“Are you sure you want to take Sombra alone? I’m sure one of the other’s has some time to spare.” Twilight heard the doubt in her words as she glanced to the sleeping Rainbow Dash. The night’s were rough on Dash, who was not used to being awake at night. Applejack smiled and nodded.
“Ahm sure, Ah’ll have Big Mac with us an’ Applebloom. He aint going anywhere in a hurry. Ah’ll see you this arvo.” Applejack turned and began walking. After Twilight glared for a moment, Sombra reluctantly followed. Sighing, she closed the door, and began walking toward Sombra’s room, opening the door and walking over to the desk.
Picking up the papers, Twilight began to leaf through the pages, narrowing her eyes as she skimmed the words. Most contained various circles she hadn’t seen for a long time. It belonged to a dead study of magic called Alchemy, abandoned once the unicorns had discovered true magic. While Twilight recognised the magic, a lot of the circles were unknown and complicated.
“The study of magic without true magic, is Sombra trying to bypass the limiter on his horn?” Twilight looked through the pages, before finding a single page different from the others. Looking to it curiously, she began to read.
‘A new finding on the subject of this emotion called ‘friendship’ or ‘love’. I have reason to believe they fall under the same emotion, but no evidence to confirm it so as of yet. After being dragged to some sort of festivity created by that pink pony,(Note to self: Make her death extra gruesome.) I noticed an interaction between a male and female pony.
The male was dancing, and then he glanced over to where the female was sitting, and did a double take. This pegasus froze in place, and eventually the female spotted his form in the crowd, and gave him a warm smile. After a moment, the male joined her at the table, and they began to talk.
What is most curious, is not the fact the male seemed to be enamoured with the female, but the fact the female seemed to be leading him along. This female was imitating this emotion to get what she wanted, which I can only assume was his bits with the way he was handing them out. The clue to this emotion may just be in the one’s that fake it.
Side note: I am curious if the ponies of this era have encountered Changelings before and/or know how to detect them.’
In hindsight, Twilight should have guessed Sombra would be trying to find a way to bypass his newfound weakness, but this? And why the sudden change of subject to Changelings? Surely the female he had seen hadn’t been one. Twilight put the papers down and began to place them in the order she had found them in, exiting the room.
It was likely she would have to discuss this with Sombra. It might even be a good way to get him to warm up to her. Twilight doubted this would happen, but it was at least worth a shot. Passing Rainbow Dash’s sleeping form at the throne room, Twilight paused on her way to her room as Applejack burst into the room, Sombra bleeding over her back.
“Wh-Applejack, what happened?” Twilight galloped over and levitated Sombra off as she quickly examined the wounds. It looked like a cracked rib, that was really bad. Turning to Applejack, she narrowed her eyes, expecting a very good explanation for this.
“He hit Applebloom,” was all Applejack said in response. Twilight sighed and began to head out the door.
“Okay, I understand. We have to get him to the hospital.” Twilight and Applejack were soon running in the direction that would get them there fastest.
“Why? Can’t ya just use some healin’ magic?” Applejack had no real idea what Twilight was capable of, and Twilight winced sadly.
“I only know basic spells, things like cuts and bruises I could heal, but not internal bleeding.” Twilight rounded the corner and entered the hospital, hovering Sombra toward a stretcher that was currently not in use. After a moment, the pony at the counter called for a nurse, and Sombra was wheeled away.
“Is Applebloom ok?” Twilight turned, knowing that there was nothing more she could do for Sombra. Applejack scratched the back of her head and looked away.
“Just a bruise on her cheek. It’ll be gone in a day or two.” Applejack didn’t know much about medicine, but she did feel slightly guilty she had kicked Sombra straight into the hospital.
“Don’t worry Applejack, it’s not as if he can hold another grudge on top of the one he already has.” Twilight smiled warmly as she leaned over, meeting Applejack’s eyes. Applejack smiled and chuckled.
“Ya have a point there, but ah gotta talk to yah bout’ somethin’. Before he hit Applebloom, they were discussing his ‘istory like it was a normal conversation. Ah think I even saw a smile on ‘is face.” Applejack looked toward the exit of the hospital, in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres.
“You’re kidding right? An actual smile?” Twilight was incredibly surprised. Not only had Applebloom had a conversation that was normal with the stallion who had given Pinkie Pie vivid death threats, she had gotten him to smile.
“Ah only caught the end of tha’ conversation, but yeah. It wasn’t really a smile smile though. It was more of a ghost of one.” Applejack tried to word her sentence carefully, trying to explain the strange smile Sombra had made that hadn’t been evil glee. After a moment, Twilight brought a hoof to her chin.
“Maybe we’ve been going about this the wrong way. I assumed if we took Sombra out he might warm up to us, but maybe the reason we’re having problems is we’re trying to take him to where we want to go, not where he wants to go. The problem is, where would Sombra want to go? We can’t exactly take the train to the Crystal Empire and let him walk around it.” Twilight sighed, and lowered her hoof.
“Well, we know he likes crystals, tha’s about as much as ah know.” Applejack bit her lip and glanced toward the counter, and walked over to it. Opening her mouth, she asked if they could be informed of any news about Sombra, and the pony nodded. Returning over, Applejack noticed Twilight had had an epiphany.
“Crystals! Of course!”