//------------------------------// // Alicorn Crystals Are So Weird // Story: Sombra Dislikes Crystals // by The Apologetic Pony //------------------------------// Luna, I never did ask you, does your flesh counterpart realise you’re here? Well like our relationship, Sombra, its complicated. Is it? To you I am a fragment of your obsession, and to me you’re a toy. You know me, I’m not one for riddles, bar the double entendres with, and within the many different kinds of bars. Say you prefer kissing her or me? Or getting woken up by a curious colt? Sombra was slow to realise he’d awoken on the train again, and was staring into the eyes of some tiny pegasus. The thing trotted away once it realised Sombra was awake though. Kind of like a foal Luna. Can you just stop seeing everypony apart from your own mother as versions of Luna please? It was odd how he found waking up more memorable than falling asleep, sometimes. ‘So is today the big day then, where I say yes?’ he wondered, as the pastures and trees went on by. It wasn’t a fast train, but the outside was a mesh of green to Sombra’s unfocused eyes. ‘Hello, Som-bra!’ ‘Hi.’ ‘You seem a little bit down, you okay?’ ‘No, no I’m good, told my mother about the Canterlot idea, she’s really happy about it.’ ‘That wouldn’t make you down.’ ‘No.’ ‘Som-bra.’ she chimed, and ran the tip of her wing down his spine. ‘Ahaha that tickles!’ ‘Talk to me, you’ll feel better.’ ‘You’ve forced me into it now, I’d be laughing forever otherwise! I um, don’t mean to mistrust you or anything, but like, you haven’t been seeing me in my dreams since that one time right?’ ‘Have you been seeing me?’ ‘Yeah, a lot.’ Luna frowned. ‘That’s not good, sorry about that.’ ‘But they’re just my dreams aren’t they? And they haven’t been nightmares.’ Luna sat with that same frown for quite a long time. ‘Something like this happened to my sister, long ago, but that was... What have I been saying in these dreams?’ ‘Oh you know, just, nonsense dream stuff.’ ‘But it must be scary for you? I could do so much without you knowing.’ ‘Ahh come on don’t be silly, there’s a limit to how much you can do in dreams.’ Luna wrestled with some internal inconsistencies some more, before telling Sombra what she was thinking. ‘So a long time ago, when I’d just discovered I could do anything, in anypony’s dream, my sister starting seeing me, or something like me, every single night when I wasn’t consciously going there. But after I did try visiting her for a few nights in a row, I didn’t appear unless I went there anymore. We guessed that I’d become overly enthusiastic about my newfound godhood, so that I’d started to bloat and bleed my unconscious into the dream’s of the pony I thought of most. I don’t think Celestia said they were all that much like me though, really snarky. I must have said something awful for you to be not so happy like this.’ ‘It’s okay, as long as there’s a simple solution. Glad you haven’t been spying on me haha.’ ‘I’m puzzled if it’s happened again though. It’s only happened under peculiar circumstances before.’ Luna relaxed a bit. ‘Anyway I’ll come knocking on Sombra’s dream door tonight.’ she giggled. ‘Please don’t wake my mother on the way in.’ ‘I’ll be a real ninja.’ Sombra snorted at the image of her wrapped in black. ‘In happier news, I’ve done some fun things with that dark heart of yours, come over here.’ She led him to the far end of the garden, further away from the palace, where the heart lay on marble. ‘That’s really shiny, jee.’ ‘It’s great right? Looks like a sapphire now! And try lifting it! No with your hooves, silly.’ Looking rather skeptical, Sombra tried to lift the mighty crystal off the ground, then grunted, and then failed. ‘Just kidding!’ ‘Yeah you’re not making that any lighter.’ ‘It’s also breakable by pretty much all magic now, in case you ever planned on dropping it on somepony’s head.’ ‘Yeah foiling my master plan, got me there.’ ‘But seriously that was just a side effect. I could also turn it back, probably, though it’d take a lot of effort.’ ‘And how’d you turn it in the first place?’ ‘That’s a secret, neither my sister or I would be happy if I told you, or anypony else. Alicorn stuff.’ ‘Haha sure.’ Quite suddenly, Celestia was at the edge of the greenery, walking towards them. Both Luna and Sombra were equally surprised. ‘So you’re the one who made this thing! My little sister has been having a lot of fun with that.’ That’s informal for her. ‘Has she now?’ ‘Tia, you’re being awfully rude barging in on us like this.’ ‘Only because I’ve escaped the hounding papers and ponies, sister. You’d do the same.’ Luna huffed. ‘Has she told you how she did it? She’s too shy I bet.’ ‘No you know it’s not like that!’ Luna exclaimed. ‘Oh but it is!’ Celestia said, wrapping her arm around her sister’s neck and ruffling her mane. Luna only made weak attempts to get out of it. That’s like a super brotherly thing isn’t it? Well they’ve been together forever haven’t they? They’re not sisters, and not brothers, they’re just siblings. Weird ones. Can’t deny that you love one of them though. ‘Stop it, the guards will gawk.’ ‘You mean they’ll have an excuse to.’ Sombra laughed at his comically misplaced protective urge (or was it possessive?) after hearing that. ‘Yeah, maybe your guards.’ ‘Does your coltfriend over there enjoy seeing you struggle? He looks like it.’ His heart sprang at being called coltfriend. ‘No I was laughing at something else.’ ‘Really.’ the sisters said in unison, and then they were laughing too. Celestia barely had time to say ‘Oh, they found me.’ before her horn lit up in an instant, and she was gone. ‘...Huh?’