Sombra doesn’t dream.

It’s impossible. He doesn’t know what makes the umbrum different from ponies, but the umbrum do not dream. He’d barely classify what he does as sleep to begin with, more like a trance of sorts, as he was not so blissfully unaware of the world around him as ponies were. No, it was more like the space around him was rigged with metaphysical tripwires, leaving him aware of anything in his general vicinity that moved. And when he managed to tune out the feeling of tripwires, he still didn’t dream. His memories cycled, played on the movie screen of his eyelids.

And still he didn’t dream.

He was in shackles.

He remembered this day. He could never distinguish if it was one of the worst days of his life or one of the best.

His body was devastatingly thin, the shackles were barely small enough to prevent him from slipping out, and his ribs were visible through his fur, the terrible effect of his time floating through nonexistence and subsisting on food that lacked any practical nutrition value. He glared through his shaggy, overgrown, black mane, his red eyes still holding all the malice and contempt of a man who’d lost everything. The subject of his glare stood on equal footing with him, not looking at him through bars or from thrones towering over him, as he would’ve had done to them. They did the opposite. They sat him down at a table like they were having drinks with an old friend, and neither reacted to his glare, faces neutral, though quirked eyebrows betrayed their interest in his current predicament.

He couldn’t remember a single word they spoke that day, their mouths blurring in the projected memory, producing only a dull hum that filled in the blanks of what were meant to be words. Then, they presented him with a paper. Ten rules, and a contract. He was agreeing to his own reformation. He wasn’t presented with any information on what would happen if he didn’t agree, but he didn’t need to. Some of the trash cans he’d been scrounging through had wizened up and started throwing trash elsewhere, and the contract promised he’d be fed. Housed.

Alive.

He struggled to sign the contract without his magic, but with gritted teeth and determination, the name Sombra was scratched, barely legible onto that paper.

One day later, he was washed, he was fed, and he was associating with Ponies again.

The projection fizzled out, and one of his tripwires was set off.

His eyes shot open, and he watched as the door to his temporary room opened slowly, whatever pony sent to get him squinted to see into his darkened room, meeting his eyes through the darkness.

“You should probably get up.” Cadance’s voice was hushed, as though she was trying not to jar him from his sleep too hastily. “Shining Armor has something he wants to show you, and he’s around fifteen minutes from coming up here himself. He sent me as the first warning.” Sombra sighed.

“Alright. Tell him I’ll be down soon.” She nodded, sparing him one last glance before trotting out. Be it the memory he’d recounted in his sleep, or some other reason, he had half a mind to say thank you. He forced himself out of the bed, feeling slightly shaky on his legs as the familiar joint pain that came with standing anywhere in the general vicinity of the Crystal Heart set in. He flexed his legs, trying to limit how badly it could impact him in the long run.

Not telling the royals about the pain was a technical violation of Rule 3, but what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. ...Even though it might hurt him.

The royal hall of the Crystal Palace was, admittedly, one of the nicer redecorations that had happened in his absence. The new throne was still purple, but rather than a dark, light absorbing purple, the central crystal was a cool lavender, surrounded by beautiful blues and indigos, with a long purple carpet leading into the throne. It was, admittedly, very pretty. Unfortunately, the light colors failed to absorb a comfortable amount of the Crystal Heart’s light, so precious little was done to alleviate the feeling of general instability ringing through his body, as though he could dissolve into shadows at the slightest touch.

At the center of the room stood Shining Armor, bearing a calm professional air that suggested the quasi-business nature of their attempts to reform him. They wanted to be his friend, and they were also obligated by Celestia to do anything possible to prevent him from taking over the Crystal Empire again. Ironically, it hadn’t taken completing the first to complete the second. Still, he regarded Sombra kindly, as he always did, but Sombra saw a glint in his eyes. The mischievous kind. The kind that meant Shining Armor did the one thing he could do to Sombra as a prank.

A gift.

A gift that had something to do with Celestia. Undoubtedly, it was magical in nature, but what? If she’d figured out how to restore his magic, he’d probably do well to hold back on that. Could it have something to do with his aversion to the Crystal Heart?

...Maybe it would do him well to stop thinking about it and let Shining Armor tell him what’s actually going on.

“You wanted to see me?” Shining Armor stepped out of the way to reveal a platter on a tray. The way they reveal things to royals. Or, the way royals have things revealed, depending on the situation.

