Cognition and self-awareness chased away the black nothingness that was Starlight Glimmer's dreamless sleep. She cracked her eyes and let out a light whimper as she struggled to regain her acuity. The world through her eyes was dark and blurry at first. She turned her head and, through the opaque shroud of mist that was her vision, she saw what looked like fireflies glowing in the darkness, the aura around them ethereal and pulsing like halos of tawny light. She blinked a few times and squinted before she could distinguish what it was she was looking at.

Candles...

Their ruddy illumination cast dancing shadows upon the wall, expanding and contracting, approaching then retreating, like a shadowy tide upon a cluster of isolated lighthouses in a sea of darkness.

The chamber in which she had awakened was as bleak and dingy as a tomb. The Dungeons below the Canterlot Castle looked like a birthday party at Sugar Cube Corner by comparison.

Starlight Glimmer grappled with her senses in an attempt to regain her memory. Where was she, and how did she get there?

She tried to sit up, but she couldn't. She looked down and realized she was restrained to a gurney. A thick padded leather strap was clasped and firmly tightened over her chest while her wrists and ankles had been bound to the bed's side railings with sturdy tethers.

Her first instinct was to use magic to free herself, but... She couldn't... She tried again, but she couldn't even feel the well of magic inside of her when she pulled for it. She started to panic. She lifted her head as high as her binds would allow to get a look at her surroundings.

Near the wall opposite her there was a long wooden table scattered with oblong glass vessels containing fluids of various glowing colors. The handle of an herb-stained pestle extended from a stone mortar in the corner of the mixing station, and jars containing soft balls of ghostly luminescence and an assortment of ointments were set in a neat row along a shelf mounted to the wall just above it.

Starlight Glimmer turned her head, and to her immediate right she noticed Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer, and Moondancer in the dim candlelight. They laid in old hospital gurneys with white cotton blankets pulled up to their necks. Still as corpses. They weren't restrained to their beds like she was. Why was that?

She considered the worst possibility, that they may no longer be among the living, but that couldn't have been true. Why give a corpse a bed to sleep in?

Starlight made several attempts to call out to them, but when there was no response, she decided to call for help instead. "Somebody?" she called out, fighting through the barren rasp of her voice, which was weakened from long disuse. She paused in hopes for a response. "Can anyone hear me..? Hello?"

The clacking of latches and the grading metallic cadence of a heavy bolt being rolled and drawn could be heard, and a steel, rectangular door hidden in the depths of the far side of the room's gloom creaked open on rusted hinges. A mare poked her head inside.

"Uh, hello?" Starlight Glimmer attempted.

The mare's eyes widened before her head disappeared and the door closed. The locks on the other side of the door clacked, followed by the strident whine of the heavy bolt securing it firmly in place.

"Wait, come back!" Starlight Glimmer shouted after her. She thrashed against her binds, but it was no use. The skittish mare wasn't coming back. "Crap," she cursed defeatedly under her breath. Frustrated and confused, she saw no other option but to wait in the hopes that the mare would return, preferably with the intention of telling her where she was.

Starlight Glimmer didn't know how many hours she had passed laying there, her concerned eyes constantly moving to her friends. She had made at least a thousand attempts to rouse them, but her efforts were fruitless. What was wrong with them? They couldn't have been dead... But they weren't moving, and they made not a sound since she had been watching them. Not so much as a stir or snore.

More time passed, and she had given up on trying to free herself. She could not use magic, and no matter how hard she tried she was unable to slip from her restraints. The strap around her chest secured her so tightly, she was just barely able to breathe, and nothing else. The tethered straps around her wrists and ankles were padded with a thick layer of wool to prevent self-inflicted cuts or scrapes. It was like equipment used to restrain patience in a psychiatric ward... Was that where she was - a loony bin?

