Shale was a grey, crystal unicorn with black hair and yellow eyes. His appearance and posture gave off a foul mood, which, more often than not, was exactly the mood he was in. In the Crystal Empire, naming a foal after a type of rock was a common thing, and so, Shale's name was not as strange as it would seem to ponies of another land. What was strange was his choice of profession. He was an advisor, an assistant of sorts. The pony he worked for had come to be known as King Sombra.
This is what most residents of the Crystal emipire knew about their king. He is a wicked, power grabbing unicorn who took their kingdom by force and perverted it into a land of sorrow and darkness. All of those things were true.
This is what Shale knew about King Sombra. He has no experience running a country. He has roughly the same IQ as an earth worm, and he has trouble dressing himself. All of those things were true as well.
This is what King Sombra knew about himself. He was the most powerful pony for hundreds of miles. He could do absolutely anything he wanted with no forseeable consequences, and nopony in the world looked as good in red as he did. All of those things are up for debate.
As King Sombra sat at his royal throne in the grand hall of his castle lined with crystal and stone, he began to tap his hoof on the throne's crystal backrest. He was bored, and that meant it was the perfect time to troubleshoot his new ideas. He sat up, perfecting his posture, and called out with his deep, menacing voice, "Shale! Shale, come in here!"
As he yelled, one of his guards considered asking if the king could get someone to go and find Shale instead of yelling across the castle. He decided not to request that, however. The king had a very short temper, and one should avoid talking to him if possible.
"Shale, get in here!" Sombra continued. "SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALE!" He continued calling out like this for a few more minutes, growing more impatient by the second. He hated being made to wait.
Just as Sombra was about to find his disobedient advisor and give him a piece of his mind, Shale moped through the opened doors to the throne room with his ears down and bags under his eyes. "You wanted to see me, my lord?" he asked, hoping the answer was no.
"Yes," Sombra answered. "I've been thinking..."
"Congratulations, sir," said Shale with more than a hint of sarcasm.
Sombra continued, "I've been thinking about the Crystal Heart. The one that this empire used to protect itself against me."
This was surprising to Shale. King Sombra was actually thinking about something important! "What about it sir?" he asked with high spirits.
"We still have that thing, right?"
"Yes sir. It's still in storage. If I might make a suggestion, we should probably destroy it so that..."
"No," Sombra interrupted, crushing Shale's hopes. "My idea is much more evil!"
Shale sighed. This was the king he remembered. "What was your plan, my king?"
"We shall take the crystal heart and hide it!" the king exclaimed.
"With all due respect, sir, why do you want to hide it when we could just destroy it?" Shale asked, holding back his annoyance.
"Because, stupid, if we destroyed it, they could just put it back together again!"
"How do you..."
"It's magic. Shut up!" King Sombra demanded.
Shale rubbed behind his eyes to ease his growing headache. "Okay..." he finally said. "Where do you want to hide it? A cave? A lake?"
"No," Sombra answered without considering Shale's suggestions. "I want it to be hidden... At the top of the tower."
Shale gave out a long, painful sigh. "You want to hide it at the top of the largest building in the city?"
"Yes, I do."
"Sir, have you thought this through?"
"Of course I thought this through! I always think things through!" the king replied, insulted by the notion that he would do something without thinking.
"Well then, there's no sense in arguing with you," Shale said.
"That's the spirit!" King Sombra said happily.
"Is there anything else you wanted from me, sir?" Shale asked, once again hoping the answer was no.
"Yes," the king replied. "Do you know what this castle is missing?"
Shale looked around the gloomy throne room. "Natural light?"
"Ha ha ha, no," the king said unamused. "This room needs a big hole in the floor."
"Wh-what?"
"Yeah, you know, a big hole in the floor," Sombra said with confidence. "I mean, this place will be like: crystal corridor, crystal corridor, crystal corridor, then boom! A big hole in the ground! ... And then another crystal corridor."
"Sir, what reasoning could you possibly have behind putting a giant hole in the throne room?" Shale asked, afraid of the answer.
"Now you're getting to the brilliant part of my evil plan. I want it to have a spiral staircase," the king announced. "And I want it to go on and on for like twenty minutes. Then I want It to connect to the outside of the castle where there will be another spiral staircase leading all the way to the top! It will take hours to go up and down it! And I want it build just to screw with everybody! It's so evil, just like me!"
"Please tell me this is a joke." Shale pleaded.
"Hey Shale, are you the king?" Sombra asked.
"No sir."
"Right, right, that's what I thought," King Sombra said. Then he pointed to the black crown on his head. "Am I the king?"
"Yes sir," Shale said. He knew exactly where this was going.
"Perfect!" the king said as he clapped his front hoofs together. "So, this is what's gonna happen. Either you dig me a hole with a spiral staircase, or I'll dig a hole without a spiral staircase and throw you in it!"
Shale attempted to let out his stress with one heavy sigh. "Yes sir," he said.
"These are the greatest ideas I've had all week!" Sombra assured. "There is absolutely no way this could backfire."
"But..."
"...Absolutely no way it could backfire," Sombra repeated.
Without saying anything else, Shale left the room to get what he needed for the king's ridiculous project. He wished that the king was gone. He wished something awful would happen to him. Little did he know that two alicorn princesses were going to grant his wish in less than a year.
