Favorable Alignment

by Ice Star

Chapter 49: Tales of the Eternally Selfish

Luna:

When I opened my eyes, the world came to in shades of red and the sound of my own forceful scream still rung in my ears to the point where it hurt to focus on my sense of hearing. I could feel my own heart rattling around in my chest, beating about irregularly and racing so hard that it hurt and a foggy part of my mind was telling me that everything bearing down on me was happening much faster than I knew it to be.

Moisture stung my eyes and the breaths I drew in through my mouth felt thin and quick, stinging my throat as tears did my eyes. The hot spatter of blood that was not mine or Umbra's seared uncomfortable into me. This was the blood of somepony whose blood I should not feel, not like this. My horn was bound, my magic gone - I could not heal him. The crystal around my wing had been cut with something else, something red and glistening like no blood I knew.

How was I to see them? I felt my eyes open wide, my constant, shallow breaths and the tearing pain in my chest that no magic could heal, but I saw not a single thing in front of me. Inside, I felt like I was screaming. Closing my eyes meant that I would have to see everything again, and feel it all in tandem the sight of gray äerint colliding with the form of Sombra, who appeared but for a blink before-

Yet, if I keep them open, the visions may blur, but they are never distanced and I feel it over and over all the same. My shaking only grows and I fall to the ground, colder than ice, where I still shiver and the only warmth is from the putrid feeling of my love's warm blood clinging to my coat.

He saved me... almost... Each word was emphasized with a clumsy, loud heartbeat.

I made a choked whimper in an effort to vocalize anything at all and hot tears began to run from my eyes, and I made a few rapid, careful blinks and struggled to gasp because of the lump in my throat that made breathing feel so difficult. My mane spilled out behind me, twitching with the occasional sparkle, and an occasional somber ripple at most.

I wanted to be like Sombra, and release a form that must bear so much weight and melt into anything - into the ground, shadows, just any dark and lonely place would do, where I would be safe and nopony else would be. I would be alone again.

I wanted him back, I thought, and with it came the poignant longing that I found with the memory that decided to infect me with its vividness: Sombra and I on Hearth's Warming in Germaneigh, so happy and all I wanted to do was wrap him in another hug and never let him be tormented by all that lurked behind those handsome red eyes and snarky smile. I didn't have to worry about the Tantabus or anything, I just had to hug him, stay by his side as he stayed by mine when I dragged him to every bit of mistletoe in the city, and start with small steps. We took them together. I couldn't stop smiling...

A shell of rough, glistening red crystal that dripped with spots of blood here and there kept me cupped to the ground like a bug under a bowl. Were I to defy this ever-growing grief that amounted to more and more recollections of every little memory and detail about him and stand up, I would still have enough room to fit him closely.

I wished nothing more to have Sombra, whole again, so that I could embrace him. I did not wish to trap him, he and I are not creatures to be trapped, but I wanted to embrace him tightly.

Everything was just starting...

My armor was a burden. It should not be, yet it was lighter than my heart and mind.

I wanted to sing to him, knowing he found the sound so sweet. Sombra still hadn't seen a proper play! I had never even given him a fabled fourth kiss, told him about all the new kinds of poetry in the world, and just how boring politics were. We had never gone hiking together and I still didn't understand calculus.

Every hope is worse than the deepest gouge of any blade or the cold shock of the moon, and I do not exaggerate such statements in my grief. My sobs grow louder until they are like pained screams.

He didn't know how much I loved him. I didn't know what his least favorite pizza topping was or his favorite place in Canterlot. We hadn't debated which philosophers of old were better. I wanted him to teach me how to joke 'ironically' and braid his mane. I don't think he had ever met a real cat. He was to explain to me the art of true dumpster diving and why coin melting was something beautiful.

He told me I was beautiful and knew what he meant. He knew me.

His jokes were always funny and nopony but him and Tia knew that I could sing, even if I only sung for him.

I wanted to listen to Sombra talk for hours and invite him to the next Gala so that we might crash it, since galas were dull. Even when an ordeal was boring, Sombra made it otherwise. We could grumpily discuss life as we often did.

And now, we could not.

Through my tears, I looked up at the temporary protection I now had: crystals borne of blood magic... and formed from his own blood. Sombra must have thought that these could combat the äerint for a while.

I loved him like I loved no other. He was somepony different - in fact, he was not a pony at all, and that only drew me to him - one of many reasons. All those reasons had been what drew me away from ponies.

With him, I could be myself in my entirety, and that included making mistakes. Sombra loved no princesses, but he did love Luna. I had never felt as happy as I did with him, except when I had been alone. He was easy to talk to and even easier for me to understand, no matter how enigmatic he could be. Were I to spend all eternity in an empty void, I would want no other than him to be my companion, if he chose to.

He had the nicest laugh and was too cuddly for his own good. He was not an honest pony because I do not believe that a pony could be as honest as he, and as both an eternal goddess and a former bearer of that Element, I know that honest ponies are few and far between.

Even sitting with Sombra had felt like such a treat.

He had the cutest little fangs no matter how much he tried to hide them.

Nothing he ever told me was a lie. I don't know who hasn't told me a lie other than him. Every member of my own family has. Ponies have done so near endlessly. I have struggled not to lie to myself. But Sombra never has, and he has lived the lifetimes of many and never once has he...

Sombra lives.

He does not go from here to there and start to end. He lives here and where and everywhere in between. He refuses, questions, and defies. He has pride! Sombra would not go so quietly. He'd be angry. He'd fight and resist. There would be suffering. He would be desperate, and in that desperation he would do something. This is simply not what my Sombra would do because there is nothing simple about him, nor will there ever be. In what way was he not indomitable?

We were to fight a living corpse, or something akin to the undead; Umbra blurred even those lines. I was unsure of just what I could do in order for him to trigger The Spell That Was No Spell in order to undo him once and for all. Instead, we had only left him bordering life, death, and somewhere in between. It will delay any regeneration and leave him like this... but this is no final solution, and it cannot stand.

In a vain attempt to stop the tears running down my face and staining it, I squeezed my eyes shut, and yet they still flowed through. I had always been sensitive, and when I did cry, it was more than just a few tears. I put my forehooves over my eyes and howled. Everything around me shook under the influence of the Royal Voice, booming with my despair. I was no longer just torn. I was enraged and without any plan. With Sombra gone, I had... I didn't have an escape. The plan that we had so carefully laid out relied on the both of us being present. There had been back up plans, but those had been if we found ourselves delayed or separated, not... not this.

I felt so consumed with anger as I was a thousand and one years ago - anger and much more - but now we...

I...

I was a caged bird once again.

Emotion - mostly despair - continued to flood my mind. I tried with all I could to push past some of it and think. I had no magic, I was trapped under a barrier I could not control, I had no idea how long it would take to break under whatever onslaught of Umbra's came next, for it was inevitable.

