Favorable Alignment

by Ice Star

Chapter 26: Burning Wonder

Sombra:

Luna's ears quickly located the sound of distant waves lapping the beach. Sand muffled the sounds of our hoofsteps. She was free from even her necklace. It had been safely left at our camp, where the small piece of apparel wouldn't be lost. Fate was sheathed and at my side and Luna's left wing was draped over my back, her left wing was pressed to my right one as I led her along. She did not dare to open her eyes as we left the treeline behind us.

The barren stretches of sand on the south beach sprawled before us. Few dunes were present; those that were acted almost like haphazard walls somepony never finished. I didn't even see a crab sneaking along the empty sands. It was perfect.

I had found this place three nights ago when trying - and failing - to create clear sketches of some of the island's features. With time to myself, I could give the rubble a closer inspection. Luna had been spending a considerable amount of time with the pest, or off on her own. I enjoyed the change to indulge in solitary activities, and eagerly searched the forest or any other structures that could have existed through careful excavation of a few small sections of the southern forests.

Here I had taken the time to try and know the enemy before I stood and stared him in the eyes in whatever inevitable conflict was awaiting me. There were times when I wondered if he was even who we were looking for. I surrounded myself with anything that crossed my mind drawn in the sand as I took on the role of a processor once again in order to do more than pace during those three nights.

I still wasn't sure of what role Hasad had played in this. All I knew that he was a male Alicorn mentioned in a scenario that certainly made him a suspect. It wasn't much to go off of at the time, but it would have to do. Deep in my mind, I knew that these clues would be helpful later. Neither Luna and I wanted to talk about what we had found that night, but I would have to ask her what culture that name comes from. Was it one that was wiped out? I didn't think so, since it did sound like a language I've heard at some point. At least I had a gender to go with the name, because if it came down to it, I could have spent hours trying to figure out if that was a masculine or feminine, without any knowledge of the language it came from.

What a relief it was not having to use a name like mine. 'Sombra' had no meaning at all until I came across a book that said in one of the lands on the far away western continents my name was butchered in translation. Some Equestrian forgot to put the 'of' in 'King of Shadows'. Even when corrected texts were issued hundreds of years later, after somepony bothered to care, the error had turned into something rather amusing.

'Sombra' had turned into a common way of saying 'shadow'. To make things even more interesting, because of the way this language worked 'Sombra' evolved into a feminine name because of it's ending. 'King Sombra' almost vanished from history over there because I ended up being written as a mare, due to my name. Nopony bothered to realize there was anything 'wrong' with the name until 'corrected' history and other propaganda was shipped. Then, my name fell out of usage. Nopony wanted to name their foal after a dictator. I honestly don't mind any of it; the Queen part was very entertaining to read.

The wind blew strongly and dawn's light was blocked by thick, fast rolling clouds of white and silver blurred together. Luna laughed lightly as the wind hit her cool cheeks, shuffling closer to me. I can smell the forest on her, and even the sky. I often would look above the trees to find her soaring among the clouds practising aerial combat. Sometimes, she would see me watching from a tree I had scrambled into and swoop down to see how I'm doing, exchange a few words about nothing in particular, or give me a kiss before taking off again.

"We're here," I whisper into her ear, a smirk waiting for her once she opens her eyes. I watch her as she looks around, eager curiosity glittering in those eyes as she scans the expanse of soft sand, trying to find something.

"What is the surprise you wanted to show me? You are not one to wake up early for nothing, Sombra."

I take her hoof and lead her farther out onto the glorious, crab-less beach. "We held back on the Sky Scraper's deck."

I nodded to the rest of the beach. "We don't need to hold back here."

Luna's eyes are shining with excitement and a smile dominates her features. "You want to show me what you are capable of?"

"That, and I figured we could continue working on magic together. We're likely to have to fight together at some point, and you did make a very tempting promise about teaching me about magic-"

Luna stops me from continuing with a kiss.

