Chapter 3
“A child? Why would the spell pull a child through?”
“W-where am I? W-who are you?”
“It will just have to do; it will be another two weeks before I can perform the spell again.”
“I-I’m scared.”
“Are you scared child? Good!”
“What are you doing?” Private was seeing images rushing all around him. The most vivid were those looking like they happened in room lit up with red ominous light. There were tables made of black crystal with bottles, books and other strange equipment on them.
Sombra just stood still letting the images wash through, staring at them in silent contemplation. He did seem to focus most on the reddish room and what was happening there. He could be seen in those images, wearing his usual attire and in one he was lifting up a young colt with his regular red magic instead of his dark magic. The boy was Private.
“Mommy…. Daddy… I’m scared…”
Private cringed when hearing the small frightened voice. It was part of memories he had done his best to repress, constantly convincing himself that it had just been a nightmare. Sombra however kept shifting through the images.
“How are you doing this?” Private grimaced when seeing more and more images pass through.
The colt being thrown into a cage, then at times handled with the dark magic Sombra wielded, forced to drink down some concoction the Dark Unicorn had made and crying himself to sleep every night.
Private hardly could believe that what he had thought was just a nightmare one night, had in reality been seven days of hell in the company of the spirit that now possessed him. He glared at the king who still watched the images go by.
“Why are you watching this and how are you doing this?” he demanded to know, winching when hearing his six-year-old self cry out in fear.
“I’m not doing anything, Private,” Sombra spoke with indifference in his voice. “I’m merely watching you having a nightmare about the time you spent in my company. There are few details there wrong but then again you were only a child and this is a dream”
“MOMMYYYYY!!”
Private woke up with a start, panting and could feel his heart racing. He looked down, shuddering at the memories that had flooded over him. Somehow he wasn’t surprised that current events had brought them all back.
“I almost considered just keeping you. It was fascinating how resilient you were,” Sombra said thoughtfully. “However, the nature of the spell I used to pull you back to my time didn’t allow for it.”
The Unicorn didn’t respond, feeling ill at the thought that he had almost been kept prisoner permanently. He glanced at the window and could see it was day already. Private glanced at the clock and saw it was almost noon, he frowned, it was rare for him to sleep so late into the day.
“Did you have a bad dream?” someone asked him. Private blinked and looked to his left. Princess Cadance sat slightly away from the bed, smiling gently at him.
“When I came, you were still asleep so I decided to wait and see if you would wake up, I didn’t want to disturb you. Though judging by how abruptly you woke up, I’m guessing you had a nightmare?” She rose from her seat and walked closer to the bed.
“Her! She’s the one that snatched the Crystal Heart from the air and that dragon. She is the one that told my slaves to activate it,” Sombra snarled, once again making Private glad that the spirit was not currently in control of the body.
“Uh yeah…” Private confirmed. “You... are Princess Cadance?”
Cadance nodded. She had only recently arrived and actually considered just coming back later, but decided to wait a little bit to see if the pony would wake up before she left. She noted that the Unicorn had assumed a more bored, almost neutral expression now.
“So how are you feeling, still can’t remember your name?” she asked curiously, her brow rose a little when met with nothing but silence.
“Still sticking to that lie, Private?” Sombra didn’t sound too impressed.
“We just want to help you, I’m sure you wish to go back home and back to your family after what you went through,” the princess said gently.
The Alicorn was surprised how silent the Unicorn had become, she was now starting to see what Shining Armor meant. However, she didn’t want to file this yet under suspicious, but the princess couldn’t help but wonder if the pony was in some sort of trouble. No one had seen him between the train station and Little Crystal, so there was no telling what could have happened in that period.
“This is starting to get ridiculous and the longer this goes on the more suspicious they will become,” the spirit growled, Private ignored him.
“Look, my husband told me that you are not comfortable talking with strangers. I can understand that, it can’t be easy for you to just suddenly wake up in hospital far away from home and family,” Cadance told the Unicorn. She of course didn’t know how far away the stallion was a way from his home, but she assumed since he came by a train it was at least some distance away.
“But please tell me, are you in trouble of some sort?” she then asked and hoped he would answer this question, if he was it was within her realm and the princess felt responsibility to offer what assistance she could give.
Private actually raised his eyebrow at that question and was mildly startled how on target she was. Of course he hadn’t really confirmed her question but he had a feeling he had already answered it with his slight change in expression.
“Looks like these pretenders are not easily fooled, I would advise you to answer this question vocally and as truthfully as possible without revealing what kind of trouble you are in,” Sombra said and sounded calmer than before.
“I… guess you could say that.” Private decided that the former king did have a point, but this would probably open up all kind of new questions he either couldn’t answer or didn’t really want to.
Cadance nodded, glad to have that confirmed. That could explain his reluctance to tell his name and where he was from, or even say why he was at the mountain. Now the question was, what kind of trouble was he in?
“I don’t suppose you can tell me what kind of trouble, I meant it when I said we just want to help,” she wondered and sighed a little when the Unicorn fell silent again.
