//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6 - The last night of the week 
// Story: Retirement of a king 
// by Askre 
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Private slowly awoke. He heard scribbling. Eyeing the window, he saw that it was still night. He raised his head and saw Dew Doe by the desk in their room writing, illuminated only by a lit candle.

It hadn’t escaped the unicorn that his marefriend had been deep in thought for the rest of the day. She had returned to the kitchen to finish her cake, but after that was done was rather absent-minded. Foxy had later headed to Baltimare to check on Coal and intended to stay the night. King Sombra had spent his time in the living room reading before going to bed.

Private yawned and threw the blanket off him before climbing out of bed. He walked over to the desk and sat down next to the pegasus.

“Sorry if I woke you, just couldn’t sleep. I  needed to write a few things down,” Dew Doe explained quietly and glanced at the stallion. She recognized the expression on his face.

“I believe I figured out how he thinks. It was a fairly simple test, but the way he responded to it…so much just suddenly made sense,” Dew answered the unspoken question and continued to write. She glanced at Private again. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“It’s also the way he reacted to the topic of wine culture. You would think someone raised in a royal court and accustomed to luxury would not bat an eye about it, even be intrigued. Not him. It was actually fascinating now that I think about it. Yes, wine was a luxury back in his time, and in some cases is still considered a luxury today, but he just sees it as something to consume. Building traditions around it just seems pointless to him. You said it yourself, he’s pragmatic. Food and drink are necessary to survive and that’s all he sees it as.” She continued, so used to silence from the unicorn that the pegasus didn’t expect any responses.

“I also realized we will need to do our first report tomorrow. Not sure we have made any real process though,” Dew sighed and put down the pen. Then she felt a very familiar feeling and mock glared at her belly. “Oh, don’t you start now.”

Grunting, the pegasus rose up, excused herself and left the room. Dew made her way downstairs, really wishing there was an upstairs bathroom. She stopped for a moment once on the ground floor, thinking she heard a sound from the kitchen. Her bladder, though, was quick to remind her of the urgent business, so ignoring the noise, she hurried to the restroom to take care of it.

When she was done and finished washing, Dew made a beeline for the kitchen. After thinking about it, the mare was sure she had heard something. Peeking in, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Dew furrowed her brow and she instead, went to the living room and looked in, but saw nothing.

Dew Doe turned around to face the stairs and nearly jumped out of her skin. Standing right behind her was King Sombra, staring at her neutrally, but in the darkness, the large unicorn looked very foreboding. The pegasus put a hoof over her rapidly beating heart and got a little uneasy when seeing the king’s eyes flicker green for a moment.

“Your fears are very bland,” Sombra spoke sounding very unimpressed.

“You’re feeding on my fears?” Dew scowled, not liking the sound of that at all.

“Not actively. My powers are tuned to fear and hatred,” Sombra shrugged,  but then seemed to consider. “I was not trying to scare you, for the record.”

“Then what were you doing?” the pegasus snorted and would have walked past, but due to Sombra’s size, he blocked the way to the stairs. She would have to wait for him to move.

“I…” Sombra hesitated, almost as if he was embarrassed to admit it. “Came down to get more cake.”

Dew dropped her scowl and now stared quite surprised at the Dark Pony. She couldn’t fathom why he was embarrassed to admit that. She didn’t get a chance to address it as Sombra sneered as if he himself couldn’t believe it, and sunk into the darkness, leaving the confused pegasus alone.

Why would he not like admitting he got the midnight munchies? Oh speaking of, I could really do with a pickle smoothie right now…agh no…it’s time for bed. Dew shook her head, banishing the cravings deep into her mind and went back upstairs. When she got back to the bedroom, Private had fallen asleep on the floor in front of the desk.

“Oh, you sweet goof,” Dew sighed happily and started to approach to wake him and get him to bed, yet she found herself unwilling to do so. He looked so adorable all curled up where he was.

I really shouldn’t, the pegasus glanced back to the entrance. Then again if he’s serious about being Private’s ‘friend.’

Thinking this was a phenomenally bad idea, but lacking alternatives without waking Private up, she headed back out and went to the guest room Sombra occupied. She carefully knocked, wondering if she shouldn’t just wake Private up. It was too late to back out as the door opened and Sombra looked out with a scowl.

“I probably shouldn’t be asking this, but can you move Private to the bed? He fell asleep on the floor in our bedroom,” Dew quickly asked so Sombra didn’t think she was trying to question the Dark Pony about his kitchen raid.

“What is with that unicorn and sleeping on the floor.” Sombra’s demeanor changed almost instantly, sounding exasperated as he immediately walked out and headed to Dew and Private’s room with the pegasus following.

“I have also been meaning to ask about that rug he naps on in the living room,” he grunted and entered the room. Sombra fired up his horn, grabbed Private in a levitating aura and moved him to the bed, even taking his time to drape the blanket over him.

Just one of the many quirks I love about him, Dew thought, deep down amazed the king had done this without any prompt or protest. The pegasus blinked when seeing Sombra was no longer there, then she heard the door to his room close. The dark unicorn had used the shadows again to vanish away. Ah well, I’ll thank him in the morning.

Dew Doe tiptoed closer and snuck onto the bed and curled up under the blanket next to Private. Sighing contentedly, the pegasus was soon asleep.





Somewhere in Canterlot

Doctor Whooves gave a quiet, tired sigh as he entered his apartment. He was exhausted after the meeting with the Time Pony Council. Not from trying to argue with them this time, though. The council had lately been much more cooperative, no doubt after the dressing down they got from all four princesses of Equestria a while back.

But they had been somewhat evasive, almost like they were afraid. They were of course perfectly aware of the situation that had happened in Twilight’s castle and were even more alarmed when Whooves described the vortex. The council also looked extremely relieved when he told them about Prince Sombra, looking as if they had dodged a bullet.

