All That Lingers

by Ice Star

Chapter 3

Cadance greeted him silently with her presence the next night in the same hall. Sombra was waiting, and his eyes always found her quickly, it seemed. He didn't smile.

"Hello," she said quietly. It was so obvious that things would be stilted and awkward between them if—

Well, if this were to keep up.

"Hello yourself, Princess."

Cadance stood a little closer to Sombra than she would have liked and ruffled her feathers with clear discomfort.

"Empress," she corrected with a cool tone that didn't suit her. "I'm an Empress now."

"An Empress who speaks casually with me."

She paused. "Do you even know my name?"

He gave her a curious sideways glance, and Cadance tried to remember what it was like having somepony who was taller than her. Not since she last saw Celestia and Luna. "I might."

"It's Mi Amore Cadenza," she replied and this time she saw how clearly Sombra noted that she sounded slightly sheepish beneath her crystalline looks. They usually fooled everypony else.

"I think that I'll be calling you Cadance."

They stood next to one another in motionless silence, moonlight pouring over them both.

"Dancing, huh?" She sounded like she hadn't spoken so freely in ages.

Sombra nodded quietly. "I used to do it quite often."

"Really?" She tried a smile and it did not look natural. She felt like somepony trying to cut a snowflake out of rigid ice.

Sombra nodded again. "What about you? All you goddesses were always something else before you gained such an everlasting life. What were you?"

"A pegasus. And aren't you immortal now, Sombra?" Saying his name without title or venom felt strangely intimate. When was the last time it had been spoken?

"I suppose," he said with sudden disinterest. "And when I was asking you what you were I was asking about your profession. What kind of apprentice were you?"

Cadance looked at her hooves and muttered something she knew Sombra wouldn't hear, and he promptly gave her another one of his curious looks that were best described as cat-like. "What was that, dear Cadance? I'm afraid I can't hear you."

Sighing quickly, Cadance then spoke up. "I was in a garage band and played bass."

Sombra blinked in confusion and made a small noise in the back of his throat. "...You did what at whose base?"

Cadance's lifted her forehoof, and covered her not-quite-right smile from his view. "It'd take a lot of explaining." Casual speech poured from her mouth, as awkward as their dancing had been. Disuse will rob a pony of expertise in the strangest things. "I'm not sure you'd understand it—"

"Why not?" Sombra said, arching an eyebrow.

"You're... old?"

Sombra scowled and looked down at her, cold and unmoving. "Old? I'll have you know that I was only thirty-two when I died, if you don't count my time trapped in the ice."

Cadance was quiet for a long while. "Oh... I'm sorry... that is very young."

Sombra snorted. "And now you have seen the error of your ways. Don't you know how to keep your spirits high, Pink One?"

Now it was Cadance's turn to snort. "Pink One? That's certainly new. I can't say anypony has given me a nickname in a while. Isn't a little weird to you that a gloomy ghost is telling me to lighten up...?" She dragged the last word out, like a fading echo, so it trailed off with her wandering thoughts.

"You must admit, you are rather somber."

Cadance chose to answer with a small nod and looked away from her ghostly companion. "What about you? What is it that you used to do?"

Sombra sighed and looked at something beyond the horizon. "Before everything? I was a duke's bastard son that had the sense to walk out on him, and everything and everypony without a word. I was too young for anything on my own, so I followed my heart."

"You became a tyrant?"

"An actor, actually. The Crystal Empire used to have a great tradition of theater."

For the first time since they'd known one another, her smile felt like it was as it should be, even if little light feelings were in her chest. "You were an actor? What roles did you play — let me guess, the hero? For irony's sake?"

"Well," Sombra began, placing a cold forehoof on her crystallized wither to attempt to halt any further questions, "I was a child actor, so I usually played female roles—"

Cadance blinked. "But you have such a deep voice—"

He gave her a disgruntled look. "I didn't always. Now, may I finish?"

She nodded, feeling intrigued, as her coat sparkled just a touch more. "Can I ask you one more question first...?"

Sombra nodded, looking completely relaxed. "Yes. What is it that you wish to know, then?"

"Why do you say that the Empire had a proud tradition of theater? As its ruler, I think I would have noticed if there was a single theater or play that came from the Empire."

"It used to," Sombra replied shortly, stepping away from her and into the shadows of the night.

"What happened?"

Sombra's crimson glare found her from the dark. "I did."

Raising a shaking forehoof to her chest, Cadance took a deep breath and then pushed back an invisible weight as the shadows around her flicked. The moon's light could be obscured, after all, and a cloud outside did the trick.

The hall grew colder as the goddess and the ghost stared across the window's light at one another, each residing in the shadowed halves.

"W-Wh—"

It was all Cadance could manage.

"I didn't stay an actor forever, Cadance. Things happen," he sighed, and then added, "and things fall apart."

Cadance nodded, and not emptily. She knew his words. She lived them.

"And then," Sombra continued, "there are just some ponies..."

Cadance was sure she heard him swallow, or his voice catch. Her ears were keen.

"There are some ponies who just never take no for an answer."

The next deep breath Cadance took was deep, and the sound swept around the dark corridor while the mare who took it shook. She did not know what he meant, but she could guess.

Part of her did not want to.

So, she stepped into the moonlight, seeing her form glittering like a diamond, and extended a forehoof into the shadows where she knew he stood waiting.

"Would you honor me with a second dance?"

Sombra's ghostly limb slipped into hers, and she pulled him into the light.

Comments

[JediMoonstar]

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........

[nebulaegalaxy]

And with this chapter, I am headcannoning this as a parallel universe to the Ice-verse (I bet it's the Ixu-verse >:3)

[Ice Star]

8246165
Oh? Parallel how?

[nebulaegalaxy]

8246167
>Pink One

[Gay For Gadot]

"I was in a garage band and played bass."

Cadance is every 90's teenager, ever.