She looked around and considered the stone walls; they weren't padded. The door, though... The locks were on the outside. It seemed like some sort of cell, but it couldn't have been a psyche ward. Her eyes then went to the equipment sitting atop the large wooden table: racks of test tubes, bubbling fluids in teardrop-shaped flasks, glowing oils, the pungent, sickly-sweet scent of burning herbs hanging over the air... Alchemy equipment - most of it was medicinal.

Starlight Glimmer's heart skipped a beat when she heard someone disengaging the locks on the other side of the door; someone was coming. At first she was relieved, but then she remembered she was immobilized, vulnerable; she would be completely at the mercy to whatever was about to enter the room. Consternation began to wash over her upon the realization.

The door opened very slowly, and the creature that came ambling through it was like something out of the deepest regions of her darkest nightmares. It wore a long-beaked mask, its crimson lenses gleaming as they reflected the candlelight. The same mare from before was following him in, pushing a trolley cart with an assortment of medical tools splayed neatly across its surface. Starlight Glimmer's blood ran cold as the mare shut the door behind her.

The thing with the mask drew closer. His body was covered in black leathery shrouds that had been crudely stitched together to make an eldritch perversion of a doctor's coat.

"Who are you?" Starlight Glimmer stammered.

"The Apothecary," said the mare in a deadpan voice, her eyes fixed in a narrow, expressionless trance. "My name is Winter Lilac. And this tall, handsome drink of water here is Doctor Patches. Say hello, Doctor."

The Doctor didn't reply.

Starlight looked him over uneasily. She was unable to see his eyes through the scarlet lenses of his mask, but she could feel them, as if they were moving up and down her body with malevolent intentions.

"What do you want with me?" Starlight stammered uneasily.

"We're here to inspect you," Winter Lilac replied. "King's orders."

"The King?" Echoed Starlight - and then it all came back to her with those two words: The botched ambush, the battle that ensued. She and her friends must have been somewhere deep in the catacombs under the manse. She wasn't sure if the manse even had catacombs, but the house was creepy enough for one to make the assumption.

Without warning The Doctor seized a small implement on the tray. Starlight closed her eyes and tensed up in preparation for whatever was about to happen to her. A moment passed before she felt a strange warmth tickle the inside of her ear. She opened her eyes. The Doctor was holding a tiny flash light. Placing a hoof on her cheek, he forced her to turn her head and shined the light down her other ear.

The Apothecary jotted something down on a clipboard. "No blockage or inflammation."

The Doctor kept her head still as he shined his light invasively down her nostrils.

"No deformation or protrusions in the bones or cartilage," The Apothecary continued. "It seems your broken nose healed just fine. Lucky you, that usually requires surgery."

Starlight Glimmer couldn't help but be confused. "What are you— ghug"

The Doctor interrupted her dialogue with a thrust of a popsicle stick between her teeth. He used it to pry her mouth open and depress her tongue to have a look down her throat.

"Again," The Apothecary said, " no inflammation or irritation. No discoloration of the tongue or gums. All good so far."

The Doctor removed the stick, discarded it, then selected a small hammer. He tapped her knee. Her leg twitched.

"Reflexes good."

Doctor Patches then pressed his hooves firmly upon Starlight Glimmer's sides and slid them down until they reached her flanks.

"Did you feel any pain when he did that?" inquired Winter Lilac.

"N-no?" Starlight Glimmer replied, flummoxed.

"Broken rib seems to have made a full recovery."

The Doctor retrieved a stethoscope from the tray and placed the cold plunger against Starlight's chest, which sent a cold jolt tingling down her spine. He listened quietly for a moment before he gave the Apothecary a silent nod.

"Heart beat good," she replied, scrawling on her clipboard. "Lungs functioning well."

The mute physician removed the stethoscope and placed it back on the tray.

"Doctor," said The Apothecary, "would this be a good time to prepare the mixture?"

The Doctor's silent gaze fell upon Starlight, then to The Apothecary. He nodded.

