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// Recharge 
// Story: Save Me, For My Name is Twaith 
// by Michael Hudson 
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	Twilight blinked as she noticed a slight bit of movement far below her. She had been hiding at the top of the darkened cavern, enjoying the peace, but if Sombra was awake, it meant it was time to be active, to do things that would make her life better. At the very least, it was time to do more than she had over the past two weeks since the wedding.

As she got closer, she could hear Sombra grumbling as he stretched himself out. For a moment she giggled to herself, thinking about how rigor-mortis must have set in. Of course, it was only a joke, as he was about as dead as she was. He had simply used a lot of power making sure her friends would be safe from her, and had needed some rest. Now though… “Hello, Mr. Sombra?”

The stallion turned his head slightly while he was low to the ground, and looked past his decayed, black mane. His own red eye met her green one, and he smiled before standing up. If it weren’t for her being a spirit, he probably would have towered over the mare. Levitation was one of the few bonuses to the form she found immortality in though. “Yes?”

She rubbed her hooves in front of herself, before raising them to be in front of her muzzle. Despite that, Sombra could see through them, and to the reddening essence at her cheeks as she began to speak. “Well, I was hoping, just maybe, you would be ready to begin your lessons now.”

The stallion sighed, before gritting his teeth, the skin stretching further so as to allow more of the right side of his jawbone to show. His horn flickered to life, and a black ring in the middle of Twilight responded, before he scowled. “My form is still recovering, as annoying as that may be, so unfortunately, if we may, I would rather wait.” He walked over to two, cracked circles on the ground, and ran his hoof along one of the destroyed runes. “Besides, I would assume you have questions.”

Twilight bit into her cheek, before looking back to the ground. “I do, but I need these lessons. Answers about you can come when you’re telling my friends and I.”

Sombra’s smile grew wider as he saw the mare wipe a tear at her eye, and his horn glowed. From the ring within her, her could see a pulse go out, and for only a moment, before the ring disappeared as well, a spike could be seen in Twilight’s side. “You truly do care about them more than anything else, don’t you?”

Twilight continued to stare at the ground, her mind flashing between flights with Rainbow, farm work with Applejack, and even monster hunting with Trixie. She couldn’t focus on any one of them, as it only made the pain of not having them with her greater, and made her want to cry, but now…. Why did it need to be so hard not to think of them now? Twilight shook her head, stopping a tear that was about to slide down her face. “O-Of course I do.”

Sombra slowly trotted over, before placing a hoof on her chin. He helped her look into his eyes, and kept them there. “That’s dangerous for one like yourself. Want and supposed need is what fuels desperate wraiths like you, and makes the temptation to devour stronger, even if in turn it makes your essence work harder for its next meal. Therefore, thinking about them will only make the lessons harder, and less effective.” He let her eyes fall back to the ground “If I were you, I would use this day to forget all of them. You may remember them someday, but this will protect them.”

Twilight mouthed, “Protect them,’ before simply losing it. She could think of times when she made all of them so scared, and in pain, all because she was what she was. Once her mind got there, the magic flowing through her began to have a field day as it blasted her with almost every negative thought about herself and the rest of the world.

Sombra smiled as he heard her mumble something, and watched as she drifted away. A trail of ice followed her where she went, and he could feel the turmoil in her energies. All good signs if she was to succumb to his desires. “Please don’t leave the cave. It would be such a shame if all of your efforts were put to vain by a random pony, wouldn’t it?”

Twilight slid herself behind a pillar of stone, and stared into the vacant eyes of a rat’s skull. She didn’t know, but suspected that a victim of hers would look like this, and could already imagine one in the snow. She barely squeaked out, “I won’t,” before putting her head between her hooves, and trying to let the fear out, even if it never would.