Chapter 3: To Defy Fate, to Succumb to Destiny.
Full of the calm and peaceful air of a kingdom at peace, the Crystal Palace of Mirrormere slumbers along with the inhabitants who walk its halls in the day, leaving only those who care for its radiant halls beneath the moon to stir and work at the late hour; the night staff, and restless princes.
The quiet is broken in the kitchen, where normally the day’s food is being prepared for the various events and functions of the next day, by the clatter of an armored figure digging through one of the larders. The staff whispering softly amongst themselves violating the usual tranquil atmosphere.
Yet nopony stops Sombra as he continues to rifle through the pantry, occasionally tossing a foodstuff over a shoulder or carefully removing a more fragile but no less essential item from the space and into his saddlebag. He is about halfway packed when the door to the kitchen opens and the staff fall silent and stare at the advancing figure of a bearded unicorn, the sound of bells spelling out his name even more than words ever could. He comes to stop not far from Sombra, clearing his throat in a fair imitation of gravel sliding down a mountain.
“You are out of your bed at a late hour yet again, young Prince,” Star Swirl starts, a bit sternly. “Shouldn’t you be in your chambers? Soundly asleep beside your beloved?”
“No,” Sombra replies curtly as he continues packing, “it is for her that I am leaving, what I have seen must be dealt with before it has time to grow in power.” He pauses to look over his shoulder at the frowning face of his mother and love’s adoptive grandfather. “You of all should know how strong the Umbra are, Star Swirl, and what they can do when allowed to be free. I shall not, nay I cannot, allow them to gain power and roam free again.”
“I do know,” Star Swirl says softly, his features growing equally soft and tired. “I know far too well the price you pay for fighting them, too. The price paid for seeking them out and not doing as you were told; stay here and fight them when the time comes. Do not go off on your own in a vain attempt to defeat that which you do not understand.”
“I understand the price of failure well enough,” Sombra retorts as he levitates a final item into his bag before the bags themselves float to his back. “And it is not a price I shall pay if I can help it.”
“The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, Sombra, remember that,”the Archmage says as Sombra raises to walk past him, only to step in his way and look him in the eyes. “Your family is here, colt. If this battle must happen, let it in its own time. Do not seek it out.”
“I will do as I must, Star Swirl, do not try to stop me,” Sombra growls as he walks around Star Swirl who simply breaths a slow sigh and allows his ears to lower in defeat. Stopping at the door, Sombra pauses long enough to look over his shoulder, and offer one last thing in a gentle tone. “Take care of her, Star Swirl, if I don’t come back, please tell her I did this because I love her.”
“I will,” the ancient wizard sighs, “I will.”
Once he is beyond the threshold of the kitchen’s door, Sombra picks up his pace so as to get through the hallways of his home without too many attempting to stop him. Striding with purpose and head held high, the young Prince of the Crystal Empire does his best to nod kindly to all he passes, but also to project an air of being rushed which causes many to step out of his way and go about their business without more than a simple greeting.
The few times he is stopped, however, he keeps the conversation short, and requests that they do not tell his mother until dawn has risen, as he does not wish to disturb the Queen’s sleep.
Walking through the final door into the crisp night air of his homeland, Sombra takes a deep breath, his eyes closing for a second as he steels his willpower into the fine edge he’ll need to see his task through, let alone come home and see his mother and his beloved. The thought of returning to Celestia nearly causes him to turn around, however, and seek her once more in their chambers so he could fall into her warm embrace. Yet, he knows his duty, and as those old tomes his mother had made him read had always said ‘Duty is not always easy, and often takes you from your family.’ Surely a pony with a name like Shiro Hoshi knew what he was talking about, right?
As he opens his eyes though, he finds a face nearly nose to nose with him as the pony’s narrowed green-gold eyes glare angrily at him.
“Sombra!” Radiant quietly, but forcefully, says his name. “Where in the name of the Cosmos are you going!?”
“For a stroll?” Sombra hedges, taking a step backwards and clearing his throat.
“In full armor?” Radiant counters, raising a single eyebrow in a fair copy of Amore, “in the middle of the night, with a full pack of supplies?”
“Yes…?” Sombra replies slowly. “I am feeling restless after so many days in the field, and need to get some exercise.”
“Uh-huh,” Radiant sighs as she steps back herself, allowing Sombra to get a good look at her. She is wearing her favorite traveling cloak, along with a saddle with twin satchels. “Look, I know what you’re thinking. And going after whatever you saw in your vision isn’t going to end well.”
