The gaiety and conversation came to an abrupt halt when Eerie strode into the room with her face contorted into a frustrated scowl. Each step caused her hooves to click and clatter against the tile floor, and when she came to a halt there was a profound silence. Dim felt Blackbird’s foreleg slip from around his neck as she pulled away, and he felt a keen sense of longing for her, wishing that she was close again.

“I’m afraid that there has been something of a change in plans,” Eerie said as she stood at the edge of the tub. “I have received word of a serious problem in Fancy… in the province Gasconeigh—”

“That’s one of the places where my mother went, Grimy Rich said so,” Blackbird blurted out, and then she clamped her talons over her mouth when she realised that she had interrupted Eerie.

Eerie’s hard expression softened a little as she looked down at Blackbird, and Dim saw… kindness? Was it kindness? There was something within her anger, something good, but Dim had never seen this on a Dark face, so he had a hard time discerning what it was. But it was something profound, something meaningful, and seeing it shook him to his core. Even in her agitated state, Eerie had what Dim could only call compassion for others, and in seeing it, in witnessing it, the observance of it made him wish to be a better pony. The Darks could change, and Eerie was proof.

“Fancy has formally requested our help, and as a measure of our friendship, we are going to help them. I have agents in Gasconeigh that are supposed to be helping us with the Black Hand, but they can’t budge right now. A group of pseudo-alicorns are terrorising the countryside and threatening the city-state of Gasconeigh itself. They call themselves the Ascension and they are quite dangerous. I need you to go to Gasconeigh, find these pseudo-alicorns, and obliterate them so that our agents can leave in good conscience. I am putting together a team.”

“You don’t need to even ask,” Bombay replied and she poked at the Bard with her paw finger. “While we’re in Fancy, we should pick up some red wine and cheese. You know, stock up while we can.”

“Dim… I’d like to trust you.” Eerie’s piercing gaze locked upon Dim right through her mirrored shades. “I really, really want to trust you. More than anything, I want to trust you. Will you help me, Dim? Our agents will not leave while the province is in trouble and this puts a crimp on future plans. These pseudo-alicorns are powerful and strong, but they are also flawed, deeply flawed, and I think having you there will tip the odds in our favour.”

Lowering his gaze down to the water, Dim gave it some thought. It felt as though so much hinged upon this moment, this decision. Fancy was trying to strengthen diplomatic ties with Istanbull no doubt, and by extension, this would affect the relationship with the Fancy Foreign Legion—a potential boon for Eerie’s plans, whatever those were. Establishing trust was important; trust between nations and trust between family members.

Without lifting his head, Dim replied, “I will help, if Blackbird agrees.”

“I’ll do it if it helps me reach my mother somehow.”

Eerie let heave a sigh of relief and her rigid body slumped. “The Ascension are strong foes. Dangerous. They have the strength of earth ponies, the flight of pegasus ponies, and the magic of unicorns… but never all at once. If they go to use magic, they will fall out of the skies. If they try to be strong, their magic flees them. When flying, they lack strength, endurance, and magic. They are all quite unstable and suffer from varying degrees of insanity.”

“You know, having traveled with Dim, I can say that he doesn’t suffer from his insanity—”

“Blackbird,” was Dim’s sharp interjection, as he was about to warn her that now wasn’t the time, but he never got the chance.

“—in fact, I think it’s safe to say that he enjoys every minute of it.”

When Eerie began to chortle, Dim’s scalp tightened as his ears couldn’t decide what to do next. Glowering, he turned his head and did his best to convey his dismay with Blackbird in wordless silence. Undaunted, she reached out, pinched his cheek between her talon-finger and her talon-thumb, and then gave it a gentle tug while Eerie’s chortles turned into mirthful snickers.

“Oh, he’s grumpy. Look at those dimples!”

Before Dim could contemplate his revenge, Eerie continued, “Thank you, all of you. Dim, I would very much like to speak with you, and soon, if it is possible. I apologise for not having been a better host, but we are in crisis.”

“I understand,” Dim replied as Blackbird gave his thin cheek another tug. “And we can talk right now, if you’d like.”

