Sombra:
I'm not a simple stallion. I despise quick and easy solutions, especially to problems that are as mundane as their solutions are simple. Everything can crumble into something vastly uninteresting when that is all that problems amount to. Moments of revelation can keep me entertained well enough, I suppose. When it comes to anything: reading material, magic, tasks, company, and romantic partners to name a few examples, I am starved for complexity. Unfortunately, ponies don't usually have that in spades. There are many times where that's in my favor, but trying to find out who is more than what they seem is always something I enjoy.
I may live like a hermit - so, yes, on some level there is something simplistic in my lifestyle. That is among one of the few exceptions that are bound to exist.
But by Everything's vastness, I really wish that packing for an expedition into an ancient and unknown pocket dimension ruled by a dark-magic mad demon to reverse the end of the world and potentially find answers to ages-old questions weren't so gods-damned simple.
Scoffing at the empty air, I turn my attention back to the entirety of all my material possessions that I've dumped before me. New profanities to amuse me are also something I'm strongly considering. If I'm going to have an eternity to exist I might as well further improve my vocabulary and make further use of the already expansive one I have. Especially, considering a plain 'gods-dammit' just isn't going to cut it any more, now that I'm a god myself. There's only so much I can do with that one. Still, the incentive I've been given is certainly a nice one.
Another thing I don't find simplicity to be moronic in would be interior design. 'Utilitarian' does not mean 'tasteless' but 'fancy Canterlot mansion with damned topiaries in the shape of a duke's stupid face and coat of arms that is just begging to be burned to the ground by none other than I, Sombra' is awfully close.
The silence in my pocket dimension dragged on, and I've had plenty of peace and quiet, something that still borders on a luxury. With Luna, there's been times when we've talked for hours and hours, doing nothing but avoiding Mac as she prowled the halls in search of potential conversation. Leave it to Luna to find some rather inventive uses for an invisibility charm or two that will leave Mac staring at a demon and a goddess who know better than to let any laughter slip - which was certainly easy for me - as she unknowingly stares us both right in the eye.
When and if this is all over, I'd like to do more things like this with Luna. Loads more. But for now, I'm packing for what is certainly going to be an interesting trip. All the minor compartments in my quiet realm - invisible and untouchable until I reach out with my magic and open the unseen spaces - have had their contents emptied onto the floor. They lay in patterns of organization I doubt anypony would explain unless I explained them. It all resembles a more organized version of a dragon's hoard, only on a smaller scale. Of course, there's always the fact that there's a rather mad variety to the objects I would seek to collect...
Keeping only one pocket dimension is like a crime for me. So much can be done with places unseen than most would think. Gears, incomplete engines and other once-discarded metal parts lay in their own piles, organized in rough-looking heaps - which was exactly how they fell from their bubbled spaces that I would walk through each time, as though nothing were here. None were rusted, and all were sorted based on the date I had managed to get my thieving hooves on each batch. Now, I had my own miniature scrapyard of appliance fragments, dissected clockwork, airship parts, gutted wires inlaid with traces of practical spells from more modern mechanisms, and other things to make up the bulk of things I've gathered in the short time I've been in this era.
Ancient propaganda books about what Celestia thinks I am are among some of the larger pieces that occupy their own spaces when they aren't in sight, which is almost always, since I've memorized every false word. The modernized texts alongside older dialects of Equuish and more modern accounts of things I had reportedly done and supposed 'evidence' against me among distorted, and even a few unknowingly unaltered, truths are all part of a modern interest in how cruel and sadistic the King is now that he supposedly walks among them. The texts are all rather horrific, to put it mildly. Not much can manage to disturb me, but reading those from cover to cover gives a whole knew meaning to 'horror story'.
Almost everything in them is something I would never do, and the things I would do are blown out of proportion. The whole content of those books are downright nauseating to me. Some of the things is there he would have done, but fortunately never did. I know that he did think about what it would be like to eat a pony. For fun, of course. But it never happened, no matter what 'history' says it did.
Some of those things in there he would never do, others he had already done but were applied to the wrong pony, the wrong place... the wrong everything. It'd almost be funny, how little everypony knows about me if they didn't create things like this, where writing me as the King and the villain of their made-up histories. Hardly anypony other than Mac would ever think to question these texts, if they did at all. In the end, they've written themselves as the true villains with their actions - and they are actions that they will not question. After all: question history, question Celestia. What difference is there? Anypony who tells you there is one is either a liar, stupid, or both whether they know it or not.
