The night that Cadance discovered the ghost of King Sombra lurking in the Crystal Palace should have been the worst of her life. Her greatest enemy is now lingering in her own home... and she knows that she's going to get to the bottom of this.
The night that Cadance discovered the ghost of King Sombra lurking in the Crystal Palace should have been the worst of her life. Her greatest enemy is now lingering in her own home... and she knows that she's going to get to the bottom of this.
There hasn't been anything going on in the palace for a long time, and the tyrant's ghost will only prove to be a problem... won't it?
She found him in the hall that she thought was the most forsaken of any. There, in the back of the castle, the districts of gleaming houses sat in the shadow of the proud, but the kind edifice of the Crystal Empire, and the full moon would hang in the air in just the right place, like the crown jewel in the night sky. Even if Luna, as distant as she was in Canterlot, decided to slack on anything, the scene of the moon above the midnight sky and the shadows of distant mountains that could be seen from this lonely hall and balcony always felt perfect.
He was admiring the stars and stood like he was waiting for company. Not the company one ached for, no, not that, but somepony to accompany them on a garden stroll if they were to just ask.
Her legs ached for dancing. The Crystal Ball had passed a few months ago, and she had not danced. She never danced. She loved to dance.
But she saw Sombra there, standing with the moonlight filtering through him and saying nothing.
Cool air from outside and a dozen little snowflakes shining in the dark poured into the hallway. They danced on the night breeze. Sombra stood comfortably still, knowing something and waiting.
She returned on the second night, her crystal coat glittering like tears, and stood like it was she who was the ghost and he who was the god.
"Why?"
It was all she had asked him.
He finally looked away from the clouds covering the moon — the simple movement of the sky seemed to make him vanish — and calmly rested his red eyes on her, and they looked at her simply as though she was a passing friend, or at the very least, somepony that he knew well enough, and there was no sign of corruption in them.
"I don't think there was anywhere else for me to go. Why do you think I'm here?"
She looked at the ghost with nothing but distrust. "To haunt me."
He didn't smile, but there was life in his eyes that the rest of him didn't have, and mystery as well. In the darkness, Cadance could see that he did not have a crystal coat or eyes... nothing marked him as having anything to do with the ponies he once enslaved. Only a fuzzy winter coat, visible no matter how pale his form was, suggested anything to do with the north.
"That's a shame. I don't plan on doing any haunting."
"Why not?"
Sombra's gaze changed, and she saw mischief in his eyes. "How on earth does haunting sound worthwhile? Aren't there better things to do than wallow in grief over something lost?"
Was that a knowing look in his eye or had he always had that? Cadance watched him somberly, quietly. She wanted to shiver at something cold that wasn't there.
"Then if you aren't here to stalk me and try to proclaim yourself victorious when you lost the empire already, then what do you want to do?" She did not manage looks of suspicion well.
Sombra, the ghost of the castle, managed a small shrug under his crimson cape, trimmed with warm fur. It was probably only as real as he was. "Are you going to try and ignore me, She Who Visits Twice?" He kept a neutral expression, but his tone had some warmth.
"I might," Cadance said levelly, standing straighter and taking one small step away from him. Her gold shoes felt heavier than usual. She still thought of the Ball. Of everything else. Everything but kingdoms and goddesses and her subjects.
"You couldn't ignore me if you tried," Sombra said, stoic expression fading once to allow a momentary wry look. "But I have to say, you're dreadfully boring, and standing here is certainly worthwhile, isn't it? If I were still alive, I'd be shivering."
A sarcastic ghost. Cadance shrank into the hall shadows. Would it always be the same hall with him?
"You're not going to be taking the Heart." It was a simple and distant response, and while odd coming from her, she wanted to be distant with him, and regal. She wanted to be a princess with him when all his gaze said was that she wasn't.
"Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. Death does that," he said dryly.
"Alright," she breathed, relaxing slightly. "Then what is it that the newest resident of the Crystal Empire wants to do?" Her smile was small and forced.
"I miss dancing."
Those three words shattered the night, and Cadance did a double-take instead of looking at King Sombra, her familiar, instinctive wariness broken as she stood by him, and replaced with foggy trails of confusion.
"Dancing," she repeated numbly, not wanting to question why. The word felt like a question to her.
He just nodded, eyes never leaving her.
