Favorable Alignment

by Ice Star

Chapter 16: What Drags You Down

Sombra:

In a partially scorched forest that has never seen anything but summer, I sit in the highest boughs of a tree. Most of the leaves are still not singed, so the ground is mostly hidden from me. The sky is as well, which is uncomfortable, not knowing if it's day or night.

The sky - if there is one here - is still the least of my worries. I really don't think there is one; why would there be? I no longer have to look at the stars and wait for every opportunity, cling to each futile chance, and dodge more barriers. The stars would not suffice, the moon is just a reminder of the mare I wanted to see again.

Now she's here, around me.

"Are you ever gonna come down?"

I fight back a growl and without surprise grit my teeth instead, the anger in me begging to be transformed into flame, no matter how meager if only for the chance to hurt him.

Now he's here, below me, as always. I sensed him the moment I arrived. He always makes my skin crawl under the fabric of my cloak.

"How'd you even get up there?"

My answer is to look up at the curtains of green around me. There wasn't any green after we arrived in the Empire: crops failed, plants withered, and unnatural winter reigned with me. For eight years, I never saw another tree or blade of grass, and not even many objects in the castle-prison were green. Nothing natural, anyway. I adore green, but I hate emeralds and other sparkling stones that dare possess the shade. Their lustrous examples of the color looks fake in comparison to the rest of nature. They're poison, like the gold he craves.

"Come down!"

I feel the result of a frustrated buck against the tree's truck and lean back against the trunk, mimicking the relaxation most others who recline like this in under any other conditions would have. Being around him always makes me think of the dreadful feeling of having a voice in your head, like somepony's standing behind you, always, and like how most ponies feel when another sneaks up on them and taps them upon the wither. That moment of shock mixed with a jolt of apprehension from not being able to detect magic is what it feels like. slithering into your senses.

Every day.

Every hour.

Every second.

If I could pretend anything and could pick a delusion to be absorbed in, provided I was the foolish sort, I think I would pick to constantly have the impression that Onyx is dead. Even though we no longer have any direct communication, except in these dreams, he is still bound to me as a small and feeble mind buried deep within my own. I know he is in a limbo-like state where he is denied all control. Why? The Crystal Heart. It destroyed my body - which he had used in an attempt to reclaim the Empire recently - and overthrew him from it as much as possible, and all because he didn't love like me.

Ponies talk about fair, owing, and deserving. The first and last are almost worthy of the most obnoxious chorus of laughter I can imagine due to their general foundation in lies and delusions. If the second were true, then I would owe Luna my life. No matter what I do, the false ideals and puppeted lies that Celestia loves to stand behind while she maintains that sick pious idiocy, the one that always want me to remain a slave, at the very least. This includes all the regrets she thinks I should have. This, of course, disregards how I've spent so long labelled as somepony's weapon.

An object, the words echo and my posture slacks a bit.

The tree shakes again. I want to kill him. The leaves rustle. I want him to suffer, yet he has tried to halt my generosity when I want only to return everything he gave me tenfold.

"Listen to me! You're supposed to listen to me, because you're mine!"

I might be able to at least hurt him again. I'm surprised how much I held back last time, considering what I know I can do, and have been made to do. I never thought that I'd see him again, out of everypony in this world. With a sigh, I roll off the branch and shift into a shadow, one that's more compact than my actual size when I manifest so. Mere seconds elapse before I'm returned to my equine form, shooting a burning stare directed at the lucky bastard who can't scar as I wish. My ears are laid flat against my skull and I instinctively glower more, as there's such a personal hatred between us than the usual annoyed contempt I have for the everypony.

"Are you still so stupid that you won't respond when I call you?"

"I know that you wouldn't be aware of this, but I'll have you know that 'stupidity' and outright refusal are two different things."

His expression of idiotic and unfocused hate crumples a bit at the sound of my voice, like he's going to cry. I wouldn't be surprised if he did since Onyx always cried easily. I just don't know why he would be so desperate to hear me. I could guess at it being some pathetic validation for his existence, or maybe a desperate attempt to stave off loneliness in some way. Both would be like him, and yet I can't say for sure.

"What's this even about?" I snarl.

There's a shift that was also expected: his demented grin and the strangled equinity that is like the dying light of a few twisted sparks being stomped out into the ground. I can see it plainly in his eyes.

"This is about you."

He was always one for speed when he wanted to be. The only way he could live as long as an imbecile like him has would be to run away from everything he couldn't understand, at least until he had obtained the means to hurt it.

Onyx appears at my side, and I don't hurt him at first. The image of all the nasty things I could do to him drift in my mind, which would be fatal were we not what we are. Each is more tempting than the last. Yet, with him near, I still flinch.

