Sombra looked at his teeth in the mirror. Miss Chestnut had started to teach him how to brush his teeth. She was worried before that her brushing would lead to his teeth getting more damaged, but now that he had some erupting adult teeth she felt more comfortable doing so. The tips of his new teeth were much whiter in comparison but they weren’t exactly useful, for one he was still living primarily of soft food which was getting increasingly boring.
He made his way down to breakfast where he again sat and ate his yogurt. Hope had now fully given up on sitting with the others, so every day she was practically joined to Sombra’s hip. Sombra didn’t mind at all though, he had lost count of how many games they had played over time and they had built up a small collection of messy paintings.
Hope was incredibly excited though today, shovelling her cereal into her mouth. Her teeth chewed at speed, until she started to choke on the three mouthfuls that attempted to go down at once. Sombra batted her in the back and she coughed up the chewed up cereal, before swallowing it in smaller chunks.
“Why are you so happy?” Sombra asked, his letters were still half forming.
“Because it’s the crystal faire tomorrow! and I love the faire because I get to spend all of my pocket money I’ve saved up!” Hope said excitedly as she gobbled down the last bit of her breakfast.
“Ok”
“That means you get to have your first faire and you can have your first crystal corn, cherry pies, hard candies-“
“Sombra will not be going to the crystal faire Hope” the unusual stern voice of Miss Chestnut interrupted her.
“Why not?”
“Because we cannot risk having him seen”
“But we go on walks and you took him to the dentist”
“Because I can trust that dentist as he helped in the revolution, and we are not far from the edge of town so there is a lower risk of being seen. But there is far too high a risk in a crowd of ponies and guards”
“But why can’t he be seen?”
“Enough, Sombra will not be going”
“…Okay” Hope quietly said as she went back over to Sombra, waiting for him to finish his breakfast.
“You can still go Hope”
“But I want to be with Sombra”
“Then you can stay here, ok”
“okay”
“Take seventy four divided by three, you’re going to divide seven by three which gives you two tens. You put the two on top but you have one left over as you will only get six. So you put six beneath the seven, then do seven minus six which equals one…”
(“are you getting this?”) Opal asked as the teacher demonstrated on the chalk board. Sombra nodded as he copied down what the teacher wrote, quickly converting it into Umbral numbers.
(“how?”) Opal continued to stare at the numbers on the board, even seeing them translated into Umbrull didn’t help his understanding of maths.
(“It’s easy dimwit”)
(“Oh lovely your first words to me in telepathy is calling me a dimwit thanks buddy”) Opal said, Sombra didn’t even realise he had said anything telepathically. It wasn’t as hard as he thought it was, he just had to think about talking to Opal and the mental chord would kick in. As the numbers easily arranged themselves in Sombra’s brain, Opal and every other foal just stared at the board confused.
As the lesson went on, foals one after the other put their pencils down in defeat, Hope was one of the first. Her ears were folded the entire time and silent mutterings of “what” came out of her mouth every now and again. She had at least tried unlike others, but many of her bus stops were scribbled out. When break came the class near sprinted out the doors, except for Hope who waited for Sombra to neatly put things away in his desk.
“How do you understand that?” Hope whined after having her brain fried.
“It’s easy”
“It isn’t” the pair made their way out to their little area of the playground. Their place was in the branches of a relatively young oak tree, but it was still able to hold their weight. While they sat on the larger branches Opal perched on the much smaller ones.
“I wish Miss Chestnut would let you go to the faire, I normally get left out” Hope mumbled as she leaned on the branch behind her.
(“If you wish, you can tell her that technically you are not a pony and Amore doesn’t like that, but for now wait until she’s older to get to the nitty gritty”)
(“Ok)…Um, Amore doesn’t like me…because apparently I’m not a pony”
“Is that it? doesn’t seem like much”
(“Is it morally acceptable to tell a seven year old that her princess is a murderer?”)
(“So should I tell her”)
(“…No, just say that dislike is past hate on the scale”)
“…the dislike is more like…really strong hate”
“Oh…is that why you’re not allowed outside?”
“I think so”
(“Don’t tell her this, but I’m pretty sure the reason Missy keeps you inside as much as possible is because you would either be killed or put back into slavery”)
(“…thanks”)
After a moment of quiet where they just listened to the strange games the other foals would play, Hope spotted something in the leaves. She stood up and balanced herself on the branches. She grabbed a giant leaf in her mouth, severing it with her teeth. She shuffled back down to their place on top of the trunk.
“Look, it’s like twice the size of the other ones”
“Why’d you pick it?”
