Myths and Birthrights: Anthologiae

by Tundara

Daughter of the Night

Daughter of the Night
By Tundara

The shimmer of the stars had yet begun to settle for the night, the points of light still lost in their jubilant and confused dances. Only a few hours had passed since the greatest threat the land had faced in what felt like forever had been vanquished by the beloved Shepherd of the Day. That it had been, almost to the day, a bare one and a half centuries since the defeat of the previous ‘greatest threat’ did not enter the minds of the ponies celebrating like the stars overhead.

Cadence sat on a short ledge far from the gathered armies, watching the moon fly slowly towards the west.

There, marring Selene’s once pristine silvery face was the black mark signifying Nightmare Moon’s imprisonment.

Her mother was gone; madness quelled and quieted. No longer did ponykind have to live in fear of her shifting temperament and volatile nature. Of the hunger that gnawed on the night goddess at all hours. A foul, envious hunger that made her snatch at everything good, beautiful, or simply what others held dear, and drag it to her own chest. The threat of eternal night was gone, and not only Equestria, but the entire disc sighed in collective relief.

None of them, however, sighed so long or profoundly as Cadence.

Luna—The Nightmare, rather, was her mother, and the monster that had haunted every hour of her short life, whether night or day, awake or asleep.

A long shiver ran up Cadence’s back at the memory of the Nightmare’s long, cruel laughter. How she’d taunt and torment her! Weak, foalish, naive, soft, and so much more that the hateful words slurred together into a never ending deluge.

Not once in her twenty-one years did Cadence hear a kind or gentle word from her mother.

How she’d longed for the spiteful, wicked mare’s approval when she was younger!

Cadence ground her teeth, and her wings shot outward in her growing rage. She got up and began to pace to control the heat burning deep in her chest. The ledge trembled, as too did the mountain on which it stood, neither able to withstand the young alicorn’s fury for long.

Three times she trotted the length of the ledge, three times she snapped her tail like a thundercrack, and three times she tossed her head to glare up at the moon. At the end of the third repetition, Cadence stopped, took a deep breath, and recalled the Nightmare’s final screams.

‘Cadence, my heart, why?’

One of her wings lashed out at a nearby tree, sending the poor, ancient thing flying from the mountainside. Raising her hoof, she touched the cheek where she’d been struck by the Nightmare during the final confrontation. The blow would have killed any regular pony on the spot. Snapped their neck like it were a brittle plate beneath a rampaging dragon.

Cadence was not a regular pony. She wasn’t fully certain if she truly was a pony at all.

Oh, she certainly looked like a pony. A little taller and sleeker, certainly, but not terribly so. Though that would change in the coming centuries. Her wings were long and graceful like the Imperial Pegasi, and her fluted horn slender. An alicorn, the true ponies called her kind. A quiet, little white lie to make them feel better and to make the royal family that seemed to up-end the lives of real ponies every few hundred years a little more approachable. Normal. Safe.

A long snort was accompanied by a few sparks of blue magic from the tip of her horn. Despite all the tutoring the Nightmare had insisted Cadence undergo, her ‘unicorn’ magic was still wild and difficult to control. Not that she’d had long to put her lessons to use. She’d had the horn less than a day.

A few more minutes and the anger began to fade. It would never go away, not fully. But it did become manageable to a point where Cadence was certain that she was not liable to hurt any of the mortals with a sudden outburst.

Turning back towards the distant lights of the armies, she was about to take wing when a curious thing occurred; a trio of stars fell from the night.

The first came racing almost straight towards where she stood. Cadence frowned as the light came tumbling down. She tried to place which of the stars had decided to abandon the heavens, but with their antics that night it was impossible. Oddly, the star felt wrong, off, a little stranger than those the Nightmare had plucked from the sky to be used to make the abominations that were the Stellar Beasts.

Love fairly poured from this star. Mingled in among the strong emotion was a deep, rending sorrow and desire for an end.

Cadence blinked a few times and felt the disc spin around her as the unfamiliar sensation of raw emotion coursed through her. It was something she’d have to get used to in time, as she was the newly minted Goddess of Love.

