The Shadow and the Star

by Misty Shadow

Knowing Solitude

The next day, at sunrise, Twilight Sparkle awoke in her bed from a strange dream.

“Mhmmm…” she groaned as she rose from the bed and rubbed her head with a front hoof, not feeling quite herself. “What an uncanny night…hey…”

Twilight immediately noticed that her voice had a different pitch…a familiar pitch…

“Wh-why do I sound different?” she thought curiously. “Did I catch a cold?”

She found herself having difficulty even remembering exactly what had transpired the night before, for even her mind didn’t feel the same…

“My head feels…foggy…” she told herself groggily as she turned to face the rays of sun shining through the window and onto her bed, not able to see her reflection through the refracting light. “Hold on a second…isn’t raising the sun every morning my task? How can it be out already?”

Twilight would soon receive the answer to that question after there was a knock at the door.

“Hey Twilight, you’re up early!” Spike exclaimed, holding a plate with a mug of steaming hot coffee in one hand while using the other to knock on the door. “You usually-“

Spike was about to turn the knob and enter Twilight’s room before the feeling of a hoof on his shoulder provoked him to stop, pause in mid-sentence, and turn around to face…

“…Twilight?” Spike said in confusion as he turned to see the smiling face of the princess of Equestria.

Overhearing this, Twilight was even more bewildered than her advisor and dear companion.

“Heh, did I scare you?” the figure who appeared to be the princess of Equestria, sharing her voice as well as her appearance, teased Spike. “I just decided to get up and raise the sun a bit earlier than I usually do, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed.”

“What…is that…me talking?” Twilight thought, now more puzzled than ever. “What in Equestria is going on?”

“Well, that’s…new.” Spike replied with uncertainty. “You’re usually so scheduled…not that I’d have a problem with you breaking your schedule a little bit.”

“Times change, and so do ponies.” the figure attempted to explain her change in behavior, still smiling sweetly. “But I do still enjoy you bringing my morning coffee to me each day. Truly, you are a fine servant.”

“Gee, thanks, heh heh…” a still uncertain Spike said with a nervous chuckle.

The figure’s smile contorted into a stern frown. She stared down at Spike as she took the coffee from the plate, using her magic to levitate it.

“I don’t like your tone…” she admonished him coldly, making him feel more nervous.

She then sipped the coffee.

“And this coffee is too sweet. I prefer my morning cup to be…black.”

Spike gulped, feeling a familiar, dark gaze piercing his soul from the figure’s eyes. Was this really the mother figure who raised him staring him down?

“Yes, ma’am…” Spike told her diffidently, not wanting to irk this figure any further, feeling great dread. “I can make you a new cup.”

“Oh, no worries!” the figure abruptly exclaimed cheerfully, surprising Spike. “I’ll make do with this for now. It’s just something to keep in mind for the future.”

After saying that, the figure, still holding the coffee with magic, opened the door with her magic and emphatically shut it behind her.

“Today, I’ve already woken up…”

She spoke those words with a sneer as the pony in bed looked over at her, growing ever more confused and concerned with her situation once she saw that this figure not only sounded like her, but looked like her.

“H-h-how…w-w-what…?” the pony in bed stammered nervously. “What’s going on here?”

“I’m just bringing you your morning coffee!” the figure exclaimed in a taunting voice. “It was made for Twilight, wasn’t it? You are Twilight, aren’t you?”

“Y-y-yeah…” Twilight kept stuttering, growing ever worried and embarrassed by her lack of confidence in her own identity.

“Then why don’t you take your morning coffee?” the figure goaded her, still speaking in a derisive voice while levitating the cup of coffee closer to her.

Despite having a bad feeling, Twilight saw no other option but to accept the figure’s offer. The fact that this lookalike of her had tasted the coffee and the fact that Spike had prepared it at least assured her that it was not laced with a toxin or a drug. However, as she levitated the cup below her head, she soon realized that the figure’s mockery had nothing to do with her being forced to ingest a detrimental substance, rather a painful reality…

The reflection that she saw in the coffee was King Sombra’s. She gasped at the sight. The painful reality was the fact that she was now the hated shadow king, and this figure standing before her was Sombra in the body of Equestria’s beloved princess.

“Why so surprised?” Sombra told her gleefully, thrilled by her reaction. “I thought this was what you wanted. Did the star have to trick you into accepting the offer after all? I never would’ve guessed that he was only trying to do a service for me…”

Twilight, despite her astonishment, put a front hoof to her head, still trying to recollect what happened the night before…

“No…” she said to Sombra blankly once she remembered something important.

“Hmm?” Sombra responded, his smile fading in confusion.

“That’s not what happened…” she continued. “Now that you’re here…I’m…starting to remember…”

She would then relay to Sombra the events of her dream from the previous night as she could recall…

---

Blackness.

