The interior of Silver Lining's house was small enough to the point where I wondered if I should call it a cottage instead. It was neither warm nor cold, which was irritating, especially since it was always pretty stuffy in these crystal buildings.
On the walls were various images of fruit or flowers, they weren't quite tapestries or patchwork since the stitches were too obvious. I could count every one of them if I weren't repulsed by the gaudiness of these pointless baubles. Whoever made these should never be allowed to even think of themselves as a craftspony.
I know how to sew, after all. Cloaks don't patch themselves and this isn't sewing, it's somepony asking me to set these on fire and end their misery. It's just too tempting... in fact I wonder just how many delayed response enchantments I could place on these. Perhaps I could set each one to be consumed with a fire at a different time? Or use different fire for each? Small objects are positively fascinating.
Silver Lining is attempting to avoid coming too close to me and look discreet in doing so. It isn't working and I'm not sure how she thought it would. This idiot mare takes me for even more of a fool than she is.
Wow, Onyx, I haven't even heard her excuse for a story and already I can see the family resemblance.
Pink One is being ushered into a parlor where four chairs surround a small, low table. Two are leaning against the wall where a shelf hangs above them, a few knickknacks covering its surface, the shinier ones catching bits of sunlight coming through the window.
Pink One selects a chair in a manner more cheerily than I thought possible. Silver Lining tries not to look at me but gestures ever so slightly with her head to everything in front of me as if I were bli - couldn't see for myself.
I glare at her until she decides to sit down before leaning against a nearby wall, which causes Pink One to shoot me a questioning look. When she gets no response from me she simply sighs and then turns to face Silver, who looks less nervous now that she believes I'm a safe distance away from her.
Ha, I should be the one to be glad to be a safe distance from her. Ponies should realize that I'll only hurt them if they irritate me enough, and to irritate me, they generally have to be pretty close to me, now don't they? All she has to do is stay away from me. What a grandiose and convoluted concept.
"So Pink One, I presume you'll do the talking until I decide to narcissistically butt in or my peaceful and tranquil demeanor is required in an attempt to coerce information from-"
"Sombra, for the last time, this isn't an interrogation!"
I gave her a flat stare. "It isn't an interrogation yet."
She tried to give an even flatter stare but was overcome by the superiority of mine, so she just chose to stare at the ceiling in exasperation while her gaze spoke only of the sweet mercy that death would bring.
Pink One loves me, deep down inside within that black and twisted soul of hers, she remains my biggest fan whom I can degrade at any moment, as with the rest of this nation's population.
She ends up sighing and turns to Silver Lining. "Is is alright if I call you 'Silver'?" she asks and receives a nod.
I guess I'll call her that until I bother to come up with something else to call her, provided she's worthy of course. Otherwise, she will remain as nameless as most of the other faces I've had the misfortune of encountering.
For now, I'll listen.
...
"So Silver, can you tell me a little bit about yourself? I don't want to be so rude as to not know more about you," Pink One asks with a sickeningly sweet smile.
So Pink One, can you see me making gagging motions with my hoof? Wait... you're looking in my direction... yes, you see the beauty of my pantomime! Wow... you aren't the Princess of Glaring. Very ineffective, Pink One.
She somehow manages to ignore me - or at least pretend to - and listen to Silver's response after the Crystalline mare's puzzled gaze is no longer on me.
If there's anything I remember about this place, it's that a resident - especially a crystal pony one - is called Crystalline, as are many of their other cultural elements. Part of me hates myself for remembering that.
"Well," Silver punctuates this with a nervous swallow and it's no secret as to who it's for, "I'm a baker. I've been one for years before... I, umm, Princess I'm not sure I should say anything since he's right over-"
"Since I'm right over here and can hear everything? Yes, of course that's just the most inopportune moment to mention what you believe to be my tyrannical overthrow of your queen and the murder of countless citizens of a broken empire. Please, I've heard it all before and perhaps if you can manage the near unachievable feat of wording something eloquently I'll let you get away with such an insult, but just this once."
"Umm... maybe I'll just skip that part then," she says, looking at me like I'm something that fell from the sky, "and move onto something else right... err, what should I call you?"
