Decretum

by Pelontrix

Rating: teen
Tags: Alternate Universe, King Sombra, Twilight Sparkle, Gore, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Death
Length: 19207

Sombra gets revived. Nobody is happy about this, least of all Sombra himself.

Twilight Sparkle, now ruler of Equestria, tries to tie up a few loose ends.

Especially with one King Sombra.

Published 2024-09-13 00:10:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-12-03 03:46:13 UTC

Chapter V: This Place Is Not Happy

His ears prick at a slight crackle of magic from within the wards, before there's the sound of air being displaced.

Sombra turns his head to look at what is happening, and within his view, a bowl pops into existence.

Steam lazily rises from the contents, and he can just about see the colour.

Curiosity takes hold. Sombra sniffs at the air, finding that it smells like carrots. Perhaps some sort of carrot broth?

He drags himself over, kicking the air with one of his back legs. Theoretically, he might be able to walk on three legs.

Ears perking forward, he looks at the bowl, pushing himself up into a proper sitting position and hissing at the feeling of aggravating the pins and needles in one of his back legs.

He holds the bottom of the bowl with his hooves, inspecting the contents inside. Broth, with small carrot chunks in it, should be easily digestible for his insides, and it's tinted orange thanks to the carrots.

The bowl is warm, and he remembers cold nights with a mug of hot chocolate in his hooves.

His ears lower. A small sliver of comfort, even now.

(He doesn't deserve any form of comfort, and he knows this.)

He doesn't see or smell any indication that the broth is poisoned. Sombra dips his head lower and licks at the liquid, feeling a little silly at doing this, but figuring that this would be ideal for testing the temperature of it.

The broth is hot against his tongue, almost burning it, and he grumbles slightly, but begins to lap some of the broth up. The liquid helps to soothe his throat.

Slowly, his ears perk forward.

It isn't long until he's finished the meal, and he finds himself to be pleasantly warm on the inside, with both his undercoat and his regular coat of fur trapping the heat. It makes a stark difference from the cold tiles.

...Since when did he lay down again?

His brain feels fuzzy, and despite his usual stubbornness, he finds it difficult to keep his eyes open, just to watch for any threats or danger.

Ah, he's on his side now.

(Reduces the chance of aspirating in case his body decides to work against him when it comes to nutrient intake - the last thing he needs is pneumonia.)

Why is he so tired? It's not like he's even doing anything, and there's only so much comfort he can derive from something as simple as a warm meal of carrot broth.

He needs to stay awake.

I'm as quiet as a mouse, as I laze in the grass, feeling the sun soak through my fur and into my undercoat.

I like to pretend to be dead.

Miss Chestnut Falls always gives me a couple of days off when it comes to studying after the Crystal Faire.

She's taken me to all sorts of medical staff within the Empire, and they don't have a clue as to why I keep getting sick on the day of the Crystal Faire.

She's told me that the only option at this point is to try and ask any travellers that come by to the Empire, ask them if they have some kind of solution.

...It's not fair.

Neither me or Radiant Hope have been able to go, we save up our pocket money every year and it's like I have some sort of seasonal allergy!

This time milder symptoms came up on the days before, and I had to tell Hope that I had a headache.

I don't get the sniffles or sneezes when I'm around flowers, so what gives?!

...At this point I might as well just tell Hope to go without me and maybe bring me some spun crystal floss.

I don't know why my horn is starting to curve. Hope's horn is completely ramrod straight.

I'm something called an orphan, so I don't know my family and if they had this same feature.

It's distinctive, but the bullies say it makes me an even easier target. I overheard that when hiding near some discarded stuff.

I don't see why I should bother with ignoring them. If might makes right, then I might as well go all-out on beating them to a pulp.

...I never thought that when I was younger.

I'm snapped back into my own body, something shifting in the scene, before I turn my head and come face to face with Princess Luna.

"Were you always a monster?" She asks.

"...I don't think I was." And that is as truthful as I can say it. "I didn't want to act on thoughts of violence. Always reminded myself that I was better than them because I didn't." I pause. "And I didn't want to make more work for Chestnut Falls by being a problem child."

Luna's face briefly seems to soften, before hardening. I don't miss the way her eyes still seem like velvet.

"Hell are you doing here, anyways? My memories are all I have left, and even those are fading. Are you here to take those, too?" My eyebrows furrow as I speak these words, turning my head to look at Luna properly.

"No. Merely browsing." She answers, her lips curving upwards. Always so jovial, despite being in the shadow of her older sister, and smug about the privelege she wields in being able to traverse dreams.

"Typical. Invading my privacy again." I roll my eyes. "Don't you have more pressing matters to attend to, you little dictator?"

"Ironic, coming from a jailed ex-tyrant."

"Touché." I scratch at some stubble that's growing on my chin. "I was a filly once."

"Yes, you were a fine young lad. Shame that you grew up to become a bastard." Since when did Princess Luna employ the usage of such crass and lower-class language?

"Mm, no, I don't mean in terms of age."

"And why reveal this to me? You realize this can be used against you?"

"...You look at my physique, that I spent quite a good chunk of time honing, and tell me I look like a damn mare." I practically bite her head off with this statement, the muscles in my ears driving them to point behind myself. Still raised, but pinned back. I sigh afterwards, rubbing at one of my temples with my hoof as I try and figure out how to explain this to her.

"You didn't have much in terms of getting your endocrine system to produce the correct hormones back then, did you?"

"...No. We did not." My head lowers as I look at the scene, which has warped to orange skies filled with smoke and black-purple-obsidian crystals. "The most I could do back before I awakened myself from living in the delusions of being a crystal pony was training my voice to be deeper."

"I am still unsure what to do with this information or what to even say."

"As am I. You posed a valid inquiry, why the hell am I telling you this?"

"..." Princess Luna promptly exits my dream.

I'm left there, staring at the spot in the ruined grasses that she just occupied, pondering a question that she initially asked and one that I have not found a single answer for.

What a pointless conversation.

My gaze turns to the skies, blasphemed with smog and dark crystals, before I notice the moon staring at me.

"...Don't tell me."

Luna promptly comes back into my dream again.

"I forgot something."

And then, my vision blackens.

Sombra awakes with a jolt, limbs still feeling burdened with the element of lead, and the last vestiges of sleep invading his system, begging him to shut his eyes and escape the world for a little longer.

...He still fails to understand why he bothered telling Luna about certain biological matters relating to hormones. Quite frankly, he really shouldn't have done that.

It's unlikely anyone's going to believe her, given the fact that he has sideburns, but a look at his hormonal levels and genitalia will prove otherwise.

...Did Twilight actually remake his genitalia-

Stop that.

Sombra is filled with the need to wash himself specifically to get rid of that disgusting thought.

He settles for thwacking his tail against the floor tiles with immense disapproval, simply because he really doesn't feel like bothering with moving his limbs to get into a standing position and shaking himself to try and get rid of the bad thoughts.

The shape of his tail should be slightly less defined. He lifts his head to look at it for a moment.

It no longer flows with excess dark magic and shadow, instead being merely hair.

His head drops back to the floor with a displeased thud, stirring up some dust from the cracks between the floor tiles. He makes an effort to not breathe it in, but still ends up coughing and sneezing to try and rid his airways of the irritant.

The warmth from the soup-nourishment-food has long since dried up, and even in his sedative-fogged brain, he can tell that it's rather chilly.

Maybe he ought to try asking for some blankets.

And, for that matter, a damn pillow.

The life-giving wards sure as hell won't let him die from either starvation or hypothermia, even if he can come close to it.

It will, however, allow him to feel the immense discomfort of his stomach acids eating his organs, before they slowly regenerate, or the discomfort of little pinpricks of cold in his bones and joints.

Actually, wait, don't prisoners in the Canterlot County Jail get a blanket and a pillow?

Then again, he's in a dungeon.

His ear flicks, then perks, straining to hear any sound. Anything. Anything that might be another pony. Somebody.

There is no noise aside from his own breathing, beginning to shake and falter, and the ambient humming of the wards as they work to keep him alive.

There is no comfort to be found here. The wards keep him alive so he can endure the discomfort of being alone and being alive.

Everything is uncomfortable.

The floor, his own body, the cold, the fact that he likely won't ever see the light of day again, his own overflowing emotions, his privacy being invaded.

The list continues into the overwhelming feeling of being alone.

The fur along his spine bristles, and he curls up, covering his face with his front hooves.

Author's Note

whoops. died for a hot fuckin second.

anyways decretum upd8 LOL

wamted to show some more memories from sombra, and also how he's slowly being broken down into socializing through isolation - even the umbrum were somewhat communal in nature.

Escape Artists, Fireworks, and Trixie's Art Of Maintaining Plausible Deniability In The Face Of Multiple Noise Complaints Related To Fireworks

Twilight Sparkle weaves between the corridors of the dungeons that are hidden deep beneath Canterlot, hoping to find a Very Important Prisoner.

She heads towards the cell he was being kept in, and wrenches the door open with immense force, causing the metal to shriek against the stone tiles of the dungeon floor.

There is no trace of Sombra.

That alone is enough to stir panic.

It takes her a moment to cool herself, she reminds herself that she is no ordinary pony and that she could probably figure out a way to track him.

Scrying spells would be the best idea - a cauldron to allow for a view of the other side, and—

Perhaps not, on second thoughts. For accurate scrying, she needs a physical artifact of the stallion in question, something like a hair or discarded keratin shavings from his horn.

Were there any spells used in here?

Her Element is Magic, after all, and she can sense most forms of it fairly easily.

Closing her eyes, she lights her horn, allowing her to see a sparkling trail when she next opens them.

The trail stops at the wall.

Ah, perhaps a teleportation spell?

If he teleported into a crowd or something, then his leftover magical signature would become much harder to track.

Quite frankly, she has no idea how far he can even teleport! Or of his magical ability.

It's entirely possible that a unicorn running on reserves may be able to teleport a long distance if they were used to casting such a spell, but one that was fairly rusty at doing so, running on reserves and managing to teleport miles away?

Implausible.

She knows she wouldn't be able to track him within Canterlot. Try as she might, to increase diversity hires for guards and staff within the castle, the majority of society here is still unicorn in nature.

Surely he couldn't have teleported elsewhere.

Or, Celestia forbid, perform multiple teleports while running on only his reserves.

With this thought in mind, she begins to walk again. This time, outside the cell and back into the tiled halls of the Canterlot Dungeons.

...Her protestors are going to have a field day, and so are the tabloids. It'll be morbidly interesting to see how this plays out, she thinks. There are at least two newspapers that will go down defending her, while most others offer lukewarm reception to her.

The Foal Free Press is one to worry about, as well as the Hag's Nag.

The Hag's Nag was staunchly against her rule, and has remained so since she was brought in to replace both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.

The Foal Free Press? Chaotic, often written by students, ten years of age and ready to start senior school, and could swing either way as the fillies and colts write out thesis statements and submit them into the columns.

The younger ones were often influenced by their parents and teachers. As she was, up until she became a Princess and suddenly got a lot more free reign.

Twilight begins to ascend the stairs to go towards Canterlot Castle proper.

Sombra grunts, dragging himself out of the bush and blowing a leaf out of his face.

There's a background sensation of dizziness that he can't seem to shake off, as well as one of unease.

The bush is next to a house, and he can't help but notice that he's trampled some flowers.

