Learning By Example

Twilight Sparkle was jarred awake by something she hadn't quite registered. She scanned the room for the source of disturbance, but found nothing. The smell of charred logs from the fireplace wafted through the room carried by a breeze blowing in from the open doors to a balcony; the light of Celestia's sun spilled part way into the room through the same doors.

Twilight was awake enough then to recognize the sounds of a pony shouting when next it happened. Hearing it again, she was surprised that she hadn't recognized it sooner. Mostly due to the fact that whoever was shouting, was doing so using the Royal Canterlot voice. Her bits were on Luna.

Twilight made her way to the balcony, troubles of the previous night temporarily forgotten in favor of satisfying her curiosity. Princess Celestia's balcony was empty, save for a couple potted plants. Twilight could see her mentor's billowing mane on another balcony that was slightly elevated from where she stood.

"Good morning Princess!" Twilight called waving as though it would have any effect on a turned back. She looked at her raised arm incredulously before putting it back down.

Celestia turned and said something Twilight couldn't make out as a much louder reply of "There's nothing good about it." Overpowered whatever the elder princess tried to say.

"Princess Luna seems happy." Twilight mused under her breath.

Once Celestia finished giving her sister, yet unseen by Twilight, a warning look she said, "Well Twilight I'm glad you're up; come around and meet your new teacher." As she spoke a flicker of mischievousness flitted through Celestia's eyes.

"I'll be right up!" Twilight yelled before unleashing her many times practiced teleportation spell. It was a fairly short distance, Twilight had made farther trips before.

"NO Twilight, don't!" Celestia cried, just before her student disappeared in a sphere of dark energy accompanied by a monstrous growl. Only to reappear on their balcony a moment later in the fetal position.

"So many teeth, walls made of flesh..." Twilight continued to list off some horrid seen as a cruel laughter filled the space of the small balcony.

It was the sort of laughter a bully might make after seeing some cruelty upon another. Mirthless, but amused.

Twilight looked around to see that she was no longer in that horrid places between places; she was inches away from swearing off the teleportation spell all together. As horrid as she felt the laughter was quickly distracting her, mostly because it wasn't either of the princesses doing the laughing. All eyes slowly turned to the ash grey colt with a black mane that was currently floating off the edge of the balcony. How Twilight hadn't spotted him was beyond her, but now that she could see him a lump began to form in her throat.

His malicious grin revealed teeth sharper than any equine's teeth had a right to be. His gaze betrayed a depth of knowledge not belonging to his small frame.

"K-king Sombr-Huh?" Twilight managed to stutter out, slightly exasperated.

"He is no king without a kingdom!" Princess Luna declared staring down the floating colt. "In a moment he will be nothing." The lavender unicorn couldn't help but wonder how much of Canterlot was in on Luna's half of the conversation by this point.

Celestia was clearly torn between two pressing issues.

"Are you alright Twilight?" She asked quickly, turning back to her sister before Twilight could nod in the affirmative. The laughter at her expense had somehow made the horrors she'd seen wherever it was she'd teleported to seem much less mentally scarring.

"Luna you are not executing him. We don't do that, and besides that he's defenseless; the whole idea is outright cruel."

"And he's been cruelty on this world since the day she was conceived." The little Sombra reminded Celestia unhelpfully.

"But sister, he has been taunting us all night. We hadn't a moment of peace with him about. Do not try to deny how much of a burden he's been to you as well; we should simply be done with him here and now." Luna's speech was quickly turning to whining and pleading instead of angry shouting.

"At any other time I might be tempted to agree with you, but now I have a use for him." Princess Celestia said evenly, casting a glance at her quiet student.

"Release me, whore." Sombra said petulantly crossing his arms angrily.

Luna grunted in frustration, bring the small unicorn close to look him in the eye before hurling him off the balcony towards the city below.

Twilight was speechless, Luna looked satisfied, and Celestia was less surprised and more annoyed as she took off after the falling colt. In a few wingbeats and a teleportation, Celestia easily caught Sombra before he would've met the tallest buildings of the city.

Twilight sat, still awestruck by the display of both Celestia and Luna. She'd never witnessed such a hatred shared between two the way Luna and the young Sombra seemed to. That coupled with the majestic sight of her teacher, Princess Celestia, taking off with such urgent purpose left her in a surreal state of mind.

"Pointless, but extremely cathartic; We are done with him." Luna stated, walking away like she hadn't tried to murder a pony. "If my sister means to leave him with you little Twilight, I pray for your soul and sanity."

Celestia plopped a fairly ungrateful Sombra on the balcony and made to march inside after her sister, just in time for the doors to be sealed magically.

Celestia huffed loudly, tucked her wings in and turned to her quietly waiting student.

"Twilight?" Celestia said, raising an eyebrow.

Twilight responded with a nod to show she was at least conscious. Whether or not she would comprehend anything said was another matter entirely.