“Your father told me much the same,” Sombra says sourly, “but I am not going to abandon my kingdom, nor allow the darkness to consume those I love.”
“I know you won’t,” Radiant says with a smirk, “because you’re a stubborn colt, and if I didn’t love you like a brother I’d haul you back by your ear to Celestia and let her sort you out.”
“But you do love me like a brother…as I love you like a sister so you won’t?” Sombra asks slowly, a hopeful smile on his face.
“Nope,” the heir of Hope says with a chuckle, “instead I am coming with you, to pull your flank out of the fire like I always do when you go do stupid things.”
“You don’t always pull me out of the fire,” the Prince shot back with a smirk, “sometimes I pull you out of the fire. Or that one time I pulled you out of that time loop your father had accidentally set off in his lab.”
“That was one time,” Radiant frowns, her eyes twinkling with amusement.
“Sure, but it was a time loop so it could have been hundreds of times,” Sombra posited with a raised eyebrow. “Regardless, though, you can’t come with me.”
“And how are you going to stop me, O’ Mighty Prince?” Radiant asks as she sits down and crosses her forelegs. “I can simply teleport after you, or just follow you on hoof.”
Sighing and shaking his head, Sombra looks at his adoptive little sister with a sad frown, “because you can’t follow me. I can’t stop you, but you can’t come with me, Radiant.” He steps forward and lays a hoof on her shoulder, his tone growing soft. “I need you here, if something happens to me,” He continues, adding hurriedly as she opens her mouth, “which it won’t, but if something does you’re next in line as Hope’s daughter.”
“That’s a sorry excuse, and you know it,” Radiant growls, her eyes narrowing.
“Then perhaps I just want my little sister to stay here where it’s safe?” Sombra admits, “perhaps I can’t bear to let her go into a battle with a foe she knows nothing about and potentially be a liability in combat?”
“I can fight,” Radiant insists. “Father has taught me a lot, and I learned a few things from your mother too!”
“Regardless, this would be your first time in battle,” Sombra insits, “and that isn’t even accounting for the wastes! No, my dear sister, you must stay.”
“But…” Radiant starts, her eyes starting to mist up.
“No buts, Little Hope,” Sombra says softly, using the name his mother often calls Radiant, “your place is here.”
“As is yours,” the younger unicorn once more insists, though she’s lost much of her fight.
“My place is where I am needed,” Sombra says softly as he pulls the smaller unicorn into a hug, “And right now, I am needed to defeat whatever evil it is threatens our home.”
“Just come home,” Radiant says softly, “I can’t lose you like I lost my mom.”
“I will come home,” Sombra promises before leaning back and smiling, “and just to make sure…” he reaches into his bags with his magic and pulls out a small gem. “This has a location spell on it, it’ll lead you to me should I get lost.”
Accepting the gem in her own magical field, Radiant looks up at Sombra with sad eyes. “And how will I know you’re lost, though?”
“You’ll know,” Sombra chuckes, “you always do.” He then leans in again and kisses her forehead gently. “I love you little sister, please keep my mother and beloved safe.”
“I shall,” Radiant promises with a sniffle, “but only if you promise to return to us safe and healthy.”
“Then I promise, on my honor and the honor of the Empire,” Sombra says softly as he releases his friend and sister. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
Turning from her and starting off, Sombra waits until he is out of sight to allow his shoulders to sag and his breath to release in one long sigh. As confident as he was in front of Radiant, his heart truly isn’t in it.
More than likely, this trip would be his end. But so long as it’s also the end of the Umbra, the Prince of the Crystal Empire doesn't care.
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The blisteringly cold air howls all around Sombra, the bite of it causing him to squint his eyes beneath the minor protection his cowl and scarf offer his face. And beyond that he is blinded further by the snow and shadows that seem to swirl and twist like a snake, confusing and contorting his vision so that every hoofstep the Prince takes fills him with dread that he has been led unto the edge of a cliff or ravine.
It had happened a few times before, at least three times now, when he had judged an area flat and safe only to find a shallow depression or pitfall to trip him up and send him to the icy ground. And each time he hits the ground, a little more of his warmth and strength is sapped from his body as the icy talons of the blizzard all around him seek to claim him. Stumbling over an unseen shard of icy rock jutting from the path before him, Sombra nearly meets the ground again and is forced to reach deep within his dwindling reserve of willpower to keep his hooves beneath him and moving.
