"Something for them all to do..." Umbra strode down the street with a faint frown and heavy thoughts on her mind. "There has to be something..."
She almost crashed into a landing tsuki. "You alright?"
The tsuki smiled bright at her. "Shadow protector! Is good see. Want ask."
Umbra nodded slowly. "Is this about the lights? I thought we fixed that."
"No." The tsuki pointed at her with a fuzzy finger. "Want protector shadow. Know busy. Have other protector shadows? Send spare. Have spare?"
Umbra's scowl faded into confusion. "Oh..." But, she didn't have a spare shadow laying around. Did her mane count? No, it was attached to her, and not even a shadow, really... "I know some shadows... But I'd need to talk to them to know if they're up to protecting."
The tsuki clapped his hands with building joy. "Yes! Please. Go ask. Tell." He grabbed for Umbra, squeezing her with the great hugging strength his sort were known for. "You great!"
Even as the air was forced from her, Umbra laughed. "I... try my best. I'll find you, or another tsuki, when I know for sure."
"Yes." He bounded away, looking entirely confident that everything was under control.
Umbra went instead to visit one of her known umbrum. "Midnight!"
A set of eyes glared at her from a darkened window. "It's the middle of the night for sane umbrum, which you are not."
"No... But an idea came and slapped me across the face and I'm hoping you like it." Umbra tried her best smile. "You'll get to go to where it's never bright and sunny, and people will celebrate you for being a shadow."
"You're messing with me." The curtains drew a bit closer to shut. "Why do you tease me? Sure, I tease you, but you have it coming. I am a law abiding nightmare of your darkest memories. I am doing what I was made to do. You? You are not. What's your excuse?"
Umbra snorted at the gloomy window. "Witching, I'm here to offer something nice. Doing nice things is a habit of mine."
"A bad one," came the melodic notes of the shy shadow.
"Awful." Umbra smiled a little. "But a reliable one. I'm not here to just jerk your chain and you know it."
"There's going to be a catch." Witching let the curtain fall closed, but her hoofsteps could be heard as she came to and cracked open the door. "Get on with it. What's the catch?"
Umbra tried to approach the door, but it clicked shut with even one step towards it. "Witching!"
"You don't need to be in here," came the muffled reply. "What's the catch?"
Umbra put a hoof to her face and counted to ten to regain her composure. "Do you know the tsuki? The rabbits?"
"Big, bouncy. Have almost no regrets. What about them?"
"Those." Umbra sat before the door. "They want some protector shadows. They want some powerful shadows to scare away even scarier things."
"You're joking." The cracked open the door a tiny bit. "You want me to make them feel safe?"
"Safe, knowing a fierce shadow is there, that can mess anything up that intrudes on her territory." Umbra flashed a feral grin at the door. "They will worship you."
"You're exaggerating." Witching emerging, scowling at the bright sky. "Where do they live?"
Umbra pointed the way. "A good hike, but nothing an umbrum can't handle. Slip in under cover of night, then never have to worry about the day again."
"Get out." Witching thumped Umbra in the chest. "Get out!" She meant it, pushing Umbra back as she advanced. "Those fluffy buns need sun, don't they?"
"They like it." Umbra shrugged mildly. "But they live in the dark. They picked up some lights for the darkest corners of their caves, but they're caves, and they like it that way."
"Yeah?" Witching shuffled her hooves on the ground. "You're playing favorites."
"How?"
"Duh?" Witching leaned in with a sneer. "I'm not the only umbrum around that could use a dark hole. How dare you come here and just offer it to me."
Umbra twitched an ear at her in-law. "I was hoping you'd help with that. You know the other umbrum better than me, and they trust you more than they trust me. The ones that want to get away are the ones that don't want to have a nice chat with me."
"You have a point." She turned for her house. "Now go away. I'll bother them at a reasonable hour. I swear..." She stormed inside and slammed the door shut. "Learn to sleep like an umbrum," she shouted from inside, and things went quiet.
Umbra turned with a little skip of her hooves on the cobblestone. "Great." One matter, solved. She conjured some paper and scrawled on it a map of how to reach the tsukis. She tucked it under the door for Witching to find later. "Have fun." No reply came, but she wasn't expecting one. She set off with a smile and a purpose.
"We need to talk."
Umbra jumped back, not on the street of the Crystal Empire. She was on a little island in the middle of nothing, and everything. There was a house on it, and a strange creature watching her.
"Hi there." He waved at himself. "I'm Discord, have we met? Doesn't matter. We need to talk."
Umbra considered the strangeness that was Discord. "Hello. Are you a good guy or a bad guy?"
"Now that depends on who you ask." He clapped his hands together in one firm stroke. "But I like to think I'm an alright guy. If it helps, I'm friends with Twilight and the girls. Even Starlight knows me, and we only mildly hate each other, sometimes. We mostly get along."
"Alright..." That didn't sound immediately horrifying. "So, hello, Discord. I'm--"
"--Umbra," he cut in. "Once human, now pony. Once a male, physically, then a female, then a female again." He counted on his fingers the various steps along that process. "Look, I don't appreciate it."
"Appreciate what?" Umbra hiked a brow at him. "And where are we?"
