This is insulting, thought Sombra as Aloe filed the point of his horn in an attempt to dull and round it. My pride will have to endure this… this humiliation.
“I’m sorry,” said Aloe as she stopped her work. “Don’t tell me you aren’t put off by this. I’ve seen your eyes twitching in the mirror as I work.”
“My pride will have to endure,” he told the spa pony. “A traveler like me needs to accept it as something fitting for prolonged social situations. Will I need to visit for it again?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Please, I can understand this sort of thing. In my mind it makes sense, but my pride hates it. It finds this to be a grave insult, but I know that my pride has brought me many hardships. Each was more painful than the last so my pride cannot be something either of us should regret wounding.”
“Good, now just relax and I’ll finish sooner. Your twitching has been more of a distraction, like—”
“I was in pain yes?”
Aloe simply nodded as she took the file once more in her mouth and went to work.
As minutes turned to hours, Sombra found himself relaxing more and more. It wasn’t until he gave a contented sigh in the spa’s hot tub that a voice other than either spa pony’s registered in his ears.
“So you do have a new stallion customer,” said the voice.
“He is a little rough around the edges,” came Aloe’s voice in a reply, “but he does seem to be exactly what we’ve been looking for.”
Sombra slowly opened one of his eyes and saw a white coated unicorn being tended to by both earth ponies. A white unicorn with a purple mane and tail, he thought as he slowly sunk lower in the water, I swear I’ve seen that before. Could she… no, that’s quite silly. The odds are just too low if that’s the case. But if so then that could be a problem.
“Not romantically I take it.”
“No, but he is quite handsome for a traveler. From his grey coat to his long, flowing mane, he seems almost too perfect. With that strong jawline and immaculate posture, well, do you think the princess might enjoy his company? Even if it’s just for appearances, I think they would make a lovely couple.”
“Well Twilight does seem a little out of it since she had that one letter but I don’t think some random pony would be the right thing to introduce her to, especially if he’s just that radiant.”
So, not every tradition has perished in this age, thought Sombra as he sunk further under the water, making sure his ears remained above the surface so he could continue to eavesdrop. How wrong he knew what he was doing seemed a moot point, it was a source of information and that was more than welcome enough to suppress his guilt.
“Anyways, has Pinkie been through for her usual mane fluffing routine?”
“No,” replied Aloe, “but she was in yesterday with Miss Valley.”
“Discussing Roseluck’s party no doubt.”
“Yes. They talked for a while, but you know Miss Pie better than me and how fast she can talk.”
“Oh dear, do you think Lilly was keeping up with her?”
“Perhaps as much as anypony can, but they talked for the entire visit so perhaps she did the unlikely and followed everything. Do you think you need anything else Miss Rarity?”
“I suppose not, go and see to your find. Please, treat him to a massage on me. He is what you wanted in a stallion customer correct?”
“Lotus already took care of his massage, but I will bill you for it if you really want to offer.”
Sombra rose again, the random act of kindness perplexed him more than the conditions he still couldn’t understand.
“I suppose you should, you know how much I understand the need for perfection.”
“And we do appreciate your advertising in Canterlot so much. Did you hear, both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna booked an appointment with us next month? There are many fine spas in Canterlot, but they want to come to Ponyville.”
Sombra’s eyes widened as he surfaced. That sounds like my cue to get out of town. Well I would have a month but… no, leaving tonight would be better. Nothing to tie me down. No regrets when I’m on the other side of… perhaps the world would suffice. Playing by Fate’s design is one thing but crossing their paths is something far more foolish. Encountering a mare scorned is too risky and I doubt I would last more than one or two seconds. Last time… last time fared better but I had little to lose by then. There’s too much at stake for another last stand and I doubt either of them will be as merciful as before.
As he watched the unicorn leave, Sombra sighed. The memories of his conflict with the sisters rose to his mind as if they happened yesterday. All the mistakes, all the horrible things he did, all the sacrifices laid bare in his mind all over again.