"My name is Sombra. Just Sombra, no titles in front of it, I'm not fond of them."
Silver appears slightly less tense after I say that. "Alright then... S-Sombra."
I said slightly.
The sometimes helpful Pink One decides to take over once it becomes clear that I'm not going to talk much right now.
Really, I know she's Celestia's student but how?! Lavender Loudmouth clearly has 'Product of Celestia' written all over her but Pink One is almost endearing at times.
"Silver could you tell Sombra and I about your life? Just give us some family background and biography."
"I'm sorry, Princess, but why do you want me to tell you this? It doesn't seem to be very important."
"Trust me, this is something very important we need to hear and then we have something to tell you, or rather Sombra has something to tell you."
I honestly hope not, I don't want to tell her anything. This is going to be like the Magicspire all over again.
...
"Well, I was born in this house nineteen years before-"
"Okay, I get it! you're twenty eight years old! I don't need a reminder!"
Pink One's hooves are really fond of her face. "Sombra..."
"Fine, I'll stop. But only until my next interruption." Which will most likely be soon.
Silver Lining clears her throat. "As I was saying, I was born in this house which has undergone many renovations since I was a little filly."
I still think your house is awful but it really must have been quite the hole-in-the-ground before. What could it have been like here before? Did you build the walls out of manure? Did you dwell in your own filth and ignorance for your entire foalhood?
"I didn't have any elder siblings, just my parents. My mother was named Swan Song and she was a bard. My father, Melanite, owned a flugelhorn and played that to make money. They both came from very poor backgrounds, and became even more so once they married. It didn't help that times were hard and even Queen Opal Charm couldn't do much to help. But they were happy and despite their quiet natures they only cared about making others happy. I don't know if we had any other family although I think Mother mentioned having a sister who lived even farther in the mountains. She was married but I don't know what happened to her."
She suspects I had something to do with it. Silver might not be wrong either, but even I'm not sure. Perhaps she notes this and continues on with her story or maybe she doesn't. Anyway, she continues to speak.
"Mother would sing beautifully and Father would would play pieces he had memorized to go with her voice. As I grew older it became clear I was meant to sing as well, so Mother began to teach me."
From her chair Princess Amore is gushing over this like a little filly.
Not endearing at all, Pink One.
"When I was three I learned that I was going to be a big sister."
Wait, what?! My ears perked up at this because I didn't see any other pony here.
Unless... was I the reason for that? Let's see... if she was four when her sibling was born...
"Eleven months later, I was a big sister... but my mother didn't make it... Father wouldn't let me in the room, but I knew. I was supposed to go get a midwife from the city but the mountain was too hard for her to climb, and she slipped so we were too late when we got back to the house."
I stop just long enough to listen to her and glimpse Pink One's expression of sympathy. She's got enough for five ponies.
"It was June 20th when he was born. I had a little brother."
Wait... a brother.
She's twenty eight...
He'd be...
H-Her brother is... he's Onyx.
I...
Her brother's Onyx...
Silver Lining continues to speak but I think I'm the only one who noticed that the temperature in the room had just dropped drastically.
"And after all that, Father said we couldn't keep him. With Mother gone there wouldn't be anypony to work, he said he wasn't going to make me work since I was too young. If we kept my brother, we'd all be starving by winter."
Onyx doesn't know when he was born, or at least not an exact date. Not all the foals he grew up with knew their exact birth dates so those two mares who ran the place where he spent the first eight years of his life decided to celebrate these birth anniversaries of the unknown on four different days: one for each season.
All Onyx knew is that he was born in summer.
Now I know when he was born, but yet I still have no idea of when I was created. Not that I want to celebrate it, that is.
"Father knew of a place where foals, no matter what kind of home they came from, would be cared for. It was run by two mares in the city, which was quite the commute for us then since there weren't any roads through the mountains then. They were reputed to teach all sorts of things as well, like reading and writing which my parents had never learned. I only learned recently," she adds that last part with a sheepish but sad smile.
"Go on, Silver," Amore encourages, her eyes growing wider with each part she hears.
