Favorable Alignment

by Ice Star

Chapter 41: The Clockwork Otherworld

Sombra:

A crude pillar of äerint whirls past me. It was three steps from where I was about to be; sparks stream behind me. The wail of crystal grinding crystal blending into the rest of the discordant noise that assaulted my ears as I continued to try and navigate routes that were never the same twice. Everything around here was changing. Walls whirled and curved. Floors unraveled beneath my hooves, and sometimes this happened as soon as I stepped on them. Half-built domes of dully shining gray deconstructed themselves in the darkness and rebuilt themselves miles away in this vast place under the gray void that was the equivalent of the sky, yet nothing like it.

Entire segments of this place reworked themselves and turned like cogs. The thunderous click of what sounded like twisted clockwork shook the walls. My ears still rung when I heard those sounds, even though I was sure I had been here for at least an hour. There were far harsher noises that were the cause of the headache I had. On top of that, my jaw still ached; I still clenched it tight to keep from gritting my fangs. The brief, burning throbbing that had initially consumed it had faded from where a spike of äerint had swept past me and I didn't duck fast enough to avoid a bit of a scrape.

But it could really be far, far worse...

No pony could survive this place. They'd starve or be crushed at the least, as well as die of dehydration - there wasn't a drop of water in sight - not to mention not being able to move: again, they'd get lost and die. Dark magic would prey upon them. Their 'precious' sanity would be shattered. That's really what would get to them. No pony who hadn't been through something like Luna and I, who hadn't felt even a bit of what eternity could be and just how brutal time would be as they lingered on in states that they were designed not to be able to overcome would survive this. I have been in such a place and had experienced and known things my whole life that would help me pull through this. But for a pony? For an idiot who adopts the moniker of hero? I could safely say that would be impossible.

The clicking of ancient gears that never ceased changing their forms. The deep echo they produced was not the only sound that filled this place. There was no silence. Everything was a constant, screeching that followed no pattern and swept over everything in waves, originating from various locations, since everything here made some kind of horrendous, ear-splitting sound that would have driven a normal pony deaf after long enough. It was always loud and tense. Finally, I gave in and gritted my teeth as a long string of what sounded like pops and beeps rang out from somewhere nearby.

What kind of place is so awful that silence is an impossibility? I thought. Or maybe I said it. I wasn't paying attention, though I'm sure my mouth moved even if it was only to grind my teeth again. If I really did say anything out loud, it was lost in all this noise and I couldn't even hear my own words begin or end.

The board of äerint came to a halt under my hooves as I tugged it with magic and held myself fast to keep from flying off. I felt fine, but still knew better than to not look around and catch any shifts in my surroundings since any nearby changes would eventually spread to my location like a ripple does in water.

Cold is what would really kill anything that made the mistake of venturing here. A pocket dimension isn't like where I was imprisoned, where the cold there could tear apart the most vital parts of any creature's spirit and freeze them in ways more brutal than any physical exposure ever could be. Even the highest reaches of the Arctic couldn't hope to rival an icy prison like mine... and mine was unlikely to ever rival Luna's celestial isolation.

That didn't prevent the current conditions, though. A place as vast as this that has been sealed for so long has a chill to me, which is something that shouldn't be. Cold has become... anything but that to me from my experiences. But if I can feel a chill, then I know this place has a lethal temperature.

Growling in irritation at the constant trembling of the crystalline surface, I flick my ears - which does nothing. A small wave of crimson magic that wasn't there before ripples faintly and disperses. I certainly wasn't going to go deaf in here, so a barrier needed to be established. With another, softer growl I note that my efforts are in vain... I'm still rather fluffy. Beneath me, the ground shifts and begins to rip in half with a peculiar crashing noise - like that of a giant maw being torn from nowhere, its teeth gnashing. I take a sudden leap off to the side, having detected a subtle shift in magic seconds earlier. I replace the board of äerint beneath me and hitch a ride on what looks like a low wall forming wall nearby.

Everything resumes, echoes grow into something indistinct, and I move on.

...