She stared after this star until it had passed overhead, leaving a trail of burning aether in her path, and vanished behind the Crystalspine Mountains. Her wings twitched, contemplating those distant, frigid lands north of those inhabited by ponies. A star falling into such a place would be ill-equipped for the dangers of a wild forest filled with monsters and daemon-spawn.

Part of her wanted to leave the star to whatever fate lay in the north, whether foul or fine. Growing up in the Nightmare’s court, she’d met more than a few of the other stars that had fallen over the ages. Some were kind, and had tried to reason with the Nightmare, others had come to swear their swords to her service. All of them had treated Cadence with kindness and respect, even the most martially minded.

That was until her mother began tearing stars from the sky to create her ‘Stellar Beasts’, using them as no more than weapons to distract Celestia and terrorize those lands loyal to the sun goddess.

Gut twisting with revulsion at her hesitance, Cadence knew she had to help the star.

Twisting her head showed her the other two come tumbling down, these angling towards the south, where Celestia and the armies were encamped. Had she more experience, Cadence would have recognised the energies given off by the pair not as stars, but as her brethren alicorns. So new to the sensations washing over her, the nature of the two plummeting lights eluded her and were dismissed.

Her aunt, Cadence reasoned, could help the southern stars adjust to their new life on the disc. She would send a messaging spell to inform Celestia of her plan to find the first star. If Celestia wanted her help, Cadence reasoned, then her aunt would find her.

With that she spread her wings in preparation to take flight and summoned the beginning of a spell. The actual use of spellcraft was new and unfamiliar to Cadence, but also something forced into her through years of rote practice in preparation for her Awakening. She knew hundreds of spells by heart, ranging from the mundane to the astounding, and all levels in between. It should have been surprising how naturally the runes came, and the ease with which Cadence formed them together, yet it was as if she’d been practicing magic all her life. First she conjured a pink, crystalline sparrow to deliver her message, then bent a more complex series of runes upon each other. Once the weave was completed she departed Equestria in a blue flash.

Deep, penetrating cold assaulted her immediately, driving into her flesh and down to the marrow. Cadence’s teeth clattered soundlessly, and she squinted against the all consuming blackness that surrounded her. It was no mere shadow through which she moved, but a nothingness in between the fabrics of reality. Some called it the astral plane, others simply the void. For Cadence the name wasn’t as important as the several minutes it took to reach her mother’s northernmost teleport point. It was the coldest experience of her life, and she swore to never teleport again.

Cadence appeared above trees further north than any pony had dared venture in hundreds of years. The Taiga was not so different from the woods near the ruins of Everfree Rest. Unbidden, the image of a smiling couple, locked in a passionate embrace and thanking Cadence profusely for her help struck her. Right on the memories’ tail came a second, that of the entire town dead, victim’s of the Nightmare’s wrath for ‘tainting’ her daughter. A sudden wince at the bitter memories almost made her falter and come tumbling into the snow laced forest below.

She caught herself with the practiced ease of one born to their wings, and quickly regained some lost altitude so she could locate the star’s landing point.

A quick sweep of her senses almost sent her tumbling again, her mind assaulted by waves and waves of Love from hundreds of thousands of sentients. The forest below was far from the dead place ponies envisioned, and instead teamed with entire villages and towns worth of emotion wandering hidden trails and secret pathways.

Tensing her jaw, Cadence focused on the star, using the memory of its fall to find the strands of its love and sort it out from the noise. In years ahead it’d be a skill Cadence would master, able to separate the strands that bound the myriad races of the disc together and follow them to their source. Still new to her domain, Cadence stumbled through the process, uncertain if the thread she eventually settled upon belonged to the star or not.

It was not as far to the star as she’d feared, no more than a dozen or so leagues, and easy enough to cover by flight.

Though not accustomed to long flights—the Nightmare jealously kept Cadence near at all times and refused to let her leave the castle—Cadence was more in tune with her pegasus nature and easily fell into the long strokes and gliding.