"I did promise you, didn't I? Speak your desire then."

I look into her eyes, their vibrant blue-green the ice to my fiery crimson ones.

"Fight me."

...

At the other end of the beach, I know Luna stands alone and ready, horn flaring with light. Behind a translucent, shimmering wall of crimson aura that resembles a red curtain, I process dozens of possible outcomes while adrenaline courses in me, fueling my savage desire for a real fight and an actual opponent instead of just another pawn. Somepony who thinks, feels, and craves the same show of strategy, power, and everything else. Intelligence. Prowess. Skill. Decision making. Art, if you will, or perhaps 'technique'. Personal flare. Individuality. Passion. Maybe even deception...

So many things that encompass what it means to be truly alive and all of them a rarity, hardly even three of these can be found in a single creature, and yet Luna and I...

Each and every one of them are showcased in us. Even more traits shine in her and I, traits that are ours and ours alone.

"No weapons," I say, tossing Fate, still in its sheath to the side.

"Only magic," calls her voice, never as distant as she sounds.

Fate falls, discarded for somepony so much better. The curtain rises and my horn is lit with fire.

The world is utterly meaningless. Every rock, tree, grain of sand, continent, and star continues its unremarkable and pathetic existence under a pink sky blotted out by silver. They move, but their movements do not matter, each is mundane and lacks any dynamic or meaning. Like the plays Luna has told me of, there are props that matter nothing in the larger scheme of things. The universe itself - apart from us - has become one vast stage meant only to better glorify her and I.

We move at a speed all our own. If Luna and I were stars, we'd be the brightest in her night sky; we gravitate toward one another in what is doomed to be a cosmic disaster for all.

She stomps her hoof and pivots. As a result, the sky darkens with furious movements of the clouds, only to be broken by a crooked bolt of lightning that claws its way down to the earth and flies right at Luna, who glows with turquoise power. She is almost struck, but her magic lashes out, and like silk in a spider's grasp the bolt is molded, cracking violently around her. She lifts a crooked arc, burning bright into the sky and glowing like her eyes and as white-hot and pure as her aura.

Her magic feels more overwhelming than anything I've ever encountered thus far in my life. Luna has grown so much since I've last seen her as the silent princess, her dark heart seared by her sister's light till her eyes were blinded, and she chose to hide the scars with a mask like the players from the stories she tells me.

Were I any other who lacks the resolve to bear such a sight, I would have sunk to the ground and begged for her love right then and there.

Crimson changes to green-and-violet and I charge her instead, a trail of flames following my every step. While sturdy and determined, my steps are not silent like her graceful strength but we're both strong.

She meets me. Fire shields me from a wild arc of light that sears veins of glass into the sand. Luna's lips brush my cheek in a quick kiss; it's not just her magic that makes my face feel like it's on fire, warm and burning.

With a powerful leap she takes off into the sky, blinking her glowing eyes in a moment of serendipity to enjoy the howling winds at her command. They swirl roughly around me, and I allow the dark fire to sputter out as if it were natural and a storm would have this effect on it.

Everything around me is blurred by invisible explosions of the might that is her magic signature. Only I feel them, and they shake my very senses.

"Is that the best you can do?" My lip curls into a playful sneer. I'm genuinely curious to see how much power lurks there, power that flows so naturally and is worked so expertly by this mare that its beyond entrancing.

It's addicting. She doesn't use either light or dark magic, instead choosing to use what plainly put is her birthright. That is the immense power of Alicorns worked in with her own talent, and other attributes only her magic has, making something lovingly unique that isn't something I feel everyday.

I've waited so long for this.

I catch the white of Luna's smile and return one of my own: feral, self-satisfied, and not caring that my fangs are in plain view. She actually likes them.

The white lightning vanishes and she glides quickly until she's above me, surrounded by a shining cloud of blue...

...and then she dives, plummeting boldly as she speedily falls the long way down to me. Trails of white sparks and bolts stream behind her, waving and intertwining before untying with bursts of even more sparks.

