//------------------------------//
// Chapter 32: Time flies but school is only partly fun 
// Story: What a wonderful world 
// by a touch of sparkles 
//------------------------------//

To say school was passing by faster than Sombra expected would be an understatement. Before he knew it, hearts warming came and went and it was the next year. If he was to choose what was his favourite subject so far in the four months he’d been at school he’d have to say chemistry. Unlike the rest of the class, he found it beyond intriguing. That table at the back of his planner was called the periodic table, and those squares where the eighty elements they knew of, and how water was in fact not its own element. He also found it oddly chaotic at times, such as shoving some hydrogen and chlorine together resulted in an acid that starts to fume at roughly forty percent concentration, let alone eat through your table.

Of course they weren’t allowed to play with it, but he’d rather that then that sodium thiosulfate reaction that smells of severely rotted eggs.

Hope of course had become the go to for answers in biology, being a sponge for it. It was certainly interesting to listen to her argue with the teacher about something called DNA and how surely the bases in it must be the coding to life, and not proteins. Hope had an idea that maybe the DNA coded for the proteins. It was complete gibberish but definitely entertaining. 

What wasn’t so entertaining was whatever Fleur was turning into. Opal had described it to Sombra as a “rebel phase”. It seemed to be a personal challenge to her to break every possible rule the school could enforce, they had a feeling it was her following in her brothers hoof steps, who also seemed to break a bunch of rules based on what Fleur and the teachers said. 

There was already an incredibly long list of what she was breaking. In science she refused to stop playing with the taps, in art she cracked the water colour blocks, or mixing colours directly on the white, according to Hope she had clogged sinks and toilets in the mares bathroom multiple times. That was only some of the things, Fleur always had detentions which only progressed up to the hour as she never attended them. Because of this she was rarely in lesson because she was in isolation, if she was in lesson on the rare occasion, she was directly in front of the teacher. 

Him and Hope were still sitting with her, but it was tiring to listen to all of her devious plots and plans, especially the more recent ones of January where she started to target students who they had never even heard the names of. For now though, they were managing to stay out of her trouble.

And once again the terms passed by and it was the summer holiday, and also Sombra’s made up birthday. He slumped out of bed as normal and stretched, his tail arched over, the spine of it now long enough to touch his ears, although the plume of hair on the end obscured his face, which was already covered by his mane. From his front down position he stretched into the opposite, cracking his spine the other way. 

(“Mornin’ mate”) Opal mentally grumbled, stretching out his neck and ruffling his feathers.

(“Morning”)

(“It’s your birthday or something isn’t it?”)

(“Think so”)

(“You wanna practice shadowing again, you haven’t tried in a while”)

(“Sure”) Sombra lifted his hoof up and stared at it, trying to get just it to shift, preferably not wanting to dissolve all his organs away as Opal liked to describe it. Nothing quite happened and he headed down the steps, bashing his withers on the opening was a common pain now. He yawned wide and-

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” Hope screamed at him as she bursted through her doorway. His whole body splatted onto the opposing wall in a inky shadow, before quickly reforming, still pressed into the wall in terror. A white feather drifted down in front of his face, from Opals equal reaction, just without the splat. 

“Too loud?” she asked, before a more reasonable question came out.

“Did you just explode?” 

(“Biologically yes”) Opal responded still out of breath, which Sombra passed over with a nod. Sombra peeled himself off the wall, also realising he had just completely dissolved to shadow, looked at the wall to see no blood splatter like he had expected. He decided to not question it, like Opal told him too. 

The trio went downstairs where they had breakfast, which Miss Chestnut had made some fresh bread, which had only come out the oven a few hours ago. There was small talk as usual, in which Miss Chestnut apologised to Sombra again about not being able to get him much just like in hearts warming. They still hadn’t figured out what his main interests were, or any of his hobbies. Although Sombra did admit the fact he didn’t have many hobbies. After breakfast, Hope was first to give him his present.

“I figured since you go out to the forest a lot” he ripped open the paper to find a small book, “a guide to plants and animals in the crystal lands”.

“I also want to…go with you…maybe” she said softly, almost barely audible while turning her face away from him. Sombra stood for a moment, trying to figure out how in the North he would hunt without traumatising her, and also assuming that the crystal lands was just the area between the North and whatever was further south. 

“Sure” he put the book on the table, then Miss Chestnut bought him another present. He opened it to find a fancy grooming kit, specifically for thick fur.

“When was the last time you groomed scruffy?” she raised her eyebrows at him, which would have been more intimidating if he wasn’t taller. 

