The pain in his chest was the first thing his conscious mind was aware of, where the envenomed bolt which had chiseled his fate in stone had pierced his already once-pierced heart. The pain reminded Sombra of that fateful day, his brother's sadistic little smile, the way the twisted little shit giggled as the crossbow thrummed, his father's cold, implacable glare. Little prince, he had said, you will never be king, and you are no son of mine. The only solace King Sombra found in his dying was that he, undoubtedly, would be destined for the deepest depths of Tartarus, where his father was most likely waiting. Sombra was looking forward to their reunion, so he could kill him again, and again, and again, until the lakes of fire quenched, until The River Styx ran dry, until the skies fall and the titans rise to challenge the might of Olympus once again.

A figure was beginning to materialize before him as he grappled with his acuity. "His eyes are starting to focus," the image's voice echoed. "Doc, check his vitals."

Sombra tried to draw breath to speak, but the pain... "Flutter—" his beloved's name became a choking cough. Some fluid came up. Some red. Some black. "Where," was all he could say after that, in a horrid wet rattle. His voice sounded like he had been gargling a drought of scalding tar and broken glass.

The blurred figure looking down at Sombra was taking the form of his apothecary. "She's over there, my king." Winter Lilac was pointing, but The King did not even have the strength to lift his head so that he might cast his gaze in the direction she was indicating, try as he might.

Winter Lilac showed him a syringe, its reservoir pulsing with an emerald hue. "It's a good thing I made an extra dose. It won't do anything for the pain, but it should give you some of your strength back." There was a pinching sensation in Sombra's neck, and after several painful moments, his vision began to sharpen, his hearing was honing in, and some semblance of strength had finally returned to him. Once his faculties were in order, he noticed that both the apothecary and his doctor, Patches, were nearby. Ethereal Moon, his faithful adviser, was muffling her sobs into his shoulder.

The voice he then heard was as welcome as an oasis in a desert. "All that I do, I do to protect them."

My queen. Sombra didn't know how much time he had left, and he didn't have the strength to call out to her. All he could do was lift his head so that he could look upon her for what may have been the last time.

"And who's going to protect them from you?" Twilight Sparkle challenged her.

The Princess and her friends made it to the throne room, Sombra observed with relief. But what were they arguing about? Also, Starlight Glimmer, where was she? The King had planned to arrange the prison transport to take her to The Crystal Empire instead of the mines, he remembered, but then the siege...

"Twilight," Fluttershy's voice was calm, confident, and possessed an authoritative sort of stoicism. "I have a city to protect. Now, I'm giving you two options: Stand beside me and give me your assistance, or stand behind me and take refuge. Right now, all you're doing is standing in my way, and trust me, that's not where you want to be right now."

"Of course I want to assist you!" insisted Twilight. "But we need to make Starlight our priority. She came all the way up here to save you, Fluttershy; now she's the one who needs our help!"

"No," Fluttershy said, unyielding as the dragonbone crown that adorned her pretty little head. "I want to rescue her as much as you do, but charging into that camp will mean the death of anyone who tries—even you, capable as you are in battle. I learned their numbers from that pirate you won't stop chiding me about interrogating. Three thousand, Twilight. Three thousand! I know that sounds paltry in comparison to Celestia's vast infantry, but we're talking about three thousand blood thirsty, battle-hardened pirates against our town guard, our local militia, and whatever reserve forces we can muster from the garrison. The rest of my husband's army is fighting to capture territory farther up north, they don't even know any of this is happening right now. We need to remain on the defensive, Twilight; it's suicide to advance upon a foe's base while their forces are already harrying you from the rear."

Her first sortie, and she's already speaking with the wisdom of a decorated tactician. At that moment, Sombra's heart was awash with so much love and admiration for his little dove—at least he could die with a smile on his face. Their kingdom, he knew, would at least be left in capable hooves.

Three thousand, though. That was definitely an issue. Even Sombra himself wouldn't be so foolish as to charge headlong into such a certain... Or was he? Sombra eyed Winter Lilac's bag of tools and medicines, cultivating an idea... A suicidal idea, to be sure, but an idea none the less. Hell with it, thought he, after mere moments of deliberation. I'm dead no matter what I do. I was born into this world roaring, kicking and covered in blood... Let me leave it the same way. Sombra opened his mouth to speak, his chest seething with pain where the bolt had struck him. Every breath was a misery, yet his determination invigorated him. Determination, the outrage he felt for his people, and the love of his bride and unborn child. "Give... me..." He choked on every word, but he forced them out. "Give me..."

Winter Lilac blinked curiously before lowering her head to better hear him. Sombra whispered the ingredients to a concoction in her ear. "Extract of the Yggdrasil leaf ... essence of phoenix ... bark of The Leshy ... Sheva's tears ... " The list continued, and when he was finished, Winter suggested that he was mad. Sombra did not deny the accusation.

"That's one mother of a cocktail, sire. You'll be lucky if it doesn't make your heart explode."

"Just do—" Sombra began to hack up more globs of black and red.