She skimmed across the tree-tops, sometimes batting clumps of snow from the peaks of the pines, other times weaving her way through the trees before pulling up into a loop-the-loop. For the first time in what seemed forever, Cadence laughed and put the trepidations and concerns of Equestria and the war in the past. She was at last free. No longer did that Nightmare loom over everything, souring even the quiet moments.

Lost in the joy of flight, Cadence failed to notice the fast approach of her destination, or the changes in the aether floating on the wind. It wasn’t until she flipped over a gentle hill and the wide crater of the star came into view that she remembered to keep aware of her surroundings.

Opening her mind to the currents of magic around her, she was struck by a pair of strange alicorns nearby. Whereas the nature of the two that had fallen near Celestia had been muddled by distance, these were far clearer through their proximity. Unlike with her aunt and mother, there was something off about these others. A wrongness pervaded the atmosphere. They were like broken screams that trailed down her psyche in semblance of monstrous claws. Mane prickling, Cadence took a long pass around the crater site.

There in the blackened patch of ground, at the very heart where the star would have landed, was a pony hunched over and deep in the throes of a spell. His horn was lifted high, the point a-glow with a bright, pure light, pulling magic from the surrounding ground towards him.

Setting down, loudly, Cadence made no effort to hide her presence.

Before she could begin to demand what the pony was doing, he spoke in a voice rough and rich, like cream covered brittle. “Another goddess makes her way to my doorstep, and on such a night of portents ghastly and grim? What does it mean, my little dream, oh, what does it ever mean?” He chuckled after this, his spell uninterrupted the entire time. “That you have not struck me down means you are not Celestia, and Luna has been defeated this very night. Faust would drive her spear into my breast… or would she? Always hard to know with her. You can not be Iridia, for she is here already; so who? There is not another, is there, my little dream? … Love, you say? No, there is no Goddess of Love, not here at least. Elsewhere, if the prophecies hold true, in the tumbling streams of fallen titans’ dreams there is another, perhaps. But not here. Not on fair Ioka.”

Having had enough of his rambling, Cadence drew Penumbra and advanced on the strange unicorn. “I am Cadence, and yes, I am Love; but how did you know?”

Chuckling again, the unicorn shook out his long, tangled black mane loose of the red cloak he wore. Beneath the cloak, Cadence saw old armour, battle-worn and dented with many long years. Sunken, brilliant ruby eyes, like the jewels of some forgotten, ancient queen flitted to Cadence’s face and then back to the center of the crater.

“I did not know. It was my little dream who recognised you a-coming. But, where have my manners fled? Too long I’ve been alone again. Alone, except for my little dream. Ten thousand apologies. I am Sombra de la Esponya. I would bow, but I am a little busy at the moment. If you desire to kill me, could you wait a little while? This is rather important and can’t be postponed.”

Unsure how to respond, Cadence shifted to the side a little and ruffled her wings.

Looking around, she asked, “Where is the star that fell? She should be around here. Close by.”

“Not a star, but a foolish old mare is what fell.” Sombra snorted and finished his spell with a swirling flash that formed a crystal, red as fresh blood, at the heart of the crater. “There, and now she is safe, for the time being. We must move fast. This can not hold her long.” In a swift motion he scooped up the stone and thrust it into a pocket in his saddlebags, then turned to grin at Cadence.

She gave a little start on seeing his face clear in the moonlight. He was not a unicorn, as she’d first suspected, but rather a kirin, scales glistening around his eyes, and long fangs glinting in the moonlight. Cadence berated herself for not realising at once, given the odd curve to his horn. His strange mannerisms now made sense. As the foals of a pony and a dragon, kirin were almost always driven to madness.

“I do not understand. There has to be a star nearby. I saw her fall.”

“If it is an explanation you desire, then follow. You can stay and hunt this mythical star all you want, you will not find one that has fallen this night. No, they are too jubilant and busy with their dancing.” He nodded to the sky where the stars were still lost in their wild motions, entire constellations racing each other. “Or, you can come with me. I would be glad for the company, it it would be interesting to get to know you, O’ Goddess of Love.”

