Apologies
Go ahead. Get the ‘dead story’ stuff out of your system. 
Chapter 24
“Beryl.” Sombra said the name so quietly that it was easy to imagine that he had not intended to say it aloud at all.
“Yes, your Majesty?” Beryl replied, her odd eyes examining the King carefully. “How may I serve?”
Sombra shook his head, clearing away the tattered remains of his thoughts.
“I have not called you up for your service, Beryl, I simply…” his words trailed off and for a moment he lost himself in memory as he reached out to touch his War Marshal’s shoulder.
His hoof passed through her, as he knew it would, and Sombra felt the pain of his displacement in time more clearly than he had in all the time he had been awake. Just for a second, he had wanted to believe he could touch her again. The greatest ally and fiercest opponent to ever stand by his side as he cast his endless shadow over the continent. He had not known it then but Beryl had been far more than his General. She had been his conscience.
Beryl glanced down at Sombra’s errant hoof in confusion. Letting out a weary sigh, Beryl spoke again, this time with far less respect.
“Did whatever brought you back addle your brains, my Lord? Or are we going to continue your bloodbath? I didn’t consign myself to that wretched glowing rock to be poked and prodded.”
Her tone startled Sombra out of his musing and drew out a low chuckle, Beryl’s eyes widened in shock at the sound. “No, I suppose you did not. Though I am curious, why did you allow me to bind your essence to that soulstone? I would have thought you’d have been pleased to finally be rid of my ‘loathsome presence’, even it was simply in death.”
Pushing away her surprise for the moment, Beryl scowled. “Obviously, your Majesty, I let you bind me to ensure that you would always have me by your side to shout down your latest atrocity masquerading as a tactic. A world exposed to your unshackled ego and utter disregard for life hardly bears thinking about and I couldn’t rightly trust some other schmuck to rein you in, could I?”
Beryl emphasized each point by jabbing her incorporeal hoof into Sombra’s armored chest.
“I see,” Sombra regarded his Marshal pensively for a long moment. Long enough that Beryl drew back under the scrutiny.
“Something’s changed,” Beryl said. “You’ve changed.”
“I have,” Sombra agreed, “and in more ways than one, and in my opinion, the changes have largely been positive, although they have come with a hoofful of irritating caveats to my existence.”
Beryl advanced on her king, her mismatched eyes narrowed as she looked him up and down. She circled him several times as if searching for something, her ghostly hooves making no sound in the silent undercroft of the mansion. Finally, Beryl stopped in front of him, a strange look of disbelief painting her features.
“Who… are you?” Beryl asked quietly. “You look like him, like the Tyrant, but you stand differently, and you speak with a weight that I’d almost call… regret.”
“I am Erebos Sombra,” Sombra answered curtly. “I am- was- the Crystal Tyrant, the Slaver King of the North, and Emperor of the Crystal Dominion. I prosecuted two wars of brutal annexation, oversaw the mass enslavement of thousands, and was responsible for the misery of tens of thousands more.”
“And?” Beryl prodded again, and this time her tone was more curious than acidic.
“And…” For once, King Sombra felt his throat close around his words. He knew what he wanted to say, but to say it was antithetical to his existence.
A King did not make apologies for his actions. A king did not regret what was necessary.
But therein lay the question. Were his atrocities necessary? For certain, Sombra still believed wholly that the line of Cadenza needed to be demolished. Whatever nobility it might have once had had long since decayed by the time he had been born under their troubled rule. The House of Cadenza was synonymous with nepotism, disregard, decadence, and cowardice such that even the citizenry of the Empire were happy to install an autocrat like Sombra over the once-noble Cadenza.
Sombra imagined they regretted that decision eventually, of course.
But were his actions necessary?
No. Not all of them. Perhaps not even most of them.
Sombra’s had allowed his heart to be encased in cold crystal and to darken with both the pollutants of the Wendigo’s magic, his own awful temper, and his rage at seeing the only ponies he had ever considered to be friends butchered in front of him.
King Sombra closed his eyes and exhaled, then raised his head to meet his War Marshal’s gravelight gaze.
“And I am sorry,” Sombra said. “For what I did to you… and to the Empire… and for the monster that I became, I am sorry.”
Beryl’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened.
