Sombra] [Friendshipping]

Author's Note:

Demon facts of Favorable Alignment omake thing part four go! It's really hard to find good art of Shining and Sombra that isn't super gay or shoddy (or fits the story), so the pictures I'll be using for the ones with Shining Armor and Sombra will be weirdly out of context or pretty gay.

Demon Racist 4: What's the Deal With Demon Aging?

Comedy|Slice of Life|Teen

Characters: Sombra the ~~Enigma~~ Sassy, Cadance the Compassionate, and, uh, Shining Armor the... Straight?

Cadance sat down on the grass and her horn lit up with sparkling blue aura. Humming cheerily, she tugged the picnic basket open with her magic and began to withdraw the contents. The grass she sat on was a picturesque spring green still shining with traces of morning dew that lingered longer the farther one went up Canterhorn Mountain. A soft, cool breeze blew, rustling the sparse plant life other than grass: a cluster of bushes and a few trees.

"Why in the name of my incredible good looks are we sitting in the grass and having a bloody picnic?"

Lifting her head, Cadance stared at Sombra, who sat lay prone a few paces away from her, a book balanced in his forehooves. "When I wrote to you that I would be visiting Canterlot, you mentioned that you wouldn't mind having lunch with me."

"And why does this mean you think you can just show up on my mountain and start setting up a picnic?" Sombra growled softly, though not menacingly, and bit down hard on the gum Cadance saw he was chewing. She didn't have to ask to know that it was mint, the sweetest thing that she knew Sombra would eat.

"You said you weren't going to pay for lunch."

"I did." Cadance noted that Sombra looked surprisingly calm, his crimson eyes trained on her. They were always watching and searching for something.

"That's why I packed a lunch!" Cadance said, smiling widely and proudly levitating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Sombra stared at them boredly, using a forehoof to mark his place in the book he was reading so the breeze would not disturb his reading. "I do hope that you're aware that I am twenty four not four, nor have I ever been four."

Inhaling quietly, Cadance prepared to drop the sandwiches she had so carefully wrapped and tied with glittery little ribbons - she had at least noticed Sombra nod in acknowledgement that signified some level of approval over that small detail - a wave of gloom sweeping across her face.

"B-But-"

"Are you having a picnic with Sombra?"

Both Cadance and Sombra turned to look at the third voice. The former whimpered ever so slightly, lip quivering while the latter only offered a mild scowl to the newcomer that he had sensed arriving.

"Shiny, PB&J is a totally cool lunch, isn't it?"

Shining Armor stood at the barely worn trail that led to the secluded part of Canterhorn Mountain where Sombra lived, and blinked at Cadance's minor outburst. "Umm..."

"Tell Sombra how amazing PB&J is!"

"Cady, I thought that you said peanut butter and jelly sandwiches was a snack option that you, uh, considered too..." Shining gulped and looked around quickly. Sombra made a small tch-ing noise in the back of his throat upon seeing that the Crystal Prince was unable to search for an escape route discreetly.

"...too mainstream," Shining finished carefully pronouncing the word as though it wore forbidden.

Cadance's face reddened slightly in response and Sombra's ears pricked forward to catch a small gasp. "Shiny! By Luna, Celestia, and all of Equestria! What did I tell you and Twily about using the m-word? I've met both your parents - my lovely in-laws - so I know you were raised better"

"But-" He looked to Sombra, eyes pleading, that for once, they could put aside their differences and that the demon would offer up his assistance just this once to save him, as any friend would do-

"Not happening," Sombra said coldly, the white unicorn's thoughts spelled out plainly to him. He returned to the place in his book where his forehoof had rested without much else, but still kept his ears pricked forward so he could hear all the drama that played out.

Shocked, Shining Armor attempted to glare at Sombra, mouthing 'cold blooded' in his discretion and facing his wife's (surprisingly mild) wrath alone.

"That is a dirty word, Shiny!"

"Listen Cady-"

"No, Shiny, you listen!" Cadance was standing now, stamping one gold-shod hoof against the ground. A nearby dandelion quivered at her strength. "You showed up to lunch late-"

"Really, Pink One? Inviting him? I may be egotistical, but even I don't need to pick on my inferiors to shallowly raise self esteem and fuel thoughts of superiority that aren't earnest - unlike mine. The thought is still appreciated, but I'll remind you that if we invite Sadsack Armor to lunch, there will be less for us - and that can't be tolerated."

When Cadance didn't respond, Sombra lifted his head, messy black bangs falling into his eyes as he watched the scene in front of him unfold. The start of an amused smirk had begun to show on his face.

"This trip was supposed to be a nice way to spend time with our family and friends and you can't even show up to lunch on time! I made a r-really nice lunch and everything-"

"Cady," Shining Armor interjected.

"No, this is important! Lunch is the second most important meal of the day! Shiny, where are your priorities? You only listen to one kind of music, corndogs are your favorite food - Shiny, I think we need to get our lives together!"

Sombra had marked his page once more, quietly closing his book so he could watch the two of them bicker. There would always be time to brush up on his Germane later, but for now, he was too tempted by the siren song of schadenfreude and the cool wind stirring his mane to pay attention to much else.

"Cady, what do you mean? Our lives are fine, and it isn't like corndogs are that bad - you should just try one!"

