16. Discussing punishment
"What?!" Twilight hissed. "You still have the gall to say something like that?!" She sighed, putting a hoof to her forehead. "...For now, you'll stay here, you'll be a model prisoner, I don't want to hear a single problem come out of you until I deal with all... this.... I need to talk to Luna about what Night law says about a situation like this..."
"Yes Princess." Sombra said, sitting up straight in his cell and watching her with half-blind eyes.
"Twily..." Shining asked. "I don't think it'll be safe to let him go free, no matter what he says."
"I know... we should get Luna and Celestia here and discuss what needs to be done." Twilight said, pacing in place. The ice-pony in the cell started at the names, but didn't say anything. "What would be his punishment so far under Crystal Pony law? You're the ones he did those things to..."
"...At this point, the court system is still in flux... it's been just over a year since it came to the present, after all. Under the old laws he would have been given several executions and life sentences at once for multiple crimes..."
Sombra grinned slightly. "What would count as a life sentence? Let's say... a century per crime? Go ahead, behead, hang, or as the Crystal Ponies have always be fond of, impale, me as many times as required. I am now immortal. I will take it for the sake of my Queen, if she so desires."
Twilight stared in surprise at him for a few seconds. "No... just... no. Shiny, you wouldn't really go through with that, would you? I'd think you would have abolished the death sentence as soon as you could have..."
"We did... but Sombra's in another class. And, all his crimes took place before that change... I don't think I could ever stand for a pony being executed, but him..." Shining Armor narrowed his eyes. "I think he would have deserved it."
Cadance let out a cough, bringing their attention to her. "I'm sorry, but there are going to be no executions in the Crystal Empire, period."
Twilight smiled slightly. "Good."
Shining Armor nodded as well, agreeing to the statement. "I'll send a message for the Princesses..." he grinned. "I suppose this will be the first time all four Princesses gathered for a political meeting." His smile soured. "Too bad it's over him."
He walked down the hall to go send out the message, Cadance gave a smile at Twilight and followed her husband out of the dungeon. The moment she was out of earshot Sombra asked; "Is she gone?"
"Wha-.... yeah." Twilight answered. "Why?"
"Princess, I would be honored if you told me the current situation revolving around the four princesses. Luna transferred her oath to you, so what does that make her?"
"Luna is the-" Oscuridad began, only to be silenced by the sheer wave of wrath that shook the room.
"I was speaking to the Queen." He stated, turning back toward Twilight.
"...Sombra, say sorry to him."
"I am you captain and I will be treated with respect you upstart-"
"I apologize, by the will of the Princess. However, I was speaking to the Princess, and I AM your better. I have little memory of my days in the military, but the insignificant speck that was Sombra the Shadhavar is gone. There is now only King Sombra, terror of the North, monster, Spirit of Hatred, the windigo. I recognize my Queen, but I am a King, an immortal, a sun-blighted WINDIGO for the Moon's sake, and I am your better. Do NOT interrupt me." Sombra said, his words laced with almost liquid fear that made the darkness in the room seem darker, and the light seem weaker, and the air colder.
"...Princess?" Oscuridad asked, unsure of his position.
"Sombra, be respectful, he's the Captain of the Guard, and one of my friends. And from what I heard, he's your captain as well. If you owe loyalty to me, you owe it to him."
"...By your will. Now then, if you could tell me the situation around the four Princesses?"
"Cadance has been named the Princess of the Crystal Empire, Twilight of the Night Empire, and Luna and Celestia are diarchs of southern Equestria." Oscuridad stated, daring Sombra to interrupt him again.
"...Diarchs?"
"The sisters have made peace." Twilight said happily.
"...Is... Is that so."
"The three monarchies are considered three branches, each in command of their own section of Equestria, however they in tandem are the rulers of Equestria as a whole. A Quadarchy."
"But the majority of the ponies... are solar, yes? Under the dominion of Celestia..."
"And Luna, equally, and also to lesser extent under Cadance and I." Twilight affirmed.
