Entry Nine.
It was great to see Miamore and Gallophad again the other day. They reminded me of better times. Times that Silas was always the one in control. Times that I had my freedom and knew that I was a good pony at heart. But what I also realised when they came was that I’ve finally remembered when I first lost control. I remember when Sombra came.
I don’t know why Miamore and Gallophad were the ones to remind me of it. They weren’t even there when it happened. In fact they’d just gone back home when he came, but somehow they made me remember. I can see that day as if it was yesterday.
My mom was still in hospital. She would be for a while but that’s not what mattered. The fact is at this point I hadn’t visited her in hospital yet. She’d only started her treatment two weeks before and the doctors had said she wasn’t to have visitors for at least a month, if not more. Kind of an ironic thing to say looking back on it. The doctors had said the same thing when I’d first come to NEMI. I suppose history was always doomed to repeat itself but I never could have seen this coming.
It was Rosen I felt most sorry for. If she hadn’t been there in those weeks I don’t know how I would have coped. Perhaps Sombra would have come earlier if I hadn’t been with her. Perhaps Sombra would have been more horrible and mean if I hadn’t been living at the palace with her. Her family treated me just like one of them. I barely ever saw her parents but it was okay because neither did Lilac or Rosen. Their parents were always busy doing some royal business or another. Rosen’s parents weren’t even proper royalty—or at least they weren’t the king or queen. Her dad was just the younger brother of the queen—Lilac’s mom. And yet somehow, and I don’t really know how really, Rosen was the next heir after Lilac. Her parents had made it that way—Lilac’s too. They’d all agreed that if anything were to happen to Lilac then Rosen would be their next choice.
Rosen hated the idea of being queen. She found it hard enough to be related to a princess, let alone to be one. Lilac didn’t like it either but she’d grown up with the title and was used to it. She would happily take over as princess, even if it wasn’t entirely her fairy tale ending.
Anyway, I’m skirting around the issue. I suppose it’s because I don’t like to remember it, just in the same way Petie doesn’t like to remember the first time he tried to kill himself or Bow Wow doesn’t like to remember the first time she caught fleas. They’re only imaginary fleas but they still annoy her like crazy. Actually, Diddy was telling me the other day about his life at home. It’s sort of strange how his mimics mine, isn’t it? Both of us lost our dads at a young age, both of us were forced to move from our homes near mountains to a big town/empire, and both of us made friends with royalty before ending up here. Diddy doesn’t even know what’s wrong with him, poor guy. I might not have completely understood why things were happening to me but I always knew that they existed. I was never blind to my faults like he was. It’s hard to not notice Sombra, even if I don’t witness anything he does. He leaves another destruction to show me that he’s been there. It’s like a calling card, or something. I suppose every villain needs a calling card.
Well, here goes I guess. I was at school when it happened. Rosen wasn’t there. She was with Lilac, representing the kingdom at a royal gala or something. Basically the usual tedious things she hated doing. I couldn’t go with them since, you know, I’m not an actual royal. Just because I’m best friends with a queen’s niece and living in the palace doesn’t mean that I’m not the son of a common farmer’s wife. And I’m proud to be as well, despite what happened to our relationship over the years. She’s my mother. I love her.
But it’s hard to show how good my mother was when Sombra gets in the way. I don’t even know what set him off the first time. Everypony was being especially kind to me in those days. They all knew what had happened with my mother and they all felt sorry about it. Nopony in the class was cruel or mean. There were no bullies to knock me down. The greatest bully was Sombra, actually, though I don’t know why he wanted to bully anypony.
What I do remember is talking to Cinders. He was a nice colt, sweet and kind but really quiet. His parents weren’t the richest in the empire and he often had to depend on others to give him lunch—not because he couldn’t afford it but because he always managed to lose it on the walk to school. He was very forgetful and spent most of his time looking outside of the clouds instead of listening to the lessons. He was great, he really was. Which makes what Sombra did to him even more inexcusable.
I mean, what had Cinders even supposedly done? Asked if he could borrow my crayons? It’s not his fault. He’d lost his a couple of weeks back and his parents didn’t have enough money at the moment to replace them. I had plenty of crayons. Lilac had given me some new ones when I’d moved to the palace. They’d used to be hers but she hadn’t used them for a few years so she’d given them to me. They weren’t even mine in the first place so why did it bother me to much that Cinders wanted to borrow them?
I have never been sorrier in my life than when I woke up and found Cinders on the ground in tears, blood running down his nose and eye. The teacher was cradling him back and forth and the other foals were staring at me in astonishment. I didn’t know what had happened. I’d just blacked out after he’d asked for the crayons. I’d been drawing on a piece of paper at the time—crystals, my mom’s favourite. Cinders could barely look at me—both because he couldn’t open his eye and because I’d clearly been the one to hurt him.
I found out what had happened later from Lilac. Because I didn’t have any parents for the teacher to go to she’d taken me back to the palace and explained the whole situation to the princess. She’d blushed and stumbled through her words so much you’d think that I hadn’t almost killed somepony. Lilac had said I wasn’t even close to killing him but I couldn’t be too sure that she was telling the truth. She was clearly concerned about me. The look on her face had said everything.
My eyes had turned red and green and I’d jumped forward and struck Cinders in the face. He hadn’t had enough in him to fight back. He’d just burst into tears and supposedly that just made me hit him harder. I growled and hissed as I struck out at him. The teacher ran forward and then—suddenly, without warning—I’d passed out and fallen onto the floor. That’s when I’d woken up again. That’s when Silas had come back. It was like I’d been in a long sleep.
Everypony reckoned that that was what it was. Everypony thought that I hadn’t slept enough and that and the stress of being away from my mom had just made me snap. I wasn’t sure about this explanation. Somehow it hadn’t seemed quite right—and, I suppose I’d been right about it. Sombra wasn’t just a lack of sleep, he was a monster. I hated him from that moment. Everypony else forgave me, even Cinders. He’d given me some of his sandwich the next day, a bright smile on his swollen face. Cinders was nothing if not forgiving, but I couldn’t forgive myself.
“Well,” Rosen had said when I’d told her about it, “at least you got something good out of it.”
“What was good about it?” I’d asked, confused and depressed.
She’d pointed at my flank and I turned to see three red crystals—the same crystals I’d been drawing to send to my mom at the hospital. It didn’t make me feel any better. From that day Sombra had marked me as his.
My cutie mark, my crystals, had trapped me and there was no way out of it from here on in.