This entire maze - this horrid, chilling maze - wasn't the best place to be even if I wasn't going to succumb the effects it had. The entire structure was floating in a flipping black hole for lack of me being in the proper mood for technical terms. It also radiated magic like nothing I've felt before. Even as I tried to avoid introducing my gorgeous face to a wall that had the nerve to suddenly appear in front of me - what can I say, I've never been one for introductions or first impressions - I had a hard time picking my own magic out of the sensory blur roaring around me.

My magic of all things. The same magic that is unmistakable to me; it is me and...

It feels indistinct in all this. Pinpricks travel up my spine and under my cloak and I jump to the right, off the äerint slab I had been using and it dissolves with a momentary flash of magic. A jagged spire erupts from the ground right where I had been and soars into oblivion, purple and green magic popping around it like bubbles, hissing and dispersing. Only a moment later, a mass of crystals weaves its way up from the ground, crashing all its parts together to form an obstruction that I jump over with ease. Physical strength has never been something I had been lacking, but I'm far prouder of my reflexes that enable all this not to be a disaster.

I hit the ground running and quickly press myself into a canter, dodging any obstacles as a crowded series of what are too crude to pass for corridors, but can't really be called much else take form. Pits lurk in them, but I leap again with ease, the metal of my boots screeching into the noise pollution around me as sparks fall on the crystal.

Beneath me, the ground quavers again and I bound out of the way as a twin spire tries to claw its way above. In the process, my left leg is nearly caught in a crevice. Growling, I jerk it free but am thrown off balance. My stride ceases to be powerful, but I manage to cope with something as simple as being unbalanced. Immediately after a few stumbling steps my horn glows, and I coalesce as much aura as I can on my horn - enough to pass as an immodest bonfire - and weave it into frost to coat the crystalline surface a few feet ahead of me.

Even without the noise of crunching and glass-like shattering and the ability to feel what's happening, the icy feeling in my chest, my blood running cold, and the fierce feeling - a shade of something like vindictiveness - leveling a bit lets me know that I had succeeded. Though, I wouldn't expect any failure from magic that has always been simple for me. The ice reaches up to catch the metal of my boots when I'm close enough, crawling across the surface and 'trapping' me there as I'm pulled to a stop. There's no point in exchanging any form of conversation even with myself. After a frosty exhale, I thaw the ice and leave the watery mass to be forgotten and venture deeper into a labyrinth where I leave no hoofsteps.

...

Three thousand years ago - roughly, of course; exact dates aren't exactly my focus right now - this place was formed under circumstances that I might never know. This entire void would have been just that - void. All pocket dimensions are. Yes, most have grounds. This one probably does too, but it's too far below for me to see it - if I could see anything beyond this maze surrounding me, all from one bit of äerint and worked from there into this machine. In fact, I bet it's faded from not being held into focus for what must have been ages. With a trap like this, there really isn't much of a need for one and expending the scope of a pocket dimension that much would be a waste.

With a roll of my eyes, I press on and casually slip into shadow to phase through a wall. The after effect of phasing through a wall of äerint is a strange one that's neither agonizing or enjoyable. I'm left emerging on the other side and coalescing instinctually, but magic ripples through me once I've returned to equinoid form and I twitch violently...

...and grit my teeth again. Surprise, surprise.

Blood roars in my ears - at least I can still hear that - and I have energy to spare. This may be a formidable test, or it might not be. Personally, I'm going with the latter. This place does not feel like it's an intentional test, but all this adds up and regardless of purpose, I will learn something. That is why I never lose - no matter what is thrown at me, a what or a who, or why I'm being challenged by. If I learn anything at all, no matter how twisted each shred of knowledge, I've already won.

One slip up, one overlooked detail, a single crack in a facade - anything at all. I'll be able to use it to get what I want. I'll be able to use them. All it takes is one shred of knowledge and one of me, the rest of the world at my disposal as a resource is optional. I can't lose if I keep on learning. I can't stop learning if I can't stop wanting. I can't stop wanting if I can't stop thinking.

It goes on, of course. I'm well aware of how dangerous this is - of how dangerous I am. I always have been. Which is why I'm perfect for this; who better to save the world than the one who can't lose it? Who can learn from every mistake before they add up to a failure?

Only my esteemed self was fit for that task.

