//------------------------------// // Thick as Thieves // Story: In His Presence // by Ocean Heart //------------------------------// With what felt like mythical effort he reached his temporary room and slung the saddlebags down onto the floor, taking a long and needed breath as green wisps erupted all around him, his healing finally kicking back into full tilt with a symphony of cracks and snaps across his body that left him feeling dizzy with relief and pleasant pain. True to the simplest form, a little fitness goes a long way to helping the body recover and the dark king had a moment to enjoy the humor in the fact. His humor soured when he noticed now two birds in his window and blew out his deep breath as a sigh, rolling his eyes and lifting the books off the floor with a field of magic that placed them down on the study desk in the room. Sombra was stuck making a decision...while normally the answer was rudimentary, he found it hard to find an agreement with himself on the subject of how to take in the information as quickly as possible. Normally, he would use curse magic to imprint the words of the text into his mind and his subconscious would sort relevant data automatically. The spell would burn lesser minds to a crisp depending on the content of the text, but this was light reading at best and he could waste an afternoon doing it manually or spend a few seconds doing it his way; yet this also might raise the ire of 'Her Highness Princess Twilight'. It was then that the black dragon decided to show herself, just as Sombra caught a whiff of something like steamed vegetables and had to fight the urge to stagger back when the dragon dropped from his ceiling with a small bundle in her claws. Sombra then had the displeasure of hearing his stomach make it's presence known with a flash back to the isolation and the nurse...he shook it off, visibly, and looked up at her. "I thought I told you to go to the library; I even gave you a list." he started. The dragon nodded, moving towards the desk full of books and placed the bundle on top of them, pulling a sling off her side to set it there as well, what must be a pack of water. "You shouting your intent to the whole castle told me all I needed to know about your "four-D" chess game so I decided to get a snack for me, lunch for you and I'll help fill in some cultural sub-text you're GOING to miss in these books." she ended, her tone rather cold and clinical all of a sudden. Sombra couldn't find words for a moment and he thought he smelled something...odd. Something old and sweet, fragrant, like a perfume...he just stared at the dragon, thinking though muddy memory as to why in the world the scent of perfume was on his mind. Nash sat down at the freshly repaired desk and unfurled the contents of the leaf wrap pack. "You look like you just saw a ghost..." she started, Sombra suddenly snapped to reality and the scent of perfume vanished. "I've...been a little more relaxed than I should be. I know...You know...but the point is I want you to know you can talk to me. I don't want you to hurt Auntie Twi and if it comes to it I'll-" Sombra's whole posture changed, his chest was out, eyes shar and low with mists of green entering the whites. "I will take you down if I have to." she ended. Sombra sat down there. Not that he meant to, posturing is an art that any nobility has to be an expert at and any small motion or uncontrolled response might mean the difference in intimidation or the lack of. Yet he sat without even giving the motion thought and he felt his chest go tight. Snug. Breath not even getting in as he started to pant without any thought to the sudden concern on Nashta's face. The sensation was totally new. Totally strange and totally unpleasant as darkness crowded around his vision and a voice in his ears told him he was ok, that he would be alright and nothing would hurt him as the white walls around him and a dark blur entering in and out of his vision. Breathing getting more and more uncontrolled and the darkness winning the fight, the scent of perfume suddenly back along with a bitter taste in his mouth that made breathing even harder... Yet like it never happened, Sombra felt his normal train of thought snap back into place and his body got to send all those messages to his brain all at once. Pain. Mostly pain, soreness, joints that need flexing, several opium doses to numb the ache in his chest and splitting headache. His eyes were still stinging with a blinding white light when he started casting small spells to dial back the pain. He realized then that he had dropped all his defenses, his healing spells, all the little things he was doing to keep his body moving had to be reknit carefully though his muscles and bones. Most didn't value healing magic; truly value, most thought it a simple cast of a spell and everything was better...but ponies always need doctors and pharmacists long before and after magic had anything to do with medicine. Magical healing takes more art than power and it was more than frustrating that he needed to do it all over again. "Sombra!" Nearly jumping out of his skin was also very frustrating. "Sombra! Thank Celestia; talk to me, tell me you're ok." The voice was NOT Princess Twilight like he felt like he should expect at this point. She was always there when he was at his lowest, he hated that, deeply. Yet it was a dragon with ebony scales that greeted him first. He took stock in where he was, what was happening and found he was in his temporary bed. Perhaps he never even left the room judging by the shut and locked door. Sombra sat up and was quick to get off the