His tone - the one with the just short of feminine lilt he gets when the magic makes him sit still for only a moment to see what he's done like an artist inspects a painting - smooth and chirpy slips through his teeth locked in their expression of sadistic glee.

"I want you to know that I will get you back for everything you've done to me. You're the one who ruined my life. You're dense and toxic," he trails off into vapid giggles before resuming, "even though I don't think I need to remind you just how much I love to hate you."

I try to keep my jaw still so I don't grit my teeth. There's too much to say to Onyx on my part as well, but whenever he speaks of darker things, it's hard not to want to back away or just say nothing. I could run away and try not to shut my eyes and see the Crystal Empire again. Although, it could be because after a while I refused to even honor him with any vocalizations - screams, tears, anything - when we were in the Empire.

"It's scarring, isn't it?" he asks, mocking tone gradually slipping into more delighted giggles, only they're too cruel to belong to any typical child.

My legs feel rooted down, and as my ears are filled with the echoes of my rushing blood and my head with the notion of running, they just feel heavier.

There's a small sound in the back of his throat that I know from experience means he's annoyed and he's in front of me, oh gods I just-

He grabs my cloak in his forehoof and jerks it so I'm closer to his eye level, and I only wish I didn't feel like I was letting him doing this. "Do you still have them?" he hisses, grinning eagerly and pushing back part of the collar and a bit of my mane with his other forehoof, looking for something that isn't there any more. The Crystal Heart really did give me the opportunity for a fresh start, in one way.

"Why isn't it here?! Where's your scar?!"

With the proper spell, I could strangle him right now.

Do something.

Instead, I just watch this wretch lunge at my foreleg with alarming speed, his eyes bright with dark magic that he only has from being connected to me. He grabs one of my armored boots and whips it off, pulling my forehoof in his as I watch with a mix of paralyzed horror and smug satisfaction as he traces repeated horizontal lines across my gray coat, as if my leg was marked with stripes.

It wasn't, not now.

As he goes on, covering the entire area hidden by the silver metal he gets a deeply saddened look on his face, tears forming in his eyes. They still don't shake some of that brattiness that he could never loose.

"Where are they?" his voice comes out in sobs, "Where's all the signs of the things I did to you? Are you as blank as your flank now?"

"I'm free of you," I say, trying to separate my rage from my triumph. I end up with a stubborn growl to frame my words.

"No! No! Absolutely not! You can't be. I want you to be mine, because that's what the book said! Sombra, you don't understand: I just want to hurt you. Why can't you just let me? It would be easier that way. You're more fun to hurt than any crystal pony, than my entire family would ever be! Don't you know how satisfying you are?"

I pull myself away from him, grabbing my removed garb within my magic and slipping it back onto my leg as quickly as possible while urging myself not to throw up to my best ability.

"I don't hate to break it to you, Onyx, but we don't always get what we want. Especially you."

"It's not fair", he wails, trying to grab me again, "Stop lying!"

"If this is a lie than it's the best lie ever, huh?"

He stomped his hooves as hard as he could in a single jump, shrieking and making no effort to hide the fact that he was crying, before wailing at the top of his lungs. "WHY WON'T YOU JUST LET ME BE HAPPY?!"

"Even if I wanted to, why would I?"

"You don't get it! When I was the king, I made everypony suffer, but yours was the best! Your suffering was perfect!"

I send Onyx flying into the partially charred trunk of the tree I was in with a single blow from one forehoof and feel elated when I see the blood trickling from his jaw. My boots aren't just for show.

"So is yours," I add before giving him the cockiest smirk I can, since he always hated when I did that. I watch him stand shakily, gasping for breath.

"Why do you keep fighting? You don't even have anything to fight for! You're nothing, Sombra! Nothing!"

He's going to have a very hard time saying anything now that I've slammed him against the tree so his back would be scraped by the charred bark. It broke so easily from him colliding with it. I could break his sternum right now with one strike.

I want to.

I smirk even wider, traces of the magic I am flickering in my eyes for only a moment. It isn't like I need it right now.

"Even if that was true, have you ever thought - and we both know you certainly haven't - that if by some chance that lie were true, I would fight to become something?"

"Let go!"

"Are you really trying to command me in your position? Why, I ought to break something just for the sheer stupidity that you constantly express. But really, Onyx, how is it that you think that you're something?"

He squirms and tries to free himself, avoiding eye contact as always. "Because I hurt ponies! Nothing can't hurt ponies, nothing doesn't enjoy bloodshed! Nothing doesn't rule an empire! Nothing doesn't hurt your head!"

"But you can't make nothing hurt others, and you can't create nothing from the Book."

"YES I DID! YOU CAME FROM NOTHING! YOU ARE NOTHING!"

