//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 // Story: Within You // by fancybloom //------------------------------// The unicorn with red eyes and gray fur looked attentively at the book he held between his front hooves, doing his best to appear too focused not to notice what was happening around him. Unfortunately for him, the violet-furred alicorn didn't have much trouble deciphering this 'technique', so she didn't give in to him and continued trying to get his attention, just as she had already done three times before. To go into a little more context, since the day he had received his first friendship lesson, the alicorn had asked him—forced, actually—that every time he came down to breakfast he would greet all the creatures present, regardless of if he only said a simple 'good morning', but as if that weren't enough, she had also asked him that every time he finished his meal, he thank whoever had prepared it—which most of the time was Spike—to which he, of course, refused; However, to his bad luck, the princess always ended up finding a way to persuade him and make him reluctantly agree. Now a few minutes had passed since he had finished his meal, which meant that, just like the previous two days, he had to comply with the order to “be polite and grateful”, just as the princess had said. "Sombra, I know you're listening to me." She repeated once again with skepticism and a frown. "It's not that hard, you just have to say thank you, the world won't end just because you're thankful for something." The aforementioned did not lower the book, he kept it at his eye level in an attempt to avoid the face of the pony in front of him; Even so, his annoyed gaze shifted slightly in front of him, making him meet the one he was trying to avoid. There was a short silence of about ten seconds while both ponies seemed to have a staring battle, which the stallion could not sustain. "Ugh! I already did that yesterday," he lowered the book somewhat abruptly, "and the day before yesterday too!" He continued to complain. "And you will continue to do it every day." She pronounced the last three words more firmly, looking at the unicorn in this same way. "This is just a small exercise for you to learn to at least be polite, is that clear?" He just huffed and rolled his eyes as he crossed his front legs. "I don't understand why you're so grumpy, I'm literally just asking you to say 'good morning' and 'thank you', stop complaining, you're acting like a baby." She stood up from her chair. "If I hear one more complaint about something as simple as this, I swear I'll make you sing and dance with flowers on your head outside the castle so you can complain about something real." She warned as she looked at him harshly, at the same time that she took her plate and took it to the sink. She wasn't so serious with her 'warning', of course she wasn't going to make the unicorn dance at the entrance to the castle—even if it made for a funny scene—in fact, she wasn't even that upset that the stallion was so moody and complaining, but sometimes it irritated her greatly. She had even already tried to convince him in a softer and friendlier way, and apparently it hadn't worked either. Therefore, she had ended up deciding that she had no choice, maybe she had to be a little tougher on him. The unicorn released the crossing of his front legs and turned to look at the princess with some disbelief at what she last said. "You wouldn't dare..." "Test me." The stallion narrowed his eyes and began to feel some insecurity growing inside him, the way she had turned to look at him and had not hesitated to respond warned him that she was most likely being serious. He wasn't afraid of the alicorn, of course not, but just imagining the humiliation he could go through if he didn't follow her instructions made him alert and think twice. Once again he snorted softly, resigned. "Thanks for the food, lizard." He drawled the words at a considerable speed, avoiding at all costs meeting the gaze of the lilac dragon, who had been sitting at the same table as them throughout the entire discussion and was now looking at the stallion with a raised eyebrow. The small reptile cast a quick glance towards the alicorn, who only smiled at him in response, telling him not to pay too much attention to the unicorn. "Yeah, whatever." He shrugged and walked over to the stallion so he could take his plate. "By the way, I'm a dragon." He snapped with some annoyance. However, the unicorn didn't even seem to listen. "Won't you eat more, Starlight?" He asked the pink unicorn when he reached her part of the table, keeping his arm outstretched waiting to take the plate. "Oh, no, I'm already full, thank you very much, Spike." She hastened to respond, after being somewhat disconcerted by having become too absorbed in the 'conversation' that the former king and the princess had had. "Do you have plans for today, Starlight?" The alicorn asked once she finished washing her plate, apparently looking to start some kind of trivial conversation. Whatever the unicorn had responded was completely unknown to Sombra, because at the moment of completing the order given by the princess, he had returned his eyes to the text of the book in an attempt to resume the reading that she had interrupted. The voices of the mares around him slowly began to fade until they became inaudible, both due to the level of concentration he maintained on his book, and because they had apparently left the room. Before the disturbance of his reading, he had been absorbed in a part of the book that, for some reason, had caught his attention quite a bit. Certain descriptions, names of ponies, and places sounded strangely familiar, as if he had already read that story before, but from a different perspective. Which had seemed absurd to him, the events recounted in the history book he was reading had occurred even before he was even inside his mother's womb. Despite the confusion that this fact caused to him, he continued reading, trying not to pay attention to that familiarity that he felt. But this only continued to make it difficult for him, and even more so when the book began to mention the name of a specific king more and more often. “Dark Soulman, the last king to rule the ancient Unicorn Kingdom before it was dissolved due to the alliance and union of the three kingdoms, which would later become one, called: Equestria.” “Dark Soulman”, that name resonated in his head, being aware that he had heard it before, but not knowing from where exactly. And, for some reason, it also gave him a strange feeling of disgust. He