Somnambula was sitting crossed-legged on the floor with her eyes closed breathing in and out, slowly. Meditation had been a big part of everyday life in her homeland. It was so common, that they were always surprised that other creatures didn’t know about it.
Being raised to meditate for hours a day, Somnambula couldn’t help but feel the need to do it. It wasn’t as if she was forcing herself to do something she didn’t want. It was a habit from her foalhood that would never die, no matter how hard she would try.
However, while she was meditating, she couldn’t help but see distorted images of Stygian. Distorted images showed hatred towards her.
Inside her mind, she stood a few feet away from Stygian. She felt relief seeing him in his wonderful state, the unicorn she had fallen in love with. He smiled at her. The same smile that made her tummy roll. She smiled widely and was about to run over to hug him when she noticed something peculiar.
The darkness around them wasn’t… normal.
She knew her eyes were closed but something about this darkness felt unnatural. She looked past Stygian but saw nothing. Just endless darkness that didn’t have a beginning or an end.
She looked above her. Same thing as before.
Somnambula looked over to Stygian again and almost shrieked. Stygian still stood in place, but instead of a smile was a sadistic grin that stretched disturbingly far on his face. His teeth were visible with sharp teeth and some drool leaking from his mouth.
Slowly from beneath him, a shadowy mist emerged like a small tornado and latched onto Stygian and slowly consumed him all the while, Stygian was grinning wider. His eye colour and pupils began to disappear, being replaced by the pure white menacing look that terrified her every night.
His horn was replaced by a longer, sharper horn that could cut bone like butter. To add a final touch to the distorted image, ‘Stygian’ showed a pair of skeletal wings with no feathers on them.
“You banished me from friendship, I’ll banish you permanently!!” The distorted Stygian shouted and cast a spell on her.
Somnambula screamed at the top of her lungs and looked around her room. A few seconds later, the Pillars and Element Bearers busted down the door, Rockhoof in charge with his trusty shovel and looked all around the room.
“What’s going on, lassie?!” He demanded while looking all over the room for an intruder. Meadowbrook kneeled before Somnambula and embraced her in a hug.
“I…I…” She didn’t know what to speak. Rockhoof calmed down while he looked to his fiance and friend hugging, waiting for the Pillar of Hope to speak.
Somnambula saw the concerned faces of all her friends and Element Bearers. She knew she couldn’t play it off as nothing. With a heavy heart, she told them what happened.
“I was meditating when I began to think of Stygian. Everything was normal at first, but I started to look around the darkness and realised that it didn’t feel natural. I looked past him and above me, but I couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong. I stared back at Stygian and I shrieked. I saw a grin on his face, not a kind grin, a very… disturbing grin. Later I saw a dark mist in the form of a small tornado latch onto him and turned him into the… Pony Of Shadows!”
Somnambula began to sob into Meadowbrooks shoulder who could only hug her. She allowed a few tears to fall. The other Pillars lowered their heads.
Because of them, not only did they ruin Somnambula’s chances of love, but they also indirectly turned Stygian into an evil King. Magnus landed on his hooves and trotted away from Somnambula’s room which went unnoticed by all except Mistmane who followed him.
The Element Bearers were worried for the Pillar of Hope, especially Pinkie Pie who trotted forward and hugged the mare with such gentleness that it could rival Fluttershy. The room was silent as the orange-coated pegasus cried her eyes out.
When Somnambula calmed down she wiped away her tears. Her eyes were red a puffy she looked over to her saddle bag that was packed and ready. Could she really do this? Was she ready to find Stygian and confront him?
She mentally slapped herself. Of course, she was ready! She didn’t spend a thousand years in Limbo just to come out and not even see Stygian all because she grew a little emotional.
“Sorry about that,” She murmured quietly. “It was just my imagination. I seem to be out-of-touch with meditation.”
“Hey, it’s not you’re fault, it could have happened to any pony or dragon,” Meadowbrook soothingly said.
“She’s right, las, you shouldn’t feel ashamed of yerself simply because you saw a distorted image from yer imagination. I’ve had a few of them back in the day,” Rockhoof unashamedly admitted.