“Are you feeling well Mr. Amore,” asked Lotus, causing him to jump. “You’re crying.”
Sombra looked at Lotus as he rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry, just a few bad memories is all. It’s not that important.” I never knew so much pain would still haunt me, he mentally noted.
“But you’ve said next to nothing since your session began, are you sure you’re alright?”
He nodded as he got out of the tub, a soft smile returning to his face. “It will pass but I don’t like dwelling on it. I would rather drop this line of conversation please.”
“Then consider it dropped. After Aloe is done ringing Miss Rarity up she’ll do something with your mane.”
“And not my tail? Should it have any work as well?”
Lotus paced around him with a curious look on her face. “No, I think it looks fine but I’d rather leave it to the mare who does a better job. No offense, but she does have a better feel for stallions.”
Sombra smiled. “Perhaps a towel then?”
Lotus giggled as she offered him a towel. “Are you embarrassed?”
“Only by your ogling Lotus,” he replied as he dried himself off. His smile only broadened as he saw the blue earth pony’s face flush.
*****
After tending to his bill and returning to his cloak, Sombra returned to the main road of Ponyville. He was pleased with more than the attention his mane certainly needed. The damage his pride suffered felt pointless as long as any degree of questioning for a razor sharp horn as distinctive as his own curved one had diminished. He strolled around Ponyville with his hood down, taking in the sights but maintaining a certain distance from the castle that never seemed to vanish from his sight.
I don’t want to but, Sombra shook the thought from his mind as he paid for a large bag of dried apple slices. They would contact her if they were watching me.
“Don’ mean to intrude on yer thinking,” said an orange pony behind the counter of the stall, “but yer holdin’ up the line.”
Sombra looked over his shoulder and moved away with a smile. “My apologies miss—”
“Applejack, now if you’ll excuse me I have orders to fill.”
Sombra idly nodded as he slipped the dried fruit into his saddlebags and continued along his way. ‘Applejack,’ well I suppose that clan has spread like weeds after all.
*****
As day slowly turned to night, Sombra’s mind returned to the eventual arrival of the last pony he wanted to see. The train station was far different than the last time he was there, even as he was adjusting his hood once more.
“Where to,” asked a mare who drew his attention. She was an earth pony that was pink from mane to tail but perhaps the more curious notion that came to Sombra’s mind was that he wasn’t in line and she was asking as though he was.
“How far south does the rail go?”
“Just to the border and it continues after a checkpoint at the border. Planning to leave Equestria?”
“I realized that, regardless of where I travel, I may not find myself welcome in these lands. How much is a one-way trip?”
“I won’t lie, you seem to be pretty hard on yourself but it’ll run you fifty bits and you’ll need to wait for tomorrow.”
“What interest is it to you,” he snapped.
She smiled and moved to wrap a leg around his neck. “Because you need a place to stay for the night and I could use the company. I mean, it gets so lonely when I don’t have company and it’s supposed to be really cold tonight.”
Sombra rolled his eyes. “The cold doesn’t bother me. It never has.”
“You also seem too down in the dumps to go off somewhere you don’t even know. Maybe if you had a friend you wouldn’t feel so down. If not, then someone to see you off might be nice. Whaddaya say, want to stay at my place tonight? I can see you off in the morning and hopefully you can leave in better spirits.”
The former king chanced a better look at her. If one added make-up and a checkered costume, he thought, she could easily pass for that jester I saw in the Empire. If that is the case then my earlier suspicions would make more sense but- there’s just no way.
“I doubt I can talk you out of it so I may as well,” Sombra replied with a sigh.
As she dragged him along in silence the unicorn’s mind was racing. If she was the jester then the smile on her face told to me that she was blissfully unaware of who I was. Perhaps even what I’d done. I doubted it would last once my hood was removed.
*****
“So where are you from,” she asked as she led him to a house on the corner of a fork in the road.
“The north,” he replied. “So far that I barely saw the sun all year.”
“I’ve never been that far north before. Is it further than the Crystal Empire?” She bounded ahead towards the house on the wedge and fumbled with the lock.