“An apology for my atrocities is poor compensation,” Sombra continued. “I saved our Empire, and then turned it into an abattoir, created an artifact of light and then used it to blacken the whole of the north.”
“Why are you saying this?” Beryl hissed. “Why now? When it has long since ceased to matter!”
Sombra shrugged, a curiously unkingly gesture. “To prove to myself that I am able to grow, perhaps, and perhaps that is a selfish and unworthy reason for an apology, but it is all that I can give.”
“Do you think an apology can make up for your sins?” Beryl snarled. “Can they wash the blood of a dozen petty kingdoms off of my hooves? Can they rebuild the villages you ordered me to have razed?! CAN THEY RESURRECT THE ARMIES I KILLED?!”
Sombra endured Beryl’s tirade with the stoicism of a mountain.
“WHY NOW?!” Beryl bellowed, and if she had been corporeal Sombra truly believed she would have attacked him. Instead, she paced like a caged manticore, impotent and enraged. “Why not somewhere in your centuries of bloody rule? If you were going to grow a soul why couldn’t you do it before you dragged us through Tartarus?!”
“I have no answer that will satisfy you, Beryl,” Sombra replied. “I cannot undo my acts as King, but I can try to make it right.”
“Then go out into the snow and die!” Beryl hissed.
Sombra lowered his head.
Death was what he deserved. This much was true. He had done more terrible things in his long and unwholesome existence than most could manage in twice that amount of time.
“If there was justice in this world,” Sombra started quietly, straightening his posture as if he were lifting a great weight, “then I would have been consigned to the shadows of madness and that madness would have ended in a painful, ignoble death.”
Sombra took a step forward, reaching out until his armored hoof hovered a hair-span from Beryl’s ghostly form.
“Were it within my power to grant you the peace of my death, I would.” Sombra lowered his hoof from Beryl’s face as ephemeral tears, of rage or sadness Sombra was unsure, tracked down her cheeks. “My life does not belong to me anymore, however… it belongs to a mare who dared to make a better stallion of a cruel king.”
“So the Tyrant has fallen in love,” Beryl said bitterly. “Horseshit.”
“I do not deserve her kindness,” Sombra agreed. “I do not deserve this chance I now have.” His jaw clenched as he spoke the last word, and his next words came out hard-bitten. “But I did not deserve to watch my family starve to death in the cold of winter because our noble rulers could not deign to open their larders. I did not deserve to watch my friends butcher one another in fits of madness drawn from a curse levied onto our selfish Empress! This world, War Marshal, does not give one copper bit about what we deserve!”
“And that excuses you?” Beryl asked. The vitriol was gone from her voice and replaced by a strange kind of weariness.
“Nothing excuses me,” Sombra replied. “But I have the opportunity, now, to make her happy. I have the chance to do as a king ought to, and… perhaps this time I will do so correctly.”
“She truly has hold of you, doesn’t she?” Beryl stated more than asked, and Sombra nodded.
“Aye, War Marshal.”
“Does she know she holds a heart blackened by the sin of ages?” Beryl cocked her head, and there was almost a hint of a smile at her lips.
“Aye,” Sombra repeated. “She knows.”
“And still she accepts it?” Beryl chuckled and shook her head, sending her seastorm mane tumbling. “Then she is a better, and far more foolish, mare than I.”
“I owe her my life,” Sombra gestured to himself. “I owe her more than that, in fact… and even if I cannot repay the thousands I harmed, I can and I will repay her.”
“Then my final question, O’ King,” Beryl’s words twisted around the last word, and Sombra found himself smiling at her familiar sarcastic tone. “Why raise me up? Why not leave me to sleep the endless sleep of the damned in this,” she gestured to her gravelight eye, “this thing?”
Sombra stared into the eye of his Marshal. Beryl had been his most loyal enforcer, even if she had also been his harshest critic. She always followed his orders, no slave-collar required, but she did so in her own manner. She had always tried her best to operate within his rule and to soften the blow of his iron hoof, and she had failed more often than not.
Yet, she had always done as he demanded.
For better or worse.
“I want to release you,” Sombra said finally. “To life, or unto death if that is what you wish.”
Beryl stared at him, unblinking, for a long moment. It wasn’t quite disbelief, but it was close, like she was waiting for the other bit to drop. When he did not continue, she let out a quiet sigh, and chuckled.
