//------------------------------//
// Summons 
// Story: Shadows of the Heart 
// by Scribblestick 
//------------------------------//

Flurry erected her privacy wards the moment her bedroom door shut behind her. Magical lock. Zone of silence. An alarm set to trigger if anypony approached her room. She cast them all with hardly a thought. It was her way of escaping from the world and finding a moment of peace—a moment she desperately needed now.

Her room was tidy, as always. The sheets and comforter clung snugly to the mattress. The books on her shelves lined up nicely, organized by topic. Her study desk was bare when she walked in, but a moment later it was covered with assorted notes about her latest fixation. She glanced at her father's scroll before setting it aside. It would have to wait. The all-too-familiar urge had been growing all morning, and now she had no choice but to give in.

Just another of Flurry Heart's quirks.

As she unfurled her notes, she had to remind herself that she was making progress. As a child, she'd often found herself trapped in an intense focus on one topic or another, to the exclusion of everything else. Her cutie mark, a magnifying glass, signified as much. Unfortunately, her fixations often caused her to fall behind in everything else. She still remembered the years of effort, not to mention untold number of bits, spent to help her cope with this particular oddity.

It never went away, but most days it was manageable enough for her to complete her duties as princess of the Crystal Empire. On good days, she hardly noticed it at all. On bad days...

Well, today was shaping up to be one of those days.

Flurry double-checked her wards before spreading her notes across every available surface. Papers piled on the bed and stuck themselves to the walls. Threads wound their way from clipping to scrap to photograph, creating a visual display of her inner thoughts. At the center of it all lay the most feared unicorn in the Crystal Empire—King Sombra himself.

Everypony knew how the tyrant king's story ended—obliterated in Canterlot by the raw power of friendship. Except Flurry Heart knew better. He'd survived being locked away with the rest of the Crystal Empire when Celestia and Luna put an end to his dreams of expansion. He'd been blasted away by the power of the Crystal Heart, only to be pulled back into reality by Discord. The legendary Elements of Harmony took their best shot, but he returned almost immediately to destroy them. He was last seen in Canterlot, when Aunt Twilight and her friends defeated him. How could anyone be sure that was the end of it? Flurry couldn't leave anything to chance. Given his obsession with the Crystal Empire, she considered it her duty to find a permanent solution.

With no other clues moving forward, she set her sights on his past. Between the official archives and firsthand accounts, his rule of the Crystal Empire was well-documented, from the ponies who suffered in the mining camps to the crystal shards exported to some unknown location. But what about before? Where had he come from? How did he gain his powers—not just his incredible resiliency, but also his shadow magic and longevity? Flurry was convinced the ultimate solution to the Sombra problem would be found at his beginning, but his origin was just as murky as the unicorn himself.

This, Flurry knew, was the root of her fixation. The combination of duty and mystery practically guaranteed she'd become obsessed with the king of shadows at some point.

She'd poured through everything the Empire's archives had to offer and found nothing. That much she'd anticipated. Her next step was to write to Discord, hoping he might know more. So far, his only response had been to send her a large tome titled "SECRET STORY OF KING SOMBRA'S TRAGIC CHILDHOOD" that, when opened, shouted "CRYSTALS!" in Sombra's voice over and over.

Her next idea was a bit of a longshot. She suspected her parents kept hidden records somewhere, containing information that would be dangerous in the wrong hooves. Surely the secrets of Sombra's power fell into that category. Unfortunately, she  hadn't worked out how to broach that subject with her parents. She'd hoped asking them questions out of the blue while they were otherwise occupied might do the trick, but today's efforts had proven that tactic a dud. If they knew anything, they weren't letting it slip.

She let the option of a direct approach roll around in her brain as she studied her notes. On the one hoof, they were her parents and had been happy to help her with these projects in the past. The second hoof supported the first, as she felt she had a solid argument to support solving this mystery. The third hoof, however, reminded her of all the times they'd refused to help her, for fear she might delve into something too dangerous. The fourth hoof agreed, as it was common consensus that whatever power Sombra had was a corrupting one. No one would risk somepony like Flurry Heart falling to that kind of influence.

Flurry closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. With hooves tied, records exhausted, draconequus unhelpful, and parents tight-lipped, she turned to her most desperate option yet. It stood to reason that if Sombra survived, he could be contacted. And who better to answer questions about his past than the king of shadows himself?

She put away most of her notes, piling the relevant ones on her desk. She'd been over it a hundred times, the spell that would put them in contact. She had no intention of bringing him back permanently, obviously. She wasn't that foolhardy. All she needed to do was talk to him. For a mare with her raw power and determination, it should have been easy enough.

A shimmer of magic enveloped her horn. She cleared the center of the room and, with one last glance at her notes, cast the spell.

The wards were the first to appear—four spatial bindings to prevent teleportation, three barriers to block direct attacks and movement, five magic nullifiers to cancel out his magic, an inversion to immediately reverse the entire spell should she lose consciousness, and, if all else failed, a retribution spell to ensure that any magic that affected her would target him as well. With wards in place, she added the final effect—calling King Sombra himself. It was the part she was least sure about, as it was a spell of her own making based almost purely on speculation and guesswork. A swirling vortex appeared in the center of her wards. For a moment, nothing happened. Doubt crossed her mind. Then, shadow began to fill the space, crackling with red lightning. Deep, resonating laughter soon followed. Were it not for her zone of silence, it would have echoed through the entire castle.

