//------------------------------//
// Timelash 
// Story: Ruler of Everything 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
//------------------------------//

The Nightmare was pacing the room. It had been ever since the Valeyard had given his report. The Valeyard himself was watching, rather bored. When he could take no more, he asked, “So. What did you do with the others?”
“The pegasi are working as my guard dogs now,” the Nightmare growled. “I put them on the -- heh -- side of the Angels, as it were. You saw the earth ponies and the dragon. The unicorns are in a room elsewhere, serving as spare batteries. As for the immortals…” he gestured to the sarcophagus. “Take a look for yourself.”
The Valeyard approached the set of busts and reached out a hoof to touch them, one by one.



Every morning, right on time, the Princess would raise the sun. Her eyes glowed pink when the sun was in the sky, and this was how ponies knew that the cycle of day had begun again. The ponies had to depend on this system, for they could not see the sun for themselves, not in these endless rooms of cold, hard, white marble. The City woke up, and ponies went about their business like automata, doing the same things they had done for a thousand years. There was nothing else to do. This was the way it had been Commanded, and there would be no escape.
Court went in and out of session. The Hierophant expanded his monopoly a little further. The Vizir took out his petty vengeances time and time again. The Prime Minister funneled more food, more money, more power through his offices, growing fat on stolen goods. And every day, the Princess’s eyes glowed a little brighter, a little closer to red.
Inside the alabaster statue, where nopony could see, there was something burning in the darkness, scorching the inside of the pristine shell, putting cracks in the veneer which none could detect. Yet. 
Every evening, the Sun would set. The ponies knew this because the Princess’s eyes would dim and fade.The ponies had to depend on this system, for they could not see the sun for themselves. But the Sun could see them. And she was very displeased.



The chill of the dewy morning bit her to the bone, and her wings were sodden and heavy with the damp. She slogged onward. There had been so many graves she had passed, so many faces and names and stories. So many lacunae. Graves chipped, names smudged, faces blurred, and stories were forgotten.
And still she had so many roses left to leave. How long had she walked? How far did she have left to go?
The world tilted and careened, and it wasn’t until she hit the ground that she realized that her legs had simply given out. That was fine. She would wait here for awhile, until the earth took her as it had taken all the others, and climbing ivy twined around her bones. She had nothing left to feel, nothing left to love. Nothing but her own decaying body.



Sunset saw herself in every mirror, every phone screen, every window, her face reflecting back at her. It seemed like it was mocking her. Anon-a-Miss’s power was growing. There had been three fights in the hall today, and it wasn’t even lunchtime.
Sunset ate in the library, these days. Strictly speaking, this wasn’t actually allowed, but if she sat very quietly in the back of the biography section, there was no one around to catch her. No one wanted to come near her, these days. It was as though they thought that she would pull their darkest secrets out of their heads and post them all online. 
At the same time, they all hated her passionately and wanted to tear her down for destroying their relationships. So, while she never actually saw anybody, she saw the hateful messages they left behind for her to find. Hate mail shoved in her locker, terrible words scrawled onto her locker, her books stolen, her homework wrecked. #shedemon was trending.
The only person she saw these days was her reflection, twisted as it was. Its lips were cruel and tight, and its eyes blazed with malice as long-fingered hands reached from the glass to drag her away…



Ice crusted the windows of the castle in the midst of summer. The last few survivors of the Eternal Night crawled in the snow, their bellies empty and their minds destroyed. All they knew was suffering, and the laughter of the victorious Nightmare Moon.
Luna was limp, a puppet in the grip of a cruel controller. It had been days since she could feel her own breathing, weeks since she could feel her legs. How long had it been since she was last able to move? Two cycles of the moon? Three?
She could feel the Nightmare’s mind pressing against hers -- not hard enough to overtake her, of course, never hard enough for that. It was merely enough that she could feel its malign influence, her own thoughts reflected back at her in warped and twisted fashion. There was no escape, no sanctuary. Everything around her was the Nightmare. She was the Nightmare. The Nightmare would indeed last forever.