With my eyes closed, I almost thought that I could feel the subtle, sweeping chill that came whenever Sombra was in his form of shadows. I sniffled. I felt so heavy with how much I missed him, I know that I should be up and trying to fight but...

I whimper and pull myself into a ball, wishing and willing for any of this weight to be dispelled. In doing so, my forehoof brushes something that was not there before, and I bolt up instantly, alarmed at the presence of anything else. Brushing tears away, I see what my leg had touched, poking me in one of the few places my armor did not-

Oh. I look down at myself and see that my necklace has returned, my armor having collapsed back into its usual form.

Small cuts and bruises - noticeable, but not noteworthy - mark my aching body. Some of the weight of raw grief feels like it is settling over me again, like humid summer air, I can nearly feel it touching my coat.

What lies on the ground is a book, and not one that I have ever seen before. The book is not old or new, but looks a little bit worn, in a charming way. The color is a nice blend of slate and ebony - it is a handsome book. The pages have an older look to them, like an arrogant boast of how important their content is.

Curious, I gently scoop it up in my forehooves and hug it to my chest to examine it. There is no title on the front cover, but the spine is marked with a single word in a language I do not know. Every time I squint at the characters through my trickling tears, I feel that they make less sense, as though they shifted when I wasn't looking. However, I am quite certain that there are not many - whatever this volume is titled, it is short.

I pull myself into a standing position, my legs shaking a little and my mane just barely quivering. What was this book? I had never seen it before, and yet it felt like an old favorite, hugged to my chest.

Then I gasp upon noticing something else. Anger still stirs inside me, but not predominantly. I am only partially distracted by this new trinket.

The tips of my wings are marked with black, and not an unfamiliar shade of it. My next gasp comes out as a choked sob, and all the wight returns. Panic presses down on me and I drop the book.

No, no, no...

It was only a matter of time before I would perish too, and a living nightmare takes hold... and... I-I d-do not think any Elements can 'save' me this time... In f-fact, I am quite certain that-

The book's pages were blank, or at least, they should be. I saw so myself when it spilled open after I dropped it.

Now they weren't. A single word in dark - but not rich - crimson marked the page.

Ow.

My eyes widened, and I felt every bit of turmoil within freeze with disbelief.

"S-Sombra...?" I managed, voice catching and fragile sounding, yet holding all my futile hope.

The one and only. I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do, aren't I?

I gently scooped up the volume once more, balancing it on my forehooves. "Yes, Sombra." I wiped away a few more tears. "You most certainly are."

Then I promptly dog-eared his pages.

OWWWWW! LUNA STOP THAT! AARGGH!

"A lot of explaining," I said, the ghost of a smile flashing on my muzzle.

...

"It's really you?" I whisper, heart pounding.

It is.

I couldn't help but imagine Sombra's tone coming out snappy as he pondered our situation.

"How...?" I ventured, unsure of what exactly I wanted to ask him. My heart kept pounding and the creeping black on my leg - it had stilled now, but our doom was sealed in one way or another. "Can you still sense...?" I hope he couldn't sense this, if I had any hope it was fragile and fleeting. Yet, it was all because of him that I was not sinking again...

I'm not a being of unlimited forms or one that can shapeshift freely like a draconequus or changeling. All my forms are limited in the sense that I can't just decide to do anything and it will be. It's not that I'm less stable, physically; you've felt me before. I'm just... not confined. I have multiple facets to what I can be, because I'm not the same as you are. I may be a transcendent equine - a demon - but I'm still an equine, just one that's part spell book in all this and an aesthetic sort of being. Naturally, I'm equinoid, a shadow, 'formless' magic, and a book. No, I can't feel magic that well in this form, everything's rather fuzzy. I know it's you holding me.

"Why a book, Sombra?"

It's my weakest form, if I'm to put it simply. I don't like to use it often, and I figured it'd scare you the least. ...How are you holding up?

"All is quiet now," I whisper hoarsely, glad that Sombra couldn't see me shaking or how alarmed I looked under the itching sting of corruption, "I am only waiting for the storm."

Luna...

It was impossible for my ears to be filled with anything but the sadness that Sombra's words held. He knew a thousand ways to say my name and keep it mine. It almost felt like a promise now. Luna. Luna.

"Can you still... do anything? This won't hold forever." My voice caught twice, at the pause and mention of 'forever' and my currently useless horn came to mind, along with an echoing taunt. Forever. Forever.

Truthfully? Not much... I'm only in this form so I can linger on as much as possible. It's the most limited of all of them. From here, I could slip back into shadow, which is how I had arranged myself into this one in the first place, and then into my usual body, but... I wouldn't last. The hit I took...

He did not need to finish and the grim reality of this tragedy was cut clearer yet again with our mutual understanding.

"A list, Sombra." His name has become something else right now, another meaning has been added to it. It feels like some kind of defiance and a reassurance of all the stability that is left. The other half to a constant that had had their path converge with mine so recently and now...

Sombra...

A list of what, Luna?

My eyes just barely saw Sombra's venture as my heart felt like it froze and it became hard to gulp down breath. All was still.

"...Of what you can still do." Tears stung my eyes, and I felt too frozen to blink them away. There were just too many.

He was the one I couldn't lose. I couldn't shake the memories of him that clogged my thoughts like a fever - and not an unwelcome one.

Sombra was quiet until a tear hit one of his pages, and the slowed beat of my heart seemed to stop, and it painfully - though slowly - went on, and because of it, I felt queasy.

This is all I can do: shift to shadow, talk to you telepathically as a shadow, relay any kind of information through here (if you wanted to see a chart, I could display one), and slipping through walls. That's really about it.

I knew that he was anything but calm, and I tried to talk just a little bit more before I would no longer have any chance.

"You still s-sensed Umbra, how is it that he has lingered so?"

He's not much more than sapient power, and I don't think ever was anything else. There's nothing to really dispel about him, so he's rooted in a shell.

It was apparent that in our desperation we wouldn't be doing more than grasping at straws before he... I shut my eyes. It was so inevitable for him. A century or longer, if he managed to avoid some great trap, and he would reform in a wasteland. I would not be able to hold back longer. I had a clock about my neck, a helm to be upon my head again, and the walls of the darker parts of living madness to keep at bay - and I could not do so forever. We are a tragedy now, and we only fight an ending that is already written.

And I couldn't tell him what Nightmare Moon really was. Sombra has been nothing but forgiving and kind to me. He's the best pony I've ever known, precisely because he's not a pony. His love for me is one of the most sincere things - if not the most - that I have known. I won't hurt him by tarnishing that which he holds most dear. He says that he loves me for myself - everything that was below my mask, but I don't want to... I just can't tell him all of how that mask came to be.

"S-Sombra?" My voice is wavering and my heart is both in my throat and sinking faster than ever. His pages are peppered with tears that have fallen like rain. "I-I am so s-sorry."

