A touch of evil
She definitely wasn’t a fancy-pants alicorn, this I could confirm. Not even tiny wings. She was most certainly a regular unicorn, as far as one of those can be regular. She was big though. At least as big as Celestia if not a little bigger. I could tell that even with her on the bed.
Why was she on the bed, exactly? Was that her bed? Was this her room? I must say this whole thing was going right over my head.
Was Beadle about?
Actually, looking at her, she was definitely bigger - taller, I’d say, if only by a hair, along with just being more. Thicker in the everything. Had more of a presence. The way she was looking at me kind of made me want to take a step back, though.
That her eyes were a solid, dark red probably had a lot to do with this.
“Don’t be shy. We can hardly talk if you stand all the way over there,” she said.
I was, indeed, still standing all the way over there. ‘Over there’ being by the shutters across the room, some distance from the bed. I felt pretty comfortable there, if only because I still had no real grasp of what was happening.
“Here is good,” I said, resting my stick in front of me and putting both hands on it. Powerstance, baby, makes needing the thing worthwhile. “I must say this trip isn’t kicking off the way I expected.”
She cocked an eyebrow.
“Is that so?”
“Well the getting here was fine, that part I could handle. Just took a while. But arriving has been a whirlwind of confusing activity. I’ve been quite turned about.”
“You poor thing.”
She said this, but the way she said it made me think that maybe she wasn’t being entirely sincere with me. Fair play, lady. No-one likes a complainer.
“Well, things could always be worse,” I said. She just nodded.
An awkward silence.
“Do you not know who I am?” She asked eventually, thankfully. I hadn’t been sure what else I could have said, really.
I squinted at her. This didn’t help me in any way, shape or form. She remained an enigma to me. A striking enigma and one unlike any enigma I’d clapped eyes on up until this point, sure, but an enigma all the same. Didn’t know her from Adam. Or Eve, I guess.
Ooh, I’m remembering more human names without getting a splitting headache! That’s a good sign, right?
“Should I?” I asked.
Again with that smile. A lot of smiling, recently! Though while the guy who’d lead me here had had a kind of real distant, fixed-in-place affair this one was definitely all natural. Though, despite me being an avowed fan of such things, this one just kind of put me on edge.
Felt like I was late to a punchline.
“Most would have an inkling. It’s rather refreshing, your ignorance. I rather like it.”
Thanks?
“Glad I could be of some use to someone. Uh, you wouldn’t happen to know where Twilight is, would you? Or when she might be available? I’m not sure how all this is supposed to be working.”
“I’m getting that impression. I wouldn’t worry about it, if I were you. Everything is proceeding as it should.”
Was she trying to sound sinister? If so she was doing a pretty good job.
“You really should come closer. Conducting a conversation across a room is hardly ideal.”
Her horn glowed then, and I was yanked forward before I could even consider moving. The experience was an odd one and not what I would describe as comfortable, given I was held ramrod straight as I was yanked, coming to a sudden, jarring halt perhaps a foot or three away from her, just above ground-level and hovering.
This was apparently amusing, as she chuckled. Maybe it was funnier from where she was sitting. To be fair the visual had probably been pretty good.
And from up close I could say that she was definitely bigger than Celestia. This I could confirm.
Celestia and me were roughly the same height, with me being, as I shall never tired of pointing out, technically the taller one because I came out maybe an inch or two higher and her horn didn’t count. Just to confirm.
We’d argued about the horn but I was definitely right. It didn’t count. I was taller. Definitely!
This unicorn lady though would clearly be topping out over me if she stood up, this I could see. A unique experience in Equestria so far, I must admit, and a little unsettling to even consider. Big horse!
Also, closer, I could see that her eyes weren’t actually entirely red, just so red that her pupils had initially been difficult to make out. This didn’t improve things for me, much, especially given that they appeared to be slits. Figure that one out.
“Hi,” I said.
She didn’t say anything to this immediately, instead shuffling back a little on the large - and needlessly luxurious looking, I must say - bed and patting the vacant half of it with a hoof. Even her horseshoes were scary! Was that, like, Chaos Dwarf level dark iron or something?
“Sit, please. You don’t look comfortable,” she said, setting me back down as her magic flicked off. Wish I had magic. Though, if I did, would using it kill me? Bah, that’s just not fair.
At an outside guess I figured that getting closer to this horse lady was unlikely to make me any more comfortable, fancy bed or not. But staying standing also kind of seemed a very good way of getting particularly uncomfortable real quick. Just something in her tone.
That and, you know, I got a dud leg. I’ll take any chance to sit down, me. So I did, just perching on the edge, sideways onto her.
“Nice place you got here,” I said.
“That’s very kind of you to say. I am not as I once was, but I try my best.”
Okay, look. Even I can tell when everyone else is in on the joke and I’m not. I can only live in blissful ignorance for so long. At some point, even I can only take so much. I had to at least look as if I cared what was happening.