I let my attention drift to the other contents of the possessions I've amassed. The hilt of one of the six swords I own was sticking out from where it was clamped between a large gear and the remainder of an airship engine. That had gotten a bit scorched by a rather adept pyromancer when I tried very reasonably to point out that if she just gave me the airship engine and would pretend that nothing happened I wouldn't have to be threatening to burn down all her livelihood because, damn it, at least I asked if I could steal her airship engine in broad daylight. All that ended with me just taking it anyway. I don't always have the time to destroy every material thing somepony holds dear on a normal basis. She wasn't even that irritating, and to have somepony shoot fireballs at me like that is a refreshing change of pace to just protesting and trying to talk about Princess Celestia hating me and morals as I hold a sword to somepony's throat. That mare may have lacked aim, but that fire had certainly been hot.
I walk up to the hilt and pull the weapon free. It isn't anything to marvel at, not upon first impression. I had practiced some new enchantments on it a while back and couldn't work up much of a reason to go and chuck it off the mountain when it was more amusing to weave spellwork on it. The dozen I had placed upon it, each more complicated and exotic than the last, produced a faint humming sensation only I could hear, and the magic worked into it made it feel like the air around the blade was rippling.
I sighed and placed it back in the pile. Like all the weapons I owned - which wasn't many considering a certain disability I had retained up until recently kept me from being able to wield much - it paled in comparison to Fate, the sixth of these. None of them could withstand much on their own or had earned a name, but there was a surprising amount of household uses for swords. What was even more surprising is that most of them were legal.
In my mind's eye, I pictured Fate. Nothing else, just Fate, wherever it lies in all this. I already had located its sheath not far from the sword I had just found and slipped it on. In the next instance, the silence around me was broken by a popping sound and when I opened my eyes, Fate was exactly where I had expected it to be: in its sheath.
Yes, I'm certainly apprehensive. Every little detail of everything is soaking into my mind and I can't shake some sense of fear. I need it. More importantly, I can use it. The sensation, as dull as it may be compared to the rampant and ever-flickering toxicity that usually consumes a pony, is in a state where I can control it before it becomes a problem and use it to keep me on my hooves.
Maps of various cities and territories are scattered around me, sometimes folded with names written on the corners - a recent touch - and at other times rolled up like scrolls and sealed with magic-laden wax bearing seals in symbols that were part of a key only I knew. A few books that had fallen from the crystalline, tree-like shelves were caught by the surfaces of the parchment. I wouldn't be needing any of these things where I was going. No map could outline any path of where I would be going. No ordinary book could offer any kind of information on who I would be facing and the the things I would be doing...
I suppose I'll just pick them up later, I thought, wondering when exactly 'later' could be. This would be the last time I'd be seeing this place for...
My thoughts come to an abrupt halt and the quiet around me deepens, waiting for me to complete stating the obvious and the whole world seems to wait with it, like a breath being held with nervous anticipation.
...Possibly forever.
With Fate at my side, I give the small realm I have inhabited one more cold once-over and light my horn.
From a previously empty space, the Book falls, slipping out of what appears to be nothing with no obstacles to hinder it. Before it can hit the ground, I levitate the Book to my side, fixing it with a hard stare as I do so. This is certainly coming with me. After conjuring a set of empty saddlebags to put the Book in, I turned away from the odd collection of things that had become mine in such a short stretch of time. My horn lit and I didn't need to turn around to see things return to their hidden, miniature realms within realms and books find their way back to their places on shelves with the guidance of my magic.
I stepped out into the cabin Luna and I had been sharing with a coffee-deprived scowl on my face. With Luna and I finally having a safer place than a borrowed airship to stash our things, and Fate being practical to carry around, I had attached my somewhat cozy - at least by my standards - and gray pocket dimension to one of the cabin's walls. Luna and I were the only ones who knew it was there, and I intended to keep it that way.
The sound of water swishing behind me caught my attention as I was prepared to stroll out of the dim cabin and wait with Luna on the deck until we reached the Isle. Celestia's dawn sun managed to cast thin shafts of light across the carpeted floor through the surprisingly effective barrier that Pink Sunset's blinds formed.
