It didn’t take long for Sombra’s shoulder to heal up to a point he was practically normal again. However Sombra had a good feeling it was going to be a terrible day of school from the moment he walked into form and locked eyes with the new kid. This crystal pony was a unicorn with cream fur and a pink mane, and the second their eyes locked, his face twisted into a malicious smirk. Sombra made his way to the back of the room which is where he sat in every class, since he was too tall and blocked everyone’s view. His group consisted of him and Hope, along with Raisin and Ginger who were in the same year as them. Sombra motioned with his head in a way to ask who the new kid was.
“Valentine, every pony already hates him, all of yesterday he wouldn’t stop bragging about how he was the princesses nephew” Ginger mumbled.
“He uses it as a fear tactic to get the teachers let him off with doing whatever he wants” Raisin added.
(“I get the feeling I might be screwed”)
(“You don’t say mate”)
(“Maybe its best I don’t come here anymore”)
(“All that would do for you is stop him tormenting you, since you can guarantee the moment he gets home Amore is going to get informed about your existence and general idea of where you are”)
(“How about we go to the head at lunch”)
(“Probably for the best”)
First lesson came around which was art, and Sombra had found quite the passion for it, very much enjoying it. But for this lesson he sat there ignoring the paper wasps being sling-shoted into his spine. He wasn’t to sure if Valentine was aware of his heightened sense of hearing, but he was very aware of Valentine mocking him about how he had to stand because he was to big to sit in the chairs.
“Does that not hurt?” Hope asked him.
“The fur helps” another one bounced of his hip, while he continued to paint the random fruit sitting on the desk.
History comes around next, and it could be summed up as the entire class feeling very uncomfortable. Valentine was sitting there, bragging to the kid sitting next to him, how he used to beat up and break the bones of the umbrum his parents owned. He talked about how he would take enjoyment about seeing them collapse to the ground, or slowly watching their minds break into submission. The closest kids next to him, especially the one that Valentine was talking directly too, had gone rather pale.
Sweet relief was break for that class. Sombra was chilling outside with Opal, in which Sombra was distracted from eating by watching from a distance, Valentine harassing Hope in the hall. He could tell from the disgust on her face she wasn’t having anything coming from Valentine’s mouth, and she managed to get away from him. Hope rushed her way over to Sombra.
“Sweet Celestia he’s insufferable”.
“I’ve gathered”
“It gets worse as well, A he’s clearly into me, B he’s trying to get me to abandon you and C he’s in all of our classes” she complained, just as she was doing so Valentine was walking up behind them, bravado plastered all over his face. There were two miserable looking ponies who appeared to be hired as henchmen, and the rest of the school on break followed behind, expecting some drama.
“So I see you haven’t taken my advice” his voice consisted of a sickening amount of pride and Hope turned to him with scowl.
“You know, such a pretty mare like you shouldn’t hang around with…whatever that is” he waved his hoof at Sombra, adding a grimace to his point.
“I’d like to know why your so into me considering for you and the other upper class consider me as nothing more than utter dirt” Hope questioned him.
“Oh well you see, you are in fact nothing more than dirt, frankly you really shouldn’t be called crystal with the distinct lack of shine on your fur, but you are a unicorn, and you may not know this, but any crystal unicorn gets a free ticket to royalty” he took a few steps towards Hope, and she batted away a hoof that was coming up to touch her cheek.
“If your insinuating that you want me to sit next to you on some fancy throne then I would rather be caught dead then be seen sitting next to a lump of fat like you, and I doubt you could ever shed it considering how much food you must be able to afford” she spat in his face, a collective excitement from the crowd. Valentine recoiled backwards as his ego was attacked, and Sombra and Opal stood somewhat terrified at where that side of Hope had came from. It took a moment for Valentine to recover.
“Well considering you come to this school I’m sure you’ve got some money yourself as well…but then again, I do remember seeing a rather pitiful little unicorn who looked just like you at an orphanage once. And if were being honest here, the only way you met that freak is at an orphanage, since I doubt his parent are around anymore, you should count yourself lucky that I can’t remember the name of that place” Valentine strutted away with a face of triumph just as the bell went, with an attempt to graze his tail under Hopes chin which she forces away with her magic in disgust.
(“Opal, at what point can I abandon morals?”)
