What a wonderful world

by a touch of sparkles

Chapter 37: That was not intended

Crack.

Thud.

“…ow” it wasn’t the greatest start to the morning. Sombra was used to the stairs creaking, so when they did so but louder, he did hesitate. But he went down anyway.

And now he was on the floor, having smashed his chin into the hatch frame and with a chunk of wood impaled in his shoulder. Within moments the rest of the family was next to him.

“you okay?” Hope asked him.

“oh yeah sure perfectly fine” he lifted himself onto his legs and bent to nuzzle his wound, which the wood in his shoulder was at least and inch thick, and frankly wasn’t very pleasant.

“Oh Celestia where did I put that number!?” Miss Chestnut yelled in panic and she rushed straight back down the stairs. They staired at the area she was no longer standing in for a moment, before Sombra turned to see Cloud, utterly unfazed.

“you seem extremely calm about this” Sombra said fairly bluntly, he too being a little to calm for his situation.

“if I can survive hitting the cold hard ground headfirst at fifty miles an hour and have no repercussions, I’m sure your fine”

“how did you do that?”

“failed dive”

“right, well I’m just going to head to the factory, since they have nurses there that most likely now how to deal with an impaled umbrum” still completely calm and only feeling a slight twinge as he moved his shoulder, he began to walk. Then there was a harsher sting, which looking down he saw Hope was holding a wet flannel to him. With her at his side, they managed to walk out the back of the house without tripping over the mess Miss Chestnut had made. There was little talking as they, with some speed, made their way down the back of the houses.

“Sombra”

“Yes”

“How are you not screaming right now?” Hope asked.

“Dunno, probably got nerve damage by this point”

“What, how”

“Or I’m numb to a lot of stuff” he assumed that he’d been injured to the point of not really being able to feel anything, although he couldn’t say if he couldn’t actually feel anything, or if mentally he couldn’t.

“Also, this was not me doing your idea of hurt myself some more”

“So you didn’t mean to fall down the stairs?”

“No, they’ve been creaking for the last couple years, I wasn’t expecting them to collapse on me”

“Right…how long until we get to wherever we’re going”

“The factory has some nurses in, there the only nurses I know so, that way”

“That’s a bit of a walk”

“I’ll be fine, just keep that flannel on, I think it’s helping” they walked for quite a while, Hope had to awkwardly stay between walk and trot to keep up with Sombras stride. Both of them were just waiting for Miss Chestnut to come charging around the corner, but by the time they got to the beginning of the decrepit houses, she hadn’t shown up. However, by that time, the walking had caused the wood in his shoulder to dislodge slightly, and he started to bleed more, he also felt as if his muscle was being pulled around by strings.

“We should hurry up, do you know any shortcuts?” Hope asked, pressing the flannel in harder.

“No, not yet” they kept going, fortunately not being bothered by too many ponies since there wasn’t many out. They eventually got back to the factory. Due to Sombra’s more frequent visits, a worker had decided to start polishing ingots by the gate, so it took no time for Sombra to be bought in and taken straight to the nurses.

“Oh hello, are you okay?” asked the nurse, but before anyone could answer, Cherry, the other noticed his shoulder.

“What happened to your shoulder?” Cherry was straight to pushing Hopes magic away and examining his shoulder.

“I er, broke the stairs”.

“Right, Coco are those tweezers clean?”

“Yes” the two nurses sat around his shoulder, and Sombra winced as they slowly pulled out the chunk off wood, which as they did so he felt the wound get pulled together. As the wood was fully pulled out, he watched as white roots branched and filled the wound.

“What are those things?” Hope asked, having quietly watched trying to hide her curiosity.

“It’s a healing method special to umbrum, they grow roots which close wounds and small white flowers form the scabs, from what we know they can regrow limbs, although there are limits” Cherry told her.

“This’ll hurt” Sombra near leaped out his skin at the short notice of Coco forcing the roots apart with some tweezers and beginning to poke around inside.

“More warning next time” he complained through gritted teeth.

“Sorry, I have to get the splinters out” he felt his stomach do loops as she fished around, pulling splinters out of him, for what felt like ages. Every time she pulled splinters out the roots would bind back together, so it never got any better.