The constant cacophony had become marginally less bothersome, but the ground beneath me shook furiously. I lurched forward, gasping at the suddenness even though the sound was lost in everything else. To my horror, the ground beneath me started to crack, jagged fissures erupting in the äerint's surface as it pulled apart. In the split second after I detected something rather interesting in the way the air around me changed: a sudden rush of it swelled up and rustled my mane. The air was stale and it was easy to tell that it hadn't moved in a long, long time.

"This had better be worth it," I muttered as I considered the distant pinpricks of something lurking below the topmost layer of crystal.

And then I was plummeting toward whatever lay below, an expression of pure boredom on my face.

...

The green eyes of my shadow form caught the outlines of fragments of something foreign embedded in various parts of the masses of äerint, like pieces of bone that were left over from the mysterious remains of something larger. These were no bones, even as I fell rapidly I could still see that. What I saw were the remains of various weapons - most likely mortal craft since they were in various states of damage, some to the point of being beyond recognition. While there wasn't any erosion here or winds, not a single one had escaped some kind of damage; magical burns left many in a state of being barely intact and charred to the point where it was hard to believe they hadn't crumbled to dust, if the brief glimpses I caught were any indication of what they would be like close up.

All that rose above me as I fell were once named weapons to be in the possession of mortals who crusaded about and quested, sometimes in service of the Alicorns and others independent warriors and mages who were sought out for their skill and experience - which was, of course, often helped in part with their fame. I've read numerous accounts of the life in those ages, where mercenaries like myself were able to walk a boldly defined line between legend and reality. Legends were reality then, and now the skeletons of the blades of legend - many with enchantments and blessings from Alicorns that would be worth more than the entirety of present-day Manehatten - whose names appeared in epics alongside those who wielded them, and were often written after theirs on contracts.

They stuck out of the walls like spikes, but once they would have been more than these splinters. I can't fathom a weapon being treated with nearly that much respect. Three guesses to why. If I could get closer, I might even recognize some of these if they weren't as damaged as I took them to be.

These thoughts quickly were replaced with ones about the Book. Falling makes the world around me feel like only an instant passes, or there's the times I feel I could think forever in the instant I fall. I rather enjoyed both, and while the former usually occurred - not that it bothered me much, I am a quick thinker - this time was an exception.

It's gone.

I did it. I really it did. Really, truly gone and by my name it took so little to do it...

While my saddlebags haven't been on my back since before I decided to embrace my current situation, I felt myself ripple at their memory... and the fire...

Doing that particular deed had been so simple physically and magically, and I almost hated it. Mentally? It was like pulling teeth, and my mind felt a million miles away as I took one last look at that cursed thing... the thing that made me... before cramming it back into my enchanted saddlebags. It may not have been the entire truth, but I had to keep telling myself that I wasn't there to keep going. It was slow. It was surreal.

And it kept happening...

I really did loathe the simplicity of it all; the entire plan felt like clockwork. Shove the Book in the saddlebags and swallow. Of course the sound of my gulping had been drowned out. Why was I gulping in the first place?

Then I lit the saddlebags on fire and watched the green and violet flames begin to spread across the fabric...

Really, I couldn't help but be entranced by that sight before I hurled the thing off into the unknown and watching the arc of ashes scatter across the still-shifting and savage world-within-a-world that managed to make me feel concealed instead of draw attention to me, whether I liked it or not. I don't know why I thought of a shooting star as I watched ashes rain down, but I did. I would have lingered longer, perhaps even brushed the cinders from my mane, but the ground had tilted and stirred. I had jumped out of the way just in time to watch a row of spikes erupt from the ground.

Somewhere nearby, I felt the impact of my imitation star through a ripple of magic that I was able to detect in the ground. In the distance, fire had begun to spread rapidly and I was able to watch the flames begin to coat the crystal mechanism I've been traveling through, but do no damage to its surface. Green and violet did nothing to brighten how dark everything still was.

But in a that moment, they tried. And all around me, the world was burning.

I had blinked once before moving on.

Below me, I feel my feel my shadow form brush solid ground, and in a second I resume my equinoid form and shadow becomes hooves.

Maybe...

