King and I - 10

With a cheery goodbye you leave the mare, who you now realize never gave her name, and head back to your room. There isn’t nearly enough to do to fill your day in with. A small part of you secretly hopes that Sombra would take you somewhere interesting for a few hours. It turns out to be wishful thinking, as once again you receive the cold shoulder for the day. Slipping away that secret message was quite exciting at least, and you managed to make a new friend in the process!

You have plans for tonight, assuming the castle is just as deserted as before. It’s time to get some answers from the spy. You peak your snout out of the door and once again find the corridors empty. Sombra must have some kind of defense system in place; he can’t just leave the castle unguarded at night.

This time you take much less time running to the cells. You’re eager to find out the reasons behind the un-rest and hopefully join forces with the rebels. He’s still lying in the same spot as before; he slowly turns around onto his stomach and smiles slightly as he sees you.

“What do we have here?” He whispers.

“I dropped of your message. I want answers.” You ask, not wanting to beat around the bush anymore.

“I know.” He chuckles, slowly rising to a sitting position. ”Alright, you proved yourself. I’ll tell you everything you wanna’ know, barring some confidential stuff. To answer your question from yesterday, we’re being sent here by the Princesses.” You aren’t really surprised at the revelation after Sombra hinted at it yesterday.

“Why?”

“To assassinate Sombra of course. That guy’s madder than a bag of rattle snakes, a monster like him needs to be put down so somepony else, who actually cares, can be put in his place.” He sighs wistfully. “I remember when they came up to me and proposed this little mission. I was over the moon, a mission from the Princesses? How could I refuse?”

“I don’t think killing him is the best way to do it.” You mention. “The empire could easily descend into chaos with rival factions vying for control.” Something they don’t seem to realize.

“I think everypony here is unified in the belief that getting’ rid of Sombra is for the best. Equestria gives the rebels weapons and equipment, in return for the promise that the empire comes under the flag afterwards.” It’s reasonable to think, but he’s seriously naive to think that everything’s going to be roses after the one pony holding the place together is violently removed.

You can tell you aren’t going to get much else out of him. It’s a shame he hasn’t told you much that you didn’t already figure out for yourself. He looks to you for a moment, his eyes scanning your horn and collar. “Can I ask you a few questions?”
“Sure.”

“How’d you get stuck in here anyway?”

You laugh bitterly and stare off into the darkness. “Sombra… kidnapped me. He’s holding me prisoner here.”
“You aren’t in a cell though.” He points out. “You managed to get down here well enough.”

“That’s not the point; everything I do is under the watchful eye of his hoof picked guards. I get locked in my room for hours on end without anything to occupy myself with. I’m not going to act thankful to him because he didn’t throw me in one of these cells.” You rant. You poke at the collar wrapped around your neck. “See this? It’s his bucking proof of ownership.”

The stallion nods along. “Anybody else’d say you’re a consort.” You balk at the idea of becoming intimate with Sombra. “Maybe not, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” You don’t know how he can tell with your white fur, but you ignore the comment for the moment.

“Over my dead body.” The stallion goes quiet, the only sound being the dripping of water echoing through the stone hall.

“What’s your name?” He asks. “I’m Spyglass.” Of course, you should have known. It’s fairly obvious with his cutie mark and secret message. You open your mouth to speak, but find yourself tongue tied as you attempt to remember your name. “Somethin’ wrong?” Spyglass asks in concern. He must see the distress on your face; he took your name, the last vestige of your old life, wiped away like an insignificant stain.

You try to think back to your old life and all of the times your name was said out loud, but you come up blank. All of your memories are faded and hold some unfamiliarity. All of that time spent with your family is difficult to fully remember. Their faces fade away into unrecognizable blurs. You can’t even remember their voices! Think Rose, what did they call you?

Rose? You called yourself Rose. Of course you did, Sombra couldn’t just change your body, he had to jumble up your memories too!
“R-Rose.” You mumble. “My name is Rose.” Tears begin to well up in your eyes as you look to the floor crestfallen.

“Woah there! Don’t go wailin’ on me little lady! What’s up?”

“He took it…” You sniff.

“Took what?”

“He took my name damn it! He took my fucking name!” You scream slamming a hoof against the stone floor. Pins and needles begin to encompass your body as anger swells up inside you. You catch yourself, no need to get angry. It isn’t his fault.