“Ah! You’re back at last. Or, no. Ooh, you’re the lawyer, aren’t you? Well well, Boatyard, what brings you to my neck of the -- hey, where are you going? Get back here! Don’t lea --”



“So, er, yes,”said Twilight. “We’re fairly distant cousins of yours, I suppose -- Mac is, anyway, and I sort of married into the family…” she trailed off, glancing at Mac, who had said nothing this whole time. “She’s very shy,” Twilight explained.
Applejack nodded. “So, yer lookin’ fer a place to stay while y’all get yer hooves back under ya?”
“That’s about the long and short of it, yes,” Twilight said
The farmer grinned. “Well, shoot, Ah ain’t gonna turn down kinfolk. Not so long as ya lend a hoof here on th’ farm.”
Twilight smiled. “I don’t know how much help I’ll be in the orchard,” she admitted. “But I can cook pretty well, and if you need a salesmare in town, I’ve got pretty good pony skills.”
“Well, that sounds just dandy,” Applejack said warmly. “Ah’ll git Apple Bloom to make up a room for y’all.”
“Thank you,” Twilight said. “Really, I can’t thank you enough. I don’t know what we’d do…”
Applejack nodded. “Ain’t no problem, hon. Now, why don’t y’all go down, take a walk ‘round Ponyville proper? I won’t put y’all to work right away or nothin’, not when you just got here, but you better be bright-eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow at dawn, y’hear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Twilight said, snapping a playful wing-salute.
Applejack bid them farewell and trotted off to the barn. Twilight turned to Mac, her smile falling. “How are you holding up?” she asked quietly.
Mac opened her mouth. No sound came out. Her broad withers shook, wracked with silent sobs. “Oh, Mac,” Twilight said, reaching up to hug her. “I’m sorry…”
“She don’t remember me, Twi,” Mac choked out through the sobs. “Mah own sister. It’s like Ah never existed, a ghost in mah own life.”
“I know,” Twilight said. “I know. If Spike was around here and he didn’t recognize me… I think it would just shatter me. But we remember each other. We know who we are. Right?”
“Give each other definition,” Mac said softly. “Context.”
“Exactly. We’re not alone, Mac. We’ve got each other.”



“Ingenious,” the Valeyard said, pulling his hoof away. “Playing on their worst fears to corrupt them into something suitable for your purposes.”
“Precisely,” the Nightmare said. “It used to be that I’d spend months, even years, on twisting a single mind into the right destructive path. It was craftsmanship. Nowadays, it’s all about mass-production. Or, as the case may be, mass destruction."
“Of course,” said the Valeyard, glancing at Twilight and Macintosh. “It seems not to be a perfect system.”
“Pah. I’ll sort that bug out later, by crushing her like one,” the Nightmare growled. “You, of course, really ought to direct your attention to the main feature on top of the box. I think you’ll like what I have in store up there…”
The Valeyard smirked as he looked at the carved version of his alternate self lying atop the sarcophagus, his hooves crossed over his chest. “I look forward to finding out what you’ve done with the place,” he said, touching the Doctor’s forehead.





