REGARDING FRIENDS OF NOT FRIENDS
Turning my back to Luna and trotting away, I quickly found myself at the outskirts of town. In my mind, it seemed best. If I was fortunate, I could find a sturdy hay bale to pass the night on. If I wasn’t, then I’d merely sleep on the road. There wasn’t a lot going around that evening that could raise or dash my emotions all that much.
As I scanned the horizon to glimpse the new frontier, a familiar voice called out to me.
“Sommmbra?”
I abruptly turned, waiting for Celestia’s latest guard to come finish the job, only to find Twilight’s rainbow friend swaying where she stood. When she saw it was me (more than likely due to my trademark horn), she sauntered over on three very rubbery legs. What was clutched in the last hoof looked like one of the cider bottles from the Canterlot reception. She must have nicked it before departing.
“Hello…?” I knew it had something to do with rainbows but wasn’t entirely sure. “Rainbow pony,” I finished lamely.
She stumbled closer, both sleepy eyes trying their best to keep open. “I didn’ tink you were suppose to leaf the castle?” she slurred quietly. Then she became more aware. “Dee you escape? Dee you kill eveone?” Her bloodshot eyes narrowed. “Is eveone in Cantilot dead? Dosh tha’ mean you gon kill me now?”
If that was what she truly thought at the time, she should have been a lot more afraid than she appeared. Instead, facing the very real threat of death, she finished the remainder of her cider bottle before hurling it into a field.
She waved a hoof. “I’s get tha’ tomorrah. But seriously… wha happen? You gee a day pash or sometin?”
Even in the very potent aroma of the mare’s cider and cheesy appetizer breath, it was a welcoming change from the night’s previous two encounters. At least this one didn’t have their own personal agenda for me.
I said hastily, “I caught Flash Sentry berating Twilight in the garden. Because of that, I stole back my powers from her and attempted to kill the stallion. Following that, I was quickly thwarted by Twilight and then rejected from Celestia’s ‘friendship’ rehabilitation. Now everyone’s merely waiting for me to bring wrath down upon them—all so they can silence me for good.” I paused before adding, “I also imagine I broke Twilight’s heart in more than a couple of places.”
The rainbow mare stared at the ground sluggishly. As I was preparing to back away due to potential spillover, she said, “Woah. I wish I’da been there for tha’. Dee you bring any snacks whish you?”
“Sorry. No. But do you honestly not care that I almost killed Twilight’s colt-friend?”
She thought for a moment. “Nosh really. I didn’ know heem all that well an he seemt preddy uncool. But don’ tell Twilight I says that! Serioushly!”
“I’ve never been a pony of many words.”
At that she laughed. She must have been truly drunk to giggle at anything I’d said.
“Well, ash fun ash it’s been, I really shou’ go.”
The mare surprised me by launching into the air and wavering from side to side. I’d heard she’d been gifted with impeccable skills of flight, but that night they were under a good-sized ocean of strong liquids. Before she could get a few feet further from the ground, I leapt into the air and bit her tail. On the way down, it finally occurred to me I could have used my horn for such a task (it had been so long without magic). I would be systematically removing multicolored hair from my tongue the rest of the night.
I told the sloshed mare, “You’re in no condition to fly. You’re bound to get lost or injure yourself. Do you know someone close by?”
She viewed me through a single open eye. “Yesh. There’s Fluttershy’s place. It’s dowe tha’ road. At tha end.” Her pointing leg quickly fell to her side as she collapsed into the dirt. The next sound from her was a boisterous snore I didn’t believe the mare had in her. Unceremoniously, I scooped her up with a small amount of magic and I carried her with me down the road. If anyone had seen me at the time I think I’d be in more trouble than what I’d already caused for myself—carrying away a drunk and sleeping pegasus in the middle of the night down a dark and deserted road. I’d let them think all they wanted.
As Twilight’s rainbow friend fell deeper and deeper into blissful unconsciousness, I finally arrived at the lone house at the end of the path. I thought I’d seen enough gingerbread-style homes to last me until my next birthday—turns out I was wrong. Seriously. I almost expected animals to come bounding out of the cozy abode to sing in a pre-designated key, perhaps followed by a dance number. I could tell some hermit lived here.
I thought of knocking but the lack of lights through the windows made me halt. Nudging open the doorway, I levitated the snoozing mare inside and lit the very tip of my horn with a faint glow. Barking my knee on some unseen coffee table, I whispered a hushed curse before I set her down on the couch.
I set to leave the small home only to stop in my tracks. A lone window had been left open near the corner, the light from the moon cascading inwards. A small shelf full of knickknacks and books and miscellaneous objects was pressed against the wall. What made me stop was a single picture frame—the photo inside one of Twilight along with her five other friends.
Picking it up, I couldn’t help but stare. Each one of them appeared joyous beyond measure. Content. Happy. Fulfilled. The exact opposite of what I felt at that moment.
Finally discovering just how tired and weary I had become over the night, I collapsed into a nearby chair, where I fell asleep still holding the picture frame.
And for some silly reason I actually thought I was out of enemy territory.