Somnambula smiled slightly. She knew her friends were right, but she gave them a false alarm. They thought that she was in danger.
“I know, but I screamed so loud you must have thought Pony Of Shadows had come to kidnap me or something,” Somnambula said while she hung her head. “But I wouldn’t have minded if it happened.” She murmured so no pony would hear.
“If you want dear, I can brew you a dreamless potion if you need it?” Meadowbrook suggested while rubbing her hoof on the pegasus’ back.
“Oh, no, we just packed I don’t want you wasting ingredients on me,” Somnambula tried but failed to convince the healer who smiled sadly at her.
“Dear, the potion isn’t difficult to mix, it is a very quick one compared to others. I’ll have a batch ready in twenty minutes. Besides, we’ll need it for the travel.” Meadowbrook said and looked over to the other ponies and dragon in the room who nodded in agreement.
Somnambula noticed that Twilight was looking at her with a tilted head. One of confusion.
“Somnambula, why would you think that Stygian would be the Pony Of Shadows, or is it a horrible thought?” The alicorn asked with her head still tilted.
Pinkie and Spike stared at her in disbelief while Fluttershy looked a bit scared. Rainbow and Applejack stared at her incredulously. Now wasn’t the time to ask such a question, it was insensitive.
“Do you honestly not know?” Spike asked with a little sarcasm that accidentally seeped into his voice and crossed his arms.
“Yeah, Twilight, by now you should have found out the truth it’s clear as day already. There are six chapters of this fanfiction and you’ve solved mysteries with far less!” Pinkie pointed out while pulling out a cupcake from her mane and popped it inside her mouth.
They stared at her in confusion and she facepalmed. “Sorry, I meant seven counting this one,”
Twilight didn’t know how to respond to that so she shrugged it off. “Well, would you care to enlighten me?” She asked and looked to Spike.
Somnambula bit her lower lip. She knew that this conversation would happen sooner or later but she had hoped to wait a bit so she could reveal it but now she was backed into a corner. It wasn’t as if she was trying to hide the information from them, but it was getting difficult when they continued to talk more and more about Pony Of Shadows and Stygian as separate entities.
…Well, to some extent, they are.
Somnambula saw that Spike was about to respond but she spoke quickly and loudly before the secret was revealed. “What he means is that the answer is obvious.”
Everypony and dragon turned to her with confusion. The Pillars were surprised by her response. ‘Is… she going to say it?’ Starswirl thought with shock.
Twilight quirked a brow. “What do you mean?”
Somnambula took a deep breath. “The answers you seek are right in front of you. In the memories I grew angry at Miss Applejack for stating that only evil creatures could corrupt the seeds of friendship The Pillars and I had planted so long ago. I said; ‘Stygian is not evil!’ and when we got to the topic of Pony Of Shadows, I subtly glared at Rockhoof for speaking of the Pony in such a way. When Miss Applejack said she would slay the Pony, I shouted ‘No don’t hurt him, he’s not evil!!’ Why would I say that?”
There was silence in the room. You could hear a pin drop. Rockhoof, Meadowbrook and Starswirl looked to the floor as guilt flooded them like a river. The Element Bearers looked a bit surprised but soon, Twilight and Applejack felt their stomach flip.
“Wait you’re saying…” Twilight couldn’t finish her sentence. She prayed to Celestia she was wrong.
Somnambula hid her expression behind her bangs. “You do not learn magic that quickly—sending ponies into Limbo.”
The Element Bearers gasped, except Rainbow Dash who looked at them confused.
“Uh, I’m missing something,” she said while looking around. Rarity was the one that replied.
“Darling, the Pony Of Shadows is… Stygian,” the fashionista now understood why the Pillar of Hope always looked guilty. It wasn’t just that she failed as a friend and love interest, but she felt guilty for losing that pony to something so… dark.
Rainbow Dash looked confused for a split second before her pupils turned to pinpricks. “Wait… the Pony Of Shadows is real and Stygian is the threat we’ve been discussing?”
Somnambula noticed how the purple-scaled dragon grabbed the side of his head in frustration and walked out of the room. She could have sworn she heard him mutter along the lines of; “never listening” and “head filled with air,”
She took note of Pinkie Pie—the pony who represented her Element in modern Equestria—being in a similar state of mind. She, however, voiced her complaints.