At last, King Sombra's face took form—the gray and black fur, red horn, and iron crown framing his glowing green eyes and knife-toothed grin. "Well, well," he said, staring at her from within the layers of magic that encased him. "Somepony came prepared."

Flurry had to take a moment to steady herself while the rest of his body formed. His iron chestpiece and greaves glinted in her magical light. His mane and tail floated like wisps of shadow. His red, fur-lined cape appeared with a flash. His grin widened.

"Not just anypony—an alicorn," Sombra said. He paced around his enclosure, but his eyes remain fixed on Flurry's. "You look familiar."

"I-I'm told you used me as leverage to capture the Crystal Empire when I was very young," Flurry stammered.

"Ah. The child. You alicorns must grow quickly." Sombra turned his head to the side and raised his chin, along with a front hoof. Is he ignoring me? Did I overlook something? No, he would have broken out by now. He closed his eyes and smirked. "Still, I suppose you're smarter than that idiot Grogar. The nerve, thinking I would ever bow to him..."

Grogar? She knew the name, but it was an ancient one, from before the time of the Royal Pony Sisters. Did Sombra's history really go that far back? Her heart began to race. Parchment and quill readied themselves in her magic. "Sombra, I've called you here to ask you some questions," she said.

"King Sombra," he snapped, stamping his hoof. His eyes and nostrils flared. Flurry recoiled. Frustration? Anger? I hope I didn't forget something... "I gave you too much credit," Sombra said. "Only a fool would summon me for so trivial a task."

Flurry scowled. "Believe me, I wouldn't if I had a better option. Now, where do you come from?"

Sombra's frown morphed into a smirk. He stood tall, head held high. "Where do I come from?" he repeated. "You are a denizen of the Crystal Empire. I know you've heard the stories." He leaned forward, teeth gleaming. "I come from the shadow at the edge of your vision. I'm shrouded in the darkness that creeps into your dreams. I'm the quiet fear you hide away where nopony else can see—but I see it. I always see it. And in you, I see..."

Flurry noticed something then. The way he stood, the way he smiled, his near-whisper with that menacing intensity, it all added up to one thing. Threat. And yet, something stuck out, a misplaced digit that refused to fit into that conclusion. Was it the slight twitch in his right ear? The way his eyes couldn't quite stay locked on hers? What was it?

"Are you listening to me?"

"What?" Flurry snapped out of her daze. Sombra glared at her from within his prison. "Sorry. I got distracted."

"Distracted?" There it was—the sharp rise in tone, verging on a shriek. But what did it mean? "I'm laying bare the darkest parts of your soul, and you're distracted?"

The calculus stalled. She needed more information. "I guess," she said. "I mean, it all sounded poetic and intimidating, but I was asking in a more literal sense. Like, where were you born? Where did you grow up? That sort of thing."

Sombra's mouth fell open. His wide eyes stared at her. Surprise, maybe? "You dragged me out of the depths of the ether to ask... where I grew up?"

Flurry nodded with a smile. "I can't find the answer anywhere, and who better to ask than you?"

"Who better to—" Sombra's words came to a spluttering stop. She watched him pace around for a moment, her calculations chugging onward. He found his voice and rounded on her. "I am the king of shadows!" he shouted. High pitch. Slight stumble in the hooves. "I am the conqueror of the Crystal Empire!" Hoof waving erratically. "I am the very being of nightmares, and you've called me to ask about my childhood?"

The calculus finished. Flurry gasped. Her quill had noted it before her conscious thought had fully processed the implications. Fear. But... of what?

A silent alarm pinged in her head. Somepony was standing outside. She glanced at the door. "Sorry, but I have to go," she said. "We'll talk again soon, okay?"

Sombra's mouth hung open as the vortex sucked him back into the ether. In seconds, he was gone, along with all the wards she'd cast to contain him. She stuffed away the notes for her spell, then unlocked and opened the door. "Yes?"

"Hey, kiddo!" Dad ruffled her mane with a grin. She jerked away, but returned his smile. "I just finished my rounds. Ready to practice those lines?" Flurry nodded and welcomed him in. Dad looked around the room and nodded. "You know, I kind of expected to see a bunch of papers and books out. Glad you're keeping things tidy this year."

"Heh, yeah," she answered. "Wouldn't want you to take a crystal berry encyclopedia to the face again."

Dad laughed. "Let's get you ready for the Faire. Nothing like practice to steady the nerves."

And steady her nerves it did, but she was secretly running a new set of calculations now. Sombra, the self-proclaimed master of fear, was hiding one of his own, something connected to his origin. Deep in her heart, Flurry knew this would be the key to unraveling his shroud of mystery.

One problem, though—the same problem that so often plagued her hyperfocused investigations. She had no idea what to do next.