“You know,” she said, “I thought that, given the chance, I would want to have a chance at life outside of your rule, but now that it comes to it I’m not sure I can do that knowing all of the things I did in your name…”
Beryl looked over Sombra’s shoulder to the other three gems set into the velvet brace of the box, and for a moment her face took on an infinitely tired cast.
“Let us go, Sombra,” Beryl said. “Let us rest, and not in this false, dreamless nonexistence… just let us move on. We only ever persisted to try and blunt your endless cruelty.” She looked around for a moment before settling her gaze on Sombra again. “I’m not sure if this is just some kind of selfish madness on my part, but if I’m being truly honest, I think you may have actually changed.”
“Not by choice, I assure you,” Sombra replied wanly, and Beryl laughed.
Not a forced, harsh laugh. It wasn’t her mocking, sarcastic cackle, or a bitter guffaw. It was a laugh that Sombra had never heard pass her lips in all the span of her service to him. It was a real, true peal of laughter.
“I will miss your counsel, War Marshal Beryl,” Sombra said.
“I will not miss counseling you, your Majesty,” Beryl replied.
Sombra chuckled and nodded.
“That is fair.” Sombra raised his hoof up and schooled his face to an expression of regal authority. “War Marshal Beryl Esmaralda, in light of your years of dutiful service, flawless record, and many honors, I, King Erebos Sombra, do discharge you from active service with full honors.”
Beryl’s form flickered with Sombra’s words, and her false eye gave a weak, gentle pulse like an ebbing candle-flame.
“Rest easy, soldier, thy duty is done,” Sombra intoned as he lowered his hoof. “May the Summerlands greet thee at thy journey’s end.”
With a long, echoing sigh of relief, Beryl raised a hoof over her chest barding, offering Sombra one last salute in the old manner of things, and for the first time, she did it without a scowl.
And then she was gone.
Three more to go.
It was hours later before the secret stairs behind the throne descended again, and King Sombra emerged from the cache with a weary, dragging stride. His armor and crown weighed more heavily than they had ever done before, and he made it all the way to the edge of the throne before sagging.
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” Sombra muttered as he sat on the steps that led down from the throne.
Raising his hooves to his brow, he lifted the crown and let his long, dark mane spill around his face. Strange that it did not seem nearly so heavy when it wasn’t resting on top of his head. Here in his hooves, the crown was almost light.
Sombra had never considered himself a superstitious creature. Magic notwithstanding, baseless superstition only ever served to hamper one’s ability to rule, in his opinion. A king could not put stock in the entrails of chicken to guide his decisions or allow the manner in which sun reflects off the moon to change his path in war.
But perhaps a crown can bear more weight than the metal and precious stones that make up its structure.
“The weight of the dead, perhaps,” Sombra mused.
“My King?”
Sombra jerked in surprise and the crown nearly tumbled from his hooves. A cushion of air caught it, and with the wind came the sweet, familiar scent of the young mare that had become so important to him.
“Mouse,” Sombra began as he plucked the crown from the cushion. “Why are you-?”
The words died on Sombra’s tongue as Fluttershy, who had apparently been resting on their shared throne, stood. Her side was stained pinkish red with blood stemming from a long, thin cut that had been left untended. Her movements were shaky but her gaze was unwavering as she limped off of the throne bringing herself level with Sombra.
“Is something the matter, my King?” Fluttershy asked.
“You… you are wounded.” The words came out with dull numbness. “That is a weapon’s mark, Mouse, what-” Sombra bared his teeth and his hackle rose along the back of his neck- “who has harmed you?!”
Fluttershy tipped her head in a pantomime of confusion.
“The assassin, of course,” she replied curtly, but before Sombra could reply to her statement she continued. “After all, you’ve apparently been inflicting nightmares on the ponies of Stalliongrad, and it was really only a matter of time before they reasoned out where the nightmares came from and tried to make them stop.”
Nightmares.
Sombra felt his mouth dry as he recalled the rude stallions who came to the door. He had Dreamed that night, and in the place between the walls of sleep he had found the pools of those stallion’s dreaming minds. He had drawn the mean, low predators of the Dream to them, and he knew where one found meat others would follow.
Wicked minds are fertile ground for nightmares.
And then he had left. He had ignored them, content that his petty vengeance had been served. They would not sleep well for a good, long time, perhaps not ever again if they were not wise enough to leave Stalliongrad.