"It should be done in just a moment," replied the mare before she ambled over to the mixing station in the corner. She tweaked a tiny nob on a burner. A fluid in one of the teardrop flasks began to boil. A decanter tinkled like a series of tiny bells as she began mixing compounds together with a glass stirring rod.

The Doctor conducted a few more physical examinations, most of them consisting of gentle prods with a tiny metal rod that evoked involuntary spasms. He would nod astutely after every reaction and add something to the sheet of paper pinched to the clipboard.

Starlight Glimmer tried to ask them questions as they worked, but The Doctor either would not or could not speak, and The Apothecary was so engrossed in her task of mixing and measuring this with that, she would act like she didn't hear her. It was a frustrating ordeal, worrying about her friends while she laid there helplessly, being examined and prodded by a surly doctor ripped from the pages of a seventeenth century horror novel.

After a few more 'tests' were concluded, the Stallion began to tug at the fastenings on her wrists.

"Now, what are you doing to me?" Starlight asked, not expecting an answer.

"He's tightening your restraints," replied The Apothecary, inspecting a test tube filled with a sickly green fluid. Her eyes narrowed as she measured its contents. "We can't have you moving about while we administer the decoction. The King would most likely have us pilloried in the plaza if we were to injure you."

"What is that?" Starlight asked nervously, her eyes fixed on the luminescent substance in the vial.

"Medicine," was the mare's curt reply.

"For who?"

The mare's expressionless eyes snapped to her. "You, idiot. Who'd you think I made this for?"

"There's no way you'll get me to drink that!" Starlight said defiantly.

"Well, then, do I have good news for you," quipped The Apothecary. "It's to be taken intravenously." The mare inserted a syringe into the opening of the test tube, pulled back the plunger, and the tubular hollow began to glow with an emerald hue.

Starlight struggled against her binds, but The Doctor had tightened them too firmly. Her movement was restricted to merely a hair's breadth. "Twilight!" she cried. "Wake up! Help me!"

The Princess of friendship was deaf to her plea. She just laid there, unresponsive. She was but a mere husk. Dead to the world around her, and utterly unreachable.

The Doctor just watched her in cruel, stoic silence. The Apothecary cocked an unamuzed eyebrow, but she too remained silent, as if to wait out her fit of hysteria.

"What are you going to inject me with?" Starlight Glimmer whimpered as the futility of her struggle set in.

"Medicine," The Apothecary said for the second time. "It's a stimulant. It won't hurt you."

"A stimulant?" said Starlight, unconvinced. "Why would I need that?"

Winter Lilac tied off the veins in Starlight's arm with a strand of rubber surgical tubing before she said, "For your muscles. They've deteriorated over the six months your body has been inactive. You'll need a steady injection of this stimulant until you've regained your strength."

"Six months!" Starlight Glimmer's eyes widened. "That's... That's ridiculous! Who sleeps for six months?"

The mare's stern yet expressionless gaze met with hers. "You're calling me a liar?"

"No!" denied Starlight. "I'm just saying... Six months... That can't be..."

Winter sighed impatiently. "Doc," she said, "release the patient, please."

Doctor Patches did not so much as grunt a response or hesitate. He just did as he was told, in the way an enthralled zombie would do for the necromancer that granted him his un-life.

Starlight rubbed her chafed wrists. "Why did you free me?"

"To prove a point," replied the mare. "Get out of bed."

The Doctor held out his hoof to assist Starlight with the task, but The Apothecary intercepted him with an extended arm. "Hold on, doc. We'll just let her find out the hard way."

The Doctor silently but complicity drew his hoof back and sat on his haunches.

"Find out what the hard way?" Starlight inquired before she tried to sit up. The effort required to do so dismayed her. She grunted, and had to utilize the side railings to painstakingly pull herself to a sitting position. The ordeal left her breathless.

The Doctor and The Apothecary stepped back to give her room. "Well?" she said in a tone that came off as more of a challenge than a vocalization of her impatience. "I'm waiting."

