//------------------------------//
// Fifteen: All's Well That Ends... Umm... Wait... 
// Story: Obsidian: Shards Of Sombra 
// by Randimaxis 
//------------------------------//

About an hour later, Shining Armor had finally finished writing the last bit of their explanation down on the papers he'd been filling out since they arrived here, and then put the clipboard to the side, giving a soft sigh as he did. 

"... and you say that Peridot is gone now?  No more incidents involving him?  No more curses in our future from this individual?"

Obsidian didn't even have the ability to make any kind of mess, considering her state during the fight.  It felt like a small miracle that she didn't fall unconscious immediately afterwards.  Apparently this curse wasn't simply making ponies tired, but perhaps blocking their energy?  Their strength?  She'd need to study it closer to know for certain, but with Peridot and his notes gone... she wasn't really able to do that now. 

"My brother was exceedingly honest - perhaps too much so.  At the end, he said that destroying the notebook would end him - I don't have any reason to believe he could return, in any way... and likely wouldn't want to," she admitted sadly.

Shining nodded, then sat back in his seat and looked to Siddy's left. "And you don't feel anything out of the ordinary?" 

"No, Uncle Shiny," Midnight said with a smile.  "I feel fine now.  I know you'll probably tell Mom all about this, but I assure you, I feel just fine."

Now, he looked to her right, and his muzzle took on a slightly kinder look.  "And YOU'RE okay too, sugarlump?"

Flurry Heart rolled her eyes.  "Ugh, Dad!  I told you not to call me that in public!"

That brought a smile to the elder captain's face, and he looked all three of them over. "Well, I'm glad this turned out well; curses running rampant in Equestria are no laughing matter, and I hesitate to think of what might have happened if even ONE thing had gone differently.  You have some sort of luck about you, Obsidian... and for that, I'm eternally grateful." 

He stood up.  "Alright - I've arranged quarters for you Obsidian, and you'll have a free train ticket back to Ponyville tomorrow.  I've already sent word back to Twily- I mean, er, Princess Twilight, and word has already come back that everyone involved is well and alive." He cleared his throat.  "I have been told, however, that Tourmaline is being held in a cell until they can replace his magic restraint, but I'm told he'll be released as soon as that's done, so no worries there.  He's even being kept in one of the nicer cells, so he's not shivering in a cold cell.  No worries."

So Obsidian had finally met an Equestrian with a father!  Really, considering all of her friends, she almost believed that they multiplied by parthenogenesis!  It reminded her to pester Cupcake a bit more about his own father and, sooner or later, perhaps even meet him. 

"I'm not sure if I would call that 'luck'... rather more like a 'trouble magnet'," Obsidian rubbed her temple with a hoof.  Her first meeting with her siblings, and she had to defeat an undead invasion.  Her second meeting, and she had to stop a plague from wrecking the entire world.  She was somewhat afraid to meet the rest of them - and as Peridot said, there would be a 'rest of them'.

"I'll need to talk about my siblings with the princess... but honestly, it's not like Tourmaline would attack anypony, I'll have you know."  Except maybe Amethyst, of course.  "If I may, there is also one more issue I'd like to ask about.  May I?"

Shining Armor regarded her for a moment, then nodded solemnly.

"My friends were afraid about the general reaction if I came to visit the Crystal Empire.  Is there anything I need to worry about?  Because I'd like to visit this place properly, with no races against death, no pursuing villains and so on."

He looked at her for a moment, steepled his hooves and took a deep breath, letting it out before he answered. "Well... honestly?  When you were first discovered, my wife and I had quite a discussion about you.  And frankly, I admit that my side of it wasn't very kind.  Your ancestry left me... apprehensive at you ever being allowed into the Crystal Kingdom again at all.  I made a number of points based on the idea that we had no way to tell what your plans were, what you might try, or even if you'd cause any trouble in Ponyville..."

He then fixed her with a kinder look.  "But my wife, Princess Cadence, thought differently.  She felt that you deserved a chance to prove yourself, and that we would be remiss to allow you to show us what kind of pony you are.  She's always been about spreading love... and you were no exception to that rule.  I wasn't on board with the idea... at first.  But when my sister told me about what you'd done and how you defeated Sombra, regardless of who he was to you... well, I guess you swayed me to your side of the fence, so to speak."