(“I think Hopes already done that judging by that face”)
They made their way to the worse lesson of the weak, being a double old Ponish lesson. It was already insufferable chaos as the class slowly gave up and lost parts of their sanity to the unending two hours, but it was worse now. Fortunately for Sombra it seemed that Valentine had drawn his attention to some poor other kid. So the two hours slogged by, in which him and Hope filled it with the usual of Sombra teacher her Umbrall instead. And finally it came to lunch.
“I’m going to talk to the head, I don’t think I should be here anymore” Sombra told Hope.
“Okay, I’m going to hide in the toilets until I hear you come down the stairs”.
“Right, I’ll see you in a bit” Sombra made his way up to the teachers corridor, however they ran into the head on the way.
“Oh hello, are you alright?” his voice seemed shaken, disturbed.
“Uh yeah, can we talk for a bit?”
“Valentine?”
“Yes”
“Of course, this way” Sombra followed him into his office, where he would of taken a seat if he wasn’t a giant.
“So I can only assume based on what I saw out the window at break that Valentines been getting on your nerves”
“Well yes, but also if he is Amore’s nephew there’s reason to believe that he’s in contact with her so it’s probably best I’m not around him”
“Right, yes I should have seen this coming, if it is safer for you to not be in school anymore then I wont stop you, and to be frank after today I suspect I may be a dead stallion, and I worry for every family of each student given the circumstances of what I’ve had to let happen” there’s was the solemn expression of expectant doom on his face and in his voice.
“Did you have to let Valentine come here?” Sombra asked him.
“Either way I am dead, but maybe I could of made myself the only casualty and not a few hundred families” he paused with a heavy sigh, Sombra watched as the crystal shine seeped out of his fur.
“You may leave now if you wish, I wont make you go to your last lesson”.
“Oh, okay, I’m not sure I want to be around him in a chemistry practical either”.
“That is understandable, you are free to go back to lunch” Sombra turned back to head through the door.
“Oh and Sombra, if I don’t see you again, I wish you luck in finding your family and getting to go home” there was a flicker of a smile amongst the defeat, Sombra could only return one that was a bit more hopeful.
(“He’s excepted his fate”)
(“I didn’t realise Amore had such control over them”)
(“I mean, she managed to manipulate the ruler of the country into not suspecting a thing for two hundred years”)
(“How has she managed to live so long, I thought ponies only live for like eighty years”)
(“I’m not sure if I’m totally right on this, as I overheard it through a window, but something about the crystal holds more magic than the bodies, so they live for longer, I think its about five hundred years for crystal ponies”)
(“What about Cloud and Chestnut, Clouds not a crystal”)
(“I’m sure they’ve talked about that, the same will be said for you and anyone you know now”)
(“Right”) Sombra headed down the stairs and called out for Hope, who excited the toilets with Fleur to his surprise.
“How’d it go?” Hope asked.
“I’m allowed to leave after lunch”.
“Your leaving me to deal with that prat in chemistry?” Hope asked in slight anger.
“Sorry about that” he looked over to Fleur confused, since she hadn’t talked to them in years.
“oh right yeah, I’ll explain outside, how about we go out the back to try and avoid Valentine”.
“Yeah okay, sounds good” they made their way out the back of the school. In which Fleur began to speak first.
“Ok so, I’m sorry about the last few years, I got roped into the popular mares because I have money, and from there it was just peer pressure I never actually wanted to-“
“That’s fine” Sombra interrupted her, quickly getting the idea that she never wanted to leave them.
“I’ve been wanting to find a reason to get away from them for a while, and given that Valentine has more money than me, they’ve gone to him and he really annoys me, especially how he talked to you at break” she continued.
“Seriously its fine” he was taken off guard by a light hug of Fleur. They spent the rest of lunch unbothered and catching up with Fleur. When lunch ended Sombra told them that he’s going to hide in a large oak tree down the pathway until they come out of school. Which he did so.
(“I wish I was as good as sitting in tress as you were”) Sombra mumbled as his hooves slipped as he tried to find his balance.
(“Comes by weird tendons and nature for me”)
(“Is it weird being a bird with an equal level of intelligence to us but then be surrounded by normal birds?”)