Starlight managed to push herself over the bed's side railings, and the moment she transferred her weight to her hooves, she collapsed. She made several attempts to push herself back up, but she simply didn't have the strength. Her body was like a block of lead proportionately equal to her size. "Six months," she whispered piteously at the stone floor beneath her.

"Now, do you believe me?" chided The Apothecary. "Doc, turn her over."

The Doctor rolled Starlight Glimmer on her back.

"Now, just hold still." The mare wiped the crook of Starlight's elbow with a tiny cotton patch before she injected her with the fluid. Starlight winced as the needle penetrated her skin.

The Apothecary pulled away the rubber tubing around Starlight's foreleg with a gentle tug, and the veins in her arm became a sprawling network of neon green lines that slowly crawled toward her chest, then eventually spread over her whole body.

"The glowing should subside once the mixture has dissolved in to your blood stream," informed The Apothecary. "Looks pretty cool, doesn't it? Enjoy it while it lasts."

The stimulant seemed to be working. It wasn't long before Starlight Glimmer was able to push herself up from the ground. Her legs felt rubbery at first, but the sensation passed.

As soon as she was able to she made a bee line to where Twilight Sparkle was laying. She brushed a wayward strand of hair behind her ear with a concerned hoof as she inspected her. She was barely breathing. Her pulse was weak. Her color was drained. Starlight tried nudging, then gave her face a few gentle taps with her hoof. "What have you done to her?"

"Other than look after her, nothing," replied The Apothecary.

"You call this 'nothing?'" Starlight Glimmer exclaimed. "She's a vegetable!"

"Yeah, severe blunt force trauma to the head will do that. Not to mention a fractured skull and spine, and a massive concussion." The mare smiled. For the first time she had an expression on her face. "The Doc here had to drill into her skull to relieve the pressure on her brain caused by the cerebral hemorrhage."

Starlight paled as she remembered the way Sombra slammed The Princess down on the ground headfirst like a rag doll.

"Not to worry," said The Apothecary. "She's not suffered any severe brain damage. Her skull mended nicely, as did the spine. You've The Doc to thank for that." She patted The Doctor's shoulder with a congratulatory hoof.

Starlight Glimmer sighed with relief, but then she remembered the others. She turned her head toward them. They seemed to be in the same comatose state as Twilight.

"They've recovered as well," informed The Apothecary. She skirted the bed and approached Moondancer's unresponsive husk. "All her ribs were broken. She had a collapsed lung, but The Doc managed to reinflate it - and..." She peeled back the sheets and slid her hooves down Moondancer's sides the way The Doctor had with Starlight Glimmer. "It seems that her ribs have fully healed. No ridges or rises."

She then moved on to Sunset Shimmer. "Severe trauma to the sternum. I don't know what it was that struck her, but it left burn marks. The impact was so fierce, bone fragments from her sternum lodged themselves into her heart. The Doc was able to remove them without rupturing the tissue and sutured her up, but she had lost a lot of blood at that point. To be honest, I thought this one was a goner. We lacked the equipment to test for her blood type, but we managed to round up a few universal donors who rallied to the poor girl's plight."

Starlight looked down at her own body. She was sickly pale, and her legs were as thin as twigs. "And what about me?"

"Almost every muscle in your body was torn. I've never seen muscular tension so severe in all my years. Kudos to you, missy."

Starlight's eyes narrowed into an annoyed glare. "Thanks."

"Not to mention that your organs were shutting down. All of them. Your pulse was dangerously close to flattening out."

Starlight screwed up her face. "Then how am I—

"Alive?" The Apothecary interjected. "Sombra; that's how. He decided to step in right around the time you started flat lining - mixed some sort of progressive stasis potion. I've heard of decoctions that could induce comas in order to expedite the body's natural healing process, but I've never seen or heard of one that functioned at such a magnitude as his."

"Progressive stasis?"

"You know, like a regenerative coma?"

