Sombra jolted upwards as he let out a surprised yell, his breath coming quick and cold as he placed a hoof over his erratically beating heart. With quivering eyes, Sombra looked around the train car, praying that nopony heard his rude awakening. To his appreciation and relief, the six mares, baby dragon, and, incidentally, baby alligator were still asleep.
After taking a moment to catch his breath, Sombra let out a small, aggravated sigh as he laid his head down next Pinkie's once more, relishing in the fact that she was able to sleep peacefully.
'May no demons haunt your night...' Sombra prayed silently, pulling her closer to him. Almost instinctively, Pinkie snuggled into him and smiled contentedly as she let out a small huff of sleepy air.
'Waking up won't stop me,' Sombra heard Conscious tell him, breaking through the Sombra's blithe mood.
Sombra frowned at the voice's implication and sighed irritably. 'I won't discuss this matter with you,' he told him, casting Pinkie a small glance, 'not now...'
Sombra felt the negativity of Conscious' presence fade into something softer, but undetectable nonetheless. Sombra looked away from Pinkie's sleeping form and towards the train window, hoping to clear his flurrying mess of a mind. But, much to his surprise, his focus wasn't on the window when he turned to look at it.
Sombra saw himself-- or, rather, the version of himself Conscious claimed to be-- staring at him, mirroring his position almost perfectly. His body was almost ghostly, light luminescence emanating from his form as he remained transparent and unsolid.
"Don't look so surprised," Conscious said, giving him a somewhat annoyed look, "this isn't the first time I've done this; it's only the first time you've seen me do it."
Sombra closed his gaping jaw and frowned at his counterpart. With narrowed eyes, he opened his mouth to respond scathingly, but Conscious held up a hoof stoically.
"You're the only one able to see me, Idiot," Conscious said flatly, putting his hoof down, "just think your response and send it telepathically, like we've been doing for the past couple of months."
Sombra held his frown, but closed his mouth nonetheless. 'Why are you so insistent on bothering me?' Sombra questioned irritably, his eyes narrowed, 'Things are already hectic enough without you here to stir up trouble.'
Conscious sighed and shook his head. "I am not your enemy, yet you treat me as such," he said cryptically, giving him a sympathetic glance, "I empathize with your struggles that lead to your mistrusting nature."
Sombra snarled, but ceased when Pinkie stirred beside him. 'What struggles?' he snapped angrily, putting a foreleg around Pinkie's form to soothe her, 'And what should lead me to believe you are an ally to me?'
Conscious gave him a deadpan look, then quirked a brow. "You have to ask?" he questioned, "I've helped you with tons of stuff and this is the thanks I get?"
'What are you on about?' Sombra hissed, his eyes narrowed, 'All you've done is complain and insult me! And let's not forget the instance where you spoke with Pinkie when we switched bodies and nearly gave away your identity!'
Conscious grinned wryly and chuckled to himself. "That was a rather interesting experience," he said, "I enjoyed being able to speak with Pinkie."
Sombra blinked in surprise, his gaze immediately darting over to Pinkie, who continued to sleep soundly. It was one of the rare occasions where she didn't snore, he realized, meaning she was beyond blissful peace within her dream state.
'Why are you so interested in her?' Sombra questioned suspiciously, his eyes narrowing as they returned to Conscious, 'She may resemble the mare in my vision, but she is not her, I assure you.'
Conscious lost his mirthful expression, his eyes drifting over to Pinkie. A gleam of longing shimmered in his red irises, a sense of tragedy resonating within in it's depths. Sombra wanted to interrogate him on the subject, but felt as though the right did not belong to him.
"She is so like her..." he whispered, more to himself than Sombra, "but she isn't mine."
Sombra instinctively pulled Pinkie closer to him, his hold on her tightening substantially as he gave Conscious an apprehensive look.
'You're correct in that respect,' Sombra snarled within his mind, 'She isn't yours, Conscious... If I can call you that.'
Conscious looked back at him, his eyes holding no malice or hostility. "I have no means to take her from you," he assured Sombra, "I had my chance with her back in the Empire; getting her back is not an option."
Sombra relaxed, but only slightly, his hold still tightly wound around Pinkie. 'Then why are you here? Why do you wish to burden me with your presence?'
Conscious sighed and shook his head once more. "I only wish to tell you your origins," he replied, his gaze unwavering, "but now is not the time."
"What?" Sombra blurted out loud, then immediately froze as he realized his action. With a tense gaze, Sombra looked down at Pinkie, praying that she remained asleep. But, instead of his special somepony, he saw Gummy sitting atop her head, blinking randomly as he stared off into nothingness, as he always did.
"Hey, look, it's Toothless!" Conscious exclaimed, his cry of joy unheard by anypony else but Sombra, "How ya doin', Gator?"
Sombra gave Conscious a half-lidded, peeved look. 'His name is Gummy,' he corrected, totally unamused. Despite not being a fan of the drooling reptile, he wasn't going to allow Conscious to get his special somepony's pet's name wrong.
Conscious shrugged. "Same difference," he replied simply, his gaze returning to alligator, "Hey, do you still like biting stuff?"
As if responding to Conscious' question, Gummy leaped up onto Sombra and bit down on his ear, his gums grinding against the skin. Sombra opened his mouth to yell, but instead bit his bottom lip to refrain from doing so, looking up to the Heavens for answer as to why he deserved what was happening to him.
Conscious laughed. "You haven't changed at all!" he exclaimed, smiling at Gummy fondly, "Do you remember me?"
Gummy released Sombra's ear, much to his appreciation and waddled over to Conscious' transparent form. Much to Sombra's surprise, he walked around in small circle and laid down next to Conscious' hooves, snuggling into the ghostly being affectionately, not bothered by the fact he went through him.
