attached the second earring and felt a weary tingling seep up her legs, begging for another nap.

………………………………………………………………………….

Daring returned to the dream exactly where she had left off, mounting Sombra on a dais of black crystal in a vast, empty throne room. Honeyed words flowed like oil between them and as she looked down she saw glyphs of shamanic power etched into her skin in ancient languages. They had been together since she’d saved him from the Sphinx and they would be together for eternity. The moment was perfect and she wanted it to last forever but then a window opened and a messenger flew in.

Daring raised a wing before the messenger had a chance to open their mouth, forbidding her to speak until they’d finished. The messenger obeyed, but didn’t turn her head or even avert her gaze. Daring tried to return her full attention to Sombra, but caught a reflection of the mare in the backrest of the throne, staring back at them with equal measures of lust and jealousy.

The little minx wanted her husband! She wanted Sombra!

Daring grit her teeth. She would punish the brat for her impudence, but first, she needed a few more minutes to finish, but despite having the greatest stallion in the world at her withers, she couldn’t stop looking at the mare’s reflection. There was no way Sombra would ever want her, she gray and wrinkled with age, but kept staring with a confident desire to steal.

Daring threw a hateful glance over her shoulder, then paused when she realized the mare’s mane was naturally greyscale and the wrinkles were scars from battle. With a heave, she threw her attention back to Sombra and tried looking deep into his eyes, but now he was staring past her at the other mare, his eyes fixated on her cutie-mark compass.

2 - Once and Future Queens

Daring had dozed off in the sauna and when she woke the slave who should have been waiting with her towels was gone. She found the little minx in her royal chambers, wearing Daring’s glowpaz earrings. The table was cluttered with the rest of Daring’s jewelry, drawers torn out, flipped over and then discarded piled unceremoniously on either side of the table; her treasures rummaged through and then swept aside as the slave searched for the headdress to complete her mockery.

The carpet was littered with tufts of gray hair from the trim she’d just given herself, copying Daring’s mane style, and her arms and torso were marked with black lipstick in crude recreations of her tattoos. Once in a while between drawers, she’d stop to add a few more marks on her arm and then continue, all the while holding an imaginary conversation in an intimidating accent with Daring’s beloved husband. “Why thank you Sombra, this new dress does look good on me, but it would look better on the floor. Yes Sombra, I was pretty awesome when I assassinated Smart Cookie in front of his whole battalion, but not as awesome as you.”

Daring paused… she had every right to be furious and punish the brat then and there but the flattery was amusing. Could she really blame anyone for being jealous of one of the most blessed mares in the world? The slave was so focused on her fake tattoos, futile search, and imaginary conversation that she hadn’t noticed her yet. Activation her glyph of stealth made sure she wouldn’t. Daring walked behind her to the adjoining closet, pushed against a mosaic, whispered the password, and slid the panel away to reveal her most prized possession; the headdress Sombra had given her when he made her queen of his Crystal Empire, which she kept separate from the rest of her jewels.

Sneaking up behind the wayward Daring plopped the headdress over her head, “There” she said cheerily, “Now you have the matching set.” The slave froze, her eyes widening in terror and she tried to bolt out of the room, but Daring caught her with one wing and forced her back into the chair, wings pinned to her side. Without saying a word Daring took the black lipstick and finished the glyph she was missing, “There” said Daring smiling, “You have my mane, you have my markings, and you have my glyphs and you have my jewelry. Now you’re just missing the most important thing.”

“Yeah?” the slave smiled through panicked breaths, “What’s that?”

“He will never love you.” Daring growled, as she grabbed both earrings in her hooves and pulled.

....................……………….………………………………………………………….

Daring woke with a jump, heart pounding in the middle of the night. She checked her earrings and made sure they were still there and then ran to the collapsed master bedroom of the dig. It wasn’t much to look at now, just a bare stone floor surrounded by a broken-down wall that used to hold up a painted roof and a closet that had been stripped bare years ago save for a faded mosaic. Daring had studied it, taken photographs and charcoal rubbings of it, but now she walked confidently towards the mosaic and whispered into it the password from the dream.

There was a faint click from inside and a squeak from Daring as the door swung slowly open to reveal a perfectly persevered headdress. Without hesitation, she grabbed it gently and placed it over her own head, delighted to find it fit perfectly.

“Hello Jeopardy.” a voice spoke from the void. “It’s been a while.”

“Sombra?” asked Daring hopefully.

“No.” The strong feminine voice tittered back. “I am Somnambula, queen of the crystal empire, and first wife of his majesty King Sombra.”

“...First?”

“Yes Jeopardy, don’t you remember?”

“Why do you keep calling me Jeopardy, my name is-”

“Not important. I’ve watched you for the last week since you found the first piece of me and I know who you truly are. All your life you’ve felt drawn to royalty, dead or alive, and felt the need to take what was theirs for yourself. You set yourself to a prize and once you do you never back down. Doubtless, you have died and been reborn a dozen times since our war against Celestia, but whether you remember it or not, I still see the unmistakable fire in you as when you stood beside me and Sombra in our crystal empire as Jeopardous Zeal.”

“You mean… we were a harem?”

“Yes.” the voice obviously smiling, “You, me, and a unicorn magi named Welkin.”

“And you… err… didn’t murder us?”

The voice laughed, a joyful haughty laugh that somehow put Daring at ease. “I admit I was hostile to you at first. You were a lowly scout in the army who had gained some renown after securing several victories. When plots were made against my life Sombra made you a captain of the palace security and my personal bodyguard. We fought, but your stubborn persistence earned my begrudging respect. When Sombra left us for six months to lay siege to The Silver City, you and I learned to rely on one another and enjoy each other’s company. When he finally returned, with Welkin in tow, you claimed your piece of our master’s heart, not through your ridiculous efforts to mimic me but by being yourself. We were a family and we were happy.”

“So… three wives… and two husbands?”

“What? No! One!”

“Weren't you also married to Hisan?”

“You think I married... my brother?”

Daring related to her the official story that she was remembered for, saving her beloved Prince Hisan from the sphinx by passing two trials to which Somnambula scoffed bemusedly, “When I wed Sombra I swore loyalty to my new family and nation and renounced that of my birth. On the sixth day of the wedding feast, both Sombra and Hisan went missing. I scryed their position and tracked them to the Sphinx who offered a different trial to save each and only time to save one of them. I saved Sombra, carried him outside and thought I had time to go back for Hisan. If the poison gas filling the chamber was real I’d have perished but it was only a test arranged by Sombra to prove my loyalty. He was quite pleased with me and presented the sphinx as my slave for his wedding gift.”

Daring somehow wasn’t surprised. She’d studied history her whole life and not just from the latest editions of history books. She knew history changed over time and books written two hundred years ago always contradicted the ones from four hundred and yet if Celestia was as old as they said it you’d think she could have kept things straight. “Any idea why would Celestia change this story.”

“I am surprised the harridan bitch chose to laud me at all after the war I put her through. What does she tell about Sombra?” Daring grit her teeth trying to think of a delicate way to explain but Somnambula read her silence, “A demon?”

“Pretty much.”

“I surprised only Celestia did not record me as his demoness.”

“Why did you fight a war against Celestia?”

“We defended ourselves after Celestia refused to tolerate Sombra’s dominion over earth.”

“So you did try to take over the world.”

“No. Celestia’s brother died and his power of earth chose Sombra as it’s new wielder.”

“Wait!?” Daring’s wings flared, “You mean like how Celestia controls the sun?”

“Yes.”

“But only an alicorn can steward one of the cosmic forces!”

“Did an alicorn tell you that?” Somnambula asked calmly

“Ummm...”

“And if any equine of sufficient will was able to harness the immortal power of the universe what would happen to Celestia and her ilk? Would they be… important? Would they tolerate their claim to power being challenged or would they seek to discredit and destroy that threat by any means possible?

It began by inciting several of our neighboring cities to raid and plunder us, but Sombra conquered them in return. Then Celestia did what she could to restrict sunlight from our land so the crops never grew, but our soil was poor to begin with and our wealth was in the crystals we mined and traded for sustenance. There was a tentative peace, but as the days grew colder the northern ice spread like a bridge over the oceans, bringing the windigos down upon us. We fought them back at great cost until Sombra was able to parlay with their king and promised to restore Nightmare Moon from Celestia’s prison if they joined us and we marched together against Canterlot. Celestia began withholding the sun from the other kingdoms, blaming it on us, to unite all the nations against us.”

“… Do you reckon I should believe you?”

“You never did trust easily which is one of the reasons you were always so good at gathering information.” Somnambula smiled, “I don’t expect you to take my word for it, simply help me find your phylactery, you will remember your past life and everything will become clear. From there we find Welkin, she and I will find new hosts and then together the three of us can find Sombra’s phylactery, restore him and then our empire.”