At the very least, he had enough dignity to pass out in a bush and not in somebody's flowerbed. Small mercies, were it not for the fact that pet dogs (and pet cats that are unceremoniously let loose in the wilderness with no supervision whatsoever) have probably pissed on this bush.

Alternatively, ponies coming here after a night out on the town.

Probably best not to think about that.

His ears pin back as he looks around, head swivelling from side to side to check if anyone's seen him, before he proceeds to stoop to the lowest level and... bite the flowers off their crooked stems.

He chews on the flowers in his mouth in utter silence.

This sustenance is incredibly meager. The flowers aren't exactly high-quality, he's pretty sure they're wild-grown, the seeds probably got blown near to this spot and this just happened to be where they started sprouting.

(Oh, how he used to love dipping the crystal roses in chocolate and then breaking off a petal, one by one...)

Thinking about food while being absolutely famished is a good idea with no consequences whatsoever, said nobody ever in the entire history of Equestria.

An abrupt cough, and he swallows the chewed mush down. Something didn't taste-feel right about those. He's too hungry-empty to care right now, though, and he looks at the ground for any more.

His eyes narrow into a squint to try and cope with the brightness of the day. Arguably he should have taken the time to wake up slowly and properly adjust. His eyes feel like they're burning-stinging and have the hallmark signs of irritation.

He stares at the broken stems of what once may have been some yellow flowers for a good few seconds, before getting his body to move (feels like lead) and stand up.

Slowly, he staggers out of the alleyway he'd slept in.

The town he'd ended up in is bustling with ponies. Ponies that hopefully wouldn't recognize him.

A fresh start to building his own empire, if he used his magic to scare the wits out of all of them and make them into his obedient servants.

He doesn't remember leaning against the wall, but he is now.

Nausea dwells in the pit of his stomach - he assumes it was from the food he was given during his tenure as Sparkle's prisoner.

Although, sitting down does feel like a good idea...

He plonks his hindquarters on the mossy pavement of the alleyway and simply watches as ponies and griffons and even yak pass by, meandering to and from various places.

His eyes have a tendency to follow the creature-being that is closest to him.

Sombra closes his eyes in a silent appreciation for the background noise of the bustling town. It provides a decent amount of comfort, even if he is starving, a little burnt from his emergency teleportation, and with a brutal lack of sleep that was of a decent quality.

If he focuses just right, he can almost remember the hustle and bustle of the Crystal Empire back when Princess Amore-

The sound of something (or someone) crashing above him startles him out of his reverie, and he's quick to stand and bolt the hell out of the alleyway - there's no way he's fit for a fight right now, so flight it is!

He passes by multiple ponies. An orange one, adorned with a cape, glasses, and a frazzled appearance, stubble speckling his chin. A blue one with a cape and no glasses. A purple unicorn with a darker purple mane but their coat colour is a lighter purple than Sparkle's.

All of these idiots aren't worth his time.

Sombra ducks into an alleyway that happens to be in the rough direction of North from the three-pony statue-fountain, puts his back to the wall, and heaves out a sigh.

There's nothing to be done about his current predicament right now other than simply trying to rest and heal.

Sunburst watches a gray blur gallop past him and his group, his ears pricking as he tunes out the conversation that Trixie and Starlight are having. He turns his head to try and follow the direction that the stormcloud-gray blur was heading.

"...That couldn't have been Ditzy, could it?"

"Isn't her name Derpy?" Trixie butts into Sunburst's muttered conversation with himself, poking her nose into things as per usual. "Anyways, I wanted to get your opinion on some fireworks."

"That's a little rude, Trix. She has an eye condition!"

Trixie gives Starlight a confused look at the chiding from her, ears swivelling. "It's what I've heard other people calling her."

"Yeah, but it still feels a little mean, and you don't have to follow what other people think, right? Isn't that what you tell me?"

"Touché, Glim-Glam." Trixie's eyelids lower in a minor expression of annoyance, though, knowing her, she never stayed annoyed at Starlight for too long.

Sunburst tilts his head. Since when did Trixie use nicknames with Starlight?

Back onto the topic, Sunburst opens his mouth: "Ditzy's coat colour is lighter, with a- with a blue undertone, and she doesn't dye her mane."

"Maybe it's one of her kids?" Trixie suggests, looking at Sunburst with an expression of uncertainty.

Starlight shakes her head. "No, Amethyst Star is a light magenta with a darker purple mane in two tones, and Dinky is a grayish purple, blonde mane. Besides, if it were Ditzy, I think she'd be flying."

Trixie cocks her head, mimicking a confused Diamond Dog. "Did you see where they went?" She looks to Sunburst for answers.

"They went in that direc- that way." Sunburst says, pointing North with his hoof.

"Maybe they were just heading home."

"You're probably right." He mutters, defeated, before they move onto the next topic of conversation. "Trixie, you- you mentioned- um, you said something about fireworks, didn't you?"

"Oh, yeah, I wanted to see what you thought of the ones that go boom!"

"All of them go boom, though?"

"Well, yeah, duh, but the really loud ones!"

"I think that as long as you do it away from densely populated areas, it should be fine, and you'll get less noise complaints." Starlight interjects, a placid smile on her face.

"Of course. I, the Great and Powerful and Very Considerate Trixie, will do it on the outskirts of Ponyville."

Sunburst angles himself in a particular direction, trying to figure out where the gray pony went, but it's evidently gone. Damn his ability to get distracted easily.

Author's Note

Did away with Chapter Numbers because I am no good with Roman Numerals, and because I wanted funnier Chapter Names.

Prologue: The Magical Musings of Twilight Sparkle

Twilight Sparkle, previous student of Princess Celestia, now current ruler of Equestria, stands within a dark room, only lit up by the magical glow of her horn.

Within the grasp of her magical hold is a sheath of keratin, gray and becoming red at the tip.

This was previously King Sombra's horn. It had broken off when he was banished from the Crystal Empire for a second time.

She'd found it after exploring the Frozen Northern Wastes, looking for anything involving a magical signature.

It pulsed back at her with one, and she had gently wiped the snow away.

This was King Sombra's horn, and it has no rings in it. No spiral at all!

When it comes to unicorns, there are a few different ways for a horn to grow, usually present from birth.

Though, she was told that Celestia and Luna's horns simply changed over the centuries of their rule.

The direction in which a horn spirals is visible from birth. Right, or left.

There are always grooves present on the horn.

An issue was present when she was a filly involving left-spiralling unicorns not being able to cast spells with the same efficiency of magic usage as their right-spiralling compatriots.

Oftentimes, this was why left-spiralling unicorns would drop out from Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, one particular example being a young, amber-coloured colt with a white patch on his nose.

Twilight would eventually meet the dropout via Starlight Glimmer, though she didn't share a class with him.

Sometimes, though, there were the anomalies. Sunset Shimmer, last Twilight had checked, was a left-spiralling unicorn.

(Celestia kept a backlog of incident reports involving Sunset Shimmer, and, with mirth adorning her voice like a veil, showed all of them to Twilight, all of them except the final one.)

(Apparently her spells had a chance of backfiring, presumably due to faulty spell matrices and not accounting for her left-spiralling horn...)

(Twilight Sparkle did not have a left-spiralling horn.)

To resolve the issue, Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer and Sunburst began working on converting an extensive library of spell matrices from being commonly used by right-spiralling unicorns to being able to be used by left-spiralling unicorns.

What mattered now was getting them standardized and approved for use within public education, as well as transporting the books to libraries across the expanses of Equestria.

(That could wait.)

The amount of rings in a unicorn's horn was often thought to correlate with how much magic they could expel in spellwork.

Twilight Sparkle hadn't really seen any evidence of such a thing.

The amount of rings in a unicorn's horn did, however, seem to correlate with how old the unicorn was. Older adults often had more rings, while babies that were merely months old had a singular ring in their spiral that went straight to the tip.

A unicorn like Starswirl the Bearded, or Mistmane, many years her elder, would have more rings on their horns, simply because they were alive for longer, and thus their horns would have grown longer in the time that they'd lived.

The slight curve to Sombra's horn didn't strike her as odd, though. Mistmane, herself, had a curved horn.

(And a flowing mane. Perhaps both Sombra and Mistmane were simply very powerful sorcerors, hence the slight curve to the horn?)

(But Starswirl was also said to be powerful.)

(Starswirl worked more in the theoreticals than the actual spellcasting.)

Luna's horn, she'd said, had initially grown straight, before it started to curve into a shape resembling a crescent, as other changes began to become apparent.

She'd described it as changing with the phases of the moon, pointing to the halo of moons around her, all showing different moon phases.

(Twilight had made sure to note down what phases were currently shown, and, sure enough, they were the next phases in the lunar cycle.)

Celestia's remained straight.

Cadence's had begun to curve. There was one bump on the horn already.

(The current theory is that it would form a heart. Discord made a betting pool on that. She'd contributed five bits.)

Her own stayed ramrod straight.

Although, thinking about it, Twilight Sparkle did wonder. Were curved horns seen as desireable within society? Were they held up as a mark of beauty, of privilege?

She could poll the populace on that. It might have some fairly interesting results.

If Discord was a pony, would his horn grow jagged? He already had a bulbous horn, pointy at the tip, probably from some other ungulate, and a deer antler on his head in his usual form.

She slowly rotated the horn within her magic, ears pricking.

The fracture point likely wasn't a clean cut. Neither was Tempest's.

Undoubtedly, it would have caused Sombra quite a bit of pain if he were still alive after the mass banishment spell, nevermind the unstable magic.

(Wouldn't this just power him up more, thus causing more magical flares, thus giving him more pain in a cycle fit to be called an ouroboros?)

Theoretically, though, because of the magical signature, he could be brought back.

The magical signature she'd detected within the Northern Wastes had come from this horn, and it wasn't a residual one that was left by a spellcaster.

No, this horn was still live with magic, somehow.

After death, the inherent magic that a unicorn has and can channel through the horn, the reserves of magic that remain within them (often overlooked, and said to be a holdover during evolution, similar to the appendix), these magical bits and bobs release all their energy out into the ambient wellspring of magic within the plants, the air, the sky.

Usually it happens within the course of a few weeks. Flesh gets stripped from bone after the body is buried, and it gives the magic a new hole to leak from, thus going back into the soil.

(There was an old legend about unicorns being fallen stars. Twilight never bothered confirming it with Luna, especially when not every unicorn has a star-based name.)

(It may have inspired her mother, though.)

Perhaps buried unicorns from long ago eventually contributed to the growth of some more magical plants. Poison Joke being one of them, though it could have just as easily been one of Discord's more mildly irritating creations.

Or perhaps the ambient magic within the soil, having had a buried unicorn within it, could eventually spread out into other areas, slowly becoming more distilled with time, and perhaps this would cause a much slower change to the plants.

Twilight did not know of any mass graves with the majority containing unicorns.

While it would have been interesting to see the plants that could sprout up from a mass grave of mostly unicorns, the fact that she thought it could be something of interest disturbed her on a particularly visceral level.

(What would her mentor think? What would her brother and sister-in-law think?)

(Would her friends even look at her the same if she told them of this particular thought experiment?)

She shook herself out of her thoughts, and looked at the horn with a mixture of pity and wonder.

She wondered if King Sombra thought about these things too.

Author's Note

i have impostor syndrome and it sucks shit.

i also find the idea of king sombra getting revived by twilight specifically for her wanting to learn dark magic to be incredibly funny.

Prologue: 'erbal Remedies for the Dearly Departed

Inscribing the runes into the slates was irritating.