Wordlessly I turned to look at the source, the left corner of my mouth pulling up slightly into what could eventually become a smile. The floating sphere of water made a sloshing sound again - or rather, the occupant did.
"Hi, Fish."
Fish swam in a circle that I either took to mean he was giving me the sign to communicate his own greeting or he wanted me to pour more of those crispy potato wafers - chips, is what I think they were called - that he likes into his bubble. It's the one of the only things that he seems to like to eat and there's plenty of bags in the pantry for me to steal. It's not like I can offer many meal options to a creature that doesn't speak to me.
"You're going to miss me too, aren't you?"
Fish did a loop as if to indirectly remind me of how great I am.The gesture doesn't go unnoticed and I straighten my posture a bit.
"Well, guess what you little chip-snarfing degenerate? It looks like I won't be able to feed you for a while - end of the world and all. I'll be getting Mac to look after you. Got it?"
I decided to interpret the next swishing sound of water as understanding, before I turned to head on my way. It was hardly a secret that I'd want to spend as much time as possible with Luna before I had to go and the first part of the plan was put in motion. The last thing I needed would be another distraction to steer my thoughts elsewhere. That's exactly what I got.
Flashing off to the side was the glimmer of a reflective surface that had caught a stray beam of sunlight. The shine was obviously coming from the cabin's bathroom. Tearing my eyes away from the light dancing on the carpet, even if I did find the movement of the sunbeams to be horribly entrancing...
...So entrancing that I must have been staring at them a few moments longer than I thought, the patterns had shifted and the room's clock had 'skipped' forward two minutes. The smirk that had been threatening to appear all this time began to emerge until the left side of my mouth was curved into a decently roguish expression. Shaking my head, I managed to clear my mind of sunlight and lit dust motes and follow them to the source, as I had intended before I had been distracted.
...
Mac's poor attempts to avoid my gaze hadn't gone unnoticed by the very one she tried to avoid. I sat stoically across from her, as unamused and taciturn in image as I could be. Watching her shovel the contents of her bowl of ice cream into her face caused a twinge of disgust going through me.
"So..." Mac starts, trailing off to dab some ice cream dribbling from her muzzle with a crinkly, disposable napkin.
I gave her a flat stare.
"That certainly happened..."
"It did," I replied with an even flatter tone. Honestly, she almost looked nervous. If I weren't on the verge of boredom right now, my mind wandering elsewhere, I might have chuckled a bit. She really hadn't done anything wrong.
"Are you really that, um, full of yourself?" Mac ventures as cautiously as possible.
"You saw for yourself didn't you?" I arch an eyebrow and pick up a surprisingly subtle twitch from her; perhaps she knows that I can read her far more clearly than she thinks and is making more futile attempts to disguise it.
"It's just that you weren't on deck. Auntie Luna wanted me to go find you-"
"And instead you found me...?" Despite knowing the answer, I trail off and give her an expectant look, waiting for her to fill in the blank.
"...Kissing your reflection," Mac finally squeaks out.
"This terrifies you, why?"
She blinks and dares to look me in the, but only for a moment. "You aren't mad?"
"No."
"Not even a little?"
"Need I speak a language other than Equuish to get it through to you that I'm far more amused than I am angry?"
Had her next swallow been any more awkward, she would have likely choked on her next spoonful of ice cream. "Oh..."
"'Oh' indeed, Mac. Now do you have a good reason for sitting me down here and watching you eat that." I point to her bowl of sugary, runny, creamy, revolting ice cream and empathize my disgust as much as possible with the gesture.
Even though she's going to be the very mare devouring the stuff in the time that we aren't talking - and in between the moments when we are talking - she gives the contents of the bowl a look of pity.
"It's such a shame you don't like ice cream. Do you think that there might be vegan ice cream out there I could get you to eat? Gosh, I've never given much thought to vegan foods before, but I suppose if we'll be hanging out a bit more - y'know if the world doesn't..."
"I'm going to stop you right there," I say, interrupting her as soon as her voice starts to fall and her eyes glaze over with worry and something that is either existential dread or an early sign of indigestion. The latter I was not going to stick around to see, especially with all the ice cream that she's been eating.