(“Sometimes yes, although I’m not alone, I believe phoenixes are similar to Lumos, although I am unsure if they can form telepathic links”)
(“Are Lumos like, a magically enhanced peacock of sorts, you look exactly like them”)
(“We don’t remember our origin but that wouldn’t be a stretch to assume”)
(“Didn’t you call them trumpet birds or something”)
(“Mate, you haven’t heard them yet”)
(“So what do you sound like”)
(“Like this”)
(“No like, physically, if you made actual sound”) there was a dismissive silence from Opals end.
(“If I was to throttle you what sound would you make”)
(“Mate”) he sounded broken hearted.
(“I wouldn’t actually throttle you”) just as he said that, they heard the wheels and hooves of a carriage pull up to the school.
(“I think I can guess who that’s for”) Sombra said without being able to look with out falling out the tree.
(“Of course it’s the most fancy, ornate god damn thing in existence, sweet Umbralis”) Opal commented being able to poke his head out the leaves. While Sombra listened, Opal watched as the school slowly filtered out.
(“Hi Bean”) Opal stuck his head down, which Sombra attempted to lean down as well but he was very aware of his instability.
“Stay up their until that carriage leaves, theirs two guards pulling it” Hope told them, Fleur standing with her and looking back to watch the carriage.
“He’s just got on, I’ll tell you when they are round the corner” Fleur said. They waited a few minutes until Sombra was finally given the all clear to not so elegantly fall out the tree.
“Hey, you know, I’m not sure if I actually know where you live so I can come visit” Fleur said.
“Oh, Tourmaline street, there’s boats loads of roses in the front garden you’ll see it”.
“Oh neat, I’ll come round at some time” Fleur waved them goodbye as she took a different turn to them. they made their way home, in which having moved into the living room, Cloud had cleared out a cabinet for him to put his stuff in so it didn’t need to go on the floor. So Sombra took the chance to practice his shadow again to get in and out his inaccessible bedroom. By the time he had moved his stuff around, he had gotten pretty good at dissolving and reforming.
“So this is a thing you can just do?” Hope asked him,
“Yeah, it’s an Umbrum thing”..
“Umbrum?”.
“What I am?”.
“Oh right, so you’re not actually a massive draft unicorn who got unlucky on colour genes”.
“No” there was something adorable about that spark of innocence.
“Is the floaty hair thing also an Umbrum thing”.
“Pretty sure”
“Okay, because only natural born alicorns have floaty hair in ponies”.
“Alicorn?” it was his turn to be confused.
“A unicorn with wings, and I think its believed they have earth pony as well as they also show the ability to influence the ground and stuff”
“Right” he began to organise his little cabinet of items, keeping his blankets out for sleep but folding and stacking other little items, such as the building blocks and the long since emptied bowl of preserving powder.
Having retired for the night, and Sombra taking over the living room, Cloud and Miss Chestnut had taken their conversations to the back garden. And while Sombra knew he shouldn’t be eavesdropping, it was hard when his ears where developed to here the squeak of a mouse in high winds. Which wasn’t exactly a good excuse, but he found himself listening.
“Velvet, I, I’ve made a mistake” Cloud started.
“Being?”
“I, I’ve been flying”.
You what!?” it was not quite a shout, a restrained effort to keep her voice hushed.
“Over the last few years, I’ve just flown without thinking, then with that trip to the north that was technically me leaving…” a brief silence fell.
“you’ve never told me why you were so scared, like I know it’s not safe for you to do so, but you never told what that threat was” she asked him, in which he sighed before he started.
“When I came here, I had a feeling I got myself into some trouble the moment I saw what was actually going on, and before I knew it I was grabbed by some guards and taken to the princess. And when I got to her, she was in her bedroom and…there was this wall it was-it was just covered in severed horns and she’d even made a makeshift crown out of them. I-I don’t remember anything about the conversation except…except when she told me she’d reckon a pair of wings would look good on that wall…” that was enough, Sombra didn’t want to hear any more bad news. He quickly made his way to his corner of pillows and pretended to sleep as they walked past a short while later to go upstairs.
(“Opal, I…I feel like I should be doing something”)
(“like what”)
(“I mean, I want to find out what happened to the rest of the umbrum, but also I want to help these ponies, it’s just…not right”)
(“I can’t say I disagree, but how would you even start with either of those goals”)
(“I guess get rid of Amore, but like you said, how”)
(“We will just need to find something to give us an idea”)