"Would you care to?"
He nonchalantly held out a hoof.
Reluctantly, with feelings of her own disgust still felt, Cadance took his cold hoof in her own with the mechanical attempt at natural grace she would often show a particularly forgettable guest. Only her expression, which she knew still bore those hints of contempt broke this illusion, adding an odd imperfection. She, too, felt stiff with his hoof holding hers and simply being out of practice.
Cadance greeted him silently with her presence the next night in the same hall. Sombra was waiting, and his eyes always found her quickly, it seemed. He didn't smile.
"Hello," she said quietly. It was so obvious that things would be stilted and awkward between them if—
Well, if this were to keep up.
"Hello yourself, Princess."
Cadance stood a little closer to Sombra than she would have liked and ruffled her feathers with clear discomfort.
"Empress," she corrected with a cool tone that didn't suit her. "I'm an Empress now."
"An Empress who speaks casually with me."
She paused. "Do you even know my name?"
He gave her a curious sideways glance, and Cadance tried to remember what it was like having somepony who was taller than her. Not since she last saw Celestia and Luna. "I might."
"It's Mi Amore Cadenza," she replied and this time she saw how clearly Sombra noted that she sounded slightly sheepish beneath her crystalline looks. They usually fooled everypony else.
"I think that I'll be calling you Cadance."
They stood next to one another in motionless silence, moonlight pouring over them both.
"Dancing, huh?" She sounded like she hadn't spoken so freely in ages.
Sombra nodded quietly. "I used to do it quite often."
"Really?" She tried a smile and it did not look natural. She felt like somepony trying to cut a snowflake out of rigid ice.
Sombra nodded again. "What about you? All you goddesses were always something else before you gained such an everlasting life. What were you?"
"A pegasus. And aren't you immortal now, Sombra?" Saying his name without title or venom felt strangely intimate. When was the last time it had been spoken?
"I suppose," he said with sudden disinterest. "And when I was asking you what you were I was asking about your profession. What kind of apprentice were you?"
Cadance looked at her hooves and muttered something she knew Sombra wouldn't hear, and he promptly gave her another one of his curious looks that were best described as cat-like. "What was that, dear Cadance? I'm afraid I can't hear you."
Sighing quickly, Cadance then spoke up. "I was in a garage band and played bass."
Sombra blinked in confusion and made a small noise in the back of his throat. "...You did what at whose base?"
Cadance's lifted her forehoof, and covered her not-quite-right smile from his view. "It'd take a lot of explaining." Casual speech poured from her mouth, as awkward as their dancing had been. Disuse will rob a pony of expertise in the strangest things. "I'm not sure you'd understand it—"
"Why not?" Sombra said, arching an eyebrow.
"You're... old?"
Sombra scowled and looked down at her, cold and unmoving. "Old? I'll have you know that I was only thirty-two when I died, if you don't count my time trapped in the ice."
Cadance was quiet for a long while. "Oh... I'm sorry... that is very young."
Sombra snorted. "And now you have seen the error of your ways. Don't you know how to keep your spirits high, Pink One?"
Now it was Cadance's turn to snort. "Pink One? That's certainly new. I can't say anypony has given me a nickname in a while. Isn't a little weird to you that a gloomy ghost is telling me to lighten up...?" She dragged the last word out, like a fading echo, so it trailed off with her wandering thoughts.
"You must admit, you are rather somber."
Cadance chose to answer with a small nod and looked away from her ghostly companion. "What about you? What is it that you used to do?"
Sombra sighed and looked at something beyond the horizon. "Before everything? I was a duke's bastard son that had the sense to walk out on him, and everything and everypony without a word. I was too young for anything on my own, so I followed my heart."
"You became a tyrant?"
"An actor, actually. The Crystal Empire used to have a great tradition of theater."
For the first time since they'd known one another, her smile felt like it was as it should be, even if little light feelings were in her chest. "You were an actor? What roles did you play — let me guess, the hero? For irony's sake?"
"Well," Sombra began, placing a cold forehoof on her crystallized wither to attempt to halt any further questions, "I was a child actor, so I usually played female roles—"
Cadance blinked. "But you have such a deep voice—"
He gave her a disgruntled look. "I didn't always. Now, may I finish?"