That was all Twilight had been dreaming of once she fell asleep the night before, completely unaware of the fact that her friends had just been swallowed by it. Ever since her friends had begun to pass away, she often found herself simply dreaming of nothing. This night, however, she would have a memorable experience within this void-filled dream…

She was trotting through the blackness, sensing a strong presence, when a familiar large star appeared before her.

“Greetings, princess.” the star addressed her with the same, stoic voice he spoke in when he had talked to Sombra.

“That billowing aura…” Twilight said, surprised by the energy radiating from this star, knowing that it had to be created from a soul that had experienced much. “This can not just be a dream, who are you?”

“Not friend or foe.” the star bluntly answered. “I am a herald from another dimension, one where the darkness triumphs over the light in what you would call “the end”. An alternate reality in which you and your friends lose and King Sombra stands victorious. I am here to give you a message, warning you that the same thing might now happen to your dimension…”

“What?!” Twilight exclaimed in shock. “How?!”

“Sombra’s darkness has consumed your friends, that void now holding them prisoner.” the star explained. “Your feelings of hopelessness allowed him to overpower them. He could’ve proceeded to do worse, but I stopped him. I made him an offer, allowing him to live as you in an alternate reality. And now, I propose the same deal to you, where you may live as him in the same alternate reality.”

“All I care about is what’s happening with my friends!” Twilight cried, deeply concerned. “Are they safe?!”

The star was stunned, impressed by the purity of Twilight’s heart.

“Even during her darkest hour, she’s completely selfless…” he thought in admiration. “The way her friends drive her…she truly is the complete opposite of…heh, opposites really do attract…”

“Well?!” Twilight continued to cry, growing more worried.

“Your friends are safe.” the star told her assuredly. “Sombra could not have actually done them harm, us stars can only die again if we allow our wills to be eroded, and even then, we can be born again. I didn’t stop Sombra because I believed your friends were in danger. I stopped him because he has to learn an important lesson, as do you.”

“What kind of lesson?” Twilight asked.

“You must remember the power of hope,” explained the star, “by living a life where hope can not be taken for granted. You must appreciate loss through learning what it’s like to have nothing to lose from the beginning. Sombra, on the other hand, must learn why he does not actually want what he thinks he does. He must learn the futility of the pursuit of victory through evil means.”

“What would happen if I didn’t accept this offer?” Twilight questioned. “Would my friends be okay regardless?”

“Yes.” the star answered blankly. “It would simply be easier for you to reach them in the darkness now if you were of the darkness. There is no coercion here. Whatever will happen to your friends and your dimension, that is not for me to decide. This is about your destiny, nothing else. What path do you wish to forge for yourself?”

“That’s easy.” Twilight answered in a serious tone. “The path that ensures the best possible fate for my friends and the world.”

“I expected nothing less.” the star replied bluntly. “So will you agree to become Sombra, to know his pain?”

“Of course.” Twilight told him. “I believe this is what I have to do to truly fulfill my destiny…”

“Then I shall accommodate you…” the star said to her forebodingly.

---

“And that’s everything I remember from my dream.” Twilight finished telling Sombra her account of said dream. “I still have no idea who that star was, but…I do find it odd how being in your presence helped jog my memory of that dream.”

“So by the time the star appeared to you,” replied a disbelieving Sombra, “you had already abandoned your selfish desire to be in my position, indulging in my so-called advantages that were naught but the product of your imagination, but decided to accept his offer anyways simply because you believed it would bring you closer to the friends you had just ungratefully snubbed?”

“Obviously, you don’t understand how love works, Sombra.” Twilight retorted. “I only had a rudimentary understanding of what that star was talking about, yet I heeded his words purely on the basis that if there was even a slight grain of truth to them, it would be worth doing this to help my friends and the world. That is not just my destiny. That is the path I choose for myself.”

Sombra grunted angrily, remembering the first time he saw his destiny in the Crystal Heart, his destiny to become a monster.

“I don’t…I don’t understand you.” he said, frustrated. “The only thing that makes sense to me, how you can be this way, is because of the advantages you’ve been given over me. Incredulous as I am, let’s say for sake of argument that I believe you, that you truly didn’t accept the offer for selfish reasons, foolishly believing that I have it good. So what? You were willing to part with your privileges out of excess, willing to “save everyone” by suffering what I go through to satiate your ego, not because you actually care. Love doesn’t exist.”

“Yes, it does!” Twilight cried defensively. “I may not know much about you, but one thing I know for sure is that you wouldn’t be so messed up if you had been loved! I hate your personality, but I don’t hate you, your spirit! Even back when I thought you were destroyed for good, I didn’t enjoy the thought that I might have actually killed you! What I enjoyed was saving Equestria with my friends! I wanted to believe that no matter what happened, the power of love would be ingrained into your soul!”