"Obsidian, if you want to visit the Crystal Empire, all you have to do is talk to either Princess Twilight or Spike; they'll arrange things and inform us, and we can prepare a passport for you to come and go as you please.  You are not at all restricted from here - your original home - as long as you continue to prove yourself to be worthy of such."

He gave a slight frown.  "Tourmaline and Amethyst, however, will remain banned from the kingdom until they have earned the trust of the populace, and their restraints are legitimately removed.  Until then, those two are a flat 'no'.  Understood?"

Good to know.  It seemed that they would be able to visit after all, just as she had promised to Gypsy - though it would be wise to let the Crystal Ponies clean up the mess in the Libratorium first; the poor puppy would have a heart attack if he could see it now. 

"I'm sure Tourmaline will get his restrictions removed soon, and Amethyst... well, I'm not that crazy about bringing her anywhere, so yes, it's well understood. Thank you."  Maybe it wasn't going to let her seize any sort of power in the kingdom of her father... but it was good enough for now, anyway.  "Is there anything else for us to discuss...?"

Shining Armor shook his head.  "If anything else crops up about this, I'll send word to you, and we'll discuss it then; for now, I believe that's everything, as far as I know."

He stood up from behind his desk, and made his way over to where the three of them sat. "I'm glad no one was hurt, and I'm actually sorta looking forward to your visit now - maybe you and Flurry here could even end up being besties, eventually?"

"Dad.  Please.  You make is sound so... dorky."

He gave a laugh, then went to the office door and opened it.  "Midnight, you're to get home to your mother immediately; I'm sure she's practically chomping at the bit to see you well.  Flurry, hon?  If you would, will you take Obsidian here to The Crystal Inn?   The Royalty Suite there is waiting for her."

Flurry nodded, then paused.  "Wait... not inside the palace?"

The captain leveled a look at his daughter.  "Next time, Flur - baby steps, okay?"

She rolled her eyes, sighed, put her hood back up and motioned to Obsidian.  "C'mon... before my Dad gets all weird again."

To be fair, Obsidian would probably be able to get back to her old room to rest for the night, if necessary.  In fact, it could be an interesting experience - she wondered if they'd found it at all, breaking through all the secret paths, locks and other unpleasant things put in place by her father.  Maybe she could get there, after all?  "As far as I'm concerned, we've already bonded somewhat over this experience.  Farewell, prince,"  She stood up and went with Flurry out of the room.

Once outside, Midnight bid his farewells and headed presumably for home; once he was gone, Flurry Heart looked over at Obsidian and gave a smirk as she motioned to the office door. "So, yeah - that's my Dad.  Sorry he's sort of a tightass, but he takes his job pretty seriously, you know?  Plus, it's where he really excels, too - keeping others safe and stuff like that.  You shoulda seen him when-" She stopped in mid-sentence, then just chuckled.  "Well, he's been pretty active, even for a geezer.  But he's my Dad and stuff."

"He seems to be a... different type of father than mine was," Obsidian noticed as they walked.

The two of them continued along, Flurry leading by pointing as she walked next to Obsidian. "So, I hear you saved Ponyville; did you do it by yourself, or was it more of a team effort?"

"Oh, it was very clearly a team effort - even when I had this Light Amulet, and was filled with so much power that I felt like a goddess!  My friends helped me greatly with the fight, and it was their friendship that kept fueling my magic.  I had to do a few things myself, especially when my sister captured us... but without my friends, my father would most likely be sitting on the throne in this very palace."

Which sadly wouldn't be as nice a thought as Obsidian had once believed, not such a long time ago.  She had learned a lot since the Equestrians had woken her up.

"Yeah," Flurry waved a dismissive hoof, "friendship is magic and all.  I hear that shit all the time, and believe me, no matter how tired I get of hearing it... it fucking works, so I don't really knock it."

"Still, I'm kinda curious as to who latched their proverbial ships to your dock - I mean, yeah, I know about Cupcake.  Frankly, who doesn't?  But what about the rest?  I hear you actually have one of the few diamond dogs that go to the school for a friend.  Is that true?  What's he like?"