“… I will find my phylactery but make no promises after that.”

“As you say.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“You’ve been bathing yourself for the last week in my scrying pool. The enchantment has degraded over the years and repairing it without magic will not be easy but with clear sunlight I will be able to show you how. Sleep now and dream with me of our lord, at sunrise we start.”

“Tomorrow? I… can’t. I sort of promised my dog I’d play with him.”

“I’ve been with you for the last week. You don’t have a dog.”

“Do to.”

“Then where has he been?”

“Building a dungeon to lock me in. FYI, I did a fly-by a few days ago and watched him rounding off some rocks with his pet cats so we’re probably in for some rolling boulder traps.”

“...What?”

3 - Fetch! Roll Over! Good Boy!

“Explain to me one more time how this works?” Asked Somnambula tentatively as together they finished breakfast.

“When I was a kid I had a dog named Ahuizotl who’d grab sticks and run away hoping I’d chase him for them. If I didn’t he would start grabbing whatever I was playing until I chased him down and got it back. Then he died and a genius psychopath thought that I’d fall in love with him if he built me a super sophisticated clay golem as a replacement. Ahuizotl II acts similar but he has a wondrous knack for digging up magical artifacts instead of sticks and is bolder with the things he’ll steal from me. Usually, he just takes my hat but if that doesn’t work he’ll steal my wagon or kidnap the last person I talked to as a hostage.”

“Seriously?”

“My last coltfriend went to the restaurant's bathroom and never came back. I went home thinking he’d ditched me and didn’t realize until the next day what had happened. Took three more days to track him down and rescue him from a snake pit and by then he was pretty pissed I hadn’t mentioned Ahuizotl to him earlier. Broke up with me on the spot.”

“Good.” muttered Somnambula, “You belong to Sombra now, to the exclusion of all others; unless you’re spying and need to whore yourself to get information or assassinate someone.”

“Errmm…” Daring started to mutter something but then decided it wasn’t worth it, “So anyways, on the first Saturday of each month I’ll go chase him for whatever he’s found, sometimes more often if there’s a special holiday. Usually we finish in a day but sometimes the games can go on all week.”

“How do we find him?”

“That’s not the problem. He usually finds me.” Daring put down an empty bowl started trotting into the jungle in the vague direction she’d seen Ahuizotl ’s quarry and began chanting, “I’m going on a Zotl hunt… gonna catch a big one.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………….

“That’s not a dog!” Somnambula squawked as a tree trunk came crashing down inches over their head.

“Sure it is.” Daring smiled as she hurled her boomerang. Ahuizotl ducked, then deliberately took two large steps to the side, laughed maniacally, and monologued about Daring’s bad aim until the boomerang circled back and hit him in the back of the head with a soft ‘clunk’. She might as well have thrown a branch to knock down a city wall but Ahuizotl howled in agony, turned, and ran off into the swamp and Daring gave chase.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

There was a river, a waterfall and a waterwheel that connected to a bunch of stones making them pop up and down in the water every few seconds. Signs on the side of the river warned of ‘pony eating piranhas’ in the water and ‘giant wasps’ that were attracted to wingbeats of pegasi. Daring had to admit, either Ahuizotl had either been practicing his painting skills or else had commissioned a professional artist to draw up the fake signs. She snapped a picture of both of them just in case she decided to use them in her next book.

“Tell me more about this ‘genius psychopath’ who built Ahuizotl.”

“We are not talking about Terra Clave.” Insisted Daring studying the rhythm of the rocks, “That’s final.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Terra was… like Ahuizotl but a hundred times worse. On my nineteenth birthday, my mom got me a board game where you explored an underground tomb crawling with zombies that you needed to explore for treasure. It was fun, I liked it and after I played it every day for the first week or so Terra started disappearing more than usual. Two months later he told me to follow him and started leading me out into the jungle but he was acting crazier than usual and kept cackling to himself. A few miles in I stopped and told him I wouldn’t go any further until he explained where he was taking me. He said I’d just have to trust him and when I turned to leave he knocked me out with a stun spell, carried me into the bottom of an abandoned mine and left me there with a lantern, club, and nineteen actual bucking zombies with candles in their eye sockets and ‘Happy Birthday Daring Do!’ carved into their skulls!”

“This displeased you?”

“Yes!”

“… who did he kill?”

“What? No one he just dug some old corpses out of the town's graveyard that he didn’t think anyone would miss and pulled their teeth out so their bites wouldn’t kill me.” Daring was distracted by Somnambula and didn’t see the tripwire until it was too late. Gears twisted and a rolling boulder got inserted into the lava tube behind them.

Somnambula was still asking something more about Terra but Daring ignored her and dashed deeper into the hole. There was a junction up ahead and Daring naturally swerved to the tunnel that wound uphill and was too small for the boulder to follow. It gained on them but before it was dangerously close she managed to skid into the safety of the narrow chamber.

Hey, look a treasure chest!

Ahuizotl usually hid these much more carefully, she wondered if – the latch flew open and two small darts flew into Daring’s side. ‘Darn’ she thought as she lost consciousness.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………...

They woke with their arms tied to a pole behind their backs and a mask looking into a circle of big cats who were also tied to poles with colorful masks strapped to their faces and Ahuizotl, dressed like a dragon in a trenchcoat smoking an enormous pipe, strolling around the edges while fiddling with his favouriate monocle. “You’re awake,” he smiled gleefully, “Let us begin. Every five minutes I will walk around this circle, every time I pass you you may guess the color of your mask. If you are correct I will set you free and you may take my treasure. If you guess wrong, even once, I eat you. My feline companions will play alongside you completely rationally but you may not communicate in any way and there are no reflective surfaces in the room. Your time starts now.”

Thirty-one felines? Daring did a quick count of the cats and did a double-take at the four new ones almost hidden behind their masks. ‘Rasa had kittens!’ she squeaked internally. Daring hadn’t seen Rasa since throwing her off a raft and had been worried she’d hurt her.

Somnambula pointed to the book on the fake alter, ‘That is Welkin’s grimoire, her phylactery!’

‘See, I told you my dog was good at finding magic.’

‘That shrouded cultist standing next to the altar, is he under a spell?’

Daring watched for a moment then shook her head, ‘He’s a clockwork construction. Basically harmless but smashing through a bunch of them can be pretty fun.’

‘The sword he’s wearing is yours. I know how to solve this riddle, when you approach to take the book, take the sword as well.’

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

“Daring!” Ahuizotl whined as he plodded along behind Daring as she trotted away with the cats running beside her, “You were only meant to win a single prize. You can have the sword if you want but leave me one.”

“Nope. I need them both now.”

“I have something really special planned for our next campaign session and don’t have time to finish the dungeon and find another prize that’s cool.”

“I once chased you for three weeks through Flame Geyser Swamp over a freaking jar of dirt! I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

“Damn you Daring Do!”

“Damn you too, I’ll see you next month!”

“But Darrriinng!”

Pietpiet pounced on her, growling as she pinned her down and licked the side of her face. Usually, Daring stayed around to catch up and meet Rasa’s new kittens but today she was too busy. She flipped Pietpiet off her and kissed her on the forehead, “We’ll play next time, I promise.” and flew away before any of the other cats could pounce.

4 - Free Real Estate

Holding her own phylactery Daring heard… nothing. No voice of confirmation. No flood of memories of another life. Somnambula reminded her that she trusted no one without proof, and that the sword would open up when Daring had earned it’s trust. The only real question then was whether to look for Sombra’s phylactery or find new hosts for Somnambula and Welkin?

Honestly, Daring felt little or no loyalty to either of her supposed sister-wives. She doing this for Sombra, a desire that had increased sharply now that she had the sword and so she chose his phylactery. Pawn Picker was still at their camp but she ignored him. There was a fight that she only vaguely remembered and then he’d left, probably for the best. She worked to repair the scrying pool with Somnambula. It was frustratingly slow but they had almost gotten it working when they both heard the cry.

Phylacalrties couldn’t eat to regain their power, and when they weren't connected to a host they had very limited stores of energy which Sombra must have exhausted to give a short, clear message: Enemies close, impending capture with coded approximate coordinates.

Daring and Somnambula were airbound within a minute and flew for hours before they managed to sneak onto a train heading the right direction where they got a meal and some rest but they were too excited to sleep. They were heading into the heartland, maybe even Canterlot, making Somnambula nervous. As the sun rose there was a second signal, weaker but much closer and easier to pinpoint.