"So, that's why I've been asleep for so long?" Starlight Glimmer directed her attention to their friends. "Why am I the only one who's awakened?"

The Apothecary's emotionless eyes turned to Twilight Sparkle before she replied. "Sombra modified the potion for them. Though their bodies were healed, they cannot wake up on their own. The only way to rouse them is to counteract the potion with an anti-potion. A remedy only Sombra knows how to make."

"And you as well?" Starlight said hopefully.

"Nice try, but no. I don't know how to make it. And even if I did, there's no way I would wake The King's would-be assassins without his permission. Sombra's anger is... Well, it's quite a thing to behold."

Even The Doctor, with all his stoicism, shivered at the thought.

"Assassins?" Starlight scoffed.

"Well, if that's not what you are, what are you?"

"We were here for Fluttershy!" insisted Starlight.

"The Queen?" said The Apothecary incredulously. "You tried to assassinate our queen? Well, now I'm just as surprised as you are that you're still alive. The King dotes over and covets his queen above all else. I feel sorry for any poor sod who's caught looking at her wrong."

"We were here to—

"I don't care what your plan was. It failed, obviously. And now here you all are. Alive. Be grateful. Sombra could have come down here anytime within these past six months and slid a blade across your throats, but he hasn't. You're lucky The Queen has been protecting you from him."

"Our plan wasn't to... Wait, what?" The Apothecary's statement opened up a whole line of new questions once Starlight's brain fully processed it. Fluttershy was the one protecting her?

"What about what now?" Said Winter, confused.

"What you just said - Something about Fluttershy protecting us. What does that mean?'"

"The Queen had the DIS, the Diplomatic Immunity Stipulation, written and signed immediately upon your capture, which protects foreign prisoners from arbitrary capital and corporal punishment."

Starlight blanked stupidly.

Winter Lilac grunted in frustration. But then she must have remembered that Starlight Glimmer hadn't exactly been sapient for the past six months. "Celestia knows all of you are here, you following me?" she began. "She demanded your release, but Sombra, refusing her demands, indicated Twilight Sparkle and her band as war criminals for their attempted regicide. The King implicated Celestia for the attack, but The Princess denounced Twilight Sparkle's actions and claimed ignorance, going so far as to promising that she would reprimand Twilight Sparkle herself upon her safe return. But Sombra insisted that you and all your friends were his to do with as he pleased.

"After arguments and threats were launched from both sides, The Queen stepped in to quell the strife and offered up a bill that she had written herself, which is what we know as the DIS. The DIS guarantees your protection, while at the same time giving Sombra the right to keep you here as long as he deems necessary."

Starlight gawked in disbelief. "And Sombra just went along with all of this?"

"The key was in the conditions: In signing the document, Celestia was forced to recognize the Peninsula as its own sovereign nation. This made Sombra very happy, as trade could then be established. Between the agricultural bread basket that is Equestria, and the peninsula's all but unlimited wealth of valuable ore and precious minerals, they have much from which they can mutually benefit.

"And what condition did Sombra have to follow through with?"

"Well, aside from the guarantee that Celestia's precious Princess of Friendship wouldn't be mistreated, Sombra agreed to accommodate a diplomat of her choosing within his walls. Her way of insuring he's being a 'good boy,' I suppose."

"And Fluttershy did all of this?" Starlight said, trying not to sound cynical. She was skeptical at best. She tried to imagine Fluttershy stepping between two demigods ready to kill each other, a piece of legal parchment cutely hanging down from her mouth, looking up at them with those sweet, pleading eyes of hers... She just couldn't see it.

Winter Lilac cocked her head to the side. "I can tell from the look on your face that you don't believe me. Very well. You'll soon find out what's false and what's real."

"It's not that I don't believe you - it's just, if you knew Fluttershy the way I know her, you too would be—"

She was interrupted by a harsh knock on the steel door. It opened. A stallion clad in polished steel gauntlets and a metallic helm ornate with small red horns entered. "Is the prisoner ready?"