With no small effort on his part, the Doctor was able to navigate through the shifting streets of the Capitol to the Prydon Academy. His plans hadn’t changed since his discovery of who his pursuers actually were. Twisted versions of his old friends or no, he couldn’t let them capture him. He shut and barred the door behind him before hurrying down the hall. There was no guarantee of safety here -- anyone might be in this building. If he could find his way to the main lecture hall, he’d have a chance of holding a defensible position while he worked out how to escape this twisted and deranged slice of the Matrix.
He stiffened as the sound of hydraulic joints echoed through the halls. He glanced down a corridor. A hulking figure stood in the darkness. It stepped out, revealing a half-converted Cyberman. In among the metal was a burnt and broken colt -- Adric. He pointed a finger at the Doctor. “K-9. Go fetch,” Adric said, his voice hollow and dead.
Several ankle-high red lights glowed in the darkness, and three K-9 units wheeled out of the darkness. “Affirmative, Master,” all three said in unison, voices much lower and far less camp than the Doctor remembered them being.
Fortunately, the Doctor thought as he pelted down the hall, K-9 had never been known for his speed. Up ahead, he saw a door -- Old Borusa’s classroom, he was certain of it, and there were no fewer than four doors out of it. He slammed through and shoved a desk in the way. That would buy him a few minutes, at least, to catch his breath.
As he did so, he became conscious that he wasn’t alone in the room. He squinted, peering down toward the center of the room. There was a young mare standing there, clad in a floppy cap that hid her eyes. “Dodo?” he called. “Is that you?”
“Hello Doctor!” Dodo called, glancing up at him. He still couldn’t quite see her eyes.
“Been awhile,” the Doctor observed, for lack of anything better to say.
“It has,” Dodo agreed. “I can’t say I’ve missed it.”
“I did get that impression when you didn’t even say goodbye after that affair with the --”
The room behind Dodo exploded and the Doctor’s eyes shrunk to pinpricks. “War Machines…” he said quietly.
A pair of things that looked like a combination of a child’s robot toy and a tank raised their guns at him. He ducked and ran out the door at the other end of the room.
No sooner had he left than he flinched away from a huge golden wolf that leapt at him. It bounced off an invisible wall before it quite reached him, though. “Ah,” said the Doctor, backing away. “Hello, Rose.”
She grinned at him murderously. “Run for your life,” she snarled. “Just ‘cos I can’t reach you, doesn’t mean she can’t.”
The Doctor spun around. A withered old spirit rose from the dust and pointed at him menacingly. “Sara Kingdom?” he cried. “I hardly even knew you!”
“Does that excuse my execution?” the ghost screeched.
The Doctor was already running again. He skidded to a halt as a redheaded alicorn in a military jacket and combat boots materialized in front of him. She lunged for his throat. “Eye for an eye, Doctor,” Compassion said coldly. “You stuck a randomizer in me. I’ll stick a knife in--”
She dematerialized again before she could finish the sentence.
The Doctor staggered upright, utterly disoriented. He shoved open the nearest door and almost fell through.
“Well, well,” said a familiar voice.
“How the mighty have fallen,” said another, similar voice.
“Romana?” the Doctor asked, glancing up.
“Yes,” said the War Queen, from all of the nine heads that the Doctor could see. “Toodle pip,” added the one in the beret.
“But Romana and I are perfectly fine with one another,” the Doctor said. “We’ve been through this years ago.”
“Ah,” said the original Romana. “But not with us.”
“Only with the one who didn’t have to face the War,” said the one with the cold grey eyes.
The Doctor became conscious of another presence in the room. He glanced around and saw Leela, bloodied and looking almost bestial as she studied him, knife in hand. She snarled at him, revealing canine teeth. “My Hound,” Romana said, gesturing. “I’d stop running if I were you, Doctor. We have agents everywhere. The barn, the TARDIS bays, Lowtown, Lungbarrow, Mt. Perdition, the Presidential Offices… even if you try to hide somewhere truly uncharacteristic, there’s only so much of the planet to search.”
The Doctor turned and flung open the door, but stopped dead. On the other side, Ditzy was staring at him, through a face of stone. He fell back on his haunches. “Alright,” he said softly. “It’s a fair cop.”
“I’m so glad to hear you say that,” Romana said. “Leela? Bind him.”





