Sombra stalked down the halls of his palace. And it was his, no matter what that bitch Celestia and her puppets claimed.
His first return had failed, unfortunately, and it had taken him two years to recover from being hit by that magical attack from Cadence. For someone who was being mind-controlled by Celestia, she still had remarkable strength in magic.
That was why Sombra hadn’t returned openly. That would have just ended in his defeat again. Tartarus, he had barely escaped last time. Now, it would be different.
Two guards watched over the door that stood between the king and his price. With a wave of his hoof, shadows grabbed the two stallions, wrapping around them until they passed out. Sombra did not wish to hurt them, after all.
With a simple push of his hoof, the door opened. Sombra stayed as silent as possible as he entered the room and walked over to the crib.
In the crib, a sleeping little filly lay. Sombra’s heart wrenched; he would never have done this, but there was no other choice. Tentatively, he reached out with his hoof, pausing inches away from the baby’s face.
His horn lit up, and with telekinesis he lifted the foal from her crib and cradled her in his right foreleg, pressed against the cold metal of his breastplate. Somehow, this did not wake her up.
Now came the hard part: leaving again. Sombra turned away, but something caught his eye: a green and yellow snail, laying in the otherwise empty crib.
He grabbed it too, and placed it in the foal’s grasp. She immediately closed her legs around it, but continued on sleeping.
Sombra walked down the empty hallway, trailing his earlier steps back to the secret entrance he had used to enter the palace.
Just in time for a patrol to cross into the hallway.
‘’Halt!’’
Fuck.
A blast of shadows fired from Sombra’s horn shrouded the entire hallway. Sombra used the distraction to gallop past the guards.
‘’He’s got the Princess! Stop him!’’
More guards appeared in front of Sombra. Did those fuckers have a hive-mind?
Plan B it was.
Sombra suddenly turned right, charging a bolt of magic as he did so. It shot forward and shattered the stained glass window into a million different pieces.
Sombra leapt out of the window and turned into a shadow, speeding away as fast as he could. The shouts of the guards were lost in the wind as he blasted over Crystal City, leaving it’s outskirts in one minute and continuing on towards the mountains.
As he headed for his hideout, Sombra glanced down at the foal. And blinked at the pair of turquoise eyes that looked back at him.
After a three-second staring contest, Flurry Heart giggled and pushed up one of her hooves. Sombra made sure he was holding her correctly and she wouldn’t fall out of his grip. While he was sure he could catch her before she hit the ground, that didn’t mean he wanted her to fall.
Luckily, they were close to Sombra’s current home. The cloud of shadows descended, landing in front of what appeared to be a sheer cliff-face, high in the mountains that separated the Crystal Empire from Yakyakistan. Sombra reformed into himself, then pressed the tip of his horn against the black stones.
After a moment, the stones melted away into shadows, forming a gateway that Sombra stepped to and turning back to stone as soon as he was through it.
‘’Ga?’’ Flurry asked.
Sombra glanced down at her and raised an eyebrow. ‘’Why are you awake?’’ he questioned.
‘’I’d like to know that too,’’ a female voice drawled.
Sombra looked up at his enemy turned partner-in-crime. Princess Luna of Equestria. Escaped from the control of her sister some time after Celestia banished him, she had been banished following a short fight, only to return after a thousand years. She had then hidden from Celestia until Sombra had contacted her and explained his plan to her. Luna had been sceptical, but agreed.
She stood just as tall as him, starry mane blowing in that same non-existent wind his did as she approached him. Flurry turned her eyes towards the other alicorn. ‘’Aga?’’ she babbled as she stuck out her forelegs at Luna.
‘’Quite,’’ Luna said dryly. ‘’So this is my so-called niece?’’ she inquired as she stopped in front of Sombra.
‘’It is,’’ Sombra confirmed needlessly. ‘’I got in without trouble, but ran into a patrol on the way back. I had to escape with plan B: by now, Celestia probably already knows.’’
A few hours probably didn’t make much difference in the great scheme of things, but every moment counted in the short run. Sombra and Luna had reinforced this hideout with the best spells in their combined arsenal, so Celestia wouldn’t find them here. But that still didn’t mean they wouldn’t need every advantage against the solar alicorn they could get.