“I just wanna keep it”
“Wont it die?”
(“Didn’t you pick up some preservation powder? It works on leather, which is skin, so it should work on leaves. It will keep it alive in a sense”)
“Opal said that powder I picked up can be used to keep it alive”
“Do you think it will last till school ends?”
(“I can take it inside and put it in some water, that should help”)
“Opal says he can put it in some water to help it” Sombra told her, Hope excitedly gave the oversized leaf to Opal, who took it in his claw and flew off. The bell rung and they hopped of the tree and went back to their lesson, which to many foals relief wasn’t math.
The pair scrambled back to Sombra’s room to find Opal sitting by a cup of water which the leaf was sitting in. He also had a small kitchen flannel. The pair sat down as Opal laid out the stuff on the floor.
“How’s it work?” Hope asked. Opal took the leaf out the water and laid it on the floor. He lifted the lid of the wooden pot with his beak. With his talons he dipped the end of the flannel into the water then picked up some of the clear powder on the end. Lightly he rubbed a part of the leaf in circular motions, that area of the leaf glittered purple. After completing a small area he pushed the flannel over to Hope.
(“tell her that she cannot use her magic as the light will not mix well with the dark”) Sombra relayed the information to Hope, who took the flannel in her hoof and continued to work over the leaf. It didn’t take long until the leaf was fully preserved. She held it up with a big smile.
“How long will it last?”
“I think it lasts a while”
“Great!...I’ll try not to use all of it” Hope said in glee as she trotted off with her leaf. The rest of the day went over normally, many of the foals went to sleep excited for the fair the next day, however most were so excited they didn’t sleep much.
Once again Sombra found himself in the dark. Except there was no forest around him, there wasn’t a sky either. There was cold stone beneath him and that stone was all he could see. This time however he could hear and smell. All he could smell was rotten flesh that burnt through his nose. He took a few cautious steps and he could her the tap of his hooves. As he could hear his hooves he felt the need to step even softer, to the point is finely tuned ears could just hear the tap.
Ever so slowly he wandered across the flat spread of stone. There was next to nothing in the place around him. As he wandered the silence caused his ears to flick to sounds of the faintest kind, even if he couldn’t tell he was actually hearing them or imagining them.
He could hear something, a series of soft tapping, it was in every direction and almost on top of him yet in the horizon. He stopped in his tracks to try and sense where it was, he could feel something watching him.
He continued slowly making sure to not make any noise when he took a step. However a shape started to appear in front of him. It was something lying down, something purply and pale blue. There was a mess of liquid red, gelatinous chunks within it. cables of guts were splayed out across the stone. A contorted face had its eyes ripped out, leaving tears of blood. And yet still Sombra could recognise that face.
“H-Hope…no” his voice squeaked. He collapsed down next to her body, she was long cold beyond saving. There was a sickening giggle behind him and a stake was forced into his ribs, pinning him to the stone. He feared a look upwards and the twisted toothy smile with wide open eyes stared him down, the stake was a skinny leg. The abomination giggled again before it lowered its head, keeping its eyes locked on Sombra’s. Sombra tried to wriggle but he couldn’t move his muscles. Its jaw opened revelling layers and layers of razor teeth. Sombra tried to scream as its jaws wrapped around Sombra’s hind legs and tail. He sat hopelessly as tears streamed down his face. As his legs slipped into the maw of the thing he felt more teeth dig in all the way down its gullet, slicing his legs and tail continuously. More and more of his body was engulfed and his now skinless legs hit acid which had an all too familiar burn to it. Sombra gave up as the creature clamped down and yanked its head back, tearing away his rear and his silver guts spread across the stone. His blood spilled out of its mouth between his teeth. Sombra’s vision slowly started to fade as he was pushed onto his back. He barely saw as the thing reared up and slammed its stick legs into his eyes.
Sombra woke in cold sweats as he sat up on his bed. He panted as he pulled his sire’s blanket closer to him.
(“Another nightmare?”) Opal asked despite knowing, his feathers were glowing turning him into a night light. Sombra grabbed his blanket and climbed out of bed, the fur lined leather dragged across the floor.
(“where are you going?”) Sombra poked his head out the door and checked the darkness. He stepped quietly through the corridor until he reached Hopes door. He slightly pushed it open. He saw the slow rise and fall of Hopes chest as she snored softly. Her eyes were closed softly as she slept peacefully, probably dreaming about her fairy’s. Sombra placed his blanket on the bed before climbing up and curling around her. He pulled the blanket over which to his surprise didn’t stir her as she slept like a rock.
At least she was breathing and was in one piece.