Prisoner? Starlight Glimmer thought, dejected. It all dawned upon her with a cruel sort of humor: She was a prisoner in a foreign nation now, stripped of her identity. It was poetic justice, she supposed. There had been a time when she had subjugated an entire commune in exactly the same way. She had suspected for some time now that her sins of the past would eventually catch up with her.

Winter Lilac gave the sentry a nod. "She's ready."

"Good." The guard regarded Starlight Glimmer with cold, contemptuous eyes. "You'll be coming with me, prisoner. And you'll come along nice and quite, now, won't you?"

"Where are you taking me?" Starlight inquired uneasily.

"You'll find out when we get there." The sentry's eyes narrowed intimidatingly, as if he was daring her to resist. He wasn't very tall, but what he lacked in stature, he more than made up for in muscle. The sections of his upper legs, which his gauntlets did not obscure, were thick and knotted. The veiny muscles in his neck rippled whenever his head moved. Most of the guards back at Canterlot, and even the Crystal Empire, were not in possession of such a physique. Guard duty was considered soft service where she was from. Some had even let themselves go and became portly after passing the academy's lax physical fitness requirements. The guard who stood before her however, he looked as if he was carved out of mahogany.

Starlight had no other choice but to obey the stallion's command. He wouldn't be so tough if I could just use my magic, she thought. She had taken the Apothecary's knowledge of medicine into consideration, and deduced that she had been feeding a steady supply of magic-nullifying drugs in to her system while she had been sleeping.

The corridor was long and lit with candles ensconced along the walls. It not for the light they provided, it would have been pitch black. The sentry had escorted her through another steel door that led to a staircase. Starlight ascended it uneasily. She would have liked to have known where she was being taken, but the guard would demand her silence before she could get out so much as a second syllable.

The staircase took them to another hall, which led to another staircase. Starlight was beginning to realize just how accurate she was when she had surmised that she was below the manse. They eventually came to another hall, but this one had windows. She must have been on the ground level floor now.

Every window she passed allowed her a quick peek at the world outside. Beyond the iron gate surrounding the manse, she saw cobblestone roads paved between rows of cottages and cabins. When they had reached the second story, she had a clear view of the Ponies, Griffins, Hippogriffs and commerce of other species hustling and bustling about the streets and alleyways. Children whooped and laughed as they chased each other around structures and pelted one another with snowballs. Vendors and artisans peddled their wares from wagons chocked on the side of a long road that elongated into what looked like a bazaar.

"None of this was here before," Starlight mused.

"Aye. Peddlers Road, they call it," The guard said, finally deigning to reply. "Leads to The Plaza, a circular shopping district where the more successful capitalists establish their businesses. Don't do much shopping there myself. I prefer to help the little guys out on the road."

"And the commerce?"

"Freed slaves, most of them. Others are settlers who have come to The King seeking refuge for their families."

"Freed slaves?" echoed Starlight.

The sentry grunted affirmatively. "The King and Queen have vowed to free every slave in New Haven, and crush all who oppose them. With their rule established, and the reach of their conquest extending by the day, It is only a matter of time until their ambition comes to fruition."

"New Haven?"

"The land that was once called The Bandit's Hook, or the peninsula, for the geographically savvy. It is now called New Haven. And a haven it is."

Starlight Glimmer struggled to digest all the new information she had been given over the short time she had been awake. Sombra was pro slavery, was he not? And the bit about Fluttershy 'crushing' any who opposed her brought on questions that branched off into even more questions. Had Sombra influenced her into becoming the same monster that he was?

"We've arrived," announced the sentry, when they had come upon a large door.

"Arrived where, exactly?"

"The spa."

Starlight Glimmer screwed up her face, as she was sure she did not hear the guard correctly. "The... The what, now?"

Starlight's surly escort pushed the door open and said, "She's all yours, ladies."