They got off the train as it began it’s ascent up the Canterhorn and followed the river south to the banks of Froggy Bottom lake before it turned into a bog near Ponyville and by early afternoon they spotted a small tent. Using cloud cover to get close, Daring saw a blue and green pegasus mare, dripping wet next to her campfire, leaning on a spear she’d probably brought to protect against hydras. She was in excellent physical shape but the bags under her eyes told of exhausting weeks of diving every daylight hour but the unmistakable grin of triumph with which she clutched something to her chest showed that her labors were over.

Daring set down casually a few yards away with a congratulatory grin which didn’t budge as the filly rose and pointed the spear at her. “Relax.” Daring smiled, shrugging her wings, “My name’s Daring Do, pleased to meet you.”

“Pearl-er- I don’t care who you are. Go away.”

“That’s a nice amulet you found there.” Daring noted, without needing to see what she was hiding in her left wing, “Unfortunately, you have absolutely no idea what it really is.”

“I know what it is. Freedom.” hissed Pearl between ragged breaths, “My brother got framed and now they’re hurting him in prison, if I give her the cursed amulet then he can go home at his retrial.”

“Whose she?”

The mare paused, looking like she would bite off her own tongue, “I can’t tell you.”

“How about I take you to a bank right now and give you a hundred thousand bits. That’s more than enough for a great lawyer and bribe a judge with money left over.”

“I can’t. She’ll find out and then”

“She is not here.” growled Somnambula through Daring’s mouth, “I am. There is nothing she could ever do to you or your family that I won’t do worse if you don’t give me-”

Before Daring could shut Somnambula up and defuse the situation, Pearl hurled her spear at them. Daring sidestepped with ease and apparently had drawn Jeapordy from her sheath though she didn’t remember how or when. Pearl pivoted and launched over the lake, looping Sombra’s amulet over her neck and abandoning everything else. She was fast, Daring had to admit, but she was still wet from diving and Daring gained on her with ease.

When she saw she couldn’t win with speed Pearl diverted to a small island in the middle of the lake, hoping to lose her in the dense trees. Daring smiled, fell back slightly, gained altitude and waited until Pearl was almost to she island shore and then dove unto her, plunging her into the shallow waters.

As they crashed together Daring lost her grip and overshot her. She circled back and saw Pearl target spitting out a mouthful of water. She’d almost managed to catch another breath before Daring fell on her again, grappled her onto her side with her head under water and waited… and waited. Pearl struck her wing against Daring’s back and it hurt but not nearly enough. She grabbed a sharp rock and tried cutting Daring’s hoof off her neck, but Daring stomped on her, forcing tiny bubbled of air out her nostrils. Pearl never gave up, and even as her death seemed inevitable she seemed bent on hurting her enemy in any possible way, no matter how petty as her eyes thrashed with desperation. Daring simply stared back, breathing calmly through her own nostrils feeling like she was forgetting to do something but couldn’t for the life of her remember what.

“Stop.” ordered Somnambula, “Let her live.”

Daring got off Pearl, hoisted her to the shoreline and watched as she spewed mouthfuls of water onto the beach, too weak to even try stopping Daring from taking the amulet off. It looked like an alicorn except for the distinctive tattoos on one of the wings while the other wing seemed deftly familiar and the horn had a notch entirely unlike Sombra that she assumed must be Welkin’s. ‘Are we good to go?’ Daring asked Somnambula.

“Take me off, put me on her.”

“You think Pearl’s your reincarnation?”

“No, but finding my new body could take months and this mare’s mistress will send someone looking for her long before then. This body will suffice in the meantime.”

There was a small struggle when they realized Pearl’s ears weren't already pierced but Daring rectified that with the spike at the end of Jeopardy’s pommel. She put Somnambula’s earrings and headdress on her and stood back as Pearl broke out in a series of curses, and hitting herself before grabbing the headdress and throwing it into the dirt. Daring had to restrain her again, more to keep her from hurting herself than Daring, and put the headress back on.

“She’s resisting.” said Somnambula, muttering the obvious. “Tie her to that tree and leave her. I have an idea but we’ll need some supplies.”

Daring obeyed and they headed to the nearest town. To say that Somnambula’s shopping list was… unusual would be an understatement. Most of the pharmacies had never even heard of some of the objects but eventually there was an apothecary who when shown the list asked if they were picking up Zecora’s special order and accepted their word in response. It had everything they needed plus more and had even been paid for in advance.

Daring took the packages back to the island and spent the night being guided by Somnambula into how to make a potion while Pearl entreated for her life. She spent the first hours begging, telling them about the qualities of her brother, nephew and pregnant sister-in-law and all the reasons they should be spared but when it became obvious pity would get her nowhere she tried her best at fear; detailing all the gory ways that her mistress would mutilate them and then tried to get her to doubt by saying whoever Daring was working for would simply kill her rather than deliver what he promised.

Around midnight it must have occurred to her that Daring obviously wanted her alive for something and so faked a seizure, hoping Daring would untie her to resuscitate her, giving her a chance to escape. When that didn’t work she tried bribing her with anything and everything she could think of on behalf of her backer. Money, political connections, drugs, unchecked freight, access to unregistered alpha unicorns and the forbidden magics they wielded, but when she said she could offer dates with any of the wonderbolot stallions, sex guaranteed, Daring couldn’t help but laughing and saying she had no interest in the wonderbolt stallions she misinterpreted and offered the wonderbolt mares and then finally herself.

All the while Somnambula listened with a cheeky grin on her face growing more and more pleased with the creative determination showed by her future host. Daring blacked out for a bit and when she came too Pearl was wet and crying again and Somnambula seemed more pleased then ever at the courageous loyalty shown in not saying anything about her mistress. As the sun rose and Pearl was telling them about heaven and hell, the potion was ready. Daring once again placed Somnambula’s phylacteries onto Pearl, reached for the potion and… what the hay!?!?

Daring looked at Pearl. She wasn’t a mare she was a freaking teenager! Bruised from where she’d been struck, wheezing from nearly drowning, who’d spent the night begging for her life and the lives of her family now thrashing against an invisible enemy. Daring took a step back, heart pounding; she didn’t remember everything about why she’d done this she just knew that she needed to free her.

There was a sword on the makeshift table behind her covered in goop; she grabbed it to cut the ropes… and remembered where she was again. Daring cleaned her blade and sheathed it snugly to her side and then picked the memory potion back up, and forced the memory potion down Pearl’s throat.

After a few minutes Pearl seemed to calm down. She looked confused, like a child who didn’t know who or where she was. “Did-did I do something wrong?” she asked shyly, “Am I under arrest?”

“Yup.” Daring nodded, “Drunk and disorderly, can you tell me your name so I can get your parents to come take you home?”

The filly shook her head, a tear rolling down her cheek. “Can you… untie me? I promise I’ll be good.”

Daring relented and let the filly have a bathroom break. She came back and collapsed exhaustively be the fire, then exploded in a blood-curdling scream of agony. Her flesh burned and tore as the glyphs Daring had seen in her dreams came to life across her body which went limp as death.

“Somnambula! Somnambula can you hear me!?”

At first there was no response, but as Daring knelt beside her to administer CPR her eyes cracked open and Somnambula whispered, “You may have fucked my husband but I was his queen. You will address me as either ‘Queen Somnambula’ or ‘Your Majesty’.

5 - Heroes of Legend

The next week went slowly, too slowly for Daring’s taste but there was nothing she could do. Pearl’s body had been exhausted before fighting for her life and having Somnambula magically conjure her tattoos apparently took a dangerous amount of effort. For two days Somnambula rested while Daring recovered what was left of Pearl’s camp and foraging food for both of them.

After that Somnambula had had enough of camping in a tent and decided it was time to move to a hotel, specifically the most expensive hotel in the area. Daring tried suggesting something cheaper and got a light smack and reminder that once they had Sombra back money wouldn’t be an object, so they did what she wanted.

At night when they slept with the amulet wrapped around both their fetlocks so Sombra could visit them he always chose to make love to her first but the dreams lasted long enough for Daring to eventually get her turn, so she guessed it was OK. During the day they took mostly even turns in holding the amulet and hearing Sombra whisper in their heads, and that was when Daring felt most special.

When they were alone Sombra would let his facade of impenetrable dignity and endless power fall and let himself be vulnerable with Daring in a way he never did when Somnambula was present. The story of deliberately getting thrown into the lake as part of some clever ploy to escape Celestia’s agents, knowing help was on the way was false. The reality was a much more embarrassing story of being stuck with a lunatic stallion who when Sombra offered him a life free of Celestia’s tyranny and do the things he’d always wanted responded by peeing in a communal swimming pool and things had only gotten weirder from there.

Jeopardy had cradled him, letting him vent his frustrations which were mostly with himself that he’d attempted melding with such an ill-suited host and soon the two of them were laughing at the oddity of it all. She was the only person Sombra had known since becoming king who he could ever talk to like this.