Maybe... without the obvious difference in my horn, my fangs, and of course my red eyes I could actually pass for a pony. On the outside, at least. I lack the disturbing nature that lurks in most ponies. In fact, to be a pony is an almost frightening thought. Almost. I sigh - the sound, once again, is lost but I feel myself do so - and pull my hood up, tucking a stray lock of my mane under my hood. While I do notice it fall out again, I don't bother to care.

Umbra is going to know that there's something not pony-like about me within seconds of meeting me. Working any disguise would be too much of a signal flare in terms of magic sensing, but little distraction charms will be perfect even if I find my features far too lovely to be distracted from. My hood and any of my more taciturn behaviors should do the rest, since I'll want to be keeping the fact that I'm a demon hidden for as long as I can in order to offer ambiguity to my nature while simultaneously beginning to study Umbra's.

The äerint beneath my metal-clad hooves felt unusually solid. Only the thick shadows rippling across its surface gave the illusion of movement. Narrowing my eyes in the darkness, I proceeded with caution. Lacking Luna's night vision, I wasn't able to make out the details of my surroundings as clearly as she would have been able to. Dim outlines cloaked in dark shadows and the faint gleam of äerint when I looked a certain way and allowed what little light there was in this dull world to touch the äerint's crooked facets. However, I felt the pull of magic, and it was strong. The feeling of something powerful - and something close going off just how distinct this particular energy felt - washed over my coat.

For a while, I stood there trying to decipher as much as possible from the subtle ways the magic felt, as I always had, in order to know what I might be facing. This was all far easier to me than it sounds, just as ponies learn to tell different voices apart and the way words sounded or how to read, I learned the language of magic and pieced together what each sensation and nuance meant, learning to read its intent and purpose. I could feel the strength of enchantments and even detect purpose.

Some creatures - not ponies, of course, nor griffions or any kind of species I've come into contact with - have neither hooves or claws. Primates from the Southern Continent's jungles have something called fingers on their paws, which aren't really called that; they're called hands, but seeing how limited, dull, and... simple they are, I'd take hooves and a horn any day. But the imprints on each of their fingers - I still seriously wonder why these creatures don't notice the similarities to their lovely paws and spiders - are unique to the individual, which isn't something many physical features that don't require some kind of ocular enhancement have. Hoofprints can be used to tell something about a pony and so can paw prints, but to identify an individual with that alone?

Nope. It's just not the same. Those prints are certainly peculiar; they operate much like magical imprints, but far less complex.

Magical imprints work in a similar way. I can feel them and identify the species that left the trace. Certain creatures - mostly Alicorns - have such distinct traces that they can be identified without much work on my part. Just basking in the presence of that magic would be enough for me to name the caster, were no other work or time needed.

The magic I felt around me was incredibly strong; there was definitely the work of a demon here, but...

There was something else too, a kind of magic that felt like whoever had this magic was of a somewhat similar tier of power... but it was off. The magic felt shapeless and detacthed, wild yet chained... and there were many unique traces somewhere nearby, but they were all altered and possibly sealed. Curious, I walked on. I had hoped this would prove to be interesting and I certainly was doing something worth my while.

As I told Luna, since when am I ever wrong?

...

My breath was caught in my throat and I blinked in surprise, my eyes widening in the dark when I saw the gate in front of me. I may not be able to feel cold, but the temperature around me felt like it dropped quite a bit. After all, there's nothing as intimidating as being in this desolate place, visibly barren of life, and about as lovely as the company of She Who Strives For Everlasting Scolding Over My Every Action feeling... moderately chilly! I snorted. The sound was almost audible over the constant clanging of everything above me. The cavern-like location I found myself in shook with the workings and movements above.

Everything but the gate before me was in constant movement. There was no steady pulse of magic in this world like Midgard had - no heartbeat of magic at all, only chaotic shaking. I couldn't help but be amused at the drastic differences: here the world always shifted and nothing was the same, but the world outside this all - Midgard and the other realms, even worlds beyond my own - is where everything was constant.