“I asked Celestia to look through her archives for things about the Umbrum, and how to minimize any pain the Crystal Heart may cause you,” Sombra blinked, eyes widening slightly. Shining Armor smiled at him. “You don’t get to be Captain of the Royal Guard without being observant. You wince every time you get down from a chair, or your bed, or any place where you’re not on the ground and supporting your weight with your legs. Honestly, I doubt even you notice unless it’s particularly bad, which is when you start stretching your legs every few seconds or so when you’re standing still.”

...Like Sombra thought, irritatingly perceptive.

“Anything else you know about me? Perhaps how long I brush my teeth or what songs I like to sing in the shower.” Sombra said through gritted teeth. Shining Armor’s smile was, maddeningly, completely unaffected. His voice was light and airy as he said:

“Just because I know that you refuse to tell us when you’re in pain, a clear violation of rule 3, by the way, doesn’t mean I go out of my way to watch you 24/7. You sing in the shower?”

Sombra scowled. “What’s on the damn tray?”

“Language. And what’s on the tray is something to help you. Hopefully.” He did Sombra the small favor of using the loop of the tray lid just so he wouldn’t be using magic, revealing something remarkably similar to Sombra’s old cape. Now, it wasn’t exactly the same, his had black spots dyed into the white fur and was slightly smaller, this one looked like it would nearly trail behind him if he walked, and the fur lining the edges was pure white, but the most noticeable difference was that his favored neck brace had been replaced with a clasped necklace, socketed with a small red gem. He felt a surge of interest, but as he got closer, he could practically feel the magic washing over him as he got closer to it. He scowled even deeper, and took a couple steps back.

“I am not putting that on my body.” Shining Armor nodded.

“I expected that. I didn’t tell her why, but I did ask about a secondary solution. That should work until you manage to recover a little.” The question of whether or not he would recover entered his mind briefly, but he shoved it aside in favor of focusing on Shining Armor’s quote, “secondary solution”. “She sent me the seeds of a plant designed for magical pain relief. Make it into a tea and it’ll block any magical pain.”

“Well first things first, how long will these seeds take to grow. And second, how long does the tea last? I’d rather not be saddled with pain for most of the day only to have it go away for 30 minutes at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” Shining Armor shrugged, and Sombra leveled him a glare.

“She said the plant should grow ‘extremely quickly’, so that shouldn't be an issue. But for how long it lasts, I really have no idea.”

“Not exactly the most comforting idea, Shining Armor.” Sombra said, flatly. Shining Armor looked slightly downtrodden, and Sombra felt a twinge of empathy in his chest, which he attempted to stamp out. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, and it grew disgustingly quickly. After barely a second, he sighed. “Although… I do appreciate the effort. Still, is there nothing we can do in the meantime?”

Shining Armor perked up slightly, something which made Sombra’s heart soar a little more than he’d like to admit. “Well, it might not help in the long term, but we do have a masseuse in the castle. Cadance goes there all the time.” Sombra raised an eyebrow.

“Not your style?” Shining Armor shook his head.

“Well I mean, it could be. I usually don’t have time.”

Sombra frowned. “You don’t have the time to enjoy a little relaxation? I refuse to believe that.”

Shining Armor shrugged, already walking away. “You should find the masseuse pretty easily. I’ll get a guard to send your cape up to your room.”

Rule 10. Try to find ways to make yourself happy with others. Talk to ponies and do things with them. In general, don’t be a hermit.

Initially he scoffed at the rule, assuming a logical progression of rule importance, the tenth rule probably should’ve been something along the lines of ‘No scheming world domination’, or something of the sort. Eventually, he had the self awareness to realize that was an unspoken rule, and also to realize that he was meant to be reformed, not taken into custody. They wanted him to be happy. They wanted him to make friends. So, they made that the most important rule. Now, it was the primary reason behind him saying what he said next.

“Well, you ought to make time, because we’re going together. No getting out of it. Consider this being me abiding by Rule 10.” Shining Armor literally froze in his step, whirling around in shock. Sombra raised an eyebrow at him. “What? It doesn’t have to be right now. Clear your schedule for sometime in the next few days and tell me when. We’ll make a ‘day of it’.”

Shining Armor still looked quite like a fish out of water, and he said, dully, “Okay.”

Author's Note

Ah, I intend for this to be on the longer side, maybe 20 chapters or so, but I don't intend for them to go from a chaste kiss to rocking the bed in 2 chapters, so I'm setting up the relationship quicker than I intend to have them go at each other. In other words, it's not a slow burn per say, but they won't be fucking right out the gate. So... go ahead and wait if that's what you're after. Then again, I might include some obscure reference to the rest of the fic during that scene, so you'll be confused if you haven't read the rest, just because.