Obsidian gave a soft grin.  "Gypsy Rover is poised to be a great scholar, one day.  In fact I think you'll end up meeting him sooner or later, because I'd promised him yesterday to visit the Delvar Libratorium with him.  He was very excited about this prospect, so I'm not going to renege on this promise. Oh, and he likes origami, too.  The rest... you know, just sort of... happened.  You meet one friend, then that friend shows you another, and before you realize it, you are swarmed with creatures that just want to tell you that they like you," she shrugged slightly.

The fact that friendship worked was one of the very important reasons why Obsidian was so very insistent for her siblings to to give up mass murder, cruelty, savagery and other things during their past meetings.  Oh, and she didn't like wastefulness, either.

"By the way, I'd like to check something in one of the store rooms... at least it was used for storage when I was here last time.  Second door to the left from the throne room's left rear door?"

She lifted an eyebrow as Obsidian mentioned the storeroom.  "Those lead to... okay, that's kinda funny.  It's Mom's sewing parlour now; she LOVES to sew, and she makes all sorts of shit there.  Some of it's even good.  Why - what was it?"

Sewing parlour... hunh.  A sewing alicorn?  Flurry was right, it was a bit funny.

"I simply thought I could check on my old room, that's all.  You know, for me, only a few weeks or so have passed since I last saw it."

Flurry stopped.  "That was your room?  Or, like, did it LEAD to your room, because Mom said there used to be a door or some shit there; said it led to the catacombs, where I'm not supposed to be... even though I go there anyway!" 

She laughed brightly.  "Hey, if you're down for it, I can take you there?  There's a LOT of ways in, and only a few that Mom and Dad know about!  It's, like, HUGE and shit... I've wandered down there off and on for YEARS, and I even have a little hidey-hole in there, too.  I mean, y'know," she cleared her throat and tried to act as though it weren't as big of a deal as she'd initially showed it to be, "if you want to do that kinda stuff, though."

"It did once lead to my room, yes,"  So they found a path to the underground corridors, did they?  She was curious if they had found the door to her room as well; she remembered that she had always preferred them closed.  "The shortest way to my room goes through your mother's sewing parlour, but I should be able to find it easily enough from other ways in, too." 

Hidey-hole?  Normal ponies were strange.

Flurry, though trying to act cool, obviously wanted to share what she'd found with Obsidian; she just didn't want to look like a dork when she did. "So... that's a 'yes' to the catacombs, then?  I mean, if you wanna..."

"Yes, yes it is. Besides, I'm curious how many paths, secret doors and other 'fun stuff' you've found."  Obsidian would perhaps be a bit paranoid about living in a palace with unknown catacombs, built by the previous ruler who could possibly return at any time.

Flur tried her best to maintain her aloof attitude, to keep her cool and level-headed personality intact, so as not to appear to be just as much of a dork as her father was. 

It lasted all of three seconds.

"Okay, c'mon!" She galloped away down next to The Crystal Inn, and made her way around the back.  From there, she hopped over some low hedges, snaked her way under some tree roots and squeezed past two large boulders before zeroing in on a single spot on the grass that was a bit browninsh.  Not suspiciously so to passersby... but obviously a secret entrance to Obsidian.

The alicorn mare knocked a hoof on it squarely five times, and it sunk into the ground, revealing a staircase inside, made of thick purple crystal. "Okay, right down here - this shit's gonna blow your mi-... wait.  You've probably SEEN this already." Her crestfallen expression lasted as long as her cool one.  "Fuck it!  I wanna show it off anyway!"

She hightailed down the stairs and into the cool, dank caverns beneath.  The earthy smells... the cool air... the chilled temperature...

... home...

From what she was seeing here, not only had they found different ways in, but they even managed to get to those areas which were beyond the palace?  Maybe the princess hadn't found it from the inside, as Obsidian's room was one place that had been rather hard to find.  Quite impressive.

"You know, until recently, I'd never left the palace or this place much.  In fact, the first time I'd ever stepped outside into the city was when the Equestrians found me," she said with a slightly nostalgic tint to her voice as she stepped down into the familiar dungeons.