A most curious statue dominated the room, and from it emanated a magic that Dim found distracting. Four alicorns—two stallions, two mares—stood rump to rump with one another, wings out, and resting upon their wings was a planet. He was almost certain that each of the alicorns was facing a cardinal direction and as for the planet, it held exquisite detail that left him breathless. The oceans were filled with actual water, which somehow clung to the map, and above them, clouds could be seen flitting about.

“It even turns,” Eerie said to Dim while he stared, dumbfounded. “Some very old scrolls we found suggest that it had a moon, but it seems to have been lost, or perhaps destroyed. I have spent hours trying to discern what it does, but alas, all efforts have been for naught.”

The room was round and the ceiling overhead was somewhat domed. Below him, the floor was covered in worn tiles that appeared to have once held some manner of artwork, but had long since faded away into obscurity. There were chairs along the walls, overstuffed chairs upholstered in heavy textured silk brocade that Dim knew would be an orgasm of tactile stimulation to sit in.

When Eerie gestured at these chairs, Dim broke away from the curious statue so that he could sit down, and she followed with him. Just as was anticipated, sitting was an experience, the chair threatened to swallow him, and Dim knew that he would experience keen pangs of remorse upon rising. While she sat, Eerie was removing her mirrored round shades so that her eyes could be seen, and Dim could see that the temples of her glasses had little black cloth curtains to keep the light from creeping in from the sides.

“I am terrified, even now, just sitting with you in this room, alone,” Eerie confessed, and her sudden expression of vulnerability caught Dim off guard. “But I have seen how you are with Blackbird. It isn’t even that you are a stallion, it is because you are a Dark and I know all too well our unnatural appetites.”

“We were made to be monsters,” Dim replied as he settled back into his chair and rested one foreleg upon the broad, overstuffed arm.

“More than you know.” Eerie’s eyes, now narrowed into paper thin slits, somehow managed to stare into Dim’s soul. “You and I in particular, we were more than just merely conditioned, Dim. We’ve been altered. I know all about Desire’s attempt to transform you into an umbrum… I fear I must ask you for your forgiveness, I aided my sister with her research. It is something that I deeply regret, and it now pains me.”

Something inside of Dim prickled, and he didn’t know what to say.

Eerie was silent for a time, in pain, her troubles manifesting as a great many wrinkles on her face, and when she was ready to say more, she shook her head from side to side. “I too, was altered, and as an experiment, I was considered a failure. We Darks were trying to awaken psychic potential so that we would have an upper hoof against the Wardens and those with psychic powers that exist beyond magic. To this end, I had a serum made from eye tyrants injected into my head going as far back as I remember.”

At this, Dim was thoroughly disgusted, but he was neither shocked nor surprised.

“Nothing happened… until after I left home… and then, not only was I out in the big scary world trying to survive, but I had to face all of these changes alone, and without aid. Without a caretaker for when I was too overwhelmed, too sick to move or care for myself.” Eerie seemed to collapse beneath the weight of her own grief and her straight neck bent as her head sagged.

Of course, Dim had a million questions, and under most circumstances, he would demand to know answers so that he could be satisfied, but something about Eerie’s pain pierced through his stony exteriour. He very much wanted to know what had been done to him, and this manifested as a powerful, selfish voice that echoed in the back of his mind, demanding that Eerie was thoroughly interrogated until he had the answers that he sought.

Not knowing how to comfort Eerie, and not wishing to reveal his own emotion, he changed the subject. “How did you manage to get in contact with Fancy?”

Blinking from the sudden distraction, Eerie recovered herself with remarkable aplomb and she gazed into Dim’s eyes with something that resembled gratitude. “I have a zebra soothsayer,” she replied as she came around and her ears perked into a somewhat more cheerful position. “She can pop in and out of the astral realm on a whim and through her, I can communicate with others over vast distances. Every smart, capable ruler keeps a zebra soothsayer close by, even the mighty Princess Celestia.”