Cadence scanned the area again, seeing only a single set of tracks enter the upturned ground, and none leaving. Coupled with the pair of alicorns, it was obvious something was wrong. Whatever had happened, the kirin knew the answer. Deciding to stay with him for the time being, Cadence made a motion for him to lead the way.

He set off at a brisk canter, his hooves easily finding the hidden pathways of the forest as if he’d forged them himself. Sombra did not speak much for the first few hours, just asking idle little questions, and never answering any himself.

Eventually, Cadence’s patience began to grow thin, and stopping in a field she demanded some answers.

“Who, exactly, are you? And why do you believe I’d kill you for no reason?”

“I told you who I am, and that the name means nothing to you says much.” He grinned a long, predatory grin and chuckled once more. “As for no reason? Aye, if you knew my history that pretty sword of yours would have found my throat ages ago. My little dream and I thank you for staying your hoof.”

“Does this have to do with the other alicorns? I can feel them near, like they are following us. But why do they remain hidden?”

“Hidden? Hah! There is only one alicorn in this forest, and two ghosts. Soon to be one ghost, unless we tarry too long. Come, come, it isn’t much further now to Thornhaven. But first, I think it time we change.”

“You speak in riddles, and…” Cadence was interrupted by a spell. Not one directed at her, but rather one Sombra cast upon himself.

He grew a little taller, broader in the withers, while his tail shrank to a little nub, and his horn split into a proud set of antlers. As with transfigurations, his eyes remained the same, though they now shimmered with delight at the open mouthed stare fixed on him by Cadence.

“I do not know such a spell,” Cadence admitted.

“Oh? Then come here and learn.”

In the soft earth he scrawled a series of runes and equations; the weave of the spell he’d used. Cadence was surprised to see that it wasn’t all that difficult, though it did use some runes she could not identify. Staring at them hard, she felt the runes and spell enter her mind, a jolt running down her horn on reaching the new runes. Something about them was wrong, jarring, and made her head ache a little.

Casting the spell proved more difficult. It railed against her control, nearly fizzling several times before she managed to bring it in line. Her skin crawled and wings tingled as it set about its work, and in the next moment it wasn’t a young goddess that stood in the field, but a petite halla doe, wide eyed and gaping at herself.

“Come on, come on, we don’t have all night,” Sombra huffed, already starting back down the path at an even brisker pace than before. “Your mother would have had that spell at once.”

“You speak as if you knew her,” Cadence snapped as she caught up.

“Aye, that I do, and well. We fought together for a time, and then we went our separate ways.”

“When she became the Nightmare,” Cadence reasoned, but Sombra just gave one of his chuckles and shook his new antlers.

“Nay, long, long before she changed. Before Discord roamed the disc, before the joining of ponykind to form precious Equestria, and before… before the terrible days of the Long Winter.”

Shaking her head, Cadence said, “You would have to be several hundred years old for that to be true, and even a kirin can not live so long.”

Silent for a little while, Sombra eventually let out a sad sigh and grunted. “Aye, this is true ordinarily.” Sombra tilted his head and muttered beneath his breath for a short time.

“Very well, my little dream says to trust you,” he said at last. “I was an apprentice to Celestia once, many, many years ago. I saw her at her peak, and I saw her at her lowest. And then I committed a terrible betrayal, one I thought at the time was justified. But what I did was beyond the pall of reason. I took my little dream, and in doing so I set your mother down the path of madness.”

Though there was truth in his voice, Cadence huffed and shrugged them off with a flick of her wings. “No pony but her is responsible for her actions. She would have mentioned you, if you were at all responsible. The Nightmare would have raged and screamed, hurling your name among a thousand curses, and ordered the stars themselves to hunt you to the edges of the disc.”

“Ah, but she thought me dead these past five hundred years. Dead and buried in the east, one of many nameless and forgotten victims of the Long Winter, or the monsters that prowled around the edges of civilization in those days.” Sombra chuckled wickedly, and his red eyes flashed with morbid memories. “You remind me of her. It is in the eyes. A kindness and a pain. She too experienced suffering and loss during her fostering, those she loved dying and their blood staining her hooves. She also tried to run away from her fate. But fate is not something that one can escape. What will be, will be, and is already woven into the fabric of destiny.”

