The sun comes up. The stallion puts on his hat, his badge, a tie, and his ‘game face’. He walks into his booth, right on the border, and he looks through the pane of glass as one creature after another comes in through one metal door, and goes out the other.
That is, if they have their papers.
Some do. Some don’t. It doesn’t matter. The stallion’s got a job to do.
Check everypony’s papers.
“Papers, please,” he says.
And he means it. He has a family to care for, and if he screws up, it’s them who will suffer.
This stallion is a perfectionist. A professional. He mans ponies Border Station #148, Whinnypeg, overseeing the vital transfer of ponies and materials across the Equestrian-Crystal-Empire border, and he has a job to do.
This story, however, is not about this stallion. That stallion called in sick today.
This story is about his substitute, one Zephyr Breeze, who is…
“… a disgusting pig!”
Zephyr snorted and raised an eyebrow at the hysterical mare. “How am Moi a pig, lady?”
She placed her hooves up on the thin desktop where she’d deposited her papers. Zephyr thought he heard it groan.
“You called me fat!” she squealed.
“Yeah,” he nodded, and then held up the mare’s ID card with his pinions, “But at least I’m not a liar. Seriously? One hundred and ten pounds? Who’re you fooling, honey?”
She suddenly shifted from a fine fuchsia to the same color as that really angry thing Zephyr found on his…
In between her banging on the magically-warded glass barrier and her shrill screams, the incensed mare clearly failed to notice as Zephyr slapped the DETAIN crystal under his desk, which sent guards from Equestria and the Crystal Empire storming into the tiny room.
“But…?” he scratched his mane with a hoof, and nearly undid his colt-bun in the process. Zephyr’s confusion was that intense.
“Look,” an exasperated Ocellus sighed and pinched the bridge of her insectoid muzzle (Proboscis?), then said, “Yes. I’m a changeling. I can shapeshift.”
“So how do I know that you’re The Ocellus? My little sis wouldn’t send just anycreature out into the North for a specimen-study, after all.”
Ocellus, if that was her real name, suddenly developed a twitchy eye, “Like I said, Professor Shy sent us all up here to study the rare animals of the North. I don’t understand why this is so difficult for you to understand!”
“Well, how do I know you didn’t just use your changeling magic to take the real Ocellus’s shape? Huh?”
She buried her head in her hooves. “I can’t believe this. I… I’ve never been this angry before. How did you do that!? I’ve been in here for a half hour! You let Yona through after a few seconds!!!”
Zephyr nodded, thoughtfully, “Of course I did. She had her papers, and she paid the bribe.”
“… Bribe?”
“Apparently, Yakyakistani guards are so notorious for bribes and corruption,” he shrugged, “that Yaks just assume every guard is on the take and slip cash in with their papers.”
“Yakyakistan is a freakin’ failed state!” Ocellus almost popped her carapace, the way she was squeezing her temples to make the pain stop, “You can’t seriously be using that as an excuse!?”
Zephyr smiled. “I still got paid, didn’t I?”
The door to the right, the steel door in between Ocellus and Equestria, suddenly swung open. Just outside, a large yak cow standing on the Equestrian side of the border glared.
“Yona wants to know what is taking so long!” she stamped her hooves in frustration, “Yona say, Pay your Way! Is simple concept, yes?”
Zephyr’s mouth worked silently a moment. Then, once he’d found the words, he asked, “How did you open that?”
Behind Yona, an earth pony guard, Alloy Shield, leaned in to wave at Zephyr.
“Hey, Zeph! She gave me twenty bits! Can you believe it?”
All three, the two ponies and the yak, turned to stare at the one troublemaking changeling with disapproval.
She sighed.
“Do you take checks?”
Zephyr’s eyes squinted to make out the atrociously smeared and ink-stained words on the passport. What sort of bootleg ink were they using in Transylmaneia?
“I’m sorry,” he said, passing the paperwork back, “But your tribe is mislabeled. This says you’re a thestral.”
The bat-like pony, colored like a watercolor portrait of a gravel road at midnight, frowned at the news. He tilted his head, and said, warily, “But… I am a thestral?”
“I dunno, are you?” Zephyr shrugged helplessly.