“I’ve spent time in the Empire yes, though I travelled further north after each visit.”
The pink mare continued to fumble with the lock as Sombra joined her at the door. With a brief application of magic, he turned the key and opened the door, gesturing for her to enter first.
“Thanks,” she replied with a smile as she bounded indoors.
Sombra hesitated as he took his first step through the threshold of her home. It was a very nostalgic sensation to the unicorn, an unsettling boldness that he had believed to no longer possess. “Have you… have you been to the Empire?”
“I was there when it was being attacked by this scary smoke-pony thing and a couple of other times since then. Did you hear about that smoke-pony thing last time you were there or about the Equestria Games? I was there for that too.”
“Well, I-”
“Come to think of it, can you tell me your name? I better know it before I see you off.”
The Hoof of Fate indeed, Sombra mused. “If I tell you, will you promise me that you can remain calm? I… Well… Let’s just say that I’m not used to a warm reception when anypony hears it.”
“I promise that I can try.” She looked at his obscured face with some confusion. “It isn’t something bad is it?”
“Not when I was born,” he hesitated but fought through it and revealed his face. “It was only later in my life that Sombra Lamentius Amore became synonymous with evil.” After a very brief silence, the mare fell over stiff as a board. A smile came to Sombra’s face as he witnessed the strange action. “You are far more receptive than I anticipated for a pony witnessing the aftermath of my exile. If memory serves, it was in a jester’s costume no less. Quite remarkable.”
“Um,” she said through clenched teeth after a few minutes, “I think my legs are stuck. Can you help me?”
With a careful application of magic, he enveloped the pink pony and stood her upright. “I can certainly try, I’m just going to help your legs relax so try to remain calm.” Sombra waited for her to manage some sort of reply before he leaned in and began to massage her forelegs. “I have no intention to cause problems, though I would wager that the resident of the nearby castle will consider me a threat once word reaches them.”
“Twilight probably thinks you’re a bad pony.”
He paused, noting that this would be far more challenging than he expected. “I cannot deny that I have a very unsavory reputation, but I have had many problems in my life. I would assume that my history was not recorded in its entirety so I would expect that if it was recorded at all, the alicorns would have done so.”
She lifted one of her forelegs and shook it around over his head as he moved on to one of her other legs. “You don’t like Princess Celestia or Princess Luna much do you?”
“Does a fly admire the hoof swatting it? Dislike is not the word to use for my opinion.” Sombra knew that his eye twitched in irritation despite any attempt to restrain it. “My apologies, I know they govern Equestria and you undoubtedly respect them. My feelings should not paint them in a different light to you.”
“It’s okay,” she said with an unbridled eagerness that caused him to pause in shock. “Did you fight them? Was it hard? I mean, I know you lost if you did, but was it harder than what you thought?”
“Imagine that you were still just a foal. Try to remember what it was like before,” he struggled to find a proper analogy for the earth pony, “before your cutiemark had arrived. Now imagine that you had to confront the most powerful beings you have ever encountered with only the uncertainty you had in your own future. That was how paltry I felt when I lost. When they approached the Empire I was so full of myself and the would-be army I managed to scrape together that I foolishly believed we stood a chance. After all, it was just the two of them,” He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Sorry, I remembered how ridiculous it all seemed.”
“It’s ok, what happened next?”
“Well, I had a very crude army of two hundred ponies and I have no doubt that very army considered it lunacy. They wore the armor, had the weapons, and were trained as best as I could manage, so I called them an army like any naïve noble with an armed force. The sisters ignored them and we clashed in a battle of magic. Two against one were odds I thought I could handle, but my arrogance became my downfall. The rage in Celestia’s eyes was like a funeral pyre and I saw only a distant coldness from Luna as they irrevocably changed my view of them.