He had acted on impulse. On old impulses. His demesne had been impinged upon, his subjects threatened, and his sovereignty questioned, and in response, Sombra had done what he always did. He struck down the ones who had dared to make themselves a nuisance.
Who had inconvenienced him.
“The assassin is currently resting the guest room being tended to by a physician I called from the city,” Fluttershy said, ignoring Sombra’s flabbergasted expression. “And that is where she will stay, safe and sound, you-” Fluttershy jabbed a hoof into Sombra’s chest- “are going to make sure of it!”
“She attacked you!” Sombra snarled.
“She was hired to attack me because of you!” Fluttershy snapped.
Fluttershy’s usual demure and soft tones were gone, replaced with fire and fury. Fluttershy advanced on Sombra, and had anyone had been in the audience chamber they would have treated to the sight of the dark king backpedaling away from a much smaller mare who was glaring daggers at him.
“What did I ask you to do when we came here?” Fluttershy spoke flatly. “Be! Kind!”
“They threatened us!” Sombra retorted.
“They’re bullies!” Fluttershy countered. “Of course they threatened us! They’re mean and scared! That doesn’t mean you get to afflict them with horrible nightmares for weeks on end!”
“I-!” Sombra bit down on his lip. Clearly he had miscalculated somewhere. Admissions of wrong-doing did not come easily to him, however. “I admit that the… the nature of the punishment… may have been ill-conceived, Mouse.”
Fluttershy sighed quietly, and the tension fled from her limbs as she pressed her forehead against her king’s barrel chest, her soft fur matted against his armour, and Sombra let out a sigh of his own as he wrapped an arm around her.
“I know you’re not good at this, my King,” Fluttershy began. “But because of a decision you made, an assassin came for me. Not you, me.”
That notion sent a sluice of ice down Sombra’s spine. Never before had he been forced to contend with the possibility of collateral damage, or rather, he had never cared. His soldiers had not been collateral, they had been coin spent to buy land and territory. Civilian casualties had been necessary messages, burnt villages were the same.
His cruelty had brought no shortage of assassins, but their blades had always been aimed solely for his own neck. It was well-known that the Crystal Tyrant cared for his subjects only insofar as they were of value to him… only so long as they were productive, and no threat against them would move that cold, cruel king.
But now, he was in hiding. Cloudy Skies was the face that Stalliongrad knew. Fluttershy was the target now, not him, and he had…
“I had to hurt her,” Fluttershy started to shake as she spoke. “I hurt her very badly, my King. I broke her wings, and her back too, I think…”
“This is my fault.” Sombra lowered his head and buried his face in Fluttershy’s pink locks. “I… this was not my intent, Mouse… I…”
“I know,” Fluttershy nuzzled against Sombra’s cheek. “I know you’re trying, and I knew you wouldn’t do it right the very first time… it’s just…”
“I forced you to do harm,” Sombra said. “No less than if still had you slaved to my geas.”
No, my King, I chose to do harm,” Fluttershy corrected quietly. “But you did make me have to choose, and I would have very much preferred not to have been forced to make that choice.”
“Now what?” Sombra asked as he pulled back.
“Well, what do you think should happen next?” Fluttershy asked pointedly.
She stared at him. Not Stared. Just stared, with those deep blue eyes of hers, eyes that were so much like Beryl’s but lacking the War Marshal’s deep cynicism and acid personality. Fluttershy’s gaze wasn’t accusatory, nor was it angry, it was just… patient.
“I… I recognise my mistake,” Sombra said. “And I will correct it… I am sorry, Mouse.”
Her features softened to a smile, then she tilted her head up and pressed her lips to his in a gentle peck.
“I forgive you, my King,” Fluttershy relaxed against him and shivered. “I should, uhm, probably have the doctor look at my side now, I think.”
Sombra let out a huff of annoyance as he wrapped her in a telekinetic sheathe and gingerly lifted her onto his back, Fluttershy squeaked slightly as she came to rest on his broad shoulders, then relaxed against him as she found a comfortable balance while he walked.
“Why did you not seek healing immediately, Mouse?” Sombra grumbled.
Fluttershy mumbled something incoherent against Sombra’s fur as they made their way down the hall. Sombra was patient, casting a glance over his shoulder every now and noting Fluttershy’s slightly red cheeks as he carried her, following her silent, nudging directions to the room where the doctor was looking over the would-be assassin.