Sombra...

Luna, there's nothing you need to be sorry for. I...

...and...

"I have everything," The word comes out scratchy, like my throat is parched and that single cursed word was clawed from it, "to be sorry for. I have lead you to your doom and Cadance and Shining Armor to theirs. I have bashed my father's last dreams and left my sister's heart shattered these last months. Neptune was a prophet, in a very sick way, I am broken, and what I've done to you is the worst of all. I feel as though I've done nothing but play with your heart and infect you. In the end, the here and now, I have only doomed you with what must've been insincerity and-"

...Luna...

Four words found their way onto Sombra's pages. I was able to read them clearly enough through the mist of tears in my eyes and how much I was trembling, shaking us both.

Do you love me?

"M-More than I've ever loved anypony. My sister was always this pure idol that I could never rival, and we made so many mistakes... It led to the Longest N-Night, the f-first one." There was my heart in my throat again, threatening to fall out, and spilling passions into every syllable. "She was there from the very start, and I was her shadow. But you and I, to m-me, we felt like... l-like..."

...forever.

"...forever," I spit, only because it was so hard to wrench that word from my trembling body as my blood-born prison and temporary salvation continues to glisten around me.

Luna,

I know that things are hopeless right now. You don't need to try and talk around it or apologize for things that aren't lies, but certainly aren't the truth. I'm not exactly unafraid too. I feel light, and before you picked me up, I almost felt cold.

It's been a long time since I've found myself in this form again. I don't believe that your love for me was anything but sincere, and I saw it develop myself. Of course you'd doubt yourself right now, but even so, you're holding up far better than anypony else I know and even don't know would. All our lives we've done nothing but outdo everypony else, whether you were created superior or discovered you were. I hate ponies, Luna, but I'm fascinated by individuals, and you're one of the few there are. I wouldn't let that end now. We don't have much of a chance, if any at all. That's not a bad thing, either.

Life is life, and life is nothing short of shitty and just inherently 'there'. We're what makes it something.

When I was created, I was just thrown into all this space, vastness, and this world that had been sitting around and happening. It was a cold, indifferent world, and I loved it that way. Every bit of it was mine. I could be selfish and take all the little bits of it that I wanted. Everypony else was just alive in it. I saw that, and I've been in the minds of ponies both literally and through their words - they still didn't really live. They were statistics and present, but not worth interfering with in the ways that Onyx did. You and I are not statistics, princesses, demons, ponies, Alicorns, or anything else.

We're Sombra and Luna. Luna is the most wonderful individual I've ever known, and she just happens to be an ageless, immortal, and undying goddess-princess. Maybe one day, Sombra will just happen to be a demon too.

I'm not going to let anything happen to take a world I'd gift to you away. I want you to have it. I want to go on living myself.

I'm too good for death, and an undying demon god, so there's that too. You're too good for a lot of things, and I have pride to defend and everything to back it and you up. I want to keep trying because I'm no stranger to gambles, and...

When I was younger, Onyx once asked me why I fought back. The circumstance and the where and when isn't important right now. The why is because he was a whiny and cruel brat and complaining. I retorted as I usually do: with defiance, with glorious sass, and just stubbornness that's nothing short of indomitable.

Then he did something that wasn't exactly unusual for him: he told me I had nothing to fight for. I took this to obviously exclude myself, despite how wonderful I am, and that I've got very little to doubt when it comes to wondering if I'm the closest thing that there is to the illusion of perfection. Onyx was actually right about something, but for all the reasons he didn't know. I did have nothing to fight for.

And that is why I told him I'd fight for everything: because I had nothing.

I'm not going to stop fighting, Luna, and I don't want you to either. How are you holding up by now?

"H-Horrible," I choked out, sinking to my knees and casting a quick glance at my leg. Most of my haunches were now black. Maybe I could tell him and pray that he does not feel as though his love for me is violated because of what he has learned about me. "B-But, Sombra, there's something I need to t-tell you... Badly..."

If I let my thoughts slip from the vice-like grip that was waiting to pounce as my focus dimmed and my heart ran wild, I could imagine Sombra looking concerned and just wanting to pull him into a hug and let the words spill out. I tried to steady my grip on his book-form and frantically watched his pages for an answer. This whole ordeal was like being one who can not swim and then thrown into a large body of water with weighted horseshoes.

Tell me.

"N-Nightmare Moon. It's about me as Nightmare Moon."

If I hadn't viewed that spectacle with a potion, I would have been able to feel the magic that you used for myself instead of just watched... Luna, I was horrified when I learned that happened. I still can't believe that wasn't dark magic.

And now for the truth, I think to myself, swallowing as my heart quivers with nervous beats in my breast.

"Sombra... that was dark magic."

The silence that followed died quickly. Red scribblings erratically appeared on the page and I nervously wondered if he was angry with me and how I was to comfort him and quell his anger in this situation. And then, below the storm of what might have been confusion were two words:

Explain. Quickly.

"Are you angry with me? Sombra, I-" Before I could even attempt to explain myself, something was already scrawled.

I'm angry, but not at you. We don't have forever and I will be short with you. Explain.

"After Discord, and fifty years after you, I started... slipping." My voice was unsure, and quavery, and while I tried to rein it in and speak levelly, the best I was able to manage was a passably steady whisper that came from focusing on the fact that I spoke to Sombra. He's always been or tried to be understanding, and if I keep trusting him as I have been, things might end less horribly.

It was likely a futile plead to myself, but I tried.

"I remembered you. Like some sort of ghost, my memory of you and your magic haunted me. I wondered about it and where it came from as I fell further into despair and cutting myself on the edges of sinister thoughts that I let accumulate below the surface. I started focusing on everything in great detail - every little twitch. Things within were fast, timeless, and dark. Everything outside me was so... it was different. That is not my point, it is the magic you wished to hear about."

That would be correct.

I could nearly hear the gruff tone he would have said that with before I continued.

"I wanted to be somepony else. I couldn't escape who I was, or where I was. I longed for a new world that seemed to unfold not in my dreams or when I was awake, but between each tired blink and the moments where my thoughts drifted, growing ever darker in ways that I couldn't feel I could ever escape. I turned to magic. I always strived to grow my magical skill and learn so much more. I still lived in a dark age both internally and externally and found that I had so much emotion below the impassive look that was all I was able to manage."

I had never told anypony these things, not even Tia knew them all, and here I was spilling them all to Sombra, who might be able to understand. He would know why not all of this nightmare would go away... why I still remember it whenever I woke up, if you will. I have never forgotten a dream, real or metaphorical.

