A Heart as Black as Night
Part 2
By Fellstorm
Sombra reeled from the blow he’d just been dealt. Just like that, his whole future had been decided. He felt like a passenger in an out of control carriage, careening towards the edge of a cliff with no way to stop and no time to escape…
The future opened beneath him like a dark chasm; he’d leave for the Crystal Faire, a journey of several weeks, arrive at the city and participate in the festivities. By the time the faire concluded it would be too late in the season for them to return and they would be forced to remain in the Crystal City until the passes thawed the following spring. After that, if they left right away, he might just make it back to Everfree in time to miss the start of the second semester of school.
He’d try to catch up, of course, but by then it would be too late! He’d be hopelessly behind the other students. There’d be no way he could pick up where he left off. The only option would be to send him back a grade and have him repeat the previous year!
If only! If only!
Getting sent back a grade wasn’t so bad, and if he were an ordinary student, that might be his only worry, but he wasn’t just any student! He was Luna’s apprentice! His performance was a reflection on the Princess of the Night, herself! When she found out he’d embarrassed her both personally and professionally, she wouldn’t just send him back a grade, she’d send him all the way back to (gulp!) Magic Kindergarten! A grown stallion in a tiny classroom surrounded by giggling foals! And of course his teacher would be-
-Luna?
The princess stared at him quizzically from in front of the blackboard before shaking her head and looking away. Sombra’s daydream unraveled and he found himself sitting at the breakfast table with the three princesses, still carrying on in conversation as if no time at all had passed.
Of course, no time had passed; Sombra’s entire lifetime of tragedy had flashed before his eyes in a few seconds. He took a deep breath and tried to push the doom and gloom out of his mind. Whatever was waiting for him, it was still in the future. Right now, he was still at the top of his class and still Luna’s most trusted student. Maybe, just maybe, everything would turn out alright…
“Are you alright?” asked Celestia. “You looked distracted for a moment.”
“I’m fine, I-” Sombra started, before realizing Celestia wasn’t talking to him.
“’Tis nothing,” answered Luna. “Just a daydream.”
Luna’s gaze flickered in his direction for the barest fraction of a second, but it was long enough for Sombra to guess its meaning: she’d been inside his imagination!
As far as he and the general public knew, Princess Luna only had the power to enter ponies’ minds while they were asleep. How spaced out must he have been for Luna to touch his mind in a daydream? The alternative -that he’d actually fallen asleep at the table for a few seconds- was too embarrassing to even think about!
He regarded Luna closely. If she really had entered his daydream, then her power extended further than she let on. Could her appearance have been a secret message meant only for him? A sign that she was taking him deeper into her confidence than she’d ever taken anypony else?
The thought filled him with pride and he sat up a little straighter.
Don’t worry, your highness, your secret is safe with me! he thought.
If Luna heard him, she gave no indication and continued with her breakfast.
“Speaking of dreams,” said Celestia, “Some rather disturbing rumors have been circulating around lately, so disturbing that they’ve even managed to reach me up in Canterlot.”
“Oh?” Luna perked up her ears.
“Reports of bad dreams,” said Celestia.
“That’s a shame. I suggest a change in diet,” said Luna, levitating a tiny gilded porcelain cup of coffee to her lips and taking a dainty sip.
“Well, I should say one bad dream in particular,” Celestia’s expression darkened. “The Night Mare.”
Luna rolled her eyes and Sombra had to force himself to choke back a snort of laughter.
“Not that old urban legend again, sister?” Luna scoffed, taking another sip.
Sombra nodded in agreement. The Night Mare was just a tale told to frighten foals, like the Boogeymare, or the Long Legged Red Scissor Stallion. Little children who were naughty slept in fear of the Night Mare, a grotesque, spindle-legged creature with a coat so black, you could barely see it until it opened its mouth full of razor sharp, white teeth to gobble you up.
Sombra had outgrown his fears of the Night Mare early on. He’d even gone through a brief period of fascination with the creature, papering his bedroom wall with macabre drawings of the Night Mare, usually in the act of devouring one of his bully classmates. Of course he’d never stoop to doing something so immature now… but even he still had to admit the juxtaposition of the Night Mare’s sharp fangs and pony body looked really cool…
“Oooh, the Night Mare gives me the willies….” Princess Frufru shivered. “I remember, when I was little, I used to dream about it all the time!”
“Yes, well, you always were a disobedient little brat,” Luna murmured into her coffee.
Celestia shot her sister a dirty look, but Frufru didn’t seem to have heard Luna’s muttering and continued.
“She was always so scary and always knew just what I’d done, too,” she said.
“I suspect it was just your guilty conscience trying to teach you a lesson,” said Luna, setting down the cup in its saucer and wiping her mouth on a napkin. “That’s all the Night Mare really is.”
“I’m not so certain the Night Mare can be dismissed so casually, sister,” said Celestia, taking on a more regal posture. “It is our duty to our subjects to thoroughly investigate any and all potential threats to Equestria.”
“I’m sure if the Night Mare were real, Princess Luna would have encountered it long before now,” said Sombra, realizing too late that he’d once again spoken out of turn.
