King and I - 6

You crack open a crusty eyelid, wincing at the bright lights that shine from the ceiling. A crashing headache cripples you. You groan as your head begins to pound. Thankfully somebody notices your plight as the lights dim significantly allowing you to crack open your eyes. The white tiled ceiling is a noticeable departure from the all crystal structure of the palace, did you get moved?

You’re in a hospital room, complete with sterile air and cheap seating. There are no windows and the only light source are the crystals on the wall which emit a warm orange glow. Are there any windows in this place? A green wooden door stands close to your left. A cloudy glass window shows a vaguely white corridor outside.

Your neck feels sore. It hurts slightly when you breathe. You must have some kind of bruising around your neck. The stallion, the one that you killed. He did it. Your breathing picks up slightly as flashes of the fight are brought up from your memory. You killed somebody. You don’t feel… bad about it.

You feel like an outside observer to your own feelings.

You begin to grow frustrated. Why don’t you feel so terrible about it? You’d never kill anyone! Not even your worst enemy. Despite your attempts to induce feelings of disgust and horror with yourself you feel perfectly fine with the proceedings.

What would you do differently anyway? He was trying to choke you to death; there was no way the guards would be able to get to you in time. You don’t even want to start thinking about what vile magic you used on the guy, the last thing you remember seeing was him coughing up steaming blood.

You can faintly remember that fleeting moment of power. Pushing your anger towards him, wishing that he’d burn for what he did, and then he did, he burned. You shake your head. You shouldn’t dwell on it for too long. There’s nothing you can do about it now. The sound of muffled voices can be heard from behind the door. Somebody must be coming to visit.

They stop at the door, the distorted form of two ponies talking. The white one nods and walks away while the black motions to somebody out of sight. He opens it, revealing a very serious looking Sombra. He walks in and shuts the door with his magic, you notice that there are no guards posted outside. He must have dismissed them.

You watch him wearily. He walks around to the right side of the bed, pulling up a chair with his magic. He taps the metal rail on the bed with a fore hoof. His eyes avert from your own as he struggles to put his thoughts into words. His face twists into a rollercoaster of different emotions as you sit there and stare awkwardly. The clanging stops, he makes eye contact again.

“I want to know everything; every little detail, every thought and every action. When you are finished, I shall reach a judgment on what to do with you.” He demands ominously. “Speak. I wish to have this over with.”

“I was in the gardens.” You begin.

“Doing what exactly?” He interrupts.

“Getting some fresh air, I was tired of sitting in my room.” He seems to accept your reason and nods along. “While I was sitting there, a group of armored pegasi came down from the sky. I thought they were some of your guards, they were wearing the armor.”

“Guard armor?” He mouths silently. “How many of them?”

“About five or six, I wasn’t really counting them. I can’t tell you much else about them, they all looked the same.”

“Armor enchantment, it keeps the identity of my soldiers secret. How did you encounter them?”

“I heard a scream from the hallway so I went and took a look. They were fighting with the real guards. I don’t think they were the same ponies, there was-“

“A unicorn yes, we already counted the bodies.” Your face pales at the implication. “I believe that these pegasi are still residing within the palace.” An awkward silence falls upon the room. Your heart begins to speed up at the thought of more of them hiding in the palace. After your last encounter you don’t feel all too fond of them.

“How did you kill him?” He asks out of the blue. You look to him with your eyes wide open in shock. His flippant question has stumped you, how did you kill him? “Do you not understand my question? How did you kill the last colt? I see the bruises that stain your skin. I heard it from my soldiers; they saw him choke to death on his own blood.” His eyes glare at you with intensity you haven’t seen before, not even when scolding the citizens at your short stay in court.

“I-I don’t know.” You stammer, shaking slightly. “I was so angry. I… pushed it onto him. I was angry with him because he was trying to kill me.”

“You don’t know much about magic do you?” He chides. “It’s closely tied to your emotions. That burning anger you felt, you channeled it through your horn and cast it onto his body and mind. Emotions are an extension of our own will, such as is we use our emotions to cast spells. Tell me, what did you want to happen to him?”