‘’Want to hold her?’’ Sombra offered before Luna could react to his revelation beyond pursing her lips.
The alicorn nodded, and Sombra watched as her entire being softened the moment the little foal was in her forelegs, looking up at her with wide eyes. ‘’Adorable, no?’’
Luna’s eyes flicked to him. ‘’... Yes.’’
Sombra hummed. ‘’And you know she’s going to grow up seeing us as her parents.’’
‘’Is that a problem?’’ Luna challenged. So protective already.
‘’No,’’ Sombra agreed easily. ‘’I am just stating fact.’’ A fact the two of them had discussed extensively, among other things. After all, there was little moral about kidnapping a baby from her parents and then raising it with the intent that she would one day help overthrow a tyrannical government.
Privately, Sombra had contemplated that by the time Flurry would be ready for that, they would be too attached to her to let that happen to her. But that was far-off, and for now there was only a young filly they needed to care for.
‘’Let’s go further inside,’’ Luna said after a moment, before hoisting the foal on her back with her magic. ‘’It’s cold here, and that can’t be good for her.’’
‘’She’s been living in Crystal City for…’’ Sombra trailed off as he remembered Flurry was only four months old. ‘’Never mind.’’
Luna snorted. ‘’Thought so.’’
Sombra was, he once again reflected as he entered into his hideout, not happy with his current accommodations. This place had been designed so he could research esoteric magic and do experiments without fear of harming anyone (besides himself, but someone had to do it), and it showed.
The walls were black, smooth stone, cut out with spells designed to be efficient. Light came from green crystals mounted five paces apart from each other on the roof, casting long but barely visible shadows on the stone.
The hallway extended quite far into the mountain, with occasional alcoves containing doorways to various rooms of equally-varying nature. But while they were all certainly important, the most important rooms were far deeper underground, as a precaution.
Sombra’s private quarters - and in recent times, those of Luna too - were located deeper into the mountain, on the way to the inner laboratories. They were, originally, very bare in design, though the comforts he allowed himself were of exquisite quality, of course. Just because he didn’t feel the need to spend overly much on luxurious items of debatably-useful nature didn’t mean he disliked comfort.
He hadn’t ever needed a crib, though. Nor had he needed a second bed, or bedroom, for that matter.
Now, it had not been much of an issue to create a new set of rooms, equally as expansive as his own, for Luna, and it wouldn’t be a problem for Flurry later; the problem laid in the fact that Sombra did not have the ability to create furniture, at least none that was comfortable or of any kind of quality.
With a little improvisation, he and Luna had managed to stitch together a crib that they considered good enough for a foal to lay in, and it had, after much debate, been placed in Luna's room. When she wasn’t in the Dream World, which rarely happened these days, as it was watched closely by Celestia and her cronies, she was actually a very light sleeper, or so she’d told Sombra. Being a deep sleeper himself, he’d found himself without much of an argument, as neither of them had experience in foalcare otherwise.
Luna’s rooms were far more bare than his own, containing only a bed that wasn’t nearly as comfortable as Sombra’s own, the aforementioned crib, and a table carved from stone via spellwork. Just about the only type of furniture he could make here.
The alicorn, once next to the crib, laid Flurry down in it with her magic, making sure she was nice and comfortable, or at least looked to be that way. Flurry babbled a few incomprehensible words as she was laid down, then watched the two adults standing over her crib with big yet sleepy eyes.
‘’Think she’ll go to sleep soon?’’ Sombra asked Luna.
‘’I hope so,’’ Luna replied. ‘’In any case, I’ll keep watch here until I’m certain she’s asleep.’’
‘’Right,’’ Sombra agreed. ‘’I’ll make myself scarce then. If you need me, I’ll be in the library.’’
‘’Of course. Good night.’’
‘’Night.’’
Sombra didn’t stop until he was in the doorway, to see Luna still standing over the crib silently. With a small smile, he looked away again and closed the door.
Author's Note
As I said in the description, there will be more of this when I find the time to write it. I restate what I said earlier: before you start flaming or disliking, do note that there is more nuance to the story than shown in this chapter, which will be elaborated upon in later chapters.
As always, comments are appreciated. Tell me what you liked, or didn't like, and be sure to inform me of any grammatical and spelling errors you may have come across.
And finally, have a nice day/night!