Welkin?

No, not Welkin. Welkin could be compassionate, she could relate to Sombra in ways that only another alpha unicorn could and she never berated for ‘unkingly weaknesses’ like Somnambula would, but her unpredictability and dark sense of humor made it impossible to truly be vulnerable with her.

While Sombra loved all three of his wives, marrying Somnambula and Welkin both had political angles making Jeopardy stand out as being the only one he married simply because he wanted to. It made her special and that made Somnambula jealous whether she would admit it or not.

Somnambula had worked incredibly hard to earn the privileges of adult royalty; she was a prodigy shaman, apex flier, decent administrator, freakishly good at extracting information from prisoners and was deadly in a fight so long as she didn’t start showing off or ‘savoring’ her victory. Daring also knew without being told that Somnambula was hotter than she was and didn’t want to force Sombra to say it. But underneath it all, despite being a hundred miles off spoiled, she was still always going to be a palace brat who would never understand what it meant to come from nothing like Sombra and Jeopardy had done.

When Jeopardy had shown up at the crystal empire after fleeing murder charges in her own eyrie with nothing but two coppers, a rusted knife and a helmet to her name. She pledged to serve seven years in the army for citizenship and a small patch of land and through skill, hard work, and some calculated gambles she became one of the most powerful mares of the empire.

When there was evidence of an assassination plot against her life, Somnambula had been very creative imagining how someone might try to kill her and how to defend herself. The fact that all her scenarios involved the assassin being an apex flier with shamanic tattoos who would slavishly obey ancient codes of chivalry to the letter while exploiting obscure loopholes based on changes in language over the centuries did not seem to bother her. When Sombra chose Jeopardy to be her bodyguard, Jeopardy had been able to gather the few clues they had on the killer to build a psychological profile of the assassin, put herself in their shoes, and ultimately arrested the earth pony janitor who Somnambula never looked twice at.

While Somnambula might have been a better administrator, Sombra wouldn’t have left her in charge alone. Jeopardy had had been one of the rare few who would have understood the plight of the poor and would have had the courage to stand up to Somnambula without fighting her over every little detail so that nothing ever got done. Together they actually made a pretty good team until Mistmane came along and was a better administrator than Jeopardy, Somnambula and Sombra combined.

When it was Somnambula’s turn to hold Sombra, Daring would practice talking with Jeopardy. Daring still couldn’t hear ‘words’ like she could with Sombra and Somnambula, something about Jeopardy never having had magical abilities made it difficult for her to ‘talk’ so it was more like an incredibly talented miming librarian pointing her to the right chapters from Jeopardy ’s memories.

When holding Somnambula’s phylactery the memories she saw had been only of Sombra and were almost exclusively sensual. At first, Daring had Somnambula treasured the physical highlights but now she suspected it was because that was all that their marriage ever had going for it. With Jeopardy the memories had been less dramatic but more meaningful. She remembered conversations she had had with Sombra ranging from political to philosophical to personal, breakfasts they’d shared on open balconies as they watched the sun rise. He’d come to her when he was feeling low and needed a pickup and she’d come to him when she was happy and wanted someone to celebrate with. Jeopardy and Sombra had been made for each other and he was not the only person that Jeopardy had fond memories of.

From what they could piece together from Jeopardy ’s memories and Daring’s history lessons, after Celestia conquered the crystal empire she placated the crystal ponies by taking away their history. Most of their heroes were kept mostly the same, albeit with minor changes but Sombra was recast entirely as the ruthless tyrant Celestia had rescued them from while his accomplishments and actions were attributed to a mostly fictitious wizard named Starswirl the Bearded.

The real Starswirl was nothing but a slimy old politician who had drafted the charter granting Celestia emergency powers over all Equestria’s armed forces. Powers she was supposed to give up once the war was over but seemed to have kept and expanded upon in the centuries since the war. The spells he was attributed with inventing were the work of Clover the Clever and Mistmane and the great deeds had been mostly Sombra.

Mistmane? Chancellor Mistmane was the granddaughter of the great archmage Clover the Cleaver. Magic had skipped over her mother’s generation, so Clover was the only one who ever really got her and had unofficially apprenticed her from when she was just five years old. She spent her entire childhood and early adult years in Canterlot helping her grandfather invent spells for the betterment of all ponykind. Mistmane barely tolerated their work being attributed to Starswirl to boost his credibility but everything fell apart when Clover died and Celestia took everything.

Bit and pieces were dolled out to the masses in standardized spell books but the real magic she hoarded for herself. Sometimes she shared a little more with the lackeys whom she indoctrinated from childhood and even then she only gave a select few ‘forbidden’ spells to each one so no individual had enough power to challenge her.

Scrying wasn’t hard but but if everyone could do it people would learn how to ward against it and then Celestia couldn’t spy on whoever she wanted so it became dark magic for a trusted few. Did necromancy drive people insane? No, why would it? That made no sense except that Celestia never had even a flicker of ability for it would weaken her power if a comprehensive education required teachers other than herself.

Mistmane was given a simple ultimatum to cooperate as a teacher in Celestia’s school, teaching only what deemed appropriate or leave with nothing. She chose the latter, wandering for years before returning, starving, desperate and humiliated into Celestia’s ‘forgiving’ arms. She never told Celestia where she’d been but her inveigle flattery won over Celestia’s trust nonetheless.

That winter Mistmane ‘liberated’ every book, parchment and artifact from the Starswirl The Bearded archive in one night, right from under the noses of a platoon of royal guards and a hundred protective wardings. She loaded everything, including herself into a flotilla of barrels and navigated it straight down the five hundred yard waterfall out of Canterlot.

Sombra was there to catch her, as agreed, with a trade caravan which had already been leaving Canterlot to return to the Crystal Empire where Mistmane donated the entire collection to the local library on the condition it remain available to anyone willing to take the risks of spell casting. Did she blow herself up testing some of her advanced experiments, horrifically scarring her for life? Hell Yes. But that was the risk which she chose to take pursuing her passion; she’d needed no one’s permission and she had no regrets.

Did Sombra like her? Everyone liked Mistmane. She had a way of even getting along with Somnambula. Romantically? They’d been engaged but after her skin became a swamp of puss filled sores that never healed Sombra wasn’t nearly polite enough to pretend he was attracted to her anymore.

It was surprising how much Celestia had exaggerated Sombra’s power level, but in hindsight it made sense. A single heart twisted by mindless cruelty into an engine of elemental destruction and all ponykind being united in love and friendship against it made convenient story. Thousands of ponies with thousands of personal reasons opposing Celestia and her army which was also held together by a myriad of reasons begged for more context and questions Celestia didn't’ want to answer.

Yes, Sombra was powerful, but a platoon of competent soldiers could have taken him down and if Celestia had ever had the courage to come out from her ivory walls she’d have also been killed by a platoon.

The book had only spoken twice. Once when it requested it be sat on whenever possible and later to remind Somna that she owed her seven young buffalo from some wager they’d made over something that made Somna blush and sit harder, muffling it’s voice.

Somnambula spent the first days doing very little except bossing her around and going to the spa to get her coat and mane dyed to match their original colors. Daring tried suggesting keeping a low profile meant wearing a cloak but Somnambula absolutely refused to hide or even speak about her tattoos and scowled at anyone who stared too much. Daring was going to press the issue until Jeopardy shows her images of camping with windigos as Celestia hid the sun with even Rockhoof bundled under heavy furs while Somnambula ordered pairs of unicorns to follow her around in shifts, feeding energy into the glyphs she used to cast heat spells so she wouldn’t freeze to death.

Eventually, Daring came back from a shopping trip having finally found the caviar Somnambula wanted to see her sitting in front of the silver mirror she’d had delivered and was… sewing the glass? Without speaking Somnambula gestured for Daring to sit next to her on Welkin’s grimoire and with a gesture, the mirror seemed to ignite with scolding flames.

When it cleared there was a brilliant amaranth and amber unicorn and a cutie-mark of a blazing sun. She reared determinedly in a vast stone room surrounded by several layers of wide pillars, throwing spells out of her horn, arms and even her tail at four… maybe five orbs flying erratically around her. Every time she struck one of the orbs it changed color and after a minute a pattern emerged of blasting them with either telekinesis, fire or a mixture of both depending on what color the orb was.

Daring guessed it was some kind of training exercise as more and more orbs flew into the room, orbiting around other orbs of different colors at high speeds and weaving behind the stone pillars forcing. Daring had to admit the mare was doing a flaming good job and even Somnambula hummed in approval as the pyromage ricocheted a meteor off one pillar to strike an orb that was hiding behind another. Welkin started making exaggerated snoring sounds and then a loud yawn, “Bored!”.

