Chapter 9
As the doors announced their closure with a resounding crash, Sombra added a touch of haste to his slow pace up the stairs.
It only took him ten seconds.
Sombra stopped his steps in their tracks.
It took ten seconds for his stomach to do a flip of discomfort and confusion. Something in his very recent conversation with the alicorn did not sit well with him and, as was evident, this feeling did not take long to manifest itself.
"'Maybe you should take a more proper nap'?"
Sombra felt the sensation that he was chewing stones when mentioning the phrase, so he unconsciously preferred to continue repeating it only in his mind with the intention of verifying its authenticity.
And it did get repeated several times.
"What the hell do I care whether or not she wakes up with a broken neck from sleeping in a chair?" He rolled his eyes and wrinkled his face slightly.
He let out a short sigh through which he hoped that his feeling of uniqueness would completely dissipate, ending up deciding that he should not dwell on the matter so much.
His conclusion was that perhaps he had been paying real attention to the big (sometimes also small) rather sentimental and cheesy lectures regarding friendship that the princess gave him; instead of ignoring them and pretending that he heard them, as he had already done several times.
His footsteps up the stairs resumed and he forced his mind to think about something else the rest of the way.
When the door to his room was finally in front of him, it didn't take Sombra a second to notice the two new ponies standing firm and expressionless on each side of the door.
Despite the lack of expression on their faces, their gaze could not hide the contempt that the hearts of both guards felt towards him.
In any case, he could not show more indifference to this fact. His gaze remained fixed on a point ahead while both guards still remained in his field of vision, not bothering to even give them a sidelong glance.
He planned to keep it that way until the day he got rid of the princess and finally left the Castle to carry out what he should have done a long time ago.
When the doors behind him took over providing him privacy, a touch of comfort was released within him.
A flash from the bathroom that caught the corner of his eye made him turn in its direction instinctively; only to indifferently look away in a matter of seconds and return it to the front. Sombra ignored the unspoken call that the room gave him as best he could and walked straight to his bed.
His mental energy had been drained completely and faster than normal, so there was not enough of it for the small nightly grooming routine he had created for himself in the short two weeks he had been in the castle.
He stretched out his front limb to arrange the book on a part of the nightstand that was next to his bed and took advantage of the approach to turn off the light as well.
Initially, his plan had been to stay reading until his eyes forced him to stop; However, his energy seemed to have been exhausted much earlier than normal and the only thing he wanted at that moment was to close his eyes and stop thinking so much, stop feeling so much.
He gratefully received the softness and comfort with which the bed enveloped his strangely tired body once he finally lay down, letting out a heavy sigh and not thinking much before closing his eyes and letting his consciousness drift away and move to another plane.
“Breathing in the dark, lying on its side…”
His heartbeat increased almost imperceptibly in speed.
“The ruins of the day, painted with a scar…”
While the rest of his face remained unchanged, his brow managed to furrow.
Even if his eyelids felt like they had been glued together and the only thing he could see in his mind was an endless black void, he knew that his consciousness was more than active.
There was a soft and somewhat difficult to understand melody around him that somehow knew how to keep his mind distracted with the mesmerizing pacifying tone it maintained.
But even if the lyrics were unintelligible, Sombra still recognized them within his mind.
The subtlety and familiarity with which the notes fell and rose hypnotized his brain to the point of numbness, and functioned as a warm cradle that seemed to support his heavy soul and consciousness; They gave him a strange but appreciated feeling of security.
“And the more I straighten up, the less it wants to try…”
The corners of his lip twitched, but they didn't go up or down. They just moved.
No, he didn't feel it necessary to wake up.
He didn't want to wake up.
But... Had it ever mattered what he wanted?
“The feelings start to rot…”
The melody stopped dead.
The floating rotation that he somehow knew he was experiencing faded in less than a minute and, without being sure how, he recognized how several of his nerves had activated.
As soon as the melody faded, the comfort that embraced him was attacked by a current of icy air that sent a chill through his entire body and made him shiver automatically.
Silence had now taken over the air.
As if someone had given him a strong blow to the head, his eyes instinctively opened.
Slowness and suspicion dominated his gaze, and without delay his vision was greeted with the sight of a dull blue tone that covered what he deduced was a clear expanse of sky in front of him, which led him quickly to wondering where he was and why he was there.
With a frown and a look of almost complete disorientation, he slightly propelled his body upwards and took a look at the environment around him and the elements of it.
An unknown and uncomfortable feeling swept through his when he realized an important detail, and his pride (ego) felt hurt as a small plea was reflexively made inside his mind in a somewhat desperate way.
If it weren't for the merciless cold around him, his limbs would have already started to sweat.
The only thing his eyes could see was the impeccable and infinite white face of the snow smiling at him mockingly, as if it knew the thoughts that were beginning to break loose inside his mind.