"After Luna's display and the teleporting incident, I don't suppose you're in the mood for many more surprises. In spite of this, I'd like to properly introduce you to your new instructor in dark magic."

"But Luna is inside." Twilight complained, already looking down at a less than happy Sombra; her eyes were growing steadily wider with worry.

"Yes, well her knowledge of such magic is such that she would make a poor teacher. I am very much the same way, but a unique opportunity has presented itself. I hope you understand-"

"But he's evil!" Twilight interrupted. "Look at him, he's just smaller than the last time I saw him."

Sombra produced a throaty growling noise while Twilight made her observations.

"Smaller yes, evil no. Powerless yes, resentful also yes. For all the 'good' you and your friends did by preventing me from retaking the Crystal Throne, I can't say I am all that happy."

"Oh, hush now Sombra; the other day you were telling me how much lighter you felt. You almost managed a smile as well."

Sombra fixed her with his coldest stare, Celestia simply smiled back.

"But-" Twilight attempted.

"No buts, I can't protect you from this any longer. I also cannot guide you through it, he can." Celestia said warmly, she'd been prepared for some resistance.

"Guide her through what, is she going through estrus for the first time or something? I'll admit being banished to the frozen wastes for so long has left me rather-"

"NO!" Twilight shouted, blushing furiously. "I mean, no."

"Well then, what?" He pushed with an impish grin.

"My dear Twilight has been experiencing the night terrors and other such problems that come along with being untrained in the use of dark magic."

"I had to use it, to get to the crystal heart." Twilight explained.

"So it was you then? Well well well, curiosity has damned you hasn't it; did you find an old tome, or some such nonsense?" He chuckled as the information came forth.

"No, I-"

"It was my fault entirely. I showed her dark magic without even considering what she might do with it. That and what she might be required to do with it once I gave her the task of helping the Crystal Empire."

"Fairly clumsy of you to teach her to use dark magic without teaching her how to control it." Sombra agreed, not fulling grasping the meaning of Celestia's words.

"No, I did not teach her. I only channeled dark energies while she watched. Her special talent is magic, I should've known better than to think it wouldn't come so naturally to her."

Sombra's demeanor changed instantly upon hearing of Twilight's inherent talent with magic.

"The student to an alicorn has an actual gift for the use of magic. Fate has conspired against all of your enemies, indeed."

"My Twilight is not a weapon, and you will not treat her as such in any measure; is that understood." Celestia stated coldly.

Twilight couldn't help but notice the sun's light seemed to dim slightly as the being it was attached to spoke.

Sombra backed away slightly, the clopping of his hooves the only sound that seemed to exist as even the wind seemed to grow suddenly silent. Existence paused with baited breath, waiting for the once king's response.

"I will train her in the dark arts, so she may protect herself from it." Sombra said slowly, nodding in agreement with himself once the words came out.

The world, to Twilight's ears, let out a collective sigh of relief and went about its business again.

"Princess?"

"Yes, my dear Twilight?"

"Do I get a say in this?"

Celestia turned so she was facing her student. "I'm only looking out for you, but if you have issues taking lessons from Sombra, I understand."

Something in Celestia's eyes told Twilight that, while she would understand, this was the only help she could or would offer.

"I guess I'm just nervous about getting a new teacher?" Twilight tried to dismiss her objections.

"Everything will be fine." She smiled kindly, before addressing them both.

"Please try to get along. I'll check up on you at dinner, but I have duties to attend to." In a flash of golden light, Twilight was left alone with the young Sombra.

When Twilight clearly wasn't going to be first to break the increasingly awkward silence Sombra said, "Take a lap."

"Wha-"

"No questions just do it."

Twilight was hurled out of her student/teacher comfort zone. "How do I learn if I can't ask questions?" She blurted out before Sombra could repeat his previous rule.

Sombra rubbed his temples firmly before answering. "Not literally 'no questions,' just don't question my orders. What did you want to ask?"

"So I can't ask why I have to take a lap?"

"No, you can't." Sombra confirmed.

"So where then?"

"Around Canterlot, I guess. No magic and be back before lunch."

"It's ten in the morning, I can't even get down from here without teleporting."

"Are you questioning me?"

"No that wasn't a question."

"Eleven-thirty." Sombra said, smiling cruely.

"How do I get down from here?"

"Go through Luna's room, obviously."

Twilight looked at the closed doors, their magical seals having dropped once Celestia was no longer near.

"I can't just barge into her room like that."

"Well you can knock first, but you now have until eleven to make it back to me."

"What!?" Twilight shouted.

"At this point you're going to fail your first lesson, and here I thought you were Celestia's prized student." Sombra watched as Twilight's expression changed from incredulous disbelief to something akin to all consuming terror.

"That's better." He mused to himself while he watched a purple blur charging through the balcony doors, slowing only to open the rooms inner doors to the castle halls.