A general list of the things needed to simply inscribe runes into slates went as follows: A good chisel, liable to cost you quite a bit if you don't go for the cheap ones or one that's 'gently used'; at least half a dozen spare slates, just in case of mistakes or cracks; the magical stamina to hold both the slate and the chisel, and the telekinetic finesse to manipulate the chisel in such a way to carve the runes into the slates.

You also needed a bowl of water to dunk the slates into to remove all the excess dust from them.

Getting the correct chalk for the rune circle she was planning to make? Even worse.

When it comes to summoning something, you want fine chalk if you want better, more predictable results.

If you don't particularly care how powerful it is, then you can use chalk that's been mixed with flecks of other soft stones or gravel, but this often ends up with either your house destroyed due to the size of the thing you're trying to summon, on fire, both, or a puny little runt for a familiar.

Finer chalks often cost an arm and a leg. While she does have a treasury, it feels disgusting to use something intended for governance and paying the servants for this purpose.

What she's intending to try, though, isn't anything involving a familiar.

It's reconstruction of a body via DNA and magical residue samples, along with several other things needed.

While the magic within King Sombra's horn was still active, it might not stay that way if she didn't act.

Working on the trigger spell was the easiest, she was perfectly capable of creating spell matrix cascades: spells that could trigger other spells.

Alchemical reagents for a poison, that would then be reversed into a healing potion?

Now those tended to be right bastards to get.

First off, most poisonous herbs are banned from the markets in an attempt to curb particuarly pissed off exes, abusive single mothers and ornery, money-grubbing heirs from poisoning ponies that just happened to be their cheating bastard of an ex, their unfortunate kid that's caught in the crossfire of a messy divorce and is being blamed for it or the (perfectly fine, if senile) people they're inheriting an estate or a large sum of money from.

Second, anyone that has to sell poisonous herbs (i.e: for pest species) has to have a license. Anyone without this is suspended from selling anything for a time while their criminal records and history are investigated.

Third, the black markets rarely had what you needed, and, oftentimes, would simply sell you a mixed herb pouch that *might* do what you wanted.

Twilight needed specific reagents. A dubious mix of herbs wouldn't suffice for this.

Fortunately, the Everfree isn't governed by her, and she's friendly with a particular Zebra that specializes in alchemy, potioncrafts and herbs.

Under the cover of the evening, with the sun setting and painting the sky a marvelous tapestry of orange, red, purple and fading into black, with the moon rising, with the stars lighting up the sky in small points, Twilight travels to Ponyville.

She's gotten practice in flying, enough practice to the point where she can make the trip to Ponyville in a little under an hour now.

And she still remembers the sleepy little town like the back of her hoof.

(A home away from home.)

She takes the path to the Everfree Forest, though eventually the cobblestones fade to packed dirt, and then grass. There is a pause, before she takes a deep breath, lights her horn, and trots in, ears swivelling for any threats that couldn't be seen.

She comes across a branch – the grass looks flattened nearer to the left side, so that's where she walks. It must have fallen down from one of the older trees, or perhaps it couldn't handle the weight of a large creature climbing on it.

Rustling nearby, and she merely assumes that it's one of the smaller creatures scurrying into a den.

Without much fuss, she makes it to Zecora's house — a hollowed-out tree, adorned with masks and potted plants hanging from the branches, with rope — and she knocks on the door.

(She misses Golden Oaks Library. It's usually at the back of her mind these days, but Zecora's house looks similar to it if you take away everything that Zecora used to decorate the outside.)

The herbalist answers the door, ears perking forward. "Ah, Princess Twilight. What brings you to my home on this very night?"

(She's picked up so many mannerisms from ponies...)

"Oh, nothing much, I was wondering if you had some particular herbs..."

"A herbalist, I am indeed! It would be rude of me to refuse a friend in need." Zecora chimes, quite happy to give her wisdom on one of the areas she specializes in. "Come in, come in; it's safe here from the forest's din."

Twilight enters, happy to be in the non-literal embrace of an old friend. While Zecora likely has some more gray hairs than she previously did, she also now holds more wisdom in her words.

She takes a list of herbs out, and shows Zecora.

"Now, Twilight, whatever could you need these for? You can always show unruly suitors the door."

"No, no, it's nothing like that," (Did Zecora know something about poisoning people?) "I'd like to see if I can create a poison, then somehow reverse the effects with certain spell matrices."

"Why not just make a healing potion, and save yourself the commotion?"

"What I'm trying to do is reverse death. Um, Fluttershy was asking me if there was a way." The lie slips out of her lips just as easily as Zecora constructs her rhymes.

Zecora gives her a perplexed look. "Surely dear Fluttershy wouldn't want to stop a process so natural; I do wonder if the statement you have given is factual."

"...I'm trying to revive King Sombra because there's a few loose ends, and an entire school of magic that I don't know much about," Twilight blurts out, looking at the floor in shame, one hoof rubbing her forearm, "I mean, think about it, if there's an entire school of magic that nobody but him knew about, surely it could be used for some good?"

The question makes Zecora's brows furrow. "The road to Tartarus is paved in good intention; and what makes you think that a King so mad would follow your diction?"

"I found his diary, journal, notebook thing in his study. Me and Cadence were exploring the Crystal Empire's castle, and we came across his study," Twilight pauses, "I looked in it, and I think that if I could just get through to him, then maybe we could make another powerful ally!"

"Dear Twilight, I mean this politely; but absolute power corrupts absolutely," Zecora hums, before turning away to get some herbs from her stockpile, "I will give you herbs for treating the unwell; but death is something I cannot cure, I tell."

"Not even with a potion designed to kill someone, reversed?"

"Extremely unlikely; now, let us see..." She spreads out the herbs on a table, "Everglow Seeds, for magical needs. Living Limpets, in case life forgets. I lack Hearts Desire, do you have any other thing to enquire?"

"...Wouldn't there be more?"

"Of course; but he will eventually be as fit as a horse." A wink with a smile. It's as if Zecora is saying that she'll figure it out herself.

Twilight smiles, confidence renewed. "Thank you, Zecora. Is there any way I can repay you for these?"

This makes Zecora stop for a moment, putting a hoof to her mouth to think. "Perhaps some herbal tea, most sublime; but you ought to give this one time."

"So, herbal tea that takes a while to steep, or do you want me to gift you something for Hearthswarming?"

"Hearthswarming? I do not celebrate; taking some time to perfect is more my palate."

"Got it. I'll add it to the list." Twilight grins, ears perking forward, before realizing what she's saying. "Oh, I- I mean the list of things to get done tomorrow."

A slight laugh from the herbalist. "Oh, Twilight, do not fret; what you meant, I get."

"Haha. I guess I'll be seeing you soon."

"Please do, please do; I hope I've given your mind something to chew."

"Of course." She shuts her eyes, smiling, before heading out of the house, placing the herbs in her saddlebags with her magic.

Zecora is wiser than she currently is. Some small, young part of her wishes she could be as wise as her.

Author's Note

oh good lord a second one
yeah so this one was pre-written
from now on it's entirely new stuff i think
also i thought it'd be a good idea to chuck zecora in. she's not a main character but she might make appearances here and there because she's often underutilized or weirdly offcanon in fanfics

Prologue: The Art of Magical Inhibition

With the herbs in her saddlebags, along with some additional bits and pieces (including some apple cider vinegar, Applejack said that she ought to take some, as it's what Granny Smith always used for the Apple Family's Ponyville branch when they got sick), Twilight began to mix the potion.

It was intended to be a general healing potion.

Perhaps Zecora was right about this. Twilight desperately hoped so, as it was entirely possible that she wouldn't get another chance at bringing the only pony that knew how to properly wield dark magic back from the dead.

She tested a little bit of the resulting mixture on a small graze she got from tripping over her own hair.

(Gosh, it had grown so long these days.)

The graze stung. Quite badly, there was an urge to scratch at it, but just as quickly, the stinging and itchiness was gone.

The stinging must have been from the apple cider vinegar.

It did feel a lot better, though. Much less irritated.

Twilight smiled, before getting back to carving out the runes for life, reversal and death on slates.

She'd broken these when she fell.

A minor setback, all things considered.

And this is why you keep spare slates.

The other three runes were 'magic', 'temporary' and 'cancel', meaning that there'd be a temporary effect on Sombra's magic to disable it.

She paged the 'temporary' rune in a spell matrix, and managed to get a whispered answer back that it would wear off in a week.

The Elements had a sort of sense for things. Applejack could tell when someone was lying. Pinkie Pie would know who would need cheering up.

Twilight, however, could hear the whisperings of magic. These were usually felt in her bones. It was how she could detect leylines, magical hotspots, and discern important details about what spell someone had recently used by gut feelings.

Some unicorns could do a few of these things. Twilight could do more than just these things, but often had to forcibly dull her senses because the flow of information would become too much otherwise.

Paging the 'temporary' rune was one thing, setting these up in the right order was another.

She was very likely going to have to acquire more material. The potion she'd made should be shelf stable for quite some time, given that the base for it was apple cider vinegar, a fermented product.

More slates, possibly a book or two on wards, and a book on runic circles.

Actually, on second thought, if she cancelled out his magic with the runes on the slates, she might be cancelling out all forms of magic, including his reserves, and that could go very badly.

She took to a book on runeworking, trying to find a particular rune for her purposes.

Ah, there.

The rune for 'active', three lines, the top one swirling upwards, the bottom one swirling downwards, double circle.

It was actually a 'wind' rune, but runes can mean different things in different placements.

So, the correct order of runes would be 'active' (or 'wind'), 'magic', 'temporary', 'cancel'.

Hopefully the runes could figure out this order. She might not have the time to test it.

Sombra would be able to passively generate magic inside of himself for his reserves. Oftentimes, extensive reserve magic depletion could take a week, maybe longer to recover from.

(Twilight hadn't investigated any cases of total magic depletion.)

She was doing him a favour, really, making sure that he couldn't use magic by accident and risk cracking his horn or hurting himself or his body cannibalizing itself to try and perform a spell.

Everything would go perfectly. There was no other option.

She could probably assemble some medical equipment to keep him hydrated. Saline solution. But then that risked the populace knowing what she was doing.

She couldn't quite trust that a nurse was bound by the long arm of the law to not talk about patients. Or, at least, reveal identifying details.

No, she should do this by herself. She was decently certain that she could read up on medical textbooks, learn where to place the needle within a body. Test it on herself first.

It would be easier than involving someone else with this, wouldn't it?

After all, what she was trying to perform is undoubtedly necromancy of a sort. The most forbidden of forbidden magics, simply because of the mental torment that many have put themselves through to try and bring back their loved ones, or to get free labour out of beating a dead horse.

However, three deaths. That doesn't feel like enough. Especially when he had previously done, enslaving hundreds, no, thousands of ponies within the Crystal Empire.

Sombra had the title of the Mad Unicorn King for a reason.

And Twilight would be his judge, jury and executioner if it came down to it.

Perhaps he could spend eternity within the Canterlot Dungeons. After all, she was immortal. And she could probably revive him again once she got the techniques down, right?

Enough of that.

Twilight had slates to carve, and additional herbs to procure.

She made sure to carve a few spares of the runes she already had, just in case any more accidents happened from her tripping on her hair or some other Celestia-forsaken object in her way.

Surely some of the Everglow Seeds that she'd mixed in the healing potion would also kickstart the reserve magic regeneration. Those were difficult to come by, but were often abused by unicorns that were hoping to come out on top in magical duels.