Caught in the grip of the malicious crystal and held firmly in place was a neat trail of bones that still burned with some magic despite their age. Like stepping stones, they were barely distinct in what part of what creature they came from. Each outline in the dark led up to the gate in the mass of äerint only a few lengths away. The bones embedded there, served as a macabre sight to boast of what horrors might lurk within. Though, I was used to most anything of that nature and wasn't as moved as somepony else would be. Spiraling from the ground like the gruesome little trail it was, each desecrated fragment losing the indistinct quality that the pieces at my hooves had, clearly left whole even if their entirety wasn't visible through their prison.

Each bone was arranged in a way that vaguely mimicked an outline of a pose that the dragon-like creature might have taken in life, even if many of the bones were clearly in the wrong place. I gave the structure another once-over. Just what kind of creature was this? The body was supported by four legs that were likely deformed since I couldn't find an entirely identical bone among them - all the proportions were off and the same went for the wings, neither of which were close to looking functional, even if their size was impressive. The skull was what intrigued me, truthfully. I've spent my earliest years living in what might as well have been a tomb. Seeing the bones of ponies isn't anything new, strange, or unsettling to me. For most ponies it's as familiar as...

...Hmm...

I sift through a few of Privileged Purple Princess' memories trying to find something suitable for my comparison.

...The presence of a sibling. There. That'll do, it's constant and everyday, and still something that one could try and imagine their life without and know that they don't need this in their life, but good luck getting rid of it. I can't exactly think of any other way to define it, being a demon.

One of the many things I was able to learn in the Crystal Empire, both through grisly experiences and various books on the subject, was about how to read the story a creature's bones and corpse told. It wasn't exactly hard for somepony with a mind as quick as mine and who did what I did...

Shaking my head, I try to dispel the thoughts from becoming something more than unneeded recollection. The slight headache I have isn't helping much either. Seriously, if you're going to make a bloody doomsday dimension, give it more style than just having it be death labyrinth beyond anypony's control that produces harsh noise all the time. I was expecting to be a bit more entertained instead of just presented with the most ominous place I've been yet. A golem would have been neat. Unnecessary, but neat. If I ever get the compulsion, I might lay aside a few centuries to make one of these things myself. A better one. But for now I have ancient magical remains to investigate. Carefully, I step over the trail of bones to reach the skull centerpiece. Like everything else, it's stuck fast in the äerint, which creeps over it and digs the edges in to keep the bone stuck fast.

I've never seen this species of dragon before, if these bones are from a dragon at all. I certainly don't know what it could be from otherwise if not some kind of dragon. The size of the teeth, eye sockets, and jaw, which are stuck together in the crystal's grip indicate that the creature is a male, even if the mismatched legs won't be of much help. While I've only met so many species, bones don't differ that much. While I need to examine most species' remains to note certain details about them, I would have been able to classify those of a pony without so much as a second glance.

I'm careful not to touch the bones physically or magically, even if there's nothing to detect in terms of traps or any other enchantments that might linger. My horn begins to glow with soft traces of dark magic and I take a few steps to the side of the skull and keep walking backwards until I know that I'm cloaked in shadows. In the background, far above me, shifting äerint grinds and the world trembles. I pay it no mind instead, choosing to keep my focus on my magic.

There's not much in this little world that could be considered alive. First and foremost, there is Umbra, who haunts this place - his own creation - with his presence. The next is a what-if: Alicorns. The possibility of Alicorns - imprisoned, trapped, really who knows? - lingering is what brought Luna here. It's improbable, but so are many of the truest, most impossible things. I hardly consider what she does a foal's errand even if I can't sympathize with her goal-wise.

And of course, saving the best and the most important for last.

Me.

I'm here for a lot of things, just like Luna.

She seeks family and restoration. Peace and closure. Honor. To rid the world of one like Umbra, though her methods may be considered inadequate and rash by those who don't know what it is they're doing while she seeks the answers about the fate of her kind. And hope, she yearns for hope too.

The bones that mark the rough gate in front of me loosen as the äerint that they've been trapped in inches away with crystalline clinks. The sound creeps throughout the cavern, echoing as the crystal recedes with it to create a gap in the chilly tomb. Really, was I supposed to think this place any different from the Crystal Empire - a magical perversion with some world-eating or wonderful abomination at the core of it all?