Sombra gave an evil grin, some of his ambition returning, he would prove his usefulness yet! "...if Cadance and the Sun-Hag were to be mysteriously sealed... would you and Luna become the official rulers of the entirety of-"
Twilight slammed a hoof on the ground. "Don't you dare... finish that thought. We aren't doing anything like that ever. Now then, now I have to go and tell Cadance, my childhood friend, and Shiny, my brother, to add another few years to whatever sentence we decide on."
"...I believe I have misread the situation." Sombra said quietly. "...And I think I understand our position now, Princess."
Twilight grumbled as she walked out of the dungeon. "I hope so. You're going to be a handful, aren't you?"
"Aren't we all?" Sanguine said with a little sarcasm.
"Friend Twilight!" Luna greeted, giving a friendly bump on the shoulder that nearly knocked over the smaller lavender Alicorn. "It's been so long!" Twilight glanced backwards and saw that there was none of the tenseness in her guards that there usually was with physical contact. She frowned inwardly as she saw that most of them were only looking at Luna.
"Uh, it's only been a little over two weeks."
"With everything that's happened it feels like it's been over a year!" Luna said triumphantly. "Being in the Empire has been absolutely wonderful, so nostalgic, being with the Longma again." She did a happy dance, "I missed it all so much while I was on the Moon, and for the years before I was so focused on my emotions I never just enjoyed my Empire! You're going to love it, it will be just like it was before the entire Nightmare Moon tragedy." Luna said happily.
"Heheh, I hope so, Luna."
"Sister!" Celestia greeted, running up and hugging Luna, Twilight quickly grabbed Jaeger and pinned him down before he could try anything, Crescent grabbing the tails of the Kalt and Sanguine duo, forcing them back, Den holding onto Crescent and weighing them down to keep them from attacking.
"RELEASE LUNA!" Roared Jaeger, trying to wiggle out of Twilight's grasp, but being unable to resist the Alicorn strength.
"Jaeger!" Hissed Twilight. She watched with irritation as Celestia's pegasus and unicorns, and Luna's own Longma guards, both advanced to protect their respective rulers. The Crystal Bodyguards surrounded Cadance with an audible sigh of irritation from the pink alicorn.
There was soon a standoff as bodyguards eyed each other warily, having dragged their respective alicorns into protective circles.
"Oh for the Moon's sake, stand down!" Luna shouted, and the bodyguards of varying loyalties and race turned to listen, deflating slightly. "We were hugging Our most noble sister!!! Hast any of thou a problem with this?!"
"N-no, Princess Luna... forgive me..." Jaeger whispered, bowing low to the ground, Twilight releasing him. The other guards began to disperse slightly, letting their princesses go back to the center of the room.
Twilight nodded to Den and Crescent. "Good job." She said quietly, getting only nods in response from the two.
"Ask your own Princess." Luna reminded, and Jaeger glanced backward at Twilight, before blushing and letting his ears droop.
"I... my actions just now were... unproffesional and..."
Twilight sighed. "I get it, just don't let it happen again... we don't need another international incident to throw on top of this."
"Y-yes, Princess, my Nightmare." Jaeger said, quietly standing up and trying to regain as much dignity as possible.
Luna frowned. "I should have expected as such, honestly. Tis not their fault, twas not long ago for them that I told them and their children that Celestia was a monster."
Celestia sighed slightly. "Well, hopefully the damage doesn't last. You know how difficult it is when you have an empire that thinks of you as a demon from storybooks." She said this last part with a little smile.
"...Quite."
Cadance stared at the three, before coughing into her hoof to get their attention. "If we could move on to the matter at hoof?"
"Er, yes, of course." Luna said, straightening her posture slightly. "Twilight was unsure of how Night Law would dictate Sombra's execution?"
"We're not executing him!" Twilight said, surprised.
"We're not?" Luna asked, surprised as well.
Celestia frowned slightly. "The opinions on Capital punishment have changed quite a bit in the last thousand years, Luna. We are focussing on rehabilitation for criminals. Crime has gone down significantly in Equestria."