...Actually, she did have one more item to procure, now that she thought about it. The runestones might disable any active spellcasts from him on a temporary basis, but past that? She'd be relying on wards, which could give out.

While wards were more in the 'set and forget' category of defensive spells, they could still be bypassed, particularly if Sombra did that sneaky little trick of growing his crystals on her horn.

Additionally, if she placed a 'no magic' ward down, she might be affected too, even if she was the caster. It might not be possible to tweak the spell matrices to make sure that she wouldn't be affected.

This is why she needed to acquire a magical inhibitor ring.

Traditionally used for prisoners sent to the Cantetlot Dungeons, these rings were made out of black crystal growths that came from the Northern Wastes.

These would disable any and all magic casting, but not any passive magical effects.

Curiously, they weren't possible to enchant with wards to assure that they wouldn't break or couldn't get taken off, but a simple perception spell could be cast on the prisoner to make it more difficult to notice.

The first drafts of these rings, she'd read about it, had spikes on the inside band, to make the ring outright impossible to remove.

Perhaps these drafts were from Sombra himself? Was he planning to take prisoners of war, if he hadn't been defeated so quickly?

These days, they coat the crystal rings in gold after carving them, which improves their ability to be enchanted, and offers a little more durability.

(There's a market for them on the black market. And in particularly... interesting stores. Twilight Sparkle has never publically commented on where those stores get their supply of them from.)

Twilight leaves to see the Canterlot Guard about possibly acquiring a magical inhibitor. For enchantment, she tells herself.

A little white lie.

Author's Note

ok i was writing this when i was waiting for decretum to be accepted.

i'm surprised they did. pleasantly, i mean. mostly because i have impostor syndrome and don't think my work is great, even though it's perfectly decent. shrugs. there's things that can be done better and i invite people to give writing their own version of this a shot, as long as it fits within fimfiction's rules.

Chapter I: The Devastating Tale of My Creation

Her horn flares as she tweaks the spell matrices.

These need to be perfect. If she reaches triple-corona levels of magical usage, then a backfire could end quite explosively.

Sparks of magic weave amongst the room with the motes of dust.

Everything is prepared, but not everyone is prepared.

Of course, there's only one pony currently in the room.

Her goal is two ponies being in the room, in the simplest terms possible.

Her horn flares again as she triggers the spell cascade. Magic arcs between the items laid out on the ground.

Sombra's horn, the life rune. Then the reverse rune and the accompanying death rune, picked up at the same time. They rotate around the horn, clockwise.

The healing potion is poured onto the horn, and she begins the process of reconstructing his body, reaching a double corona's worth of magical output.

A black mane, flowing almost like shadowy fire. Would it rust, given appropriate lighting? She didn't know Sombra well enough for this information.

She purges all doubts from her mind. She is Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic, and she is no ordinary unicorn.

Sideburns. She remembers him having sideburns as she sculpts the skull and the facial muscles. The same black as his mane. Twilight doesn't remember seeing any gray hairs within his mane, so all of his mane and sideburns will be black.

She doesn't let the thought of Sombra with a hot pink or magenta mane distract her. She simply allows it to pass by.

Ears, presumably they would be tufted for extra insulation. She didn't remember seeing any proper ears on him, but it could have been a case of not getting the right angle, or the crown covering them.

Teeth, she doesn't remember if his teeth were all sharp or if he just had a pair of fangs, like a snake. Or did he have a set of fangs both on the top row and the bottom row of teeth?

She cares not for this detail. All of them will be sharp.

Then comes constructing the gums. The tongue... presumably the tastebuds would grow back on their own? But then that would require encoding the ability to grow tastebuds into his tongue, and she doesn't want to be spending an ungodly amount of time fixing anything that went wrong with that and ended up developing into a tumor.

The nasal passages are easy enough to construct. Facial nerves and blood vessels were more difficult, especially when the blood has a tendency to leak out, given that gravity is a thing, and has been a thing since before Twilight Sparkle.

The afforementioned mare begins to work on the rest of the body. It would be easier to regenerate the skin and fur in one lump sum. Facial muscles weave themselves together in a complicated mass.

She isn't reaching triple-corona levels of magical output just yet, but reconstructing the rest of the body might just do it.

She begins developing a heart within her magical grasp. Funny how despite lacking a heart in the compassion sense, he has an organ that can be called a heart, that pumps oxygenated blood throughout the body.

The atriums of this heart develop well enough. Twilight Sparkle has enough control over her Magic to not let it flow with feelings of hatred and anger.

The ruler of Equestria remains impartial.

(Although, if she can pull this off, perhaps this might be her greatest achievement in this year.)

Blood vessels. Always with the blood vessels, carrying oxygenated blood to where it's needed. There are plenty of blood vessels in a body, and quite a few major arteries in the neck that can easily kill someone if they're sliced.

The wind pipe and esophagus are easy enough to develop. She's glad that she made the mouth beforehand.

The roof of the mouth comes into place easily enough, too.

She double checks on how well the teeth are rooted into the gums.

It's a good thing she did. No sense in the body losing its teeth immediately.

She figures she ought to double check everything so far.

Horn, sideburns, face, facial muscles, facial nerves...

She needs to develop the facial muscles and facial nerves, as well as inject nerves into the teeth, gums, tongue, and just about everywhere else.

How else would he be able to feel the roof of his mouth with his tongue otherwise?

She develops a jawbone within her magical grasp, and slots it into place, then begins to grow the nerves from there.

The bones themselves should help with structure.

The muscles go on afterward. Eyelids. Eyelashes. Scalp. Muscles for moving the ears.

Regrowing the nerves from the horn and attaching it to the head. Growing the spine and neck.

Cutting nostrils and a mouth hole with scissors.

Ponies can best be described as tubes. Oftentimes happy little tubes. They eat food, it goes through the esophagus, which is a tube, and then the stomach, which is a slightly more specialized tube, then the intestines, which are tubes with muscles that spasm to push food through for digestion...

And then it comes out the other end, thus completing the cycle in a tubular fashion.

Tubes.

Twilight does not let the thought of ponies being happy little tubes distract her either. She continues with her planned work.

It is a construction project, and she needs to nail everything in the right place. She has the tools and the implements.

Brains are tricky little things to develop, which is why she's leaving that for last, but she can at least develop the stuff around it.

The spine. The lungs. The nerves to both. The spinal discs.

Then there's the ribcage, the stomach, the spleen, the nerves to all of these, the blood vessels, the spleen.

The pancreas, for blood sugar, probably.

The little air sacs inside the lungs.

The vocal cords, the nerves, connecting the windpipe to the lungs, the blood vessels, making sure it'll fit among the heart and other organs.

The intestines, the muscles required for the intestines, the esophagus, the stuff lining the inside of the intestines, the stuff lining the inside of the stomach, the ribcage needs to be loosened a little but not by too much otherwise it's useless...

(Where does the pancreas go?)

The appendix is left out, because it's more of a liability than not.

The organ that stores magical energy (including the reserves), the lining of the organ that stores magical energy (including the reserves)...

She's reaching triple-corona levels of output.

Sparks of magic flitter to and fro within the stagnant air of the dungeon cell.

The bowels, the small intestine, the bladder, the liver, and various other things to deal with biological waste products. The kidneys, for filtering toxins.

The nerves. The nerves around the organ that stores magical energy. The nerves around the bowels and bladder. The nerves around the liver — The nerves, the nerves, the nervous.

(Twilight is not nervous.)

The intestines will sort themselves out when it comes to the positioning, given enough time.

The blood vessels. There are so many tubes to create. Tubes that carry blood, tubes that carry nerve signals from the brain, tubes that carry food.

The connections between the intestines and stomach. The connections between other organs.

The shoulderblades. The nerves. The blood vessels.

The forearms. The nerves. The muscles between the shoulderblade and forearm. The blood vessels.

The other side.

The hoof. The nerves. The keratin. The muscles between the forearm and hoof. The blood vessels...

Feathering. She suspects that, as an umbrum-turned-pony from the North, he would have a longer coat and an undercoat.

This can be done after she's finished with the muscles, blood vessels, and nerves.

She develops the rest of the spine, and the encasing for the organs. Then come more muscles in the torso, and then the pelvis.

Perhaps Sombra will have some minor issues. He'll get used to them. He should be considered lucky that he even gets a body.

Keratin on the hooves.

The back legs. Digitigrade, ending with a hoof.

And then the muscles.

Thankfully, Twilight Sparkle is fairly certain that Sombra doesn't have a cutie mark. It saves her from having to grab some reference material while she's constructing an entire body for him.

Sweat drips from her jawline as she pumps more power into it.

Eyeballs that slot into the eyesockets of the skull. Optic nerves, left hanging. Eyelids. Eyelashes.

She's decently certain that he must have cut his eyelashes at some point.

(The rattling is from the skeleton, she tells herself.)

(The horn on Sombra's head sparking with dark magic is an exhaustion-induced hallucination, or a contact point, hot with her own magic, she tells herself.)

She envelops the body in skin, finished with the back legs, and now starting on the five-or-so layers of skin that cover the muscle, as well as the blood vessels and nerves.

(The feeling of something growing outside of her control is a distraction, she tells herself.)

Time ticks by. The runes for 'temporary' 'cancel' 'active' and 'magic' activate, before she orders them to.

Her magic immediately peters out, and Sombra's body is dropped, unceremoniously, onto the floor. The cold, dirty dungeon floor.

The body looks dangerously underweight.

There's a crack in the dingy tiles that make up the dungeon floor beneath it.

Wisps of shadow seep from Sombra as the runes take effect, and Twilight backs off, ears pinning back to her scalp, before she casts a basic light spell.

His eyelids are closed. She doesn't remember constructing them like that.

A large portion of Sombra's body seems to have been left bald and without an undercoat that would be suitable for a Northern Pony (or umbrum-turned-pony) of his stature, but the bald patches seem to be growing smaller.

Twilight activates the wards, a magenta shield, sparkling, slowly seeps into a half-sphere around the body.

The healing ward allows for him to regenerate his blood.

The Magic Regeneration Matrix ward allows for him to recover his Magic.

Just for safety, she sets up a barrier ward right before the door, adjusting the spell matrix to allow her to enter and exit.

Nobody but her will be coming down here, to this room specifically, anyways.

Her tail swishes.

The body takes in a deep, rattling breath.

And exhales.

Author's Note

was intending for this to be much longer but my writing style doesn't allow for much longer.

Chapter II: Welcome to the Paddy Wagon

A former tyrant awakes with a start, bits and pieces of his body also realizing that they need to function.

A former tyrant awakes on a cold, dirty floor of a room that may have been part of the Canterlot Dungeons at some point but has since been entirely forgotten within Celestia's reign for centuries.

A former tyrant awakes with a numb feeling in his body and the feeling that several things aren't quite right, and that some organs are entirely missing or out of place.

There is an abominable pins and needles feeling in all of his limbs, a headache, and the feeling of his horn being far too hot for comfort, even through the unshaven keratin.

He blinks once, twice, before the alarmed look on his face hardens into an annoyed scowl. His ear flicks, there is a lank and greasy feeling to his hair.

Sombra breathes in, and out. The musty air of the dungeon fills his lungs. He takes another deep breath.

Why does he feel anemic?

He releases the air in his lungs through a process known as exhaling, exchanging the carbon dioxide for emptiness, and then repeats the general process of breathing.

He can smell the dust in the air.

(There's at least a few centuries' worth of it.)