Apple Bloom stared, mouth agape. “Ma? Pa?” She blinked several times, then looked behind her to check that she was still standing in the tower. “What are you doin’ here?”
Bright Macintosh chuckled. “What are we doin’ at th’ Apple Family Reunion? Or what are we doin’ bein’ alive?”
“Uh, mostly th’ second one,” Bloom said. “But, since y’all mention it, what in Sam Hill is Sweet Apple Acres doin’ in this deathtrap of a tower?”
“Well, strictly speakin’, it ain’t,” Big Mac said. “All this is just kinda an illusion, y’see?”
Apple Bloom scratched the back of her neck. “Well. Ah appreciate th’ forthrightness. Uh, but if Ah could address th’ more central question here… well, why?”
Pear Butter spread her hooves wide, gesturing to the scenery at large. “Well, sugarcube, it’s like this. What y’all see here is yer perfect world. Yer pa an’ I are alive, an’ so’s Winona. Granny’s hip’s been fixed, ‘cause it was never broken. Every year, th’ plantin’ and growin’ and harvest go as smooth as can be, an’ it’s all thanks to you.”
Apple Bloom tried to process this. “Thanks to me,” she repeated. “Uh. So Ah figgered out how to reanimate th’ dead, then? Or… uh… no, that’s all Ah got, really.”
“It’s a lil’ more straightforward than that,” Applejack said. “All you gotta do to make this dream reality is just step through this door. Stop strugglin’ an’ tryin’ to stop th’ Nightmare an’ the Valeyard.”
“...Huh?”
“Think about it!” Bright Mac said. “What’s time ever done for you? All it does is take, take, take, everything you care about, bringin’ pain an’ death.”
“Don’t you just want to rest, honey?” Pear Butter asked, reaching out to take Bloom by the hoof. “Step through this door, an’ the Nightmare will let you fix everything you ever wanted fixed, the things that you always thought couldn’t ever be repaired. Stop fightin’. Stop hurtin’. Just come through, an’ be loved.”
Apple Bloom hesitated at the threshold. She could smell the sweet scents of apple pie and fresh-cut grass, hear the merry sounds of celebrating family members. It was sorely tempting. She reached a hoof through the door. Her family smiled wider.
Then Apple Bloom paused. “What about everypony else?”
“What about ‘em?” Bright Mac asked, confused.
“Do they get to fix everything, too?” Bloom asked. “‘Cause, Ah reckon that’s gonna be a case of way too many cooks.”
“Well…” said Big Mac, shifting uncomfortably on her haunches. “No…”
“What happens to them, then?” Bloom asked, her voice suddenly steely. “‘Cause, those two evil so-an’-sos don’t seem like th’ type to live an’ let live. Matter of fact, they tried to kill me an’ my friends so many times today, Ah lost count.”
Nopony spoke. They weren’t smiling anymore, and the sounds of the reunion had stopped. The trees were dying and rotting in the background, a swiftly-closing ring of decay.
Bloom nodded and withdrew her hoof. “Ah see. Ah’ll be stayin’ out here, thank you very much.”
“But it’s everything you could want!” Pear Butter burst out, her mane withering even as she spoke. “You stupid, stupid girl! Why couldn’t you just accept it?”
Apple Bloom looked contemptuously at the thing shaped like her mother. “If you don’t know, Ah don’t think Ah could explain.”
The illusion dissolved. Apple Bloom had expected that there would just be a pit on the other side, but there was a solid floor. She stumbled away from the door, her stomach churning. Had the illusion been telling the truth all along, or merely luring her in?
The door slammed shut, making her jump. When she looked back, there was only an empty stretch of wall.
She took a few moments to collect herself. Then, her eyes went wide. “Rumble,” she said, before taking off at a full-tilt gallop back the way she had come.