"I know, I know, you explained it all to me in great detail when I first returned. And I see the benefits... but Sombra is no simple murderer. He tortured an entire Empire during my banishment, did he not? He is more malicious and dangerous, though less powerful, than Discord ever was. He has committed crimes in a class of his own, it would not be unjustified to put him to death for his crimes."
"There are three problems with that, Princess..." Twilight stated. "One, I don't kill ponies. Two, even if I did, he's immortal. Three, I wouldn't, even if I did, because he gave a blood oath and promised to reform." Luna looked at her for a second without emotion, before gesturing for her to continue. Twilight let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding, she had stood up to the Princess! "So... the purpose of this meeting is how some other punishment will be meted out, according to modern Equestrian law, how to handle this situation so that both Empires involved have their own codes on justice solved." She turned to her childhood friend, smiling. "Cadance, what do the Crystal Ponies want for Sombra?"
"His death." Cadance said, with a frown on her face and audible in her tone. "They want revenge... the sealing spell he did on the Empire muddled their memories, they lost their identities, some even their very personalities. We even had cases of Cutie Marks actually changing... If not for the royal Archives, their culture and their history would be gone just as well..." Cadance frowned. "I told them that we could use the Crystal Heart and some other wide-range spells to return most of their memories..." she turned toward Twilight, a deep look of regret on her face. "But the city practically unanimously agreed to keep the memory loss, because they didn't want to remember Sombra's reign in any greater detail."
"..." Twilight was speechless.
"What he did was so evil, that the Empire chose to forget it... nopony even remembers enough to make any more accusations than the revolution, slavery, and murder he did... because of the memory loss we don't even know how many Crystal Ponies died, or simply forgot enough they couldn't identify themselves, but his reign meant the deaths of at least four hundred ponies. They don't remember or know anything about him other than a deep sense of dread... my goal for the meeting is finding a way to publically depower and punish Sombra, or permanently seal him. My citizens won't accept anything less severe than that."
"...My own dealings with Sombra were short." Princess Celestia began. "After the Night Empire sealed itself I focused the next few years on repairing the damage done to the land and the families... returning soldiers home, recompensing for the families of those who had died or were severely injured. I was rather paranoid and suspicious for a long time... and it took me about two years to notice that the Crystal Empire had been taken over, and that was only when the Crystal Heart started sending out black magic. I only saw a little of the Crystal Ponies states... but it was horrifying. They were hungry, weak, in chains, despair in their eyes, fear in their steps. I challenged Sombra, and he sealed the city with his defeat... My suggested punishment for Sombra would be banishment to the Sun..."
Twilight's eyes widened. "...wouldn't it be... painful?"
"The celestial banishment spells involve an immense amount of magical power, it goes to preserving the victim against the more harmful effects of the terrain... everything on the sun is made of light and fire, or is on fire or flashing bright light. The spell would keep him from burning or suffocating or starving, but it wouldn't stop him from feeling the heat or seeing the light. He would live, but in pain, yes." Luna explained.
"The Moon is better suited for banishment, more equine... but Sombra deserves something worse than eternal night." Celestia said, resolutely. "But I defer to the rest of you in this judgement. Sombra has done the least harm or offense to Equestria, er, southern Equestria, and the least to me personally."
"...Twilight, you are the Queen of the Night Empire, so I will stand with Tia on this one. You and Cadance should decide."
"Well... what would be the Night Empire's punishment for this?"
"Rejection from the blood oath and execution or life imprisonment. Multiple times over." Luna supplied.
"Well... he already was rejected from an oath with you, but he hasn't really done anything during his oath to me... well, he's implied a few dastardly things..."
Luna grinned sadistically, pretending to curl an imaginary evil moustache. "I can work with implications."
"But once again, I refuse to allow execution, and eternal imprisonment in some dungeon..." Twilight weighed it in her mind. "Well... I guess that wouldn't be too bad. It would be Equine, he'd be punished, he wouldn't be a problem."
Cadance frowned. "I don't think my Empire would be happy about a simple imprisonment... my vote is on banishment to the Moon, or turning into stone."