(There might be mold spores in the air, too.)

His ears lower to the sides.

He's alive, even if only barely. He considers the option of ending it.

(What a crappy way to go.)

His horn sparks, then fizzles. He manages to move his eyes to look up at it.

And tries again.

The same result, only with a loud pop, incessant tinnitus blaring in his ears afterwards, and the world beginning to spin.

Several bits of his body aren't co-operating right now. The only thing he offers to the silence in the room is a small groan of discomfort.

Sleeping sounds like a better option.

(It'll allow him a form of reprieve, even if only for a little while.)

His eyelids were feeling heavy anyways. His ears droop to the sides, and he slows his breathing.

Just five more minutes.

An image, conjured in his mind, of a cream and brown pony.

She wears some sort of bejewelled bandana around her mane, and looks down at him with a kind smile.

He doesn't remember her name, but he knows that she's a safe pony to go to.

Her eyes, though weathered and having taken care of several children, speak volumes. She's a kind mare, she works hard to provide for the orphans, which includes him, and she tries to teach him the words of a language to speak in.

The bitter taste of expired peanut brittle while trying to speak her words. He's slow to understand what they mean, even slower to be able to speak them properly. All these vowels and consonants, and pronunciation.

He hates it. It makes his teeth feel gross.

A memory of losing one of his first baby teeth, the panic that had been in his voice, someone else comforting him, and the caretaker telling him that it's normal, and that his adult ones will be coming in soon.

Who was that other mare?

The face blurs in and out of distinction. She has a toothy grin, one of her front teeth missing. Her eyes are replaced with the caretaker's, then the bullies', then that damnable Princess-

The sound of something shattering plays in his head, and he awakens with a sharp intake of breath, shakily exhaling as he surveys the part of the room he's currently able to look at.

It's with an annoyed groan that he realizes he's still in that damn dungeon with limbs that don't work and a horn that barely even sparks.

He tries to provide himself with some light, before the internal monologue outright tells him to stop.

There's barely anything in his reserves.

He moves a hoof to try and get comfortable, only to be assaulted with the pain of moving a limb that was currently suffering from pins and needles spiking him damn well everywhere.

Instinctively, he tries to move his hoof to grip at it, only to re-trigger the pins and needles, his breathing picking up and turning much more shallow.

He can't move.

He can't fucking *move*.

Not without pain from the pins and needles.

How the hell is he supposed to defend himself?

Sombra's ears pin right back, brushing against his hair. Even they feel numb, hot at the edges.

His dilated pupils try to take in as much light as possible.

He tries to move his head, which produces one of the most Tartarus-like noises in Equestria.

Pins and needles spiking into every bit of his body. Did his last execution give him nerve damage? Was that what this was?

He whines, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, then moves one of his hooves to try and force some feeling back into it. He still feels anemic - is there even enough blood going around the vessels?

While he is an Umbrum, surviving like this just made him wish he was dead again.

(At least it was peaceful there! There wasn't any feeling or suffering when you were dead, you were just dead.)

He was hyperaware of the pins and needles feeling in every last bit of his body.

Internally, he thanks the Gods that he hasn't eaten or drank anything in this regenerated body just yet.

And he doesn't have wings, which means two less limbs to worry about when it comes to waking his body up and getting it marginally more functional.

He exhales again, eyes flicking to and fro. There is a cell door in front of him, a few meters away, and he considers dragging himself over to it.

A distant sound.

He strains his ears to hear it—

It's hoofsteps.

They clop against the tiles of the dungeon floor.

And they're coming closer.

The hairs on the back of his neck — hackles — bristle. A lot of other hairs also bristle. It's entirely possible that he looks like a furry plant of some sort. Maybe a reed? He only ever saw reeds in pictures, books with pictures of other climates that were imported into the Crystal Empire before his takeover—

The hoofsteps are much clearer now.

They echo against the walls. (His directional hearing isn't bad, by any means.)

His ears swivel to listen for anything else.

His eyes remain glued to the entrance of what might be a dungeon cell.

Maybe if he plays possum. What were possums? Something tells him that they might be rodents, or something else called a marsupial. He's only ever seen those in books, too.

And they had a neat little ability to play dead.

Playing dead was just acting like you were dead, right?

He lowers his ears — the tips of them still feel far too hot for comfort.

The turn of a key in a rusty lock, the pins within that aged lock clicking into place to unlock the door.

The scrape of the cell door opening up, leaving him at the whims of whoever has come to visit.

Perhaps his captor?

(The scrape reverberates off the walls and into his head, making it seem much louder.)

(Anything can sound louder when it's done in near pitch-black conditions, when the eyes only transmit the colour of eigengrau to the brain.)

He shuts his eyelids and relaxes his expression.

His head hurts, the noise of the door scraping against the stone tiles of the floor made it slightly worse, but it's nothing compared to the constant pins and needles.

Hoofsteps! (Coming closer, creeping closer like Death creeps closer to Her quarry.)

Breathing! (Not his own.)

His own heartbeat, hammering away in his chest. (Thump-thump. Thump-thump.)

He takes a shallow breath, trying to make sure his chest only rises minutely and trying to make sure it doesn't quiver in fear.

(Funny how he used to make others quiver in fear.)

(And now he's on the receiving end.)

(Not so nice, is it?)

Mentally, he begs the oppositional voice to shut up.

And he holds the breath in his lungs.

And he waits.

Author's Note

Paddy Wagon - usually the transport they put drunks and mentally ill people in.

Chapter III: Ex-Tyrant, Heal Thyself

It takes a full minute before his lungs begin to scream for air.

He exhales the carbon dioxide that's built up in them, though it's barely a relief.

He sucks in a breath through his teeth, before remembering that he was supposed to be playing dead.

He can hear hair shifting above him. (It might not be his own.)

Maybe he can just pretend to be asleep.

Maybe they'll lose interest if he can fake it well enough.

(A memory of faking sleep whenever the matron checked in on their room, before going right back to the discussion they were having after she left.)

He keeps his eyes closed, though his brows knit together.

Something touches his back, and he can't suppress the shiver of fear that goes through him, which re-triggers the pins and needles yet again.

The thing touching his back is cold.

His breath catches in his throat, briefly, before he resumes the measured breathing that a sleeping stallion might have.

A huff from above.

Then, speech.

"I know you aren't asleep."

Shit.

The creaking, then splintering as a ward breaks down.

He opens his eyes, looking at a purple and golden blur.

He looks upwards, not bothering to incline his head with the motion of his eyes. The perpetual numbness that has been his constant companion since he initially awoke is still alive and well.

There's light coming from somebody's horn. Given that he doesn't feel any drain on his magical reserves, he's going to hazard a guess and say it isn't his horn that's glowing.

Besides, purple isn't his magic colour.

(Neither was red, once upon a time.)

"I've more or less been raising a baby dragon. I can tell when someone is faking sleep, Sombra."

A... baby dragon?

He remembers one, from a past defeat.

(Falling towards the Crystal Heart that he so badly wanted to steal and destroy.)

Sombra huffs out a snort. A forced exhalation of air through his nostrils.

(The whelp being saved by a pink blur, much to his shock.)

He glares up at the Princess. Daggers. Glaring daggers.

(The realization that he was breaking apart.)

Were those two related, somehow?

(His screaming, before it all went white.)

His lip curls up in a snarl, before he huffs again and rolls his eyes.

"Don't you roll your eyes at me." A sigh from above. He can't quite see her face. "I'm doing what's best for you."

By what, keeping him in a cell after pulling him out of his great reward for a tortured existence?

He rolls his eyes again, the glare turning harsher as his pupils shrink into slits.

A whoosh of magic. He feels his forearm being lifted, and he hisses with the pins and needles coming back in full force, squeezing his eyes shut again.

Then there's a bit of poking and prodding, before something is inserted into a vein.

He grimaces, opening one of his eyes and trying to move his head to see what's going on with his foreleg.

It's an uncomfortable feeling, having something inserted into a vein. And he really doesn't wish to repeat it.

"This will keep you hydrated." Her voice is soft, but it's not like sunshine.

(Not like Hope's voice.)

His spine pops as he moves his head, and he lets out a sigh in relief, before he finally looks up at her properly.

Purple. Mane in a fringe. Two long, collected strands of hair framing her face. An apathetic look that conceals emotions. Violet eyes.

His eyes flit to and fro as he studies her.

A pinkish- no, magenta streak through her hair. A harsher purple streak through her hair, next to the reddish-pink streak.

(The colour of her fur is darker than Hope's.)

A minor huff of irritation from him is all she gets.

Her horn fades to her magic colour, and is decorated with jewelry. Two rings, a trail of beads connecting them.

(Far too familiar to that stupid pink prick that initially ruled the Empire.)

He lets his head drop to the floor in a despondent huff, lower eyelid twitching slightly. His throat is fair too raw with dryness to even bother with formulating words.

"...I'll also need to start you off on broth."

Of course.

There's a small grunt of acknowledgement from him. She's treating him like a damn foal.

(Another memory of being out in the Northern Wastes as a child, and being brought back to the Empire. Having to be practically coddled and fed spoonfuls of watery broth.)

He tries to turn his head away, so that he's not facing the monarch.

(Petulant, but if she's going to treat him like a child...)

She simply steps in front of him.

"While I will care for you as best as I can until you're in better health, you *will* have to answer for your crimes against equines eventually."

She speaks solemnly, and with a natural Canterlot accent. The royal intonations are definitely there, though, especially with how prim and proper she pronounces things. Each 'T' is enunciated.

"I aim to speak to you more on this subject when the time comes. For now, just rest. And heal."

Sombra rolls his eyes again, not even bothering to look up at her.

(He's already very much aware of his crimes, thank you very much.)

"What you've done is very serious." He does detect some mild irritation in her voice, and he laps that right up to sate the other hunger.

It's enough to sustain him. For now, anyways.

He shuts his eyes, one of his ears flicking. An expression of complete and utter nonchalance on his face.

She doesn't bother commenting, and he can't see the expression on Her Purple Plotted Majesty's face with his eyes closed. Not that he'd want to.

The Purple Princess steps back, her hooves clippity-clopping against the floor. There's the sound of a tail swish, the hair travelling through the air as she whips her tail about in the way that mares like to do.

And then, the familiar sound of her horn flaring.

He opens his eyes and turns his head to glare directly at her.

"This is for your own safety. And, for that matter, my safety." She explains, her voice still as bland as ever.

Sombra scoffs, before his attention is directed to runes being written in magic, within two circles.

He tries to move his foreleg to get himself up and into a better position to look at them.

There is decent certainty that this is a ward being created.

He manages to prop his upper body up for a moment, before his leg gives out and he collapses to the dungeon's floor, disturbing some dust. He coughs to try and rid the irritant from his windpipe and lungs.

A shimmer of a half-bubble.

She's completed it, and he's no closer to getting out.

He breathes in and out in a haggard wheeze, ears lowering as he regards the crowned one from over his shoulder.

The pins and needles are really pissing him off.

"It is aerated. You won't have any trouble with oxygen intake, provided you don't disturb the dust."

He looks back up at the shield spell again, one of his ears perking.

No, wait, this is a ward. It's the type of spell one can 'set and forget'.

(He used plenty of these.)

"There are also healing and magical regeneration wards within that bubble that I've placed you in. These should keep you stable."

Suicide was off the table in the first place, given his complete and utter lack of magic. While his reserves might have somewhat regenerated by now, to have such a lack of power after being full of it...