“Well?” Sombra asked again as they paused outside the door, and Fluttershy extended her wings to lighten her descent from Sombra’s back.
Once she was on all fours again, Fluttershy paused at the door, scuffed a hoof awkwardly against the floor, then sighed.
“I… I wanted to make a point, my King,” Fluttershy said, pointedly avoiding his eyes. “I thought that maybe if you saw my wound, with no bandages or treatment, it might make my point a little better.”
Sombra raised one eyebrow slowly as she explained, and Fluttershy’s cheeks turned a shade redder.
“You left a wound inflicted by an assassin’s blade untreated,” Sombra said slowly, “for dramatic effect?”
“Oh hush,” Fluttershy swiped a hoof over Sombra’s lips. “I learned it from you.”
“And what if it had been poisoned?” Sombra asked as Fluttershy nudged the door open.
Fluttershy laughed; a quiet, gentle giggle that lightened the air around her as she gave Sombra a disbelieving look.
“My King, I lived on the edge of the Everfree Forest for most of my life,” Fluttershy said. “I would know if I’d been poisoned.”
As she was turning away from him, Fluttershy’s butter-yellow coat rippled and shifted to the gray of Cloudy Skies just before she vanished into the small room, leaving a bemused Sombra behind her. The little Mouse had changed greatly since they had come to Stalliongrad. It was a cold land, not as cold as the Empire, but still… cold. Places like this tended to harden the very soft, and break the very brittle. It was good, then, that the Mouse was proving to be made of sterner stuff than the pig-iron these criminals were seemingly crafted from.
He’d felt it the day they met in her garden. Before she had saved him, and before he had realised how much he had changed, Sombra had felt what lay beneath that soft exterior when he’d pitted his will against hers.
Steel of the finest quality.
Sombra donned his illusory facade of Coal Axiom and followed Fluttershy into the side room. A young unicorn mare in a faded habit was quietly admonishing Fluttershy as she applied a salve to the shallow wound.
“By Celestia’s Grace, you’re fortunate this was not deeper, Miss Skies,” said the nurse as she pulled the bandages snug. “Even if it was not envenomed, it might have become infected.”
“I had business to attend to,” Fluttershy replied gently. Her tone was one of warm formality and polite respect in her guise as Cloudy Skies, and sounded far more confident than her natural timbre. “Besides, the hen was in far worse shape than I, she needed your attention more.”
“We can agree on that, at least,” the nurse said before turning to Sombra. “And you are?”
“Coal Axiom, majordomo to Lady Skies,” Sombra replied smoothly. “And you?”
The nurse eyed him up and down critically, then glanced at Fluttershy who nodded. Only then did she relax and give Sombra a weary little smile.
“Gentle Repose,” the nurse replied finally. “A sister of the Convent of Her Morning Light.”
“Ah, a Celestian,” Sombra did his best to keep the strain from his voice as he looked past her and met Fluttershy’s gaze evenly before turning back at the nun. “I trust you possess formal training?”
“Yes, Ser Axiom,” Repose said with a nod. “If this were any other city I might work in a hospital but, as it is Stalliongrad, the only place I can help those who need me most is from the halls of the Convent.”
“So you are not a mare of faith?” Sombra asked.
“Of course I am!” Repose replied sharply. “I was raised in Celestia’s light, one does not need to be atheist to be a doctor, Ser Axiom.”
“Coal.” Fluttershy spoke the name of his guise and nothing more, but beneath that single syllable was an entire admonition.
Despite being on the receiving end of it, to hear Fluttershy rebuke her servants so gracefully actually filled him with pride. Regardless, Sombra bowed his head in studied apology to Gentle Repose.
“I meant no offense, Sister,” Sombra said.
Gentle Repose gave the dark stallion a narrow-eyed look, but finally nodded and turned back to Fluttershy who had moved to the sleeping hen’s side.
“You keep your servants on a short leash, Miss Skies,” Repose said with a small smile as she joined Fluttershy.
“I do what I must,” Fluttershy replied diplomatically. “Will the assassin live?”
Repose nodded. “She will, though it will be some time before she walks again, and even longer before she flies.”