She nodded, feeling intrigued, as her coat sparkled just a touch more. "Can I ask you one more question first...?"
Sombra nodded, looking completely relaxed. "Yes. What is it that you wish to know, then?"
"Why do you say that the Empire had a proud tradition of theater? As its ruler, I think I would have noticed if there was a single theater or play that came from the Empire."
"It used to," Sombra replied shortly, stepping away from her and into the shadows of the night.
"What happened?"
Sombra's crimson glare found her from the dark. "I did."
Raising a shaking forehoof to her chest, Cadance took a deep breath and then pushed back an invisible weight as the shadows around her flicked. The moon's light could be obscured, after all, and a cloud outside did the trick.
The hall grew colder as the goddess and the ghost stared across the window's light at one another, each residing in the shadowed halves.
"W-Wh—"
It was all Cadance could manage.
"I didn't stay an actor forever, Cadance. Things happen," he sighed, and then added, "and things fall apart."
Cadance nodded, and not emptily. She knew his words. She lived them.
"And then," Sombra continued, "there are just some ponies..."
Cadance was sure she heard him swallow, or his voice catch. Her ears were keen.
"There are some ponies who just never take no for an answer."
The next deep breath Cadance took was deep, and the sound swept around the dark corridor while the mare who took it shook. She did not know what he meant, but she could guess.
Part of her did not want to.
So, she stepped into the moonlight, seeing her form glittering like a diamond, and extended a forehoof into the shadows where she knew he stood waiting.
"Would you honor me with a second dance?"
Sombra's ghostly limb slipped into hers, and she pulled him into the light.
"Can you still do any magic?" Cadance whispered in Sombra's ear as she followed his steps.
"No. I would need my horn for that. I'm barely physical, as you can tell," he responded, voice low as he sidestepped a moon beam.
For them, it was another moonlit night. It was the same hall, and the same two faces: theirs.
"Do you miss it?"
"Not particularly. I was an actor in another, more serious costume — that of a cape and crown. I have never been a sorcerer. Corruption—" he spoke the word with particular disgust, as though there was something about it he wants to dodge, "—was a strange experience for me, but I'm innocent of nothing. We both know that."
She nodded into his wither. "Were you a hedonist in life, then?"
"Maybe as a colt, but I've always been merry. You strike me as one who has had the inclination, no?"
"Maybe I did at one point," Cadance whispered, holding onto Sombra. "I don't know anymore."
Sombra didn't say anything. "Nopony has called you Cadance in some time."
"Just my aunties," she mumbled, looking away. "Twilight, too. I haven't seen her in..."
Sombra raised an eyebrow. "A cousin, I presume? The..." He paused, lost in thought. "Purple unicorn, yes? Poorly styled mane?"
Cadance wondered if Sombra felt her nod. "She's taller now and she has wings and a castle... and everything. Family."
Cadance felt relief flowing throughout her when Sombra didn't respond with another question about 'everything' or what she meant by 'family'. She didn't like answering the second part, not any longer. Even if she did think about it. About him.
"You must have to keep track of a lot of names, then. More than I did. I didn't care much about what I called anypony, dear Pink One."
"...There aren't any servants. Or at least, none in the castle. Not anymore. Not after..."
Him.
"It was a joke. You haven't talked to anypony in a while, have you?"
"No," Cadance whimpered. "Everything feels so cold."
"Perhaps because you're embracing a dead stallion?"
Cadance's laughter sounded too much like crying, but at least Sombra never let go.
Cadance's hooves hurt from the night's dancing, and lying out on the floor wasn't as cold as Sombra's deathly cold touch, even if she preferred the latter. Her mane was no longer perfectly and rigidly curled in the Crystalline way and fell in loose, sparkling tresses behind her as they had once, before she ever adopted the styles of her land.
Before she came here at all.
Sombra sat regally next to her, his expression mournful. Since he could not touch anything other than flesh and his own regalia, Sombra found himself unable to use Cadance's gilded hoof file that did look so nice...
"Why do you call me Pink One?"
Sombra gave her a small smile, the first that Cadance had seen the handsome stallion make. Even the few surviving portraits of him, while dusty and damaged, did not suggest a stallion who smiled. "It is merely my nickname for you. Why do you ask?"
"I've never met a spooky ghost who liked nicknames, I guess?"