He tilts his head upwards in annoyance, giving another irate huff as a response.

"We cannot rush things. There are preparations to be made, Sombra."

He rests his head on the dirty floor again, ears pinning back, before lowering.

"I'll be seeing you soon."

(That's not a comfort.)

Clip. Clop.

Her hoofsteps are measured as they beat against the tiled floor of the dungeon cell.

Clip. Clop.

There is the whoosh of magic as her horn opens the door for her.

And there's the scrape of the door against the floor.

Too much- too much-

He outright snarls and growls, bristling and whipping his head to stare angrily at the monarch for the ungodly noise.

"I'm sorry. I can't dampen the noise very well within the shield ward without it potentially cutting off oxygen."

(Her voice isn't even apologetic!)

His jaw hurts from how much he's gritting it. The door scrapes across the ground again.

There's the sound of the door clicking into place with a rattle of the rusted bars, and then the key turns in the lock.

Everything involving that was too loud. Too much.

His heart hammers in his chest.

Barely restrained growls rumble from his throat.

(It's not even lubricated enough, he's probably buggering a few things involving that area up.)

It takes him a while to manage to calm himself down, rubbing at his head with the hoof that isn't currently restrained by an IV.

The pins and needles feeling feels like it's going away on that hoof specifically. It keeps threatening to come back.

He huffs out a shaky breath, ears lowering. He doesn't know why he felt like the door scraping against the tile was painful. It had to be stopped by any means necessary, even if he had to act like a wild animal...

But why would such a thing make him utterly lose it?

He used to have more composure.

...Maybe it's the amount of time without sensory input aside from his own breathing and bodily noises?

Or maybe it's being revived. The things in his ear might be very new. Undamaged, fresh.

His tail flicks, earning him another round of pins and needles.

Maybe it's too much sensory input? The pins and needles, as well as the feeling of an IV in a vein didn't help. The light didn't help.

(He's decently certain he always had trouble with sunlight and light in general, even when he was a filly.)

Now calmer, the once-king Sombra huffs out a sigh, and rests his head on the stone floor of the dungeon cell.

Nothing more to do than dream.

Author's Note

Not entirely satisfied with this chapter, but don't want to scrap it either as it continues directly from the previous one.

Chapter IV: CHEESE, FOR EVERYONE!

I dream of green grass beneath my hooves, and a glistening tree of crystallized wood and leaves next to me as I read.

I sound out the words again.

They still feel like peanut brittle, sticking to my teeth and the roof of my mouth, coating my tongue in a discomfort familiar to those who have passed the borders of a country and are now struggling to learn the language through osmosis.

The sunlight filters through the crystallized leaves in a symbiosis that leaves refracted dapples of light dancing across my fur. The leaves dance lazily in the wind, scattering the light like papers knocked off a desk by a particularly wry feline who demands you go to bed at a specific time.

I get distracted from my work of trying to learn a language that has never worked for me. I see someone bounding through the grass, skidding to a stop nearby.

The pink-purple-lavender-magenta pony waves, the colour of her coat ever shifting. I do not question it. I shrink into myself, trying to make myself seem as small as possible and hoping with desperation that she was waving at someone else.

I come here to be alone, however, and a lot of the foals of the orphanage don't bother coming here. The matron knows, but never tells my secret area to them.

(Surely she knew of the ostracization that the other colts and fillies put me through. I would assume she doesn't do anything about it because she has others to look after.)

The pink-rose-purple-twilight pony draws nearer, a gleeful grin on her face as her periwinkle-baby blue-light blue-aquamarine mane gets into her face. It's scruffy and definitely messed up, twigs and leaves sprout from her mane before receding without any pattern to it, but she doesn't seem to care as it covers one of her eyes, glistening with barely restrained mirth.

I prepare myself for the barrage of insulting mockery that's clearly about to take place.

"Do you ever have such a nice dream that you don't want to wake up from it?" She asks, and her eyes change.

I don't question it.

This isn't how our first conversation went, but I do not question it, and I shake my head to say 'no'.

"I'm Radiant Hope! You're a newcomer to miss Chestnut's orphanage, right?"

I nod to confirm that I am indeed a newcomer to Chestnut Falls' orphanage. I do not remember having any parents. I was found without them.

(It was cold and wet.)

"Sooo, what's your name?" She tilts her head.

I speak the only word I can, at this point in time, and it is the word that has since become my name.

"Sombra."

My voice feels too high pitched.

"Wowie, you're kinda quiet. That's fine, though, all the other fillies say I talk too much, but I can speak for the both of us!"

She was always talkative.

"Shy, too. That's fine, I also get shy around new ponies most of the time."

I nod, looking at her. She shifts and changes in a perpetual motion, brought to life with a central rhythm that sustains the earth below us.

Her voice is like sunshine, filtering through leaves on a good day, small specks of warmth across my gray coat.

She keeps talking, yammering on about this and that, before the illusion cracks, and she looks at me in an odd way.

Scrutinizing.

I see several shards fall from a mirror.

My nerves fray at the edges like poorly-worked yarn.

"You need to wake up, Sombra."

Her voice is different. Colder, like moonlit nights in the winter-

No, how...?

She shouldn't be able to get into my dream.

I see a blinding light from Hope's horn. The magical spark is blue.

The magic that swirled around her horn is supposed to be gold.

Sombra awakes with a start, bristling in discomfort at the thought of the Lunar Princess invading his mind just to extend his torture.

He experiments with moving one of his front hooves, the barest hint of pleasure at the feeling of constant pins and needles abating, now filling the muscles in the limb with a less-irritating stiffness that's easier to get rid of.

A small grunt escapes him, before he closes his eyes, perfectly willing to succumb to the 'just woke up' drowsiness.

After all, if he's going to be spending an eternity here, why not spend some of the time in recollections of simpler, happier times?

Something collects on his lower eyelashes.

He can't entirely remember what Hope looked like. Even within dreams, she was constantly shifting, constantly refracting into discordant shards of crystal that didn't quite match up to form a proper structure-

And he couldn't repair the cracks of his damaged memories with gold.

Did something go wrong with the revival that the Element of Magic had performed?

Why was it that he could remember the matron, the motherly figure of the orphanage, with perfect clarity, but he couldn't remember what his best friend looked like?

A vague sense of what the colour of her fur was, along with her mane's colour, but not the style that her mane was done up in, not the colour of her eyes, and just the barest hint of remembering her cutie mark.

He could remember the sound of her voice. Lilting, like sunshine.

He clings to the memory, begging for it to be kept instead of burnt up.

She's likely dead by now.

Time refused to wait, while Death was incredibly patient, and would reap what was sown when it was due to be harvested.

Something rolls down his cheek.

He doesn't remember parking his hindquarters under a crack, not that he could move all that much anyways. And there have been no signs of water damage within the cell.

It slides into his mouth, and there is the taste of salt.

Ah.

His ears pin back. Disgusting. He isn't supposed to be showing weakness like this. He was the Mad Unicorn King of the Crystal Empire. Not some stupid little filly crying over something as simple as spilled milk!

He takes a deep breath, holds it for a few seconds, then releases it again.

He could grieve later. When he was out of this awful accommodation.

The little 'tink, tink, tink' of hooves, dressed in fine horseshoes, clicking against the tiles of the dungeon, causes an ear of his to perk up.

There's also the distinct sound of clip-clopping against tile, an obvious reminder that his captor doesn't care to wear armour on her hooves.

An irritated sigh escapes him, before he closes his eyes again.

Muffled conversation. Try as he might, he can't ignore it, given that it's the only stimuli that he's had since he woke from slumber.

"I knew you'd done something, Twilight. Whether or not this was a good decision will be up to you to decide, and hindsight will be the judge on that."

The Lunar Princess' voice. Cold, moonlit nights in the dead of winter.

She's speaking to Twilight.

"I figured that we could at least get some pointers on how to use dark magic from him. It's incredibly likely that he's an expert in it."

Stardust, the galaxies that were painted against a backdrop of dark blue.

"He's incredibly dangerous. You don't know of the damage he could do, both to yourself and the Crystal Empire."

"That's why I called upon you for some guidance."

A lull in the conversation, before one of them pipes up again. The younger Princess.

"I've placed him under a few wards that should help with healing and magical recovery, as well as nullifying any spells he tries to cast. There's a shield spell around him just in case the wards wear out."

"And what then? What will you do after you've gotten all the information you can?"

"Well, he'll either have to be executed, or released under parole, with strict terms involving never being allowed passage to the Crystal Empire again."

Like hell if he wants to go back there anyways. The idea of going back there, to see his successor and their happy little family while he's left without his best friend (or any friends, really), makes him want to spit in disgust.

"And what happens if you release him on parole, and he breaks the rules that have been set?"

The Lunar Princess was always one for particulars, for covering every possibility in plans.

"The option to execute him will still be there."

His horn sparks in slight outrage. The mere possibility of him, the Mad Unicorn King of the Crystal Empire, being executed on rusty old gallows like some commoner?

The little tink-tink-tink and the clip-clopping draw nearer.

"I'm going to cast a sound dampening spell, Sombra's displayed hostility at the sound of the door being opened."

"Why bother? He's a prisoner, Twilight."

"If we can't treat our prisoners well and even bother trying to rehabilitate them, then what good was reforming Discord? What good was a hoof reached out to Starlight Glimmer, who, need I remind you, was one of my previous students, and she did well enough to earn a medal of honor for her actions to reform the changelings!"

"It is ultimately up to you, I am simply saying that letting him rot in that cell is far too kind of a punishment."

"And how do you know that you're not biased, Luna?"

"While I am undoubtedly biased, I have seen the effects of his actions firsthoof. An entire nation has post-traumatic stress because of him."

"You're right, but we should still try to give him the choice to make it up to them."

"There is no making up for traumatizing hundreds, if not thousands, of ponies, banishing an entire empire and thus causing a deficit in trade routes to the North, and killing the original ruler in a coup." A pause. "The Crystal Empire was once a decent rest stop for travellers within the Northern Wastes before they travelled further North."

"...I'm going to cast the dampening spell now."

Phooey. That meant no more listening in.

An ethereal mane of stars on the dark blue mare at the other side of the cell door. Sombra raises his head and narrows his eyes at her.

She glares back.

The door opens, and the Lunar Princess and Twilight Sparkle waltz in, standing side by side in front of the wards and shield spell.

Sombra stares at Twilight for a moment, before his eyes flick to Luna, then back to Twilight.

The glow around Twilight's horn fades to a lower luminosity. The dampening spell appears to have worn off at this point.

He bristles, ears pinning back. "What do you want."

His voice sounds like the gravelly rumbles of a chainsmoker. He tries to ignore how much it strains his throat.

"To talk." Twilight responds, offering a sympathetic expression.

Luna remains stony-faced.

"I have the right to remain silent, and silent I shall remain." Sombra responds, a sneer on his muzzle.

"That won't get you very far, you little cur." Luna snarls, her two fangs becoming visible as her upper lip pulls back.

"Now, now, please, don't argue." The younger princess gets between the both of them as Sombra moves to sit up properly, going as near to the edge of the aerated shield spell as he dares.

"I will argue as much as I like. Don't forget, little bookworm, I'm many years your elder." The ex-tyrant scoffs, rolling his eyes as he laps up the absolute hatred that's practically rolling off the Lunar Princess.

"And I'm over a thousand years your elder, Sombra. Funny, considering you've never listened to your elders." The princess of the night smirks, her eyes turning predatory.