Silver Lining nods solemnly. "My father and I made our way into the city I kept begging him to not go ahead with this, I wanted to keep my baby brother so much. Before Mother died we had even set up a swing in front of the house for him, it's still there too. When we arrived at the building Father still refused to listen to me. I wanted to keep him, I really did. He said I could name him, that was it. 'Give him a good name and then say good-bye, Silvey.' It seemed so cruel. So I named him Onyx for his gray coat."
I always thought he was named Onyx because nopony could figure out how many O's to put in 'Ooops'.
Pink One levitates one of the trinkets from the shelf down. Two frames. "Are these them?"
A nod.
Pink One passes them to me. Silver continues to talk and I think it's getting colder by the minute...
"We left," she says bitterly, "and I got this."
She points to her mark. The clouds and sunlight.
"I vowed that I would come back when I had enough to take care of a third family member."
The first picture is of a plain grayish purple stallion. The paint is cheap and has flaked quite a bit but I can still see that his coat looks like slush after it snows but his eyes have faded too much for me to see what color they were. I also can't see what his mark his since it appears that both paintings are only from the neck up.
"When I was seven years old I did all sorts of things to gain food: odd errands on the farms, selling all of Mother's pots and pans, selling preserved flowers in winter time. I did it all so I could get my brother back as well as feed Father and myself. Since Mother's death, father had become almost catatonic. He barely ate or moved. His eyes were glassy. When he spoke it was when he thought I couldn't hear. He was always a mild stallion, good-humored and easy going so you can imagine my shock when I could hear him cursing young Onyx - who we didn't even know - like he was King Stolas of Tartarus. He blamed Onyx for mother's death. He blamed everypony but me. Soon he stopped talking all together; I wasn't that worried since he'd long since stopped playing, that had worried me far more since it had been his pride and joy."
I examined the second portrait, it was the mare, Swan Song. She had a long mane that was pinned straight and fitted with a cheap looking jeweled headband - probably copper and paste. Her coat was a frosty silver with dull blue mixed in, especially in her mane. She had a small smile, as if she so foolishly believed nothing could ever go wrong. Her eyes were a glittering brown but still looked as dead as diamonds to me.
Suffice to say I did not find this mare to be 'pretty'.
"By this time I was an apprentice baker slowly working my way into the heart of the city to where my brother was. One day I came home... and Father was simply gone. I looked all over the house for him but he wasn't there. I would have gone to the nearest farmer for help but that night I was snowed in and the next morning nopony could find any trace of him. They told me he was probably dead."
Pink One brought her forehooves to her face again but not for the same reason as she had before.
Silver Lining moves to sit next to her, and continues to tell her story from there.
"I moved in with the baker I worked for and lived with his family, a wife, son, and two little fillies. They could never replace the family I had lost, but I still loved them. The house in which we sit right now - at the time it was closed and all the belongings packed away - would be mine once again when I was old enough to live on my own. Since I no longer had to pay for the care and maintenance of property, I was able to save more and in the year my little Onyx would have been twelve I finally had enough to care for him as well... only to find out that somepony had already beat me to adopting him. and they didn't even live in the Empire! Light and Clarity told me he was adopted by a wizard who was going to teach him magic."
He didn't quite learn magic, Silver, but... he did perform quite a feat.
Pink One's hooves are no longer surrounding her face and her eyes are a bit red. "Then what?"
Silver draws a deep breath. "I was nineteen that day. I left the house of my adopted family with a wagonload of supplies since I was moving back into this old place. They laughed and told me I had enough supplies to feed an army for a tiny mare such as myself."
Another deep breath. "I left early, and was working on unloading things in the cellar when the shadow came...I think y-you both know what happened next."
I know what happened all too well.
It wasn't me, at least not that day.
"I had enough to feed a small army after all, so foe eight years I hid in the cellar. Eight years turned into one thousand one-hundred and eight... again, you both know what came next. Once the Heart was restored I was happy for a short while... except that I learned later that my adopted family was dead, and the orphanage that housed all records on my brother was destroyed. Once again, the ponies there were dead as well."
She's looking at me, I don't react nor do I feel anything towards this mare.
"What is it you wanted to tell me?"
Both Silver and myself received an almost apprehensive look from Pink One.
"I knew your brother."
Silver Lining shrieks.