Around her forehooves, outstretched and ready for when she lands, I could see that familiar turquoise light. It streamed back into a cone of light that grew lighter where white sparks made contact with the neighboring glow.

When she landed, the world shook, and a storm of sand circled her. For a moment, she was obscured. I had to protect my eyes with a raised forehoof, watching as the sand froze to a rough, clear glass that surrounded her. Eerie blue light shined within the flower-like shape.

The last of the sand settled to the altered ground and as soon as I saw Luna.

Around her, lightning the same color as her magic lit up. Awestruck, I watch the beach violently crackling and shifting so the glass around her was destroyed. When I looked away the world seemed dark in comparison, before I held her gaze of pure light once again. She smiled, revealing the hint of eyeteeth of her own. Despite the wild, almost uncontrollable lightning surrounding Luna I could see gleaming highlights of a shade of white brighter than snow that had been temporarily bleached by magic running through her mane and tail of blue and purple.

We beheld the other for only a few seconds. The sand under Luna's whirlwind of unnatural magic, more powerful than the natural lightning could ever be, was almost entirely crystalline as it reformed and melted beneath her hooves. It would be made and unmade the longer we continued our pause.

I jumped backward, breaking the stillness that never was, even though my legs were shaking slightly in her presence. She held this much power, maybe even more... yet, she refuses to let this define her and uses it well. I'll always know her as Luna before I know her as a goddess.

A violent light of blue that could sear into flesh and cleave a pony into burnt chunks nears me . Abruptly, I dodge the sweep of magic. After I'm a short distance away, Luna takes to the skies. Her wings flare but not flap for a minute. When she does truly fly, she soars not too far from the ground.

Dark aura engulfs my horn and I blink to allow my eyes to change, purple smoke flowing freely and the earth trembles again, like the sound of thunder. Sand churns like water and quakes beneath my metal-clad hooves. Waves no longer lap the shore, but charge it as if they were creatures in distress, swelling greatly before retreating and repeating the process.

The earth is ripped, sand flowing into the hole like Luna's mane rippling behind her in flight. From it pours smoky colored äerint that sprouts from the unnecessary fissure before I hurtle them at Luna.

Blue light meets gray äerint and between us, a small explosion swirls, fire and smoke whirling. When it dies down all that was left was the äerint that was neither destroyed or unscathed. Deep gashes ran along the sides of many of the crystals. The ones that were closest to Luna's blast bore signs of melting, though they were still intact enough to be recognizable.

"What are those made of?" Luna murmurs, her magic vanishing as she prods the cold side of a nearby cluster with a forehoof.

"I've never been able to figure that out," I say and responding with another wave of the stuff. It shoots out from the sand as if it had been there all along, rippling in her direction.

Once again her magic appears and all is bathed in its presence. Even if I haven't been expending much energy, my heart pounds wildly. Soon, I can't even bother to try to tell them apart and they blend into a single beat.

Our rhythm resumes. Her mid-flight wing beats as she takes to the skies once more. My hoofsteps in the sand map out the steps that only we can follow. Occasionally, our movements repeat between waves of crystal and bolts of pure power, and we would shoot the other a brief smile, or a wry one. I even caught her sticking her tongue out at me on more than one occasion.

Those seconds would pass. We would pull away knowing that at some point our paths would intersect again in this natural repeat that felt too organic to be a mundane routine that took no skill at all. We knew the other without speaking. Our routes of battle would intertwine at all the right moments as we fought, singe marks dotting my cloak and a few cuts on her legs.

This is art, I think. I've never been an artist, so I don't think I'd be the best to judge this, but it's something. It's war; it's peace because I love her. We don't fight as foes any longer.

Luna swoops toward me. I don't need to see her move in order to dodge the beam of magic that is shot by her. I anticipate the expanding shield of aura that looks paper-thin and is riddled with bright sparks of white as it heads my way.