Now that I've got her distracted she returns her attention to me, the signs of her potentially darker thoughts dissipating like smoke. "Eh?"
Ugh, she really does sound like a crystal pony.
"First, I will not eat any vegan ice cream you attempt to give me. I also have little tolerance for sweet foods. Third, if I'm going to ingest anything that isn't already acceptable foodstuff or anything that isn't as bitter as my world view, I'm going to have to demonstrate some sense of taste, aren't I?"
"Which means...?"
"I'm a sorbet guy."
Mac opens her mouth as if she's going to say something, but has a momentary revelation. This is no doubt brought about by the fact that I'm glaring sharply at her in what could either be a death threat against any challenges made to my superior tastes or just disapproval. Slightly lethal disapproval.
Slightly.
She opts for a nod instead and shovels an extra spoonful of ice cream in her mouth. It's green ice cream too. Light green ice cream with flecks of brown in it. I try not to think about it too much.
It looks so absolutely disgusting I've unearthed less grotesque things from ruins and oh, by Orion's belt it looks like slime. Ugly, pastel slime...
"Once again, was there any specific reason you brought me here? Watching you eat this stuff is something I'm not enjoying."
"...I wanted to say good bye to you, if it wasn't too much to ask."
When my gaze takes her in, she shifts uncomfortably and looks away, noting my silence. "I'm not sure if you know it, but you really mean a lot to me, Sombra. I have a lot of friends and have maintained many of them since before I became a princess, but you're different. Sure, I can't do a lot of things I would normally do with friends with you since you're not a dork and all... but you've saved my life and you've helped me learn a lot about ponies, even if you aren't one. I didn't question a lot of things before... well, I'm not sure how to say it..."
"Kidnapped you?"
"That sounds so awkward."
"It's true."
"Okay then, before you kidnapped me I didn't question much. I had a nice life. Before I became a princess, I planned on starting a band. My parents loved me. My town loved me. I loved ponies. Becoming a princess was one of the biggest surprises I've ever had in my life, if not the biggest. I thought that if I put all the good values I learned into action, listened to everypony, loved ponies, and stayed optimistic everything would go well. I could depend on ponies, couldn't I? I thought I was learning. Auntie Celestia had so much to teach me about magic and government but after my wedding and Twilight saved the Empire..."
She sighed and looked at me with wide eyes that widened even more in surprise when she saw how intently I listened to her.
"It all just fell apart because I realized I couldn't depend on myself. I couldn't bear to tell Shiny. It just never came up even though - uh what's it called?"
"Ennui?" I suggested.
"Yup, that's a good word. Ennui. The ennui felt like it was everywhere. I didn't think I could do anything or that ponies deserved me as a leader. Sometimes Shiny and I still argued over things that weren't as important as ponies lives, like how mainstream his music choices were. Could a pony like that ever be a great leader or even a good one? I wanted to go somewhere and do something. I was a princess, and the princess of love, which I think is one of the most important things in life."
I suppose it might be like that for me too; while it certainly is far from the most important thing, especially in general, I wouldn't be here now if it weren't for Luna.
"For a pony who loves talking to others as much as I do, it felt tragic not being able to talk to anypony and having so many questions that felt incomplete and unanswered. I thought an adventure would change that."
"And did getting kidnapped improve your mental and emotional health?"
Mac smiles shakily and laughs. "You betcha it did! You gave me the start of a lot of answers and a lot of honesty. And sass. Always you and the sass."
"You're damn right. Me and sass go way back."
"I'm sure they do. But you've really helped a lot, Sombra. I can't think of any other terrifying, brooding, blunt, antisocial and mysterious snark beings that will tear me to pieces with an existential lecture and insult nearly everypony and everything as much as you. So, um, thanks."
I stare at her unblinking, wide-smiling, cheery expression. It appears that she's lost it.
"...Could you perhaps clarify anything specific that you're thanking me for?"
"Thank you for being an ass!" Mac chirps.
Yeah, she's lost it.
"Anytime. Now, I'll be spending the rest of my time with Luna on the deck-"
She abruptly sits up, causing the chair she had been sitting in to hit the ground with a loud crash. "WAAAAIT!"