"Aw, he does!" Conscious said, then smiled in a bittersweet manner, "Too bad I can't scratch ya behind the ears like ya like!"
Gummy looked up at Conscious, his emotionless, blank eyes blinking together, a rare thing to be done by the reptile.
Conscious frowned. "Aw, he's sad," he said, then looked at Sombra, "Hey, do you mind scratching his head for him? It makes him feel better when he's upset."
Sombra gave Conscious a deadpan look. 'He's an alligator,' he told him flatly, then looked at the reptile once more, 'and he doesn't look sad to me.'
Conscious sighed. "That's because you don't really look," he told him, then looked down at Gummy again, "Toothle-- I mean, Gummy, usually has a tell for his emotions. It's take time recognize them, though."
Sombra, regretfully, looked down at Gummy, his eyes squinting in scrutiny. After a moment of intense inspection, he looked back up at Conscious again and shook his head.
'I see nothing,' he admitted, his eyes narrowed peevishly, 'he isn't giving me anything to work with!'
Conscious gave him an empathetic smile. "Here, I'll show ya," he told him, then leaned his head down to Gummy's level, "it's not really in his features that you find his emotion. It's more of an eye thing."
Sombra nodded in acknowledgement, lowering his head with Conscious as he peered into Gummy's emotionless, dull eyes. He glanced up at Conscious, who only nodded at him to continue.
'What are you thinking, Gator...?' Sombra thought, his nose nearly touching Gummy's.
Conscious sighed. "You're not trying to get in his head," he reminded him, "you're trying to see how he's feeling."
Sombra looked back up at Conscious once more. 'How in Tartarus am I supposed to do that?'
"Just-- Look at him! And don't get all squinty!"
Sombra gave him a glare, but sighed in defeat as he gazed at the small alligator. With wariness, he looked into his amethyst eyes, prying for the tell of his innermost thoughts. He saw nothing, the unique lines of the reptilian irises holding no emotion or story for Sombra to see.
Suddenly, he caught sight of a small glint, a bit shy of the narrow pupils within the purple masses. His eyes widened as he gazed into it, careful not to move, for fear of losing it.
"You see it now, don't you?" Conscious questioned, "It's small, but it's there."
'Is this how Pinkie knows what he's thinking?' Sombra mused, 'She's even more perceptive than I realized...'
Conscious shook his head. "Oh, no, she's just Pinkie," he told him, "this is how I've been able to tell."
Sombra wanted to question him on the subject, but once he realized that Pinkie would be the main answer for it, he shrugged it off and decided to play it off as "Pinkie being Pinkie", which seemed to be occurring more often.
"So, now that you've seen it, it'll be easier to pick up on Gummy's moods," Conscious explained, "for example, right now, he's upset, because he wants somepony to scratch him behind the ears."
'Do alligators even have ears?' Sombra questioned, looking at Gummy's with curiosity.
Conscious opened his mouth to answer, but stopped and let out a hum of thought as he put a hoof to his chin. After a moment, he shook his head.
"Don't make me question things at a late hour," Conscious told him, "things tend to get weird when I do."
Sombra quirked a brow upwards, but decided against asking for the reason behind his counterpart's actions. Turning his attention back to Gummy, he warily lifted a hoof over the alligator's head, the tip of his hoof just barely touching his cranium. As if testing the waters, Sombra lightly scratched at Gummy's head.
Much to his surprise, Gummy leaned into Sombra's touch and let out what sounded like a purr, despite alligator's not being known to do so. Satisfied with the response, Sombra relaxed as his scratched Gummy's head, who closed his eyes as he continued to purr happily.
"See? Was that so hard?" Conscious asked, quirking a brow at the duo, "I think someone's starting to like you."
Sombra looked up at Conscious, continuing to scratch Gummy's head as he did. 'Perhaps I was wrong about Gummy,' he admitted, looking back down at him, 'Maybe Pinkie is right about him being insightful...'
Gummy pulled his head out from underneath Sombra's hoof and waddled over to Sombra's side where Pinkie laid, somehow able to sleep through Sombra's antics. With a tired gaze(at least in Sombra's eyes), he turned in a circle and snuggled into Pinkie, who wrapped a foreleg around her pet affectionately.
As Sombra was gazing at the sleeping pair beside him, he blinked in realization as he remembered his reason for talking to Conscious in the first place.
'Listen, Conscious, I appreciate your advice, but--' Sombra stopped talking as he saw that Conscious had disappeared from his sight. He looked left to right rapidly, beginning to wonder if he imagined the entire dilemma. But, when he looked at Gummy resting beside Pinkie and himself, he found that thought to be ridiculous.
'We'll speak tomorrow, when it's not late,' Conscious told him, 'showing you the past now was sudden... It'll take time before you'll be ready.'
And, as if he were never there, Conscious disappeared, hiding away into the inner recesses of Sombra's mind where he couldn't be bothered.
Sombra sighed irritably as a yawn overtook him and reminded him of his need for slumber, adjusting his position slightly before laying his head next to Pinkie's once more. With a small smile, he snuggled into her mane and inhaled the familiar candy scent before resting his eyes.
'I hope that the sisters take pity on us...' he thought drowsily, 'I don't know how I'd cope without you...'
But, unbeknownst to the sleeping stallion, a shadow stood no less than a couple feet from him and his beloved, the darkness bearing a dark malice within it
'Sleep now, Host...' the shadow thought darkly, a sick grin taking over it's dark features. The glowering gaze of the darkness went to the sleeping mare, breathing deeply and evenly as she smiled continuously, the presence of her happiness sickening him to extremes.
'For it will be the last night you shall spend with that nuisance of a mare.'