“Then you will care for her until she is able to do both,” Fluttershy said in a tone that brooked no argument and drew a frown from Gentle Repose.
“With respect, Miss Skies-” She began, but Fluttershy shook her head.
“I will put you on retainer,” Fluttershy spoke over Repose with a kind of quiet grace that made it difficult to speak back. “I’ll pay out a donation of five hundred gold bits to the Convent per month for you to remain and treat the hen.”
Repose’s eyes widened. A sister of a Celestian convent she might be, but five hundred gold bits would go a very long way towards helping the needy around Stalliongrad, and five hundred per month even more so.
“Why?” Repose asked before she could stop herself. “This hen tried to kill you. I won’t heal her just so you can torture information out of her if that’s what-”
“I would never!”
Fluttershy’s voice struck a deadly hiss, like a razor being drawn across oiled leather, and Repose froze in place as Fluttershy’s eyes fixed coldly on her for a long moment before softening.
“My apologies, Sister,” Fluttershy said quietly. “To be clear, I only want you to heal her, nothing more. Just make her well again… please.”
“Why?” Repose asked again. “I don’t understand.”
Fluttershy laughed a little bitterly, a sound that put a splinter of pain in Sombra’s heart. He had brought Fluttershy here to hide from Celestia’s light because Stalliongrad was the only place dark enough; it was a city where even the nuns were cynical.
“Why? Because it’s the right thing to do, Sister Repose… I’m not sure how else to explain to you that all I expect you to do is be kind.” Fluttershy put a hoof on her shoulder briefly, then sighed. “If you won’t stay, I won’t force you, but I would ask that recommend someone, pony or otherwise, who might be willing.”
Gentle Repose stared at Fluttershy for a long, disbelieving moment before relaxing back and looking down at the hoof on her shoulder. Sombra could feel the conflict in her, the roil of emotion and distrust that was warring with the very Equestrian desire to trust that this gray pegasus mare in front of her was being genuine.
Fluttershy, for all of her timidity, possessed a natural charisma. Whether it was her aura of kindness or something more nebulous, Fluttershy made ponies want to believe in her.
“I’ll stay,” Repose said finally. “If you’re telling the truth, then I will stay.”
Fluttershy’s smile was radiant.
“Thank you, Sister.” Fluttershy drew her into a quick but warm hug, then pulled back and turned to Sombra. “Mister Coal, please draw up the necessary paperwork and dispense the funds.”
“As you say, Lady Skies.”
Sombra’s reply came with only the slightest quirk of the lip as he bobbed his head in a quick bow, and Fluttershy gave him a smile as warm as she dared without betraying herself.
As Sombra left, Fluttershy spoke up again.
“Since you’re going to be staying, I’d like you to do a checkup on my daughter…”
Sombra chuckled as he dissolved into shadow and moved through the rooms of the mansion to the throneroom. It would be a relatively small expenditure, and it would not be unwise to have a medical professional on hand. That she was a Celestian nun was problematic, but in a city like Stalliongrad that might be the best case scenario.
Hopefully, he would be able to keep things manageable. The famiglias would not know one way or the other if the assassin succeeded, but if he lifted the nightmares they might assume the act was at least enough to accomplish their goals.
Tonight he would banish the creatures back to the deep places of the Dream once more. No more unearthly nightmares for now. Still, he would have to speak to the Mouse about a reckoning of some kind. They had been attacked in their home, and that had to be answered, and besides…
The Mouse had no love of the famiglias, and at that thought Sombra tapped his lip as he shed his disguise and came to rest on the throne.
Perhaps it was time to go on the offensive in a more concerted manner than just petty vengeance. It would have to be in a manner that the Mouse agreed with, one that resulted in a net gain of ‘good’, whatever that meant. He would leave that to Fluttershy to determine, she was far better at judging such things than he was.
With an effort of will, Sombra reached beneath him to the cache and summoned one of the smaller crates of material wealth to his side. Sifting through it, he counted out the amount for the month’s retainer, set it aside, and teleported it to the sealed coffer in his office. He would handle that in the morning.
As he did, something caught his eye.
A bracelet, subdued and beautiful, and crafted from soft, yellow gold, with a bloody red garnet set into the middle.
Carefully, Sombra drew the band out of the crate and turned it over and over, eyeing it critically for a long moment before nodding to himself and setting it aside. He would perform an engraving on it later and enchant it with a charm of durability, and then…
Yes, perhaps it was time.