"I poured this into my work, and it became my only passion, and a sick, frenzied one. As I progressed, I found that all I had been writing and working on was beginning to be a comparable imitation of your magic. I didn't know of dark magic, but worked tirelessly to do what I could to imitate it, both in things like function and core principles. Dark magic, while having no name to me - it was just a nameless sickness that made up my addiction, was about change. Possibilities gone wrong. Unnatural things. Making monsters. What should never be. The rules that are no rules and the laws that are no laws, each applying to us all, are what dark magic seemed to try to alter, and contorted the caster to do it. I-Is that not true... ?"

it is

I went on. "I had no perfect imitation, but my own version that felt complete to me. I have been self taught, and devised my own ways for crafting enormously complex feats like this, and they are all non-standard. After all, you and I know that no pony would have been able to achieve what I did in fifty years, or even five hundred, and not of their own will. All this things led to my magic being different from, ah, true dark magic. On the Longest Night, I had mustered a frightening calm determination as frenzy raged below and used the moon to help channel and amplify what I was going to bring upon myself: as long as I knew the worst spaces of despair like that I had been going through, I would wear a face not my own."

Swallowing, I gripped Sombra's book-form tighter. "Nightmare Moon was a broken reflection, but a reflection nonetheless. Now I know that was supposed to be the demon; my spell was incomplete. I was in more pain than ever as Nightmare Moon, and neither separate nor whole, but masked. It was a mask I could not remove, but was not as bad as you and Onyx or Umbra and Hasad where it was unable to be torn from me, at least by another. After all, it was incomplete, and a bit of, uh, a 'knock off', as they say. While it was no pale imitation, it wasn't nearly what your dark magic is. Thus, it was neither dark magic or any other. I am sorry to have betrayed you likes this, Sombra. I sought to become what you have despised: a summoner. I just hated hurting so much... and being hurt by others, or watching them hurt around me. I wanted to end it all, for everpony's sake, and make me the only one who knew pain like that as I forced myself to remake a world... and I forced myself to put some of that knowledge into the Tantabus, as a reminder of how horrible I was and that... I think you know. I'm sorry, Sombra. I'm so, so sorry. I'm such a coward... and I was so selfish. I wasn't like you; I know it sounds odd, Sombra, but I admire how you're selfish."

Our shelter was graced with eerie silence and tears threatened to well up again. "Do you hate me, Sombra?"

No, Luna. I don't hate you for this. I'm not even a little bit angry. It hurt to hear that. All those years when I was trapped in the ice... this was happening with you. It wouldn't have been as bad if there weren't still scars. You're not a coward. I'm just... What card do we have to play now, Luna?

All around us, the world trembled, and I sucked in a shaking breath. "Sombra?" I croaked, "What was that? Do you think-"

I watched the red letters spell out his answer.

It's him. Well, Luna?

The red crystal begins to shake, and a few drops of blood that had been clinging to it fall to the ground. I hear the unmistakable grate of crystal upon crystal. This blood crystal - I know of no name for them - and the äerint would clash, and I do know that Sombra and I... our shield would only last so long. Umbra was like a machine, only too alive to break. I was frightened of that and knew that if he was whole, or got his hooves on us now that we've done this to him...

'Merciless' would, ironically, be a mercy of what we would expect from him, for he lacks all that even the lowest brutes still possess-

I nearly gasped and felt myself freeze, accidentally snapping Sombra shut for a moment as the clashing continued.

Possess.

Without fumbling, I flipped Sombra open to the last page he was responding on, where another array of scribbles had appeared, trailing off into a grumpy doddle of himself and something about demon racism and cruelty, but I focused on his latest message:

And the reason your revelation promoted such abuse?

Another grumpy doodle of himself appeared, along with a curious amount of sparkles near his flowing, disheveled mane. I couldn't help but make a sound like a snort at how absurd it was before blinking my teary eyes to clear them. He knows me too well.

"Nightmare Moon was incomplete, even by your standards, no?"

It was, yes. Care to explain a bit more? I'm all for suspense, but this whole ordeal is literally killing me.

"I still have the magical foundations for it... and Sombra, I am already sinking. My cutie mark and lower half..." I shake my head. I had to keep my voice strong.

Sombra's silence spoke volumes.

"We have even less time." Almost as if it agreed, the red crystal prison trembled with me in some kind of groaning, scraping plead. "My magic is blocked and there's no way to heal you... I do not think that even I would be able to do so myself."

The point. Now.

He may not have spoken, but his tone was blunt, hostile, and cold, all the same. My heart had slunk back from my throat, at last.

"Possess me."

WHAT?! LUNA, NO! I'D NEVER WANT TO DO THAT TO YOU. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'RE ASKING?!

"I do," I said softly, and yet my voice rose above the increased crashing sounds around us. My tone was as resolute as I stood. "I am quite literally asking you to complete me, or Nightmare Moon, who is myself in part."

I CAN'T HURT YOU! NOT LIKE THAT! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH COULD GO WRONG? YOU'RE ASKING ME TO, IN PART, HELP YOU CREATE ANOTHER DEMON MADE UP OF BOTH OF US AND MORE. LUNA... Luna... If I hurt you... I don't see any way for me to ever forgive myself. This would be more than just going into your mind, it'd be so much more... I shouldn't have yelled at you... Luna, if I had a panic attack or did something I couldn't reverse-

"Sombra," I said soothingly, wishing that I could stroke his mane to comfort him, "I would not be asking this if I didn't trust you. I have faith that you wouldn't hurt somepony you love, and that's how I know that you could do this. It would be a 'gamble' - as you like to put it - on both of our parts. I am willing to do this if you are. Nightmare Moon was meant to have so much raw power, and there isn't anypony else I would ever allow to do something like this with me. I know that you can help me and that we will watch out for one another. I love you, Sombra, and if this means that I have a chance to pull myself from despair and could save the both of us, I will try. I saved you once, and I would like to do so again. You'll be able to draw my magic again to regenerate, won't you?" He couldn't see me, but I gifted him with a special smile and waited for his pages to be filled with letters again.

I heard the sound of crystal cracking and my smile vanished.

"Sombra?" I pleaded, looking from him, to my changing coat, and the long crack that ran in the surface of the vivid red crystal.

Hesitantly, words began to appear.

...Just remember what I told you the first time, about not relaxing too much and not tensing up? That's all... I'll do this for us, but it's going to take a lot out of me. I've made gambles before but this is... Dammit, just remember that I love you.

I swallowed and nodded and laid my ears back as I watched the book in my forehooves turn into shadow.

Sell your soul, urges a half-voice the begs to be whole.

...

Pink Sunset swayed in the afternoon and mimicked the waves that trembled below before all was still. The heat of Celestia's sun was oppressive and beat down upon the deck on the airship where three equines stood.

Shining Armor drew a few tired, nervous breaths laced with slight irritation and the general feeling that what was happening now in the humid setting would have been less trying on the thinner strings of his patience if he had been keeping less awkward company. He gulped down the last of the ship's supply of lemonade.

"Do you think Sombra and Princess Luna will be holding up well?" He didn't add a title because he wasn't sure which one fit, but this stranger that literally overshadowed him was calm enough.