I skid to evade them, digging all my hooves into the sand at once in order to stop. With a wild leap I jump up, kicking the sandbank my movements have created in order to leap higher. The light of my horn dims to its usual crimson and surrounds each of the armored boots I wear, pulling each apart strip after metal strip in the blink of the eye and shaping the metal into something a bit more deadly in the same amount of time. With only the best precision I can manage, I toss each one to where she'll be.

I land perfectly and continue moving, my horn ablaze with a new spell, the crimson shifting to dark magic once again. I watch Luna spin and her turquoise lightning stream from her horn as she flies on. The crackling light spirals around her more and more, knocking away each silver piece. They fall, now embedded in the sand.

Beneath my hooves, new äerint sprouts and lifts me into the air, and I try to steer myself toward her. The crystal moves a bit strangely through the sand, going faster than I'm used to when it's anchored into more solid ground.

I change the cluster under my hooves and strip it down to a board, like I would usually use to travel through the snow before it stops too. I pull it out from under me. Without even a glance towards the crystal slab, I let it shift again into two deadly spikes, like giant ice picks. We clash once again, my senses sharpened with battle rush I brandish the duel spikes before letting my magic meld them into a single staff.

Her eyes look into mine, still glowing and narrowed with determination. I can imagine the calculating squint or breathless look of exhilaration that she would have if they were not obscured by godly light. Luna's face is dramatically lit so that I can make out every contour in the noon light. Time slips by, worthless to us both. I swear she's reading my mind with her momentary look. Before my staff and her divine lightning meet, she gives this rematch a name other than this excitement that burns in every fibre of my being like magic does smolder all around us.

"They call it dancing."

So dance we do, and I have to say this must be the only dance I'm any good at. Though magic may be in my eyes, I catch the blue, brightly shining, hook the dark luster of the äerint staff I wield. Just as I'm about to change it into something, my thoughts slip, and this dance more perfect than clockwork sees something that has never happened before. My dark magic halts. Even I know my eyes noticeably flickering, and the purple smoke vanishes. To Luna, they must no longer look demonic as we both witness something new.

The staff is caught mid-shift in her lightning and they pass through each other. As combat instinct dictates, we strike again and sparks fly between us both. There's something new that I've never seen or felt before. I watch in a prolonged moment as the crystal melts and begins to fly wildly all around us as ever-shifting walls of iridescent fire.

I can place no shade on the colorful fire, except the most unearthly and deepest red-orange I have ever witnessed, and even that may not be true to my own eyes.

It changes crimson-bright, the very same color of my eyes. Soon all we see is this strange fire without smoke, and now I finally know...

I finally know that they're made of magic aura... crystallized magic aura...

I wrangle the inferno and it obeys, drawn to a power that ignites in me that drowns out everything else. I lift wildfire above us both as we stand on a beach of glass and the fire ripples violet and green and everything else and Luna looks at me in awe and I allow myself a large breath I never knew I was holding.

When I steer the fire that fits me so perfectly towards the beautiful lightning-cloaked goddess I love, there is only one thing I need to know in that moment: I am Sombra, and that in this split second I can feel this inferno. Luna's lightning is wrath and beauty, terror, and peace in a storm that knows how to strike, and it is as wild and unbound as she is.

I am not lightning. While flame may bend to my will, I will bend to the will of none because just like fire I burn back.

I hurl that fire with a tremendous wave of magic that feels so natural, despite the power I control right now.

I see my love before me, blue among red, and unburned. I see that she was a fraction of herself compared to now, and the proud silence that she still retains, the dead wonder that no longer burdens her, and the loudest silence we ever shared as that moment plays out over and over in my head again. I don't need to close my eyes to see gray crystal halls and fights so much like this one every second I lay eyes on her. The memories overlap easily.

I can feel the loathing and deepest hate I've ever had for whatever and whomever I despise too. It feels like all my senses are burning up, and the spike of twisted emotion creates a momentary blot of indigo in the flames.