Somnambula hesitated a moment then waved her hoof across the mirror to a scene of a blue unicorn wearing a frilly pink dress having a tea party with two tiny fillies and four stuffed bears causing Welkin to burst out into retching sounds until Somnambula swiped them away. Next came a cream unicorn with a purple moon cutie-mark, thick glasses and a business suit who seemed to be presenting some batch of charts to a board room. They couldn’t hear what was being said but her face showed the hope in her voice and then withering disappointment of rejection as someone they couldn’t see followed by her desperate attempts to suck up to whatever boss or investor was rejecting her proposal. Welkin made several suggestions for the mare to use that big magic to melt some heads but once it was clear the meeting wasn’t going to turn into an all out mage brawl Welkin lost patience, “For someone who looks like they don’t get any flank they sure know how to suck. Find me someone neurotic!”

Somnambula seemed to be weaving invisible strands together then turned the mirror again. This time the mage was purple with a starburst cutie-mark who seemed to be talking to herself which pleased Welkin immensely but got disappointed when it turned out she was talking to a baby dragon in the corner. She lasted longer than any of the others but when Somnambula adjusted the view to get a better look at the room there was a large framed picture of the mare hugging Celestia with a look of adoring trust and Somnambula passed on her with the silent agreement of Welkin and Daring.

The last image was… dark. Daring assumed that whoever was there must be sleeping with heavy curtains drawn but there was a pony-shaped silhouette moving in front of the mirror. She turned to put out the lights and waited for her eyes to adjust but before she could see more than a basic shape Welkin whooped, “That one! I want that one!”

6 - Just a Small Town Girl

Somma’s scrying was able to give a general direction of Wilkin’s ‘chosen one’ but getting exact coordinates would have required unicorn help. It took a few missed tries but after a week of trying Daring followed Somma into a remote mining town in Equestria’s northeast, certain the unicorn was around here somewhere.

It was a small enough town that everyone should know everyone else at least superficially. Somma wanted to pretend they had a magical artifact that needed the most powerful spellcaster in town to charge it for them. Daring suspected from Somma’s description of the chaos Wilkin generated that this unicorn might be in some kind of trouble and if she was hiding out in a place this remote, she was probably hiding her power. She’d fished out a couple fake sheriffs’ badges from one of her safety deposit boxes scattered around Equestria and had sketched out a rough likeness of the ‘suspect’ and was planning on discretely asking the general store owner if anyone new had been in town lately.

Both their efforts were unnecessary. As they entered the town’s main street they could hear a jukebox blaring from a local diner along with occasional tufts of smoke which had three of its four windows blown out from the inside. Daring watched one pony and then another go stop at the broken windows and look in, only to canter off with their tails between their legs.

Walking by on the far side of the street, Daring saw their teenaged unicorn mare huddled at a table strewn with empty sundae glasses and vodka bottles. In front of her was a tear-stained letter and a stack of pictures… the same picture it seemed of a guy who looked like he could have been Spitfire’s unicorn cousin standing with a mint green unicorn mare in a lyre. Welkin’s ‘chosen’ picked up one of the pictures and burnt it to ash, froze a second one into a hunk of ice and hurled it against a wall to shatter, dipped the third into what Daring had thought was vodka until it started bubbling and dissolving the third picture like acid.

The mare realized she was on her last picture so she took a stack of napkins from behind the counter placed the picture on top and concentrated. The light forced Daring to look away for a moment but she heard a sizzling pop and when she looked back there were a dozen new copies of the picture scattered across the diner. The mare gathered them all up without breaking her vacant staring contest with the wall, took a swig from the vodka bottle she’d dissolved the last picture in, gagged, and stuffed more icecream into her face as she shredded the first of her new pictures into a thousand pieces.

“I got this one.” Daring whispered to Somnambula, taking Welkin’s grimoire, “I’ve been there before.” She walked casually into the diner, past the owner who was cowering behind the counter, unwilling to leave his shop and too scared to try to kick the unicorn out. The mare spared one glance at Daring who had done a decent enough job to make herself look like law enforcement, coming towards her with a sword strapped to her side, and growled. One of the chairs rose to block her path, it’s steel legs tied themselves into a knot and then fell with a thud to one side. Daring stepped past the warning and casually sat down across from the grieving mare, “So what’s the plan to get him back?”

“I don’t want him back.” the unicorn mare spat, “He ditched me for his lyrist.”

“I didn’t mean ‘get him back beside you'. He doesn’t deserve that. I meant how do you get back at that gelding for making the biggest mistake of his life and one-up his betrayal so no one else ever messes with you again.” Drunk, mascaraed, tear-stained eyes glimmered at her curiously and Daring continued, “Oh you must know how it goes. He starts a rumor that gets you detention, you start a rumor that gets him arrested. He eggs your cart, you burn down his. He leaves you for his new marefriend... you reply back saying you’d already left him for your two new marefriends.”

The unicorn smiled for the first time, spraying Daring with ice cream and vodka as she snickered gleefully, “That’s gold.”

“Nah” shrugged Daring, “Bronze at best. Gold would be if you joined me and the inked up broad in the harem of our lord of shadows and help resurrect him to the mortal realm, building a family that will never leave you and always be by your side no matter what while forging an empire that will make the world tremble.”

Several glasses smashed to the ground as the unicorn reared, her arms skywards, “BUCK YESSS!!!”

“Great! All you need to do is break the seal on this grimoire of forbidden spells that Celestia doesn’t think you’re smart enough to use and then do whatever the voices inside your head tell you.”

The tome had been snatched away before she’d finished speaking. A beam of bright magic shot out from the unicorn and shattered the lock. The grimoire flew open and over the unicorn as if it was trying to eat her face, triggering a chorus of maniacal laughter, and when it pulled back her eyes had changed color to viridian green. Somnambula joined them to watch the transformation finish as Wilkin laughed until she gagged, falling over backward onto the bench, and broke out into unnatural muscle spasms.

“Wilkin… are you OK?”

Nothing but a repressed wheezing sound broke from Wilkin’s as her limbs and tail flailed wildly. Daring checked her airway but didn’t see any obstructions, and was about to turn her on her side when faint words squeaked out of blueing lips, “Arcane overload resulting in massive organ failure. Need immediate CPR… preferably to the crotch… you and Somnambula should take turns.”

“… Very funny.”

Somnambula walked forwards and punched Wilkin in the ribs, knocking out the lung full of air she’d been holding and drawing a very normal ‘urmph’ of pain, “Nice to see you again Somnambula” Wilkin said in a normal voice without looking at who’d hit her.

“And you Wilkin,” Somnambula answered.

“I’m not Wilkin anymore, my name is Starlight Gimmer or...” she looked at herself in a mirror and touching her mascara-laden face with black painted hooves and smiled, “Call me Starkin. Baddest bitch of the Empire” She turned to Somma with sudden urgency, “Do you have him!?”

Somma lifted the scarf around her neck to show Sombra underneath. Starkin reached for him but Somnambula dropped the scarf and raised her hoof to block her, “maybe if we went somewhere a little more private.”

“...Fine” sighed Starkin, pulling her saddlebags back onto her from a corner, “Come on, I think I live around here.”

7 - Heir to the Empire

“Now comes the hardest part.” said Starkin in a family home she shared with two ‘absent’ parents. “Finding a new host suitable for Sombra.”

“Already done.” Smiled Somnambula.

“Really?”

“His name is Terra Clave and-”

“No!” Daring screamed, “How could you even think that!?”

“A half-kirin archmage with mastery over earth,” said Somnambula simply.

“That could describe a lot of stallions!”

“Seriously?” asked Starkin, “Cause in our age that was stupidly rare. Let me ask Starlight.” she wrinkled her nose. “No that’s still a one in several generations.”

“Let alone the most pressing evidence.” cawed Somnambula, “The sphinx answers to no one but it’s creator and those he tells it to serve. So either Sombra saw hundreds of years into the future entered him by name into the Sphinx’s list of masters, or else the Sphinx has spent these last centuries seeking out the soul of it’s creator and identified it within Terra who, like Sombra, gifted it to his first love.”

“...The sphinx is Altozutl!?”

“Terra gave it a facelift to be sure to make it look like a… dog instead of a lioness, but the core programming is the same and unmistakable.”

“But-but Terra always said he’d made Altozutl!?”

“Built it new shell to be sure, but even if Terra was the prodigy to end all prodigies and learned his craft a decade ahead of Sombra himself, without stewardship over the earth and an empire’s wealth of rare materials to construct the core processor he could have never matched Sombra’s sphinx.”

“What clan is he from?” asked Starkin.

