What a wonderful world

by a touch of sparkles

Chapter 31: Choc cek

Sombra was flopped on his desk, having just spent the last couple hours doing his two lessons he realised just how boring they were when there wasn’t a class clown and pencil crossbows. His hair floated above his head, except for the braids which he had kept in, as they were heavier they hung slightly lower. He tilted his head and through his mane and the slight shadow it produced he could see Opal sitting on the windowsill basking in the sun. Bored, Sombra headed down to go bother Cloud, deciding to take up Miss Chestnuts idea of doing some cooking. As was expected Cloud was sitting at his desk in the master bedroom, writing away with the occasional pause. His ears flicking back in response to Sombras presence.

“She’s told you to bother me hasn’t she” Cloud mumbled without turning his head back.

“Maybe”

“I’m busy, go do your lessons”

“I finished”

“Already?”

“Yeah”

“Well just go do…whatever you do” Sombra, not having it, walked over and sat right next to him. Even with Cloud in a chair and him on the floor, they were eyelevel, and Sombra stared through his white and teal hair.

“You’re not leavin’ are you”

“Nope”

“alright what you want to do then?” he asked while stretching out his legs and wings, which if he was sitting any further back they would touch the wall behind them, although the room wasn’t huge.

“One of my other lessons today was cooking” the pair walked out the bedroom and he felt Opal land on his back.

“I’m sure Velvet’s got something in the cupboards” it took Sombra a moment to remember who Velvet was.

“You still call her Miss Chestnut don’t you?” cloud asked.

“mhm”

“I guess that makes sense, you knew your parents”

“Did Hope?”

“I wouldn’t know, you’d have to ask her or Velvet” Cloud began rummaging through the kitchen cabinets, looking for any form of ingredients they could have, meanwhile Sombra found some recipe books by the bread bin. They started flicking through, realising that Miss Chestnut really only had baking books, which in their minds, was significantly better. In the end they settled on chocolate cake. Cloud then searched to fridge to find what little of the ingredients they actually had.

“Sometimes I forget you just eat straight peppers” Cloud commented.

“Have I still got some left?”

“Yeah” Sombra shoved his head past Cloud to grab the remaining peppers that were in a bowl and began munching on them, Cloud giving him a mildly bewildered look.

“Your mad…right we don’t have any chocolate, or most of the other stuff”

“Shall we go get it then”

“your stayin’ here, if Amore’s out there’s a higher chance she’ll see you, it won’t take me long” Cloud grabbed a bag and left through the back door, before shooting up into the air.

(“Sweet Umbralis how does one take off so fast”) Opal commented in disbelief.

(“Is that not normal”)

(“There’s fast take off and then stupid, muscles shouldn’t do that”) Opal stared at Sombra while he munched on his peppers.

(“How do you eat those so casually?”)

(“There nice”)

(“Do you have a tongue?”)

(“Yeah there nice”)

(“You deluded child”) they sat quietly in the kitchen for a little while, reading through the recipe a few more times before Cloud returned with a bag full of ingredients. They got to work on making the batter and decided to make cupcakes instead because they baked faster. They sat and ate some snakes, so they were less likely to eat all the cupcakes straight away. They took them out and iced them, then to avoided temptation, sat in the living room.

“What are you writing?” Sombra asked out of curiosity.

“it’s only a draft at the moment, like an exploration into the North, no pony’s ever returned from it, I wanted to write something based of it, bit hard to do so when you don’t know much about the place”

(“In about four months it will turn day again, it should be okay for pony’s”)

“Hey um, didn’t you come from the North? Your one of those unicorns in that revolution” Sombra gave a small nod.

“You know, I’m not actually allowed to leave, I think it’s a cover up so I don’t speak ‘cause I saw it”

“Really?”

“Well yeah, pretty sure it would put you in Tartarus”

“Where?”

“We use it as a really high security prison of sorts, we used to put monsters in the North till we realised they just walked out, we also put like, worse than criminals in there”

“Oh”

“Say um, what happened before the revolution exactly? I only saw a year before it happened, I never really felt like there was a good place to ask” Sombra paused to think for a moment, until he realised…

“I don’t remember much”

“Really?”

“I remember more about home”

“I guess that makes sense, from what I saw you were never treated well, if you got a head injury at any point you might have had a bit of amnesia”

“I remember home” he began to list of the things he could remember, in a unorganised ramble. His family and their cave, the Eye, Umbralis, the wyverns and the other creatures he sometimes saw from a distance or had eaten.

“You had a whole culture and everything, the Umbralis guy, he like a king or something?”