Noctus' brow furrowed. "We do not know. Perhaps your dear wife, the young demigod prophet would be able to offer some insight into the situation?"

"She's not a prophet," Shining Armor said, "she's high."

Noctus didn't know how to respond or what the meaning of 'high' was. Everything had been a long time ago. The here and now, with such a clunky and primitive excuse for transportation was like plunging headfirst into water.

"Where is she?"

Shining Armor tilted his head back and looked up at him, magenta magic still holding his glass. Moisture clung to it.

"Princess Luna's in that death trap of a place, with Sombra, sir. Is the air getting to you? Maybe you need to eat. When did you last have anything?"

"About three thousand years ago? Our head is a little light in feeling right now, making memories unclear."

"Gods, you need a proper sandwich more than ever, dontcha? I'll go make one and check on the ship. Who knows what Cady's been up to, smoking up such a fine airship. It didn't deserve this, y'know?" Shining Armor flashed the god his winning, friend-to-everypony smile.

Noctus gave an awkward curve of his mouth in response and found his cheek hurt. Otherwise, he was unmoved by the gesture and only returned anything for the sake of politeness. This unicorn was a strange one and was nearly as confused as he was by everything. He knew that the pony known as Shining Armor didn't mean any little offense or general awkwardness... he was a little too mortal in areas, but seemed good at heart. Noctus was even reminded of himself, a little. A younger version, of course. Younger and shorter - just like Shining Armor, he would've been the weakest of the party and the butt of many jokes, but he followed somepony.

A goddess with a curly mane sliced short that fell about her face and eyes touched by the darkness, slited pupils and night vision that was passed down to their daughter. She was of the light, Lumina. Lumina... the Lost.

Noctus swallowed as guilt weighed him to the deck and he bowed his head to escape the sun's bright shine while Shining Armor stalked away.

"Hey there, what's got ya frowning?" A feminine voice and the smell of something burning caught his attention, as did the faint 'pop' of a noisy teleportaion spell's aftermath.

He didn't reply as he calmly looked over the pink demigod. Her eyes were a bit bloodshot, her mane was curly and cut short, and her blue magic grasped something that Shining Armor had called a joint.

He know she liked to be called 'Cady' or 'Cadance' but Noctus only felt comfortable focusing on no name for her. She was the color pink to him... and somehow the current ruler of the Crystal Empire. The thought of a mortal ruling such a treasure was wrong. There was no other way to put it. Nothing like that should be. The Empire was one of the most sacred things... to have it so easily violated in such a way...

Her flank told a different story, one that made her seem like a living paradox. Marked as a perfect ruler for the Empire, yet a mortal.

Noctus sighed. "You think yourself the demon's niece, then?" It was a tame and obvious subject choice.

Cadance blinked slowly but said nothing.

Noctus looked at her curiously.

Cadance blinked again, but in a really profound way.

Noctus looked concerned, and awkwardly ventured: "Empress Mi Amore Cadenza?"

"...He doesn't like to be called a demon." She spoke as though the pause never happened.

"So it seems. How queer that is. It would be like Us not calling you a demigod when needed. Does he think himself another species? He called himself a book when around Us."

"I'd wanna be a vinyl. Infinitely vintage in the heart of hearts, yo."

Noctus cocked his head to the side and gave a small but friendly smile. "What language of the age is that?"

The pink mare stared at him with a loose and transcendent calm, blinking with something he took to be exhaustion. "If the world really ends, do ya think I should just roll it all? Before everything goes wrong? Like, I'm a really good archer. Everypony needs an archer at the end of the world, and there's this backup plan that's absolutely crazy but I'm gonna do it anyway, you know?"

She smiled, dazed and it was Noctus' turn to blink. His expression was sheepish for a brief flash - a ghost of how he was - like Shining Armor appeared to be. "Why do you not... tell Us about yourself?"

Another slow blink. "I introduced myself: Mi Amore Cadenza, Princess of Love, Bitches and Empress of the Crystal Empire. Niece of Princess Celestia of Equestria."

At the name of his eldest daughter, Noctus grew worried once more. What had became of his seemingly prosperous elder daughter? He had asked questions that yielded little: Unlike Luna, she did not have one she was involved as deeply with as Sombra was with his younger daughter. She ruled and she taught. She seemed smiling and professional. Celestia was porcelain. An idol.

He worried, but continued to speak to Cadance, smiling a little. "Why not tell Us more? Where is your home? What kind of demigod are you? Idle chat of that sort."

"Oooh..." Cadance nibbled a lock of her mane in thought, still clutching her 'joint' in her magic. "I was born a pegasus and adopted by two wonderful ponies. My mamma smokes a pipe and my father loves gardening."

"Oh, a pegacorn, then. May We interrupt?"

Cadance nodded. "Yeppers. What's on your mind?" She drew the last word out lazily.

"What species is the other demigod? Sombra mentioned that there were two, including yourself. Are they a terracorn? A winged unicorn? A pegacorn like yourself?"

"Err..." Cadance's eyes glazed over a little. "Twilight was a unicorn, and then poof!" She waved her forehooves clumsily for emphasis. "Two wings happened," she concluded sagely.

"A winged unicorn," Noctus supplied. "Common among demigods. A tragedy it is that you have only two, yet you seem very accomplished, even by the standards of the Old World."

As soon as he spoke the foreign term for something that was anything but that - home - he regretted it. Shadows spread across the deck and humidity clashed with a wave of cold. Noctus tilted his head toward the heavens that had been his, in a way, long ago and his eyes widened at something that he had never seen before.

The sky darkened, and Cadance, so obviously stoned, matched the gesture, blinking. The distant look in her eyes fell to confusion as she was bathed in dark, reddish light and a multitude of shadows.

"Well, shit."

...

A hemisphere away in Canterlot, Discord was shaking violently on the balcony of Celestia's private tower. He only wanted to take a breath of fresh air from the literal columns of leads and obscure magical hoax- rituals that Celestia had been surrounding herself with, desperate for anything that sounded even slightly possible to her in order to obtain information or anything about the presence of her sister and King Sombra.

She was a mess behind closed doors, but Discord being Discord did not mind a mess. In fact, he himself was a mess right now, spasming on the floor like he was gelatin in an earthquake, his serpentine body twisting and convulsing in ways that managed to even surprise him.

He felt boneless, and he probably looked boneless if his current movements were any indication. Yet, he was paralyzed by them and could not find a way to speak or do anything but shake about until Celestia spilled out of the doors to her tower herself, rosy eyes clouded with panic in the dimming light, seeing past everything and beholding nothing. Dark circles of stress were imprinted under her eyes when the day's make up and beauty charms had worn off. She had simply stopped sleeping one day, and only Discord knew. Her mane floated with something like agitation and was mussed from a nap she had almost taken on a table within, but had forced herself to forgo.