“I feel like I’m missing something here,” I said.
“I feel you may be right.”
Bah, now she’s playing silly buggers with me.
“No clues?”
“Oh, where would be the fun in that? If you really can’t guess I’ll tell you.”
“I’ve never been one for guessing, my mind just sort of goes blank. And in case it wasn’t obvious I’m not from around here, not really that familiar with who’s-who.”
She gave me a look. Again, those red eyes were maybe a little unsettling. Ain’t seen anyone with eyes like that so far. I felt like I was being read.
“You really don’t have a clue, do you?”
“Think we established that. Sorry, I’ve never been that on the ball and that was before I somehow ended up here. Here generally, I mean. Not in this room. Though being in this room is in itself a confusing experience.”
I was babbling because I was increasingly tense, not helped by her moving in a little closer across the bed.
“Umbra. My name is Umbra.”
Umbra? That name rang a bell.
You know, it sounded an awful lot like that queen, didn’t it? The big, nasty evil one?
But that would be - no! No, ridiculous. Far too contrived.
“I can see you’re second guessing yourself. You shouldn’t,” she said. “Would ‘Queen Umbra’ help narrow it down for you?”
Well, yeah, it would.
“Really? That Umbra?” I asked and she inclined her head, just a notch.
“There are no others.”
Seriously? I said this before but Beadle had to be about, didn’t he? At what point did everyone come in and start pointing out the cameras? This was ludicrous. I thought - and my limited research on the subject really kind of suggested that meetups with ancient, notoriously evil monarchs should take place in grand arenas with much magical pyrotechnics and possibly even dramatic music. At least a smoke machine.
Not, you know, in some weird room somewhere. On a bed.
Should probably point out that when I keep referring to my ‘research’ I am referring to a potent combination of asking Twilight and occasionally referencing books for children, which I read slowly whenever I’m not trying to decipher the pictures for deeper meaning
Hey! I’m getting there! Leave me alone!
“I think I heard you mentioned. Weren’t you defeated? Twice?” I asked.
For a second I got a real, real good impression that I’d said precisely the wrong thing. Her expression didn’t change much but I just got this sudden, overwhelming feeling that I’d made a horrible mistake in mentioning this.
Only for a second though. It passed through me like a shiver.
“Oh, I was,” she said breezily, as though it wasn’t something worth getting worked up over. “If one can define suffering a minor setback as a defeat, which I suppose some might. Personally, I am not so naive to think that the road to total domination wouldn’t come without a few bumps. They’ll all be behind me one day, and none of this will matter. All of this...indignity…will be forgotten. I’ll make sure of that.”
“Good for you?” I said. Not sure what else I could say to that, really. ‘Total domination’ is kind of a conversation killer.
Again, what I knew about her wasn’t exactly positive. Kind of difficult reconciling what I’d heard with what I was hearing. I’d expected brutal tyrant. I was getting, uh, well I was getting uncomfortable. But I wasn’t dead, so that was a plus?
Man, this was serious, wasn’t it?
“It will be, though not just for me, of course. It’ll be good for everypony, even if some have difficulty grasping that at the moment. They’ll come around, or they won’t be around. One way or the other,” she said.
And she smiled again, and the smile lacked warmth.
“Having goals is healthy,” I said, again at a loss and not feeling comfortable enough to just let silence settle down.
“And what are your goals?” She asked me, leaning forward.
Well that caught me off-guard.
“Uh, I’ll have to get back to you on that,” I said and she laughed, lightly.
Small talk?! With evil queen?
Had I died at some point and not noticed? Was I asleep on the train? Oh! That was it! Jeremy Beadle wasn’t the one I had to worry about, it was Luna! Lurking someone, laughing it up at me, I was sure of it.
Nothing seemed to change though, and no Luna appeared.
Well, let’s just continue as though we’re waiting for the beat to kick in, as it were.
“So...this how you spend your time now?”
Again that fleeting, brief feeling that I was sailing dangerously close to the wind. It was kind of like that feeling you get when you lean too far back in a chair? Not a fan.
From the outside everything looked fine, she didn’t look annoyed, but from where I was sitting I felt for possibly the first time in my life that I might actually have to start thinking about what I was saying.
First time for everything...
“I spend my time wisely and everything is - as I said - proceeding as it should. That doesn’t mean there aren’t periods of downtime, however, and quiet periods when I am waiting for the actions of others to play out. How I choose to fill that time is up to me,” she said, waving a hoof and speaking breezily.
“Would now be one of those times?” I asked.
“Now would be one of those times.”
Okay. Am I putting anything together here? Not really.
Time to be bold? I licked my lips, which were rather more dry than I remembered them being some minutes before.
“You know, for someone who got defeated you’re looking remarkably healthy,” I said.