“I wanted him to burn.” You whisper. Sombra looks shocked for a moment, even concerned.

“That was no fire, do not lie to me.”

“I wanted him to burn!” You shout, raising yourself from the bed. “He’d dead, because of me. How I did it doesn’t matter!” Your voice cracks as you wail at the shocked King. He waits for you to calm down. Your heart pounds in your chest as the implications of what you admitted hit full force.

“It does matter, very much so.” He snarls. “Such magic I have yet to have seen with my own eyes. Yet here you are, speaking as if it’s nothing to be worried about. Magic of such abject cruelty that I can’t help but to be drawn to the stories and tales of which is creates. Magic so dangerous that it proprietors were to be hunted down and exterminated like vermin!”

“What are you talking about?” You ask, cutting through his monologue. He looks at your horsehead as he speaks.

“Blood magic.” He finishes simply. “I see your true nature now. A highly emotional being that dwells in anger for the misfortunes placed upon you, pushing that anger onto others and boiling the blood within their veins.” He moves to stand, pushing the chair back to its former position. He stands tall, a small chink in his calm façade showing as he walks to the door.

“After you are discharged from this infirmary, you are moving rooms. I want you no more than a hoofs reach away at all times. Do not wander around the castle without my explicit permission, lest you find yourself in harm’s way.” With that he turns and leaves the room at a brisk pace leaving you in silence once again.

You find yourself repeating your therapy from the first night, beating up your pillow as if to say that it’s the sole cause of all your problems. You scream and curse, but in the end you find yourself curled into a small, bitter ball at the foot of the bed. You have no idea why you feel this way. Before you came here you never lashed out, never got extremely angry. But now you can’t go five minutes without departing from the station of good sense and flying into extreme anger or sadness.

Maybe Sombra’s right.

No! You won’t let him win. This is just another of his little games to keep you here, to be his complacent little consort for the rest of your days. He’s shown his hand and told you about your biggest advantage. Blood magic, the term sends shivers down your spine. You could tell that Sombra was losing his composure. To find out that his weak slave had a dangerous and rare form of magic must have thrown a huge wrench in his plans, not to mention the rebel assault.

You hear the door being unlatched. You have no idea what time it is, the lack of windows has completely destroyed your internal clock. The nurse isn’t due for another visit at least, she only saw to you half an hour ago. The door opens with a loud squeal, revealing the blue stallion so intent of helping you escape. You smile as he approaches the bed. His disguise has changed, from the little waiter’s uniform from before to a long white coat. It’s long enough to cover his cutie mark, again, which can’t help but arouse your suspicion.
His silver mane is unkempt and knotted, indicating some kind of struggle. His trademark winning smile still remains however. “How are you doing?” He asks pulling up the chair Sombra sat on earlier. He even manages to adopt the same sitting posture.

“Not good.” You say. You look down at your hooves and rub a fetlock absent mindedly. “Sombra gave me a bit of trouble for what happened earlier.”

“You mean the attack? I heard about that, tough break.” He whispers somberly.

“You didn’t know about it?” You whisper back.

“Of course I did, I just didn’t have the capacity to help out. We don’t have many secure lines of communication beyond what we can tell each other in pony. My position within the castle is really important to our cause.”

He doesn’t seem to know that you killed one of them, nor does he notice the very prominent bruises around your neck from where one of his friends choked you.

“What’s your name?” You ask suddenly. “You haven’t really told me much about yourself.”

“I don’t want to tell you my life story; it isn’t really the time for it. My name is Silver, Silver Shield.” His appearance finally clicks; it’s the knight from the story! Silver shield, the valiant hero of the crystal empire, hero of Equestria and vanquisher of darkness. Considering everything that’s happened so far it makes sense that he’d be here too, this is a near mirror image of the universe from the story.

“Nice to meet you.” You joke. He chuckles slightly and places a reassuring hoof on your shoulder; you flinch slightly from the contact. “H-how’s the rebellion going?”

“I think that Sombra’s days are numbered.” He states matter-of-factly. “Have you got your hands on any of the stuff I need?”
“No, I haven’t had much opportunity to grab any of them for you.”