"Discord?" she asked, quickly and hollowly, moving a forehoof tired and stiffly so she could brush away tears of exhaustion.

It was a sunny afternoon day, and shadows were creeping.

"Magical... imbalance..." the draconequus managed, giving the princess one thing less to worry about with one corny movement that was visible as darkness tore down the illusory veil of daytime: a thumbs up with his claw.

She took one shaking breath and her words stumbled out uneasily as her voice caught on itself and stumbled a bit - something she never let happen anywhere else and never in front of their subjects. Her mask was still intact, and that relieved her. She only needed to cover up the flaws, over and over again. "Dissy... that has happened since..." She paused, but her whole body was shaking and her wings were folded stiffly, but looked like they might droop to the ground at any moment. "Since shortly before Luna was sighted in Ponemünde and the incident with Rarity, Twilight, and the Celestial Divide..."

She trailed off, and sighed almost forcefully. Then, Celestia looked up the sky. She was bathed in the shadows and the reddish light that now dominated what had been her day.

The sight of a solar eclipse made Celestia's heart pound wildly, and painfully like no other. Pure terror spread across her face.

This was a sight she had seen only once before. It was a sight that the world had only seen once before.

Tears trickled down her cheeks, fighting to escape her eyes and then rolling down in thin rivulets, and smudging what was left of her make up.

The sky was torn apart. As her heart raced on, her mind struggling to think of anything but the shattered image of her sister and the mask she had forced upon herself.

She fell to her knees, face frozen and gasping for breaths she couldn't seem to take. Her breathing was only ragged and heaving gasps.

She fell with a scream to tear the sky again, a single name on her lips before she fainted dead away:

"LUNA!"

...

Luna:

Flight is defying that one might fall when surrounded by everything - only it is farther above and below, and there's everywhere to go. There is no help, many places one might glide, and a long time to tarry. Things below you can shift and grow, but they do not change. Growing is movement and discovery. Enlightenment, if you wished to give it a grand term.

Change is twisting in ways that should not be twisted and foal's tales - change is nothing but an excuse, and misinterpretation for the weak of mind, like those who said that the world was flat because of how they walked upon it in the Tribal Era.

Being a god is much like flight. There is you, and there is eternity. You can meet everypony or none at all, but one must always have their bearings and know themselves. You may walk among the grounded and love them. They can be friends, family, and more - any kind of companion, ally or enemy - but they will never have what you have.

Gods are not without growth. We grow more than anypony. We are the longest stories, and often the ones that never end. We can be the greatest sagas or the greatest bore. We can be the most tragic, or the most merry. We are more ourselves than any, and not because of never-ending life - that is just the backdrop. An eternity can be worthless if what is done with it is equally so.

Gods are not meant to be lowered or forget that they are gods. A painter can still think themselves a painter and befriend a farmer. Telling a god that they are not a god and that they must behave as such is like telling a pegasus that he must have his wings cut off and the bones yanked from him so that he might fit in better. It is brutal, ignorant, and not to be.

I am a god, and I know that none of us were ever supposed to cater or lower ourselves in any way or forget what we are. We must go higher yet, because there's everything left for us and always more, no matter who we are and what our divinity manages. We are not meant to be humbled or be one-sided idols or easy to understand - ponies aren't always easy to understand. We aren't meant to succumb to purposes and notions of duty.

This does not mean that tyranny is all that awaits us.

Right now, I do not know what awaits me, but I am not alone.

All around me is the most amazing sight. I have seen what supernova and nebulae, but this was neither. I can say that it was magic, but not a magic I knew. I knew dreams, the heart's leakings into the mind, but this was no dream.

It was, however, one of the most infinitely beautiful and fantastic things I think that I will ever behold.

There is no fog or haze. Darkness is absent here, and any light is blurred and remade into something that might technically be and feel pure but was too wild for such a description.

This was.

It had an unshakable air of stubbornness to it, this place that was no place. It was, and I was merely here. If this was the root, trunk, and flesh of a great tree I felt like a leaf on on of its branches, at best. There was no ground and sky. I did not float, but I was not quite walking. My hooves touched nothing that they would be used to standing upon, but there was certainly something and a lot of it. Beautiful blues, reds, greens - not pastels of false shades of gold best reserved for a gilded idol - were about, like a sparkling opaque fog - though fog wasn't the best definition. It was a cloud of some kind, maybe? A whole swarm of them.

There were not dotted with stars, but they shown brightly. Crimson and grays spilled across the entirety of this. Cold and heat were barren here, but there was the pressure of presence that felt so familiar. This magic - yes, it was most certainly magic - shifted and writhed. It drifted and moved and shaped itself, a discernible pattern among them, yet a complex one I knew nothing of and was able to maintain a thousand variations. Yes, cold may not be here, but I shivered with excitement at how uncanny this place was. And then I saw how much like fire and sky this was: it was no dance, and there was no elegance, but parts of all this would dart like flame. Rings and lines of crimson script that was a familiar sort of eldritch - any better word eluded me - script that went along like notes on music sheets, only far more fluid.

And then it struck me what this feeling might be: this was some kind of being.

How did I know this? I felt, and I looked, and lo, and behold!

Among the cloud and stuff - ah, how blasphemous a word to this strange and funny being - finer than any haze and yet transcended any fire was something undeniably beautiful.

Raking through all this everything - personality, one might term this spunky, extraphysical flame - were heavenly little slices in this inferno.

Traced in ghosts of their real shades were passages from books, scrambling themselves in ways I was baffled by and images of landscapes: tundras, flashes of buildings, the ocean, and the stars - oh, there were so many of the night looming above some stretch of the world. Chiefly was Canterhorn Mountain. Each undid themselves and would often appear elsewhere if I waited.

There were also ponies there: glimpses of terrified crystal ponies that faded like ghosts, the outline of buffalo exchanging legends in the desert, Cadance reclining in a train car at dusk with a book in her forehooves, and Twilight Sparkle walking in a dark tunnel.

I saw myself in all the little moments I would have guessed no one was looking. I always caught his eye, even in the moments between blinks or when I thought he would have been looking away just enough so not so see me frown...

Neptune stood among them, as brief as the sight of a periwinkle wizard impaled on smokey crystal.

There was an adorably fluffy and feral looking colt with crimson eyes - one wrapped in rags - admiring his reflection. I caught the sight of a young demon king who, in his lucid madness, thought that snipping apart one of his bodies would set himself free - into this. I beheld slight flashes of everything I forgave him for.

"Hello, Sombra," I whispered, knowing I was certainly nowhere, but within and viewing another of his forms - one that he could surely coalesce into outside of all these in betweens.

Sombra trembled with something like pride, but distantly, in a faint acknowledgement to me. I was touched.

"Selene? That can't be you!"

That was not Sombra, and when I turned around, my face touched with shock I was careful not to let him see.