Her tail flicked on that one and I involuntarily shuffled a bit further away from her, very close now to just falling off the bed. This she noticed and, with another little tinkling of magic, I was hauled closer.
“Defeat is not absolute, not if one prepares correctly for possible setbacks. If one thinks only in terms of short term successes and failures and assumes that one or the other means that the work is done, then they are a fool.”
“Okay?”
Presumably if I was an evil queen this would make more sense to me. Like with Cheerilee and her teaching stuff. Just not my wheelhouse. By a long shot.
“I am aware that it’s assumed I have been dealt with. This is useful, actually, for me. Such complacency speaks very poorly of everyone else though, don’t you think? As though there wouldn’t have been contingencies. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail, and I do not fail. I succeed on my own timescale.”
I had no idea what this scary looking horse woman was talking about but it sounded very serious so I just nodded. Whether or not she’d been expecting more from me I couldn’t really tell, and she just looked at me for a moment before blinking, smiling, and changing her tone completely. It was uncanny.
“But enough about me, I know all about me. Let’s talk about you. You are a unique specimen, aren’t you?”
Never been called a specimen before, to the best of my knowledge. Not sure how I felt about that.
“Um, technically yes, I suppose. At least here.”
She grinned briefly and I could have sworn her teeth were pointed. Probably my imagination.
“How fascinating,” she said, leaning in closer towards me.
A problem with ponies, I’d found, was that they were sometimes a little difficult to take seriously. I tried, I really did, because they were, you know, sapient beings worthy of respect and consideration. But I’d spent my whole life dealing with people who weren’t brightly coloured in a land of wonder, even if I couldn’t remember the other people in question. I just had a sense that they hadn’t even been quite so vibrant and nowhere near as cute.
Which meant that, then, I was torn between continuing to feel strangely intimidated by this unicorn lady - on account of her being so big and having such scary eyes and also just being so worrying in a hard-to-define sort of a way and also being, you know, AN EVIL QUEEN - and also not feeling intimidated because she was still a squishy horse.
This place, man. I’m at sixes and sevens.
“That might depend on your standards for fascinating,” I said, to which she giggled. An actual giggle! Didn’t seem to fit her at all. Nice, sure, but just out of nowhere. That seemed a bit much for me, given what I’d said, but who was I to judge?
“Yes, I suppose it might. Let me clarify, then, and say that it’s quite fascinating by my standards, which is noteworthy,” she said.
“It is?”
“Of course it is. I am a queen, after all.”
I cast an eye towards the door. Leaving seemed like a great idea to me. Maybe going and getting someone? Telling them that that evil queen they’d been so happy to see the back of was, you know, just hanging around? Maybe they should get on that?
Doubted I’d get far though. I can’t move that quick and, also, she’d just pick me up with her magic brain. Which is cheating but there wasn’t a lot I could do about it.
Just pick my moment, I guess. Play for time, yo.
“Why am I even here? How did you even know about me?” I asked, just to switch things up.
Shouldn’t she have better things to be worrying about? I mean I know she said about the whole ‘having lots of things on the go’ and ‘downtime’ stuff but really, this seemed beneath her.
“I know an awful lot of things, and certainly I know most of what happens in Equestria. It pays to be in the know, and so I have my eyes and my ears everywhere,” she said.
“You do?”
“Yes. Most aren’t even aware of it or the part they play in it, but I do. I wouldn’t worry about that, if I were you.”
Yeah. Sure. Easy to not worry about that.
She must practise sounding this sinister and unnerving. Must be part of the evil queen lifestyle. Probably also advised on those evil horseshoes, too. You don’t really see those sort of things for sale.
Dark iron horseshoes, protect hooves, hurt others. Ahaha.
Umbra gave me a particularly broad smile, which wasn’t reassuring, and then continued:
“So I hear a lot of what goes on. Most of it is tedious, but in the middle of that one day word came to me that Celestia was associating with something quite unique - something which, if rumours were to be believed, is from an entirely different world! Well, that sort of thing piques my interest. And imagine my delight when I hear that Celestia’s interesting pet is travelling up to my end of the world! Unaccompanied, no less. I could hardly pass up such an opportunity.”
Pet indeed. You’re just trying to get a rise out of me, lady, I know you are. Well I’m not falling for it! I’m a big boy.
“Yeah and she lets me off the leash and this happens, what are the odds? And I came up here with Twilight, you know, not alone.”
Umbra tutted and looked away, checking her hoof. Still shod in evil dark iron, but apparently dusty as she blew some off.
“Yes. Her. Well, her on her own isn’t a particular concern but the situation is being monitored,” she said.
“By your eyes and ears?”
Another smile, wider this time. She was all smiles this lady.
“Indeed.”
“Well, that’s how you know about me but that’s still kind of begging the question of why I’m right here, right now. In this room. What is this room, anyway?”