“Key word being power.” Sombra rebutted in denial. “You and your friends are no better than I, one who did not even make an attempt on your lives. We are both just intelligent animals who fight over power for different reasons, nothing more, nothing less. I finally accepted the bitter truth that I could never win with the deck being unfairly stacked against me, thus I became you. And now that you are me, everything you say will only be the howl of a loser.”

“Aaawww, don’t beat yourself up.” Twilight taunted. “You only lose because of what you choose Sombra, nothing else. And I’m going to prove it. Even though I’m you right now, I’m not going to attempt to conquer Equestria, even as it would be so easy by combining my advanced knowledge of the land and alicorn magic with your dark magic. I just want you to hit me with your best shot. Give me all of your evil, and I’ll overcome it with good!”

Sombra stared at Twilight blankly for a moment, utterly astonished by her bluster. Soon, he began to chuckle…

“Heh heh heh…oh, I have no idea where you get your confidence from…but it entertains me so. Thus, I will call your bluff…”

Sombra then used his magic to levitate the coffee cup out of Twilight’s grasp and proceeded to throw it against her head. The cup shattered and Twilight briefly felt the searing pain of the shards and the hot fluid on her skin before she fell back on the bed unconscious.

“Hmph! And that’s only the beginning! That couldn’t have even hurt half as much as being disintegrated! You really want to know my agony? Even my best shot would never suffice! The physical discomfort doesn’t even compare to the mental torment!”

Sombra then shut his eyes and saw only black.

“And the spiritual turmoil…” he continued, opening his eyes again. “You have no clue, none. But sure, I’ll help you understand it all the best way I know how.”

Sombra already knew what he was going to do with Twilight now that she was in his body. He was going to make her go through everything he had suffered through, starting by solitarily confining her to a cage…

“I will have you know my solitude…”

Author's Note:

Regarding the line about Sombra remembering seeing his destiny in the Crystal Heart, I'll say that although this is a show canon story, I look at adding some elements of comic canon to it as fair game. Other dimensions exist in this story, after all.

Comments

[BleuBlooms]

This is not going to be positive. You have been warned.

In a effort so you do and if you do not want to read my words. You can just know...this was the best chapter yet.

Now...onto somewhat extensive

The thing about the idea of destiny. Is they are pitting her privelage and belief in good and calling it good.

And then calling his lack of privelage (disease, death auffering, and general negative outlook and calling it bad....

Both are called destiny and in this story they are. But, when stpries do this they fundmentally exrpolate and ecourage reality that those without (poor, lower caste, diasable, dying, no money so no good health) that they are wrong (by existing. Aka the idea the american dream...is...real...for everyone. If your not american then...say that in your life you can super super rich? ) because you have not bothered to critiqiue a system that mandates oppression. (Or mandates they oppesion, creating a reality that apperantly the under class is destined to be bad. And should not want anything. You have also made Sombra evil booger he is a stawman for this idea...of bad invidualism instead bad ills of a society that could do better. Like wise you have mandate a upper class that is literallh god like and apparentlg very moral helping the less fortunate. But, lets not consider weither we should have nobles (land owners, who owned apples farm? She had to do something to help granny with her hip?)

To explore this further...

What if applejack wanted to live forever?

Or

Fluttershy?

Would destiny not allow? You see how easy it is to put destiny Opps...I mean status que in the place of destiny?

Now I am sure this is not intensional (most these things are not) but, consider that we literally live in a system that rewards people for being born wealth. And those that arent...well?

When Twilight lives in a castle, has servants, and is generally bigger and stronger then everyone else. And with 'destiny' places into it essentially if Apples and anyone else had a better idea of world...well..
They arent of noble blood. Its not their destiny. (after all its not the lower clasted job. To critique a system...do you get it?) It is so easy to justifie existing power structures we (generally and abstractially benefit) But, is The ceo of amazon...destined? When literally could several countrys? Do you get what I am saying? Either way...

Its just a story right? Its almost like I heard that from somewhere....

Also this society is basically (in some respects) Ann Rynds dream world. A literally god like upper class that was destined for their role and where naturally better. (Yes, some actually and many people follows this ideology. So, can see how it can write comment of this length on ponies. )

[Misty Shadow]

10978056
I normally enjoy a bit of criticism, but...I'm sorry, I can't parse this. You are definitely reading too much into this, nothing you said is part of the writer's intent whatsoever. This story is a conflict of light and darkness, not classism. Twilight's "privilege" is that she was loved and Sombra was not. Sombra isn't a "strawman" for anything. You're supposed to relate to him because although his actions are wrong, you can empathize with the fact that he was unloved and had a dark destiny he didn't want. That's not "mandated oppression", just natural suffering he endured.

Best chapter yet? Thanks. I'm sure you'd enjoy the story more though if you read the story without overthinking.