"Okay, okay!" surrendered Winter. "Just, don't try to talk anymore. Save your strength. This heart attack in a bottle you're having me brew won't be any benefit to you if you're dead before I can even get it made." She then went to work, crushing this, mixing that, stirring these things with those things. She cursed when she dropped a tubular container on the ground, but she immediately acquired another one from her bag, not even bothering to clean up the broken glass in her haste.

Ethereal Moon was snuffling, her tear's streaking in black rivulets down her pale cheeks. "You can't leave us," she hiccuped between sobs.

Sombra felt helpless before the girl's sorrow. There were so many things he wanted to tell her: that she had served him well, that he was confident in her ability to serve Fluttershy just as well as she had served him, that he appreciated her, that he wished her well. Sombra had grown to love his little adviser so.

"Is there any comfort I can offer?" she sniffed as she lifted her glasses to wipe her eyes. "Anything? Any little thing at all?"

Sombra turned his gaze to his queen and bride. Her friends were still arguing with her. Petty, that. All arguments seemed petty to him now that he was dying.

"Your queen?" Ethey said. "You would speak with her?"

Sombra's reply was a weak nod. It required an absurd amount of effort just to do that, even with Winter's stimulant running through his veins. Hopefully the monstrous libation his apothecary was brewing for him would prove more effective.

Wordlessly Ethereal Moon went to The Queen, and obtrusively pulled her aside from the conversation she was having with her friends to whisper something into her ear. Sombra could not hear what she was telling her, but from the way his queen's eyes rounded out, the adviser must have made The King's request to see her sound dire. Fluttershy said something to her friends, which brought their conversation to a halt. Suddenly silent, they turned their collective gaze to The King, and Fluttershy led their procession to him. The ones named Sunset Shimmer and Moondancer moved with methodical unease, as if they were approaching some cornered beast. Twilight Sparkle's pace was more deliberate. Her expression was of one that had an axe to grind.

Keep looking at me that way, Princess. My blood may freeze in its veins before the venom has a chance to finish me off.

The Queen caressed her king's cheek. Her voice was sad, yet so very sweet. "You should be resting, my love."

"He'll be doing that soon enough," Twilight said under her breath, her voice bitter with unforgiving contempt.

She loves me not, that one, Sombra thought, yet he couldn't blame her. He had taken their Fluttershy from them, taken her all for himself. He remembered how wroth he was when they came along and tried to do the same.

"I'm almost finished, sire," said Winter Lilac. "I know it's hard for you to speak right now, but if you have something to say, now's the time to say it." She lifted a half-full container eye level to measure its contents. The bubbling fluid inside was red, and it's roiling and boiling became increasingly violent with every passing second. "The compound is becoming unstable, and I haven't even added the final ingredient yet. I'm not sure how you're body is going to react to this. If I'm being completely honest, I'm eager to witness the results for myself. I've never mixed these substances before."

"What do you mean?" Fluttershy looked at her. "What are you making?"

Sombra placed his hoof on her cheek and drew her gaze back to him. Looking her in the eyes, he forced the words through the gravel in his throat. "Starlight... Where..."

It took a moment for Fluttershy to be able to peace together what he was saying. "Starlight, she's been—"

"She's been taken!" Twilight bulled over her. "Those murderers have her at their camp, because they think you two are lovers."

All Sombra could do was blink at her, not understanding.

Twilight shouldered past Fluttershy and leaned down so close their noses were almost touching. "This is all your fault! One of your hired killers nicked their captain's lover short a head. Her name is Betha, she's on a warpath to exact her revenge, and somehow, someway, she was led to believe that Starlight Glimmer is some consort or concubine of yours, an outlandish assumption that made Starlight a priority target! Now, they have her, they've pretty much killed you, and they're going to be gunning for Fluttershy next. This is all your fault, Sombra, yours! You mad, murderous, marenapping, despotic lunatic!"

Fluttershy pulled her back by the scruff of her neck. "Stop yelling at him!"

"It's all his fault!" Twilight's voice had reached a fever pitch. "It's because of his warmongering—"

The throne room resonated with the echo Fluttershy's hoof made when she slapped her. Every eye in the throne room was now upon them. The dirge Violet Viola was playing ended abruptly with an unintended high note. Twilight, stunned, placed her hoof upon the reddening area where she had been struck.

"Your potion, sire." Winter lifted Sombra's head to help him drink. "And this isn't on me if this kills you."

I'm dead either way, Sombra thought as he eagerly swallowed the liquid. The King had had whiskies, brandies, vodkas, rums, absinthes, and some of the strongest fire wines in existence, but nothing in all his life had a burn like this. It felt like he was swallowing the liquid essence of fire itself, but he forced it down anyway. The worst it could do was grant him a quicker death; a preferable way to go over the agonizing hours he would spend alive while the venom ate him away on the inside.