“Just a little place that’s tucked out of the way. I have several. This is one of the comfier ones, seeing as you’ll be staying here for a little while,” she said, somehow managing to pick at a loose thread on the duvet with her hoof, frowning at it.
That gave me a jolt. Not the thread, what she’d said.
“Ah, heh, what?”
“Not for too long. Well, I suppose actually that’ll be up to you. But not forever, certainly. Just a little while.”
Probably should have figured that out on my own to be honest. Kind of already had, just hadn’t fully grasped it. Oh this wasn’t good, was it?
Surely she had better things she could be doing?!
“Ah, ahaha, that’s - not a huge fan of that, uh, Umbra. Don’t suppose you’d be open to just letting me go if I asked nicely?” I asked. Worth a punt.
She gave a shockingly convincing display of looking as though this hadn’t occurred to her as an option. I almost bought it. She brought a hoof up to her mouth in what appeared to be honest surprise.
“Oh you’d have to ask very, very nicely.”
I swallowed. What was a person supposed to do in a situation like this?
What did I remember about kidnappings? Rule one! No routine. Wait, that didn’t apply, little too late. Uh, rule two! Never let them get you to where they’re trying to get you. And I’d walked here myself. Shit. Too late for that, too.
Just make something up!
“Not to toot my own horn or anything but so, you know, so you know, Celestia kind of likes me a little bit so there is the possibility that she might try to work out where I’ve ended up? Assuming anyone even notices I’m missing, obviously,” I said, working an angle made up on the spot.
Worth a shot, right?
Presumably, noticing that I was gone might take them a little while, at least. But once they did figure out that I wasn’t just lost, what then? Look around for me, fail to find me because I was being hidden. Then what? At what point did Twilight actually tell Celestia, and when that happened, what did that even mean?
I had no idea. None of it was great to consider though.
Was this actually happening?!
Umbra did not seem too concerned anyway.
“She may well come looking for you, yes. In fact it seems likely that she will before too long. But what is life without a little risk, hmm? And, what’s more, perhaps this is what I wanted to happen. Perhaps you’re serving as bait? Does that sound likely to you?”
That didn’t sound good. I felt I should say something but she spoke first and cut me off before I even got started.
“Ah, but I think it would be for the best - for you - not to dwell on my motives. You probably wouldn’t understand them anyway, and they wouldn’t do you any good even if you did. One doesn’t need to understand a situation to be in it, after all.”
She grinned again and this time I got a very good view of those very definitely sharp teeth. Damn lady had fangs. What does a magical horse need with pointy teeth anyway?
“For biting things,” she said, eyes flashing. Literally flashing.
Well that answers that.
Wait.
Wait a minute.
The grin got wider.
Oh no.
“Oh yes.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.018 seconds
Total duration
862 users online
1,262,944 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
9698752
It's actually Kerrigan.
And because I have a very idiosyncratic sense of what I find amusing and engaging.
That setup.
i.imgur.com/W3CoWiK.jpg
I wanna attack her soooooo bad.
The villains who don't have the sense to stay dead have a knack for ticking me off in just the most irritating way.
Then I make them stay dead.
9698769
So, changeling? Not Sombra's mother?
Oh boy here we go!
9698924
Well I'd hardly tell you, would I?
I’d think she’d have problems reading his mind given both the magical fragmentation and just how insanely all over the place his thought process is.
9699084
You would be right.
9698924
Seeing as he heard about her before, I'd guess there is no "king" Sombra over here.
Also, this could end being extremely dark, or bizarrely hilarious. I'm personally hoping for the latter, while knowing that the former is still a possibility.
9699230
I find the idea of an evil queen a lot more compelling than an evil king. Personal reasons.
We all have our vices..
9699236
I definitively can't blame you.
Ah, she just needs a good petting / scratching behind the ears...
9699084
Too true, given nobody has actually tried to help him at all and have been content to just leave him broken.
And Umbra isn't too good at being mysterious, it just makes her look like a cunt.
9699277
Well they did kind of have a conversation about how further tinkering with his head could kill him, at which point I imagined they figured it might be best to leave it for a bit.
Though, really, who knows?
I find that ignorance is the best defense against mind-readers, if you know nothing you cannot tell it to anyone else.
9700177
Come up against this sort of thing a lot?
9700179
It's been relevant in the past. The three general options are to either be utterly useless so that they ignore you, make your mind a fortress so they cannot touch you, or go at them like the mental equivalent of a starving crazed weasel the moment they make contact. They've all got their own upsides and downsides.
9699277
That's actually why in my opinion he seems to almost click better with Twilight than with Celestia, because Twilight genuinely seems more concerned with his well being and helping him out with everything such as reading.
Actually, I know this probably won't be what happens, but I could easily see him trying to get Umbra to help if she could genuinely read his mind. Maybe she could help him with his memories.