“It is a matter of overcoming my fear and hatred of what you represent, and by doing so, setting myself free. I will be a slave no longer, nor will I let you remain that way. I will save us both somehow, Dim, if it takes me a lifetime. Look at what hatred has done to us. The very sight of you fills me with revulsion and fear… terror even… and I wish to break this spell. I will be a free mare.”

These words—Eerie’s parting words—tumbled around inside of Dim’s head as he paced the floor of his palatial room. Blackbird was warming herself by the fire while trying to figure out where the smoke went as it was sucked into a grate in the floor. As he paced, Dim wondered where the pink voice was, as she had been silent for a while now. Maybe he had traveled too far and was now out of her reach. How far away from home was he now? He didn’t know. Equestria was a world away.

Yet, even with Equestria being as far away as it was, Dim had found one of his own. There was a story to be told here, Dim was sure of it, and he was curious as to the reason why Eerie Dark was now a major power on the other side of the world. It occurred to him that he could do the same. While he held only a fraction of her obscene potential, he was powerful enough to carve out his own kingdom, his own empire—but this was not his heart’s desire.

Why shouldn’t it be though? He could be a benevolent tyrant, the kind that brought prosperity and peace. What sort of ruler was Eerie? Dim was afraid to ask. No doubt, she was the one who had been placing geases on those who served her, like Captain Melvin and Jolie Rouge. Yet, as tyrannical as that might seem, Captain Melvin and Jolie Rouge both seemed happy. They were happy to do their jobs, and in the case of Jolie, she seemed to enjoy hunting slavers. Not to mention that Jolie took a surprising non-lethal approach.

What had he stumbled into?

“Blackbird, I am troubled.” As he spoke these words, he came to a halt atop a fine Abyssinian silk rug.

Turning about, Blackbird stared at Dim with wide, curious green eyes. He looked at her, and she back at him, and it was at this moment that he was filled with a most distressing need: more than anything else, he desperately wanted a hug. Shocked and appalled by his own desires, Dim shivered with revulsion at this betrayal by his mind.

“I am too, Dim, I’ve never shared a room with a prince before, and I’m nervous.”

Sighing, he thought about losing his temper, but couldn’t muster the effort. Instead, he withdrew inwards and gave up on conversation. Losing his temper would feel good—it would be cathartic—but harming Blackbird in any way, shape, or form would be dreadful and he didn’t think he could live with himself afterwards.

“Blackbird, I am not a prince. Well, I am, but I’m not… it’s complicated.”

“Sounds confusing, Dim.”

“It is.” Sighing, Dim did his best to put the pieces together. “We Darks descend from royalty and we like to think that we are far more royal than we are. We maintain the belief that we are royals, and in a sense, we are, because Princess Celestia acknowledges our claim. Or did. I don’t know, maybe at one point, we deserved it, but things went wrong. Things have gone so very wrong and we Darks have fallen from grace.”

With a supple, fluid motion, Blackbird sat down, folded her wings against her sides, and curled her tail around her hind legs. She was solemn now, somehow, or at least she was trying to be, and Dim was touched by her efforts. Standing on the fine rug that was worth a princely sum, he stared at her, unabashed, and let the sight of her nourish his soul.

“A year ago I was still convinced of my own superiourity,” Dim confessed and he felt an aching in some place beyond physical touch. “We Darks were a family that could do no wrong. I was thoroughly convinced of our rightful place… at the top… equal to the princesses in prestige, power, political position, precedence, pre-eminence, primacy, and prominence.”

“Your family hogged all of the ‘puh’ words.” Somehow, Blackbird delivered this line with absolute and total seriousness.

“We used our past glories like a shield,” Dim continued, shaking his head from side to side as he let Blackbird’s comment slide. “But I never heard anypony ever talk about what marvellous things we had done lately. It was all past glories and ancient accomplishments. I think that is when it started, actually… when I came to this realisation.”

“When what started?”

“When I began to feel like a prisoner. But it is more than that. It is hard to say. I reached a state where I had no joy. No happiness. Everything felt so empty. I could find no reason to do anything beyond existing. I had no prospects of accomplishment when I lived in the Dark Spire.”

Falling silent, he recalled one of the last conversations with his mother, discussing how his uncle Dire Dark had committed treason. Somehow, his family had gone from being the deranged champions of Equestria to the agents that had sold it out to its enemies. Dire had helped Mariner. His mother, Desire, was loyal to Grogar. Yes, things had gone wrong.

“Dim, I’m very sorry, but I must go to bed. I can’t keep my eyes open.”

“Go to bed, Blackbird. I’ll keep watch.” In silence, Dim returned to his pacing.

The two Darks sized one another up and Dim could not help but think that if he struck now, he could take her. He thought about what she had said before leaving last night, about breaking the spell and being free. At a loss for what to do, Dim tried to swallow the lump in his throat and found that he couldn’t; the pain was such that he whimpered even as he failed.

In her bed, Blackbird rolled over and clutched her head while moaning,

“Why?” Dim asked, his voice aristocratic and reedy. He saw Eerie’s eyebrow arch, an eyebrow very much like his own.