"That's not the limits you know?" Luna said, cracking a slight smile. "We could banish him anywhere, or turn him into almost anything. Celestia, you turned him to shadow and banished him into the heart of a glacier the last time, did you not?"
"Yes, though in the end he was unsealed along with the Empire."
"Which one?"
"Both... I'm not sure whether this is just a really unlucky decade, or a really lucky one. You broke out and nearly cause eternal night, but at the same time, I got you back... then Discord broke free because of unrelated reasons and nearly reset the laws of normality, and then your freedom caused a chain reaction that released Sombra, but at the same time we got the two ancient Empires back one after the other. And then we managed to reform Discord, a huge gain for Equestria... and beyond that," She turned and smiled at Twilight. "we gained a new Alicorn sister and a new set of Elements of Harmony."
"...Twilight, Sombra vowed loyalty to you, do you think he would try to resist if we banished him?"
"No... I don't think so. The Longma and Shadhavar have proven themselves to be immensely loyal... even if Sombra's a monster, I think he would follow my directions. He began plotting to overthrow you as soon as you and my brother left the room, but as soon as I told him you were my friends and family, he gave up on it."
"...unfortunately, that just proves he's still dangerous... he wasn't pacified by the Heart, just weakened."
Cadance nodded. "And he might not be weakened now. He didn't claim to be immortal before, that's a new statement... so it might be that once he recovers, he'll be more dangerous than ever before."
"...I don't really want to banish Sombra. He's not a threat right now, and we have a hold on him." She looked at Celestia. "A hold that's at least more tangible if not stronger than the hold we have on Discord. I think we should try to let him truly reform."
"Twilight, the Crystal Ponies won't like that."
"I know, but he deserves at least that much, I mean, I don't want to compare one tragedy to another, but hasn't Discord done things on a larger scale than this?"
"Driving nations at a time insane and making them like it.." Celestia shuddered.
"I'm just saying we should allow Sombra a chance to make up for it. And besides that, a proper trial, where he can give a testimony of his side."
Cadance raised an eyebrow. "I don't think there's any way for him to make up for what he did, and especially not justify it."
"...Well... we should at least try."
Sombra was led down a hall, heavily chained, magic limiters attached to his nub of a broken horn, not that they would do anything now, he thought to himself, smiling.
He was brought into a bathroom, four Crystal Pony guards watching him. Two with spears at the ready, two holding crossbows with slightly twitchy hooves. Sombra paid them no mind, turning toward the mirror and looking at his reflection. It was still blurry, but he was healing quickly, and his vision was getting clearer by the minute. He could see the spiderweb of cracks that lined him, the dirty ice color of his once ash-gray coat. He was made of crystal now, in a fashion. He grinned at the branch-like growth of ice that came out of his fetlocks and shoulder. He swished his head back and forth to watch the white-silver of his new mane swish. And his eyes, they were still red, but they were paler than before, more liquid than before. He grinned savagely. His horn was practically gone, and his ears had always been a little more pointy than normal.
He looked like a Windigo.
He let out a breath and it fogged on the window, colder and heavier than the rest of the air around him. He turned the faucet and took a long drink of water, the drops that flicked out of his mouth hit the porcelain and froze in it's spot.
"Hurry up." One guard grunted.
He stopped and turned his eyes on the guard, who suppressed of shiver of horror. "What, exactly, gives you the authority to give me an order s..." He resisted saying the word 'slave'. "...Peasant?"
"...The authority of the Crystal Princess."
"Hehehehe.... alright then... in courtesy to the orders of the family of the Nightmare, I won't stop your heart." The Guard's eyes shrunk in fear, and he wasn't sure to fire the crossbow or run. He took another drink of water and wiped his face. He was about to walk away, when his eyes turned back to the drops of ice that had frozen onto the porcelain. He grinned slightly and made a show of collecting some spit in his mouth, before spitting it directly into the drain of the sink and turning back to the guards. "I'm ready for my trial now." He said happily, allowing himself to be guided out of the dungeons and up to the court block.