I slowly sit back down and survey the frantic look in her eyes as coolly as possible. "...We're only about two feet away from one another, why don't you scream a little louder so I can hear you, hmm?"
"C-Can I ask you something?"
Something's not right; she looks rather meek and-
Is she scared? Of me? What did I do this time...?
"Go ahead," I reply carefully. The air in the room suddenly feels heavy and everything is tenser. Even her usually wispy, fluttering magic emission feels a little restrained with her sudden demonstration of nervousness.
"Could I... give you a hug? I know it sounds weird and everything and I doubt you're the huggy type but this might be the last time I see you and-"
I silence her by holding up a single forehoof, now clad in a a gleaming new set of metal boots. A sleeker, but sturdy duplicate of my old set with only a few minor adjustments, such as a less obvious shine to the silver metal.
"Are you so airheaded today that I need to remind you to breathe?"
She swallows a large gulp of air and makes a sort of wheezing squeak in protest. When she speaks, her voice is a whisper.
"Is that a no?" she asks once her request is made.
"Hardly. You can give me one hug. After all, I'd hate to leave my favorite niece without a proper farewell."
She leans back slightly, blinking a few times and clearly startled. "Are you serious?"
Sighing, I look her in the eyes from my seated position, my face bearing a look of grim apathy and in the most dire, flat, hardened tone I speak the last words we'll possibly have with one another in the bleakest way I can manage:
"You betcha."
...
Luna:
I have been told many times that honest ponies make the worst liars. It is considered to be a simple truth, common knowledge that none would dare question. The first hundred times I have heard this, I have been puzzled why such a claim was made. By the thousandth time I have heard this I must refrain from scoffing and pointing out the folly of that statement. Now, I just let it pass like a sour wind, discomfort stirring as I must endure yet another mass falsehood so cheerily passed on, watching as they amount to a large pile like stones and filth tossed with accusations in days of old, when Celestia and I had to shield ourselves in our youth from such projectiles tossed at us by the Tribesponies.
It becomes best not to go out of one's way to talk with others as my sister so readily advises. I will help ponies. I will listen to them. I will do my job to the best of my ability and squander no effort to try and improve myself. However, camaraderie and charity so meaninglessly lathered onto every situation instead of given the greatest meanings - trust, loyalty, faith, and others - is deeply displeasing and something I cannot stand.
I shall always seek to help those who need it most when they have fallen and cannot find answers to the great inquiries that haunt them, but I will not extend wisdom and friendliness as a default. If you seek a treasure behind a wall of ice, then you must thaw it carefully and gradually, lest it collapse. Honesty has always been something I would never refuse, whether I speak to a friend or a foe, a ruler or the ruled. And I have found that honest ponies would be the best liars if they chose to do so. Those who know of honesty's benefits and how to properly navigate games of deception are some of the most interesting, intelligent, and important individuals that I have seen.
Things like these only serve to give me more faith in Sombra's plan, as well as Sombra himself. How is it so hard to see that he possesses great intelligence and has invaluable information that could be no other source except straight from the hor- demon's mouth?
Shining Armor still looked at him as though he were merely a lunatic, even as Sombra spoke of mistakes that we could easily avoid. To Shining, Sombra was 'only' a lunatic I held in high regard, but a lunatic nonetheless in his eyes. I had held my tongue during that time. Arguing then would help us not, but I wanted to tell him that he would not be so skeptical of the words Sombra spoke if it was his sister who spoke them. Even she has some eccentricities to her that many would dismiss in the same way if she were not bearing the labels of a demigod, the teachings of my own sister, and had the usual drivel about being 'well-bred' and 'from a good family' tossed upon her.
But I had held back, trying to take in as much as I could about Sombra's plan even if he would review it with me endlessly later that day had I asked him. It was a plan based on deception, withheld knowledge, and separation.
My forehooves nearly lost their grip on the deck's rail at the thought of that part of Sombra's plan. Drawing a deep breath, I leaned forward and watched the view in front of me become clearer as the airship chugged to a gradual stop, a low thunk reverberating through the ship, as though it hit an invisible barrier. I'm quite certain it had, but said nothing and continued to stare out at the sky before me, hiding some invisible place within magic-shrouds so great the air would normally crackle with the presence of anything... were it ordinary magic.