“Oh that does it, you and I need to establish some rules of conduct.” Sombra growled, losing his calm again.
Private didn’t even have a chance to protest, suddenly a stinging pain tore through his head causing him to cry out in pain. His body tensed and he put his front hooves on his temples as he grimaced in pain. He felt his consciousness being pulled back very hard. With one final cry his body went limp and the stallion didn’t move any more. The only indication he was alive was his steady breathing.
The princess hadn’t stood idle when this happened. At first she was startled when the pony suddenly cried in pain, but then she rushed to push the emergency call button before running to the door.
“Doctor, Nurse, something is wrong!” She called in mild panic.
Doctor Scope and few nurses came running in just as the stallion’s body went limp. They immediately started checking him over, all the while Scope asked Cadance what happened. However, since nothing physically could be seen that indicated what was wrong, the nurses rolled the bed out of the room to have him further examined elsewhere with proper equipment.
“Looks like we’ll be keeping him for a little while longer,” Doctor Scope muttered as she followed the bed out of the room.
“What the hay do you think you’re doing?” Private growled as he landed with a thud in the brownish space. “You don’t think they are going to suspect something after that?”
“Spare me. The theatrics were just so that princess didn’t think you had fallen asleep on her, now at least they are too busy tending to you while you and I have a little talk,” Sombra snapped and sneered where he stood over the smaller pony. This time the Private glared right back at him.
“How in Tartarus were you able to do that anyway, I thought you said you were too weak to do something like this,” Private snorted and slowly rose up, never taking his eyes off the king.
“My strength grows stronger every minute and I never said I could not force you back to sleep and I also told you that I can make you feel pain, both physical and mental. I warned you not to give yourself some false sense of security just because I can’t take complete control of your body,” Sombra snarled, his eyes beginning to glow with rage.
“Well why did you do that? I did what you told me.” Private was now just too angry to really notice that the dark king was furious.
“You keep going silent every time they ask you a question. That does nothing to stop them from suspecting and guessing that something is off. We need to mislead them and the only way to do that is to respond to their questions.” the Dark Unicorn was scowling now and bared his teeth in his anger.
“Well, this is just who I am!” The smaller pony yelled and stomped one hoof down.
“You weren’t wrong when you told the prince that I don’t like talking to strangers. I don’t! I’m a recluse! I hate too much social interactions! I don’t go to malls until late in the evenings to avoid crowds! I. Don’t. Like. TALKING! WITH! OTHER! PONIES!” Private was screaming now.
The brown space was turning wild. It almost looked like the two gray ponies were in middle of a thunderstorm. Private had just had enough and all of his pent up frustration and anger were becoming visible, lightnings started to flash around them as the Unicorn continued to rant:
“You know who I can thank for that!? YOU! Even after a year of therapy I never got over that nightmare you put me through. I became withdrawn, unsociable to a point that other ponies kept telling me parents that I must be wrong in the head or something. I was called weird and not normal. They kept saying that at least my brother came out alright even if I was right there and could hear them!”
“Oh be quiet!” Sombra snarled and raised one hoof and slapped Private so hard in the face that he sent the smaller Unicorn flying. The brown space became normal and his host now lay still further away.
“What on Equestria happened?”
The king frowned and looked up when hearing the audible voices. He realized that Private’s auditory systems were picking up what ponies were saying around him. Sombra sighed and realized that he had made an error.
“He just flew off the bed.”
“He’s bleeding from the mouth, quick get him back to the bed.”
Sombra hoofed his face and growled in frustration. He concentrated his hold on Private’s mind so it would tune out the voices outside. Then with a grunt he glared at where the smaller pony still hadn’t moved.
“Calm yourself, you’ve gotten this far. Can’t take any risks. You have a strangle hold on his mind, which means anything you do to him here will show physically as well,” he muttered to himself.
Suddenly the brown space disappeared and he was standing in the red room with the tables and a cage in one corner. Sombra glanced around, he had been preventing something like this from happening but with all his concentration on forcing Private to sleep and then keeping that hold, the king had let go in other areas.
“My old laboratory, I wonder what they have done to it,” the Dark Unicorn murmured, then he heard a whimper coming from the cage.
King Sombra walked over to it and wasn’t really surprised what he found there. As the Dark Pony was now deep in Private’s memories, his host had changed form to fit it. In the cage was a young colt, about six years old, huddled in one corner.
“We need to establish few things, Private,” Sombra growled and opened the cage, then he pulled the crying boy out with his magic and had him float up to his eye level.
“First of all, I absolutely do not care about you or your issues. Second of all, you have no control, it’s I who am in charge. Third, from now on we mislead them by answering their questions and give them just enough information that ensures they do not suspect you might be possessed,” the king counted, glaring at the frightened colt he held with the magic aura.
Sombra concentrated to grab a more proper hold on the subconscious again and push this memory away. The brown space returned and Private slowly grew back to his full adult size. The king dropped his host to the ground but kept glaring at him.