Blueblood was getting rather out of breath as he, Romana, and Granny Smith arrived back at Sweet Apple Acres. “Sorry,” he muttered. “This is rather more walking than I generally do in a day.”
Granny snorted. “City slicker. Day of good honest labor would do you no end o’ good.”
Blueblood sneered. “If the words ‘fresh country air’ come anywhere near my person, I shall scream.”
Romana rolled her eyes. “Do you think the two of you might possibly stop your bickering for long enough to save the world?”
“Nah,” said Granny.
“I’m fully capable of multitasking,” Blueblood said crisply.
“Oh, just show me where the rift is,” Romana said, a note of testiness creeping into her voice.
Blueblood led them down to the barn and there the three stopped. “Well,” said Romana, her voice a little higher than normal. “That’s... certainly a rift.”
“It’s grown since I left,” Blueblood said, sidling along the length of the crack, eyeing it as though it might at any time reach out and swallow him whole.
Granny inspected the damage with a grim eye. “It’s gone through some trees,” she said. “Are they gonna be alright? If not, how kin Ah git mah hooves on that skeezy lawyer fella again? Ah’ll put a crack in his face, you mark mah words…”
“Well,” Romana said. “If we can reverse the process, the trees should live. If we can’t, well, you won’t be around to worry about it.”
“How comfortingly fatalistic,” Blueblood muttered. “How wide an area of damage would this cause?”
Romana shrugged. “Difficult to say,” she admitted. “I presume it’s spreading toward the other rift in the hospital. Anything along the line when they touch probably won’t fare well, and there’s every chance that it could widen.”
“So it could destroy the town?” Granny Smith asked.
“The town, certainly. The country, probably, and possibly the world. All of it would be pulled inside out and sucked into the time vortex, unless we can stabilize it.”
“Lovely,” Blueblood said. “Might I encourage stabilizing it, then?”
“Of course,” Romana said promptly. “I’ll need a bobby pin, a pair of socks, and sixty feet of iron chain.”
“Excellent! Miss Smith, do you have those things lying around, by chance?”
Romana and Granny stared at him through lidded eyes. Blueblood pursed his lips. “Ah. Of course. Joking. Ha. Most droll.”
Granny glanced sidelong at Romana. “Ya can stabilize it, though, can’t ya?”
“...Yes,” Romana said slowly. “Very probably. Some help from Starlight Glimmer would speed things up nicely, and I’ll probably need to raid the hardware store, Twilight’s lab, the Doctor’s workshop…”
“I believe the Crown would be only too happy to cover the cost, given the circumstances,” Blueblood said. “In the meantime, may I suggest that we hurry back to the hospital? I just saw this thing grow another few centimeters.”