Within them, I see and fell everything.

Soon, I see and feel nothing because for the second time in my life, I have exploded.

...

I feel my eyes open before there's anything to discern. All I see is an endless void. Nothing lies beneath my hooves, but I'm still able to stand. After a quick check, I appear to remain intact. I can only see my outline in the dark and the shape of my cloak, which has earned a few more burns along the edge, parts of it charred beyond recognition. I'll certainly be needing a new one.

To say it was cold here would be the second-greatest understatement of my life. I imagine that anypony who wasn't used to the searing freeze that lurked in places like this might actually scream and howl as the first stabs of iciness ripped away whatever body heat they had left, and they were left feeling like a ghost slowly draining of all else, succumbing to the numbness that would ravage them for their weakness.

Places like this literally chill one's soul. It's usually worse if any physical form is left; then they'll just be a raving mind in a cold, cold shell that's screaming and running about forever, going nowhere and escaping nothing with no possibility of freeing themselves from the feeling until they deteriorate slowly. Whatever is left will leave them as just a scrap of a mind that is doomed to inhabit what might be emptiness forever. For a physical creature, even if they were stripped of form before... maddening dysphoria can overwhelm them, and they'll lose themselves as years tick by.

I spit on what would have been the ground and watch it disappear with the shadow of a mad grin working its way across my face, the first one in a long time.

I know this cold, and my only response is only to flick one of my ears. I was expected to be broken by it. Without even the thinnest thread to tie Onyx and I together, he would have sunk into this state completely many ages ago.

Everything about this different place so much like the void I knew, one I was never able to walk in, is almost...

Hmm...

Maybe it is 'nostalgic', at least in a somewhat surreal sense? No, not quite... something this familiar, this eldritch, this uncaring and brutal... it can only be laughable.

I manage something in between a snort and a scoff at most.

It echoes for what might be an eternity in here, but I only hear the sound ripple.

I chuckle.

It too, spreads from me and goes outward. I always knew that the world revolved around me, but the void too? It feels like what could be the universe itself is trying to seduce me.

Sputtering chortles escape me. It's not a half-bad job either. Though, I'm not exactly the type to be seduced.

Silence reigns when my brief cacophony is up.

Then I really start laughing hysterically, finding myself unable to stop once I begin. Even the echoes that shoot back cannot rival the sound that rings in my ears, no longer obeying any laws that might exist. A sound that has never been heard, no not to this extent, not even to myself.

It's a loud, defiant sound. Sometimes it even sounds bitter, maybe even angry but definitely insane.

It sounds like me. That's all that matters. Me.

I know nothing but whatever manifestation of my madness this is and so I laugh and laugh for the longest time.

...

My eyes dart around the silent expanse. For now, it was quiet, all noise having faded so that the only hint of there ever being noise here was the faint pulse of sound, starting with an echo in my ears.

I had no idea how long I had been here. That did not worry me.

I had probably spent hours galloping everywhere in here like mad, pausing as random outbursts of uncontrollable laughter without being able to explain why. My chest was starting to feel sore.

Here, nothing looked different. I didn't mind.

I didn't care.

I'm me, and that's all that is important. Sombra, the most magnificent demon with another name, Luna, humming in my mind so even if there isn't a sound all around me, something is always loud within my never-quiet mind that runs with everything.

Once my usual demeanor is resumed and a comfortable blanket of indifference settles over me, my maniac episode is but a recent memory. I had little regard for it now. I wanted to test something.

Crimson flickers into existence, lighting my horn with its usual aura as a reflex, since my dark magic is only instinct under certain conditions.

It does not fade. I allow the light to grow and highlight my slightly my bored and almost despondent expression, Though, I feel discouraged from nothing, I am used to maintaining this expression have, no need to show anything else.

Sometimes I do.

For her.

Luna's not here, so it matters not how I look, only what I do.