Bristling, Cadence snapped her mouth shut and refused to speak with her companion for a time.

Who was he to lecture her about the Nightmare? A crazy kirin wandering the woods, making cryptic comments about stars, ghosts, and spinning nonsensical stories of how he was the one that was hated.

Yet, everything he said was the truth. Or, he at least held them to be true. Cadence prided herself on her ability to tell when ponies were lying. If she wasn’t the Goddess of Love, Cadence would have been the Goddess of Truth. Not that such a role existed.

That would be a rather silly thing to have as her domain.

Odder still, the presence of the two alicorns hadn’t wavered in strength the entire walk. They were as close as when she’d arrived.

As she decided to question him anew, they emerged from the forest and found themselves facing a small town surrounded by cairn stones. In the distance loomed a castle that did not belong in the north. It’s walls were high and strong, its roof pointed, and towers loomed over the forest like the horns of a gothic dragon.

Pressing a hoof to his lips, Sombra lead Cadence into the town.

Here and there stood clusters of halla conversing in low, worried tones, their heavy language, full of hard stops and gruff rises, filling the night. Cadence couldn’t help but stare, having never thought to see an entire town of the northern folk, nor to walk amongst them so openly. She was surprised to find that most did little more than glance in her and Sombra’s direction before dismissing the pair.

She came to a stop as a group of fawns broke out from between a cluster of log halls of some-sort and scampered across her path, an old matron, grey along her muzzle and beneath her eyes, giving chase and calling for them to either slow, or perhaps come back. The fawns did what all children are want to do and stuck out their tongues, laughed, and darted away while the hind sputtered with exasperation. The hind said something to Cadence, and she replied with a thin smile and shrug. Blinking and off-put by the response, the hind sighed and went on her way to track the fawns down.

Cadence stared for some time after the group of little ones, a dopey grin on her face. She’d never gotten the chance to play as a foal. Oh, she’d managed to sneak out of the castle from time to time and visit Everfree Rest, and there even make a friend.

Those nights had been so sweet, and Cadence wished she could say they’d be treasured forever, but bitterness clung to them like spiderwebs.

Her friend was dead, as was the entire town.

All because they’d given her a few, fleeting hours of happiness, and helped her find her domain. For that, the Nightmare had repaid them with death, screaming that the town had corrupted her daughter and tried to steal her away.

Smile sliding off her face as if it were oil, she turned away and marched to catch up to Sombra.

Checking again her sword, Cadence’s frown deepened, and by the time she and Sombra had reached the castle it was fierce enough that the two halla standing guard did not even speak to the pair but waved them through at once. She snorted at the laxness of the castle’s security. Her mother never would have allowed anypony to so brazenly stroll through her gates.

Within the courtyard they found a couple dozen other halla already gathered, and from the nods sent towards her, Cadence realised that the guards had thought her part of this group. From the way they stood, easily and with a confident swagger, Cadence knew them to be a group of warriors. All those present wore armour and weapons of some sort, or had their antlers tipped with bladed steel caps.

Putting a little more confidence into her own step, as she’d been taught by her instructors, and for all the disc acted as if she belonged. It was not a happy exterior she presented, such would have been impossible with the confusion and swirl of emotions that had been present for so many years. The low fury worked well, however, as it was a look many of those present wore themselves.

In the next moment, Cadence’s simmering anger faltered as she glanced up and there came almost face to face with what seemed to be a statue of the Nightmare. Rearing high, with a defiance behind her stone eyes, the statue seemed to snarl and glare down on Cadence. It took Cadence a few, terrified heartbeats to realize the statue was not of her mother, but of another alicorn. The mane was wrong, as was the crown she wore.

“You’re going to have to keep them busy a moment,” Sombra said as he went up to the statue and dismissed his transformation.

Attracted by the flash of his spell being canceled, a shout rose up throughout the courtyard. Cadence cursed underneath her breath and drew Penumbra in a hissing flash. Against the early morning darkness, the sword’s blade seemed to vanish. Forged of nightstone, Penumbra was as her namesake; black and deadly. Through where she held the long hilt Cadence was queried by the sentient sword, assuring her without words that it was always ready.