“I am, how you say…? A batpony.”
“Clearly. I’m not stupid.”
The batpony frowned. “Batpony is thestral. Is same thing, da?”
Now, Zephyr frowned, “Who’s Da? And what does he have to do with you being a batpony.”
“Okay,” the batpony flicked his wings out, agitated, “Batpony is tribe, da?”
“Who’s Da?”
Ignoring that, the batpony went on, “Thestral is like, special batpony. We is same, but different. Understand?”
The minty green pegasus narrowed his eyes. He tilted his head one way, and then the other. He even went so far as to scratch his chin.
Then, he hit the DETAIN crystal.
“This is too confusing for what they’re paying me…”
“What do you mean thestrals are Vampires!?”
Alloy gave his friend a flat look. “Batponies are ponies… that look like bats.”
“Gotcha…”
“Thestrals,” he sighed, “are what happens when anypony becomes a Vampire.”
Alloy glanced behind him. While he and Zeph were on a lunch break, they were still within sight of where the thestral had gone berserk. There was a lot of blood covering the light dusting of snow they’d gotten the night before. Vampires bled like crazy.
So do guards, when the vampire tried to rush the border after some idiot hit the DETAIN crystal and started a riot.
“Seriously, why wasn’t there a course on this stuff in training?”
Alloy sighed, again. “There was…”
Well, for a first day, things hadn’t gone so bad. Zephyr fully believed this, despite the mounting casualties. But that was for nightshift to worry about.
“Probably batponies. Er,” he cringed, “Um, thestrals? Eugh, why couldn’t they make that easier to remember? Wait, if Luna made both of them, did I just commit treason? Am I a tribalist?”
As Zephyr contemplated something far, far too high-minded to ever cross his own after today without the use of hard cider, his eyes drifted over to the clock at his desk, just behind a picture of his parents and his beloved sister, Fluttershy, and just in front of an even bigger oil-portrait of himself.
He rather admired that portrait. Draw me like one of your Prench stallions, he’d told the painter. And, once he’d gotten the painting… and the paintbrush out of his eye… he would readily admit that it was the best thing he’d ever bought.
Right, the clock. It was edging nearer, and nearer, to that wonderful, glorious Five-O’Clock hour that would release him from his duties. All that had to happen, was for somepony to not need to cross the border in the next twenty seconds, and Zephyr’d be home free!
Free to eat a nice, hot dinner, with an even hotter, beautiful supermodel of a marefriend.
Yup! That’s what he told the other stallions in the locker room. None of them believed him, but Zephyr Breeze was no fool! Their indifference was merely masking their seething jealousy. It was plain to see. He’d seen it in Rainbow Dash’s eyes as well, right after he decided that she wasn’t good enough for him. He’d told her so, as well, just before her stupid, apple-themed hanging-out party with Applejack.
Stupid apple-themed parties where two mares wore white dresses and got a stupid cake all to themselves.
Zephyr wasn’t bitter, or in denial. Despite what the arresting officer said when he refused to leave.
Huh… Zephyr thought, that trot down memory lane only took fifteen seconds.
Five seconds to freedom.
Four.
Three.
The metal door to the left of the room opened, and Zephyr instinctively reached for the DENIAL crystal. If he hit that in two seconds, then he didn’t have to stay to process whoever was rudely intruding upon his off-time.
There was no crystal. They’d removed it after it’d killed three guards.
“Ah, ponyfeathers.” Zephyr sighed, wearily, and cracked his neck. He supposed there was nothing doing. He was stuck here. Well, best to knock this out quick then. If the entrant had a virulent disease, a manifesto, or a bomb with them, he didn’t really care so long as they had enough of their papers (or bits) together so he could boot them through in record time.
He was so awesome at his job.
Alrighty, let’s see what sort of scrub wants into Equestria.
In from the Crystal Empire side of the border came an odd sight, however. Being so far north, there were… let’s call them ‘expectations’ one had, while ponying the border. And sombreros were emphatically incongruent with those expectations.
Indeed, the stallion who entered cut an imposing figure, despite his best attempts to hide that fact. He was nearly the same height as Zephyr Breeze, but muscular all the way through. His eyes shone crimson in the florescent lighting, and his horn curved wickedly.