Soon, I've drawn back more than a sizable opening for me to stroll through, the maybe-dragon's bones floating in the air where I'd skillfully stripped the äerint away from the landmark that served as both the key and the obstruction.

I dismissed the dark aura and the bones clattered to the ground. While the sound was loud - somewhat louder than I'd anticipated - it only rang out for a moment, along with the noise of some of the time-worn remains breaking. Despite their magical potency and the shelter offered from most of time's effects, the bones were still incredibly weak. Inherent magical potency doesn't guarantee immunity from fragility or apparent weakness from lack of potential and other things like under utilization. Dare I even mention a certain Lilac Lack-wit?

I just watched them fall in silence, cautiously taking a few steps closer to the entryway, carefully keeping to an ear to the wall when I thought I heard something on the other side. Of course, I'd be unlikely to make out anything beyond vibrations, but I wasn't about to throw caution to the wind just yet. I didn't hear anything at all, which was an oddity in this place. I needed no better sign to tell me that I should go through the gate. Taking care to not get my cloak caught on the thick, jagged, and malformed äerint surface of the wall that served to separate me from whatever silent mysteries lurked past it.

Eventually I stand ready at the gate, the world solid beneath my hooves for once. I let out a short sigh and silently watch my breath take a form in the cold I cannot feel, and stare on as the small fog vanishes just as quickly before I lift my gaze to the black abyss that lies beyond the edges of the äerint gate. The depths almost beckon me, feeling cool and familiar. How could I be reminded of anything other than the void where I resided for so long?

...And they radiate an overpowering sensation of coldness, as if there's been magic pinned and frozen inside, which is more than enough to tempt me to go in.

So much magic was in there, and it poured out in a wave reminiscent of the freezing arctic winds, which like everything else 'cold' had lost their effect on me. Yet if I were to close my eyes, just for a moment and remember things from before the Empire, memories of mine forever vivid with immortality's clarity. I found them lingering somewhere between nostalgic and so recent that I could feel the icy bite of wind still tearing at my throat as I struggled against a blizzard-

Magic pricks at my coat instead, despite the cloak I wear, which being made of my own magic helped filter out many lesser waves and magical sensations. My cloak also helped amplify many of the stranger, rarer, and more powerful ones that I ought to pick up on and pull apart piece by piece in order to attain a better understanding of what or who I was in the company of. That, of course, was what the cloak did naturally, and only as a side effect of it being my magic bent into a particularly tangible form and woven into something far more complex instead of some mere illusion or conjuration work. If I wanted to, I could actually do something suitably impressive with the cloak, but I usually just leave it as it is.

So yes, I do wear it for a reason. Or two. Mostly because it's really comfortable...

While I offer no reaction to the stray flow of magic that pulled me out of my reverie, I'm surprised at just how unusual it feels... I've felt a dragon's magic on more than one occasion and that is not the magic of a dragon. Whatever it was, even after three thousand years, it was more powerful than the magic of any dragon to have held on this long... and it felt so disorganized, for lack of a better word.

Staring into the abyss boredly, I size up the thing that thinks it's so great because it contains things that test mortal sanity and go beyond most all forms of understanding with how twisted the contents that lie within could be. I'm neither mortal or sane, so I'm overconfident that whatever is in there - possibly whoever - won't be able to best me.

...Luna came here to find her family, hope, answers, and closure. I imagine there's many other things that she simply didn't tell me, or didn't want to disclose. Many of the reasons that she came here were for herself, and they are the best reason among her parcel of ambitions, where her drive is strongest. I yearn to see some of that selfishness fostered and for confidence to emerge.

Yet, what is it I came here for? I've come for knowledge and answers, for Luna, and to see if I could ever find myself loved by her. There isn't a lie among this or any clear ace to be spotted. I even came close to telling Luna the extent of it... that I desired revenge upon Umbra for something.

And I do. I want gruesome, brutal revenge upon Umbra, and no the reason isn't for destroying entire civilizations or ending billions of lives, but those are both reasons I want Umbra gone. He has one far greater crime, one that I can't find to be topped by anything I know he's done, and suffice to say that it has been rooted in my fury and selfishness almost as deeply as my love for Luna and myself. My pride has been tempered into something far more deadly and patient than any would expect.