"Hmm. I think I prefer to identify as a 'not quite dead entity'. Sounds more dignified, wouldn't you say?"
"That's a dumb nickname," Cadance said from the floor. How long had it been since she'd said something as silly as 'dumb'? "Did you ever have one?"
"Well—"
"Ooh, was it Shadowy Shadow McShadowson? Or Sombry? Sommykins? Demon?"
Sombra blinked. "Demon," he said flatly. "Do I look like some kind of demon to you?"
"Red eyes, yo." It felt good, no natural, to speak so again.
Sombra frowned with slight disgust. "Please explain how 'Sombra' and 'demon' go together. He crossed his ghostly forehooves, and his expression soured. "I'm a little insulted at such an accusation."
"So Sombry it is then?" Cadance said with a giggle that had waited too long to be.
Sombra, once a king to be feared instead of nicknamed, looked down at her, the solitary Empress sprawled across the floor and listened to her laugh for a moment longer, never averting his eyes.
"So Sombry, what's your favorite food?" Another night of dancing and conversation had Cadance sprawled on the ground like an adolescent.
"I'm dead," Sombra helpfully reminded her.
"In life, then. Sorry about that."
"Candied apples."
"What?!" Cadance exclaimed, bolting up. "Sombry, you have a sweet tooth?"
"I'm dead," he repeated, "I had a sweet tooth, Pink One."
"Haven't I earned a better nickname? Empress Pink One sounds so foalish." She flopped to the ground again. "And days are just... stagnant and lonely as it is."
"And King Sombry is any better?" Sombra's fangy grin gleamed in the moonlight.
"Okay, so maybe it isn't. Yesterday you said you had an actual nickname, eh?" How silly. She was talking like a peasant now.
Sombra nodded slowly. "I did, and then you interrupted me."
"So what was it?"
Sombra peered out at Luna's starry night sky and frowned thoughtfully. "I don't think this is the same as the nicknames we have given one another, but I was often called a thief."
"Why?"
Sombra didn't look at her. "Because I was the greatest thief of all."
Cadance levitated a piece of purple glass in the ray of moonlight and beamed at Sombra, who cocked his head to the side and observed the changed moonlight now lighting up the hall that they thought of as theirs, even if it was never said. They never met anywhere else or at any other time of day.
"So this is a decorative technique they use in the south?"
"Yes," said Cadance, still smiling.
"And despite the exclusion of crystals, the wealthy often decorate things like this?"
"Yes — Canterlot Castle is full of windows — entire windows like this."
"Entire windows you say?" The green piece of glass close to Sombra wouldn't budge, no matter how many pointless attempts he made trying to pick it up. "That sounds impressive. Luxury is something I've loved."
Cadance couldn't believe that she hadn't realized how fun it was to do this and began to rummage through the small vase of glass bits and seashells — an old, old gift from a kingdom that collapsed in the time before the first Longest Night.
"Wealth pales in comparison to good company, in my opinion," Sombra said, staring directly at the preoccupied Cadance. "Wouldn't you say?"
"I couldn't agree more." She still was trying to search for the perfect color to show Sombra next. Quirky things like this were Auntie Luna's niche, but she hadn't realized how lonely she'd been — or maybe she had — until she wasn't.
Sombra smiled a little. "I am a stallion of fine tastes, no?"
Cadance giggled. She wasn't sure why, but she did. For a ghost tyrant, she thought Sombra to be quite the gentlecolt. It almost reminded her of...
Him.
She didn't let that thought go any further, and Sombra's gaze only left her when she looked at him again. She holding an azure fragment of glass in her magic, and told herself that was what he was looking at.
"This one is such a pretty color, don't you think?"
"I prefer warmer colors, and isn't that one the same?" He nodded to another piece of glass sitting nearby.
Cadance followed his motion as quickly as she could. "What? No, that's not the same shade of blue as Flurry's—"
"Flurry?"
Cadance swallowed. "Y-Yeah. Flurry Heart... she's my daughter."
"You live alone," Sombra pointed out.
"Except for a few servants, yeah, I do. They never come to this part of the castle anyway — even before you showed up and I had them clean only during the day. Do you sleep or something then?"
"Yes, you could say that. I always was a bit of a night owl. And your daughter...?"