“I don’t even know. His mother was exiled when she was pregnant with him and I never found out why. She moved to my hometown and worked as an enchantress of jewelry… I think. She never got married.”

“You grew up together?”

“No, I barely ever met him until he was about nine and I was fourteen. He was getting followed by a gang of twelve-year-old bullies and I told them to buck off. He followed me home and almost never left me alone after that.”

“And showered you with gifts like Altozutl and a scourge of zombies for your birthday.” Somnambula added.

“She got zombies for her birthday?” laughed Starkin, “That’s awesome!”

“No! It wasn’t awesome!”

“So why don’t you have a bunch of foals with him by now?”

“Because I ran away!”

“Did he like… skin you and another mare alive and then sew you back together in each other’s skins because he didn’t like your color?”

“...What?”

“Did he break your knees and elbows, cut out your eyes and tell you he’d only heal you if you managed to climb to the top of a massive, slippery, irregular, staircase with no guardrails where each step slanted different directions and had jagged edges.”

“No! No one would ever do that! That’s not even possible.”

“Well, actu-” Welkin was cut off by Somnambula’s wing knocking the air out of her ribs who settled down next to Daring and draped a wing over her,

“Did he ever deliberately hurt you?”

“He threw a firebolt at me once.”

“Why?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

Daring sighed, “He… can count cards. There was a new game that got popular when we were kids and Los Pegasus held this big tournament with a ten thousand bit buy-in and a million-bit price. Terra was certain that he had cracked a code and made a system that was absolutely unbeatable but he needed a partner for it to work. He got the money from… somewhere, I think he stole it, he cast disguises over us to make us look older and gave me very definite instructions of what I needed to do but when we were at the semi finals I panicked. I played the queen of hearts with the king of diamonds instead of the king of hearts and he threw a fit and attacked me right there at the table. He got arrested, I went home, he showed up a few weeks later and tried to apologize.

“So you’ve hated someone for over a decade, because they gave you a minor injury once, when you cost them a million bits.”

“No.”

“Then what did he do that was so terrible.”

“He m-murdered my dog.” she whispered quietly.

“I thought he liked your dog.” reminded Somnambula, “and renamed the sphinx in honor of his memory.

“No!” shrieked Daring, “He came to me when Ahuizotl, my Ahuizotl was just fine, and said he’d seen how much I loved playing with my dog and offered to make me a better dog who could talk and do all kinds of crazy tricks. I told him Ahuizotl was all the dog I needed. He walked away and two weeks later Ahuizotl dies to make room for his clay golem or sphinx or whatever that th-thing is which constantly keeps kidnapping me and locking me in deathtraps!”

“It seems that” Somnambula started but Daring talked over her.

“So, I adopt his little monstrosity and my parents.” she swallowed hard, “My parents had always had trouble having another kid after me. My mother had a couple of miscarriages early in the pregnancy but her last one was coming along good; seven months in and no problems. Then she made the mistake of saying in front of Terra that if they lost this baby then they would apply to adopt a colt. A month later she miscarried and his mother died in the same freaking week! My… parents adopted him of course.”

“So he kills my dog to make room for his monster and he kills my real little brother to make room for himself. You’d think he was done but NOOOOPE! The school, in its infinite wisdom, decides to give the little imp sex education. The teacher decides to mention that fillies who don’t have fathers living in their home are significantly more likely to start shagging at an earlier age because they’re more needy for male affirmation. Whoops! Bye, dad!

So at this stage, you’d think the little imp had run out of people to murder. It’s just him and myself and my mom left right? So I graduate and he knows I’m wanting to leave and go as far away as I can so mom gets sick, really sick with some tropical parasite cancer thing that no one’s ever heard of before. She needed twenty/four-hour care by someone who can monitor temperature which happens to be the one and only sense he never ‘managed’ to install in Ahuizotl who can do just about everything else that Terra ever wanted, and something in his internal core makes mercury explode if he gets too close for who knows what reason, so he couldn't do it.”

“Sometimes what’s easy by by natural means is almost impossible with magic.”

“He poisoned my mother for years so he could completely control me!I knew if I stayed there I’d be trapped forever and sooner or later Terra would get tired of waiting for me to fall in love with him and force himself on me. When I ran away he sent Ahuizotl to drag me back and told me that if I left again then my mother would die! He sent Ahuizotl after me again, but I guessed a password deleted Terra’s location. Ahuizotl still wants to bring me back but so long as he doesn't know where it becomes a low priority task and if have him repeatedly build more and more dungeons then he won’t look for Terra. A month after I left Terra realized mom wasn’t useful to him in getting me so he killed her and he’s been looking for me ever since. I never stay in any one place for long, I never visit the same place twice and I write under a persuader so he can’t track me through that.”

Technically, it was entirely possible that none of what Daring had just said was true. She never had any proof that Terra had ever killed anyone but he was smart enough to get away without any evidence. If Daring had started snooping and by some miracle had found evidence, he would have caught her! Terra would never kill her, but he’d have a hundred ways of making sure she never told anyone and none of them were better than death.

The alternative possibility was to believe the story that the kirin clan matriarch had put a curse on the bloodline of Terra’s pregnant mother when she was exiled; a curse which destroyed anyone who loved him. That would explain Altozutil, his mother, and her parents but if there was a curse then Daring did not want to be next on the list.

Maybe the curse was real but self-inflicted. Terra had always… dabbled in things that best left alone. After he was adopted Daring had seen him sneak out right after bedtime and didn’t come back until after lunch the next day. She’d covered for him figuring he just needed some time alone but when asked he said that he’d bribed ‘The Jailer’ to let him speak with his mom after she’d died and boasted about how he had smuggled her a blade to ‘end her pain’. It had sounded like the delusions of a twelve-year-old struggling to deal with the grief of loss while trying to impress his crush with made-up superpowers, neither of which she wanted to encourage.

Terra annoyed almost everything and everyone he came across and the possibility he’d irritated something stronger than him and brought the curse on himself. Or he could just be really, really, really unlucky.

She figured it was maybe a 50/50 chance he was a serial killer but one option made her the only thing close to a friend he’d ever had and she’d abandoned him because she was a paranoid wreck who had chosen to blame him for every single thing that ever went wrong in her life because she was a bad daughter too afraid to watch her mother die. The other option meant she was standing up for herself by avoiding an abusive psychopath who was after her because she was super-hot. She knew which answer she wanted to be true so that’s the version she told herself.

She realized she’d been crying. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but Jeopardy was screaming profanities at her, kicking her in the ribs and yelling that they would never regain the status they’d just lost in Somnambula’s eyes after this pathetic display of weakness. She was aware of a cup of honey tea being pressed into her lips by Welkin and Somnambula’s wing covering her like a blanket and she snuggled into it. Jeopardy yelled at her not to trust the bitch but no one had held her like this since her other died and she just needed a moment to pretend that it was real. She loved Sombra because he made her feel safe. He was the only other person she’d met who could have protected her from Terra once and for all, she didn’t fall in love with him so he could become Terra.

“And now, it’s time for you to face him,” Somnambula ordered.

“I c-can’t. I wish I could but-”

“Isn’t your name Daring Do?” asked Welkin.

“It's who I want to be, not who I am. I’m not a hero. I’m just an archaeologist who writes novels that are loosely based on playing games with my dog.” She steeled herself. “Promise me that Sombra is different. That he’d never do the things Terra did."

Starkin blinked, “You mean the part about the dog?”

“No! My Parents! My Brother! Holding me hostage and raping me!”

“Don’t you remember Jeopardy?”

“What? Remember what!?”

“Being the warden of all Sombra’s concubines you kept locked in the basement; punishing the ones who tried to escape, cleaning out the corpses of the ones Sombra got too excited with, and setting up gladiator death matches between the fillies he got bored with. You made a killing off the betting rackets and” Starkin couldn’t keep a straight face anymore and burst out laughing as Daring felt her guts sink and Somnambula threw a threatening glare at her, “I’m just kidding.”

“No.” Somnambula soothed calmingly, “Sombra would never do anything like that and once he’s returned, Terra won’t be able to do it to anyone.”

8 - Gambling With Devils

The next day Daring reluctantly settled down on the chair between Somnambula and Welkin, breathing tensely. Somnambula made some motions with her hooves and the mirror began wavering, but nothing happened.

“Wherever he is has scry shielding.” Muttered Welkin, “we can bypass it so long as the place has a mirror.” She added a spell into Somnambula’s mix and the image solidified into a small library Daring had visited in Sanfransiscolt. It was off the beaten track and never advertised but always had a steady stream of wealthy customers looking for old rare books. If Terra was here tracking her… he was about eight months behind.