Spyglass looks at the door with paranoia. “Keep it down!” He whispers. “Ah’ don’t wanna’ get killed in here.”  You take a few deep breaths and wipe the crust away from your eyes. “Listen, I ain’t gonna’ pretend I understand your situation, ah’m sorry for that, but I don’t see much good that I can do about it.”

Tears still manage to escape and drip onto the floor. What a sight you must be right now, crying your eyes out in front of another pony. “S-sorry.” You stutter. “I’ve been having a bad time.” The stallion raises a shackled foreleg and rattles the chain if only to make you feel worse. He seems to notice your dropping ears and quickly drops the limb again.

He bites his lip for a moment before shaking his head; there isn’t much he can do. “Sorry.” He mirrors. “I’m kinda’ frustrated too. Maybe we should talk about something else to lighten the mood?”

You nod and wipe away the tears with a fetlock. The fur is good for absorbing moisture; it’s probably bad for swimming though. “How about you tell me about yourself? I-I can’t really contribute much.” You admit.

“A bit maybe. I was raised in a lively little town called Appleloosa with mah’ folks and a younger sister. Ah’ never really liked the placed tough, too much dust for my liking. I was always good at finding things, so much that its mah’ special talent, so ah’ got a job offer from the fancy folks in Canterlot. Mamma was so happy for me! I was excited too; heh, it’s every colts dream to join the royal guard.” His eyes became glossy for a moment as he reminisced about his childhood. His expression soon turned sour as he left the stupor. “Your turn, don’t have to tell me everything. How about something recent?”

You think back to your first impressions of Sombra, seems like a good tale to regale and it leaves out the whole alien creature thing. “How about the first time I met Sombra?” He perks up slightly in a clear sign of interest.

You clear your throat of the mucus that had built up from your emotional outburst. “Well, when I first got pulled here by… his guards, they just threw me into one of the guest rooms and locked me in there.”

“They didn’t hurt you did they?” He asks suddenly. You blush slightly and shake your head. He smiles and lies back on the dirty blanket. That was weird.

“Anyway, I snuck out of the room afterwards to find that all the corridors were empty. I found my way down to the lobby where a mare was waiting for me. She escorted me to the throne room to meet him. He made a show of it, making me walk up to the throne and everything.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Not really, he just sent me back to my room after gloating for a while. I wasn’t expecting him to, why would he tell me everything right away? That’s how he works.” You reason. “I’ve barely interacted with him really.”

He looks incredulous for a moment but averts his gaze from your own. “Interesting.”

“Your turn.” He sighs again and continues from where he left off.

“Mah’ family is the traditional sort. They raised me right, taught me everything I’d need to know in the real world. Religious to a tee.” You quirk an eyebrow, religious? You didn’t know they had religion in Equestria.

“Don’t look at me like that.” He scoffs. “It’s mighty old fashioned ah’ know, but it’s just how we did things in Appleloosa, lots o’ like-minded folks out there. Mah’ parents swore down on being Celestites.”

Celestia has a religion surrounding her? It’s not hard to think why, considering she’s a living goddess and all, but there was never indication in the show to something like this. But you aren’t in the show, you remind yourself and things are very different here.
“Yep, we’d head down to the community centre every day along with our family friends. It was actually quite fun, getting’ to play with all the other kids.”

With your interest piqued you ask “What kind of practices did you have?”

“Nothin’ fancy, just follow the six elements of harmony. Be honest to others, be loyal to those close, be generous to the needy, be kind to the misunderstood, don’t be afraid to make others laugh and finally, understand the magic that flows through you.” He finishes with a beaming smile. An interesting note is that the elements of harmony appear to play a larger role than villain squashing super weapon.

“Ma’ would hammer that into me every night before bed. Ah’… can’t really say they’re easy to follow, especially in the royal guard, sometimes they want me to do things that my family’d disown me for. I try, in the eyes of Celestia that’s all that matters.”

“What about Luna?”

 “Oh! We didn’t much pay her much mind. That’s more of a Thestral kinda’ thing, you won’t find many Lunates in the west. I’ll tell you, they were dancin’ in the streets when she returned. There ain’t much difference between the two anyhow, Lunates fellow the same tenants we do.”