“I told you so!” She shouted with a large smile causing everypony to stare at her in wonder.
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked while trying to process the information they just learned.
“I told you that Stygian was the Pony Of Shadows, I told you and voiced my theories but no! You just came up with excuses—but I’ll admit, they were good and believable—and never once took into consideration that there was a possibility that Stygian was the Pony Of Shadows!” Pinkie ranted while pulling out a milkshake from who-knows-where. “I told you so!”
Twilight and the other Element Bearers pondered on what the pink-coated mare had said. While it was true that the mare had spoken of the possibility that the unicorn was the dreaded Pony that haunted the lands of Equestria at one period in time, they believed that the Pony was a mere myth.
Twilight started to feel guilty when she realised that she never once considered that it was a possibility, always stating that it was a myth and legend. She had fought myths and legends before, hadn’t she? She had faced Nightmare Moon, Discord, King Sombra and Lord Tirek. All of them were believed to be mere myths that never existed. Yet, Twilight and her friends battled against them and won. Discord was even close to ending friendship throughout the land but they pulled through in the end.
Why was it difficult for her to believe that the Pony Of Shadows existed once?
Grogar was a villain from ancient Equestria and there were countless stories of him and depictions of his evil-doing from that time, many scholars are convinced that he roamed Equestria once—Twilight included—but that he either was dead or was trapped somewhere.
If Grogar was believed to have existed, and Twilight believed he existed, then why couldn’t she believe Pony also roamed Equestria?
Somnambula decided that they had pondered long enough. “To be fair, Miss Pie, the fault also rest in my friends and I, for not saying that the two ponies are one and the same.” She admitted. “I should have told you from the start but I never did and for that, I’m sorry.”
Pinkie Pie smiled at her gently and hugged her. “It’s alright, It’s not easy speaking about the one you love as a villain.”
The orange-coated pegasus agreed wholeheartedly.
“Alright, are we all ready to go?” Asked a voice in the hallway which revealed to be Magnus who had returned with Mistmane who looked at the orange-coated pegasus with concern.
Twilight nodded. “Yeah, we’re ready but where will we go?”
They all knew that they needed to reach the outskirts of Equestria if they wanted to find the Kingdom, but they had not agreed on where they should start looking. Badlands were a great place to start which they agreed on, but they didn’t agree on which directions they should take.
“Well, we could go to a town called Kludgetown,” Starswirl replied while stroking his beard while thinking. “It is an unsavoury town I will admit, but you can learn many things there information-wise.”
They looked at the old wizard in surprise. He was the last pony on earth they expected to enter an “unsavoury” town. He was the definition of anti-dark magic, and here he just told them that he had been there. Or at least, knew where it was and knew they could learn information there.
“Wow, the great and powerful Starswirl went to a shady town,” Magnus commented and then grinned a playful grin. “Are you a dark wizard now?”
Starswirl rolled his eyes. “Haha, very funny. Avada Kedavra!” He loudly spoke the last words.
The ponies there looked at Starswirl confused while Twilight jumped with her hooves in her mouth, trying to conceal her squeal as best she could.
“Ohmigosh!! Ohmigosh!! That’s from Harry Trotter!” Twilight explained with a little excitement.
“Indeed it is, I take it you’ve read them?” Starswirl asked with a large grin, happy that at least one pony understood the joke.
“Oh yes, I read all seven of them!” Twilight excitedly explained. “Fifty-three times!” She added with some glee.
“Well,” Somnambula interjected awkwardly. “That’s nice and all, but shall we get going or do we need to wait?”
Blushing in embarrassment, Twilight nodded her head. “Yes, and I believe we can all agree that Kludgetown will be our first stop to find information. Sound good to everypony and dragon?”
Everypony nodded their heads and Twilight turned to find Spike but did not see him anywhere. “Has anypony seen Spike?”
“Yeah, he left a few minutes ago in irritation,” Pinkie answered usefully as she balanced on a ball she found who-knows-where and looked at Twilight while she stood on her front hoof while the rest of her was balancing.