Zephyr took in his mane last, and noted with some professional talent that it was amazing. So thick and rich and dark… why, Zephyr could do wonders with that mane!
And yet… the stallion hid it all under a hugely oversized sombrero. He actually seemed to have trouble making it through the door with that thing on. He also looked to be having trouble with the ludicrous fake mustache on his muzzle.
“Welcome to the CE-Equestrian Border Station, Number One-Hundred-and-Forty-Eight, Whinnypeg. My name is Zephyr Breeze. What are we declaring today?”
The hat-and-mustache-wearing creature hissed in a low, menacing growl, “Victory…”
Zephyr wondered, for just a moment, if the stallion had meant to say that out loud.
“Pardon?”
The stallion stiffened, clearly realizing he’d said that out loud as well.
“Uh… I meant… pleasure,” he coughed to clear his deep, masculine voice, “I’m here for pleasure.”
“O-okay…” Zephyr coughed as well, and tried to lower his own voice to match, “Papers, please. You’ll need your passport, Identity Card, Proof of Visa, and Vaccination Documentation.”
The strange stallion reached underneath his poncho, which did nothing to hide the bright red cape he wore beneath it, trimmed in ermine, nor the silvery battle armor which covered his body, and quickly produced a packet of documents.
“Is that all of them?” Zeph asked as he took the small packet in hoof.
The stallion snarled, “Of course it’s all of them, you insufferable…”
Zephyr peered through the glass at the dark stallion as he seemed to realize what he was saying.
“Uh…” the stallion awkwardly crossed his front legs, “I mean… Si, señor.”
The things I put up with, Zephyr lamented. Still, that’s why I joined public service. The ponies. Well, that, and the crippling debt from mane-styling school.
He looked at the first document, the passport.
And, right away, there was a problem.
“Name?” he asked, eyebrow already raised in suspicion.
“Sombr- ah, Somb… Some…” the dark stallion stammered. He then whispered, to himself ostensibly, but at a pitch where Zephyr couldn’t help but hear him, saying, “Oh drat… who was I before…?”
He seemed to decide on something, at last, and boldly pronounced, “I am Vidrio. Oscuro Vidrio. That is me.”
“Uh, huh…” Zephyr nodded along, “Okay, but this says you’re somepony named Lemon Zest.”
The dark stallion pursed his lips, but said nothing. In fact, even his mane, which almost wafted in an ethereal wind, seemed still as a pond’s surface.
Zephyr moved on, pulling out the next document, the proof of vaccination.
It was made of cardboard.
And all it said was ‘Yes’.
In red crayon.
“Couldn’t even get a pencil or something?”
“The first child I came across only had the one. Uh, I mean… si.”
Zephyr Breeze flipped to the next document.
“This is a Monopony card,” he said, not even trying to mask his disappointment, “All you did was cross out the ‘Jail’ part of ‘Get out of Jail’, and replaced it with ‘The Crystal Empire’. And you misspelled Crystal.”
“Would you believe,” the dark stallion said, hopefully, “that those are legitimate documents, despite their appearance?”
“No.”
The stallion bit his lip. He glanced left and right, clearly checking to see if anypony else could see or hear them. Satisfied, he drew himself up to his full height, and flashed the hapless pegasus a wicked grin.
“Ah, but you will!” he snarled triumphantly, “Now and forever, slave!”
“Wait…” Zephyr frowned, squinting at the stallion before him. Then, with a flash of recognition, he smiled and said, “You’re King Sombra, aren’t you?”
Sombra’s eyes blazed with Dark Magic, shifting to a frothing green luminance, black vapors rising from their corners. An aura of menace and horror overtook him, burning away poncho and sombrero at once. The mustache burned last.
The eldritch flames licked at the glass partition, but did not reach Zephyr.
Who was taking this remarkably well.
“Ha! Classic Sombra. Can’t believe I didn’t recognize you.”
The Dark Lord, still pressing his baleful magic against the glass, tilted his head in confusion. “Huh. Usually, you would be a mewling puddle by now. How has your mind remained your own?”