Behind me, there's the faint sound of hissing; it's momentary, but my sharp ears catch it. I whirl around with a swift leap and face the source.

Peeling away like some ungodly wallpaper is the very fabric of the void of itself. Despite the depths of the darkness, the flip side of the peels were rather flat. The shreds came away slowly on their own, with the cosmic indifference most everything and everyone is regarded with in one way or another.

Beneath this was color: blues, blacks, greens, purples, gray-silvers glowing with starry light and flecks of something so distant and a far cry from the distant suns that Luna's night made visible. Each and every one of them was more splendid than the last. A sourceless whirlwind began to assist in scraping off as much of the coating of dark depths. I was left to watch gold bleed into all this, stirring each color as the winds that brought neither cold nor warmth carried the shreds of what once was.

I blink, missing their, disposal but gain something in return.

Nopony, no creature, or force with any brains about them fears the darkness because nothing lies in the depths of it, but because within it - the place of all justifiable fear - lies everything.

What I am seeing is not light purging - no, blinding - but everything being revealed.

Was it a chime of realization that sounds in my mind that caused me prick my ears where no sound is to be caught?

Everything...

This is Everything, and I have no doubts about this. I look all around me at this fire of color, and deeper still into this burning wonder, I see faint impressions of something. Somepony was flickering in these hues, and weaving parts of them into an outline. This experience feels like the dreams Luna tells me about, and all the things in the sky I only see formed with text on pages licked by flames. The wonderful words of Luna and pages of cosmology books had a name for such formations: nebulae. This feels like one, or at least looks like one... and it's called Everything.

'I want to tell Luna about this' is the thought that drifts into the front of my mind. As soon as the thought is finished, the colors around me erupt in a show of light. A few threads make themselves into something more: the outline of the mare I love.

She's on the beach, only now the shores are violet bursts and the water is lapping gold whorls of luminescent fog.

Luna is screaming, tears streaming down her face. In the grasp of her magic she holds something small, maybe the size of her forehoof and looks at it like it was the most precious thing, her eyes replicated as the most astonishing light-filled wonders I have ever seen...

...next to the turquoise ones that stare down at me every time I wake up, and positively glow with delight at every snide, cynical remark I make.

Now they're filled with tears of stardust. She continues to hold another object, almost identical in size. Both look like pieces of a statue and I shudder, knowing that she's likely holding pieces of me, like when Onyx and I were blown up by the Heart.

No, no, no! Not again!

Everything rocks and quivers. From the endless stretch above me something ripples through the voidscape, glittering with a strange sense of what felt like... intrigue. Immediately after seeing this peculiarity, I was distracted from worry, if only for a moment, as the images of Luna faded.

I waited for something, a suggestion, perhaps. None came, and I was oddly pleased with this. Everything was something I could challenge.

Was that the distant thunder of amusement, eldritch and merry? I think it was.

"Return to the guise of Nothing," I command, part of my tone impatient as a darkness that cannot be seen through re-emerges with an overwhelming quake. All light is drowned again.

"This will be broken."

A new sound emerges, the splitting of something that once held power as Luna's lightning strikes the ground and cleaves the earth. My eyes stream smoke, but it is not purple, nor do my eyes show as a demon's.

I feel magic, endless magic.

I feel Everything, and I will break it, for only I would challenge the breaker of whatever minds might have previously wandered here. How pathetic they were to be crushed by something as trivial as the weight of the world, a burden beyond Midgard, Paradise, Tartarus. This place is something akin to the plains of Magic itself.

Life can be put simply, if crudely: Many die, many are stupid, many are worthless, and the few that aren't are playing a different game all together.

Everything is Magic, and Magic is Everything...

...and there is Knowledge with them.

The smoke from my eyes is the crimson that has become my signature, the crimson of blood and fire.

Most importantly, is the crimson of me, Sombra, and all that really matters. From the fissures of Nothing, who merely hides Everything that I will make my own, crimson aura shoots like fire. The flares form a script that none have ever seen.