bed, Nashta jumping back out of his way. "What happened?" he said curtly. Not as if asking her a question, but he was asking himself what functionally happened. "Y-you started stumbling, breathing really hard and..." she hesitated. Sombra for a moment saw her, seeing not a spy but a young girl who's fear wasn't rooted in survival like he always saw in others. "I won't ask, but you said a lot of strange stuff...like, I can't even begin to imagine you asking for help but you did...clearly, to me! You asked for help over and over and you kept rubbing your eyes." Sombra took a few deep breaths, shaking his head and throwing his mane back, brushing the fur out of place with his hoof and wisps of magic. Putting the disheveled back into noble form while he tried to put words together. His heart was racing but he let the silence hang just long enough to feel thing slow back down. "I'm...not sure what to say." he began, then stopping himself as anger crossed his dark eyes. "You kept me here when I might have needed dire medical attention f-for what? My pride? You put...my pride before my well being and...you...remind me of someone." he said, coming to a slow end of his thought and started another. "I thank you. Truly; No one has-" he halted, breath catching in his throat and an image unbidden in his mind plastered the face of a mare with a soot colored coat and moss green eyes. "Very few have-" Nashta tilted her head, clearly wanting to ask the question. "Thank you. Nashta." The dragoness sat down on the bed again, the living shadows that she wove answered to her unspoken call, her legs and arms were almost wrapped in a cloak of light eating darkness and she seemed so much smaller before she realized what she was doing and the dark was banished. "I saved you down there because I knew when I saw you that Celestia was wrong. Whatever she was thinking at the time- W-whatever message she was trying to impart...she was wrong." Sombra felt his heart rate climb a tad and took another steadying breath. "I am in your debt; a debt I can never repay. That hell has changed me, it is an undeniable fact and I am not blind or foolish enough to think otherwise. However, I know my place in this world is the one who will end the reign of the gods." Sombra felt something in him grow cold seeing dark climb over the dragoness again. "My means are retold by history as barbaric but when I began my rule the empire was just a brick and stone township where the crystalline look was more about blending into the snow to avoid the predators, though they forget that...I raised them up into..." The cold in his chest stabbed deeper seeing the questions and worry written all over her face. "I'm a tyrant but my goal was the end of divine tyrants." "But you can't die, either...can you?" she cut in. "I can die, dragoness." The silence lasted a little too long for comfort, Sombra bit back a more cutting retort because she deserved the truth, but getting to the point so quickly left little else to fill the silence with. "You can be killed...like the Princesses; but can you die?" The question was simple but it bit deep, he balked at the implication and felt fire fighting the cold in his chest before realizing he had no answer for her. His jaw worked but words wouldn't come out and the darkness that clung to the dragoness like a blanket started to come free. "I've read a little about you; but I think you can be forgiven if you ask." Sombra had little to say to that as well; he never thought about forgiveness as a desire or future outcome, forgiveness was just a word others used or wrote in books and so it was never for him to even ponder over. "Why would you say that?" he asked, wandering over to the food that was still laid out on the desk. Starting with a hay sandwich as his sense of hunger returned strong enough to force his hoof. Nashta couldn't answer for a moment as the darkness around her vanished once again and she was brave enough for a smile. "Because I've seen evil people and you don't strike me as one of them." "That is certainly the first time anyone has ever said that to me. Have you considered that you don't know me as well as you think?" he retorted before taking another ravenous bite of the sandwich, washing it down with a few slices of apple. "There's a way to be sure..." she started, Sombra raising a brow. "We could duel. I'm sure you remember knights dueling their squires to see if they were worthy of their training-" "I saw that tradition being made, young one. I know of the maxim, one cannot hide anything in the heat of battle. I used this several times to weed spies from my court...my apologies." he added, seeing the look in Nashta's eyes. "You want this...don't you? Is it to prove something to daddy? Don't think I haven't seen the way you two glare at each other." her face couldn't hide the heat in her cheeks and sharp glare cutting the air in the room. "Spike needs to learn a lesson or two, yeah, but this isn't about him. My teacher did the same thing to me, tossed me a sword and with no training at all he told me to swing at him. That was the day I was asked to join Twilight's court as a...a spy, yeah." she paused, seeming to struggle with a memory or specific detail. "I want to duel you; you want to regain your full strength. Win-win. "You have given this thought." he commented. She nodded. "Then whatever question you hope to answer by a duel must be really burning inside you, dragoness. Then lets fight, take me to your training hall." he said, finishing off the last of the food she had brought him. Nashta blinked, looking dumbfounded for a moment before standing up