Zephyr blinked. Then, realizing what the stallion was talking about, he tapped on the glass barrier, “Oh, yeah. This building is warded out the plot, my friend. Magic’s got no chance of doing nothing in here.”
“I see,” Sombra withdrew his power, and returned to his normal, regal form. He sneered at the glass, but quickly turned his attention to the metal door to the right, towards Equestria.
“In that case,” he braced himself, “I do not require your assistance. Freedom is mine!”
Sombra threw himself, hard, against the metal door. It sounded like a church bell getting hit with a cannonball!
Zephyr winced, in surprise sympathy. He leaned forward, to get a better look, as the former King of the Crystal Empire hobbled back to the room’s sole other occupant.
Sombra was favoring his front left leg.
“What…?” the dark stallion shook his head, just to make at least one of the Zephyrs before him stop wiggling around.
Zephyr shrugged. “I dunno dude. It’s some kinda super-metal or something. Above my paygrade. Not graded for Vampires, apparently.”
Sombra, head clearing, glared at him. “Well, what happens now? We are at an impasse.”
To this, Zephyr gestured towards his desk, “Well, I got a couple of options under here. I press one crystal, and the other door opens. You leave, and I get to go home.”
“The door to the Empire?” Sombra queried, his voice quivering just a bit. Most likely from the hit he just took, but still. “That is unacceptable. I must reach Equestria!”
“Any reason why that is?” Zephyr asked.
“None that I wish to share with a peon such as you!”
“M’kay,” Zephyr clucked, “Well, then I open the other door and let the Automated Harmony Array deal with you.”
The dark stallion paused at that, his eyes widening ever-so-slightly. “W-what is that?”
Again, Zephyr shrugged.
“All I know, is that the Princess and her friends, including my sister, put a little of their Harmony Friendship Super Laser Rainbow Magic into some crystals and stuck them all over the border. You take one step outside of here without authorization, and you get blown away again.”
The pegasus worked his jaw a moment. “By the way, how did you manage to come back again?”
Sombra let loose a primal roar, a thousand years of frustration shaking the glass pane, the metal doors, Zeph’s fillings, and the very walls of the cell. Zephyr could actually feel his organs rattling to the deep, booming cry of anguish.
After what felt like a full, uninterrupted minute, Sombra sank down onto his haunches. He panted for another moment, before he stamped the floor with his hooves.
“Confound the Elements!” he cried out, somehow almost louder than before, “Can’t they leave me at peace for one minute!?”
Zephyr slowly picked himself up from the floor, and peeked over his desk at the fallen tyrant.
Sombra hadn’t noticed him. “I mean, can’t I be allowed to exist for five minutes before they evaporate me again?”
“Look, dude,” Zephyr began, gingerly, to reach for one of the crystals beneath his desk, “I’m sure getting… rainbow’d to death sucks… but I’m gonna have to ask you to take it somewhere else…”
He leapt back from the desk as something slammed into the glass. Zephyr closed his eyes tight, and flinched away, praying, desperately, that the broken glass would avoid his mane. He could live without eyes, but his ‘do? Never.
When the glass did not shatter into one thousand stallion-face-seeking razor blades, he looked back up, to a rather unique sight. Sombra was pressed up against the window, snout leaving a little snotty smear as his crimson eyes welled up like a sad puppy dog.
“Please!” he whimpered, “I don’t want to explode again! I implore you!”
“Well, stop being an evil bad guy.”
“Fine!”
Zephyr wasn’t sure he heard that correctly.
“E-excuse me?”
Sombra fell back down onto his haunches, “I said fine! I acquiesce to your demand. Is this sufficient to gain sanctuary?”
“Sanctuary?” Zephyr scratched his head. He wasn’t exactly sure what that meant.
So, he said as much. “I’m not exactly sure what that means.”
“Sanctuary,” Sombra said, slowly, “Amnesty. The… I’m asking Equestria to give me protection from the Crystal Empire.”
“Why the Crystal Empire? Didn’t you used to run the joint?”
Sombra just stared at the pegasus with the ridiculous mane.
“Oh,” Zephyr blushed, “Gotcha, gotcha…”
The twisted unicorn sighed, and knelt before his one and only hope. “I beg of you, Sir…”
Sombra squinted at the name tag.