Daring spent nearly a minute scanning the private lounge for the pimply young teenager she hadn’t seen in a decade then coughed when she finally recognized the golden magical aura surrounding the unmistakable gnarled horn of a half-kirin stuck to the head of a massive yellow stallion lounging in the corner. He’d grown up. Thick curls of black and brown hair tumbled down muscular shoulders and onto a set of carefully made and extremely compartmentalized saddlebags. Somnambula followed her gaze and pointed a question to which Daring nodded.

“Yum!” cheered Welkin, licking her lips, “When you said you’d ran I thought he’d be hideous. How could you not want a piece of that?”

“Does he always carry that much stuff with him?” asked Somnambula.

Daring hoped so. She couldn’t see him being less paranoid about thieves and keeping his stuff with him was a massive improvement to booby trapping hotel rooms like the one that cost a cleaning maid an arm when they stayed at Los Pegasus. “I don’t kn-” Daring froze as Terra’s image stiffened, looked at the far wall, then turned directly towards them. “Oh crap he’s seen us!” She tried to bolt out of the room but Starkin caught her in telekinesis and pulled her back and held her still for Somnambula to tightly drape a wing around her; “I thought scrying only worked one way!”

“It does.” squeaked Somnambula, fear quivering her voice.

“Reverse scrying.” laughed Welkin, almost sounding confident, “I could do that.”

Terra… smiled. He put his book down picked up his thick shake and unrolled his parchment as he approached. “Hello Daring… happy birthday 3 days late.”

Birthday? She was born in winter, no that was Jeopardy, she had missed her birthday, “Ummm… thanks… can you hear me?”

The words on his parchment changed, “No, but I can lip read.”

“Scrying doesn’t transfer sound,” assured Somnambula. Daring knocked a jar over that Terra couldn’t have seen and he didn’t flinch when it shattered loudly. She didn’t trust either of them but if he was acting he’d gotten a lot better.

“Who are your friends?”

“They’re from my support group.”

“Two teenagers?”

“Yup.”

He paused, “I’ve missed you.”

“Ask him to meet,” whispered Somnambula, dipping her head.

“I… need help. I’ve been getting threatening messages from Caballeron lately and he-”

“Dr. Caballeron has been dead for six months.”

“...What?”

“After he was disbarred when you proved he’d plagiarized his work he and his cartel associates came to me. For some reason, they thought I hated you but didn’t have the ability to ability to corner and kill you by myself and offered to kill you for me if I helped track you. I protected you.”

Terra Clave was always making comments like that: ‘this is your friendly reminder I wouldn’t need help to kill you all by myself’. She never knew if he realized how intimidating he sounded, or if it was just another way for him to boast about his abilities to try and impress her.

Dr. Caballeron… dead. That… didn’t bother her too much but she wondered how many of his ‘associates’ had been with him at the time. Some of his bigger expeditions had included dozens of creatures of various races, not all of them were evil. Some of them included young couples who Caballeron encouraged to bring their young children on digs so his daughter would have other kids to play with. Daring wanted to ask exactly how many he had killed but knew not to; the last thing Terra needed right now was to think that there was anyone he had ‘missed’ and needed to finish. “...Oh.” was all Daring could manage.

“How many people did you kill?” Welkin asked gleefully.

“Thirty-seven.”

Welkin grinned and even Somnambula gave an approving smile. The red unicorn mare who had been sitting behind Terra, pretending not to notice, dropped her jaw. Terra followed Daring’s gaze with a slight turn of his head and the idiot mare gave an incredibly obvious cringe and buried her face in her book. Terra didn’t even turn around to send a bolt hurdling into her chest with a silent crack. Two other unicorns jump to their hooves and one of them almost cast a spell before they were also hit and collapsed. Someone else bolted and almost made it to the door before they collapsed and two more bolts flew beyond Daring’s field of vision. Terra put everyone back into their seats and arranged them like they’d simply fallen asleep while reading, the scorch marks on their coats fading under subtle illusion spells as Welkin laughed hysterically.

“Now we have a private conversation. What is this really about.”

“I feel bad about that hot young mare you just stunned.” giggled Welkin, “Maybe you should plow her fields for her when she’s awake.”

“She’s not a farmer.”

“Oh well, maybe you should just give her a nice drink of thick shake from your straw.”

Terra held his drink closer to his chest as Daring groaned, “You could keep talking like that forever, he’s never going to get it unless you’re literal.”

“Oh.” muttered Starkin disappointingly, “… Show us your cock!”

Terra always had trouble navigating social interactions and looked to Daring for guidance when he didn’t know what to do. When she didn’t do anything, Somnambula stepped in, “The three of us were playing a game of questions where the goal is to exaggerate as much as possible without being caught and Starkin here asked Daring the best-endowed stallion she knew. If her description is accurate she wins and if she was lying...” she withdrew a knife which she slid playfully down Daring’s face, “she loses.”

Terra had been staring at Daring since the scry started and she knew what that meant. She pulled her helmet over her face as he reared, drawing an excited ‘whoop’ from Starkin as she scribbled out a scorecard and held it over her head.

“Congratulations Daring.” said Somnambula coyly, “you win five thousand bits.”

“What, really?”

“Of course. That’s enough to cover this week’s interest payment and have enough left to take us out for a nice dinner. Keep winning like this and maybe we won’t have to sell you to The Nimbus Den to cover your debt.”

The mirror cracked in two and both images of Terra glared at Somnambula with a look she’d only seen him give to the trio of colts that used to bully him. One had fallen down a staircase and shattered his arms, one accidentally drank mentholated spirits and went permanently blind and the third developed an aggressive form of leukemia and died. “What debt?!?!?”

“Oh your little friend is quite the high-stakes gambler,” smiled Somnambula, “Sometimes doesn’t know when to quit?”

“How much?”

Starkin shuffled some random papers that were in a drawer, and then shouted, “837,827 bits and a tuna fish sandwich!”

“Daring?”

Daring had never heard of The Nimbus Den, but the look on Terra’s face told her he did and Somnambula was probably accessing at least some of Pearl’s memories. “I-I’ve made mistakes?”

“I’ll pay it.

“Splendid!” laughed Somnambula, “Starkin, give him our coordinates.”

“He already has them,” Starkin whispered.

“I’ll be there in three days. No more gambling until I get there!”

9 - A Late Birthday

Daring wondered if Terra had gotten an actual job to pay for her random but that question was answered by the next mornings newspaper. A bank wagon had been hijacked in the forest outside Trottingham. Five guards have been knocked out cleanly without injury, one father of two was in critical condition and wasn’t expected to live the week. Police didn’t have any suspects yet but were looking for a squad of unicorns with military training.

She sat around and passed time with Somnambula and Starkin and when she couldn’t stand them anymore she withdrew by herself and tried talking to Jeopardy but still couldn’t get any meaningful connection. She started another book where Daring Do learned she had a twin sister who’d been separated at birth and about going on a quest to find her other half. She wrote half a dozen different drafts but no matter what she tried Jeopardy kept coming across as an evil psychopath. Eventually, she bundled her mess of notes together and sent them off to her editor, asking him to get a ghostwriter to make a coherent draft she would go over later.

She slept… or tried to. Terra was able to counterscry which meant he could scry. He could have found her at any time in the last decade and done anything he wanted, but he didn’t. He let her keep Ahuizotl limiting his communication to a parchment. Why? Starkin seemed very adept at procuring booze from somewhere and all too soon the week was over. Her job was simple enough, all she had to do was loop the amulet around Terra’s neck and then Somnambula, Starkin, and Sombra would take care of the rest. It should be easy… it should – she nearly screamed as telekinesis grabbed hold of her and dragged her rapidly through the underbrush, accelerating at breakneck speeds and then decelerating just as fast past the halfway point as leaves and branches shattered against the shield that ran in front of her.

As quickly as it had begun she came to a skidding halt in front of Terra, and the cool dusk sky was blotted out by an opaque shield. He was almost naked save for protective spells, his parchment a large moneybag, and a lunchbox. No light, no sound from the outside world; just the two of them in a micro world lit by his horn.

“You’re safe now.”

Daring steeled herself and looked him in the eyes, alcohol, and lack of sleep crushed under pounding adrenaline. If she failed she would be dead. If Sombra won she didn’t know what would happen to Terra as he was and if this was the last time they met then she had to know. “Did you… kill my parents?” His eyes narrowed, “Answer me!”

“No.”

“Swear it!”

“I did not kill our” he stopped, unable to finish, and then started over. “I swear I did not kill YOUR parents.”

“...Did you kill your mother?”

He glared at her but she didn’t drop her gaze. His parchment fell to the ground and his horn went out leaving them in darkness for a moment and then one by one every little scar and burn he’d acquired over the years started glowing blue until almost a quarter of him was glowing. About half of them ignited all at once… the scars that had appeared in the weeks after she’d left him in Los Pegasus. A month before his mother died.