“When the dust cleared I was broken, cast to a mist and frozen in ice. From my would-be tomb I saw no empire where once it stood and the sisters withdrawing. I reflected on the loss when I could, though my anger had often risen as the years wore on. Alone with myself in an unyielding tundra, aware of everything and without the ability to do anything. I think the phrase is ‘cabin fever’ for what came next and insanity was not far behind it.”
“And that’s why you don’t like them?”
“No, my disdain is a story I have no interest in sharing. I may in time, but today is not that time.”
“So you were angry at everything when you got free?”
“I was furious, but the rage I felt was enhanced with the knowledge that I was free. Looking back at my additional defeat I could see I was more than rage. I had truly gone insane and that rage only made things worse. What the Crystal Heart did to me. What it really did to me. It allowed me to see just what I had become once more. My anger was stripped from the surface of my mind and I felt the haze of madness clear but I was once more broken. In time I managed to take shape once more, but I was not confined like during my previous defeat. After months spent simply attempting to remain solid I decided to find a way to make peace with my mistakes. Since rage no longer clouded my thoughts at all times, I wanted to give back to the world somehow. I know not how, but I thought of that to be the best means of making amends.”
“Did you know there was a castle here?”
He shook his head. “I only decided to take the train here from what I learned during a brief time Trottingham. Selecting a town was my attempt to distance myself from a princess, but it seems the Hoof of Fate had other plans. I merely heaved a sigh and accepted that what money I earned could not permit me to escape an encounter with an alicorn. If I chose to find a different locale then word would reach one in time or a chance encounter would be made. With nothing but failure in my mind I decided that if Fate wished it, then who was I to deny it?”
She cringed. “You don’t think it’ll go well do you?”
Sombra nodded. “I think that by leaving Equestria, I can escape any further encounters with alicorns. I will walk to the border if I must.”
“Wouldn’t you starve before you got there?”
“I cannot say for sure if I would. I don’t feel things like thirst or starvation anymore. I currently think it stems from my fractured existence but time may be what I require to solve that puzzle.”
“Well beating yourself up too much will really stop you from doing anything else. So you made a bunch of mistakes, but I know somepony else who made a ton of mistakes and he’s not beating himself up over them anymore.” The pink mare wrapped her foreleg around his neck, the other stretched out before them. “Trust me, I’ll take you to see him and I’m sure between you, me, and him, we can come up with something you can do.”
Her attitude is quite infectious, Sombra thought as a broad grin began to grow on his face, even more than how genuine it is.
“I’ve never met anypony like you… uh…”
“Pinkie Pie,” she said cheerfully.
“Thank you Miss Pie.”
She shook her head. “Just ‘Pinkie’ ok… um, can you tell me the rest again Sombra?”
He laughed, but whatever he found funny was lost on Pinkie. “Sombra is more than enough Pinkie. I would rather my full name used in a formal sense. Hating them would be no excuse to at least state my full name when in their presence. Ancient formalities would entail that all need to maintain a certain decorum between royal houses. Rulers are to be spoken to with the respect of their stations and I must admit that such standards are things I was raised to maintain.”
“Um, what does that mean in regular everyday Equestrian?”
Sombra cleared his throat as he did his best to try to explain ancient customs in simpler words. “It means that, should I have to confront your rulers, we have to follow rules that were established long ago to know more about each other.”
“But you already know each other right?”
“It is a tradition from a time when I was young, from a very long time ago and if they follow those rules then I will follow them. If they don’t then I will do my best to learn how nobles of your era act.”
“So you mean like how to act like an uptight party pooper?”
He shook his head. “That is not my thought on the subject, but perhaps that is how you would see it. You had requested your ‘regular everyday Equestrian’ translation and I have done my best to comply. Translating such a thing is difficult due to the length of time that I have been entombed. Is it enough for you?”
Pinkie paused, her hoof pressed to her chin in thought. “I think so, but if I have any questions can I ask?”
“Of course. I will try to translate so you can understand, but I cannot promise that at all times.”
Translating ancient concepts to this pony, the mere thought caused Sombra’s blood to boil. Such is the price of progress. I need to accept this concept in order to forge a life in this era.