"Not even slightly important." He shooed that topic away. "There was a plan. I hate plans, but we had one. You coming threw them out of order pretty badly. Now, if I had done that, I'd be congratulating myself, but no, it was you." He loomed over her. "And you aren't the spirit of chaos, now are you?"
"And you waited this long... why?" Umbra rolled a hoof. "I've been here forever at this point."
"True! Dreadfully slow of me... I was panicking, if we're being honest." He tapped Umbra with a pointer. "I had plans! I don't normally do those, but I had one. It involved Sombra, who you ruined. I reached for that playing piece and, pop, he's not there. A lot of things aren't there, moved around. I don't appreciate another player just shuffling the pieces around without even knowing what they're playing."
"So you're going to tell me?" She swatted at her mane, but it would not be calmed so easily. It grasped and hugged at Discord like a new plush toy.
He giggled and pawed at it. "Cut that out. Look. You are a human." With a sudden sharp snap, Umbra was a human, her old self. "You have two arms and everything. Why are you playing pony?"
Umbra flexed her returned hands. It felt... unnatural. She had stopped being that so long ago. "Because life is... change. I was a human. I am a pony. I love them, and I am one."
"That's a laugh." Discord tapped her on the nose. "Your mistakes aren't ones a pony would make. You won't ever magically stop being a human, it's baked in." He snapped his fingers, conjuring Starlight from nowhere.
"Discord!" She glared at him sternly. "You put me back..." She trailed off, seeing the odd human thing there. "What is that?"
"You don't recognize her? How cruel!" Discord fluttered his lashes, looking far too amused about the whole thing.
Starlight looked over the human Umbra curiously. "Did he drag you here too? Um, hi?"
"Hi." Ugh, even her voice was off. Her entire body wasn't her own, not anymore. Umbra hated it. "Starlight, I'm so sorry he pulled you into this. He's being a real jerk."
"That's his specialty." Starlight rolled her eyes. "You look like... some kind of deformed human."
Umbra started. "You know what a human is?!"
"Mirror, remember that? Twilight told me all about it." Starlight nodded with understanding. "You look like one, but not shaped quite like she said? Um, anyway, nice meeting you." She twirled on Discord. "Put us back."
"No." He brought down a hand on either of them. "Starlight, meet Umbra. You two are close friends, are you not?"
"Umbra?"
Umbra flinched at Starlight's baffled expression. "It's me..."
"What... Discord! Put them back! Right now!" She stomped in place. "I don't care what else you do."
Umbra thought of a few magic answers, but she had no horn. She had nothing. She was just a human. "What did you want?"
"Good question." Celebration music blared as confetti rained around Umbra. "You ruined the little thing I had in mind, so I want you to help me put it back together."
Starlight looked between the two. "What thing is that?"
"I was going to arrange a final test for Twilight. Something to really knock her horseshoes off." He rubbed his hands together with plotting in his eyes. "I can still do 2/3rdsof it, but I'm missing a properly restored Sombra. You're almost Sombra. How about you play the part?"
"Pass?" Umbra hiked a brow at the idea. "I don't want to pretend to be that jerk in any way. What'd you have him do?"
"Mostly get destroyed to show the others what acting without friendship could do." He shrugged lightly. "A character lesson only he could provide so well."
Starlight cringed, ears down. "You are not suggesting Umbra get destroyed for your crazy plan! I may be kinda pissed at her, but I don't want her exploded." She glared at Discord with renewing ire. "Put her back, since we're on the topic. Umbra is a pony, or umbrum, or whatever. Not a human."
"Yeah!" That much she could agree with easily. "Please."
"Thank you for being polite." He clapped his hands, the shockwave blowing Umbra's humanity away, leaving her falling back to all four hooves. "If you won't be my Sombra... How will you get Twilight ready? She needs something to kick her furry rump over the finish line. She has to be in charge. Celestia is retiring."
"She is?" Starlight inclined her head. "Since when?"
"If you talked to her, you'd know." Discord dismissed that as a silly idea. "Anyway! She is, and I need Twilight ready to step it up. You're busy playing family in the Crystal Empire, which isn't helping. How's that going to make the difference?"
Umbra raised a hoof. "Calm down. Alright, Twilight, I know her. Why isn't she ready right now?"
Starlight inclined her head at Umbra. "Ditto. Twilight's awesome."
Discord folded his arms across his chest. "You aren't even supposed to be here yet."
Starlight blinked at that. "Uh?"
"Long story." He straightened out. "Remember that tortured hellscape you helped make and unmake?"
Starlight paled at the memory. "That was an accident, and we unmade it, so... All good?" She laughed nervously.
"Ha ha, yes." Discord waggled his brows. "Think of the here and now just like that, another maybe. Really, they all are if you think about it. None of them have more of a right to be than any of the others. Either way, in this maybe, she showed up." He pointed at Umbra accusingly. "And things went crazy. You didn't think messing with the girls would cause so much to change, did you? But it did."
Starlight swallowed heavily. "Can we..." She licked her lips. "Wait... What is it if we undo it?"
"We're way too far for that." Discord rolled his eyes. "I summoned you for a reason. You know what this is like. Explain it to her."
"But..." Starlight didn't get to finish, both her and Umbra being banished to a street in the Crystal Empire.