Charging my horn with a bright flash of white woven with a few visible shades of turquoise, I let the delayed signal flash high into the afternoon sky, where they burst brightly. The other spell I had cast with it gave my sense of hearing a push beyond equine ability so I might catch the voices conversing from within Pink Sunset. Shining Armor's was easily identifiable where he tried to protest a sassy remark Sombra gave him from the wheelhouse on why he was, in fact, excellent at flying the ship.
I didn't hear what they said. I really didn't care, to be frank. My whole body felt like lead, except for the stinging ache in my chest, as fresh as the day Sombra declared his plans, only now it had steadily deepened no matter how much he held me close and offered any kind of reassurance, both outright and quiet. I only wanted to hear his voice as much as I could, and memorize every little nuance to his tone and the little changes in it that only I heard and recall what it sounded like when he gave me his snarky smiles and told me he loved me.
...I wanted to see him too, I didn't want him to go, but I'd wait her as heavy as a stone, feeling anything but dull as I was crushed under the weight of my own thoughts and passions and listen in to his distant, muffled conversations even if they only sounded like echoes of what could soon be gone...
When I looked away from the remainder of bright cloud-white sparkles that rained down on the deck, tears were in my eyes, and it was not due to the harshness of the light.
...
Sombra's plan was not a simple one, and while it would require all of us to play our own parts the burden or orchestrating - and leading - such an operation would fall to Sombra, who works surprisingly well under pressure. Since he and I were the only ones that had any idea to what was really behind this concealed gateway, it would be Sombra and I who were to go through while Cady and Shining Armor managed the ship... and acted as a last resort if anything were to go wrong. Sombra would open the gate once the barrier around it was shattered. Sombra would be the one to go in first - he can sense magic, after all, so why wouldn't he be the first choice? Sombra would confront a being who has destroyed entire civilizations, gods like myself, billions of lives-
Sombra would be on his own for an entire week in the world beyond the Isle's gate before I would go in after him and seek out him and all he has learned of Umbra and his realm.
I agreed to this, but it did not change that I would miss him terribly and have to bite the inside of my cheek to prevent from asking the obvious question of if it was the right time for Cady and I to begin working on a gate when seven days pass even after only an hour had elapsed...
The last pony I missed this much was Tia when I was-
"Luna?" Sombra calls, and I feel his forehoof touch my wither. My head spins as I pull my thoughts back into something more focused and look at Sombra. His sword is sheathed at his side and he has a plain pair of saddlebags that look very underpacked. A worried expression dominates his features and only then do I notice the cold feel of metal seeping through my coat.
I offered him no reply other then to look him in the eyes - and I felt my legs of lead dissolve under me as every shred of composure I had retained was torn away and I collapsed into his side, nuzzling his wither and pulling him closer. Burying my muzzle into his cloak, I began to cry quietly. He stroked my mane without question and made sure I was as comfortable as possible as we sat together on the sun-warmed metal deck. A warm breeze blew by and carried no false promises that Sombra and I could offer one another. We were hardly the sort for that kind of talk. Lies. Those words - definite promises that could be nothing but flimsy and offered false reassurance, like some standard sugar-coated fodder were nothing but lies.
Sombra's winter coat still hasn't come out yet and I want to stay in his hug like this as long as possible. It feels like home - warm and solid, this - he - couldn't vanish like this.
He wouldn't.
He shall.
When I start shaking, he offers a soft, low purr and does not stop until I can no longer do so and relax. My sobs may have ceased but I feel as though I have taken a blow to the chest - it feels as though I have a wound, some nasty sort of cut, from the inside out that aches with a dreadful intensity.
"Luna?" he offers again.
"I don't want this to be over." My voice hasn't sound this small and torn in ages...
"Do you really think that everything will be over just because I won't be here?"
"If something happens to you-"
"Would that really be the same thing?"
"It would feel like it. No, it would feel worse not because I would have never known you, but because I did. Then you would be gone, stolen from me and damaged beyond recognition o-or-"
"You do know that there was more to me picking why I should go see what's on the other side first than my ruthlessness and knowledge of dark magic?"
We have not been in any truly open space, like the Sky Scraper's deck, for some time and yet he still smells like wind - a tiny detail I cannot help but savor.
"Mmm."