The closest of the halla issued a demand, but with no knowledge of their language Cadence wasn’t sure if it was for them to stop or identify themselves.

“I would advise you to stay back,” Cadence replied, pacing back and forth to keep herself between Sombra and the group of warriors.

Her words had the immediate effect of causing the crowd to harden and lower their stances, weapons drawn with a ringing clang and hooves pawing at the ground.

“Perhaps I should have warned you, but they do not take kindly to ponies in Thornhaven,” Sombra called over his shoulder as he withdrew the crimson crystal from before and thrust it against the statue’s breast. “This will only take a few… minutes.”

“Minutes?” Cadence yelped as the first of the halla approached in a thundering crush.

Her first instinct was to put some distance between her and the crowd with a flap of her wings, but still within her own transfiguration, and with no idea yet on how to cancel the spell without waiting for it to wear off, the best she could do was dart to the side. Twisting Penumbra to the side, she brought the flat of the blade against the first of the halla, and sent him careening across the courtyard. Twice he bounced, sending other halla tumbling, before coming to a hard, crunching stop on hitting the castle walls.

Cadence’s eyes widened, but she had no time to contemplate the strength of the strike before she was forced to block a pair low thrusts. The next few minutes were a swirl of motion and shouting.

Her entire life Cadence had been tutored by the finest knights within the Nightmare’s service, and even by the Nightmare herself. It was widely held that there was no greater practitioner with the sword than her mother. Fighting was second nature to Cadence, as much as she deplored the lessons beaten into her.

There was little of the fluid grace the Nightmare possessed when in battle, Cadence’s moves far more to the point and brutal. Penumbra’s pommel smashed into one halla’s mouth, a stream of blood and teeth following in the sword’s wake as it was then brought down on the next halla’s head, driving him into the ground with a sickening crunch. Pressed on all sides, it was all Cadence could do to keep the throng from reaching Sombra. Her enchanted armour deflected a dozen blows that would have killed any normal pony. A momentary break in the battle showed the Halla a tigress, fierce and proud and bloody, swirling in their midst with her deadly talon. The flash of her eyes gave the hardened warriors around her pause, and she pulled back her lips into a wild smile.

“What are you doing?” Cadence demanded as she dashed to the left and knocked aside a spritely doe.

“I am just about done now. She’s being a little resistant.”

Sweat coated Cadence, leaving her sticky beneath her armour, though she did not feel even the creeping start of exhaustion. If anything she felt exhilarated, and it left a sickened pitt in her stomach. A twinge in the back of her mind, a rebellious little corner wondered if the Nightmare would have been proud.

Screaming at herself, at how much she wished the Nightmare could have said one good thing to her, given her one smile, one kiss, Cadence lashed out at the halla. No longer did she try to withhold her blows, Penumbra striking with enough force to shatter the ground. Wild eyed, she forged into the halla ranks, not allowing them to retreat or quarter.

Her blood sang, as it had when she’d raced into the sky to join her aunt, the Elements her mother had hidden away at her side. She did not notice when a portion of her armour was torn away, nor the spear that was thrust into her shoulder, and there found no purchase before harmlessly sliding up her neck. The spear user was knocked aside by a sweep of her sword, and in the next moment Cadence was hit on the side by the lowered antlers of a charging buck. Penumbra swept out his legs, and a firm kick sent him rolling through the others pressed in close behind.

Spinning high on her back hooves, she drove Penumbra through the next warrior, and something snapped. A thick chain of Love shattered, staggering her as a stout blow to the head might. The disc reeled around her, and through the spin she heard one of the other halla screaming a name.

Everything snapped back into focus; Penumbra hovering in the air, blood dripping from her tip onto the face of a doe clutching the body of the halla Cadence had slain, the looks of fearful shock on the faces of the others, Cadence’s wings spread wide and her breaths coming in short, ragged gasps.

When the spell altering her appearance had shattered, Cadence neither knew nor cared, all she could focus upon was the tearing within her own heart, echoed pain from the doe in front of her lancing deep into her breast. She stepped back a few more paces, deep gasps sucked in through her teeth, and Penumbra tip dropped to the stones with a heavy clatter.