The realization that his inner flame is starting to gutter out sends a chill far deeper into Sombra than the cold blizzard ever could. For though his determination to protect everything he loves remains as strong as ever, his body is slowly starting to give out, and for the first time the Prince fears his quest will end in failure. It is with that thought, that Sombra’s hoof strikes another stone hidden in the swirling shadows, and he finds himself falling farther than before.
This impact of his body upon the snow, the weightless feeling of falling, and the cold teeth of the winds and ice all register distantly as the air rushes from his lungs with each yard he slides and tumbles down the embankment. When at last he slides to a slow and painful halt in a patch of deep snow his mind turns towards home and the mare he pledged his heart to. The thoughts of Celestia bolster him somewhat, but not enough to help him lift his head more than a few inches from the cold frozen earth.
As the icy fingers of the blizzard around him claw into him, a small break in the clouds illuminates the area around him, and for a split second he fears the cold has caused him to hallucinate as he spies the form of a tall pony wearing a flowing white cloak walking towards him. Yet as the figure draws closer, Sombra feels hope blossom, a smile forming on his face as he takes a deep breath and shouts.
“Here! Please!” His voice is ragged and worn, but it carries far enough as he watches the mare’s ears twitch as she pauses.
“It is as I feared,” the pony, a mare from her voice, says softly as she once more starts towards him. “You are alive.”
Sombra opens his mouth to continue speaking, only to have the words stolen from his throat as he realizes the mare before him is far taller than any he’d met before. Far taller than him, and a few heads taller than his beloved.
“You should not be here, traveler,” the mare says softly, a golden glow coming from within the deep hood of her cloak, a unicorn then? “This way lies a city forlorn, a jail of those forsaken by the light.” The light envelops Sombra and lifts him to his hooves, a warmth he can only describe as life itself filling him. “Beyond lays eternal torment.”
“I care not,” Sombra barks, coughing as his dry and raw throat twinges. “I must press on, and nothing you shall say will stop me!”
“Why?” The mare asks, turning her hood-shrouded face towards Sombra. “Why do you wish to enter a place you will likely never return from?”
“I must protect my Kingdom,” the Prince says, “I must protect my family… and the mare I love.”
“Then I cannot dissuade you?” The mare asks softly, her hooded face peering his way still.
“No, you cannot,” Sombra replies with conviction.
“Then you must follow me, and stray not from the path my hoofsteps set,” the mare replies with a long suffering sigh. “If you do, you shall join the ranks of those I guard.”
“I shall not stray from your path,” the Prince says in agreement as he stumbles to the mare’s side.
Without further word, the mare starts forward in great ground eating strides that forces Sombra to nealy sprint to keep up. A few times he is forced to jump and leap through barrel deep snow, the mare beside him plowing through with a strength and drive that imparts to Sombra a power far beyond anything he has seen before, and by the time they reach what has to have at one point been a road he is panting and fighting back the numbing darkness at the edge of his vision once more.
Sitting down upon cobblestones long worn down by the ages and made cold as death by the blizzard surrounding them, Sombra takes a moment to catch his breath before looking up.
And what he sees takes that breath away once more.
Standing slightly ajar before him are gates far beyond anything he had ever laid eyes on. Tall as the Crystal Sanctuary back home, and studded with large iron bands, the gates are adorned with carvings and sculptures that must have at one point shown the wealth and prestige of those who ruled from it, yet now were heavily damaged and forlorn beneath the soot and snow.
“What is this place?” Sombra whispers, the thoughts escaping his mouth without his consent.
“A place of eternal sorrow,” the mare offers matter of factly, “though once a place of divine inspiration, a bastion of love and justice; now it stands beyond all time; prison for those that time forgot, and that had best be forgotten.” She looks down at the young prince, her face shrouded in shadows beneath her hood. “Abandon all hope, Ye who would enter here.”
Sombra hesitates for a moment, his heart tugging him back towards where he has come from, but he quickly stuffs that urge away as he does not wish nor believes he can afford fear. “If I need to abandon hope for myself so that my love and Kingdom shall live, so be it,” Sombra says confidently as he takes a step forward, head held high.
