Crystal crystal. She needed some. She could just conjure some, that did work, sure. It was fine, really. She'd made magic items out of self-made crystal before! But... there was a difference. If she wanted the best, she needed crystal that wasn't literally just made.
Umbra listed to the side against the bed with a sigh and it rustled and jingled back at her.
Jingled? She jerked upright and reached a hoof, feeling over the blanket. It had crystals woven into it, through it, giving it the shiny sparkle she had thought was just a 'crystal pony' thing. Everything of theirs seemed to shine!
Perhaps because most of their things had literal crystals in it?
There wasn't time to belabor that thought. She turned her deep shadow away from the guard and instead into the crystal mesh that was worked into the blanket. The poor stallion began to whimper, breathing picking up sharply. The nightmares had returned without delay. "Wait for me, wait!"
He began to relax after only a tense moment. The shadow was soaking into the blanket, which surrounded him. Umbra thought back to what she had been told. Each magic item was a little bit of onself, given up to make a permanent mark on the world. She couldn't make shadow blankets for the entire city.
But she could protect that one pony. She brought her hooves down, sealing the magic within. "Rest..."
"Ma'am?" The nurse was peeking in from the hallway. "Is he better? Did you save him?"
"No." Umbra turned away from the stallion towards the nurse. "I bought him some time, and a moment of respite. Keep that blanket nice and comfy on him." She walked briskly past the nurse, short of a trot. "I need to fix this."
"It's only the first day," grumped the male leader of the guild.
The female smiled confidently. "You underestimate the glory of Umbra. We can still make good on the agreement."
"How?!" He threw a hoof wide. "If she is not building, we cannot follow her and earn our share. Even were she to take a week away, she will still swoop in and take the rest in the blink of an eye."
The mare leaned forward, head on her cupped hooves. "This is Umbra, brave and glorious. If we start with the houses she has already fashioned..."
"Would she?" He raised an ear. "I am certain she meant new houses."
"I feel confident she will pay for every house we work on." She nodded with complete, perhaps smug, assurance. "Let's make them shine, and finish their furnishings. We will make them ready for the crown's use. That will please her, and Umbra. Umbra will pay." She raised a hoof. "If she does not, I will."
His eyes widened. "Do you not realize how many bits you are promising?!"
"That is just how confident I am. She will pay." She slid to her hooves. "So long as we do our part."
Ignorant of the threat upon them, the builder's guild would continue the project to complete the requested housing.
"Sir!" The pony pointed out. "I saw something." He waved a hoof. "Shadow, I think, sir."
Shining scowled, looking over with his own goggles, but there was nothing there. "Already gone?"
"It dashed, sir." The stallion scowled as he paced in place as if to get a better view. "Between buildings. I saw it!"
"I trust you." Shining considered a moment, then smiled. "I'm on the case."
With a shining shield shimmering around him, Shining Armor stepped from the palace, headed towards the spotting. "This has to stop." And he'd do it... somehow...
"You look important." The voice came in almost a whisper from around the corner. "Are you lost?"
Shining fueled his shield all the more as he advanced. "Who goes there?"
"Your fear is... delicious." As Shining reached the corner, he could see the pale, ghostly, pony smirking at him. "And we've only just met, and already you are terrified of me. How... delightful."
"I'm not scared of what I don't know," firmly barked out Shining.
"Now you're lying. A brave lie." The pony began to approach him at a walk. "Such a sparkling shield. Do you feel... safe?"
"If you know so much." Shining stood tall and straight. "Then you know I do."
"Oh, I do... It's... hmm, so prideful." He took another step, sunken eyes on Shining's. "What will they think, when they find you, broken."
A new voice came from above, descending rapidly, "They'll never know!" Umbra connected with the shadow pony, hoof crashing into his cheek as she came down, thumping heavily to the ground. "Ow." The landing hadn't exactly been as she has envisioned it. "I'm here!" she announced to them both. "And you're going down, unless you want to chill out and talk maybe?"
The shadow pony rubbed at his sore cheek, where a hoof had been thumped into it. "You attack, then offer peace? How curious." His eyes wandered over Umbra. "Though not as foolish... Show strength, yes, I understand that." He licked over his lips even as they stretched and distorted, his nightmarish form beginning to be revealed. "Show strength first."
Umbra stood as tall before Shining as Shining had alone. "Get out of here! He can't hurt me!"
The shadow laughed at the idea. "Confident! Such confidence. I will enjoy scrubbing it off your pouting lips, replacing it with an eternal grimace of agony." He smiled with far too many teeth, his snout more like a carnivore, no cheeks, just more teeth. "Oh yes."
"I can't leave you, Umbra."
"Umbra?" The shadow pony took a step towards Umbra. "Your name offends me." Another step, and he was on her, washing over her in a crashing of shadow.