Cadence didn’t notice Sombra come up to her side, nor did she feel the biting chill as he teleported them away. Only the sudden shift of hard stone to soft carpet brought her from her stupor.

Blinking the image of the doe and her dead love away, Cadence found herself in a well appointed room, a bed set to one side next to a desk covered with scrolls and gemstones beneath an open window through which Cadence saw the peaks of unfamiliar mountains.

“You are in my tower,” Sombra explained before she could ask where he’d taken her. “Bah, I am becoming an old fool, my little dream. Should have left her. Will have to abandon this place now. A shame, as it was rather nice.”

He shook his head and went to a nearby cabinet, from which he retrieved a bottle of aged whiskey. Opening the bottle, he offered it to Cadence, she accepting it without preamble and taking a deep swig.

“You did well. I would have had to do more harm if I’d been alone.”

“Well?” Cadence shrieked, brandishing the still bloody Penumbra. “I was terrible! I was exactly like my mother!”

Sombra lifted a brow and snorted, retrieving the bottle from Cadence and pouring a small glass for himself.

“Aye, you were. My little dream says Luna would have been proud to see her daughter fighting to protect—”

“No! Stop comparing me to her, I am not like the Nightmare.” Cadence began to pace, her thoughts in a flurry and unable to settle. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the doe again, and felt the shattering shock of the love she’d destroyed. “I’m not her. I’m not…” Cadence’s words drifted away along with her certainty, and she shuddered.

“Nightmare? Nay, I see nothing of the monster in you. What a pampered thing you must be to believe that to kill is always a sin. We did good this night.”

Sombra’s words were lost on Cadence. “I… I must return to Celestia. S-She will know what I must do… I must make this right. Perhaps if…” Panic gripped her tight, rising up to hold in vice-like claws to the spot.

She’d hurt others who’d done her no wrong. It would have made no difference to her if she’d stood still and let them hit her until their hooves were worn and weapons broke. Why did she fight back? Why did she like it so much?

“I can never tell her. Celestia can not know of this night. If she learns what I did…” The image of Celestia on her golden throne erupted into Cadence’s mind. Hoof jabbed towards her niece and fierce disappointment in every angle her face, she cast Cadence out, decrying her as false, and the heir to the moon in all aspects, as cold and cruel as the Nightmare.

She started to pace, then stopped to take a deep breath. Pulling her hoof to her chest, she grabbed the knot of anxiety, and pushed it away as she exhaled. This she repeated several times before Cadence again looked towards where the amused Sombra sat with the now half-empty bottle. Behind him, through the window, the sun rose and Cadence couldn’t help but wonder if Celestia’s night had gone better than her own journey.

“Be good…” She whispered, tears that could not fall stinging her eyes. “I promised my foster parents that I’d be good, and I failed them this night.”

“Did you? Life is not always so easy, my young friend.” Sombra set the bottle down with a heavy clunk and stretched out his back legs. “Had you not been there, I would have had to find some other method to drive those guardians away. Let me tell you, my methods are not gentle in the least. We are all the products of our times, and I am a creature bred for war and battle. Which is why I prefer it here, away from civilization and the disc, where I can contemplate my transgressions alone and without disturbing others. You killed five, and crippled three more; the remainder will recover of their wounds in time. No, you should not be angry at yourself, but at me for putting you into such a position. Had I told you what we were heading towards and what I planned I feared you would stop me. But, I am a silly, prideful creature, and it tore at my old heart to think of somepony as pretty as you thinking less of me. I will not say I am sorry to have deceived you, for that would be a lie, and I may be many things, but I try to speak the truth.”

Her anger focusing itself on Sombra, Cadence snapped, “Yes, just what were you doing? I no longer sense the second alicorn, but I can feel the other still. How is this?”

Sombra chuckled darkly, then pulled the hem of his cloak aside to reveal a silver crystal thrust into his chest through a hole in his armour. Cadence’s eyes widened at once and she took a quick step back, revulsion twisting her guts and forcing bile into the back of her mouth. Of all the things she’d seen, the crystal was perhaps the most horrific, though she could not say as to why.

