//------------------------------//
// Chapter 14: Control 
// Story: The Company We Keep 
// by Ice Star 
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You know that feeling when the pony next to you just won't stop talking about the that time they were murdered?

I hate that, and I think Opal Charm knew. To be fair, she wasn't next to me, but rather behind me, and I don't think she was even trying to talk to me but rather was floating behind me and half-whispering everything as creepily as possible. I was actually starting to feel my skin crawl under this Celestia-forsaken crystal.

"...after that horrid event, I faded somewhat, drifted away..."

"...I couldn't see in that sense, no, but I knew, I caught bits and pieces of what was happening... oh, I heard so much..."

This tunnel wasn't very long. This one-sided conversation wouldn't be long.

"...perhaps the strangest thing of all, was the one who called himself king..."

I don't think she'll find it to easy to control my magic if she's distracted... in more ways then one.

"...he wasn't shattered in the way," she paused and when she continued to speak her voice sounded a bit choked, "...the way I am, that awful creature was something different, most of the time he smiled so happily as he carried out his deeds and was completely lost behind a veil of madness. He talked joyfully to those that did not exist, to himself. He liked it when my ponies screamed."

Please stop taking, I like to read horror novels, not live them. I'm also trying to find a way to get out of here and get rid of you.

"...the rest of the time, my memory," she continued to ramble,"I wasn't always sure of what was happening... sometimes he acted stranger, a violent mess of anger, a horrifying and mysterious mix of fire and cold, who locked himself away from everything and screamed just as much as anypony else did, a victim of his own awful madness, a madness he enjoyed."

I swallowed as shivered a bit as a cold mountain wind found its way into the cave. Was she even describing Sombra? She even said she couldn't trust her own memories anymore.

...Did I even know Sombra?

I think we're getting close to the center of the chamber I created. I still feel ill from casting that spell but I the plan I've come up with should work. I don't see a reason for it to fail.

"...I can't fail again, I'm sure everypony knows that. They all missed me I know they did."

Ahh, here we are, my little pocket of Tartarus freshly cooked up with dark magic and served with a side of crazy ghost queen. Please help.

I stop walking and stand in the middle of a dark room-if you could call it that. The entire thing was more of cave, really, a crudely split geode full of those lovely dark grey crystals that long to make you see something warm, fuzzy, and pleasantly pink for the rest of your life.

It looks like a tomb in here. If I execute this stunt of mine perfectly this will end up the Tomb of Opal instead of the Tomb of Love. Opal Charm - floats next to my side, her hoofsteps completely silent. She frowns, eyes glowing in the darkness.

"Well? Find it. We aren't here to contemplate the meaning of life."

I almost wish Sombra were here so he could snappily respond with something along the lines of 'Of course, since you don't have one being dead and all.' This stuff would be too easy for him and it's a bit of a shame he turned out to be a sociopath who I don't even want to be in the same castle as.

"It's not here, it never was."

Her fiery pupils flare with rage and engulf the entirety of her eye socket, she's consumed by her temper and can't speak, only stammering angrily.

"Y-y-you-u-u!"

I'm trying to find a really smart answer somewhere in my head so I can tell her off out of spite for all the things she's done, like threatening to turn me into a lawn ornament. Who does that?!

Opal lunges at me, and presses her hoof to the gemstone plating covering my jacket, which in turn was covering me. Since I can't move very well I'm unable to dodge and end up being painfully shoved against the poorly sculpted wall, I think I even hear a few crystals snap.

Her hoof is only resting on the crystal which is now glowing softly like a dying flashlight. Despite this, I can still feel her hoof it's colder than I imagine any windigo could be, it makes me want to cry. Was this a manifestation of cruelty and heartlessness itself? Is that what I feel? How could somepony like her have ever guided my little ponies and protected them?

"Why Cadenza!? Why did you trick me!? You didn't have to be the villain! If you didn't agree to help him that day, if you killed him on that trip of yours everything would have been fine, nopony would have gotten hurt, I wouldn't have to feel so broken like this, it's so cold here Cadenza. Is this what you want?"

I charge my horn with magic, watching it build up slowly and try to wriggle free from her grip. She raises her other forehoof and grins although her eyes remain angry and sad. When she speaks next her voice is cracking like a piteous child weeping over a broken toy or a friend who moved away.

"Don't worry, dear! Don't fret, my daughter! I won't wound you as bad as he hurt me, you won't suffer long, once I tear your wings away it will be fine if I ignore the screams, everything will be quiet soon after. Oh, but how could I ruin such art and mar you so? You could have been an eternal work of art, a beautiful statue, I could have made you last, perhaps you would have known no pain, but it seems that is not so. You chose poorly, my darling girl, I will have to stain you scarlet with my vengeance to restore the true heir to the throne."

My magic falters, I still feel weak from before, the aura isn't building up fast enough and I can't move my fore hooves or wings with this crystal...

"I must rule, I can protect them all, make them eternal. They will never know evil, only purity. They will forget."

Wait...crystals...? All around me is, I see nothing but crystals, she has been covering me in-

"They shall never be lost, I will not fail, I swear I didn't fail. Sometimes I can't make sense of it, only that I must protect them, and I always will."

My horn flares with waves of dark aura, black bolts shooting off in the exact second that she gives the last lines of her speech.

"I always have, and Cadenza, sweet, once-innocent, Mi Amore Cadenza, the little song bird who never should have never left the nest, I just want to tell, everything I've done to you and everything I will do to end you, it's nothing personal."

A mere second before she finishes my magic-no, it was never mine-the magic breaks free from it all and puppets me in a way that neither of us saw coming, and I swear that each of my nerves are blaze with a thousand infernos of pain.

HELPICAN'TCONTOLTHISMAKEITSTOP!

The crystals move, clicking like lightning fast puppets in the clumsy grip of The Magic That Was Once Me the swirl and move like the belly of a storm and rumble towards us in the darkness.

Like a hundred thousand greedy little spider legs they sharpen into crooked needles that painfully unstitch me from Opal's suit of madness and-help I don't think I can breathe it's too crowded in here-and reveal the black jacket beneath-where is the light-it falls to the ground in large, torn patches of its former self and finds its way to the floor that I can no longer see and can no longer feel - I think I'm suffocating.

Is that Opal's scream that I here?

I don't know what's happening and automatically rise like a puppet whose strings were just tugged. I feel so much pain, how did it come to be like this? My wings, no longer barred from use and unfurl, going only by the instinct coursing through me I take flight, dodging the stilled and tangled maze of crystals. The magic has quieted, my horn which has never felt such agony is no longer cloaked in light.

I find my way outside, the tunnel-prison rushing before my eyes, until I know I am there as the fresh air touches my coat, I flap my wings harder, drawing in fast, deep breathes as I soar over toward Mount Opaline, having left the queen in the dark.