Private didn’t stand up, just lay where he had landed and looked down at the ground. The anger had all vanished and the Unicorn realized that he really was a prisoner, all appearance of control that he thought he had was just an illusion. He curled up in a ball, sobbing softly and tried his best to ignore Sombra who stepped away and lay down further away.
“I’m going to keep you asleep a little while longer, let them stew on their own what happened. If we are lucky they’ll come up with their own plausible explanation,” the dark king said and rested his head on his legs.
“I can’t even begin to tell how this happened, it was like he was suddenly thrown off the bed and his lip had a cut as if he had been struck and his cheek is starting to swell a little,” Doctor Scope told Princess Cadance and Shining Armor, they were standing outside the room Private now rested in after the examination was done.
“What is going on with that pony?” Shining couldn’t help but ask.
“You think some magic was involved? Maybe he had a magic surge or something,” Cadance wondered, now she was very concerned. This whole thing was starting to be weirder and weirder.
“His horn wasn’t glowing, but I can’t rule anything out right now. He’s otherwise physically fine, we couldn’t find anything wrong with him, he just won’t wake up right now.” The doctor shook her head. “We really need medical records for this stallion, see if he has history of this happening.”
“We are already working on finding out who he is, we’ll be keeping an eye out for news of missing ponies and are trying to track down information based on his cutie mark,” the white Unicorn informed Scope who nodded.
“Keep us posted,” Cadance said, her brow furrowed in worry. It was still on her mind that the stallion had pretty much confirmed that he was in some sort of trouble. What if there were spells on him that enforced his silence?
“Of course.” Scope nodded. “We are going to keep him here for further observation for at least few more days, at least until I have some medical record to go on.”
The royal couple nodded before heading out of the ward and left the hospital. Shining Armor noticed that his wife was deep in thought and had been like that for a while now.
“You okay?” he asked and reached to nuzzle her gently on the cheek.
“Shiny, that Unicorn, he pretty much confirmed that he was in trouble. When I asked him what kind of trouble, that’s when he was suddenly in pain and fainted. What if there are spells on him or something that force him to be silent?” Cadance looked at him, her frown not easing one bit.
Shining Armor arched his brow. The stallion had to admit that he hadn’t really considered things from that angle, if the mystery Unicorn was in trouble and his silence was being enforced with spells, that would explain a whole lot.
Then it’s all the more reason to find out who he is so we can help him, he thought.
“You didn’t detect any spells on him?” he asked though he wasn’t sure if Cadance had been in a position to do so.
“I didn’t have a chance to check, the hospital staff had him very quickly rolled out for examination and I didn’t think about doing it once they were done.” The Alicorn confirmed what her husband had already figured.
“That’s alright, there is always a chance to do it later.” Shining nodded with a smile.
Flash Sentry was waiting for them when they arrived at the castle. The Pegasus guard looked anxious and under his wing the corner of a paper could be seen. Once he spotted the royal couple arriving, he hurried over to them.
“I may have some news on our mystery stallion,” he said excitedly after bowing to Cadance and saluting Shining Armor, then he pulled the paper out from under his wing.
“Oh? Go on,” the princess said eagerly, hopeful that at least they would have something to go on now.
“The Fillydelphia police has been sending these telegrams to all police districts in Equestria and all royal guard headquarters. A staff member at the Fillydelphia History Museum filed a missing pony report earlier today on a co-worker.” Flash Sentry gave the telegram to Shining Armor who started to glance over it.
“This co-worker didn’t show up for work yesterday and when he didn’t show up today either and couldn’t find him at his home, they went to the police. Description matches perfectly with the Unicorn at the hospital and he has a book cutie mark,” the guard finished. The telegram was now being read by Cadance.
“Private Iceland, if he’s a civilian that can’t be a military rank, it must be his actual name.” Shining Armor frowned as he thought this new information over.
“Somepony should go to Fillydelphia, tell the police that we have their Unicorn but at the present time we can’t send him back but that he is alright, for the most part and to get some more information on him,” Cadance suggested and gave the telegram back to Flash.
“Flash, you do that. Talk with the staff at the History Museum, the police and even see if you can go to his home and check if he has a neighbor or something that can tell us more about him,” Shining Armor ordered the guard who saluted and immediately took off.
“Well now we at least know a name and that he works in a museum, doesn’t exactly sound like a pony who would get himself into trouble,” Shining said and entered the castle with Cadance.
“True, but we still don’t know that much about him, just name and occupation,” she pointed out.
Shining Armor nodded in agreement. But thoughts about the hospitalized unicorn had to be set aside as Sharp Quill came running to remind them of a meeting that required both of them to attend.
“No rest for the wicked,” Shining chuckled.
“Yes, onward you wicked, wicked stallion,” Cadance joshed. “And it’s, no rest for the weary”
“Hey, I have heard the other one too,” her husband grumbled but was grinning. Both of them laughed and headed for the meeting room.
End chapter 3