Onyx was almost exactly as I remembered him. Confusion was on his face, and there was the hint of a cruel smile on his muzzle that had been lost to the former, as though he had paused and realized he had forgotten it there. He was a little taller. I last saw him when he was eleven, and here before me he was thirteen... and a little over a thousand and one hundred years more.

His brown eyes were that of a monster, and the smile he settled on was no longer sloppy and dopey, but sadistic. The way that eyes of this child roamed over me made me shudder and suddenly feel so filthy.

"It really is you, huh? Well, how'd you get stuck? Only I'm supposed to be 'ere. I'm not even physical." To prove this, he stuck his hoof in his chest, and it simply passed through. The sight caused him to giggle for the sole purpose of making noise. "I don't think you are either, witch. You here to beat me again? Guess Starswirl taught you well."

I scowled fiercely at him, but he paid it no mind, and strolled about lightly on his thin legs. "Oh, oh! And lemme guess... you and Solara-" He flicked the 'r' in Starswirl's name for her unnecessarily. "-you're still at her heels, aren't you? Maybe in more ways than one, huh?"

I think I was going to be sick at the perverse implications he was stuffing within the last part.

"Look at you, just like she was when she had the nerve to try and defeat me. What's a bloodbath to her? She's a politician, they're, like, supposed to love those. And why does one tyrant care what the other does?"

"My sister is no tyrant, you brat!" I stomped my hoof angrily, and was glad that there was nothing for my divine strength to damage here. "You are no tyrant - merely a murderer playing dress-up, like the child you are! And you may stop leering at me like that," I hissed, drawing myself up into the full extent of what I appeared as on my first Nightmare Night in Ponyville: a more obviously angered goddess, and at one who I would not withhold wrath from.

He almost gulped and his eyes grew wary with remembrance. "Y'know, none of that tells me why you're here. Is it his magic that you want?"

"No," I said firmly, looking at him with a careful glance. He was separate to Sombra, and so was I. If I was to be possessed by Sombra, how could such an impurity like Onyx be tolerated?

I noted that he had an almost ghostly look about him here - while not see-through, he was certainly not solid.

And he was not Sombra.

For once, I didn't care what Sombra said. I was at such a place beyond everything I had known, and surrendered myself to Sombra - it was like the gravity of this form of his was tugging me closer, and to get closer, I must bypass Onyx.

Onyx was simply in my way, and I would do something about it, something that Sombra would never expect, but here and now...

I would separate them.

I look at Onyx, curiously, but with nothing betrayed. He would not know what I would do until he was at the gates of Tartarus itself! "What were those years like, with Sombra?"

Onyx smiled, but with a delight that brought knots to my stomach. "They were the best years of my life... well, not the one in the snow. That was lots of waiting. But when I was a king? Well, I was a king. Nopony knew me as anything else, I got to be a murderer and hurt anypony. Do I really need to spell it out for you, stupid? Those years were the best because I sank and rose-"

"You fell. You've done nothing else but fall further into the dirt, and even below."

He made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat best attributed to moody, shallow youth. "I rose and could be what I wanted to be."

"You lived a lie."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever 'Lene. Lies or not, who cares? They're, like, the same thing. For those years, I didn't ever need to think about anything that I wasn't good at, and I had power." His eyes flashed with the traces of dark magic behind them. "And I had a bloodbath anytime I wanted. Ponies could be beaten, cut, maimed, screaming - anything all throughout the days and nights. I didn't just have to plunge knives into birds anymore, I could do. It was a huge mess!" He smiled and giggled while I listened. "It was such a huge, huge mess! Massacre after massacre, what could I ask for? Eight years of nothing but horror and tears and just me... being better. I didn't hurt and nopony hurt me. I got to be so cruel - I didn't care a bit about it, you know? I just wanna throw myself into that, again and again, no matter what it takes to get there."

"You wished to kill yourself."

"What?" His eyes flashed with confusion and met mine once, but they did not see me. "No, were you even listening? I guess I didn't wanna be myself? Or, like, a pony? I just wanted to do all that, to feel that forever."

"It is the same thing as killing yourself, Onyx." His name was given no familiarity when I spoke it.

He sighed and began anew, clear that he was not listening to me. "It's so stupid, how ponies just think that it's wrong to do certain things. Like, if you kill a pony because you think that ripping everything out of them as slowly as possible because impulse struck you right then and there is bad. And there's all these other limits that are supposed to exist. Getting rid of children? Hey, the Tribes did that all the time, and yet even they'd hate the stuff I'd do, like what? No, no, I just had to do that."

"You killed children?" I whispered in horror, my mind drifting to the nameless youth of the Empire who I wished I could have protected and to Sombra... and what role he might have played in all this, a role I have forgiven him for.

"Uh-huh," Onyx said. "They were like squealing, crying little fish in a barrel. I just had to. It was like stepping on ants. I made Sombra do it a lot too... oh my, he just hated that. I'd try to get him to start being sloppy about them, just leave nothing but all this ghastly stuff everywhere... but he wouldn't, not unless I forced him. I'd punish him for all those things. He was supposed to obey me. If I told him to hack a limb off, yeah, he'd do that and that was nice. He'd crush 'em too, but I wanted messier, I had to have more. If your stupid sister had left me that big ol' barrel of the Empire, I would've done far worse than just killing and torturing all of 'em."

His smile was monstrous and toothy - a pumpkin's grin, because it looked as though it had been cut forcibly onto his face as he giggled a little, and almost girlishly. "Sombra was so against anything I did after a while. He was always challenging me or asking for reasons when all I wanted is to get to that place beyond instinct where there's no thinking and it doesn't even feel like you're you or anything - I just want that. Forever. And ponies should be hurt because I want to so badly, and I don't want to stop for anything else. Food, maybe? Stuff like that? Dunno."

I couldn't stay aloof forever, and was shocked, not by his words but all the things he doesn't know that he means... and that I knew what was in front of me was a reduced shade of what Sombra had to live with. Dark magic loves its puppets because they are all willing and no puppet at all.

Onyx looks around, but not at me. He is distracted and bored as all daft children are, fidgeting and glazed eyed with their white noise voices that speak, but tell nothing. "Sombra was against a lot. He'd kill ponies willingly but called me out for what I did? He was a hypocrite and a liar. He knew all these things... parts of me I'd never say, things I wanted to do... and he'd rebel." Onyx scowled at a memory he thought bothersome and I caught the glimpse of the lie - a cruel tyrant king's, no, and abuser's visage.

Truly, one might say that there were three: Sombra, Onyx, and the King. The last was a ghost of the second with abilities stolen from the first and sick fantasies that should have never flourished.