"You."
"Mmm?" I mumble through the fabric of his cloak. Sombra sighs - but it sounds much more wistful than annoyed. He continues to let me cradle my head against his wither, turning my eyes away from everything to shut everything but us out right now. I give him a tighter hug as a silent gesture of gratitude. Perhaps too tightly for his taste because he coughs in a not-so-silent response.
"There's nothing truly final for me, for one."
"You are indeed unbreakable," I whisper. A small part of my mind seeks out the time passing around us - and that is exactly what it feels like. Time does feel to be passing around us. We are frozen. Immortal. Unchanging.
Eternal.
...And some part of us will always be.
I have never believed in soul mates, true love, and other courtly notions that fail to speak of more than the silliest kinds of naiveté and fancy - ones that I never indulged even a bit of belief in - but I believe wholeheartedly in Sombra. I think that I am starting to believe in myself again too, and with those two, I believe in us.
Sombra and I, Luna.
I could not imagine this belief faltering; he and I have made it through so much, and while I think we can make it through much more...
...I do not know if this is exactly how I would define 'much more'...
"Luna, you can still go on if something happened to me, even if it would take literal ages. You're the strongest pony I know - and I'm not using 'pony' literally there, so don't think too hard about that part - as well as responsible for controlling celestial bodies and guarding the very dreams of ponies. You, Luna Galaxia, are worth saving in both my egotistical opinion and in the long and complicated reasons I care not to get into. Only Celestia would be left if you both were to survive another Collapse, and I wouldn't even trust her to feed Fish. But a world without dreams? That's no world at all."
"Sombra..." I breathed, the only thing I could think to say as I listened to these words. A chill spread across me, and even Sombra's embrace - if he were aware of the sudden sensation that had overcome - could not warm me. Need I have a more unmistakable sign that there is a deep truth to the words he speaks with such zeal?
"Celestia is bound to ponies, Luna. You aren't. No matter how hard I try - even if I wanted to with every fibre of my being, I could not find you to be an aspect of a society or the gear in a machine that shouldn't be. You have never made yourself one. You are the only one who I believe could save anything that matters were another Collapse to happen. You're unyielding to anything and stubborn - something that you should want to be more of when the time is right and the world needs, whether it knows it or not. Oh, and if the world's going to try to be even fickler than usual and be a stubborn, uppity bitch about it, then you can just show it who's boss, Miss I-Can-Conjure-Hurricanes-Like-Nopony's-Business."
My ears prick forward to catch the sound of the softest giggle, it sounds tired, yet there is a mirth to it - however weary that mirth may be. Sombra nudges me to alert me that I'm missing something, and then I realize... that the giggle is mine. I register the subtlest shifts in Sombra and tilt my muzzle up from where I had buried it in the folds of his cloak to accept a nuzzle.
"Do you have anything more to say to me?" I asked quietly, blinking as my eyes took in the bright noon sun. I wanted to get as good a look at Sombra's face as I possibly could.
"Always."
Returning my head to where it had rested on his wither, I continued to stay in the arguably un-royal position I was in: slumped in the embrace of Sombra's forehooves, now with my mane rippling against his chest as I looked up at him while he spoke.
"You survived one Collapse, Luna. I believe you could survive another, and would have the motivation to build up something if anything's left - or find a new world to call your own altogether... even if I can't see it with y-you-"
"Sombra, please do not fret so! I have faith in us both, in our plan - more than faith, I-"
"I know," he says sadly. "It's just... a possibility, one I hope never comes into fruition."
"And that is a sentiment we share," I finish hoarsely, trying to relax once again. I hadn't realized that I had ceased to in the first place. How foolish of me.
"I have you, Luna. You and I. Us. I have a world to explore and things to learn. Ponies don't depend on me. I don't have a sister who's sanity is linked to me being by her side. I would only restore something in a world that has collapsed for our sake-"
"That is not such a bad thing! Were you not the one who has offered insight into the merits of selfishness, as unbelievable as it may sound when I speak it aloud?"
"I never said it was a 'bad' thing, but it would be true that I wouldn't care to do anything that you might. I don't wonder about ponies in the same ways that you do."