You suddenly catch on that you’ve been talking for quite a while now, and it’s about time you left before the guards catch you. “I’ve got to go; don’t want to risk getting caught down here.” He looks saddened at your sudden departure. “I’ll be back.” You promise.


You sit in silence as Sombra carefully lifts the fork into his maw. For whatever reason today he has decided to bring you down to his breakfast routine, meaning you have to sit and watch him eat a plate of food in comically slow fashion.

Little has been said between the two of you, between the “courteous” initial greeting and your tired grunt in response. You were up late last night after all and sitting here isn’t helping to dispel the sleepiness that still plagues your body.

The steaming cabbage is carefully inspected from all sides as the fork glows with his magic aura. He blows it slightly, with pursed lips he is finally satisfied and places it on his tongue, and then he chews. The entire process takes far too long for your liking; every movement is exaggerated and carefully choreographed. He must squeeze some form of enjoyment from your irritation, as the angrier you look the slower he goes.

He fork clatters to the table as a napkin is wiped across his lips. He flashes you a grin as your eye twitches. “I’m impressed.” He compliments as the napkin is discarded into a nearby waste bin. “You managed to hold your tongue.”

Of course he’d do it on purpose. Sombra is slowly becoming more infantile by the day. Hopefully he’ll be unable to walk soon so you can escape. You roll your eyes and tap a hoof against the table. Your face tenses as you fight back a yawn.

He rises from his seat and wordlessly heads to the door. You sigh and drag yourself away from the comfy pillow, another day of him being an amateur tour guide is better than nothing you suppose. The guards stand to attention as he passes, but remain there until you pass too; they obviously believe that you hold some kind of authority to be around him so often.

He leads you down a series of nondescript corridors, leading you to a large archway. It’s much like the one that headed into the garden platform, but the area is markedly different. The ground is compacted and muddy, and there are no forms of plant life in the area. Wooden racks holding spears and short swords circle a dirty ring designed for guard training. Just across from it there’s a shooting range. Straw pony dummies are placed at different distances from a set of wooden blocks. A small pile of short-bows and arrows are provided at each station.

“Why are we here?” You ask, but it falls upon deaf ears as Sombra strides on without a glance. The courtyard is empty of any other guards or personnel, meaning it’s just him and you once again. The dirty ground sends up clouds of dust as your hooves impact it. You cough into your hoof as Sombra leads you to the shooting range.

He motions to the furthest station to the left. Not wanting to argue you quickly take up position and train your eyes on the battered dummy that lies a few meters away. “I do realize that we haven’t afforded ourselves much time together.” Sombra laments looking down the range. “I suppose I have a responsibility as your host, to teach you things that you wouldn’t learn at that backwater place you call home. The incident earlier is an all too grim reminder of such.”

He sweeps up next to you, his fur brushing against your own slightly. Your body tenses in a natural reaction to the contact. He glances at you and smirks again. “Today, I shall teach you how to control your power.”

Your eyes widen in shock. He’s going to teach you magic after what you did? “I can’t have you being placed in jeopardy again, and while my advisors say that teaching you the art of battle will only make matters worse, I beg to disagree. What is somepony who cannot act for themselves? Such dependency I discourage, not just among my guards.”

He backs off slightly, but still stays close enough to keep you on edge. “We’re going to begin with something even foals can do without trouble. If you prove yourself capable we will move onto something more substantial. The most basic form of magic offense is simply unleashing a blast of concentrated magical energy at a target. Any proficient mage can easily block it, and any decent soldier can dodge just the same. I want you to blast the target.”

He’s not a very good teacher you think to yourself bitterly otherwise he’d be telling you how to do it. You shake the cobwebs away and set up to the block. The dummy sways slightly in the breeze. You take a deep breath and relax your muscles. Everything fades into the foreground as you focus on the target.

A feeling begins to well up inside your chest, nowhere near as powerful as it felt in the throne rooms, but it’s definitely there. It’s like flexing an invisible muscle, as you find that the energy is easy to move within the confines of your own body. You need to draw that power into your horn, aim and release it.

You take in a breath as you begin the movement. It sends goose bumps across your fur hidden skin and causes you to shake slightly. You clench your teeth and keep your eyes on the prize. The energy sends a warm feeling across its location but leaves the rest of your body cold. Pin pricks erupt across your face and it begins to gather in your horn, just a bit more!

