(Past, Sombra, on a boat, reminiscing about the last time he saw Harmony)
Ω Sombra Ω
I remember it like it was yesterday. I woke up on a bright sunny day to the smell of raspberry cake and chocolate. I smiled at the smell and then turned and frowned at the calendar. Despair flooded my system as I realized what date it was. Most equines would look forward to a day like today, but not I. No, days like today were filled with over-the-top buffoonery, unwanted celebrations, and lots of glitter. Too much glitter. I had been picking pieces of glitter from my mane since last year’s celebrations. And the posturing of those stupid alicorns on this date was the worst part! It was supposed to be the celebration of my creation, but they had turned it into a stupid holiday!
I absolutely despised my Creation Anniversary!
I decided to put a stop to this charade before it got out of hand. I stomped down the hall to the kitchen. Growling, I turned around and bucked the kitchen door open. It hit the wall with bang! But the blasted door slammed right back into my face when I turned to go in. My horn got stuck in the door. I saw silver magic leave the door as I tried vainly to tug my horn free. My horn was stuck to the door like somepony had glued it there. Only one creature would dare do something like this.
Harmony.
I heard hoof steps ringing closer and closer in the hall. Each clop of her hooves made the dread inside me to grow. My ire regarding the festivities of today still clung to the forefront of my mind, but this dread was staging a remarkable coup and was winning quite handily. Why could not Harmony have normal punishments for me? Why did she feel the need to be creative in her penalties?
“Are you done throwing your tantrum, colt?” she whispered in my ear. I turned my eyes in the direction of her voice, finding Harmony’s angry smirk meeting my gaze. “Yes?” I answered weakly as I stared into the abyssal grin containing Harmony’s rage. She graced me with one of her condescending smiles. Harmony knew she had won. She always had.
“Good! Glad to see we are on the same page,” she spoke through her unnatural smile. I huffed in annoyance at her remark.
“Now, Sombra, do not give me that attitude. Do you want to be stuck in that door for the rest of the day? No? I did not think so. Here, let me help you.” I fell on my butt at the blast of silver magic which shot me out of the door. Harmony walked over to where I was sitting and stuck out her hoof.
I wrapped my foreleg around hers, and she pulled me back up into a standing position. I mumbled a weak ‘thank you,’ and Harmony just nodded. I turned to find my gremlin of a student standing there, her mouth wide open. I was still quite incensed with her for shaving my mane and tail. I mean, who does that?! She also turned my coat the most horrendous shade of pink – it didn’t even match anything in the house! I narrowed my eyes at my gremlin, and she shut her mouth. I smirked, happy to have at least this much control on this anniversary. But Harmony whacked me upside the head with her wing for that small action.
“Do you not have somewhere to be, Sombra?” Harmony asked in the most patronizing tone. “Like some sort of party, perhaps? They cannot celebrate your Creation Anniversary without you in attendance. So, I will teleport you there, free of charge. Do not worry. I will take care of Midnight while you are gone. Have fun!”
“Wait!”
Too late. She never listened to me! I did not want to visit this abhorrent scene! And yet, I was poofed into the middle of Anteras’s party for this “auspicious” occasion. Dread flooded my system (again) as I watched the heads of alicorns near me turn in my direction in unison. A squeal could be heard over the chatter, silencing the quiet conversations that had arisen at my arrival.
‘Oh, no. Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Oh, why must I suffer like this!’ I thought as Anteras plastered herself to my side as firmly as my horn had been attached to the kitchen door.
“Hey, hunk o’ stallion, going my way?” she asked in a futile attempt to sound appealing.
“Uh, no… you stuck yourself to me much too closely and excitedly for my comfort,” I mumbled. “Now, please, get off me.” I tried to move anywhere else, but Anteras stubbornly re-adhered herself to my side.
“Come, stud, let us get some drinks.”
“Let us not!”
As expected, I was ignored and dragged over to the drink table. It was littered with horrible smelling drinks and very tipsy alicorns. I knew what I was going to do. Not drink any of that. Or that. Nor that. I was not even sure what that one was. They ate that? No, thank you. I was going home! As soon as I lost my tail. I was not a fan of pin the tail on the alicorn. Not the paper game, and certainly not this mare’s imitation. Move, Anteras. Grr… she was not moving.
She was holding a drink and shoving it into my face. She smiled expectantly, waiting for me to take a drink. Crap… I absolutely did not want to… wait. I had an idea! I cast a mini spell to make the drink appear to evaporate into thin air as if I was “drinking” it. Yeah, that would work. Anteras seemed to accept my ruse, and her smile grew eerier. Well then…
“Come, let us dance!”
“Let us not!”
As per her custom, I was ignored and dragged off to the dance floor. I just stood there as the rest of alicorn population gravitated toward us. In a sea of dancing bodies, I was an island of discomfort. This was a nightmare to haunt me for the rest of my life. Anteras kept bumping into me to make me move. I stood stiffly, against any sort of movement. I thought I heard a growl but could not distinguish it from the crowd and the loud music.