Inside the crystal pipes, in the sewers of the city, a fragment of ice, carrying the essence of the former Shadhavar, floated down the pipelines until they came into a tunnel. It dropped, sealing itself at the bottom of the murky water, and growing into the crystal ground of the sewers.
Few ponies ever went down there.
And if they did, the darkness and murkiness of the water would keep them from noticing the crystal at the bottom of the tunnels turning black.
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Heh, I like this Sombra.
Oh Sombra, you so devious.
Great chapter,
I love that part a great dastardly revolution plan got derailed in two sentence. Double stache for the good work
so much for going to bed
anyway NEW CHAPTER
oh this guy is good!!
Discord has his vines and Sombra now has his ice crystals, now we wait to see how long it is before the poor little fan gets obliterated!
the question is, is he going for dominatin agian (which is a good possibility) or setting the stage if the Crstal Empire ever becomes a threat (which doesn't sound all that likely but who knows)
OH man. This is not going to go well for the crystal empire. Let's hope nothing happens at the trail.
Eesh, Sombra is proving to be perhaps the most dangerous villain of the list. Yet I can't read him...I don't know what it is that he truly intends. We have plenty of clues to follow to point us in any number of directions, but then he says or does something that suggests he has something else in mind, so I don't really know what he plans to do anymore.
I do think that now he has been "appraised" of the state of affairs in modern Equestria, his respect for Twilight has gone down, and may only still be respecting her at all because he made the blood oath and all (perhaps a little hastily on his part, especially if he really means harm, but oh well). I wonder what he thinks of Luna at this point...
Meh. I think I'll stop trying to speculate and just wait until next chapter.
Immortal King... Immortal Queen.... Twilight should just marry him already!
Sombra has spat into porclean and readers gone mad. Author, you are troll. Make people interested in crystallized bile...
Fuck banishment to the sun. Banish him instead to a black hole. He will literally be trapped in a slow-time bubble, and he will be spagettified to boot. It's a perfect solution!
3816825 Crystallized bile in the bottom of a sewer hidden by literal horsesh**.
I didn't even realize I was a troll!
3815958 There have been quite a few people shipping Twilight and Sombra in the comments... maybe I shouldn't have named the previous chapter "Kings and Queens"... I was actually planning on having Sombra try to unsuccessfully seduce Twilight, but I decided against it early on.
3814675 3815035 wait and see!
3817209 I know you're being sarcastic, but considering the characters involved are benign moral alicorns, it's unlikely anything... tortuous... would have been considered for long.
3817233
Where is this sarcasm you speak of? Or the torture for that matter? He would feel no pain, and he would be effectively sealed away for an immeasurable amount of time to come. The time bubble would allow millennia to pass for those outside while only a few seconds pass for him.
3817248 Huh... I heard the opposite, not that I remember where... that he would be trapped for what felt like thousands of years in constant pain, but actually would only be a few seconds for the outside universe before he was crushed to almost nothing... I think I read an article that said it was the most painful possible way for something to die.
Huh.
3817256
The truth is no one knows what would happen. Even the time distortion is just a theory based off of Einstein's principles.
I'm going by Stargate SG-1's logic.
3817233
So that means he will be successful in doing it, yes?
3817262 Well, the universe is vast and mysterious and impossible, and we'll never know everything about it. Black holes in particular, seeing as anything sent in to study them would have no way of sending back information. Ah well, either way, no black hole banishment for Sombra. Besides, in a magical world like Equestria, who knows if the stars are immense balls of flaming gas or lanterns attached to the dome of the sky? Ah well.
3817293 No, it means there will be no seducing going on between the Windigo and the Alicorn. I have surgically removed Sombra's awkward seducing attempts and surgically reattached them to Blueblood in the Nutcracker specials.
I really like what you did with Sombra. You really made him a three dimensional character, epic, dynamic and internally consistent. I could write an entire character analysis.
3818632 Heh...
Thanks, I try.
Is it possible to describe how beautiful this story is? I don't think so.
This needs to be published, I swear.
So good.
3818632 Sombra was always 3-dimensional!
Because... uhm... many crystals have 3 axes?
I suspect him of being orthorhombic, myself.
3903165 thank you