“Thanks,” the alicorn spoke gratefully and left the room to fetch her best friend and number one assistant.
The other ponies in the room conversed while Somnambula gained a distant look in her eye. Meadowbrook noticed and waved a hoof near her face but the orange-coated pegasus was unresponsive.
The others saw what the Healer was doing and looked at her in question until they saw Somnambula’s distant look and became worried.
“I wonder how Stygian is doing?” Somnambula rhetorically asked and got up from the floor and trotted to her saddlebags and placed them on her back. She walked over to the window and looked out to see the birds sing their songs and ponies go about their day, not a worry in the world about what was happening outside the kingdom of Equestria.
“I wonder what his military is like. Sure, I spoke to a few that were sent to Limbo, but I wonder who disciplined his military is? They may follow his orders to a T, but how good are they in a conflict?” Magnus spoke excitedly about the possibility of seeing the army he sort of felt depressed but excited because his former friend had created them.
“I’m sure that they are the same as any army around Equus, Magnus,” Starswirl answered with wisdom and patted his friend on the back with a smile. “Although, I will admit, I am too, interested in seeing his military.”
“I wonder if they have good medicine? If not, I can always try and make as many batches as possible and give it to them. Being a Healer, I’ve taken oaths to never pick a side in a conflict and In this regard I will not.” Meadowbrook admitted and hung her head. “If they accept it that is…”
Starswirl patted her on the back. “I’m sure they will, I apologise that I forced you to make a decision all those years ago,”
“It’s okay, It wasn’t you’re fault. My emotions clouded my judgement.” Meadowbrook argued with a small frown on her face.
“I wonder how strong the army is?” Rockhoof wondered thoughtfully.
“Strong enough that you considered Stygian a threat,” Somnambula spoke with some bite, still facing the window refusing to look at any of them. The Element Bearers didn’t know if they should leave or stay because this was far more personal.
Rockhoof winced at her tone. “Somnambula, It was the Pony Of Shadows that I see as a threat, not Stygian I see them as separate entities.”
“And that’s the problem!” The pegasus mare finally turned to face her friends and Element Bearers, but her eyes focused solely on the Pillar Of Strength. “You see them as separate entities when they are the same. Will you throw a large boulder on Pony Of Shadows? Will you try to kill the Pony?”
Rockhoof gasped in shock. “Of course not lass! That’s still Stygian inside!”
“And yet, you told Miss Applejack that we couldn’t allow the Pony to live. You can’t I can. I have no problems with Pony existing. Besides, he hasn’t created any chaos like my old friend Discord did.”
The Element Bearers' eyes’ widened in surprise that the Pillar of Hope was friends with Discord. The same Discord that almost ruined their friendship.
“Lass… how much longer until the Pony Of Shadows starts his invasion of Equestria. Starswirl doesn’t know where Stygian has been hiding and we are uncertain whether or not he will attack Equestria for something we did a thousand years ago. How can we breathe and sleep easy when Stygian might plan… something,” Rockhoof frowned at his words. He didn’t want to say them but they needed to be said.
Somnambula sighed. “Fine,” she relented, surprising everypony in the room. “But don’t expect me to try to banish him or anything.”
“We don’t expect you to, dear,” Mistmane spoke with a sad smile on her face.
“Somnambula,” Starswirl spoke, catching her attention. “After what I said to him and refusing to listen, I can guarantee you that I am against the banishment of Stygian. If anything, I’m in your position.” He admitted. “I… would have no problems living inside his kingdom as a prisoner if it meant atoning for the sins I committed against him.”
“We’re… not banishing him are we?” Meadowbrook hesitantly asked and turned to her fiance who shook his head.
“No, I refuse,” Rockhoof reassured her. “After what we did, it’s the last thing that should be on our minds right now. Instead, I suggest that we head out but first, we need to be prepared.”
“Right,” Starswirl spoke and summoned his saddlebags and began to check to see if he had everything. “If anypony needs to finish packing, they should do so now.”
With that, Meadowbrook cast a last look at Somnambula who smiled at the mare in reassurance and then left the room with the other ponies along with Starswirl, leaving the orange-coated pegasus by herself.
“I love you…” she spoke to the empty room.