I don't lose.

Even if I could, I won't.

I've waited for everything I've ever wanted and spent a fair deal of scheming to rake in as many chances as I can get and twisting Luck's hoof behind her back as much as I please to the point where it's become as commonplace for me. I bargain. I steal. I gamble. I know when to take a chance and let things unfold just as often as I know when to assume direct control of what is happening. Tartarus' flames, I might as well be Fate itself, were I not above it. I am doubtful of such a concept existing unhinged and absolute, too.

I may only just now be an official god, but I've been playing the role of one all my life. As a mortal, I dragged the Crystal Empire into oblivion and was able to eek out something like immortality - temporary, of course - in order to ensure I'd have some time to be invulnerable were I to come back from the void I had known for so long...

I'm ruthless in many ways. I'm bold. I'm tricky. I'm arrogant and my pride hardly knows any bounds. I'm stubborn and angry enough to keep going. But most of all, I'm intelligent enough to keep them from becoming something unlike me - monstrous or some lesser evil, take your pick - and much more useful and defining for myself.

And those and more are the qualities that have gotten me what I've wanted. Not kindness that was given freely or empathy tossed to all. Humility be damned, if I had any in me I'd be dead or worse.

I didn't come here for reasons that are lacking in any kind of twisted philosophy or desire. This is me, and I've had quite a few of those, all drifting around the idea of 'murder your enemies', really. I know that I'm not the only demon, but I'm not going to let that continue for much longer. I have always desired revenge upon who or whatever created me, not that I would have thought I would have ever gotten it... but banishment gives me more than enough time to think. Mostly about her.

I want to be the last of my kind.

I don't care whoever's left, I want to end them. I've been burning with hatred and ideas of destruction and torment just for my own species, who I've only wanted to see broken...

With a deep breath, I exhale another icy breath into the gaping maw of a gateway in front of me. The lack of a response doesn't come as a surprise. Silently, I sway on my legs, counting each time I do so. They should probably be tired by now, though I'll be counting this as a break, even if it isn't needed - I can go on for far longer than this!

...Whatever I will, I shall always strive to make true and use every chance I can get to its fullest. Whether it's the chance to gain an ally, end my species, seek the chance of love with a mare I've longed for, or shoplift a really big box of those waffles with blueberries in them so I can have something to eat while I throw things at the birds who think they're clever enough to be messing with my shrubbery - it doesn't matter what's happening, if I want it, I will try to obtain it.

No matter what I do, I'll always be reminded of how everything began with the feeling of hooves-

-the foreign feeling of cobbled stone, which was only a phantom to me at the time, under my barely-made hooves-

-the echos of sobs that were never mine dying in my ears-

-but mostly, I'll remember everything beginning with one step into the dark... and how that moment is echoed here, before silence envelopes me.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Considering what happens to Sombra in canon, shouldn't there be a tragedy tag?

[Ice Star]

8035933 No. This story has no need whatsoever for a tragedy tag.

[nebulaegalaxy]

Don't you just hate cliffhangers?

[Ice Star]

8037660 Maybe but

[nebulaegalaxy]

8037666 But...?

[Ice Star]

8037672 You fell for that really easily, ya know?

[nebulaegalaxy]

8037674 Guilty

[Ice Star]

8045974 That wasn't on purpose. Believe me. I'm super trustworthy.

[Kaleido]

Each bone was arranged in a way that vaguely mimicked an outline of a pose that the dragon-like creature might have taken in life, even if many of the bones were clearly in the wrong place. I gave the structure another once-over. Just what kind of creature was this? The body was supported by four legs that were likely deformed since I couldn't find an entirely identical bone among them - all the proportions were off and the same went for the wings, neither of which were close to looking functional, even if their size was impressive. The skull was what intrigued me, truthfully. I've spent my earliest years living in what might as well have been a tomb. Seeing the bones of ponies isn't anything new, strange, or unsettling to me. For most ponies it's as familiar as...

oh dear, a draconequus skeleton. that's not ominous at all!

So yes, I do wear it for a reason. Or two. Mostly because it's really comfortable...

really enjoyed the ever-shifting maze