“Yesterday” he lied.

“I’ll be checking mister” 

“Come on, give him a break-“ Cloud tried to back him up.

“He goes out to school as a scruff every day!-“

“Did you groom today?” he asked her, which Miss Chestnut walked out the kitchen, clearly defeated but kept her head up. In that short time, Sombra hadn’t realised Hope had took the kit and was looking at the different brushes, combs and scissors inside. 

“These are really nice” she commented, levitating a comb and pulling it through the end strands of Sombra’s mane. She absentmindedly started to comb through the fur on his shoulder.

“So um, if I knew Hope had gotten you something plant based I might not have gotten this, but you should like it…it’s also another book, sorry ‘bout that” Cloud passed him his gift, which was indeed another plant theme, but more specific. 

“Grow my own peppers?”

“Yeah, I figured you might like growing your own, but I think you need to wait for march, I read something about planting about then” 

“I guess I can just take the seeds out the market ones?”

“I’d assume so” Sombra looked over to his side when he felt a tug on his leg, to find Hope still brushing out his fur, a distinct line of smooth fur going down. She was only pulled out of her trance when she looked up.

“Oh um…I’ll take these up for you” she swiftly gathered up his presents, stumbled and went upstairs. He stood slightly bewildered, before turning back to cloud, who had another book in his hand, except it had no tittle.  

“This isn’t so much a fun present, it’s just Velvet told me about the nightmares you had, I found writing them down useful when I was younger” Cloud told him, the book had a simple leather cover along with an attached string braid which was slotted between pages. While Sombra didn’t have much knowledge on the way items were produced, he could tell this seemed home made if he compared it to the other book. Its pages showed signs of scissor slips and its spine was bound with string. The book was very stiff to open and he found the pages to be blank.

“I figured in the middle of the night you might find it easier to scribble instead of write, but you can always make your own lines” 

“Thanks” as he turned to go take it up stairs, he was met by Hope who had a envelope in her magic and attempting to hide a rather devious smirk. 

“I forgot you card” she said a little stiffly trying to keep her lips neutral. Weary of the smile Sombra took the card. He wished he had magic so he didn’t have to open what was most likely a card she made herself with his teeth. Fiddling with it between his ankle and teeth he pulled open the envelope and pulled out the card.

Which opened to a waterfall of fine glitter which buried itself into his fur. 

“Why’d you do this to me” he didn’t question but said in defeat, while Hopes snicker turned into a gleeful laugh.

“I thought I’d teach you about glitter the fun way” Sombra huffed and put the card in his hoof, in which it read “happy seven hundred something”. It was his turn to laugh, but at least he got a card. The rest of his birthday went down rather smoothly. There was a small cake which they shared along with pie and cookies which all replaced actual food. 

The smoothness ended when he went to wash, which he did instead of a bath as he could only stand in it now. Most of the glitter had shook of but even still as he scrubbed his hoof fur with a brush more miraculously appeared. 

(“While you work on that I might go check out the North, see if its tolerable for ponies and maybe Cloudy can get some ideas for that book he’s writing”)

(“K”)

(“Good luck with that”)

(“What is this stuff”) he kept scrubbing away as Opal flew out the window, only stopping when his skin hurt from scrubbing. After giving up and just finishing his wash, he dried off. However when he parted the fur of his hoof he still, after a straight half hour of scrubbing, saw little glitters. He quietly growled and crossed the hallway into Hopes bedroom door, which he then gave her a raging glare. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Just you wait until your birthday” 

“But I can just open it away from me”

“I will find a way” he left.





About a week passed before Opal returned from the North. The first thing he did was raid the kitchen cupboards and take an extra long time in preening. 

(“So what’s it like?”)

(“Well, it’s a little warmer than a usual day, being what seems to be a single negative, a pony could survive with thick enough coats, but I’m pretty sure they can buy them easily”)

(“What about all the things that would eat them?”)

(“This is strange, it seems like they’ve been…frozen? Not literally but all the predators are statues, I found a wyvern that looks to have crash landed and it didn’t respond to me at all”)

(“So everything is safe?”)

(“Well in terms of animal hazards yes, but the environment is just as bad since I imagine they aren’t skilled in walking on mountains”)

(“Well surely there’s flat areas”)

(“Yeah, there’s a variety of creatures in a valley at the moment, but we need to get behind those mountains for it, they’ll be some climbing but I’m sure there’s some level bits on the side”)

(“If not Cloud can always fly”)

(“You’ll have to ask him at breakfast tomorrow”)