It didn’t take Apple Bloom long to find Rumble. Reaching him was another matter entirely. He had gone through his door, a cutesy little thing made out of clouds, with a heart carved in the middle. On the other side, she saw Rumble, hovering nervously in the air. He was talking rapidly to a skinny stallion that Apple Bloom thought she vaguely recognized. She couldn’t quite make out his features, and they seemed to shift as she studied him. Well, it didn’t matter.
“Rumble!” she yelled. “Get th’ Tartarus outta there! It ain’t real! It’s a trap!”
Rumble seemed not to have heard her, or else he was simply ignoring her. At long last, he landed in the clouds. Slowly, the door began to close.
Apple Bloom wedged herself between the door and the jamb. “RUMBLE!” she shouted again, sticking her head over the threshold. “GET OUT! NOW!”
Once more, Rumble didn’t acknowledge her presence. His companion, on the other hoof, glared daggers at her before pulling Rumble in for a gentle kiss.
Oh, thought Bloom. This is his dream guy, then. Doesn’t look like much. Then she reconsidered. Studying the figure carefully, she could see elements of colts she’d known in school -- Pipsqueak, Shady Daze, even Button Mash.
Everyone Rumble’s ever crushed on, maybe. But he ain’t that shallow, why would he get lured in by a cute stallion?
Then the door on the other side of the room opened, and two pegasi walked in, smiling broadly. The stallion was a deep, faded navy blue with deep blue eyes and a salt-and-pepper mane, slicked back. The mare was ice white with a long black mane and golden eyes. They said something indistinct, but Apple Bloom could make out the words, ‘so happy’ ‘coltfriend’ ‘welcome.’
‘Proud of you, son.’
Her heart sank like a stone. Of course. Rumble had lost his parents, too. Perhaps it hadn't happened in quite the same way that she'd lost hers, but it was no less traumatic. Her grip on the door slackened momentarily, and it inched a little closer to closing.
She quickly redoubled her efforts, straining to keep the portal open. “Rumble!” she snapped. “This ain’t how it happened! It ain’t real!”
Finally, Rumble seemed to acknowledge her presence, turning to look at her with pleading eyes. “But it could be,” he said. “They could be different. I could be different.”
“Yer brother took you in. He protected you, an’ these pieces of equine shit disowned th’ both of ya,” Apple Bloom growled, shoving the door a little further open. “You go this route, you turn your back on everything he did fer you.”
Rumble hesitated, glancing back and forth between Bloom and his parents, their smiles growing increasingly thin and forced. “Bless yer heart fer wantin’ a way t’ forgive these creeps,” Bloom said, “but they ain’t done nothin’ to deserve it.”
Rumble shut his eyes tight and nodded. He turned and headed for the door. It increased its force, and Apple Bloom roared in pain as she was pressed against the jamb. Rumble pushed from the other side, and fell through, landing on top of her. The door slammed closed and vanished into thin air.
There was a long silence. “This tower sucks,” Rumble remarked.
“Yep,” Bloom said. “Think you could get off me now? Ah think ah bruised mah ribs. An’ mah hooves, mah barrel, mah legs…”
“Oh, sorry.” Rumble rose, helping Apple Bloom wobble to her hooves.
“Are y’all alright?”
“You’re the one with bruises.”
“Y’all are th’ one with scars that just reopened real bad.”
Rumble nodded, taking the point. “I just… shit. I didn’t realize how bad I wanted that until it got dangled in front of me. I always thought that if I ever saw them again, I’d pluck the pair of them.” He crumpled a little. “I guess I was weaker than I thought.”
“No,” Bloom said, rubbing his back with a hoof. “You turned yer back on them. That’s strength, hon.”
“I just wanted them to love me,” Rumble said, blinking back tears. “I just wanted them to see me for who I am, and love me. Why was that so much to ask?”
Apple Bloom hugged him tight, barely holding back tears of her own. “They’re bastards,” she said through gritted teeth. “Plain an’ simple. Ah love you, Rumble. Y’all are one of mah best friends in the world, an’ there ain’t nothin’ gonna change that.”
There was a long pause. “You really mean that?” he asked softly.
“If Ah ever meet them two clowns in real life, Ah’ll buck their teeth in an’ let you pluck whatever scraps are left over.”
There was a long silence. Then Rumble buried his head in her chest and sobbed, hugging her back as tight as he could.