“Come, let us eat!” she yelled in my ear. I wondered if her yelling had caused this sudden ringing in my ears. Thanks for that…
“Let us not!” I rebutted. However, as she had done before… you get the point. I found myself at the food table, wondering where in my life it had all gone wrong. I tried to ignore the alicorn as she attempted to stuff my face with whatever edibles she could get her hooves on. I spotted a table with random wrapped packages on it. Lo and behold, I then spotted Da’lak’ar putting a blue and silver package on the table. He saw me glaring at him and grinned and poofed into navy glitter. I noticed that he took the box with him. Well, I decided to take a page out of his book and poof along home. Bye!
I collapsed in a heap of exhaustion. I swore I could not move. Not now, not ever. Light blue hooves filled my line of vision. Questioning amethyst eyes peered into my tired ones. “Are you okay?” my gremlin of a pupil asked. I gave her a look which clearly responded, ‘Do I look okay?’
“There is something I want to show you,” the gremlin said. “Come on, get up!”
“Naw, I don’ wanna,” I said in a harsh Scottish brogue. When tired, I had this admittedly childish tendency to desire that others become as frustrated trying to listen to me as I become listening to them. Scottish accents seemed to do the trick best. “Donnae make me, ye little nugget. If’n ye make me, I’m tae give ye a square go! Ye donnae want that, ye wee bairn!”
I felt something crawling underneath my belly. I lowered my head to find Midnight struggling to crawl her way underneath me. It appeared that she was trying to stand up and carry me on her back to her destination, or possibly to cause me to stand up myself. It was rather comical to look at. I let out a good belly laugh despite myself. Midnight cast me a dirty look – how dare she? – and resumed her efforts. I could sense her determination would extend far past her physical abilities. So I took pity on the mare and stood up after one more second of laziness. I grinned casually at her look of exhausted frustration.
“By Harmony, what have you’ve been eating?” she asked me, quite rudely, as she groaned and stretched her back in mild symptoms of pain.
“Food,” I said plainly. She cast ice daggers at me. These were figurative ice daggers; I hadn’t gotten around to teaching her that spell, thank Harmony. She grumbled out a ‘come on’ as she brushed past me. I had half a mind to flop back to the ground just to spite her. As that thought crossed my mind, however, I remembered that the little gremlin had Harmony wrapped around her hoof. How was such a little demon mare able to develop a deeper relationship with my creator than I was? I was supposed to be Harmony’s favorite! Grumble, grumble. Grumble. Mumble. Complain.
The gremlin stopped and turned around. She started to tap her left hoof in the most irritating way. I rolled my eyes and started walking her way. In response, she gave me a surprisingly dazzling smile and turned back in the direction she was heading. I followed her to the dining room to find that it had been decorated! Midnight turned around and shouted,
“Surprise!” along with (to my utter surprise) Harmony. The room was strewn with purple, blue, orange, pink, yellow, and white ribbons. The table was bedecked with a black tablecloth. The centerpiece featured red diamonds, twisted in red wire to make an elaborate design, carefully arranged in a clear crystal bowl that was quite pleasing to the eyes. A raspberry cake with black frosting sat on one side of the centerpiece, while a bowl filled with freshly chopped mangos graced the other side. Midnight trotted up to me and hung a necklace made of red and black flowers around my neck.
She smiled at me and said, “Happy Creation Day, and Harmony bless you with many fruitful years to come! Now let’s eat!”
“What do you mean ‘Happy Creation Day’?” I asked in befuddlement.
Midnight simply replied, “It is the day that our great and glorious Creator first made our world. We celebrate it to show our gratitude and thanksgiving. We pledge on this day that we will live our lives to honor Harmony and uphold her decrees to the best of our abilities. We celebrate the lives of our families by spending the whole day with them. We thank Harmony for giving us a leader and role model in the Firstborn. Black, red, purple, blue, orange, pink, yellow, and white are all special colors we decorate our homes with to show our devotion. So, Sombra, Happy Creation Day, and Harmony bless you with many fruitful years to come!“
Tears formed in my eyes at her speech. It was rather touching to be the guest of honor at this intimate affair. It also amplified the pressure and guilt I had built up over the last fifty years for not living up to her ideals or any other pony’s, possibly even Harmony’s.
“You’ve been having a rough week, so I decided to surprise you by celebrating this special day with you! It’s always more fun when you can celebrate Creation Day with another part of Harmony’s creation! I needed you out of the house so I could set up the decorations. I have no clue where Harmony sent you, but I hoped you would go to the market and get some more mangos. My mom came over and helped out, too, and so did Harmony! My mom is kinda mad at me for celebrating this day without her, but she got over it when I told her that I’m going to spend the whole next week with her. So, anyway, would you like to eat and celebrate with me?”
“Let me get this straight. So, what you are saying is that I get a whole week to myself?”
“Yes, but…”
“Let us celebrate!”
Ω
I smiled at this memory as I watched the waves crash into the boat. Midnight was fast asleep in our cabin below deck. I did not wish to wake her with my troubling thoughts, not when she was already helping so much by searching for her with me, so I had gone up to the deck to think. At least I had one good memory upon which to reminisce. A flash of navy-blue light temporarily blinded me in my left eye. I turned around to find Da’lak’ar with that silver and blue package stowed in his mouth. He had a stupid grin on his face as he put the package down on the deck. With a knowing grin, he poofed into navy glitter once again. Great, now I had more glitter to clean out of my mane.
I nudged the package with my hoof. When it didn’t explode, I picked it up with my magic and went to bed. I decided I would deal with it tomorrow. Good night, everypony.