quickly. "B-but you just-" "I just carried about a full stallion's weight on my back in books up stairs and down what felt like endless halls. I'm warmed up, fed, and now that you put this pesky thought in my head I want a sword." he opened the door with a grasp of magic swinging it wide, a guard nearly falling over with what Sombra guessed was a case of having an ear too long for his head... "Let us duel, dragoness." ____________________________________________________ It felt like a lifetime ago when Sombra felt a sword. Of course most ponies had to rely on pikes and specialized harnesses to wage war but a unicorn could be creative...given enough time and training a single sword would out perform a whole squad of pikes and there were many dangerous styles of magical combat that involved iron and steel. However, his was always a single blade with a wide guard. "The trick to fighting with magic is always keeping track of where your blade is. How many young hopefuls cut themselves because they get too excited and forget the heavy iron they are trying to throw in the air doesn't care who's blood is spilled. Any magic knight worth anything would have at least one or two drastic scars..." he waxed while picking out a blade. Nashta sighed and leaned on a wall near the door. The room was large enough to hold four fighting rings and each wall had racks and racks of anything a guard might need to train with. The blades were all dull and chipped with the armor in the same beaten in state that heavy use would indicate. There was an upper balcony where observers could get a good look at the fighters but it was relatively empty. A few guards had been lucky enough to catch wind of what was going on from his security detail and one by one guards had slipped in to either pretend to train or outright sit and watch what was about to happen. Nashta had a long and thin sword; good for deflection with enough martial arts experience but not outright blocking. He could tell her style was deceptive and would be very mobile; naturally as an extension of her control over darkness to hide herself and cause confusion. He had a flicker of fear thinking... 'She might actually be worse to fight when you know what's coming...' Picking up a sword in his grasp of oily grey magic, it was just as dirty as the rest of these worn blades but he felt a little pang of nolstalga for it, something in the brutally simple design of a double edge, a wide grip and a point that formed not as an end to the sword, but as a meeting of the edges making a geometric triangle shape with enough grip that he could apply a sudden force of magic to the end and get out a lot more leverage than if the hilt were shorter. "It's even harder to use the whole blade like most knights needed to. The guard doubled as a hammer, the pommel as a striking tool, if you lost track of where your magic was, how you were swinging, what effect you were intending on your target...you might lose your head." he ended, stepping into a circle and swinging the blade in the air a few times. "You like hearing the sound of your own voice, don't you, Sombra." she jabbed with a chuckle. "It's an acute dislike of silence, that's all. If you had more to add I wouldn't need to talk so much." he cut right back. Nashta joined him in the circle and a few more guards slunk in quickly as they assumed now no one was focused on them. "The forge master here could do with a little better work ethic, too...doesn't he know dull blades kill more painfully than sharp ones." "She has been busy changing the armor design for the royal guard at Princess Twilight's request." "Ah, long live the Queen, damn the soldiers..." Guards whispered at that, Nashta gritting her teeth and flourishing her blade as a way to get their attention without being too obvious. "Don't try to garner sympathy like that. It's too plain for the master of plans." Sombra took a deep breath...the magic that was woven artfully through his broken body started to vanish and be replaced by painful stinging. "Alright, dragoness, then lets begin-" Within a heartbeat shadows erupted around her and a flicker of darkness in the room caused just a moment of blindness; in that heartbeat she had ran down most of the length of the ring and he was only just able to get his sword in position to block an overhead slash. Her sword hardly felt his as she drew it back short of his black at the last moment to slip into his guard and shoulder bash him, sending the king's body screaming in pain while he landed half a meter back, digging his hooves in and panting hard, nearly falling to the ground as every muscle in him cried out. "I could have broken your jaw. Call me 'dragoness' again and I might...my name is Nashta and I want to help you, Sombra." Sombra wanted so badly to weave pain numbing magic into his body again but he couldn't afford the distraction now that it seemed like his pride was on the line. Whispers of guards and the door not even able to close as more and more ponies, gryphons and changelings filed in to watch. Even a yak was able to squeeze in somehow and sat in the far corner with the most judgmental face Sombra had ever seen... Sombra raised his sword again, this time his magic was used to reinforce his eyes against a sudden change in light while his eyes started running green, the mist around them denoting just how seriously he was taking this duel now. "No holding back, Sombra..." she reminded him. He charged her with blade in a tight guard, she was seasoned enough to read the intent; he wanted a close and tight fight to put her dexterity in check; shadows pulled her limbs into obscurity