closed his eyes and squeezed them tightly, at the same time he closed the book, he let out a sigh and threw his head back, feeling great frustration run through him. This was not the first time something like this happened to him, he had already been trying to remember specific events in his life for several days but they just didn't come, they didn't appear, his mind went blank. Every time he tried to remember events of great importance or that had a lot of impact on his life—like when he came out of the portal, when he waged a battle against Princess Celestia, or just some inconsequential but cute memories with his former best friend—the only thing he got was incomplete images and distorted and incomprehensible voices. He had not wanted to delve too deeply into the subject, because deep inside he knew that in the end he would get nowhere and would only end up more frustrated, but the restlessness only grew day by day, which made his anxiety about not having accurate knowledge about his own past also increase. "Who the heck is Dark Soulman?" He muttered, asking rhetorically. "Did you say something, Sombra?" The sudden appearance of a female voice in his hearing field made him quickly turn to look at its transmitter, looking at her with some surprise, but not holding the expression for long. "What?" He looked disconcerted. "No, anything. I didn't say anything." It was a somewhat obvious fact that he did not intend to tell the whole story of his apparent amnesia to the princess, so he tried as hard as he could to sound convincing. Luckily for him, she just glanced at him strangely, but quickly proceeded to just shrug and seem to brush it off. "And your unicorn friend?" The alicorn frowned slightly with some suspicion, both because of the suddenness of the question and because of how strange it was for her stallion to ask it. "Well, we were walking down the hallway and her cutie mark started glowing, so right now she's getting ready to go on a mission in Appleoosa." She explained slowly, still finding it strange that the unicorn was 'interested' in the pink unicorn's whereabouts. "Pinkie Pie will join her in a few minutes." She added. The only reason the stallion had asked the question was to 'distract' the princess from what she had previously asked him, but there was something about her explanation that caught his attention a little. "What do you mean 'her cutie mark glowed?' As far as I know, that's not normal." "Oh, of course." It wasn't very difficult for her to realize what was happening. Sombra did not know of the existence of the Cutie Map or its function, and the alicorn deduced that he did not have any knowledge of the Tree of Harmony either. "Uh... It's a long story, you know?" "Coincidentally I have the whole day, the week, the month and the year off, you know?" He smiled with quite clear irony, showing her that the 'long story' was of interest to him. "Yeah, well... I don't know if..." Before she was able to continue, the voice of someone calling her name interrupted her. "Twilight!" Both ponies recognized that voice without any difficulty. "What's wrong, Spike?" She approached the reptile when he crossed the doors. "Princess Celestia sent you this, it seems like something important." He stretched out his arm with a rolled-up parchment in his hand, handing it to her. It didn't take her long to release the ribbon holding the parchment, and then read it. The content was not very descriptive, it only informed her that her presence at the Canterlot Palace was required, and that the topic to be discussed was related to her recent friendship mission. "I have to go to Canterlot." She said out loud. Before making any decision or movement, she gave herself a moment to think. If it was so necessary for her to show up at Canterlot, she highly doubted that Sombra could accompany her, but leaving him unguarded in her castle didn't seem like a viable option either. "I'm not going anywhere, if that's what scares you." The unicorn stated behind her, as if he had read her thoughts, at the same time taking a pear from the fruit bowl that was in the center of the table. She turned to face him and raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Can I actually trust that?" "It's not like there's anything fun to do out there." He took a quick look at the little dragon, who looked at him just as skeptically as the princess. "Plus your lizard is here, I guess he can 'keep an eye on me.'" The aforementioned rolled his eyes with visible annoyance, refraining from repeating that he was actually a dragon. The princess tried to think it through, but the strange smile that the king showed her did not inspire any confidence in her, making it difficult for her to make her decision. Still, her intuition seemed to tell her that he was serious about not running away and not trying to do something bad, so, reluctantly and with traces of insecurity, she nodded and turned around to leave. "I'll be back as soon as possible, please try to behave." The alicorn had thought about taking the train, but she considered the not-so-long distance between Canterlot and Ponyville and decided that a short morning flight wouldn't hurt. Upon arriving at the Palace, she was quickly greeted formally by the guards, who soon escorted her to the Throne Room. Due to the lack of details in the letter, Twilight had thought that her meeting would be with the princess who had requested her attention, but she did not expect that she would actually be greeted by her brother and sister-in-law. "Brother? Cadance? What are you doing here?" The surprise caused by their unexpected visit made her forget to at least say hello. She didn't know whether to feel confused, happy or worried. "Where are your manners, missy? You don't even say hello." Her older brother scolded, not really being serious. "Sorry, I was just surprised to see you here, it is not normal for you to come and leave the Empire without protection." She hugged both rulers in a replacement for the greeting she had forgotten. "You're right about that, but we consider this something important," answered the one with blue hair. "Something bad happened?" "No, fortunately. Actually we wanted to know if you haven't had problems with certain evil unicorn that you are in charge of reforming." "Wait... Did you come just for that?" She raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Twilight, I don't know how you manage not to give this the importance it has, you are aware that you have one of the most evil, powerful and greatest enemies of Equestria living in your castle, right?" "Well... I guess you have a point