Was this the time to finally reunite with his old, deep-rooted companion?
Sombra couldn't help but feel a hint of unease inside him that made him swallow thickly as soon as that idea crossed his mind.
Some unwanted memories threatened to creep into his mind and Sombra didn't need to be too smart to realize this, so he changed the focus of his thoughts and dedicated himself to analyzing the place he was in, with the intention of finding some way out or temporary escape.
If there was any.
And he wished there was.
Sombra decided that he wouldn't waste any more time and started walking.
Even though he blinked repeatedly, the blurry appearance of the rapidly falling snow and the one the ground beneath him did not go away, causing a hint of suspicion to begin to take hold within him. There was something about the equation that didn't feel right.
An idea that he was almost certain of flashed through his mind when he heard the familiar hissing roar of the wind around him and his ears almost hurt due to the extreme loudness and sharpness of the sound.
Of course, it all made sense.
He no longer had any doubt, he was dreaming.
His next breath was taken more calmly. It was all a dream, he wasn't back in his eternal prison, everything was fine.
But how many years had it been since he had dreamed?
Why was he dreaming now?
Those thoughts and similar ones began to swirl in his mind and it didn't take long for them to cause him a strong feeling of overwhelm and strangeness. What was he supposed to do in the middle of a dream in which he was aware that it was all a dream?
With his heartbeat slowing down and without much hurry he began to get up from the place where he was lying—for an also unknown reason. The feeling of complete loneliness in the middle of a place of enormous extension and covered by the sinister mantle of such a dark and icy night began to transform his feeling of confusion into one of restlessness and a little uncertainty.
Sombra started his disoriented steps.
He had no idea how to wake up from the dream on his own and that also managed to make him feel somewhat helpless; For the first dream he had in centuries, it was actually being terrible.
Trying to downplay those thoughts in his mind, he shook his head lightly and decided that he would walk until he found something more than just snow or woke up once and for all from the dream that he already described with annoyance as stupid.
Thanks to that it was a dream where he was, he had no idea if it had been seconds or minutes that he had been walking already, but he was aware that it was a considerable amount.
Although not more than an hour, of that he was sure.
Even though he had tried to be patient, he couldn't stop his impatience from growing as the minutes passed and he knew how to recognize how he was about to let out a curse driven by his also growing annoyance.
However, as if it were some cheap movie cliché, something stopped him as he was about to do it.
Something in the distance, that although it was still blurry, seemed to be different from the snow, it caught his attention like a light catches a moth and quickly aroused his curiosity.
It didn't seem to have much color, but even so it managed to release several flashes.
Maybe it had been the familiarity that the view in the distance caused him, maybe it had been his curiosity being easily ignited due to the great boredom that he had been feeling for some time; maybe it had been both.
He didn't know, and he didn't feel it was necessary to know either, so he just continued on his way being led by the curiosity sparked within him without giving the matter much thought.
The now more visible structure that in the distance had a small appearance, began to take on a larger size as his trot progressed forward and the feeling of familiarity was finally what ended up staying within him.
Once he was close enough for his mind to unleash the memories that would help him recognize the enormous structure in front of him, a mixture of conflicting feelings settled in his stomach and his gaze slowly ascended, taking in to carefully examine the dark building.
The Crystal Palace.
Due to his recent unfounded amnesia, the memories that began to violently visit his mind were mostly meaningless since they did not bring a context with them, but if there was something that almost all of them had in common, it was the structure that intimidating now stood in front of him.
Before he was even able to think about what the explanation could be for the things he was seeing now in his dream, a sound of great intensity began to manifest itself without revealing where it came from, to which Sombra moved his gaze aimlessly around with the intention of discovering why and where the peculiar screech came from.
Little by little, in less than ten seconds, the sound began to increase in volume and Sombra this time managed to recognize that it was screams.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of yowls harmonizing in unison continued to add volume to their symphony and it did not take long for them to begin to transform into an unbearable screech that flooded the unicorn's auditory field to the point that he could no longer bear it and brought his front hooves to his ears.
However, not even a second passed before the chorus of screams stopped dead.
Shadow removed his hooves from his ears with an annoyed and confused expression, directing his gaze everywhere, with the intention of, once again, finding something that would give him even a small clue as to what was happening.
As much as he hated to admit it, desperation was slowly beginning to take control of his body.
To his meager satisfaction, this time his sight did capture something.
From the top of the highest part of the palace, where he had hidden the crystal heart more than a millennium ago, a dazzling reddish gleam blinked twice, then propelled itself upward and then dropped, leaving a brief trail of its same color in the sky as if it were a shooting star.
In any case, Sombra was not able to keep up with it since something else caught his attention.