I know because they tell me so, laughter forming in my throat before I quell it, giving all before me a fierce glare filled with the purest defiance.

This script follows no language I know. Sharp and angular characters swirl by the thousands in a state of constant rearrangement. I do not think they cannot be spoken or read aloud. I understand every one with a hunger that isn't strange from me; I have felt it before. Only my expression is stoic, my eyes would betray this insane obsession I feel for the runes, if I actually tried to hide what they conveyed.

I can see them with this new magic in my vision, the script dares me to go through with this and to make Everything submit to its rightful superior: me.

They tell me things about magic.

I allow a dry chuckle, short and terse. I have better things to do.

I'm finally going to break something worth my time and the burning lines of crimson, a hundred thousand cuts made by me and my resilience agree a thousand times over, shifting to convey this.

I break it all with a single declaration, of my superiority, of all I have maintained, of my rebellion against this.

Of my existence.

"I am."

And all falls before me.

...

I hear a heartbeat that isn't mine hammering next to my ear, which is brushing against something soft... and I bolted up from wherever I lay as soon as it registered that I was on the sand. A few shards of glass nearly brushed my coat.

I gasped a few times once I was aware I needed to breathe again, now aware that I was held in the forehooves of an astounded-looking Luna, chest heaving with spent sobs, and her eyes wet with tears of relief. The stars twinkled behind her and a hoofful of symbols from the red script danced in front of her face, though she did not notice.

When I blinked the crimson vapor away, she was still there.

I lifted a forehoof to my face. "Luna?" I ask, her name an all-encompassing question.

"You v-vanished, and pieces of your crystal were everywhere-"

That wasn't me I saw the light-created image of Luna holding? It had certainly seemed like it. I did feel like I had exploded, after all.

"-for hours-" I ignore that she accidentally smacks my forehoof by waving her own for emphasis.

"-and then you return, unconscious in a sudden flurry of flame..." Luna chokes back a what's left of a sob. "I caught you," she concludes, words determined and even forceful.

I blink again. The symbols that crowned her head like a halo of the arcane dispersed only moments ago had spelled out something peculiar, words that only proved remarkable when their subject was considered:

'Luna' was their simplest part, there was no need for curiosity until I recalled what came after:

'Goddess of the Night', because this whole eldritch knowledge deal has proven to be extremely informative.

'...of Dreams,'

Yes, I'm so unaware of this. Her showing up in my dreams is just me hallucinating her as I did the rest of the landscape in that comatose state. Her confirming she was there when I tested her about the ordeal? That was just a dream too. The only thing that isn't a dream is pizza.

'and of Hope.'

She still has magic and talent that has yet to be realized, and I'm sure that on the other half of the world the same goes for her sister.

I look back into Luna's eyes.

"How come you didn't kiss your demon princess?"

Luna moves to slap me with her free forehoof, but I see it coming and am ready to roll away. She pulls me back and clutches me tightly with both forehooves, hugging me to her chest like she's worried I've sustained injuries before she tries to squeeze the life out of me. I let her, and feel her bury her muzzle in my mane.

"I was worried."

I know.

"I can't believe that I didn't explode."

She knows.

"Please don't try it again," she whispers.

It didn't matter how simple the expressions were or how many ponies repeated them mindlessly under different circumstances. They don't matter. We didn't always need the grandest declarations to speak our minds, Luna and I. What we say mattered. We mattered, and that was all that counted.

She mumbles something into my mane, and it doesn't go unheard. Her request isn't one I would think to deny and Luna kisses me long enough for me to know that she's not going to hide her steadily developing infatuation with me for much longer. I would have smirked if I was able to.

I'll wait for her.

Again.

As long as it takes, I'll wait. Even if she says no, I won't let her see me crash and burn, because if that's what she says then she won't have to worry about ever seeing me again. She'll have all the space she ever wanted, and I wouldn't take up a single bit of it.