there, but it's still too early to see progress, it's literally only been two weeks, which is why I think the arrival is a bit... Rushed." The crystal princess, who had not said anything, looked askance at her husband, as if saying with her eyes a clear 'I told you so'. The reality was that after the conversation they had had with Sunburst regarding the story of King Sombra and the things he had done, the prince had ended up with more nerves and worry than he already had. So he kept pestering his wife until she could agree to pay his sister a visit, just to make sure she was okay. "Shining, I thought this conversation was over, you have to trust me, everything will be fine, I have it under control." She gave him a small smile, urging him to trust her. "It's just... Twilight, it's not that I don't trust you, it's him I don't trust at all; It worries me that he's just pretending and might hurt you. It worries me that you might get hurt." Twilight gave a sympathetic look to her older brother; She understood, thanked and appreciated that he was worried that something could happen to her, she couldn't blame him for that. But still, maybe it was best to find a solution to prevent him from worrying all the time. "I understand, but I don't think you can come to Canterlot every week just to make sure King Sombra hasn't finished me off." At the mere mention of that, the unicorn shivered. "What do I have to do to make you feel calmer?" The elder sibling thought about it for a few moments, until an excellent idea—in his words—came to his mind. Twilight loved her brother, there was no doubt about that, but sometimes she really hated that he was so overprotective. Initially she had traveled alone to Canterlot, and now she had eight guards behind her, following her back to Ponyville. Yes, that's what her brother's 'big idea' was all about, hiring guards so they could be there and protect her in case the former king tried to plot something. She had protested against the idea, but after thinking twice, she came to the conclusion that this was the way her brother would no longer be on top of her every week checking on King Sombra's process. Although her brother had originally proposed twenty guards, she luckily managed to convince him to reduce it to eight. Two to watch her room—although this was not at all comfortable—two to watch Sombra's room, two to watch the main entrance to the castle and two spares. All being guards belonging to the Royal Guard of the Crystal Empire. As if the whole situation wasn't enough, she had had to wait for Shining Armor to meticulously choose each of the guards who would 'protect' her, adding that she also had to wait for the guards to arrive from the Empire, plus another bunch of things that had ended up taking her entire day without even being able to feel it Finally, when they had arrived at the small castle, the guards wasted no time and took their assigned positions. Upon reaching the living room, she was finally able to take a seat and relax, letting her head fall back on the back of the chair and at the same time stretching her wings a little, which felt slightly numb from the constant flight of that day. All this until a voice brought her out of her moment of relaxation. "Looks like you brought company." "Oh, Sombra, these guards are..." He was quick to cut her words short. "It was just an observation, you don't have to explain to me, princess." The stallion did not spare a single glance at the mare, he kept his attention focused on the book he had between his hooves, just as he had done in the morning. "Ah, yeah sure." She didn't give it much importance and let her head fall back again, beginning to feel more and more the physical consequences of the day she had had. "Anyway, it always seemed strange to me that a princess didn't have a single guard in her castle." Before she could say anything, the stallion closed the book, startling the alicorn a little with the sound it made. "Well... They never seemed so necessary to me, at least not for me specifically, you know? "Why wouldn't they be necessary?" "Because my castle is not like others nor am I like the other princesses. To begin with, their palaces are several times larger than mine, plus they have their own kingdom, a kingdom that needs to be protected and a single princess cannot do it on her own, so she uses the help of the guards to do that." She kept her eyes closed as she spoke, feeling too tired to even look at the pony she was talking to. "I don't have any of that, not to mention that everyone here knows me and, I assume, likes me. So I don't see the need to have guards, you get it?" While the alicorn continued talking, the stallion had gone to the shelves so he could place the book he had been reading, now finished, in its place. "I see the point, but you are still a royal, a public figure, you are exposed to many types of risks that other ordinary ponies are not." "I don't know, I'm not so sure about that, but even if it were, I think I could defend myself. Plus, if you take away the royalty part, I'm also an ordinary pony." At this last statement, the stallion turned his gaze towards the alicorn, noticing the strange position in which she was sitting on the chair: legs placed anywhere except where they were supposed to go, wings completely spread out and flattened against the backrest of the chair, head thrown back almost looking as if she had broken her neck, and finally, the way in which it seemed as if she were talking in her sleep, since she half slurred her words when speaking and her eyes remained closed, but still, the things she said made a lot of sense. He couldn't help but let out a very subtle laugh. Only it wasn't a mockery, it was more like he had felt genuine grace seeing her in that state. "No, you're not." He finally responded to the alicorn's statement, taking a book between his hooves, which was apparently the continuation of the one he had previously finished. "Maybe you should take a more proper nap." He suggested as he approached the exit, ready to head to his room. "Mhmm". "I would like you to continue telling me about that map of yours tomorrow." He added, making sure the princess didn't forget. Before finally leaving the room, he paused, feeling somewhat undecided about what he intended to do next. "Good night." Even though she was almost beginning to fall asleep completely, this phrase made the alicorn quite surprised; this was the first time that the stallion had done something as polite as saying good night on his own initiative. "Ah... Thank you, good night to you too." She returned with a soft smile.