Before Starlight Glimmer even knew what in Tartarus was going on she was rushed by a team of female attendants. The guard shut the door behind them.

Daylight entered the spa through a glass dome overhead. The area was large, with a rounded pool in the center. Streams of steamy water came rushing from spouts that were mounted along its edges. The spa's walls, where they did not shimmer with immaculate white tiling, featured exquisitely painted murals of tranquil scenery, such as ocean waves rushing over a shore that gave way to a deep forest. Starlight Glimmer was gobsmacked by the decadence of it all.

The mares that had commandeered her brought her before the pool and shoved her forward. She only had enough time to let out a startled yelp before the water came rushing up to meet her.

The pool was hot, and when her head came back up she noticed subtle hints of honey and crushed lavender wafting about the steam. The pressure from the spouts created miniature currents and vortexes about the water that gently swayed her this way and that.

Two mares followed after her. They gracefully descended down the stone steps until they were chest deep in the bath's hot, rushing water, then they approached her.

Starlight backed away from them, her soaked mane steaming and clinging to the side of her face. "W-what are you doing?"

One of the mares who had entered the pool after her, a striking beauty with black fur and bright violet eyes spoke to her in a strange accent that was spiced with a voice as crisp as a bell. "Do not be afraid. We only wish to make you presentable for his majesty."

"Presentable?" was all Starlight could seem to say.

"I do not mean to offend you my love, but you smell like a three day rotted corpse. And have you seen your mane? I'm surprised rats are not living in it. And your hooves! They're all yellowed and cracked. You look like you have the scurvy."

Starlight fought the instinct to smell her underarms. She did run a hoof through her mane, though. It was tangled and felt like seaweed. "I've been sleeping for six months," she offered abashedly.

"I know," said the spa attendant. "That's why we are here, my love. Come, let us work our magic on you."

And so Starlight complied, unsure if she even had a choice. The spa attendants had brought her near the edge of the pool and sat her on a stone bench, where she sank neck deep in the scented water. One mare seated herself behind her and massaged her shoulders as another straightened the numerous tangles out of her mane with a comb.

The blue-eyed mare with the dark coat and mysterious accent filled in the cracks of her hooves with an aesthetic sealant. When she was finished doing that, she began to file them. She looked up from her work to regard Starlight with a kind smile. "You're very beautiful."

Starlight Glimmer was too deep in her vexation to be flattered by the compliment. "Uh, thanks, miss..."

"My name is Violet Viola," said the spa pony. "Is something wrong? You're so silent. I've had more lively conversations with my violin."

Starlight winced as the masseuse transitioned from her shoulders, to the center of her upper back, working her elbow firmly into her muscles with a circular motion. Under different circumstances the massage would have felt magnificent, but for the life of her she couldn't bring herself to relax. "I... I have no idea what's going on," she finally said.

"The King wishes for us to give you a long over due pampering. He told us that he wanted you to receive nothing less than the VIP treatment." The exotic mare inspected Starlight Glimmer's hooves thoroughly before she deposited her file in a hooficure kit she had laid out at the edge of the pool.

"The King wants to spoil me?" Starlight inquired. "Why would he want that?"

"I suppose he wants you nice and relaxed for your audience with him." The spa pony began to browse through a numerous selection of tiny bottles in her kit. "What color polish do you like?"

Starlight's anxiety was compounded by the mare's statement. "He wants an audience with me?"

"Oh, yes. He's quite looking forward to it."

"Why?"

Violet Viola turned back to her and winked. "Perhaps you have caught his eye. He has good taste, yes?"

Starlight, failing to find the humor in the mare's ridiculous claim, fidgeted nervously. What could Sombra possibly want with her?

"I am kidding, my love," giggled the spa attendant. "Now, I ask again, what color would you like your hooves?"

"I'm not really in to coloring my hooves," Admitted Starlight.

"Very well," replied Violet. "Foundation it is. Let's make those hooves sparkle."