"She grew up and moved out and has her own kingdom. You know, normal immortal goddess stuff," Cadance said sadly.
While Sombra did look concerned — even just a little — Cadance was glad when he decided to ignore that and talk about something else. "You were smart not to keep any guards around. I don't think you'd even need them at your age."
Instead of looking down sorrowfully, as Cadance knew she was used to doing now, whenever social subjects involving other ponies came up, she perked up. It was an old gesture, and stuck out even in her own persistent melancholy. "Why?"
"Never trust a stallion in armor."
Cadance knew Sombra as brooding, but even-tempered. He said little with venom. On rare occasions he was dramatic, but in a way befitting his background.
She did not know him as moody or vicious, and right now, he sounded very vicious.
"Why...? What could you possibly have against ponies who would help you? Didn't you have them when you were king?"
"I did not," Sombra spat. "I just told you that they could not be trusted—"
"Is it because you were a tyrant? Was there a rebellion?" Cadance's purple-tipped wings flared defensively.
"No. There was no rebellion, and it has nothing to do with the mistakes I made then—"
"Then what is it?!" Cadance couldn't think of the last time she had screamed or demanded anything like this from somepony.
Sombra pulled away and stood up. His tone was icy and direct. "I had guard when I ruled, yes. However, mine were kept in place with the use of some helmets that I'm sure you found in your armories when you took the throne. I wouldn't dare let a single one have a mind of their own after—"
"After what?" Cadance said softly when she saw that Sombra, the ghost of the Crystal Palace, was shaking at the thought of something.
"Nothing," Sombra snapped. "It's nothing at all. It's nothing that's ever going to happen again. It's nothing that I'm going to relive. AND IT MOST CERTAINLY NOT SOMETHING THAT I'M GOING TO TELL YOU!"
Cadance watched him storm away with tears in her eyes, but they were for a different stallion.
"I'm sorry—" Cadance began her apology instantly when she saw Sombra the next night, waiting with an impatient scowl at their hallway. At the same time, she didn't think that he wanted to see her.
"Are you really?"
"Yes, Sombry, I really am. I-I didn't mean to make you so upset or... or..." The tall Goddess-Empress of the Crystal Empire, Mi Amore Cadenza, alone and imperial, sunk to her knees and began to weep, feeling for all the world like something was cracking. "I'm the only one... I'm the only one... Did you lose somepony, Sombry? I kn-now what it's like to lose somepony, just p-please don't have it be you... Sombry, you're all that lingers..."
Sombra walked over to her with a calm that Cadance wasn't sure to trust or fear and loomed over her. "I lost part of myself."
Cadance nodded, but shakily and as an expression of sympathy. "I don't know what you mean, b-but I won't ask... it's just..."
Sombra kissed her. It was supposed to be simple, and it probably looked very simple, but he just bent his head down and kissed her, right on her cold, tear-streaked cheek before sitting down on the crystalline floor.
"M-My husband," Cadance sobbed, trying to meet his calmed gaze. The hot tears tracing down her cheeks felt like the only warmth she had. When had she become so very cold? Then, when it all happened? After? Gradually?
She collapsed and Sombra caught her in an embrace that was colder than death. Cadance would know what a dead pony felt like. She had been so very unfortunate.
Sombra was just as cold. She did not mind. She loved it.
Sombra nudged her slightly with his freezing muzzle, and Cadance nuzzled him back once, before wilting again.
"He was killed," she said, voice hoarse. "Flurry didn't take it well... she was the first natural-born goddess within modern Equestria's borders and... Sombry, she was so young when it happened. How do you tell a ten-year-old that somepony wanted her daddy dead? That they succeeded, and that he's gone. To this day, I don't know how I did it."
Wordlessly, Sombra leaned down to nuzzle her again, and Cadance reached up a forehoof to stroke his fluffy face, no matter how cold he was she felt comforted for the first time since the slow freeze of everything centuries ago.
"Everything froze, Sombry. I felt as frozen as a windigo. I held all the Balls and functions and sometimes I would smile — I smiled so much for Flurry — and that's when everything started. Everything began to freeze, including me a-and..."
She didn't need to say anymore. Sombra's hug told her that.
"I miss myself so much..."
As they sat there, moonlight spilling over them as usual, Cadance thought, in her haze of sadness, that this kind of freeze — where she was right here with a pony who only felt cold — wasn't so bad.