Sombra struggled to open his eyes. He felt weak and sick, but at least he had awoken from his nightmare. It was the one where he was still under the corrupting influence of the Nightmare Entity and was still the cruel, unbending dictator of the Crystal Empire. Same old, same old, really.
After a moment to regain his bearings, Sombra realized a couple of things. First, that his magic was being siphoned off from his horn, and second, that he was surrounded by several sleeping unicorns all undergoing the same treatment. All of them were shifting in their sleep, their faces twisted into gurns of pain and fear as they writhed on the hard stone floor.
Sombra sighed, and with some effort, rose to his hooves. He shoved Shining Armor in the ribs rather hard. The prince rolled over and whined. Sombra reconsidered his approach. He leaned down next to Shining’s ear and hissed, “Crysssssstal Ssssssslavesssssss.”
Shining’s eyes popped open and he scrambled to his hooves. Sombra nodded. “I see I have your attention,” he said drily.
Shining winced and glanced around the room. “What’s happening here?” he asked. “The last thing I remember is the Nightmare turning the pegasi to stone.”
“It seems that it’s divided us based on racial attributes,” Sombra said. “As unicorns are the most able of the three pony races to utilize active magic, we’ve been sent here to be drained of it, milked like cattle for our power.”
“Living batteries,” Shining muttered, rubbing his forehead. “We have to get out of here.”
“Hm,” said Sombra, glancing up at the ceiling. “Perhaps. But not all of us.”
“What are you saying?” Shining asked, his voice gaining a slight edge.
“Presumably, our power output is being monitored. If it suddenly drops to zero, it will arouse suspicion. One of us may leave -- perhaps two at a stretch. The others must remain behind.”
“You’re proposing we leave the others here to suffer?”
“As a matter of fact, no,” Sombra said, a touch of impatience in his voice. “I propose that we wake up one of the others, then you and she go off to try and rescue our friends. I will stay behind. The nightmares scarcely bother me any longer anyway.”
“...Oh,” said Shining Armor. “Er… who do you think…”
Sombra shrugged. “Trixie is a master of illusion and deception, while Rarity’s skill set lies more in offensive attacks with her magic. I would suggest that you might prefer to keep hidden rather than actively enga-a-aaaa…” he interrupted himself with a yawn, then blinked several times to clear his mind. “We must act quickly, before our energy is sapped utterly.”
“Right, yeah,” Shining said. He tried to shake Trixie awake, but she merely rolled over and curled into the fetal position.
“Allow me,” said Sombra, leaning over her prone form. He murmured in her ear, “Miss Trixie? You’re on in five.”
Trixie snapped to attention, flailing her limbs wildly and screaming. Rarity, in turn, blinked herself back to alertness moments later. “Oog,” she muttered. “Spike, darling, I’ve had the most atrocious dream…”
Everypony stared at her. “Ah,” said Rarity. “Not a dream?”
“Only the most recent part,” Shining said. He quickly outlined the situation, with occasional interjections from Sombra.
“I’m sorry, Rarity,” he said, glancing at her. “I have to ask you to stay behind.”
Rarity glanced sidelong at Trixie for a moment before nodding. “Of course, darling. I understand completely. Good luck and godspeed to you both.”
Trixie pursed her lips and nodded. “Trixie thanks you, Rarity. She hopes that you will rest well. Or, under the circumstances -- well -- oh, you know what Trixie means.”
Shining Armor pushed open the door. It hadn’t even been locked. “They’ve gotten cocky,” he muttered. “Come on, Trixie. Let’s see what we can find.”
With one final fleeting backward glance, Trixie trotted out of the room, and the door shut behind her. 
Sombra glanced at Rarity. “Do I detect a certain amount of guilt?” he inquired.
Rarity shut her eyes tight for a moment. “It’s rather a long story. I’d prefer not to go too deep into it,” she said crisply. “Suffice to say… I was somewhat cruel to Trixie awhile back, when she was at her lowest ebb. It was dreadful of me. That particular wound has healed reasonably well, but… well… I think I have some idea of the contents of her nightmares. I shouldn’t like to be responsible for making her have more of them.”
Sombra nodded. “I see. Would you like to try and stay awake a little longer?”
Rarity sighed, considering, but shook her head. “I can already feel my strength fading,” she murmured, lying down. “Their departure seems to have strengthened the pull on our magic.”
Sombra nodded his agreement. “Just as well,” he said. “Perhaps they won’t even detect a drop in our magical output.”
Rarity sighed. “Sombra, darling? Before we black out again, I wonder if you could do me a small favor?”
“Oh?”
Rarity glanced at him, a tad shyly. “Well… you’re rather large and warm. You’re no dragon, of course, but all the same… well, would you mind terribly snuggling with me?”
Sombra gave a small huff of laughter. “Very well, Miss Rarity.” He trotted to her side and lay down next to her, draping a muscular hoof across her barrel and pulling her into a warm embrace.
Rarity gave a sigh of relief. “Thank you, darling,” she murmured. “Terribly obliged…” she drifted off again. After a few moments of resisting the heaviness of his eyelids and the weakness of his body, Sombra followed suit.