“Then your course is set,” the mare says with the tone that summons forth memories of his mother’s disappointed frown. “You are a stubborn colt, but if you shall not change your course then I shall not stop you from entering,” she pauses as she starts forth, quickly overtaking Sombra to lead him through the ruined gates. “But, know if you are to do this, there shall be a price. One you cannot deny me, and that I shall ask of you before you venture beyond my sight.”
“And what price is this?” the prince asks, “and when shall I pay it?”
“Soon, and you shall see,” the mare offers cryptically, “we shall speak further on it when we are in a place of safety, as the streets have too many prying eyes and curious ears.”
The comment forestalls any further conversation between Sombra and the mare as he falls in beside and slightly behind her as they enter the first of many streets within the ruined city.
The street they walk upon is far beyond perhaps anything Sombra could even call a ruin, so few of the buildings remain standing along the wide street, but those few remaining are beautifully constructed and Sombra finds himself wondering about the power and wealth of the nation that had founded this place. But as they progress, his eyes stray more from the ancient houses themselves, and more towards the shadows that fill their empty shells, and the eyes and smoky outlines that seem to lurk within.
“Pay my charges no mind,” the mare offers softly. “They sense your life force, and seek to corrupt it.”
“What are they?” Sombra asks without thinking.
“A horror leftover from the ending of an age, young colt,” the mare says softly. “They are the prisoners I guard, and they bind me here as equally as I bind them.”
“The Umbra?” Sombra ventures as he huddles close to his guide.
“Yes,” the mare whispers, “the doom of Equus, and my family.”
Her tone silences Sombra before he can ask more, and he instead focuses his attention once more on the ruined city all around him.
In the silence that evolves from his guide’s statement, Sombra’s thoughts drift once more to the ruined glory of the city’s building. More specifically how badly damaged everything is the closer they come to what Sombra believes to be the city’s center, or perhaps really one of them from the way the streets are shaped and the fact he can see a towering palace like structure distantly to his right. Yet as they continued down the streets, at one point going around a large snow filled void in the street, the prince realized they were heading to a large tower not unlike his own home.
The tower, quite unlike his own home, however was made of bricks and surrounded by a tall and battlescarred wall, the gates of which had the rusted blades of spears and swords driven into its worn face. Furthermore, there were barricades at least two ponies tall built of rubble and staffed with frayed banners guarding the slightly ajar portal.
Slowing down slightly to look at the ancient battlefield, he nearly loses his guide who continues to walk swiftly to the gate, then through.
Once past the gate, Sombra finds a courtyard free of the evidence of a battle, and instead what looks to be a hastily abandoned encampment, complete with ashen and snow covered cooking fires and a large pavilion tent with a weather worn green banner of a tree hanging from its banner staff. The banner especially captures his attention, though the fact that the entire camp is clearly a last stand of some sort also intrigues him, as the faded oak emblem is known to him from the history books that had survived the fall of Equus.
“That is Life’s banner,” Sombra whispers as he walks over and touches the rough fabric of the banner.
His guide stops near the stairs into the tower, her hooded gaze turning towards Sombra and offering a wane smile. "Once, she strode these streets, yes,” she then sighs and turns her attention to the banner, her smile seeming to melt into a frown. “But, this banner was carried by her Life Guard, who continued to fight on even though the fate of their Virtue was unknown, and likely lost.” Looking back at the entrance to the tower, the mare shivers and draws her tattered cape closer to herself. “But we have spent too long in the cold already, please save anymore questions you may have until we are safe beside the fire in my hearth.”
“As you wish,” Sombra says with a shrug as he quickly trots over to follow the mare inside.
Once inside, the mare secures the door, which itself is a work of art with the beautiful carvings and iron fittings on its face, effectively cutting both the outside’s chill and the light from the sun off. The sudden darkness causes Sombra to panic a bit, lightning his horn and causing the area around him to be cast in the flickering shadows over the surroundings. His eyes are instantly drawn to the massive fallen depiction of the stars and planets surrounding Equus in the center of the vast chamber, followed closely by the vast amount of cots and sleeping rolls strewn around it.
The fact that some of them are occupied by shrouded forms also does not escape him.
“Welcome to the Celestial Tower,” the mare says, he voice carrying through the entire room as her own horn lights and the torches around the room burst to life. “Once known the world over as…”
“The Tower of Fillyon,” Sombra whispers, looking around slowly. “My mother told me stories of this place, but…” he pauses to look at the mare, “Fillyon is gone… lost when Equus fell.”