Celestia’s expression turned dubious at Sombra’s breach of decorum, but Luna’s approving nod was all he needed to reassure him that he’d said the right thing.
“My protégé is correct, sister,” said Luna. “I patrol the dreams of our citizens every night and, while I have seen and done battle against many self-destructive thoughts, personal conundrums and bad dreams, I have yet to encounter any ‘Night Mares.’”
“And I’ve never come across one in any of my studies,” Sombra chimed in, “except as urban legend and rumor. As far as I’ve been able to discover, Princess Luna is the only being in recorded history, pony or otherwise, that has the power to move freely between dreams.”
A shadow passed over Celestia’s face and she became quiet.
No doubt she’s been stunned into silence by our superior dialectical skills, thought Sombra, shooting a smug look in Luna’s direction. Luna gave him the smallest of satisfied smiles in return.
“Perhaps your knowledge of pony lore is not as complete as you think?” suggested Celestia.
“I have the utmost faith and confidence in Sombra’s academic prowess,” said Luna, prompting an eyeroll from Princess Frufru. “If he says that the Night Mare is only a superstitious legend, then that’s all that it is.”
“Although,” offered Sombra, realizing the opportunity that had just presented itself, “perhaps it does merit further study. I think, with a few months to myself in the Royal Archives, I could possibly piece together a more complete history of this ‘Night Mare’ and maybe lay the issue to rest, one way or the other…”
He leaned forward, ears peaked to catch Celestia’s response. After several agonizing seconds where Celestia appeared to consider the matter carefully, she shook her head.
“No, Sombra, That will not be necessary. I’m sure your studies have been as thorough as you claim. No doubt I’m letting my worries get the better of me. The Night Mare couldn’t possibly be what I suspected it was…”
Celestia didn’t sound very sure, but after a moment’s contemplation, her expression brightened again and she was as cheerful as the dawn in springtime.
“Besides, you’re not getting out of your trip to the Crystal Faire that easily!” she laughed. “In fact, if I were you, I’d go home and start packing right away. The expedition departs in only a few days and once it leaves, there won’t be any going back if you forget your hoofkerchief!”
“B-but!” Sombra stammered.
“No time for ‘buts’ now. I’ve kept you too long already and there is still much for Princess Luna and I to discuss.”
Sombra bowed and made his formal goodbyes to the princesses before making his way back through the maze of Celestia’s vast apartments and out into the grand hall of the palace.
It was only after reaching the central hall that Sombra realized that his legs were shaking like rubber and that his heart had been going a mile a minute. Once again it seemed like the world was suffocating him.
How could Celestia do this? Why? What possible reason could she have for dragging a promising young student away from his studies for something as frivolous as a carnival in the Arctic Circle? Was she so disappointed in how he was performing in his studies with Luna that she felt he could benefit from a change of scenery? Impossible. It didn’t make any sense!
Unless…
Sombra’s mind was racing now. Of course! She felt threatened by him! He was doing too well in his studies! He could already tell she was a paranoid personality, look at the way she jumped at shadows like the Night Mare! And he was obviously her intellectual superior; one only had to observe the result of their recent debate to realize that. It was all so clear! All he had to do was think of a way to convince Princess Luna of what he’d discovered…
***
While Sombra was lost in thought, his hooves were carrying him through the corridors of the palace on their own, wandering deeper and deeper into the maze of hallways and side passages until he very suddenly and unexpectedly found himself amidst the noise and steam of the palace kitchens.
Why did I come here, again? wondered Sombra.
“Oy! Watch out then, Sombra!” barked a heavyset mare with a clump of green onions as her cutie mark. She was balancing a massive cauldron of stew on her back. Sombra leaped aside to let her by.
“Sorry, Mrs. Leeks,” said Sombra, pressing himself flat against the wall as the heavy cauldron passed inches from his face.
“Oh, you’ll be sorry all right when your mother finds you, that’s for sure,” Mrs. Leeks grunted with effort as she bucked the cauldron off her back and onto an open hook above the cooking fire. “She’s been out of her head with worry. It seems you haven’t been home in two days.”
“I’ve been studying…” Sombra answered.
Mrs. Leeks just shook her head and clucked her tongue.
“Nopony never learned anything useful from books,” she said.
“Uh… I think you mean nopony ever l-”
But she had already trotted off. There were other chores in the bustling kitchen that needed her attention.
A petit unicorn with speckled fur and a gap between her teeth took over the cauldron, dipping in a wooden spoon and beginning to stir. The little orange mare kept five cauldrons going at once this way and, in spite of the concentration it must have taken to keep so many spoons stirring simultaneously, seemed very bored.
“Hello, Tangerine,” greeted Sombra.
“Hello, Creepusculo,” Tangerine replied coldly “There’s no homework for you to do down here, only real work.”
“You know, I could help,” offered Sombra “I know a spell that could enchant the spoons so that you wouldn’t have to keep them moving all the time…”
“That’s great!” said Tangerine, a broad grin spreading across her face.