"Please stop-" The princess of the union between the day and the night, of friendship, promptly gets interrupted by Sombra.

"I'm not the one that turned against my own sibling, Selene." The stallion spits, eyes widening. "How did spending almost a thousand years in the moon treat you? Is there actually any cheese up there? And to think you, pious and ever so perfect Luna of the night, decided to betray your sister for a glorified cheese wheel!"

"YOU TAKE THAT BACK!" Luna's face shifts to rage. "YOUR FRIEND HAD A GOOD FUTURE AHEAD OF HER, AND YOU HAD TO GO AND RUIN THAT, JUST LIKE YOU RUINED THE EMPIRE!"

She takes one step, two steps closer, and Sombra practically snaps, his mouth frothing with rage.

"DO YOU EVEN REMEMBER HER NAME, SELENE? SHE WAS MY BEST FRIEND, AND YOU CAN'T BE ARSED TO REMEMBER EVEN HER INITIALS?!" Sombra's voice raises to a roar. "I'M SURE YOUR 'SISTERLY BOND' COULDN'T HAVE POSSIBLY BEEN RUINED BY A BETRAYAL FROM THE YOUNGER SISTER, OH, NO, BECAUSE YOU'RE CLEARLY SO PERFECT-"

Luna's horn sparks in rage. Sombra's arcs.

"ENOUGH!" Twilight shouts, her ears pinning back at the volume of her own voice.

Both of them turn to look at her. Sombra seems more offended that the Equestrian ruler would even dare speak up, being the youngest of the three, while Luna seems more shocked that Twilight would display initiative in this manner.

"I can't believe the both of you! You're both adults, so- please act like it! Luna, you're at least a thousand years my senior, and Sombra, I expected better of you, especially given that you seemed so well-spoken when we last met! I expected the both of you to be somewhat mature about this!"

Sombra's eyes meet Luna's for a moment, before he shifts his gaze back to Twilight. Luna's eyes have more of a delay. Her expression is more apologetic in nature, while Sombra glares at her in utter exasperation.

"Well, excuse me, Princess, for being incredibly irritated at the abominable accommodation that you've even bothered offering me, or should I say imprisoning me in? I didn't ask to be revived, nor did I even offer to be your tutor in my kind of magic." He turns his head to look at Luna. "And, for that matter, excuse me for not wanting my dreams invaded by someone who would gladly backstab her own sibling if it got her five miniscule minutes in the spotlight!"

Luna snorts. "I believe I'm done here, Twilight Sparkle. I leave his sentencing up to you, but I want no further part in this."

"Good, I'd rather be stone than bother talking to the princess of cheese again." Sombra huffs, coughing into his hoof, before laying himself on the cold tiles again.

The 'princess of cheese' rolls her eyes, and departs by teleporting.

(Inexplicably, she ends up in a cake because she misjudged one of the numbers in her calculations.)

"You're going to take a lot of work, aren't you?" Twilight sighs, looking over Sombra's prone form.

He just grumbles, lifting his head to give her a particular kind of Look, before lowering it again.

"What's the history between the both of you?" An innocent question, asked by the newest ruler.

And yet, it brings back enough aggravation to make him froth at the mouth in absolute rage. "There is NOTHING between us. Do you hear me, Princess? NOTHING."

Maybe it's residual emotions from Her bringing up his best friend.

"...There's obviously something. She mentioned-"

Did she not realize the implication?

His response is an enraged snarl. "Shut your mouth and leave me alone."

"...Alright. I'll... be back soon with some food. I'm sorry that we got off to a bad start, but I'm sure that we'll get somewhere next time."

She leaves him to his thoughts, her hooves clip-clopping against the tiled floor, slowly decreasing in volume. He doesn't hear the sound of that damnable door scraping against the stone, or the key turning in the lock, but he does hear her hooves again after a moment.

She's going further and further away from him, and he can't even bother to bring himself to care, frankly.

Author's Note

so, funny thing.
i was actually working on this chapter then stopped for a while in order to work on Rotgut.

now i'm working on this again for creative writing.

Chapter VI: Toast is just doubly-cooked bread.

Twilight isn't entirely sure what to do with her recently resurrected prisoner.

If word gets out that she's revived a notorious tyrant, then she's as good as cooked.

(Literally. She wouldn't put it past some of her current protestors to burn down the entirety of the Canterlot Castle, and her with it, if it means getting rid of her and the Mad Unicorn King.)

She wonders how Celestia would have dealt with this. Did she have the same issue when it came to integrating Discord into society?

Perhaps she should ask. Her old mentor did say to always ask questions, after all.

But then again, the ire of her old mentor is still one of her greatest fears.

With Luna, it's different. Luna wasn't her teacher, she was more towards a peer that was learning how to live, just like her.

(Well, more towards learning how to live in modern times.)

It would be nice if Sombra could learn how to live in this world of magic and friendship, too, a more childlike part of her says.

The more pragmatic part of her responds with the fact that she revived him for a reason: to tutor her in one of the forms of magic that remains unknown to most.

Her quest has always been for knowledge.

Sombra's ears flick once, twice. He's decently certain he can hear hoofsteps, clip-clopping against the tiles of the catacombs.

He takes a deep, shaky breath in, then releases it. He remains unsure if this is a hallucination.

Therefore, he deems it appropriate to simply remain laying there with his forelegs covering his face. (At least he can hide the tears. Stallions don't cry.)

He can feel a pulsing in his knees, and it's another unpleasant reminder of his monstrous existence, another unpleasant reminder of being alive and feeling things, unlike his lack of existence within the realms betwixt life and death, where he could feel nothing.

Oh, to be hollow and bereft of life again.

His ear flicks again. He doesn't remember when the footsteps stopped.

A distinct sense of being watched. Did she set up a scrying thing? He wouldn't be too surprised, a spell used to perform surveillance on him would be expected of her.

Slowly, Sombra removes his forehooves from his face, allowing his tear-stained eyes to view the world once more, though the cool air stings a little, having grown used to the hot saltiness of sad excretions.

Past the cell's metal door is an eye. Closed.

It begins to open.

Sombra's ears pin back. His breathing quickens, coming fast in short pants.

Something thuds in his chest.

(It might be a heart.)

He tries to get to his hooves. He almost trips over himself in his hurry.

(Ponies will naturally try to flee from things that threaten them.)

It's half open now. He can see the pupil of the eye as it focuses on him.

He backs away. He backs into the shield. There is nowhere to run to. He opens his mouth to try to shout. Call for help.

(You can't get anything from a dried out reservoir.)

His voice refuses to come. He shakes his head. His eyes remain locked on the eye outside the cell.

He reaches deep into his reserves to try and do something with it. A spell, anything.

The wards prevent him from casting anything. Not a single spark of magic is conjured from his horn.

(A safety measure? He doesn't feel safe here!)

There is nothing he can do.

Despite the lack of a will to live, something deep down tells him to run. To run from this threat is to live for another day.

The eye shakes, now fully open for it to see the world.

The eye is fully open, and it sees him.

It opens wide, like a dog's gaping maw, hoping to clamp its jaw around your chicken drumstick.

And then it's gone.

Warped out of existence, just like that.

Relief floods into him, spilling from the dam that he'd so carefully constructed to conceal any emotions.

His body meets the cold tiles, like a beloved son meeting their bride. He jolts afterwards from both the impact and the difference in temperature, the tiles are comparatively freezing to his currently overworked body.

(Funny, he doesn't remember doing any work. Did the panic cause this?)

His breath shakes on the way into his lungs, and he holds it there, cages it for a moment in his ribs, before releasing it again.

(Did he break eye contact with it? Is that why it disappeared?)

His ears flick, before lowering as the sudden expenditure of energy that he doesn't have begins to take its toll.

He's not sure if he can hear hoofsteps, or if it's just echoes from up above. He's not even sure if the sound of hoofsteps on palace tiles can echo down to the lowest catacombs.

(Is he dreaming again? Why would he dream of this lonely existence? It's certainly not sleep paralysis - he had that when he was a mere orphaned filly, and that involved less movement of limbs.)

Sombra takes in another deep, greedy breath, the damp air clinging to his lungs like a lifeline.

There isn't much airflow in here, the air remains stagnant and filled with moisture.

(He wouldn't be too surprised if he got mold poisoning. Spores tend to like air if it's wetter, don't they?)

(Surely the healing wards and the shield would keep any mold spores at bay, but she did mention the shield was aerated. The spores would be able to travel through, possibly.)

The thought of mold contaminating his food, breathing in those disgusting spores that could easily do in a pony of lesser physicality...

He slowly gets himself into a sitting position.

(Did spores prefer higher areas or staying closer to the ground?)

Ironic, how his thoughts seem rather scattered like the spores he's currently nervous about.

He huffs out an irritated sigh, trying to compose himself.

He can hear some hooves tapping against tiles again, and he shuts his eyes and tries to match the rhythm with his own front hoof.

One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four.

A thought filters through an anxiety-addled part of his mind, couldn't he pierce the shield spell with his horn? It's been a while since he shaved the velvet from it, so it should be relatively sharp.

Unless, of course, the Spark had modified that as well or done it for him.

He tries to look somewhat composed as he hears the hoofsteps draw ever nearer. Maybe she won't notice the way his undercoat has bristled in a line down his spine - the lighting is dim and he's lit up from underneath by the wards.

(He hopes She doesn't notice the slight shakiness of his breath.)

Sombra doesn't hear the scrape of the door against the dungeon's tiled floor.

He keeps his eyes closed, ears raising to be angled backwards to feign some form of annoyance.

(How pathetic, his captor might as well be considered his only friend.)

"Sombra." Her voice calls out, nearby.

He barely acknowledges her, instead choosing to swivel one of his ears towards the direction he thinks her voice came from.

"I brought food. And juice."

Sombra opens his eyes, turning his head to simply stare at her.

He remains unblinking for a while as they lock eyes for a moment, before he focuses his eyes to stare in her general direction instead.

Both of his ears remain angled backwards, a clear show of irritation, while hers remain forwards, alert for any spoken words from him.

He really doesn't want to give her the dignity of a response.

He does so anyways.

"Why."

She cocks her head, her bangs almost wiggling (like treacherous snakes) with the motion.

"Why wouldn't I? As a prisoner, you are entitled to certain rights, regardless of whether or not you're going on trial. Food, hydration, and the ability to sleep."

Sombra gives a grunt of acknowledgement, before he turns his head to the meager offering of food. (And a juicebox. Really?)

"...Do you think of me as a child of some sort, Sparkle?"

Princess Twilight Sparkle's face goes deadpan, her mouth widening as though she's trying not to smile.

He stares at the juicebox with suspicion. He still hasn't bothered with blinking, knowing that staring at someone without blinking is often considered hostile in some form.

"You tend to act childish, yes. I wonder if this is a result of becoming a tyrant, or because you didn't have much of a childhood?"

Sombra turns his gaze to simply glare at her. "Probing into my life again, I see. What more can I tell you? You've likely been through every artifact I have, keepsakes, treasures, notes, my journal." An irritated snort escapes him. "You might as well consider the journal a confession from me. Aren't you lucky, you have it in writing."

"I want to know why you'd turn to this sort of magic."

"Because it's my birthright, and because it's my destiny. Why else?" He scowls, eyes focusing on the juicebox again. "Do you really need me to spell out 'I would vastly prefer to have some form of privacy, my memory is not perfect and I do not fully remember whatever in Tartarus I wrote in that journal because it was over fifteen years ago' for you?"