I give a disdainful snort and remove my forehoof for a split second before slamming it down again and ignoring his howling.

"Really? Was that nothing? Did nothing betray you? Are you so obsessed with nothing? Would that not make you nothing, if you focus on nothing at all? Can nothing speak to you, does it hurt you and make you scream? How can nothing make you bleed?"

Onyx keeps crying and mumbling 'shut up' over and over under his breath, as if it could ward me from getting too close to him. Just to see him squirm even more I lean closer to him and whisper in his ear.

"Am I really nothing now? If I'm nothing, then how can you be alone now without having been alone before?" Swallowing he lump of disgust that swiftly squeezes its way into my throat, and willing the weight of memories away, I manage to get in one more question. Unlike the others, this jab is spoken in a grim whisper. "When your body was sundered and you were sealed away in a void, did you long for nothing?"

"N-No, not you! You're weak..." he tries but stops himself mid-sentence and reveals the error I made in getting this close to him by biting down on my right ear as hard as he can so I drop him and fall backwards screaming.

"YOU HEARTLESS BASTARD! DAMMIT, THAT HURTS!"

In mere seconds Onyx is laughing cheerfully, wiping away the tears away. This is a sight that many would find heartwarming without context, and if it weren't for the severe bruising on his throat and wither, and the wounds that could be glimpsed on his backside. That would also be assuming you ignore the blood on his teeth as he points and laughs.

Growling, I glare in his direction and cease trying to stop my ear from bleeding. Of course, he'd know exactly what would hurt most, especially on me. Even though we both fight dirty, he has always been the one lacking in both standards and mercy.

He'll never receive the latter from me.

With a quick teleportation spell, I'm looming over him in an instant, blood trickling down the side of my face. "Onyx, you speak of nothing non-stop, don't you? I want to know what your fascination with nothing is, and what makes you think that's what I am before I make you retreat back within your own wrecked mind."

For a brief moment, panic flashes in Onyx's eyes causing some kind of trick of the light that makes the flat brown ripple just for a moment, and this creates the illusion of depth for one who has always been lacking.

"You can't win, Sombra, don't you know that?" he says, shifty glance noting my expression slip at the first three words.

"And you really thought that you had control of me for time immemorial did you not?"

Onyx flinches this time. He catches the gleam of Fate, almost as silver as Starswirl's plain blade. I can particularly see the fear that had overtaken his mind so long ago consume his wavering gaze as feelings of his life he never wanted to remember - boredom, pain, loneliness, misery, restraint -
keep replaying as a reminder of the faux glory he could never maintain, even with a crown to my stolen name.

"You are nothing," Onyx repeats voice distant as his forehooves search the grass, and like a flower he plucks a knife as dull-looking and plain as he is from the ground. He really does want his words to mean something, but they never have so I watch as he quickly fumbles with the pathetic blade before gripping it in his teeth. He has no magic to hold such an nondescript and common tool as I hold Fate.

I give a bitter laugh at his pathetic attempt to challenge me. He's so startled he almost drops the knife, since Onyx has never heard me express anything close to mirth, or even laugh at him mockingly.

"Onyx, the king is dead."

"Ish not," Onyx mumbles, "I'm 'ight 'ere."

"But are you really the king? I have seen his epigraph. 'As above, so below'. Does that not describe you, regardless of whatever station you try to force yourself in?"

Onyx adjusts the knife's place in his teeth so he might speak more clearly as I let him stand in my shadow. "What? That cannot be! I am the King, the King is me, and do I look dead to you?"

"You were hardly ever alive to begin with. It's over, Onyx."

His tears start welling up again, ears flopping a bit and I'm able to glimpse dark circles - like the ones that marked my youth - under his eyes. The tears, far clearer than his dull silvery gray coat, only highlight a haggard appearance that I always wore. Only it has consumed him, as power did. "I don't wanna disappear."

"I want you to."

"It's cold."

"I'm bitter cold. Tell me how that's any better."

"Please? Can't you just pretend that we're the king again?"

"I won't let you hurt me, or anypony else ever again, Onyx," I kneel just a little bit so I can look him in the eye, "You'll never get a chance to even see me from the dark corners you'll be rotting in."

He sniffles. "But what about me! What if I'm hurt?"

"Nopony cares, and even if somepony did, it certainly is not me."

"But you did once, didn't you? Why did you help kill Starswirl? Why did you get mad when I said he hit me? WHY DID YOU BELIEVE ME?!"

I scowl and bring Fate to his neck, staring him dead in the eye with all the fire I won't act upon. I just want him to see at least half the fury I'd take out on him. His coat looks almost white now, the circles as dark as the blood spots on his bruises.