And, eventually, before the night was over, she heard Sombra whisper in her ear.
They talked and laughed in that hallway more with each passing night. Cadance brought games and books and chips that only she could eat. She moved his chess pieces for him and told him about so-and-so's kingdom and everything she could find on the dramatic arts.
Sleep deprivation would take hold. She'd roam the halls with coffee and bags of things she wanted to share... and under her eyes. Sometimes she'd fall asleep in the middle of games or reading with Sombra. She really couldn't help it — he still had an actor's heart, and his voice brought every word to life, lulling her into the sleep she usually managed to sneak in the day — especially with the help of some sunglasses. She couldn't remember how often she thanked every divine and the Heart itself that centuries later, they were still in fashion.
Everything was a secret, and what a lovely secret it was.
She found herself.
And tonight, she found their hallway empty.
It was a very silly thought, in fact, it was as silly as her eyes watering at the thought of her ghostly lover vanishing like all was a dream.
She called him her true love, and only meant it half as a joke.
And now he wasn't there.
She ran.
She did not see where she ran, she just ran. She ran all throughout the castle where the few staff — who thankfully kept to themselves — did their jobs quietly and into the parts where nopony but her ever went.
And she found him standing atop the highest, lonely tower of the Crystal Palace where Twilight Sparkle located the Crystal Heart ages and ages ago.
He stood in the noonday sun and smiled at her, rolling his eyes far too dramatically for her to take seriously.
And she wept all over again, not because he had left, but because like nopony else, he had stayed. Everything around her had changed — the sun was in the sky, stinging her eyes, and the moon below the horizon. The wind whipped around them instead of through a window.
When he asked her if she wanted to dance, she said yes.
The dusty shelves of Cadance's sacred vinyl hall had not heard this much laughter in ages. Between Cadance constantly thanking the absent Twilight Sparkle for preservation enchantments made to last, and Sombra's... colorful... reactions to centuries' worth of alternative music, the rest of the night sounds of the Empire might as well not have existed.
Humming, Cadance flipped a curl of her long mane back and blew the dust off one of her treasures. "Gosh, I can't believe it's been one hundred and twenty-three years since I gave anything by Rodeohead a listen... Gods, no wonder I've been feeling so pathetic, huh?"
"Pardon... Rodeohead? Just what are all these things?" Sombra pointed to a dusty vinyl and squinted at it. "Why are the tails referenced in here only nine-inches long?"
"It's the band name, Sombry. Think of it as the name for an acting troupe."
"I see. Was their distinguishing feature their unreasonably short tails?"
"Do you want to listen to music or not?"
"Do you know just how impractical it is to have a nine-inch tail?" Sombra said, raising an eyebrow and giving Cadance a pointed look. She silently wondered two things. The first was whether Sombra didn't like the manestyle of the day — she had kissed cold, formal mane styles good-bye and delved into some old habits — and the second was whether she should listen to Amnesiac or In Rainbows first.
"Hey, Sombry, just how many genres of music did they have back when you weren't dead? I'm debating what we should try first..."
"Do lutes count as a genre?"
Cadance calmly placed the two vinyl records she had been levitating down and strolled over to Sombra, radiating a sweet friendliness and spunk that had only recently returned. "Sombry, I love you, but we really need to make sure you get the best possible experience from all my vintage stuff."
Sombra accepted a peck on the cheek and gave Cadance a wary look. "And this is coming from the mare who thought that spraying your fabled 'manespray' directly onto me would make it harder for me to walk through walls?"
"You kept spying on me!"
"I was not," Sombra protested, "I happened to want to locate a book you had been reading to me, seeing as I can't manipulate many objects on my own and you sprayed your own husband in the eyes with that ancient styling product!"
"Okay, first, there's no need to be rude. Second, you spooked me. Third, walking through walls all the time isn't nice."
"I'm dead."
"I know, but it wasn't like the manespray did anything, right?" Cadance beamed innocently at him.
"It startled me..." Sombra mumbled.
"Yah? Well, marriage is about forgiveness, Sombry, and I'm waiting for that any day now." She winked and placed a kiss on his muzzle.
Sombra sighed, and smiled. "You are going to attempt to keep me here until I know all these disc troupes as well as you do, aren't you?"