“… you’d always said you hurt yourself practicing magic.” He stomped his hoof angrily, his bottom lip trembling. The scars stopped glowing mass of blue scars extinguished, leaving them in darkness once again, and then a few more that hadn’t glowed before turned red. A very few. Six. “Did you.”

“What is this about Daring! I haven’t done this before but I’m pretty sure hostages aren't typically held drunk.

Or armed” he added, clapping his hoof against the sword strapped to her back.

He was deflecting. There were two more people she thought he’d killed, her brother and her dog, and the fact he was changing the subject meant he’d killed at least one of them. “Which one was it?” she sobbed under her breath, “Was it both?”

“Is there even a debt? Do you know what I had to do to get your randsom? Why were you even gambling tuna fish, to begin with?”

She tried answering but no words came, only sobs. Terra’s gaze softened and he put an arm on her shoulder and then pulled her into a hug. It was the perfect opportunity to extend her wing and drape Sombra around his neck but she wouldn’t, not until she knew if he’d killed her brother and dog. Jeopardy felt otherwise. By the time she heard the click of Sombra’s chain, it was already too late.

She pulled back, Terra tugged at the chain as it constricted around his neck and as he linked eyes with her he mouthed one word, ‘Why?’

The shield around them shattered into sparks. The few trees in the glade they were in had already been torn out by their roots and Somnambula was zooming around them in tight zig-zags carrying several cans of spray paint in each arm and leg as she covered the glade in glyphs for the ritual.

Terra threw off Sombra’s influence for a moment and burst into flame. Welkin summoned a ring around him that started to contract, Terra formed a shield of his own and pushed back against Welkin, but just as her ring was about to break his flames doused and were replaced with Sombra’s flickering shadows. Terra could back at either Welkin or Sombra individually, but whenever he turned to fight one the other gained the high ground. Daring was still unnerved that Terra could have easily taken either of them alone but then he was fighting for his life and both Welkin and Sombra were trying to take his body without hurting it. Slowly and surely like an incoming tide they both moved to constrict his body and his mind, exposing themselves to as little risk as was necessary while Somnambula painted glyphs for the ritual around them. They had almost -

Heavy pounding echoed in the distance. The unmistakable gait of an immense creature. Daring had forgotten to attend her birthday party. Daring spun around just in time to see Ahuizotl come crashing through the foliage towards her. Somnambula redirected and charged him, but he simply arched his back with feline grace and let her zip harmlessly under him. He pounced over Daring, tapping her playfully over the head and knocking her helmet off as he landed beside Terra and looked back and forth at the helmet, then at the amulet Daring had been playing with.

“No! No! No! Just take the hat! I’ll chase you for it!”

Ahuizotl snatched the amulet and yanked it from Terra Clave’s neck with a loud snap then turned and ran to the ridge, waving the amulet in challenge for Daring to chase him for it and suddenly froze and turned as his eyes took a familiar golden tint as Terra took control.

10 - Love Me

Peatpeat lunged, claws drawn and teeth barred but in her eyes, it still looked like she was playing. Did she know what was happening? Did she have a choice or was she completely under the control of Ahuizotl who was controlled by Terra and did Terra want her dead? Jeopardy didn’t wait to find out sliced open the jaguar’s jugular without a second thought, spraying Daring with the blood of her friend.

Somnambula sped to seize the amulet from Ahuizotl and didn’t know what to do when he swallowed it into one of the tiny compartments in his innards. Welkin screamed as Terra, fully enveloped in red flame, crashed headlong into her shield. She teleported across the glade and fired off a volley of dozens of small homing stun spells which Terra countered with three separate golden shields which he fired at her, deflecting stun spells as they went.

Rasa was at the edge of the glade, trying to lead her kittens away from the fighting with a mother's insistent stronger than Ahuizotl ’s whistle. They had almost made it when one of the little toms turned and ran towards Starkin. Rasa ran after him and her cubs followed her. Somnambula swooped down like a corkscrew, blue fire erupting from the tattoos on her wings and Rasa lived just long enough to see her cubs incinerated before she was burnt alive.

Terra had almost cornered Starkin again with an endless barrage of wide golden shields that deflected her smaller missiles as they launched towards her, combining offense and defense into a single spell, distracting her while Ahuizotl lunged from behind. Somnambula threw herself into the path of Terra’s oncoming storm of magic and absorbed it into a vortex, pivoted and hurled a bolt of lightning into Ahuizotl, causing him to stumble down a ledge.

Jeopardy murdered another one of Daring’s friends as Welkin resumed her attack against Terra giving Somnambula enough of an opening to close in and buck the towering, flaming stallion in the ribs. He keeled over breathless and Somnambula put him in a headlock and threw him down the slope with some kind of judo move. They gave chase, static electricity crackling across Somnambula’s hooves she tasered him again and again until Ahuizotl pounced on them, coiling his tail around Terra’s limbs and clamping his fist over Terra’s horn. His eyes glowing with green light and purple smoke.

“Sombra?” squeaked Somnambula, “Is that you? It’s me, Somnambula.”

“Somnambula?” Ahuizotl whispered. “...My love.” Tears of desperate longing welled up in Somnambula’s eyes in the silliest smile she’d ever given as she hovered in front of him. He stretched out his hand for her to perch on, Somnambula landed and stroked the side of the cracked clay golem, the silliest grin she’d ever had plastered on her face as Ahuizotl acknowledged her, “You found me.”

Jeopardy wavered. If Sombra was controlling Ahuizotl why wasn’t he paying any attention to her? It was as if… Ahuizotl’s hand was wrapped around Terra’s horn in a ball… bigger than his clenched fist… with golden flames glowing between his fingers. “Look out!”

Somnambula was too enamored to hear or care about anything except the attention and credit she thought Sombra was showing on her until Ahuizotl’s massive fist crunched around her, squeezing her into a bloody, screaming ball that he hurled into a nearby oak. Terra fell from Ahuizotl’s grasp, landed softly, reignited, and galloped after the wounded Somnambula as Ahuizotl lunged at Starkin.

Jeopardy streaked to help. She couldn’t carry Somnambula’s entire body away but if she could just get the earrings and headdress then she could leave the rest and they could try this again later. Starlight charged and unleashed almost everything she had left into and in an incredible column of Starkin’s magic, shattering his head and splitting his torso down the middle. If she could just grab Sombra then the four of them could escape and -

A jagged chunk of Ahuizotl’s corpse struck Daring right below the wing, shattering it as she spiraled and crashed onto her back. As Ahuizotl’s shell fell away something else leaped from it, like Ahuizotl, but no bigger than the pharaoh hound he had replaced. Starkin didn’t have time to recover enough magic to stop him. She rolled to the side and Ahuizotl’s fangs closed over Welkin’s Gilmore, and the strap hanging around Starlight’s neck broke.

Where once Daring had seen fear and determination in Starlight’s eyes, now there was only fear. She picked up Ahuizotl in telekinesis and hurled him into the distance. Somnambula’s screams of agony were cut short with a flash of red beyond her field of vision and a fireball came zooming out towards Starlight, leaving only a smoking crater where she’d been standing?

Was she dead?

If not then she had teleported away to safety and she wasn’t coming back. There was nothing left for Daring to do now but escape. She tried to roll onto her hooves and only found shooting pain the moment she tried to move. She looked down to see if she was pinned under anything and found herself looking at a very strange angle of her cutie-mark that shouldn’t be possible.

She didn’t know how long she lay there, but eventually, Terra approached her with Ahuizotl, wounded, exhausted, victorious yet broken inside as he looked at her and she knew that no amount of magic could save her.

“Why?” whimpered Ahuizotl. She wished she knew why. With Jeopardy knocked away Daring finally had clarity of mind. She remembered everything; the blood from Pawn Picker when he tried to take away the phylacteries, the pleading of Pearl as Somnambula had waterboarded her… the things she would have done if she’d succeeded. “Why!? Why!? Why!? Why!? Why!?”

She wished she could explain, apologize if nothing else but no words came. Ahuizotl began choking her to death, demanding answers she could never give and Terra knelt a few yards away, burning with anger, sobbing with despair. Try as she might… Daring couldn’t come up with a way to blame this on Terra even if he was cursed. This was her own mistake. It was her last one.

Author's Note

Song was intended for Scootaloo but fits perfectly with Terra's childhood.

Remember Starlight is an untrained teenager here and she was trying not to hurt Terra. This bad experience with joining a cult stopped her from joining her own and the survivor's guilt of pushing Daring to confront Terra and then leaving her set Starlight down a very different path than the show.