“This is my little dream, and why I suspect in a minute you will drive that pretty sword of yours through my throat.”

“I will do no such thing,” Cadence quickly countered, though she held no confidence in the statement.

“Perhaps you are less like your mother than I thought.” He shrugged and looked out the window. “The choice is yours. Strike me down now, or leave. But if you do leave, know that I will disappear again, and you’ll regret having had this chance and not taking it.”

Bristling, Cadence thrust Penumbra into her sheath. “I just said I will do no such thing. Whatever happened between you and the Nightmare is your affair. I hold no loyalty to her.” With that she vanished from the tower, lest her determination falter.

In his chair still, Sombra downed his glass and huffed. “The young are so impetuous. She should have stayed to learn who it was we saved. One debt has been repaid, and another is earned. We shall have to repay your cousin too, my little dream.”

Author's Note:

In recognition of reaching the 800 Followers milestone.

This is something I had hanging around for a while that I never got around to finishing. There were a slew of issues with the previous draft, ones that created problems with events throughout the rest of the stories. Originally there was a long section between Cadence and Tia where they discussed Luna and Twilight. Several times I tried to come up with answers as to why Cadence wouldn't either know or respond to events in other stories, as if she knew Luna and Twilight fell and spoke with Celestia at this point, then her actions in them make no sense.

Ultimately, I do not think this story is 'great', per-se, though there are parts I personally rather enjoy. I hope you enjoyed it as well.

Comments

[Voidedstory]

My question is: Why did Sombra fall here at the same time as Luna and Twilight?

[Tundara]

6761185

He didn't. It was Iridia who 'fell', and he was in the process of containing what remained of her essence into a crystal to transport it back to her body. He merely reached her before Cadence.

[Otterjoy]

Ooh, I love Cadance's thoughts about her mother. This gives us an entirely new incite into their past relationship and her current coldness to her mother.

Also, a look at a strangely tender side of Sombra.

[Voidedstory]

6761421 Ah, so this is part of how Iridia--no, wait, that's way later.

[Tundara]

6761461

I really wanted at one time to do a lot more with Sombra. For a short period a story seed began to sprout centered on him during the Long Winter and the years afterwards. It'd have shown his evolution into the Sombra depicted here, and spoken of by Velvet. The idea didn't pan out as there just wasn't enough for it to 'do', and other, more fully formed stories grabbed my attention.

[Tundara]

6767519

This is Iridia after she attempted to mend Luna's heart by giving her Cadence, then watching in horror at the consequences of that action as her nieces warred and Luna become NMM. In a pique of dispair she attempted to end her existence by climbing into the heavens and then casting herself towards the disc. This in turn caused her to loose most of her remaining energy, and it was this energy that fed the wish Celestia made (See The Longest Night). In this regard Cadence is wrong in that no actual star fell that night. Why the wish 'worked' a thousand years later is something I'm keeping under my hat for now. Suffice to say there is a reason.

What Sombra was doing was collecting what little remained of Iridia's soul and transporting it back to her body. While he doesn't want Iridia free, thinking her still the mad creature that plunged the world into a decade long winter, he also recognises that her continued existence is needed. He's also just sentimental and feels responsible for her present circumstances.

Hope that clears some things up.

[Tundara]

6793490

Hehehe, I use a massive spread sheet myself.

[Kapuchu]

6768078
Wait... so this Sombra isn't the "Evil" Sombra?

...weird.

[Starcat5]

7393010
It is a bit confusing. First there was the War Hero Sombra, followed by Despair Horizon Sombra, who thanks to Star Sweirl picking the wrong conversation option, segwayed directly into Evil Overlord Sombra, followed by a humbled Penitent Sombra due to the Long Winter, and finally after "next best thing to Nightmare" Velvet Sparkle betrayed and killed him, we now have Duke of Hell Tartarus Sombra.

[Tundara]

8299303

This is an accurate statement. ^^;; Wait until you actually see 'Duke of Tartarus' Sombra (Get the action figure now!).