'Oh, but Sombra what is a world with Dreams, but no Knowledge?' I wanted to say, but found the words caught in my throat, which felt choked once again. My eyes grew damp once more. I wanted to grab hold of him and tell him that my heart felt like it was sinking with each passing moment as we sat here. I felt dizzy. I didn't want to let him go alone. We were equals, and I wanted us to bear this burden together.
I want something more to remember Sombra by...
A humorless chuckle caught my attention. "I must be doing a horrible job if I'm not that memorable to you, even now."
"Oh..." I managed, my face growing warmer. "Did I really say that out loud?"
"No, I've suddenly decided to take a rather opportune moment to delve into the wonders of listening to other's thoughts!"
"With your spooky demon powers, of course."
"So your farewell to me is to be racist? Touching."
"To be demon racist," I correct, quickly batting at his jaw and managing the most fragile of smiles while he offers only a grunt in reply, no doubt a faint bit annoyed with my use of 'demon'.
"...Would you - somehow, as virtually impossible as it would be for immortals like us - ever forget me? Even a little?"
"Never," I reply without a second's delay, and pull myself out of Sombra's embrace so I can help him up. As expected, he does not hesitate to accept my forehoof.
"...And you only speak the truth," Sombra says, something in between melancholy and the slightest traces smile on his face, looking one another in eye as we stood together, indisputable in our position as equals.
I nod somberly, unable to keep my head bowed for long. There was so much more of Sombra I wanted to see: his bravery, his happiness, his mischief, his thoughtfulness, and everything else. Undoubtedly, there was so much more to him that I desired to see and now it all felt like it was all going to disappear and shift into the distant but lucid nostalgia of an untouchable memory, whose best qualities are but an elusive ghost lost to passing time even where clarity lingers...
Too lost in the somber haze of sadness that weighs me in place, making me as grounded as an earth pony, yet without the comfort of the world's heartbeat echoing through me, I do not see Sombra move - but I know when he grabs me and pulls me close to him, breaking the spell of stillness that had ensnared me with what would be our parting kiss.
Never have I wanted anything to last forever. My immortal heart and mind know all too well what 'forever' truly is and the burdens and blessings that come with it. To desire a moment to be in immortal in all but memory is lunacy! Yes, I wanted this to last but not to be everlasting that was what Sombra and I were. A small part of me dared to wish that we could attempt to make us everlasting as well. I could not doom myself to repeat this single moment forevermore, though I shall savor it no matter the outcome of this journey...
Yet, when he pulls away it feels more like a tear between us. He manages to muster a deviousness that is as out of place as we would be in the streets of any mortal city and look at me with a playfulness that would fade in memory and photograph. Its vividness is only able to be experienced when we stand face to face like this.
"Will that be enough to remember me by?"
Hardly - do you think a single moment could ever really capture you? There is no second that could be said to hold the 'quintessential Sombra'. You are so much more than that-
Everything builds up in my throat, and for a moment when he leans forward to nuzzle my brow I feel faint and choked by the peculiar swelling that begins in one's throat when they are on the verge of tears.
"I really do have to go now," he says softly. "I can't linger like this. It's plain that I'm hurting you because of it, but before I do... I want to thank you for giving me the best year of my life. That is, if we never se- ahem. When I do return, it'll be the best year so far. Do you really think I'm going to lose?"
No, no! Of course not! You are the Right-Honourable Lord Sombra, who has a heart and mind that could rival the sun itself!
I wanted to tell him this, to say something, anything to bring a smirk to his face and get his arrogance - how I've come to miss it such a brief time - to show once again... but... it all just dissolved before I could even whisper it. I felt strangled and fell over into his forehooves. While still standing, Sombra had managed to catch me while I leaned against forehooves. I pressed my ear to his chest, but only heard my own heart hammering and whimpered.
That would be my start. I needed to muster the fire, the temper, and fierceness he radiated so easily and break this numbing feeling. I would be desperate. I had to say something, I had already managed a sound, now I need only force something out. Time was passing quicker than I would have liked and everything feels like an eternity could pass if I were to blink even once-
But-
But-
I can do this.
I can fight, as Sombra does. I can wait another time, but not now. I shall make progress. With it I will break the one kind of silence I have never wanted in myself, even if I hear tears in my voice, I shall strike this cursed muteness and say-
"D-Double or nothing, Sombra..."