“Don’t feel obligated. I’m working on getting them gathered too. Sombra is keeping a very close eye on you after all.” He removes his hoof and hops off the chair, once again pushing it back to the original position against the wall. “We’ll catch him out soon enough. Then we can ru- liberate the empire and take things back to the good old days.”

He smiles as he finishes his little sales pitch. He looks to you and begins staring at your forehead. “You look different; did you do something with your mane?”

You feel your hair but can’t find anything different about it. “They must have washed it.” You reason. Silver nods and smiles again before giving you a curt bow. “They’re moving my room by the way.  I’m staying closer to Sombra now.”

He bites his bottom lip. “That isn’t good. No good at all. Watch out for him okay? I wouldn’t trust that stallion if he were my own brother.” He quickly turns and leaves. You stare longingly at the spot where he stood, you really wish you could go with him and escape from his blasted castle. He’ll be back soon you think, and then you can escape.

You drift into a daze. The boredom of lying in an empty hospital room gets to you. You make up lots of little scenarios in your head about how you’re going to escape. You run a hoof through your mane but wince and squeak as something shark pokes you in the leg. You pull it down and hiss as a stinging wound dribbles a few small droplets of blood.

You place it to your muzzle and lick your wound. What the hell? How did you manage to stab yourself?

While you were distracted one of the nurses had slipped into the room. “Hello.” She greets cheerfully. You jump as the unnoticed mare pulls the clipboard from the end of your bed. She flips through the pages fitfully.

“It seems your windpipe is perfectly fine, apart from the bruising of course. You’re fit for discharge.” She looks up at you and watches in curiosity as you attempt to look at your own horn. “Would you like a mirror Miss?”

“Oh! Sure.” She scuttles away for a minute, before returning with a small hand mirror in her mouth. She hands it to you and you carefully clamp it between two hooves. Your neck looks a mess, with big purple bruises easily visible under your thin fur. Everything else looks okay. You angle them mirror upwards. Your horn comes into view and you nearly drop it in shock.

Whereas before your horn was graceful and curved, much like the other unicorns you’d seen around the palace, it was now significantly longer and much smoother. The grooves are still faintly visible in their former location, but they’re much shallower now. In the right lighting they disappear completely. The tip is also much sharper which explains how you managed to stab yourself with it.

Your mouth hangs open as you observe the cosmetic differences. The nurse stands there awkwardly, unsure of what is drawing your ire. She coughs into her foreleg to catch your attention. You hand her the mirror, she grabs it in-between her lips and sets it down on the floor.

 “Well then, let’s get you out of that bed.”

--------------

Your new room was much like the old one. Same furniture, same layout, same bed and they even copied to bathroom down to the finest detail. Sombra must have been waiting to spring this change on you the moment he had an excuse, not exactly subtle.
Your new arrangements also included a guard escort. You weren’t allowed to speak with them either meaning fraternization and potential leniency were thrown out of the window, if you had a window anyway.

The mystery of your new horn could wait for now. You were worried about something much more serious. You had left the list that Silver gave you under your pillow, meaning that it was open for any nosey maid or guard to find, take and give to the King. The worst case scenario being that he’ll throw you in a dungeon for being a traitor.

The new guards are unwilling to let you leave, citing orders from Sombra to keep you in sight at all times. You really do need his permission to go anywhere. It’s a strange cross between being protective and suspicious of you. He doesn’t want all the work bringing you here to go to waste. Things might not be going to plan for him though, his behavior in the hospital being a far cry from the cool and collected tyrant you saw in the throne room.

Building this reactor for Silver is rapidly falling out of your grasp. You need a new way to undermine him. Already you’ve managed to mess with his plans by demonstrating blood magic, something he was almost afraid of, with a few more incidents like that his whole game could come crashing down. He’s panicking slightly, placing you under armed guard so you don’t get injured again, or injure anybody else.
It’s almost sweet of him in a way, but you still shudder slightly at the thought of him acting nice to you. He’s going to find himself in some very hot water soon, pressure from the rebels, Silver and you. He doesn’t stand a chance.