A red glow is pulsing across the field and Sombra takes a hesitant step back, much to your surprise. With a yell you let it go. It bursts out of your horn as a red blast rocks across the field and engulfs the dummy. You see stars for a moment as you suddenly feel extremely weak. You stumble from side to side as your blurred vision slowly comes back into focus.

Where the dummy once stood is now… non-existent. A huge black scar runs across the charred ground, and stand where the dummy once stood has been completely annihilated, with the body of the dummy itself missing entirely. The back crystal wall that had once been unscathed now has a prolific crater left on its surface, a web of cracks emanating from the epicenter.

Sombra looks shocked by the level of destruction your simple spell caused. His gaping jaw slowly shuts itself as he clenches it repeatedly. “Well… that was certainly impressive.” He admits. He mumbles something under his breath as he approaches you again; you’re too out of it to notice. The level of power you hold has only just dawned on you, and now the scary implications of having so much power have come crashing down on you full force.

It was only a small niggling voice when you killed the stallion, it was a murmur when you blasted the King, but now it’s a full blown scream begging for you to get a hold of yourself. “Are you okay?” Sombra asks, placing a hoof on your shoulder. He shakes you for a second before you snap out of your daze.

“D-did I do that?” You whimper still shaken from the experience.

“Very much so.” He answers. “Something more advanced may be up your alley, as they say.” He pulls you aside into the next lane. The dummy is further away this time. “A powerful attack such as that may be impressive, but it is also destructive. You need to learn how to control yourself. Don’t release it all at once, limit it. Not only does this allow you to change the power of your blast, but how focused it is. Imagine that your horn is a tap that it connected to your body, you control how much water escapes. Imagine closing an imaginary hole at the tip.”

You don’t know if you have the strength to try again, but you nod anyway and spread your stance slightly. Just like before you begin to focus on the target. The energy inside you is much smaller than before due to your previous release. Just like before you take in a deep breath and push it into your sharp horn. You release it, but this time you force the connection to the outside world to shrink. As a result the beam is much more focused. Unbeknownst to you it also made it more powerful, and the small amount of energy put in becomes significantly more powerful. The now narrow beam flies to the target, cutting through its mid-section like butter.

You quickly run out and stop, sweaty with exertion. You look to the target but see no visible damage. “Did it do anything?” You exclaim. Sombra watches the dummy with a tempered eye, which twitches slightly as the pony’s upper body slides away and onto the ground.

You just cut it in half, with such precision that it didn’t even fall away until the breeze rolled through.

“Very well done.” Sombra spits out as if it were physically painful. He looks to you for a moment before settling back on the damage caused by your short training session. “I do suppose magic comes naturally to those with a deep connection; as a result I overestimated how much time we would need to get to this point.”

He sighs and rubs a hoof down his muzzle. “You are dismissed for the day. I shall come gather you again tomorrow after you have recovered.” With that he swivels around and trots away, leaving you in the dust.

-----

Sombra nearly shattered the door behind him as he stomped back into his personal bedchamber.  An aging pony, startled by his entry quickly throws himself to the ground from his lounging position of the sofa and bows. “Get up.” Sombra growls impatiently.

“O-of course sir!” He grovels, straightening out his black and purple robes. The red stallion watches as his King pours himself a drink, downing it in record time. “How did the training go milord?”

“Fantastic.” He mutters, placing the glass gently down on the table. “Too well, I’d say. She has the practiced grace of a magician three times her age.”

“A natural?” The mage asks, sticking down his white hair.

“Beyond that. She nearly destroyed the entire training field, without my assistance unlike the last occasion.”

“Would you say the collar will soon be unnecessary?” The stallion watches attentively as his liege rose from his place and walks to his bed.

“No. Keep it on; she does not yet know her place in my palace. Until she does it stays.” The King orders, lying down on his lavish quilt.

“I should warn you. Even now it could have devastating consequences in the long term. Toying with a pony’s emotions isn’t something practiced in these days for good reason.” He berates shaking his head. “I have seen it with my own eyes you know.”

“Yet it has not befallen her. You give her too little credit; she is strong of will and constitution unlike any of your test subjects. This one shall be a success, I assure you. Now leave me be, I have work to do later and wish to relax.”

The other stallion gives one final bow. “Of course brother. You always know best.” He shuts the door with a click, leaving the King in darkness.