"Sombra was always rebellious," Onyx says, more to himself than any other. He thinks that Sombra's name is some dreaded thing. An inconvenience or a curse. That alone is a testament to just how wrong he is - something only dear Sombra would know in full. "I wanted that book to make me famous, and for everything not to hurt, and most of all, so everypony else could... I wanted. I just wanted a lot, y'know? Sombra wanted to take it all away. From the start of it all he was messing everything up and saying all the wrong things-"

"Just what is Sombra to you?" I asked, gazing down at the tiny form in my long shadow with no concern or empathy, but not the scolding that my sister would have. This was stronger, because I showed it in a softer way. It was not scolding - this was not somepony who needed to be scolded. This was somepony that needed to be stung with something powerful: the subtle, harsh weight of burning truth.

I saw Onyx truly smile, and I find that only the carnage of war might compare to how obviously vile he is, and all behind shining brown eyes that are now put on display.

"Sombra was... fun. To hurt, that is. He has these freak outs - panicky ones - that started when we were in the Crystal Empire. I loved forcing them upon him, finding them and making them worse. He'd resist mind control more than anypony else - and it hurt way more than just giving in and letting me tear everything apart. He was so easy to use, to..." His eyes glow with glee. "-desecrate," Onyx whispered forcefully in a reverent way that made me shudder.

"I loved hurting him more than anypony. He's... he's so addicting. Every bit of him needs to be hurt, he's the one I need to see break. I couldn't kill him, so I was forced to find other ways..." Onyx sighed, smiling wider. "When he panicked he was so low and vulnerable. He never trusted anypony, and now he never will. I'd really get him screaming. Just controlling him - he's the perfect weapon... except for when he isn't." There was that darker look again, but it was fleeting. "He was like a pet, sometimes. I could kick him any time I wanted... Oh, I loved that. I didn't even need a reason! I just had to try ruin him and I could be at the top of everything - I was at the top of everything."

He paused and truly looked at me, in part. "It almost melted when I was with him."

Swallowing, and pulling myself from a mind swarming with thoughts and a heart filled with fear for what Sombra went to when it was those two alone, and all between their twisted encounters. If demon is a definition, a monster's archetype, then Onyx is the demon... but Sombra... he's too good to be a pony... and there's parts of Onyx that are far too 'pony' to make him a demon. I let myself focus on Sombra around me in his current form. If this is what a demon really is, all personal differences and suffering between them aside, these transcendent equines capable of so much, then I think them rather beautiful. Even if their beauty can be a cruel one.

"What almost melted?" My voice was soft, but never without strength and a dangerous curiosity.

"Limit-y stuff," Onyx said firmly, as if that explained any and all to me. "Stupid words and actions... all of, ugh!" He stomped a hoof in frustration. "ALL OF THIS!" He jabbed a hoof at what he felt encompassed his frustrations: himself, and roughly.

Awkwardness marked his tone next, and a cool air of calculating aloofness settled over me once more. "You have not given me an answer that is suitable. All you have done is proven that you have done nothing short of sell your soul."

"All this. Clumsy stuff. Dumb stuff. It doesn't matter when I hurt ponies. It's like how imps drink puddles when ponies aren't looking. Or maybe sunlight? It doesn't matter. Hurting ponies does because I want to and everything goes away."

"Consequences do not."

"Ugh!" Onyx groans like any typical whiny pony about his age. "You sound like Sombra! He kept talking like consequences even existed for him - like there was something more than me torturing him! There wasn't! He was stupid enough to believe that his actions had them, no matter what happened. Sombra was a fool like that - he'd waste time looking for ways around them or how to deal with them because he's an idiot and was meant to obey me and be used by me!"

I cringe when Onyx's voice cracks on 'used'.

"I'm not a foal any more! I don't have consequences! Starswirl's dead, they aren't there! Ponies like him and Starswirl are the worst! They never know what they're talking about and he thinks he's so much better when he's worse than the dirt on the ground! He's worse! Sombra's the worst! He's this entitled piece of shit that should suffer because he's not even supposed to be here! He's not real and he acts like he can do all these amazing things when he's just an infestation that should have drank himself to nothing a long time ago, a-and..."

Onyx was seething with the anger of a pony half his age, threw his head to the sky and screamed. His scream was shrill and painful and was more suiting to any infantile filly than anypony his age.

I clenched my jaw and begged for the shrill wail that was worse than any siren's song or dragon's call that I knew to stop.

Sighing roughly, I knew I had to take matters into my own hooves and lit my horn. A second sigh - one of relief - escaped my lips. My magic would still work. I did what must done with conflicts like these and the rotten individuals who slaughter hundreds as Onyx has.

I walked up to him with an unreadable but somber expression.

I looked upon his mane and grasped a lock in my magic, and before Onyx knew what was happening, I tugged upon it sharply.

He shrieked and, as I anticipated, made a move to attack me. In doing so, as a clumsy child, all he managed to do was pry my necklace from me - and I let him. This child may take the Tantabus if he pleases, it isn't as though he will be able to do any real with harm with it.

Once he stumbles away, necklace in hoof, fear is in his brown eyes. "W-What are you doing?"

"Removing you from a being that has risen above you and all that you put him through."

Onyx's eyes widen with genuine terror. "What?!" he spits. "H-How?!"

My horn flares brighter and a smile a little. "You shall see."

"Why would you do this? Sombra doesn't mean anything to anypony but himself! Sombra is a monster and a weapon! He's that selfish."

"Well, I suppose that I am very selfish too." I take a few careful steps to him as he backs away, in a pointless retreat to nowhere.

"Great!" Onyx spits out each syllable with a frantic, desperate acidity. "Then you two would be perfect for each other!"

I give him the ghost of a teasing smile before readying myself and subtly shifting so that I'm ready to pounce, so to speak. "Your blessing is most appreciated!"

Comments

[nebulaegalaxy]

"Great!" Onyx spits out each syllable with a frantic, desperate acidity. "Then you two would be perfect for each other!"

I give him the ghost of a teasing smile before readying myself and subtly shifting so that I'm ready to pounce, so to speak. "Your blessing is most appreciated!"

this

tHISISS

[Ice Star]

8243826
indeeeed ;P

[Kaleido]

The one and only. I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do, aren't I?

he's...
he's not just part book, he *is* book

Sell your soul , urges a half-voice the begs to be whole.

oh my

"She's not a prophet," Shining Armor said, "she's high."

oh my god

Cadance blinked slowly but said nothing.

Noctus looked at her curiously.

Cadance blinked again, but in a really profound way.

yesssss
cadance is trying to understand noctus while high, and it's going *perfectly*

The sight of a solar eclipse made Celestia's heart pound wildly, and painfully like no other. Pure terror spread across her face.

wow
this is going to be spectacular.

I give him the ghost of a teasing smile before readying myself and subtly shifting so that I'm ready to pounce, so to speak. "Your blessing is most appreciated!"

well uh, i guess?

(go luna, fuck him up!)

[Ice Star]

10285122
It’s not the apocalypse if everybody is doing just fine~~~

Especially Cadance