Cadance's hooves hurt from the night's dancing, and lying out on the floor wasn't as cold as Sombra's deathly cold touch, even if she preferred the latter. Her mane was no longer perfectly and rigidly curled in the Crystalline way and fell in loose, sparkling tresses behind her as they had once, before she ever adopted the styles of her land.
Before she came here at all.
Sombra sat regally next to her, his expression mournful. Since he could not touch anything other than flesh and his own regalia, Sombra found himself unable to use Cadance's gilded hoof file that did look so nice...
"Why do you call me Pink One?"
Sombra gave her a small smile, the first that Cadance had seen the handsome stallion make. Even the few surviving portraits of him, while dusty and damaged, did not suggest a stallion who smiled. "It is merely my nickname for you. Why do you ask?"
"I've never met a spooky ghost who liked nicknames, I guess?"
"Hmm. I think I prefer to identify as a 'not quite dead entity'. Sounds more dignified, wouldn't you say?"
"That's a dumb nickname," Cadance said from the floor. How long had it been since she'd said something as silly as 'dumb'? "Did you ever have one?"
"Well—"
"Ooh, was it Shadowy Shadow McShadowson? Or Sombry? Sommykins? Demon?"
Sombra blinked. "Demon," he said flatly. "Do I look like some kind of demon to you?"
"Red eyes, yo." It felt good, no natural, to speak so again.
Sombra frowned with slight disgust. "Please explain how 'Sombra' and 'demon' go together. He crossed his ghostly forehooves, and his expression soured. "I'm a little insulted at such an accusation."
"So Sombry it is then?" Cadance said with a giggle that had waited too long to be.
Sombra, once a king to be feared instead of nicknamed, looked down at her, the solitary Empress sprawled across the floor and listened to her laugh for a moment longer, never averting his eyes.
"As you wish."