“Yeah”

“Damn, so there’s really not much difference, you just didn’t have solid buildings” Cloud rubbed his brow with the wrist of his wing.

“That princess is on something” he gritted through his teeth, confused.

“Maybe it’s the meat thing-“

“And dogs are a stallions best friend, what difference does it make?” there was both confusion and anger in his voice, in which Sombra couldn’t tell which was stronger. He sat still for a short time, before taking a deep breath and calming down.

“You want cake?” he asked.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Hope and Miss Chestnut?”

“Well we have to make sure there actually good” they rolled of the chairs and trotted into the kitchen, where they each picked up a cupcake, subconsciously picking the most risen one in Clouds case. They sat at the table where they took bites out of the cake, both of them offering the crumb filled wrapper to Opal.

(“Is this an insult?”)

(“I don’t think you can eat a whole one”)

(“Is that a challenge?”)

(“No”)

(“Watch me”) Opal half leapt half flew over to the tray of cupcakes, where he unwieldly picked one up in his talons. Staring Sombra in the eyes with his uncomfortably void black ones, Opal took beak fulls of cake and icing. Sombra sat and watched him for an hour, Opal slowly making his way down the cake.

(“Is it possible for a bird to get a sugar rush?”) Sombra curiously asked.

(“I mean, we can get drunk, so I imagine yes”) Sombra looked at him confused.

(“Your tribe never lock you in the cave, go out and come back some hours later barely able to stand?”) Opal asked him. Sombra thought hard for a moment, he could vaguely remember him and the twins, with just one of the adults with them. Usually it was either his dam or his auntie Amarilla.

(“Sometimes”)

(“Probably Jolgeirstaoir…I wonder if there’s any left…actually, probably way over aged”) Opal wondered to himself. They wandered off back upstairs, where instead of a sugar rush, Opal had a sugar crash and puffed up at the end of Sombras bed.

A little while after three Hope got home, when he saw her she seemed a little off. He sat in her room with her, which she quietly lit one of her candles, of which he noticed she had a few more empty jars. There was a pile of books at the end of the bed which had toppled and slid across the carpet. He wondered if her room was messier because it simply had more stuff in it.

“You good?” Sombra asked her.

“Where’s Opal, he’s normally on your rump”

“He’s got a sugar crash”

“What, how- where are you going?” Sombra, with perked up ears, spun out the bedroom and quickly down the stairs, where he grabbed a plate, put two cakes on and bought it back up. One floated off the plate in blue sparkles as Hope almost to eagerly took a bite. Sombra put his down on the bedside table, he was more interested in her off state.

“You good?” he repeated.

“Yeah”

“You look off”

“Cakes good”

“What’s wrong” Hope stood completely still for a moment. Mouth opening and closing over words.

“It was the princess…she’s really weird…her smile isn’t like…smiley, happy”

“Fake?”

“Yeah, I didn’t know she only had three legs as well” he’d forgotten about that, the sour taste came back to him.

(“Well those are some lovely images there mate”) Opal hand lugged himself down, only to see what Sombra’s mind had conjured up again.

(“Do I tell her I took part in taking that leg off?)

(“…No”)

(“Actually it might have been dam who did it”)

(“Still no”)

“-Was like, weirdly black”

“hmm?” Hope hadn’t noticed Opals presence, and so she had kept talking.

“Oh, hi Opal. The um, the stump of her leg isn’t like neatly cut, and has weird black scars on it”

(“You said you bit it off, with rotten teeth there’s a chance that some dark magic seeped in through broken teeth and stained”)

(“Is that common?”)

(“Not sure, might just be something that happens to creatures of light magic”)

“You know what else was…well not weird but sad? Her guards looked beaten up, one was limping and the other had a bad eye”

“She probably hits them”

“Why do you think that?” he held back from saying experience.

“She kept asking if we’d seen any strange black unicorns around-“

“You didn’t tell her right?” he butted in, panic setting in.

“No, she scarred me a bit, also the pegasi guard she had with her was getting us to say no, you really don’t like her do you”

“No” his response was instant, he didn’t have to think about it too much. Her figure, stick thin and twisted, appeared in front of a wall, lined with tools and stained grey. His legs and neck felt heavy, like they were being weighed down.

“What’s wrong-“ he heard Opals wings beat, silencing Hope, who looked away. they sat together in silence until tea, and the remainder of the day went by as normal.

Author's Note:

Thanks to me falling back into an old fandom, this took stupid long to write.

Comments

[ARandomLonelyDude]

Yay new chapter. It was good