“Lost for good reason,” the mare intones, “but clearly not lost enough to not be found by foolish young colts.” She then smiles a ghost of a smirk, before turning and walking towards a grand staircase that wraps around and up the outside of the tower before vanishing into the ceiling. “Come, let us get to my apartments, and you can tell me of your mother and how she knows of this place.”
“Her grandmother told her,” Sombra offers as he starts after the mare as she ascends the stairs. “Well, she was her adoptive grandmother, but she told her stories of Equus, of its splendor… and its fall.”
“Who was she?” The mare asks, turning her head slightly, her ears turning towards Sombra. “This grandmother who knew of Equus?”
“Queen Crystal Hope,” Sombra states proudly. “I… only saw her once, before my mother adopted me, but she was an amazing mare. Her very presence just made you feel so…”
“Hopeful,” his guide chuckles, warmth and happiness flowing from the mare for the first time since he’d met her. “So she made it, I knew if anypony could…” She then frowns and looks forward again, “though if you are the adoptive son of her student, I’d expect you to be smarter and avoid such places as this.”
Frowning, Sombra opens his mouth to reply but then thinks better of it as thoughts of a warm fire and a place to lay his head fill his mind. And with those thoughts, memories of a certain mare come to the surface, as well as everything he is fighting to protect. Thoughts of Tia keep him occupied as he follows the mare up the stairs, and through hallways until they reach a pair of pristine wooden doors with a sun and moon carved onto their faces.
“It has been ages since I last entertained visitors,” his guide says softly, her horn glowing bright yellow as the doors swing open on silent henges. “Please, come inside and I’ll light the fire so we can further discuss your reason for being here, and your departure in the morrow.”
“Unless you know of a way I can defeat the Umbra tonight, I won’t be leaving tomorrow,” Sombra stated calmly as he follows his host into the room beyond.
The two quickly cross the entryway and into a large living room filled with sheet covered furniture. Slowing, the Prince goes to the large form of a couch, and runs his hoof over it and causing a large cloud of dust to billow up and force a sneeze out of him.
“Bless you,” the mare says absently as she stands before the large stone hearth at the other end of the room. Her magic is deftly maneuvering wooden logs into the fireplace, which looks to be used fairly regularly if the large cushions in front of it and the relative lack of dust that Sombra can see in the area is any indication. Walking towards one of the large cushions, Sombra continues to look around until he hears the fire come into existence with a roar.
As he starts to settle down his eyes stray up towards the area above the fireplace and the large family portrait there. In it, four alicorns sit smiling out at those looking at the painting, with the two larger being a stallion of dappled rich dark blue and white and a mare of pure white with amber along her hooves and wings. The smaller two, however, cause Sombra to do a double take, as he recognizes a young Celestia sitting beside a small dark blue filly with black dapples. Except, the little dappled filly looks like Luna. But Luna isn’t dappled… right?
The sound of a pained grunt, followed by a relieved sigh brings Sombra’s attention back to the mare beside him, who has laid down on a cushion next to his with her head tipped forward towards the fire.
“So, this is your home?” Sombra asks softly, suddenly finding his voice unsure and quiet in a place that Celestia had once called home.
“It is,” the mare agrees in an equally soft voice. “Once it was a beautiful home, so full of life…” she turns her hooded gaze up towards the picture, not quite all the way back but far enough that Sombra knows she must be gazing at it. “My family and I were so happy here, before it all fell apart. I can still hear the sound of my daughters’ hooves on the wooden floor, their tinkling laughter filling our apartments with joy.” Her melancholy tone tugs at Sombra’s heart, and he shifts over a bit towards her as every instinct tells him to comfort this mare. She sniffles and lowers her gaze back towards the fire, a few trails of wet tears dripping off the end of her muzzle.
“You’re the mare in the picture, aren’t you,” Sombra whispers, his own tone somber, “Lady Aurora?”
Smiling softly, the tears still dripping from her muzzle, Aurora looks over towards Sombra, “another name taught to you by your mother?”
“Yes… but not only her,” Sombra says softly as he come forward hesitantly, the spectre before him now far more frightening than any foe he has faced before. “She told me your name, but it was your daughter… it was Celestia who truly shared memories of you.”
“Tia?” Aurora whispers, her entire body going stiff.