“I abhor weakness,” he heard her say in response. “My irrational fear of you represents a weakness. For the longest time, I feared having friends, and I am sure you can guess all of the reasons. I was fearful of males… pretty much all of them. This fear was untenable, this mistrust posed as a disgusting vulnerability. I am the conquering Dark—in time, I made friends, some of them male even, and now, the final test is having family again. You are blood, Dim, my blood, my flesh, and you are male. Do you understand?”

Even as she said these words, Dim found that not only did he understand, but he respected her for saying them. There was so much that he did not know or understand about himself. Was he mistrustful of females because of his mother’s machinations? Would this get in the way of his friendship with Blackbird? Dim was everything that Eerie feared—and the reverse was potentially true as well—with Eerie being female and family.

“The two of you are so much alike…” Blackbird’s voice was a pained, hungover moan. “Dim always looked sort of feminine, but now that I see you and how much the two of you look like one another, it’s confusing and I don’t know the right word to describe the two of you.”

“We’re androgynous, darling Blackbird… it is a product of the inbreeding.”

Chewing on his lip, Dim could not refute Eerie’s statement.

“I feel like I know you,” Eerie said as she moved to Blackbird’s bedside. “I’ve been watching you for so long now… the both of you as you’ve traveled together. I’ve watched you as Dim took care of you and didn’t take advantage of you. It satisfied some great need of mine. I’ve watched you be his friend, when so few would. Yes, I am aware of the circumstances—”

“Wait, do you know where my mother is?” Blackbird asked, interrupting.

When Eerie froze in place, Dim’s eyes narrowed and he studied his mysterious relative. She had an answer and at the moment, appeared to be thinking of what to say, how to say it, and each second that passed left Blackbird in agony. A puddle of rage began to simmer in the depths of Dim’s soul, as he did not care for Blackbird’s emotions being played with.

“I lost track of her,” Eerie answered in hesitation and she shook her head from side to side. “I knew Starling… she stood with me here, in this very room. She went to Menagerie… I tried to tell her not to go and we fought… we bickered. I thought about stopping her… forcing her, but in the end I let her go and not a day goes by that I don’t regret it. I am sorry, Blackbird, but I do not know your mother’s fate. If she is alive, she is in Menagerie, and beyond my sight.”

“Dim?”

“She’s telling the truth, Blackbird, near as I can tell.”

“Well, we need to go save her,” Blackbird said, murmuring the words so she wouldn’t upset her hangover.

“Such a thing is not possible… not on your own. You would need an army, which is what I am building, coincidently.” Eerie’s smile was of the nervous variety, as far as Dim could tell, and if she was lying, she was extraordinarily good at it. Being a Dark, of course she would be. “It is part of the reason I wanted you brought here, the both of you. Starling would kill me for dragging you into this, Blackbird, but the necessity of multitudes outweigh the desires of one.”

“I think Dim can do it—”

“Dim does just fine when facing off against disgusting primitives,” Eerie replied, refuting Blackbird’s words. “But against the magic and might of Menagerie, he would be crushed.” There was a long pause and the unicorn mare stood breathing through her nose with a curious expression upon her face. “A plan is in the making and there is one who would stand against the magic and the might of Menagerie. I would love to tell you more, but the two of you are not yet trusted. There is simply too much at stake for me to tell you everything. The lives of many hang upon my ability to make good decisions.”

Blackbird started to say something, but Dim cut her off by saying, “We understand, Eerie. It seems that we must come to an understanding of mutual trust.”

With a whine of protest, Blackbird pulled the blankets over head and went still. Dim began to have an inkling that there was a whole lot of something going on here, and that he and Blackbird had stumbled into something much, much larger than themselves. It seemed that there were carrots for cooperation and Dim continued his intense scrutiny of Eerie.

“I do so desire for my friends to become your friends.” With Blackbird hiding under the covers, Eerie now turned all of her attention upon Dim. “They have been the best of friends… we found each other when we were all at our very worst. It is amazing that we didn’t kill one another.”

“I saw the mural,” Dim said to Eerie, and he saw her smile.

“Oh, yes, that…” Eerie laughed, a sound that was entirely too much like Dim’s own. “King Majid was not a good king. Not at all. In fact, he was positively dreadful. He was a slaver.” Eerie made a moue of intense disgust and Dim could not help but feel that he was looking into a mirror. “Majid held the White Hand and committed far too many atrocities to be ignored. My friends and I, we were shopping for a kingdom, a place to set up a base of operations for future plans, and we found this place. Mars and Modesto liked it too… Modesto wanted the White Hand, so we dropped in and said hello to Majid—”

“And by hello, you mean that you casually dropped in for tea and then eviscerated him as the kettle boiled,” Dim interjected.

“Oh, we did worse than that, Dim.. I am a Dark, same as you, and it is not enough to merely kill our enemies.” Eerie’s eyes gleamed with a terrifying inner-fervency. “You know the rules, darling Dim… examples must be made.”

“Yes.” Dim thought of Jolie Rouge and her massacre of slaver ships.

“We executed Majid in a very public trial, freed all of his slaves, dispersed all of his wealth to our new subjects, and established a new government. Now, we have our eyes set on the Black Hand. Mars desires it and I aim to see that he has it. He deserves it, seeing as how he and his brother Modesto are the rightful princes to the city. But that is a long story.”

Sighing, Dim hoped that he would not regret this as he said, “It is a story I would like to hear…”

Author's Notes:

Shopping around for a kingdom? Check the foundations.