“It is?” asked Sombra. “Well…”
He brightened up and opened his mouth to explain the spell.
“Do you know what would be better, though?” interrupted Tangerine.
“What?”
“A spell to make you disappear.”
Sombra deflated instantly and Tangerine returned to her stirring, this time making a deliberate effort to pretend Sombra wasn’t there.
I wish I knew that one… thought Sombra, turning away from Tangerine and crossing the kitchens to a wooden bench in the corner where he would be out of everypony’s way.
Believe it or not, Tangerine and Sombra used to play together as friends. She was a former classmate of his at the palace schoolhouse.
Although all the children of the palace staff were granted a basic education if their parents were willing to spare them, nearly all of the students at the schoolhouse were unicorns. Unicorns occupied the overwhelming majority of “front room” positions at the palace, with menial and demanding “back room” jobs typically reserved for earth ponies. As a result, earth ponies who worked in the palace tended to keep their children close at hoof, educating them in more practical subjects, such as scrubbing and cooking, while unicorn staff were often in a better position to allow their children to fritter away the useful hours of the day with studying.
There were several earth pony foals scampering around the palace kitchens, carrying dishes on their heads or buckets of soapy water in their mouths. A few of them already had their cutie marks, although most of them would remain blank flanks well into adolescence and (in rare, tragic cases) beyond.
Regardless of their age, the foals and yearlings with cutie marks ran the show, often bossing around ponies several years older than themselves. They were the ones that had figured out early what it took to navigate the complex and nuanced pecking order that ruled the back stairs of the palace. Someday, the foals that got their cutie marks in scrubbing and polishing and baking would run the kitchens and the pantries while their less astute peers with useless cutie marks like pinwheels or rocks would be relegated to performing thankless, tedious chores for the rest of their lives.
But that was how things had always been. It was a fate everypony had embraced… or at least resigned themselves to accept.
Well, almost everypony…
Sombra occupied a unique position in the hierarchy of the palace staff. As Luna’s personally selected protégé, he was essentially “upstairs folk,” one of the snooty and ineffable masters that glided through the palace like specters; visible and audible to the staff but, alas, intangible. The servants had to defer to him as if he were any other noble pony and his freedom to move throughout the palace was unquestioned and unchallenged.
Being “upstairs” would have suited Sombra just fine if he weren’t also the son of a palace chambermaid.
He’d grown up scampering around the kitchens and wrestling with the other children of the palace staff. He still remembered when everything he ate tasted like soap from pushing a scrub-brush across the floors with his teeth for hours at a time. On the glorious day when he finally learned to use his magic to manipulate objects, the first real spell he learned was for removing cobwebs from hard to reach places.
Then he got his cutie mark.
Sombra looked back at his hindquarters. While the rest of his coat was more or less a uniform charcoal gray, on either side of his flank he bore a patch of black fur in the shape of a large, six-pointed star. His coat was already so dark, the star was nearly invisible, and for a long time the other foals didn’t believe it was a real cutie mark. They accepted it soon enough, after Sombra demonstrated a grasp of magic the other unicorn foals could never ever hope to achieve.
For a few months, he felt like a king. With a single burst of magic from his horn, armies of brooms and mops sprang to life, whisking away dust and completing in minutes a task that would have taken anypony else hours to accomplish. He would run the entire dishwashing line by himself, soaping, scrubbing, rinsing and drying in a fluid, effortless motion that left the scullery maids speechless and delighted.
But, it couldn’t last. Somehow, news of an exceptionally gifted unicorn foal working at the palace reached the ear of Princess Luna. She summoned him and, after a brief test of his magical abilities, made him the offer of a lifetime; she would personally oversee his education, ensuring that he receive the very best tutors and study materials the palace treasury could buy. She offered him the chance to leave the dirty back stairs world of the palace behind and become one of the masters. Of course he took it.
Suddenly, he was rubbing shoulders with the children of wealthy merchants and nobleponies. Attending lectures by famous historians and renowned philosophers. He had all the books he could read and all the time in the world to read them. So what if nopony from the back stairs would talk to him anymore? So what if all his new classmates laughed at him every day because he brought his lunch to school wrapped in a polka dot hoofkerchief while they all had theirs on silver platters delivered by personal valets?
It didn’t matter.
What good were friends anyway?
Sombra didn’t know how long he spent sitting on the bench feeling sorry for himself. All he knew was that when he next looked up, it was into the warm, emerald green eyes of his mother.
“Mama!” he jumped up and hugged her. It was an impulse so immediate and natural that for a few seconds, he didn’t even realize why he’d done it. He just closed his eyes and pressed his face to her fur, wishing for her to take away all the hurt and anxiety he felt.
Lapuesta del Sol Dorada was so startled for a moment by her son’s uncharacteristic show of affection that she almost forgot the scolding she owed him.
“Oh, Sombra!” she sighed “¡Mi amor, mi vida, mi kaka podrida!”
She put her hoof under Sombra’s chin and raised his face to hers, looking into his eyes and taking a few moments to gently wipe away the budding tears before craning back her neck…
…and head-butting Sombra so hard he saw stars.To be continued…