I don't let her know a single word of this, and dismiss the thought and it sinks back to being a hidden possibility. When we rise from the sand, Luna helping me to stand the moon is high in the sky. Luna helps me gather the metal for my boots, which need to be fitted back together even though I don't ask her to. I pick up Fate and its sheath, but before I don it once again I light my horn and a new hooded crimson cloak without a patch or speck of dirt on it falls about my withers, the knee-length piece settling without a sound.

...

On the Sky Scraper's deck, my forehooves grab the rail, boots gleaming in the sunlight as I look down at the island already vanishing behind us. The click of levers sounds behind me, where Luna hums in the morning light, while I glare at the receding land, the last we'll be seeing for some time. Cold wind stirs my mane, brushing my bangs slightly, as Luna does.

A wry half-smile twitches out of existence as I notice something.

"We're going faster than usual, Luna!"

"Yes, and?" Luna calls from the hull.

"You set our course to northeast, correct? We were going to make a stop at - err, which nation again? I know it's the southernmost one."

"Germaneigh; and yes I did change the course. Why do you ask?"

"That shouldn't make us go faster. Would you say the winds are favorable?"

There was a pause and while the winds picked up, they died just as quickly. "You have not been below-deck have you?"

"No. You didn't wake this morning, so I slept until last minute, or have you suffered a head injury and forgotten the last seven hours?"

I hear her laughter, low and lively in the wind. "The cargo is empty. Well, nearly empty. I gave most of our food and some of the medical supplies we won't need to Firefly. He'll be needing it until he constructs a decent boat of his own and learns some Germane."

"There better still be coffee, or I will turn this ship-"

"No need to worry; I kept all of it for you."

"You know me too well," I say, speaking above a sudden gust of wind that sets us on the next part of our journey.

"So speaks the world's newest god."

"Does this mean I have a god complex instead of a superiority complex now?"

Lilting laughter reached my ears. "I imagine so. Do you have any clue to what your godly domain is?"

I do not hesitate to give my reply: "Knowledge."

The Sky Scraper flies on, the world in astounded silence.

Comments

[Mira Starlight]

Let's throw a party for our newest God of Knowledge!

[Ice Star]

7820519 I don't think the airship is big enough for a proper party. Whoops.

[Mira Starlight]

7820524 w
Awww... Perhaps just a small one, then.

[Ice Star]

7820529 Perhaps the next chapter will be a party of some kind...

[NorrisThePony]

because some Equestrian forgot to put the 'of' in 'King of Shadows'

This is really neat

I really liked the prose and abstract descriptions during Luna and Sombra's sparring. It's a neat way of translating it into a romantic act even if its an unconventional one. You describe their sparring like some writers describe dancing (to the point of the characters saying such) and I think that is rather creative.

The imagery in the void was also very well presented. Shit like otherworldly, abstract landscapes can be hard to pull off but I thought it was quite fascinating here.

A very very good chapter.

[Ice Star]

8568510
Gotta love when your name is just eldritch demon babble but then some dumbfuck applies meaning to it because of a bad horse!English to Spanish translation, eh?

[Kaleido]

oooooh so he managed to ascend without gaining wings and took control of the process rather than wait for somepony like celestia to waltz on by (since she'd *definitely* just leave him there forever if she was the one in charge)

excellent

edit:
also love that it's completely 100% canonical that ascension requires you to fucking explode
it's great

edit 2:
also god of knowledge has such potential to be super overpowered, but only in the cleverest of ways. i love it

[MayhemMoth]

Sombra is now officially smarter than everyone else and I feel like he'll use that to boost his ego even more. There's absolutely no way he'll be modest about this.

Poor Luna though, going from having fun to nearly being traumatized.

[GeneralSarcasm]

"I imagine so. Do you have any clue to what your godly domain is?"

I do not hesitate to give my reply: "Knowledge."

Very interesting.

I like the way you portrayed his ascendance. Beautiful, captivating, and wonderous.