“Sir Zipper. I implore you. Allow me to seek asylum, and I shall do whatever you may ask in return. Mares, power, riches… whatever you desire, is yours!”
Despite flattening his ears at the ‘Zipper’ bit… well, Zephyr Breeze had never received such a tantalizing offer before. He hummed to himself as he considered all the possibilities. Having a King, even a deposed one, as a friend? Or at least indebted to him?
Well, who could pass that up?
“Alright,” he said, slowly, and in the tone of voice he hoped conveyed what he was thinking. “Alright, I think we can make a deal.”
Sombra’s eyes lit up. “We… we can?”
“I think so,” Zephyr smirked, “But…”
“But…?”
Zephyr waggled his eyebrows.
“No…”
He waggled them some more.
“You can’t…”
More waggling. Waggling as even Celestia had not seen.
Sombra’s expression fell by degrees. His eyes lost their sheen, and his jaw slowly shut, drawing his lips into a thin line. The more and more he realized what Zephyr Breeze wanted, the more and more his soul churned and boiled.
But what choice did he really have? Zephyr had left him none… and so…
“Very well,” the once-King Sombra sighed in resignation, and closed his eyes, “You… you win. I shall comply.”
Zephyr hoof-punched the air.
Yes! he thought, It’s all coming up Zephyr!
He turned on his charmingest smile, and held out a hoof, “I take cash or check for my bribes. So, if you got the bits here…”
The room beyond the glass pane began to hum. Crackles of red lightning and black smoke flickered into being, and Sombra’s horn blazed with a sickly green light.
“Uh…” Zephyr looked on, concern overriding his previous hope for a payday, “Yo… what’s going on?”
Sombra’s eyes snapped open, and Zephyr recoiled.
Utter blackness stared back at him.
“Your bribe,” the demonic unicorn intoned, before darkness descended upon the room.
Moments passed. Moments where Zephyr couldn’t hear anything but his heart pounding in his chest. Moments where all he could see was darkness.
He could smell fine, however. Oh, yes. That fine musk of terror he knew so well had filled up his side of the cell. Because fear, amongst other bodily reactions, were natural when something like this happened.
The shadows parted, finally, allowing Zephyr a chance to slap the crystals under… his…
Something was up.
Something was very up.
Sombra… wasn’t very… Sombra, all of a sudden.
Zephyr stared at the creature on the other side of the glass. She was beyond description. A dark grey coat that shimmered, a luxurious black mane that perfectly framed a delicate face and a long, curving neck. She was perfectly proportioned, tall and thin while retaining every curve Zeph could have desired.
She seemed to think so too.
“Mmmm,” she moaned in a honeyed contralto, “It’s been so long since I’ve done this.”
“S-Sombra?”
The long-legged… mare strut up to the glass, and placed one hoof directly on it, just over where Zephyr’s muzzle would be.
“Shhhh!” she said, fluttering long, ladylike eyelashes at him, “Not right now. You can call me… Sombree, I think. How’s that? Big guy?”
One of Zephyr’s hind legs was rhythmically tapping the floor. It was the most his rapidly exploding brain cells could manage at the moment.
“Th…” his tongue was also failing him, “This… is my… bribe?”
Sombree tittered, actually tittered, and said, “Oh, you’re adorable like this. Yes, this is it. I plan to… put on a show for you… to show my appreciation for letting me through.”
And, as she stepped back, her whole-body flexing and moving like liquid glass, causing Zeph’s eyes to widen to the point where they threatened to pop out of his head, the pegasus stallion hardly noticed that he’d already pulled out the asylum paperwork.
Moments later, the door behind Zephyr Breeze opened up, and an older batpony entered. He, unlike Zephyr in so, so, so many ways, was clean-cut, lean, and ready to work the night shift at Border Station…
“Zephyr…” the newly arrived guard’s voice came out hollow. His cat-slit eyes opened wide at what he was witnessing, and his own fang-filled jaw dropped almost out of his head.
“Uh… Gibbous Moon? Sir?”
Zephyr hadn’t turned his head or moved his eyes an inch. And Gibbous couldn’t blame him.
