//------------------------------// // Confinement // Story: The Shadow and the Star // by Misty Shadow //------------------------------// For the second time that day, Twilight Sparkle found herself slowly awakening in a state of haziness. “Ooohhh…” she groaned, still feeling pain from being struck by Sombra and knocked unconscious. Slowly opening her eyes and blinking, she saw her faithful assistant, Spike, staring at her intently through a row of black bars. “S-Spike?” she declared his name, startling the dragon. “You know my name?!” he exclaimed in astonishment. “I never told you! Even if you overheard Rarity call my name back at the Empire, that was ages ago…yet you instantly recognized me! Are you telepathic?!” “Ugh…” she grunted, pulling herself together and surveying her surroundings. “No…” She was no longer in her bedroom, now inside an enchanted cage that suppressed her magic and her new ability to turn into a shadow in the throne room. Despite this, the wounds on her face had already healed, the cage not affecting her body’s innate ability of fast regeneration, being made of darkness. To the left of her were two royal guards conversing below stained glass portraits of crucial moments in Equestria’s history, and to the right, a view outside that showed the sun in a position that revealed the time of day to be some time in the late morning. Ahead of her were two more royal guards standing watch at the door of the throne room, and behind her, was the throne. “Even if I did have the power to read minds,” continued the still dazed, princess-turned shadow king, “I don’t think I’d be in any state to do so right now…” “I don’t believe you!” an insistent Spike retorted, clenching his fists. “You already have the power to show others their greatest fear and influence their minds! And I’ve seen this before in books and shows! Tales about ponies who go through near-death experiences and gain psychic powers!” Twilight squinted her eyes, shooting Spike an unamused glare. In response, Spike began to sweat and rub his fingers together. “Are…are you reading my mind right now?” Twilight simply sighed. “I really shouldn’t be too surprised. After all, I remember that time at the Equestria Games where you thought you could light things on fire with your mind…oh!” Twilight realized her mistake too late, finding herself filled with embarrassment by Spike’s disturbed reaction, fearfully clutching his head with his hands. “I WAS right! Oh, this is really, really bad! First, we have no idea how you even returned in the first place, and now you have paranormal superpowers?! How are we going to explain this to the public without sending them into a state of mass hysteria?!” Twilight found herself sharing Spike’s trepidation, worriedly biting a front leg. “What have I done?” she thought regretfully. “One little slip is all it took to throw my loyal companion in a state of complete panic and disarray! Something that could in turn, spread to my people! I have to be careful from now on! And I need to calm Spike down!” Quickly improvising, Twilight decided to play along and act out the character of King Sombra to her best ability. “How sad…” Twilight spoke in a haughty tone, pretending to mock him. “Back when you absconded the Crystal Heart from me, you were far more composed and dauntless than this, despite the fact that you were only a mere baby dragon in a far more perilous situation.” Twilight’s ploy worked, as Spike’s look of fear was quickly replaced by one of anger. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he responded incisively. “Why don’t you try reading what I’m thinking now, jerk?” “No need.” Twilight answered happily, confusing him. “I’m just glad my words reached you…” “What…” Spike was speechlessly puzzled, especially as Twilight continued to look at him with a genuinely serene smile. “Are…are you making fun of me?” A guard behind him, one of the stallions by the throne room door, sighed. “Don’t you get it?” he interjected. “He’s psychologically toying with you. Don’t fall for it.” “I wouldn’t, but…” Spike replied, his bemusement not subsiding. Spike continued to observe Twilight’s sincerely joyful look and began thinking. “The gaze from those eyes…it’s making me feel the exact opposite of how I did when Twilight stared at me early this morning after I brought her coffee. I don’t sense arrogance or coldness despite the fact that she just derided me…if anything, it feels like she was taunting me as a way to be cruel to be kind, goading me to pull myself together for the sake of others. But the Sombra I know would never do that…has he changed since the last time he returned?” Meanwhile, King Sombra as Twilight Sparkle was returning to the throne room after a late morning brunch, as a pony who was dressed in a waiter’s outfit and pushing a cart from behind followed him. He arrived close to the throne room doors before Spike decided to tell the guard what he felt. “…Don’t you guys feel something…different about King Sombra?” Overhearing this, an astonished Sombra stopped at the doors, holding out his right front leg to signal to the waiter to stop pushing the cart, a command he obeyed. “What do you mean?” the guard replied in an uncertain tone. “Just…something about his presence…it doesn’t have the same air of malice.” “You’re imagining things. I used to be a guard for the Crystal Empire. I’ve had real experience dealing with ponies and other creatures who seemed to be nice before they turned out to be sociopathic marauders who engaged in larceny and kidnapping. I’ve heard enough stories about King Sombra to know that he’s nothing more than a blight on our land. Irredeemable scoundrel, he’ll never change.” From outside, Sombra had to fight the urge to growl, finding comfort in the fact that Twilight was the one feeling the pain from that remark. “Calm down…” he told himself in thought. “Remember, she’s the one who really suffers from this rancor from now on, ha ha…” Upon hearing that as Sombra, Twilight felt a pain in her chest, her face contorting into an expression of great sorrow. Spike immediately noticed, further cementing what he suspected. Twilight soon found herself too upset to stay quiet and decided to ask the guard… “What makes you so sure that I could never change?” “Because you are rotten to the core, unlike most other foes our princess had to stand up against. Were there even a speck of good in you, we would have seen it by now. Instead, you have been obliterated. Twice. I’m