"Corndogs are evil!" Cadance shouted back. "Isn't that right, Sombra?"

The small smirk Sombra had widened. "Yes, I can confirm that corndogs are in fact, laced with dark magic that will cause you to rot from the inside out as years wear on. Glitter Sprinkle will gradually become corrupted if his consumption of such a disgusting excuse for a snack food continues."

"Well, you like to eat pizza for breakfast!"

Sombra snorted. "Damn right I do. Not sure how you know but..."

Cadance snapped her attention to her husband, mouth in a wide 'o' of shock. "Shiny! Do you know how insensitive that was to Sombra? He just gave you life saving advice!"

Both Cadance and Sombra watched Shining Armor's bewildered expression in silence. The sound of the facehoof that followed seemed to reverberate.

Cadance bit her lip and Sombra's eyes followed Shining Armor's movements as he walked back down the mountain, the same expression still on his face, blue eyes clouded with confusion. Sombra heard him muttering under his breath as he went, but the exact words went unheard.

As soon as he was gone, Sombra indulged in a triumphant smirk and Cadance began to burst with giggles. The latter trotted over to the former, a spring in her step. When she got too close for Sombra's comfort, Sombra's smirk disappeared, but he looked calm enough to be approachable - at least, by the standards of his friend.

She offered her forehoof, holding the gold-shod limb in the air and waiting. Sombra simply stared for a moment, unsure of what to do.

"C'mon Sombra, don't leave me hanging. You know how to hoofbump, don't you?"

She saw his eye twitch slightly, and though his sigh was obvious, it was an amused sigh instead of an annoyed one. He lifted his own forehoof - his left - and bumped it against hers with a small eye roll that she caught through the black bangs that had fallen into his eyes again. Silver metal met gold, and for that moment, their evil was celebrated.

"Congrats, Mac, you've managed to go from an almost complete goody four horseshoes to barely nefarious."

"Hooray!" Cadance cheered, grinning like a filly who had only just got her cutie mark. Sombra watched her jump and squee, feathers rustling, with deadpan indifference.

"We really need to work on your celebratory abilities, Sombra! I'm barely nefarious now, which is, like, completely evil!"

"Sure it is."

"I know, eh?" Her smile was sparkling and cloud white. "So what demon facts do you have to share with me now that Shiny's gone?"

"And I'm the cold hearted one? You just ditched your husband."

Cadance hastily swallowed a PB&J sandwich that she had unwrapped at an even hastier pace in the instant between her responses to Sombra. "You helped... and he's no fun at Demon Fact Club!"

"We are not calling our meetings that. 'League of Demon Enthusiasts' is far more fitting."

"I'm an enthusiast!" Cadance cheered, gagging on a piece of her sandwich at the last minute.

Sombra glared at her until she stopped coughing. "This is what happens when you doubt my naming ability."

"You named your pet fish 'Fish'."

"It's a brilliant name! Just shut up and sit down. Your Uncle Sombra has a lovely array of demon facts for you today."

Cadance obeyed, plopping onto a nearby patch of grass. She continued to munch on her sandwich and watched with wide lilac eyes as Sombra conjured a familiar stack of papers from wherever he had left them. She levitated the temporarily forgotten basket over to her, withdrawing a cold soda from inside. The glass bottle still shone with magic-held moisture. A bag of ketchup chips followed.

Sombra cast a brief, mildly offended glare, at the food and pulled his book close. Cadance watched as he shuffled the papers he held in his magic and rested a protective forehoof on the cover of the book - she couldn't read the title, it was one of the foreign languages she was entirely unfamiliar with.

...

"Don't demons age like ponies?"

"For the most part they do. When a Shadow - that's what a summoner and demons are called collectively - is created, a new body is as well. That body matches up with one of the demon's souls in terms of physical and mental age. That demon is the most dominant is usually the one that the body 'belongs to'."

"Demons are weird."

"You should know that by now. Bad Pink One." He lightly bopped her on the head with his book.

Cadance took a long swig of soda after recovering from the mortal blow. "How were you able to gather so much information about a species with only one member left? Doesn't that make you practically extinct?"

Sombra nodded, swallowing his gum. "More or less. I'm going to try and make sure that there's never another demon again. As for gathering information? Being the god of knowledge makes it very easy to browse the copy of the Book that still exists in my head."

"Ohmigosh you have a head book? A mind book?" Cadance leaned forward, eyes wide and ponytail swishing.

Sombra growled softly and meanly until she pulled back, nervously tugging her ponytail, pink coat blanched a few shades lighter so that her blue bow seemed even brighter.

"Sorry," she whispered, averting her eyes and meekly levitating a chip into her mouth.

The intensity of Sombra's glare increased.

Cadance gulped, nervously levitating a chip into her mouth... only to find that the chip bag wasn't there. Her breathing felt shallower at the sight of bare ground where her precious chip baby had once been-

-and then she heard a crunch.

She looked at Sombra, mouth hanging open, but no sound escaping. He smirked and smugly crunched on another victory chip.

Except for the sound of ketchup chips being eaten, the only sounds around the demon god and speechless demigoddess were that of the wind and an arrogance so astounding it was practically audible.

1,159 views