They sat and they waited. Two days is what they understood. The tension of waiting without seeing the sky made it worse. However Sombra noticed his dam looked… nervous. Throughout their time in this cell he realised she seemed upset about him. She would look over his weak emaciated body.
“Dammi, you ok?” he asked, giving her a small lick on the chin.
“I’m fine” he didn’t believe her. He stared at her, she winced as she started to cry.
“It’s just…you should have started growing…and you haven’t” he didn’t understand her. He believed he was growing, the cell had gotten smaller.
“You’re in your seven hundreds, you should of finished growing in height by now. Your back hooves should have spit by know and they haven’t…I fear you’ve been stunted and I don’t know if you can recover from it” she sunk down to the floor. “I’m useless. No matter how much I gave up food for you, you still haven’t grown and I couldn’t even stop that. I should of let you stay with Umbralis and you wouldn’t be here and you would be safe” she crumpled down even more and tears streamed down her cheeks. Laboured breathing shook her ribs as she wept into her forelegs. Sombra had never seen her truly cry before but he certainly didn’t like it. He nibbled and licked her withers, ignoring the foul taste of waste and blood on his tongue.
But she didn’t get long to cry.
The door was pushed open and the two ponies came rushing in, each wearing a black neck bow. They went across the cells unlocking each cell door. He could hear the commotion outside. Their cell was unlocked and his dam almost turned to normal, jumping to her hooves and claws. The stallion gave them a smile before they all bolted out the door. There was a struggle to get up the stairs as none wanted to go single file, although as they burst through the castle pillar they became part of the chaos.
There were umbrum and ponies left and right. Him and his dam made a run for the mountains but they were intercepted by incredibly angry guards. They weren’t slow to poke them with spears and others came to the side spraying them down with acid. His dam fort through and with a newfound vigour picked them up in her jaws and lobbed them into walls.
Another pony sprinted towards them, she too had a black bow. Instead of attacking she pulled them to the side of a house where her and another couple unwrapped the chains. They didn’t leave however without pain as they had to slowly pull them out of skin that had attempted to grow over the chains. While they burned they felt so much lighter and faster as they were let go.
Sombra ran by his dam and he watched as umbrum slaughtered the ponies that had kept them prisoners for so long. They ran through red puddles as they aimed for the mountains, weaving between the houses as they attempted to avoid the guards. His hoof caught on a piece of crystal that had fell to the ground, slicing his already abused legs and making him fall.
“Come on get up!” his dam nearly yelled at him as she grabbed him by the scruff and hauled his frail body up. They continued to run when a heavy net of weighted rope pulled his dam down. Guards came from the sides along with angry owners who held her down with spears or rods.
“RUN!” she screamed to him as she fought the rope as her hip was impaled and she was held to the grassy floor. Sombra just ran. Bounding between buildings he got further and further from the castle. Being much smaller many struggled to get a good hit or aim at him. Until he felt a piercing pain shoot through his rump making him collapse again. He saw a long piece of wood with halved feathers on its end stick out of him. It bleed down his leg as he attempted to get up. An aggravated stallion pinned him down, a long blade held in his mouth. Sombra screwed his eyes shut as he tried to shake of the pony, just as the blade came down the stallion was de-spined above him.
He looked up to see two familiar yellow eyed umbrum. His cousins.
“Come on let’s go!” Yesqen pulled him up while Yesric bucked a guard in the head. The trio began sprinting towards the snow capped mountains again. They seemed much healthier than him, having a little meat on their bones. He struggled to keep up but his adrenaline kept him up to pace.
A bright blinding glow started to shine from the base of the castle. The wind swirled as magic was drawn from the air.
They kept sprinting down the crystal road as the glow grew. Just as they made it to the grass the twins were shot multiple times, they fell to the ground just as that glow turned into a giant magical blast. As of which Sombra just avoided it as he ran through the grasslands, his tail hairs at most were eviscerated.
He kept running but eventually he grew tired. A large tree nearby drew his eye. Its branches hung down like a waterfall. It seemed safe. His tired legs took him towards it, he could hear the calming rush of water nearby. Memories of the melting North in the day came back to him. He passed the gentle branches and flopped down at the base of the trunk. He nestled himself between its sprawling roots, the canopy of leaves comforted him.
As the adrenaline wore away he felt the pain all over again. Everywhere stung and burned and he was exhausted. But he couldn’t fall asleep. The rushing water made him realise just how thirsty he was. Weakly he pulled himself up and poked back through the leaves. A wide river rushed down from the North, crystal clear water made from the glaciers sprinted past him. He greedily lapped up the water eventually turning to biting the water to get a mouth full.
He turned back to the castle with dripping lips. It seemed calm now. He let out a measly whinny. Then another. But he got no response, not even from a completely unrelated umbrum. Defeated he turned back to the tree and rested back down in the roots. It was only then did his mind deem it safe enough to sleep, even if he didn’t understand why. But he couldn’t deny it. So he drifted away in those roots.