sure the will of the light has made it perfectly clear by now that you are too far gone.” “Moron…” Sombra said in thought, smiling sinisterly. “I am grateful for useful stupidity, however…” Twilight thought deeply before she replied. “I know his recollection of events is erroneous, but…even after Discord told me about what actually happened to Sombra, I didn’t fully believe it until I saw the proof with my own eyes…I have to tread carefully…to prove him wrong while keeping things in order, I have to do what I did with Spike and continue playing Sombra’s role!” And so, Twilight began to rebut him the way she felt Sombra would, not knowing Sombra was listening from the outside… “This is exactly why I’ve never cared for boorish military types…” “Excuse me?” the guard responded in frustration. ““I’ve heard stories! The princess did this!” Is that all you formulate your judgment on?” “I’ll have you know that I was there on the day you assaulted the Empire again…” the guard explained bitterly. “I used to be one of Princess Cadence’s heralds before she ascended, and I became a guard here after Princess Twilight graciously offered me a job.” “Oh…” Twilight replied, maintaining a condescending tone as to not appear caught off guard. She also remembered how Spike presumed that she had the power to read minds simply from recalling his name. Not wanting to repeat her mistake, she asked… “What is your name?” “Snow Sentinel.” he answered unenthusiastically. “I don’t see why you would care to know after you flattened me so long ago…” Twilight smirked confidently, the guard’s slip providing her with the perfect ammunition… “So all of this contempt for me is simply a feeble, thinly veiled disguise for your insecurity…” she jeered, feigning mockery again with this rejoinder. “Sensing and controlling the fear of vulnerable ponies is my specialty. You are free to be honest with your emotions, given that I can already read you like an open book…” “Then you should know that I’ve already been brutally honest with you this entire time…” Snow Sentinel retorted angrily. “And I’ll also add now that you never should’ve returned once, let alone twice. I hope that the next time you die, you STAY DEAD!” This vitriolic exclamation drew the attention of the three other guards in the room and Spike, giving him unimpressed looks over his unprofessional outburst. Outside the throne room, Sombra couldn’t hold back his anger as well as he did the first time, stomping a hoof and gritting his teeth. Twilight, meanwhile, was surprised and hurt, feeling her plan worked too well. “Dude…” Spike told Snow, his tone one of disappointment. “That’s going too far…you need to calm down. Twilight told me once that she never intended for that light she and her friends made to kill Sombra…and that even if he was actually dead, she only hoped that he was now remorseful, finding peace in a better place…” Sombra was shocked once he heard this from behind the doors, shock that grew once he also heard similar comments of disapproval from the other guards about how Snow needed to control his temper. Eventually, Snow yielded with a sigh. “Please forgive me…” he apologized, sounding sincere. “It’s really myself I’m mad at for failing the princess that day, not Sombra…and I also felt that after so many defeats, death would mean little to an apparently immortal shadow king…” Despite still feeling mental pain, Twilight saw another opportunity to seize with her act as Sombra, one that would also help alleviate her discomfort. “Death is indeed of minute consequence to me.” she solemnly confirmed his thoughts. “However, my immortality is also just as you put it, apparent. I have never actually been resurrected from the dead, only brought back from banishment. The first time after I initially came back from my Northern ice prison, it was from the ether, the second time, from the moon.” “What?!” Spike and every guard cried in unison. Sombra had the same reaction in thought from outside. “It’s true.” she continued to explain, smiling a serene smile once again. “I’m sure you’re glad you put me in this enchanted cage now instead of outright killing me and justifying it with some piffle about how, “It’s what our princess would’ve wanted!”. I’ll take it none of you have ever killed before, have you? So you’re just like me…” Spike and the guards were spooked. “None of us told him the cage was enchanted…” the guards thought nervously. “He hasn’t even attempted to cast a single spell to try and escape…maybe Spike was right…not just about him having telepathy, but about him being different altogether!” “I knew something was off from the start…” Spike thought, equally anxious. “Sombra really has changed…enough to give him the confidence to tell us personal information like this without fear of it backfiring on him…” Sombra became filled with anxiety as well, though his was largely stemming from bewilderment. “Why is she disclosing such things to them?! All this serves to do is establish me as a pony they can sympathize with! What good are sentiments of pity to a great shadow lord such as I? Unless…” Sombra gave it more thought, Twilight’s motive for humanizing the pony they thought he was, before coming to a conclusion… “So even as Equestria’s greatest nemesis, she intends to overcome this hurdle by playing nice. She refuses to be evil despite knowing that trying to be her “good self” will only make the situation worse. She plans to win through being cruel to be kind…” Sombra then turned his head around to look back at the food on the cart, all the dishes that were covered, before he smiled cockily. “Unfortunately for you…” he continued to think. “I’ve already planned my victory through being kind to be cruel…” “Your Highness,” interjected the waiter, “I do not mean to show disrespect, but I was wondering when you intended to magnanimously share these delicacies with your heralds. I only say this out of concern for the food becoming congealed from us waiting too long, spoiling your treat for them. Additionally, I wish to prepare your lunch for after your meeting with Princess Flurry Heart as soon as I possibly can.” “I understand your concern entirely, good servant.” Sombra complimented him, feigning diplomacy similar to how Twilight feigned discourtesy. “Though I will remark that I am already well-prepared for what will follow after that meeting…” Sombra snickered to himself in thought, thinking of a brown journal that contained an elaborate, devious scheme of his…