“Zeph… what am I looking at?”
The pegasus worked his jaw a moment.
“Hard to explain… um… Sombra, I don’t think, understands how bribes work.”
Gibbous nodded. “I see,” he slowly dragged over a chair and sat beside his fellow border guard, “So… he thought you were asking for…?”
“I didn’t ask for this,” Zephyr shrugged.
“I hope not,” Gibbous shook his head, “Cuz… is that supposed to be sexy?”
“She’s the worst dancer I’ve ever seen,” Zephyr agreed. “And I’ve seen Princess Twilight try to cut a rug.”
The two watched, in horrified silence, as the former dark stallion utterly and completely failed to dance, shimmy, jive, and twerk in the limited space available to her. One flailing leg seemed to strike the glass a number of times. Normally, Gibbous would suspect such of being a subtle attempt at breaking the glass… but Sombree’s winces and gasps of pain were pretty convincing.
“Beautiful, yes,” Zephyr finally said, more to himself than anypony else, “Elegant? Eh…”
“So, what are you gonna do?”
Zephyr shrugged again. “I filled out the asylum paperwork. Least I could do after… this.”
The room rang out with a metal clang. Both guards flinched at the sound, and looked down at the slightly concussed Sombree.
“Ah’m okay,” she slurred, “meant to do that…”
The former Princess of the Sun, Celestia, blinked once or twice at the conclusion of the tale. She stood outside her Silver Shoals home’s front door, mail in hoof, pink bathrobe still wrapped around her in the early morning chill.
Her eyes, immortal and all-seeing, seemed to glaze over somewhat.
“So… they gave you asylum?”
“Indeed!” the grey and black colored mare laughed triumphantly, “I live! Un-exploded!”
Celestia nodded, slowly, “I see… well, Twilight’s always been one to see the best in others. I hope you’re doing well… Sombree.”
“It’s been an adjustment,” she admitted, hefting her mailbag in her magical aura, “But, so long as the Crystal Ponies never find me, I should be fine.”
“Riiiight,” Celestia said in a tone that said she wouldn’t be too concerned if that happened, if only because the pitchforks and torches wouldn’t be after her, “The Witness Protection Program is the best in the world. You should be alright in their hooves.”
“Don’t you worry about me, Tia…”
“Never call me that.”
“… Celestia…” Sombree coughed, “Um, I have been sworn to the straight and narrow path. I swear to you, my villainy is behind me. All it gained me was pain and misery… and a castle, but that’s less important these days.”
“Of course, right,” Celestia nodded, and then brought a cup of coffee up to her lips. After a few slurps, she cocked her head to one side, and asked, “Before you get back to work, could you answer something for me?”
“Very well,” Sombree sighed, a hint of irritation in her voice, “Be quick about it. I have six-thousand bills and campaign ads to deliver.”
The former Princess leaned forward, and whispered to the former King, “Why… are you still a mare?”
Sombree rolled her eyes, “Celestia, Celestia… has retirement already addled your tiny brain?”
Celestia snorted, air as hot as the sun briefly shooting out of her nostrils and blackening some of the grass in her yard.
Sombree took the hint.
“Um… what I meant to say was, the Program gives disguises to its participants. A genderswap spell was the simplest they could perform, since I refuse to change my superior color-palette.”
Celestia pursed her lips, and said, “Sombree? That’s never been a thing. At best, they should have offered you a new wardrobe, not… this.”
Sombree stared up at the alabaster mare. Then, fangs slipping out, she glanced in the general direction of Canterlot, far, far off in the distance.
“That lying purple bi—”
“Sombra!”
“Right, right!” the dark mare barked, “Favorite student, love her like a daughter, blah blah blah. I gotta get back to work anyway. So, if you’ll excuse me…”
“Ah, Sombree?” Celestia called out, stopping her mailmare from leaving too quickly.
When Sombree looked back over her shoulder, Celestia said, “You know, you can change back at any time… right?”
The dark mare stared at her, almost with incredulity. Then, she chuckled. She snorted. She guffawed, even.
And finally, Sombree smirked, “I know. But Zipper’s picking me up after work, and he likes it.”