The same sudden rush of hissing air from before appeared and brought the chorus of screams back with it, this time creating a melody similar to the one he initially found pleasant.
In fact, it was the same.
“Just know that if you hide, it doesn't go away…”
A new sound joined and took center stage in the sinister chorus.
"Third time's the charm, isn't it?"
The loud resonance of it forced him to grimace in response to the pain his ears experienced.
Before Sombra could even digest what the unknown voice said, a hiss of increasing volume behind him made him turn around.
The reddish flash approaching him imminently and at full speed was all that his field of vision captured, leaving him only half a second to close his eyes tightly and prepare his body for impact.
As the burning sensation spread throughout his body, it dissipated as quickly as it had appeared.
His eyes widened immediately and terror caused the adrenaline inside him to speed up his heartbeat to the point where it almost hurt.
As if he had been drowning in the sea, his lungs begged for oxygen and Sombra could do nothing but take a huge, frantic gulp of air.
He settled on his bed so that he was semi-sitting and tried to calm his labored breathing by placing a hoof on his chest. At the same time waiting for his heart to resume the natural rhythm of its heartbeat.
His gaze was directed to the blanket that covered him and with a hoof he moved it away when he noticed the obvious large stains of wetness that were spread throughout almost the entire fabric. A look of disgust crossed his face quickly once he knew what it was about.
Indeed, his entire body was completely covered in sweat, with only some parts having been saved from such a disgusting fate (in his words), some parts of his fur were dripping and his hair was not excluded, something he realized as soon as one drop ran down his face and almost ended up in his eye.
He already knew that the princess in charge of him did not have cleaning staff in her castle, but he really hoped that she was not the one in charge of washing the sheets of all the rooms. The humiliations he had gone through with her had been enough, he had no desire to add another one to the list.
It's not that he cared what she believed about him, it's just that his sheets being soaked with sweat wasn't something he wanted her to witness or something he wouldn't feel any shame about if she did. Even worse if she mistook it for something else.
Swearing under his breath, Sombra moved from where he was with the goal of standing up and going to try and clean up his mess in the bathroom.
But he couldn't even finish placing the first hoof properly on the ground.
His body seemed to break connection with his brain as soon as his skin made contact with the ground and a painful dizziness made him feel that his entire world suddenly turned completely upside down, which caused an imbalance in his movements and, if it weren't for holding on from the nightstand to his left, he would have ended up on the floor.
The uncontrolled force he had exerted through his limb was not exempt from causing disaster, as he had wobbled the table hard enough for the glass lamp on top of it to move abruptly and then fall.
Sombra noticed what he had unintentionally done, but not in time to avoid the consequences.
The only thing he managed to do in the tiny period of time of the lamp falling was to close his eyes tightly and wait for the thunderous sound of the glass hitting the floor and then proceeding to shatter.
Something was wrong, Sombra was sure of it. There were already too many situations he had had to go through, had someone put a curse on him or something?
It's not that he thought it was unlikely or that he didn't deserve it.
But jeez, he sure would like to know if that was a curse or something similar that was all about.
Sombra's mind started creating images of different scenarios in which he was going to have to give an explanation, either to the princess or to the guards; or maybe both options.
The plan to wash the sheet in the bathroom and let no one notice the disgusting mess on his bed had officially gone to the Tartarus.
What was he supposed to tell her?
That he had had sort of a grisly nightmare, no. Of that he was sure.
Before more thoughts could take over his mind, something in the environment stopped his thoughts in their tracks.
Everything was in silence.
Why hadn't the lamp made the scandal it was supposed to make yet?
Sombra finally opened his eyes.
And it all made sense.
The lamp floating two inches above the ground, being contained within a kind of somewhat shiny bubble of a reddish tone, made sense and explained everything.
Or at least almost everything.
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Sombra has his magic back? How? I'm hoping it's explained in the next chapter.
Unless is something else.
11891722
Yes, he did.
11891769
I thought he had an inhibitor ring on his horn? Shouldn't be possible for him to break it off in his sleep, unless someone took it off.
11891770
He still has the ring on; remember that the ring does not completely suppress his magic, it only does when it's dark magic, it's what Celestia says in chapter 3. A levitation spell is not dark magic.
11891870
Oooh.
Wait, light magic could still be used for bad just as much as dark magic, he could still escape if he easily wanted to, unless all he did was study dark magic and not normal magic.
11891873
Well, you got it. Sombra is undeniable powerful and experienced with magic (at least in this fic), but only when it comes to dark magic. He's probably just a bit more skilled with white/light magic than an average unicorn.
11891878
Yes that makes sense, so I'm gonna guess about half as powerful as Twilight in normal magic when she was only a unicorn and slightly more powerful than Rarity.
11891886
Exactly.