“Tia,” Sombra agrees as he walks closer to the ancient alicorn. “Your daughter, she talks of you and her father often…”
“She would,” Aurora chuckles weakly, “she adored us, the silly filly.” She pauses and Sombra can see her wings flutter weakly beneath her cloak. “Do you know her well? I don’t imagine she’d share stories of her lost parents with just anypony.”
“She is the love of my life, Your Grace,” Sombra states with more confidence then he feels, “She misses you, you know.”
“I know….” Aurora sighs, her entire body seeming to just deflate, “My poor little filly, I wish I could go to her and little Lulu.”
Stepping closer and laying a hoof against Aurora’s shoulder, Sombra is both surprised and disheartened at the fact he can feel her shivering beneath her cloak even with the warmth of the fire.
“Why don’t you?” He finds himself asking.
“I can’t,” she offers softly, almost absently as she reaches a surprisingly steady hoof to her hood. “The mother they knew before the war is gone… and I am just the shell she left behind to guard her final mistake.”
Sombra watches as her hood is pulled back to pool around her shoulders, a sharp gasp at what is beneath, held in only by the fact he has been holding his breath.
The visage of the once beautiful Goddess of the Dawn is as ruined as the tower they sit in, with horrible scars defacing her once regal features with deep canyons and craters, all centered around a thick blindfold that is now damp from the tears the mournful goddess is weeping. Yet, the worst by far is her horn, for now that Sombra can see it a sense of sickening horror fills his stomach at the web of cracks and missing bone, soft light leaking through it and sparking fitfully as she uses her magic to clutch the broach holding her cloak on.
“The Gods of Equus all paid a price to stop the tides of darkness, young colt,” Aurora says, one notched ear turned towards the princeling, “some with their lives, others their souls… and I…”
The broach unlocks with a soft click and her magic winks out, the bright yellow of it leaving the room darker for its absence.
“I paid with my body, my freedom,” Aurora whispers as the cloak falls from her shoulders to pool on the floor.
Taking a step backwards as the cloak falls Sombra forces himself to sit down, the sound of his armored plot hitting the carpet beneath him causes one of Aurora’s massive wings to flutter like a tattered sail in a breeze. For a few of the longest heartbeats he sits motionless as he takes in the fallen Goddess before him, his mind searing everything into his memory from both shock and horror.
Beneath her cloak, The Lady of the Dawn is wearing a set of fine barding that must have at some point been the magnum opus of some long dead armorer, but now the guilding has worn away from age and use with the cold metal beneath on full display and rusting in spots. And the longer he peers at it the more he can make out worn sun and moon motifs, the crescent moon cradling the sun, as well as what he recognizes as the symbols for the various Virtues. Breathing again, his lungs gasping and pleading for air finally overcoming his shock, his eyes are drawn to the mare herself beneath the armor as he rises once more and takes a few steps forward almost without thinking.
Her body is covered with scars, some so deep that Sombra is surprised to not see bone poking through, with the worst damage being her wings which while they still have the majority of their beautiful feathers are a broken and mangled set that no longer sit completely flush with her body. He can also see one of her back legs looks as if a large creature had bit her, the ring of scars left behind by what could only be teeth circling her cutie mark.
Aurora, once the envy of all mares in Equus for her beauty, is broken and battered and Sombra cannot help but feel his heart going out to his love’s mother. Removing one of his iron horseshoes and reaching out with a shaking hoof of his own, he gently touches his host’s shoulder again, the contact causing the large mare to shiver and knicker frightfully.
“Why?” the Prince of the Crystal Empire asks, “why show me?”
“So you’ll know,” Aurora replies in a choked voice, “the price you pay fighting the darkness held in this city.”
“I can defeat it,” Sombra insists, “I can set you free and defeat the darkness that I saw in my vision!”
“No, my little pony,” Aurora chokes, “you cannot, as much as I would love such hope to find a place in my heart again, I know you will fail lest you leave.” She then takes a deep breath and looks towards the fire, “Stay here beside the fire and banish the cold from your bones, I shall go and find us something to eat, then we’ll sort out where you shall stay for the night.” She pauses, a small mischievous smile growing on her face, “Perhaps Celestia's room? I am sure she would not mind her stallion seeing her foalhood room.”
“I-I think I’d like that,” Sombra says warmly, a small smile of his own forming, “and… if you’re willing, I’d love to hear more about your daughters when they were young?”
“That can be arranged,” Aurora chuckles.