Twilight's expression, he can see it in his peripheral vision, morphs into one of slight confusion and concern.

"It's 24 years after the Reunion of the Sisters, so 24PR, post-reunion."

"...Reunion?" Sombra's ears flick to Twilight's direction, before his head also follows the motion to look at her directly. "What do you mean."

"...What year do you last remember it being?"

His eyebrows furrow as he thinks, looking at the juicebox again, before his ears pin back in frustration. He knows she's expecting a response, and a quick one at that.

What escapes him is an irritated growl. "Rrgh... I don't remember. Why all these stupid queries?"

"They're not stupid. They just... help me gauge how to help you."

Flabbergastation is smeared across Sombra's features for a good few seconds. "...Sparkle, are you insane? Why in the name of Celestia's Phoenix would you want to bother helping me?" One brow furrows. Utter confusion.

"She calls it Philomena." Twilight helpfully supplies, a placid smile on her face. "And I believe the offer of friendship should be extended to you."

"And what happens if I refuse? Did you even account for that?" Sombra's hackles raise, his undercoat bristling further.

"Let's just say the alternative isn't as nice."

"Then it's not an offer, it's a bail condition. I'd rather stay here and rot." His pupils shrink despite the lighting conditions of the jail cell, and he makes sure to enunciate each word clearly for Twilight to hear.

Her eyes flick to the food, the wards, then him.

"I'll leave you to have your meal. Please do consider the offer, it'll make things so much easier."

He wants to say the phrase 'over my dead body', but even the sanctuary of death can be reversed by a magically gifted alicorn.

He takes to seething quietly instead, ears pinned back to the point of grazing his head as he listens to her hoofsteps, slowly becoming farther away, then a long pauae, and then the sound resumes, becoming quieter and quieter as she puts more distance between them.

The desire to eat isn't even there, but to force food down his throat means he'd at least be doing a basic task to continue living.

Sombra inspects the plate of food carefully — if the life-giving- no, healing ward, could heal him, then it stands to reason that it extends to all life, and thus mold.

He really hopes she isn't trying to poison him.

There is toast and a dollop of jam on the plate in front of him. The toast is cut into strips, as though she's expecting him to dip the toast in the jam.

What an odd way to prepare toast, he thinks. The Spark was, without a doubt, weird. After all, why revive him?

And why prepare toast in this manner? Couldn't she have just put the jam on the slices of toasted bread?

Experimentally, he sniffs at the food, trying to judge on whether the scent of it will bring some form of appetite back, and to judge if there's any of the telltale scent of mold.

About all the information smelling the food gives him is that it definitely smells like toast.

He nibbles on one of the toast strips. This feels monumentally stupid.

Author's Note

i have no idea what jam smells like and have a somewhat weak sense of smell in general.

this is probably because i lived with my alcoholic father for at least three years.

anyways, extended isolation in darkness with only one captor for company at inconsistent times (re: when she can get some time away from ruling) could probably cause hallucinations.

while sombra does have decent dark vision, it'd be somewhat impaired by the glowing from the wards.

Chapter VII: AND WITH THE MOON AS MY WITNESS...!

Princess Luna, of the Moon of Equinius, previous co-ruler of Equestria and current dream realm warden, previously Nightmare Moon and the sister of Princess Celestia, of the Sun of Equinius and previous co-ruler of Equestria, was not having a good day.

It had started out as relatively normal. A lay-in — British term for spending a larger chunk of the morning in bed than usual, often done at weekends when there is no work to be done — until eleven in the morning, and the smell of her sister's pancakes hits her after she wakes up.

Of course, Princess Luna is not a morning person and never was even back when she was younger, owing to her cutie mark and general affinity for the night.

(Her sister was the complete and total opposite - getting up at the crack of dawn, perhaps also owing to the mark on her flank and her affinity for the daylight.)

(How funny, then, that at least two of her sister's students had names of the time that was between the sun's mighty and warm reign and the moon's peaceful and calm overview.)

Princess Luna, of course, is over a thousand years old. This, naturally, does not stop her from begging for five more minutes in bed despite the fact that she's been asleep for a good chunk of the night as well.

Inevitably, she's drawn out of her warm and comfortable cocoon by the smell that wafts into her room from the kitchen.

Pancakes.

Possibly with fruits and whipped cream.

And with the chance of some chocolate sauce. Or strawberry sauce. Or even some lemon juice.

Oh, the sight of such a beloved treat naturally meant for breakfast is enough to make her currently-covered-by-a-blanket tail wag in joy.

(Not that it's visible without the blanket - her tail flows with the moon's power.)

She plonks her blackened rump down on a seat, looking like a slightly less grumpy teenager.

Celestia slides a plate of pancakes over to her.

A murder of crows looks on, from the outside, with envy. There are seven of them in total.

Luna ignores them and begins noshing on her pancakes.

"So," The sunnier sister starts, ears perked in curiosity, and the wish to be extremely nosy, "what did Princess Twilight call you over to Canterlot for?"

She almost chokes on her pancakes, managing to force the chewed mush into the esophagus instead of her windpipe.

"T'was merely a matter of seeking my counsel, dear sister." The lie rolls off her tongue a little too easily for her liking, and she keeps a brilliant poker face up.

(...She'd been lying about her emotional state for years before her banishment as Nightmare Moon.)

(And it scares her, how easily she's able to lie about why Twilight called her over.)

"And what advice did she ask you for?" Celestia tilts her head, innocently.

"Ah, a private matter."

"Are you two dating?"

Luna would have spat out her drink if she had any liquid in her mouth. Instead, she settles for her mouth being slightly agape.

"Nay."

"Oh, did you get rejected?"

"Nay, it wasn't anything of the sort, sister! Doth thou have a daily requirement for being so forthcoming in your nosiness?!" Her wings shoot open in mock agitation.

"I'm only asking!" Celestia says with a chuckle. "Besides, it isn't like I haven't had lovers, myself."

"I am very deeply aware of your many elopements." Luna squints. "Twilight called me over to Canterlot to discuss defensive budgeting, and possibly switching the material used for spears into something more plentiful than gold."

"Oh, was that it? I was worried a threat had been foreseen."

"Nay. Merely trying to find a suitable material for enchantments that wasn't gold. Silver was best against undead, but the hordes of Neverdead are no longer a thing in this day and age. I pray they don't happen again. They were very much a pain to stop last time."

"Eugh, all those flies and maggots. I'd still argue that *those* were the real threat and not the undead," Celestia pauses for a moment, "Isn't gold the best for holding enchantments?"

"Twilight was thinking about switching to using either a gold alloy or something else entirely, as the stocks of gold have been a bit difficult to keep up," Luna nods, "She wishes to preserve enchantability while having something stronger as a base material."

The conversation either petered off after that, or the memory fogged up in the crystal clear reflections of stars within Luna's mind.

There was nothing unusual to report on for most of the day, aside from a minor feeling of wrongness in the air.

However, when it came to performing her nightly duties as Princess of the Moon of Equinius, her horn refused to light itself to cast the powerful telekinetic spell that made raising the moon possible.

This was not supposed to be a struggle for her. She was Princess Luna, of the Moon of Equinius, part of the Satellite Diarchy and previous Co-ruler of Equestria.

How could something as simple as performing a process that she'd been doing for over a thousand years (not counting the time she was sealed in the moon) be a struggle now?

(How dare the Moon not listen to her, having been her only companion for a thousand years?)

Henceforth, she tried twice more to raise the moon.

Her horn lit up, far brighter than it should have been, but any sane mare (or colt) would assume it to be a result of her immense annoyance with how she'd managed to fail at something that was second nature for her.

(While she was retired, she was still obligated to do the things her destiny required her to do, until someone else could take up her mantle as Princess of the Moon of Equinius.)

She didn't notice the slightly rosy shade the moon had taken on, too focused on trying to get it to budge more than an inch at a time.

After the seventh attempt, her temper already frayed by the frustration of trying to move the moon that was being incredibly disobedient, a surge of power (or rage) stoked the fires of her horn's corona, charging it into the third degree.

To say the extra power felt invigorating was an understatement, but where had it come from?

Her energy quickly shifted to fear. Was this the beginning of another Nightmare Moon? That had come about from her extreme jealousy, so why now would her magic suddenly flare out, becoming more powerful and so much more difficult to contain?

Her horn feels like it burns - the physical conduit for the errant magic to flow through - and she tries to shout for her sister.

Sombra awakens with a start, a full body jolt forcing him out of the rest that he was previously partaking in with no regards to what time it was.

Something feels wrong in the air.

The wards have a slight humming to them, the sound growing louder with each passing second.

Within a minute, Sombra's ears are pinned back. He can't escape from the blasted noise, and by Celestia's sunny rump, it feels like it's going through him.

Before he squeezes his eyes shut to block out extra sensory input, he notices a crack running along the aerated bubble shield spell.

He moves to duck, fragmented shards of magical shielding raining down on him as the shield explodes.

Removing his forelegs from his eyes and face, he blinks in confusion, ears swivelling this way and that.

The humming from the wards is gone.

There's a shudder in the very tiles that he's laying on, and he quickly rises to his hooves, preparing to move if he needs to.

Dust plumes out from the ceiling.

The wards peter out, their purpose isn't to cater to massive and malignant magical surges.

Sombra stumbles, unused to being unassisted with cellular regrowth. A few things in his body feel a little off, but he can simply chalk that up to his unfortunate readjustment to just being alive.

He lights his horn just to see a little better in the darkness that he's called home for the past few... days?

With the wards no longer active, he's able to use his magic freely.

The unexpected surge in magical power from the local leylines makes the light blinding - and he's forced to squeeze his eyes shut.

He channels the magical energy into a teleportation spell, redirecting his horn into preparing a matrix.

It's completed slower than he expected, a rumble from above almost plunging him into panic.

He charges at the furthest wall from where he is, opening his eyes for a mere fraction of a second to gain an understanding of where exactly in the room he is - the entire room is lit up by the magic coursing through his horn.

He's elsewhere before he runs into the obstruction, skidding to a stop (and almost tripping) on the cobblestone of a path.

His horn still glows far too bright for him to effectively see, and it'd certainly foil any sort of attempt at being somewhat stealthy.

He raises a hoof —

(Somewhere, someone is looking outside of their house via a window and seeing this, chalking it up to an average day in whatever backwater town he's ended up in.)

— and punches himself in the horn.

The physical disruption to the magical corona surrounding it causes it to fizzle out, plunging the area into darkness once again.

He tries to ignore the wet sensation running down his forehead, focusing on simply shambling forward.

(It's probably only surface damage, anyways.)

Errant sparks burst from his horn in short intervals, popping and crackling like a well-fed fire.

Exhaustion tugs at his limbs and the frayed threads of his mind, making each step forward sluggish, the time that passes between each and every step becoming a fraction of a second longer.

He all but drags himself to a nearby bush.

The leaves would at least be softer than the stone tiles of the dungeon he was previously in, even if they did have a chance to come with insects.

Somewhere, a sister, of the sunshine and warmth on a summery day, calms her younger's magical outburst by licking her own hoof and applying it to her sibling's horn.

And then the younger is blanketed in pearlescent, feathered appendages.

And she is told that it wasn't her fault, and even if it was, she would be forgiven anyways.

Author's Note

felt like putting in a wish for comfort from one of my older siblings.

ho god i have to explain more magical shit.