"Twilight," Fluttershy was saying, "The northern realm is festering and diseased. Its corrupted flesh has to be cut out and cauterized before it can heal. You've no doubt seen what's happening outside these walls. Towns and hamlets pillaged and razed, their inhabitants crying for mercy as they're put to the sword. Do you honestly think things like that didn't happen until Sombra came along?"

Twilight framed a reply, but Sombra couldn't understand what she was saying over the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his eardrums... And the burning, like tendrils of fire spreading through his chest. He was gasping from the pain, his torso convulsing rapidly with expansions and contractions, then somehow, someway, he found the strength to split the air with a deafening howl.

Fluttershy threw herself on top of him, holding him, desperately trying to keep him from tearing the gaping wound in his chest any wider. "What's wrong with him!"

"This was his choice!" Winter had to shout to make herself be heard over Sombra's howling.

"What was his choice?" Fluttershy demanded.

"He ordered me to do it!" Winter said. "My only part in this was that I followed his orders."

"You're not answer my ques—" Fluttershy stopped yelling the moment she realized she no longer needed to. Her husband's thrashing had ceased, as did his screaming.

Sombra looked around, seeing only impenetrable twilight. It wasn't simply the kind of blackness that filled a windowless chamber once the candles had been snuffed out. The dark surrounding him was not merely the absence of light, but the absence of all things. It was then that an apparition revealed itself to him, parting the inky nothingness like a shroud, a pale horse garbed in all white, his face cowled as he grasped an ore in his hooves. To Sombra he made a beckoning motion, a gesture which Sombra declined. "Neigh," he said. "I still have one more thing to do."

The ferryman looked amused by that, but he waved him away, as if to grant him permission, and to insinuate he'd be waiting.

"Thank you, kind sir," said Sombra. He turned on his heels to leave, but before he left, he looked at the apparition from over his shoulder and said, "By the by, your face, it is so disappointingly plain. I do not mean to give offense, but I would have expected you to be so much more horrifying than all that: Skeletal figure, or perhaps necrotic flesh, worms crawling through your eye sockets. Instead, I find your face to be so..." He made a circular gesture with his hoof as he searched for a word. "Honest."

The ferryman shrugged, a quizzical smile on his face, as if to say, Hey, you get what you get, buddy.

Sombra didn't know how long he had been out, but he could hear his bride and adviser weeping over his supposed carcass. He could even feel their tears falling down upon him, warm droplets dappling his face and chest like a summer rain.

"His heart must have exploded," Winter was explaining. "I told him this would happen."

Sombra's eyes snapped open, glowing as they never did before. His chest expanded as he drew breath, then he let it out in a deep reverberating hum. He didn't know if that experience he just had was real, or if it was merely a hallucination, but all the same, he had one thing to do and not a lot of time in which to do it. He could still feel the potion burning inside him when he looked to his bride.

"My love?" Fluttershy said, her eyes brimming with wonder. "How are... What just... Are you..."

Sombra pulled her in an embrace and kissed her with such a maddened, fevered passion, it set his queen's cheeks to blazing bright red. The sheer unexpectedness of it set Fluttershy to trying to push him off, but her body soon went lax in his unyielding arms, her lips parting under his. When Sombra finally broke the kiss, his bride was looking just as tender and timid as she did on their wedding night, her beautiful blue eyes aglow with bemusement. Those sapphires of hers had been known to kindle the passion within him, especially when they were sparkling with mirth or inflamed with fury. If Sombra hadn't had more pressing issues to attend to he would have taken her right there, and damn all the eyes watching them.

Sombra set his little dove aside before he rolled off of his back, which elected a boisterous chorus of shock and awe from everyone in the throne room. The sudden burst of joy was an explosion. Eager mares, stallions, griffons and yaks rushed to his side to rain their affection upon him. Some of them would have probably tried to embrace him if the guards hadn't formed a wall to keep them back. "Stand down!" one of them shouted. "Get back. Give The King some room!"

Sombra ignored the praises and queries being heaped upon him. He simply didn't have time for it. He stretched his back, flexed his muscles, rolled his neck, shook his head. He was ready. Ready to fight, ready to kill, ready to die. He then strode for the door as the cheers and praises continued. He didn't bother to wait for the guards who were rushing to assist him. The drop bar required two stallions just to lift it, but Sombra effortlessly disengaged it by himself. The doors required two stallions on each side to pull them open, but all Sombra needed were his two hooves, the lines between the ripped, corded muscles in his back and arms deepening as he forced them apart. The heavy doors wailed in protest, brass hinges screaming.

"My love," Fluttershy called out to him. She was holding the potion flask Sombra had drank from when he turned to look at her. The Queen's eyes went back and forth between the vessel and him, then they flashed with comprehension. Forcing her tears back, she hardened her expression, and to him she said, "This Betha, this evil pirate bitch... You will bring me her head."

The demand prompted looks of unease from Twilight, Moondancer and Sunset Shimmer.

It was then that The King knew no stallion in history had ever loved a mare as much as he did her. "As you command, my queen," he said through the shrinking gap of the massive throne room doors, booming thunderously as they closed.