REGARDING WAFFLES WHEN YOU DON’T WANT WAFFLES
I didn’t want to return to the land of the conscious, but the smell nearly gagging my snout as well as all the stickiness I soon felt around my muzzle pulled at my senses like a hook. My very bones felt frailer than before, and my eyes were weighed down with wet cement. I wanted to slumber for another thousand years, yet, more than anything, I wanted to know what was on my face.
And why I couldn’t move any of my legs.
“What in Equestria are you doing, Fluttershy? He escaped and possibly attacked someone! And now you’re feeding him breakfast?”
It was obviously the rainbow one had come to before me. If her bottle count from the previous night was any indication, her head must have felt four sizes too big.
“Well… I… you know, I’m just not used to tying up bad guys in my house.” The second voice I understood in an instant. It was the timid butterfly friend that hugged me the night before. “And I thought since it’s breakfast time and all, his little tummy might be rumbling and…”
I opened my bleary eyes to find the rainbow one’s mouth hanging limp in the face of her friend. “Little… tummy… rumbling? This is King Sombra we’re talking about! Tyrannical leader of the Crystal Empire! Ruler of slaves!” She ran a hoof through her mane. “And somehow he got out of Canterlot last night and broke in here! And somehow so did I!”
She lowered her small plate of waffles and berries, her chef’s hat wobbling slightly. She asked sheepishly, “Do you think you two came together? I mean… you did drink a lot last night, Rainbow. Even you don’t know how you got on my couch. Although I don’t mind.”
By that point I’d had enough of sitting and waiting.
And being sticky.
And being tied to a chair.
“I brought you here,” I said thickly, causing both pegasi to spin and shriek at once. The yellow one jumped and the blue one caught her in a leg. It would have almost been cute if they weren’t being so loud about it. “You’d passed out on the road and I brought you inside. I apologize for scaring you both. I hadn’t planned on sleeping here at all. I was only winded… and I only wanted the night over with.”
The yellow pegasus shot forward. “Then you should have more waffles! To keep up your strength!”
The rainbow one shoved the plate away. “The one thing he does not need is more strength! We’re only lucky he doesn’t have his powers anymore. Once we get the Princesses down here, they’ll bring him back—”
“Actually, my powers were returned to me last night, before I was asked to leave the castle.”
The yellow one’s plate clanked to the floor as suddenly I could hear a lone pony pulling a rusty wagon outside. A trio of birds in a tree near the window sung a quick melody and soon I discovered my words had sucked out most of the noise in the nearby vicinity.
Buttershy (I thought that was her name at the time) managed to squeak out, “I think I left a forest fire in the oven… let me check on that and I’ll be right back and no I’m not planning on running out the kitchen door but if Rainbow Dash wants to join me she can…”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand your trepidation,” I told them, trying my best to ignore the sugary syrup coating my mouth. “You all appeared fine conversing with me at the Gala. Truthfully, I mean you no harm.”
The rainbow mare put a hoof to her retreating friend. With more composure than before, she said, “That was different! At least in Canterlot you were surrounded by guards and also the Princesses. At least you didn’t have your powers back…” She bit her lip. “Do you seriously have them back?”
With a light flick of my horn, I untangled the ropes bound to me and neatly folded them on the table. Then, from some unseen part of the kitchen I procured a towel to wipe at my face. “Yes,” I said. “I do.”
The rainbow one appeared more uneasy than afraid. At least we’d gotten that far. “Then what are you doing in Ponyville?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“What are you planning on doing in Ponyville?”
“I… .” About to deny the large reason I had hung around that part of the continent at all, I rather thought the truth might only speed things along. “I want to talk with Twilight again. I want her to forgive me for my actions. I… .” Such odd words. Such damn odd words. “I want my friend back.”
Something joyous filled Buttershy as she flew towards me. “Oh, I’m sure Twilight would talk to you again! I can’t imagine you did anything that bad, Sombra.”
“I attempted to murder her colt-friend after forcefully attacking her and retrieving a portion of my powers. That was before I was ejected from the castle.”
I could swear her chef’s hat sunk a bit. “That’s… different.”
“Beyond repair?” I asked meekly.
“I’m not saying that, it’s just—”
The rainbow one cut in, “I think you’re going to need a major overhaul, Sombra, for her to see you as anything but…” she waved a hoof around my head, indicating all of me, “…this.”
“Thanks,” I growled.
“It’s not my fault you flipped out when things were going well! What you need to do, Sombra, what you really need to do, is not approach her directly. Don’t just run down the street and beg for her to talk to you again.”
“I had thought that would have been the most direct approach.”
“Also the fastest way to never speak with her again; you need to give her time. And space. When she was befriending you in Canterlot, was she shoving your nose in it everyday?”
“I… don’t believe so.”
“Exactly! It needs to be casual! Natural! So maybe if you go a few weeks without viciously attacking anyone or trying to take over an Empire, she might... warm up to you again!”
I wanted to sense a trick somewhere in the fine print but couldn’t uncover it. It was ample advice and it had come from one of Twilight’s own best friends. I had not expected that type of openness. Maybe Discord’s words about each Element trying their best to rather befriend than defeat their enemies had been true.