They were, hmmm... ah, yes!  There was the training room to the left - now it should be a fairly simple matter to locate her own quarters.  "Let's go; it's not that far," she confidently trotted forward, counting corridors.  One to the left, one to the right, second to the right... okay, now turn right... 

"Pretty clever on my father's part, to build something so impressive and hidden from the public, yes?" she asked, proud at her parent's achievement.

Flurry watched with a modicum of awe as Obsidian expertly gided her through the underground tun-

Wait.

Around a corner, there was a passage that Obsidian had never seen before.  It looked as though it had been made only about a decade or so ago, from the look of the crystal surrounding it.  What was this?  Still, her room wasn't far at all, and Flurry seemed eager to see what Obsidian, her newest friend, was going to show her.

Were the Equestrians using this place as well?  Or perhaps Flurry, using some of those alicorn powers of hers, built it as her so-called hidey-hole?  It could be dangerous... and frakly, Obsidian had already had her token dangerous adventure today. Which meant that luck was on her side, right?

"Flurry... this cavern is new; have you ever seen it before?"  It's not just that Obsidian didn't noticed it before - it was fresh.

"Please be careful, okay?  Don't touch anything yet," she trotted closer, checking the surroundings with her magic.  Another sibling?  Onyx's hideout?

"That's the place," she chuckled knowingly, "THAT was where there'd been this cave-in, and Dad had a few workers clear the way.  They found some cool rooms in there, and there's even some weird-looking displays for these really pretty crystals!  Other than that, it's harmless, I promise... I can show you, if you want?"

She seemed happy enough to explain... but something about this tunnel still seemed... strange.

By Darkness, it was a rather mundane explanation... but something here still felt very, very wrong, and Obsidian was not going to fall into another trap and potentially doom Equestria yet again.

"I'm curious, but first... pray tell, do you know how to teleport?  Just in case there might be another murderous sibling of mine, or perhaps a mad copy of my father, or a pet monster of his or anything like that..."

Flurry laughed with some snark.  "What, you think I'm dumb enough to hang out down here if there's some freaky fucking monsters around?  Come on, gimme a break!  There's just the weird rooms, and that's all - no critters, no copies, and no fucking ponies!  I swear, we're the only living things down here... except for a few spiders, but they're no bigger than my hoof, and they squash easily."

She blushed a bit.  "D-don't tell Fluttershy that part, okay?"

Flurry began just moseying down into the new tunnel, heedless of any possible threats therein. "Don't be a pussy, Sids!  Let me show you the Black Room - it's wicked cool!"

She was too confident and didn't answer Obsidian's rather important question - and the Dark Princess was (understandably) a bit afraid about some unknown rooms in her father's catacombs.

"I'm not a cat," she said petulantly.  Why would she call her a cat?  It really made no sense. 

"And Flurry!  The Libratorium was full of old books, and yet there was my brother who almost unleashed a plague... wait for me!"  

She had to follow Flurry - to protect her from any dangers that could be hidden inside this old place.  Besides, she didn't want another alicorn possession around to have to deal with; the next one might be worse, right?

As they walked together, Obsidian VERY much got chills down her back; something about this place almost called out to her; she could feel it in her very core as it seemed as though, even though she didn't now this place, she should have...

There were a few doorways down here, each leading to an antechamber, and each one of a different color.  However, the one Flurry led her to was black.  

Pitch black.  Jet black.  Blackest black.

The entire room was smooth-walled, but carved at a slightly askew angle that made anyone in it feel as though the room was tilting to the right a bit.  The black stone was cool to the touch, and the high ceiling had only a few stalactites growing from it - which were black as well. In the center of the back wall was what looked to be a finely chiseled altar of the same black material.  Nothing stood on it at all, but underneath it was what (at first) appeared to be cracks in the surface. 

However, they weren't cracks - they were ancient Crystallian letters, carved into the altar over a thousand years ago, though still as crisp and cut as the day they were made.  They were four letters, evenly spaced and elegantly carved.

They were, in order:


O - N - Y - X


"Pretty cool, right?"  Flurry asked.