and she stood her ground as Sombra saw through the feint and used all of his swords reach to make a wide swing, forcing her back a step that put her off balance; another wide swing to force her back another step followed up with a sudden change in grip. Sombra's magic grabbed the blade of the sword and in an instant the sword was able to cover double the ground as the sharp guard came at her just like he said...a hammer. Nashta braced, taking the blow to her shoulder as she was thrown to the side. She rolled out of the fall and came right at him while he was just about to start waxing again; her sharp blade easily got by his lowered guard and before he could draw his sword back close to protect himself she stabbed the point of her sword into his shoulder, officially drawing first blood. This insult and the cheering guards would be met with fire...Sombra felt all sense of pride and nobility leave him like chains falling off his body as he drew the sword back in fast, using a hoof to swing at her, though he knew he'd never land a hit like that she would be forced to jump back and with a small adjustment his sword found her side and cut a path across her scales that got a cry of pain from her as she held the cut for a moment and moved back with expert speed and grace. They both took a breath and in an instant they were locked again. Nashta was like smoke and Sombra was pure fire. Pain was forgotten, the cheers and shouts were for deaf ears as the two clashed with steel ringing out each and every contact. Nashta gave ground, Sombra panted from chasing her down every time and no one could claim a side was squeezing out an edge in the exhausting looking melee. "Come on King Sombra! Stop holding back!" she shouted suddenly, the crowd going mostly silent. Sombra smiled and pushed a spell into his sword, a sudden light blinding off the edge caught her in the eye and...Spike came rushing at her with sword drawn. Nashta had to give ground and put her hand on the flat of the blade to stop the brutal strike he threw at her. A cry in her throat was silenced when the captain of the guard thrust his sword up, breaking the guard and the swords iron pommel was thrust in a punch that knocked the wind out of her chest. In that same instant, Nashta was falling to her knees as Spike reached an arm, snatching her throat up and picking her whole body up in the air. "I never loved you..." A blade was plunged into her gut, sending hot pain all through her body as cold spread just as fast to her limbs...the mirage melting into the visage of Sombra with sickening green eyes and a grin that was nearly ear to ear. The sword pulling out of her gut with the sound of wet blood and shouting guards... "DAD NO!" Then she looked down and saw the pommel pressed to her belly. Her breath caught in her throat and in a blink she saw Sombra, grinning, but less like a nightmare and more...smug. She was sitting on the ground looking up at him, he withdrew the sword and sat down, the tip of the blade digging into the sand that was the arena to sit upright. She quickly checked her body, felt the blood from the earlier cut and couldn't suppress the whimper of fear...then a sigh of relief. Laying flat on her back and hearing her arm hit her swords hilt. "Celestia, Luna and all the stars in the sky you..." she started... "I'm not sorry. You're a skilled fighter and-" "YOU ACTUALLY BEAT ME?!" she shouted as guards all rushed around them, some holding weapons at the ready and others just trying to see what was going on as she continued. "Look, being honest I expected to win and we'd have this whole lesson about mercy, friendship and- and..." "And you forgot you were fighting a unicorn when you shouted to not hold back. Isn't that right, Nashta..?" he said, the smug grin somehow getting deeper, and full of smugness. She was speechless for a moment before hearing something that made her heart actually stop. "NASHTA! Nash wh- Move guardsman! Make a hole, move! Nash!" Spike; the real Spike was bowling ponies out of his way like actual pins until he finally got to the arena. Seeing her on her back and Sombra looming over her with a sharp blade nearby was enough to nearly send him into a white hot rage... "Dad no! I asked him to duel!" Something snapped in the air between the dragons... "I even drew blood first so its my fault for escalating things. "Spike!" came another voice from the observation deck. Guards, visitors, guests, all eyes in the room went to the second floor and there sat Princess Twilight. Guards all sucked in a gasp, shackles of shame firmly clamping over their hearts while the guests all looked in awe at the princess. "I approved the duel. I wouldn't let anyone hurt your daughter, you know that." "Twi!" he started, trying to argue. "Please, Spike...we all learned a lot here, I think." she turned her gaze to a pony in white. "Can you ask the other cooks to prepare a meal for myself, the captain, Nash and King Sombra, please." The pony nodded quickly, running as fast as he could out the door before anyone could even think of the word punishment or dereliction of duty. The guards all suddenly started talking to each other...section commanders talked to officers who talked to juniors and suddenly everyone was back on task like every post in the castle wasn't totally abandoned... Spike couldn't take his glare off Sombra...ponies moved all around them but his rage and worry was centered squarely on the King who happened to notice the dragon was staring not at him, but at his heart...probably imaginging crushing it under claw. "What can I say, captian...it was approved." he said so, so smugly.