But Umbra was shadow too. They met and crashed, but she was not swept away. Umbra could feel her darkest moments and thoughts coming to her. Her past, filled with painful trials, threatened to return. "No!" She waved imperiously, the shadow forced away from her by her will alone. "No!"
"Interesting..." The shadow pony flowed away at the speed of light, or dark, appearing in a shadowed alley a short distance away. "Very... We will dance again, little shadow witch. I will make you regret standing against me."
"You and what army?" challenged Umbra, taking a firm step forward.
But he was laughing. "That was the perfect question to ask. I could not have asked for more. Oh, yes. Me and what army? Hm. I'll show you." And he was gone.
Shining Armor's hoof was felt on her shoulder. "Thank you. How did you show up at just the right time?"
Umbra turned to him with a big goofy smile. "The same way you knew I was coming."
Shining chuckled at that. "I could feel you running so hard. I... had to guess you were coming towards me. You could have been rushing to get the last treat on a table."
"I could feel you... being scared." She raised a hoof to her chest. "And it scared me. I didn't want you getting hurt. Lucky you, that guy's a big shadowy target, so I could find him, which meant finding you."
Shining let out an explosive sigh. "We are under attack, and it will only get worse." He glanced in the direction the shadow pony had fled. "And I have an idea it will do that quickly."
Umbra waved in the same direction. "Pfft. If it's just that one, I can handle him. His main attack barely even works on me." She pumped the same hoof. "Go shadow powers!"
Shining patted her on the back. "I appreciate the confidence, and the backup, but you can't be everywhere. Wherever you are, he'll probably try not to be." His eyes narrowed. "And I doubt he'll be alone. You saw one other, didn't you? The scout? He wasn't the scout, was he?"
"Oh! No..." She worried her hooves together. "That was a different one, way less talkative." She pointed back to the castle even as she turned to head that way herself. "Let's get you back inside."
"I'd love to, but the palace is best protected already." He shook his head. "We need all the eyes we can spare on the streets." A little smile appeared. "At least I know I'm not alone. If you're headed that way, tell Cades we're alright."
"Speaking of that!" She twirled about towards Shining. "Finding you was half luck! I could tell you were in trouble, but the direction is harder. The door was open, but you weren't exactly sending directions through it."
"Can... we?" He severed the connection, a shield slipping over it a moment before fading away. "I thought only sensations go across it."
"The instant it comes back." Umbra was waggling a hoof at Shining. "If you're listening, um, hearing? Feeling. Feeling's probably the word." She bobbed her head, puzzling through it. "The instant it comes back, you feel a teeny tiny thing, like a pull or a poke. That has a direction. That's the direction I went running off in."
Shining clopped his hooves. "Ah ha! So if we're in trouble, any of us, just bang the door. Open and close it quickly, a few times, so the others know you're trying to get their attention and what direction."
"Yeah!" Umbra jumped in the air in a joyful expression, a big grin on her face. "Exactly. Next time, do that and I'll get over that much faster."
He nodded firmly. "Got it. Thanks, Umbra. You've been a real soldier about the entire thing." He marched off on patrol, clear determination to protect in his eyes.
"Living your dream," sighed out Umbra with a smirk. She couldn't complain. She liked using her own purpose. She was a shadow crystal pony, and it felt good to express that and make the world better through it. "Keep it up." But instead of going to the palace, she went to the scheduled first building of the day.
There was Shifting! But there was also a loose crowd of a dozen other ponies. Shifting spotted Umbra down the road and began to wave at her excitedly. "Hey!"
"Hey hey." Umbra smiled as they met. "Um, I didn't tell you about them, did I?" She angled her head at the other ponies. "They're with the building guild. I put up a house, they polish and furnish it, so it'll be ready the same day."
Shifting's eyes widened. "Oh! Um, not to write myself out, but do you need me if they're here?"
Umbra thumped Shifting gently. "You stay right there. They're going to make it look nice, but you are the crystal expert. I want your eyes on that." She leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper, "Also I get to pay them, so less pressure there."
"Oh!" Shifting began to clap. "I'm with you! Alright, let's get started."
Umbra got to the work of fashioning dwellings. The day had a rough start. She only got four done for the day. That would have been a crushing blow, if not for the builder ponies following along with wide eyes. They got the houses ready, barely. Four houses was not a speed they were accustomed to, at all.
But they did their job. When they were done, the houses had beds, couches, pots and pans. They had numbers posted in front to give them an address. They had window draperies and they looked like homes instead of just empty houses. The crystal was carved into with little touches that Umbra let out a little 'huh' over. The third house, she began doing them herself, but there was still plenty to be done inside the house to make it a ready home.
The pony that seemed in charge of the group nodded to Umbra. "A pleasure working with you, Umbra, Brave and Glorious. You truly live up to your name. We've never gotten so many houses done in a day before. You're lighting a fire under us."
"And we love it," cried a mare, hopping just so her legs could cycle wildly a moment before she got back to the ground. "See you tomorrow, ma'am!"