Whooves rubbed his forehead. Dragging some explanations from them had been like pulling teeth. Yet for once he hadn’t needed to bicker with them, more just cajole them - one really good thing came out of this as far he was concerned.

They asked me to investigate this further, no restraints, no looking over my shoulders. The Time Pony walked into the living room and sat down on his chair. He had no pictures on the walls. Aside from the chair, the only other furniture was a couch, coffee table and shelves full of books. He liked things small and compact. He didn’t spend that much time here anyway, so often on one mission or another, either for Princess Celestia or if he could be bothered with them, the Time Pony Council.

Whooves considered going to bed, but the vortex kept popping up into his mind. What was it that he had missed? The Time Pony Council had informed him that Starlight's messing around with time had been contained. So that meant his initial guess had been wrong - yes the vortex had been a time aftershock - but not caused by that.

Of course! Starlight didn’t mess around with alternate realities - it was contained within our own reality. He sat up straight. Closing his eyes, his cutie-mark began to glow as the Time Pony accessed his natural time magic and started to scan the time stream with his mind, trying to see where the aftershock had originated.

Since an alternative reality was affected and some of the pieces effectively merged with ours in a sense, that must mean it did not originate in our world. He furrowed his brow when considering that. That meant he had to do something much more dangerous. He had to scan alternate realities. That was a big problem...there were so many of them. Mind-bogglingly many, even to him.

But perhaps he could narrow the search. A time aftershock would only happen when the time stream had been disrupted and was mending itself and this one had been so massive, it had crashed one world and merged the pieces into another. That had to mean it had been a very big event.

But what could have been so big to cause so much damage? To strand three ponies from not just different times, but a different world in another. Whooves didn’t like this. Whoever did that was not just powerful, but probably very dangerous.

“It can’t have been a coincidence that it was a Sombra who got caught up in this,” he muttered to himself.

Using the time magic, he found the event in the stream where Prince Sombra and the boys dropped onto the map table. He frowned. There was something off in the energies of the vortex, but so far all they did was lead back the leftovers of the world that was destroyed.

He concentrated on the vortex, trying to feel the energy. Whooves gasped when it was as if he lost all control. He saw images of two ponies frozen in crystal in a dark crystalline room...he saw the Crystal Empire looking like it had when King Sombra had ruled it. He saw Princess Celestia hovering in the air above a balcony talking with the tyrant. On the balcony with the evil king was another pony, frozen solid in crystal.

“Wait a minute… that’s me?” Whooves blinked, seeing the frozen yet defiant-looking pony.

“That never happened to me, I was never in the Crystal Empire back when Sombra ruled…” Whooves wrestled back control of the time magic and shut it off. He gasped for breath and had to take a moment to compose himself, taking a few deep breaths.

“It must have been another reality, where I did go to the Crystal Empire for some reason. It’s not the reality of Prince Sombra…” Whooves rubbed his muzzle thoughtfully.

“Yet it seems to be connected to that reality. I felt it. The energies in the vortex match. What happened there was so catastrophic that it sent a time aftershock all the way to here.

“I tried to break a time-lock,” a voice spoke in his mind. Whooves blinked, that voice sounded exactly like his and he could feel strong time magic in it.

Oh no… Whooves sighed, closed his eyes and accessed the time magic again. He saw before him a pony that looked exactly like him, even wearing a similar blue west. This one looked sorrowful and regretful.

“What did you do?” Whooves asked with a disappointed expression. His other self hung his head.

“I was trying to save a friend. I made a colossal mistake. I took my three friends right to the Crystal Empire during the last days of King Sombra's rule. One of them got trapped in a deal with Sombra in order to free the rest of us. I tried to break the lock. Any other time it would have been easy…” the other Time Pony said and slowly looked up at Whooves again.

“I didn’t see it until too late. The Sombra from my world…he had managed to study Time Ponies. He gained access to the time stream, he can influence it…he has time magic…” the other pony started to fade.

Whooves couldn’t say a word. His disappointment was replaced with shock. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened.

“The time lock was…trap…for me...he has…uestria…destroy…” the voice of his other self was breaking up.

“What? What did you say?” Whooves tried to enhance the connection but already the voice was fading. Taking the risk, the Time Pony traced the origin of it, only to be greeted by darkness, then green and red glowing eyes slowly came into view.

“Doctor!” a dark voice spoke up, slowly a row of teeth was forming a vicious grin under the eyes.

Whooves immediately severed the connection and stopped accessing his time magic. For a while he just sat, breathing frantically, eyes still wide and his mouth hanging wide open.

This can’t be good. He gulped. Carefully he activated his time magic again and made sure he stuck to his reality. Then gently the Time Pony tapped his head. “Time Pony Council, I may have already found out what happened.”

Nothing but silence greeted him. Taking a deep breath, he tapped his head again. I’m sending you everything I saw. But if what I’m thinking is correct, our Sombra and that interdimensional castaway are the least of our worries.”

“There is another one out there… somewhere in the multiverse…and if the other me is correct.” Whooves looked down at his front hooves, they were shaking. “If he ever finds our world…”

“Find out more, but be careful.” Finally he heard a voice from the council.

Whooves arched his brow, researching further into this would mean he couldn’t keep an eye on his friends in Fillydelphia. He had wanted to watch the process, hoping they would succeed.

No! I know they will succeed, they don’t need me constantly messing around in their lives and making it more complicated. That’s how Dew and Private got those blasted memory locks enforced on them. The Time Pony’s entire body started to glow. Well, time for a little trip.

In a flash he was gone, but almost immediately returned, stumbling out of the chair and dragging his legs to the bedroom.

“Right after I have some sleep,” he mumbled and yawned wide.

End chapter 6