“All done” she wiped his shoulder of the blood that had dripped down and he gingerly moved his leg around. He could feel how the roots pulled the muscle together, and yet also mimicking the muscle structure in a way it felt mostly normal after a short time.

“Why couldn’t I heal like that before, that would’ve been nice” Sombra mumbled to himself, although he still received an answer from Cherry.

“Wounds not healing can happen with malnutrition, I imagine more so with umbrum considering how intense the healing method is”.

“oh right, that makes sense”.

“When were you malnourished?” Hope asked, the curiosity she was experiencing from his shoulders healing method quickly vanishing.

“Before I came to the orphanage”.

“Were you homeless?”

“Yeah, you could say that” he wasn’t calling that cell a home anytime soon. There was a relative silence, apart from the sound of the nurses cleaning their tools and dumping the wood. That was until, for the second time, Sombra nearly leapt out of his skin.

(“SWEET UMBRALIS WHERE ARE YOU?”)

(“The factory”)

(“Ok, I’ve just been shook within an inch of my life”)

(“Chestnut?”)

(“She’s been panicking for the last twenty minutes until she remembered I can talk with you from a distance”)

(“How did you not hear me fall down the stairs”)

(“I was very much asleep”)

(“Right…do you still not get a hint of me being impaled?”)

(“Well frankly I’ve had a funky wing for a while so I didn’t question it much”)

(“Is it broken?”)

(“Remember how I said the other Lumos broke my wing”)

(“Oh, right”)

(“I’m also used to feeling slight twinges every time you’ve walked into something”) Sombra turned to his shoulder and by instincts started to lick it, which it felt weird with the roots knotted together underneath. He decided with Hope, that it might be best if he took the day off, just to give his shoulder a rest. While they knew Miss Chestnut would be far from happy about it, but they weren’t going to argue about a free day off, even if Hope really didn’t have an excuse.

They left the factory after the nurses gave him a check over for any other splinters, taking a more leisurely stroll back. The odd pony around gave friendly nods, and their was something rather charming about shops being fitted into slots between houses, and through the window you could see the shop keep working on products. They kept going, until Hope stopped.

“Sombra, have you got any bits on you?” she was bouncing on her hooves.

“No, their in my school bag”

“We’re coming back then”

“Why- oh, candles” there was a candle shop, it window full of all sorts of different colours and shapes. He had to drag her away with a promise that he’d bring her back at the weekend. They kept going, slowly making their way back home, in which just as they left down town Opal landed on his back per usual.

(“How’s yer shoulder mate?”)

(“It’s been better”)

They made it home, which by now Miss Chestnut had left to work. They heard Clouds chair shift upstairs as they headed up. Sombra noticed his staircase had been removed and the splinters cleaned up, preoccupied by it, he nearly fell over the chaos that was Hopes bedroom floor. there were more empty candle jars than he could count, stacked up against the wall.

“How…many” his hoof slid on some old homework.

“Many” she sat on her desk, immediately lighting up an orange candle, didn’t take long for the room to smell of fruit. They spent the rest of the day chilling out, taking the chance to do any homework they had before spending hours playing boardgames. They even managed to drag Cloud out of his writing desk to join them, and when Miss Chestnut came home Hope managed to keep her less angry by showing her all the homework she had completed (which did include some old stuff) however she still had to promise to go in tomorrow.

“So, what are we going to do about your bedroom” Miss Chestnut asked Sombra.

“I don’t really fit through the hatch anymore, I could just, sleep downstairs”.

“Where exactly?”

“Carpets softer than the floor”

“I’m not having you sleep on the floor”.

“It’s that or the factory” she went silent.

“The floor is fine then” she left.

Author's Note:

man do i love lack of motivation, although considering that i've recently found out there's a chance i've been autistic for 18 years with no knowledge that could answer a few things (past months have been fun, if you have any experience with doctors and mental based stuff, you probably know how awful it is). fun times. and frankly now that i've done my mocks the A levels are ever closing in so updates may get even slower.
and expect another front cover because a) i'm the artist, it's never good enough and b) it's actually out of date in terms of ending because ive changed it again
:D

Comments

[ARandomLonelyDude]

welcome back king. hope all is well