“Intriguing.” Dim pulled off his own goggles so that he and Eerie might look one another in the eye. He felt luxuriantly clean, his skin felt softened, supple, and his pelt was left sleek. Sometimes, a good soak was better than a shower, oh yes, and it felt good to be back in high civilisation once more.

“Smoke and fire… shadow and flame…” Eerie’s voice was distant, almost disconnected somehow, and her eyes were strange. “Terror goes before him like a plague and he will be a great destroyer, a devourer of hope and the steadfast nature of virtuous defenders will he consume… he shall sup upon their every mortal fear and he shall be made stronger by their loss...” Her words trailed off and her body was wracked with powerful shudders that rocked her chair.

“Eerie?” Dim leaned closer and it appeared that the stricken mare was on the verge of a seizure. The claws of panic gripped his flesh, sinking into him like icy hooks, and he could feel strange magic radiating from Eerie herself. He watched as one trembling hoof was lifted and she began to rub her temple.

“I have these spells, sometimes,” she said to Dim in a weak voice. “The past and the present bleed together. You shall have to forgive me.” Closing her eyes, Eerie pressed harder against her temple and her breathing became shallower. “Much was promised about you. I was present during several of the conjurings. Even though I was young, it was seen as beneficial for my magical education. The demon, Thrennog, had much to say about your creation and your coming. Of course, there was a price to pay. Though, something tells me that he offered faulty knowledge or even lied outright when he explained how to bind and control you.”

Silent, Dim thought of his sister, Doomed Dark and he suspected that he now knew the name of her father.

“He was so powerful that we had to bind him with purified iron shavings and salt,” Eerie remarked, and her soft-spoken words caused Dim’s ears to perk. “No doubt, he is probably having a good laugh after you turned upon Dark Desire and were loosened upon the world. He was a prankster, that Thrennog.”

Sighing, Dim found himself in some barren emotional wasteland with no idea of how he should feel about what it was that he was hearing from Eerie. He found it odd that he felt no malice towards her—in fact, he felt only pity—and there was something about the fact that Eerie was also a victim that brought him comfort.

With this pity, with this insight, Dim had an inkling of why Eerie had sought him out and why she wished to connect with him. A sneer appeared on his muzzle, a manifestation of his shrewd, calculating, methodical nature, and within his analytical mind, thoughts were already transmuting into words.

“For your healing—for your own sake of mind, you seek to do with me what your sister, my mother, Darling could not do with magic, manipulation, and all those things that she applied and tried to bind me with.” Something almost registering as panic passed over Eerie’s face, but only for a fraction of a second before it was gone. “You wish for me to do your will, and to this end, you now try to ply with me with kindness, friendship, and generousity.”

“I do confess to trying to manipulate you to act for the benefit of good—”

“I bear you no malice for what you are doing,” Dim said, cutting in with calm words of reassurance.

“You were meant to be a powerful force of change, Dim. A means to upset the scales of power. Our damnable house had high hopes of using you to shift the odds in their favour during the coming conflict. You have all of this potential… just like Pâté au Poulet, you had a surplus of potential and the means to bring great changes to the world around you. Desire wanted a slave and a new bloodline of royalty that would ascend to power during Grogar’s rule. She was obsessed with knowing if the experiment had worked, and if the power that you were possessed with would be passed along with your offspring. You were to be the first of many, Dim, a revived race of umbrum, devoted and loyal to Grogar’s cause. Darling was created so that you could sire umbral offspring. Like you, she was a vessel that Desire put all of her hopes in.”

Eerie sucked in a sharp breath before she continued, “I thought that perhaps I could assuage my own guilt for my own contributions into your creation by steering you towards what I believe to be the greater good. I desperately need to know if you can be saved, if you can do good, if you can pull back from the brink of the Abyss… for I too, am damned.”

These words struck Dim like a slap to the face and left him shaken.

“The guilt is destroying me, Dim. I have since devoted my life to the pursuit of order to atone for my sins… I want to save us both.”

Nodding with acknowledgement, Dim replied, “And I too, wish to be saved…”

Author's Notes:

This may need some editing still... problems were encountered at my end, my apologies.