Buttershy said, “And just know, Sombra, that if you want, you can stay here until you figure things out. I know you were trying your best before your little accident and I still support your improvement one hundred percent. I believe with the right amount of encouragement, you could be as welcoming to the population as Discord is.”
At that I scowled until my face hurt. Then I asked them both, “No one here liked Sentry at all, did they?”
“No.”
“He was okay, I guess.”
In only a matter of minutes, a plan had been laid out before me. I was to get back in Twilight Sparkle’s good graces not by contacting her directly, but by changing my image around her ramshackle town. The fastest route to that, I thought? Clearly through her five friends that surrounded her more often than not. And what luck it was that not a single one seemed to care about what happened to Something Sentry…
I stood and stretched out my legs, feeling renewed vigor in each limb. I hadn’t felt so optimistic in so very long. I said triumphantly, “Then it is settled, Buttershy and Rainbow Mare! To get Twilight to talk to me again, I will do what is necessary!”
The rainbow one looked at me quizzically. “And what’s that, exactly?”
“I will help.”
REGARDING PEST CONTROL
After a hurried breakfast and after I politely asked each of them to wear nametags in order to help me along, Rainbow Dash vacated the cozy cottage and I was left alone with Fluttershy. It was unsurprising to me that she had been the one that eventually changed the idiotic draconequus from his lifetime of scheming. Her pleasant demeanor and complete lack of negativity made even the most glaring thoughts in my head feel like mere whispers in my ears.
After assisting with the absurd amount of dishes (she had whipped up nearly four dozen waffles of varying flavors—I don’t look that rotund, do I?) she checked on her supplies and found she had ground them close to nothing in only a single meal. This was the opportunity I had been waiting for.
“Why don’t you go to whatever market you use, and I’ll stay here to clean?”
She thought for a moment. “Why don’t you come along? The fresh air might do you some good.”
“I don’t think Ponyville’s entirely ready for me just yet. I think I’ll give it a few more days.”
“Okay. What do you plan on doing around here?”
“I will help,” I said, before realizing that these three words were only going to lead me to trouble.
Even while tied to a chair and groggy beyond the pale, I had noted each and every creature that scurried around Fluttershy’s home. She might have chosen to ignore them—might have accepted her spinster’s life as well as the disarray of her current living space. But as a once feared King in charge of thousands of meters of habitable ground, I knew how to take care of an abode. And that was what I was planning on doing that morning.
“If you come out now,” I told every small creature once she had left, standing tall in the center of the living room. “Your deaths will be swift and painless. If you make me search for you—and I will find you—I cannot promise what will transpire before you close your eyes one final time.”
I was almost giggling while I spoke. It had been so long since I’d made genuine threats.
Unsurprisingly, not a single small creature appeared before me.
The hunt was on.
Twelve minutes later I thought I had caught nearly every furry creature inside Fluttershy’s cottage. With the aid of my horn and my ability to sense hiding creatures behind furniture and in walls, it was almost a wonder it had taken me as long as it had. Something odd I found during my search was that each time I scooped up the latest animal from the ground to gaze upon, they did not scream or thrash as I thought they might. Instead, it was almost like they were trying to tell me something—explain to me that I was doing something wrong.
The only problem was that I didn’t speak squirrel.
“You should have come out when I told you to,” I gently informed my prey as I stored them in a reseal-able kitchen container. (I had hastily looked around the house for Fluttershy’s possible closet of steel cages but I assume she must have run out and hadn’t had time to restock. It happens to the best of us.)
While cleaning out her home, the oddest find of all was a white and fluffy rabbit that had the demur of some angry child. When I first snatched up the first few hooffuls of cuddly creatures, this lone rabbit stood on top of the couch, yelling at me to listen. Since I didn’t speak rabbit either, I instead levitated him towards me and spun him around. Without a doubt he looked plump enough for a stew.
I licked my lips and he kicked me in the face more times than I thought he could. That would be my last mistake. It was only so bizarre to me to watch as some morsel of food believed they somehow belonged in that home… and wasn’t only some appetizer to go with the cranberry sauce in the cabinet.
Tying him up with twine, I shoved a small tomato in his mouth while I chopped up some celery and carrots on a board. I was pleased to note how fast my deft levitation skills were returning to me. I turned to the kicking entrée. “Stop thrashing about like that! You lost fair and square and now you’re only being selfish. You’re only making yourself stringy and tough.”
I opened up one of Fluttershy’s cookbooks on the counter and for the life of me couldn’t find a section that wasn’t vegetarian. While it was true that I hadn’t eaten meat in all my time in Canterlot castle, I had assumed it was due to budgetary cuts. Maybe she had another book somewhere else…
I heard the falling of bags and turned to find Fluttershy motionless in the entryway. I really had surprised her, I had thought splendidly, although I had desperately wanted to have lunch ready by the time she returned.
With a hiss I threw a bouillon cube into a sizzling saucepan. “I hope you like a lot of spice on your rabbit!”
It turned out she didn’t.