Starlight Glimmer was assisted by the spa attendants as she climbed out of the pool. She was dried with warmed towels and her mane was trimmed and styled to her preference. When they had finished, she beheld her image in the mirror. Her hooves glimmered like polished ivory, and her coat had never looked so glossy in all her life.

Violet rolled out a rack of dresses and said, "Would you like to try something on?"

Starlight declined at first. She didn't want to try on dresses. She wanted to know what in Tartarus The King wanted with her. But she eventually conceded when the attendants insisted. At random she had selected a silky white number that resembled a toga.

"You're gorgeous, my love," insisted Violet as she fastened the dresses' clasp about her neck. "The King will be too stunned to speak when he sees you."

A rush of steam fled through the spa's entrance when it opened, and in walked a child. Her coat was snow white, and her midnight blue mane was bound back with a scarlet ribbon that was clasped with a skull-shaped broach. She pushed her thickly framed glasses up the slope of her muzzle before she spoke. "The King grows impatient. Is she ready yet?"

"I believe that is a question for our guest, Madam Adviser," replied Violet in an amiable albeit haughty manner.

"Adviser?" Starlight said.

"Yes, my name is Ethereal Moon, adviser to his majesty, The King," the tiny mare said matter-of-factly. "You may address me by my name, or by my title." Her glasses slid down her muzzle. She pushed them back up and asked, "So, are you ready?"

"Ready for what? Where am I being taken now?"

"Why, to The King, of course."

"I'm as ready as I'll ever be, I guess," Starlight complied with a perturbed reluctance.

"Right, then. Come along with me, would you kindly?"

"Please be nice to her," requested Violet as they were leaving the spa together. "She's understandably frightened."

"Noted," replied the adviser before she let the door shut between them.

Starlight Glimmer dragged her hooves with the enthusiasm of one being escorted to the gallows. With the adviser leading the way, she climbed long staircases and traversed through expanding corridors. It was as if the manse had grown larger since her long sleep. Either that, or it was somehow bigger on the inside than it was on the outside.

They had eventually arrived at an expanse of stone steps that brought them to a platform. At the top were silver double doors ornate with dueling dragons facing each other, and on each side stood sentries clad in the same armor as the guard whom had escorted Starlight Glimmer to the spa. They too were muscular and surly, with implacable grimaces etched into their faces. When they saw the adviser they bowed their heads and reached for the ringed handles of the doors.

Starlight chewed her lip nervously. Sombra was behind those doors. She could feel it.

"This is where we part ways, I'm afraid," the adviser announced before she turned around and began her awkward strafe down the broad steps on her diminutive legs.

Starlight could feel her heart pounding faster as the doors began to part. They might as well have been the gates of Tartarus. "You're not coming in with me?" she blurted, dismayed. The little adviser's presence wouldn't offer her much comfort, but still, she didn't want to be alone with that demented demon.

"The King has requested a private audience with you," replied Ethereal Moon as she touched down at the steps' precipice. "Besides, I'm busy. The King has yet to appoint an escort for Celestia's diplomat, so its fallen to me to babysit him. And don't think for a second that that's a walk in the park. That Prince Blueblood, let me tell ya: he's a real pain in the ass."

"Can you at least tell me what he wants with me?" Starlight Glimmer pleaded.

"You can ask him yourself," came the adviser's reply, accompanied with a parting "Ta-ta."

Starlight swallowed nervously as the space between the double doors widened, and that's when she saw him: The Tyrant. The Monster. His back was turned to her. He faced a massive, rounded window pane, a glass of wine swirling in his hoof as he appeared to be looking down at the hamlet that sprawled out beyond his gates.

The guards watched Starlight Glimmer as she forced herself to shuffle forward. They closed the doors behind her. Sombra's ears twitched before he turned away from the window. His glowing eyes narrowed with intrigue when they fell upon her, and Starlight Glimmer's heart threatened to stop beating when he smiled.

"Ah, my dear lady. We meet at last."