"You ingrate," I growled through clenched teeth, "do you really think anypony could care about you? After you take everything - every single damned delusion - out on them. You just hurt others for fun, for enjoyment, for pleasure... and that's why you're the worst. But, hey, do you really think I'd stand here explaining everything to you when you could always torture yourself with your own insecurities? I know they're buried in there somewhere."

"W-W-What? N-No, you're lying to me again! Stop lying to me! I never wanted you!"

"You wanted to be alone, then?"

"NOOOO!" he howls, trying to grab me, and oh gods forbid it - he's trying to hug me like Luna did on the Sky Scraper.

I'm ready to do more than just shove him away - I'll strike this damned brat worse than that wizard ever did if I have to, because now there's a true reason to hit him - when he attempts to plunge the knife into my wither.

I smack him away and get a shriek. While I try to stop the bleeding from the nasty cut on my right side by bunching my torn cloak over it, and Onyx eyes me with pure malice.

"And to think I was even considering showing you restraint..."

Onyx gulps, tries to back away into the trees, but falls back onto his haunches. The knife is in his hooves now - he's nervously twisting it back and forth and shivering. It was the same lack of being able to hide his emotions and naivete he shows now that caused Starswirl to signal him out among the other crystal pony foals, where his foolishness and immaturity shined as bright as the moon on a starless night.

"...but do you think I'm going to show you any now?"

"W-Well, I uhh..."

He makes a weird hiccuping noise, which devolves into something that's somewhere between whining, crying, and laughing. Onyx starts to rock back and forth until he looks at the knife he's been twirling in his hooves. His eyes grow large when he realizes that my blood is on it.

I can feel my heart beat in my ears, even through the blood from the wound on the right. Foals usually like candy - it wouldn't be uncommon to see a candy store on a Canterlot street crowded with young foals looking at the display window. Onyx, as a young foal had his fair share of sugary confections as well - pies and rock candy, mostly - but that didn't compare to the glee when he saw blood with the glee shown by others for confections.

I'm not sure what exactly in Onyx's head, outside of pure sadistic desire ever made him want to taste a living creature, like birds. He was never starved as a child, nor was he ever spoiled with fancy meals.

I usually feel sick upon eating. It's always something I've found to be a disgusting necessity that I liked to do as little as possible as a mortal. I was appalled that ponies built a large amount of unnecessary reverence and socialization around eating and made foods that weren't just plain dishes. They would even sit around tables and watch each other eat, something I would be sickened to watch. I loathed eating around other ponies - Luna was the exception, and Mac was pushing it - and was startled when I was caught eating, and would stop immediately.

So, I was disturbed when I stood here watching Onyx lick my blood off of a knife. There was nothing I could say to him. I only watched with my eyes wide and my mouth agape feeling sick all over. The wounds he gave me so much worse now and I tried not focus on the dripping blood.

I tried not to hear the laughter, and I wanted to turn away from his derangement. As always, I could never run from the horror that was Onyx and the atrocities that he committed under my name.

"See, Sombra? This is why you're nothing: you don't break."

"But you do," I say, my voice is so low that it might be the first time in ages that I've recalled whispering anything. I'm not sure if Onyx even heard what I had to say before I kicked him in the stomach and the knife fell from his grip.

His voice still cracks when he screams.

"Onyx, I want you to tell me something..."

I give him another kick.

"AM-"

Another one.

"I-"

And then a finishing blow, harder than all the others.

"NOTHING?!"

This kid's still a never-ending well of tears and shrieks, even though this is not the worst that has happened to him. Being kicked by somepony as strong as I, who happens to wear metal boots and hate him with a passion? I swear on this fool's memories that most of the time he encountered Starswirl, the old sot tried to beat him half to death, and he was still an entirely physical pony then. It would have been much worse for him than what he's getting from me right now.

I mean damn, half the time whenever the wizard was drunk, and Celestia and Luna weren't within the vicinity, he'd chase the kid with hot coals. And the other half of the time, he'd just spill vulgar stories of his liaisons in the court that were explicit at their tamest, among other gossip. Both were the Starswirl equivalent of a fireside story.

He manages to shoot for the knife again, scooping it up in his mouth and half-run, half-stumble away from me, admittedly speedy as he does so.

Onyx chooses the same path as before, and I'm left alone once again with only a few falling leaves as sound, his sobs fading into the distance.

Comments

[Mira Starlight]

oh, jeez, this was dark.

[Ice Star]

7752618 derpicdn.net/img/2016/11/12/1293658/large.png
She's very protective of Luna...even when Luna doesn't need protecting...

[Sigmacipher]

And then the sea serpent happened.

I know this is a few chapters late but...

Best saved by the bell moment ever...

[MayhemMoth]

Oh okay that was another drastic change in mood... And I still want to draw Onyx. Specifically, Onyx being awful.