Every King needs a Queen, after all.
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The Return of the King. (And Shy)
Yes, yes, yes, YES!
Heck yeah!
YES! ITS BACK, AND ITS AN AWESOME CHAPTER!!!! YAY!
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It's back in part because I felt bad leaving a story unfinished, (especially since I know how it's supposed to end), and partially because the events of King & Shy are technically canon to my EQG stories, lol.
I would like to see Scootaloo's check up.
I just binged this whole thing without so much as a water break. I'm now going to OHOHO obnoxiously until I pass out.
Thank you for the delightful experience.
Outstanding! Welcome back, old friend. You are most welcome!
IT'S ALIVE!!! Wish the others sombrashy fic will be alive too
Glad to see an update to this. To date, it is the single best SombraShy story on the entire site. Welcome back.
Oh, my! Like the dark king of the north, it lives! :D
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"and partially because the events of King & Shy are technically canon to my EQG stories, lol"
...Huh. Well, that's interesting. The question "How?" naturally arises, of course. :D
It's alive, alive!!!!!
YOU'RE BACK!!! THANK GOODNESS!!!
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In fairness, I never left, I was just writing other stories, lol.
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In Featherfall, Princess Twilight made oblique references to a specialist in mind magic and ‘her Fluttershy’ having some unusual circumstances.
Aaahh.. another chapter to fuel my ever growing addiction to reading.
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Ah! Right, thanks! :D
(Though I think part of my wondering was that I think you have at least... three different EQG story continuities?)
I read the new chapter. Then I read all the previous chapters. Then I read this chapter again. I'm glad the story is back :).
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true, but in a certain sense Dead by Sunset ties to Featherfall too. Think of it like this: Featherfall is the main continuity. Off to the side is the 'timeline that god forgot' which is Dead by Sunset. In that timeline, Sunset gives in to despair and ends up in the Trials, where she falls to darkness. Tempest and Summer Wind end up in the Entity's realm as well, with Summer eventually giving in and becoming the Hag. In Featherfall, Tempest and Summer are still together, but the Trials are alluded to whenStorm King infiltrates Canterlot High via magic, bursting out of a locker and remarking on how those 'realms weren't meant to be used like that'.
So technically, King & Shy is canon in a bunch of my stories!
“Let’s see what new stories are up on FiMFiction... wait, what? I thought that story was dead? Welp, YIPPEEEEEEE!!!!”
That was me this morning :P
Great chapter, can’t wait for more!!
It lives!!! I am so happy you're continuing it. I hope you're doing well.
Lalalalala it's aliiiiive
I've read it all from the beginning, even though I remember everything. Good stuff
Does this mean we will get more?
10248279
Oh, thanks. :)
(And maybe I shouldn't have read that first set of spoilers, but, well, I was curious, and I still don't know when I'll get around to those stories (sorry). :))
So the Rules continuity does not have the same Equestria, though?
(And, of course, certain details make it pretty clear that the In a Rut continuity definitely doesn't. :))
I LOVE it when such a great story comes back to life!
Like many others, I binge read the whole thing. And I love how Fluttershy is growing here.
10249072
Yes, you'll definitely be getting more. I am continuing the story, lol.
10249457
Rules follows a lot of the backstory and worldbuilding I use, like the history of the Sirens and the way magic works in both the human world and in Equestria, but yeah, the canon is definitely different. Rules does subtly diverge from Dead by Sunset by taking a kind of hindsight look at what would have happened if Sunset and Rainbow had gotten together rather than the result of DBS, but that's it really.
10253713
I always felt like Fluttershy's character growth was a little clumsy here, but I like writing the story and exploring the kind of dark adventure style of storytelling with the undercurrent of romance between King Sombra and Fluttershy.
So, I'm not familiar with "Ser" as a title. Is it an actual title or a typo of sir? What exactly does it denote?
If I'm reading this right, does this mean she is an atheist, or Sombra does not think ponies in holy orders can be doctors? If so, er, why? In a world where the gods are physical creatures that can be interacted with, wouldn't you want a doctor with that kind of knowledgeable background?
10571301
I believe the Ser is because of the accent making the I an E in sir. That’s my understanding of it.
10994139
It's the short form of a knighted person.