Keepsakes – Enslavement

Disclaimer: In case you haven't figured it out yet, I don't own My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. All MLP-related characters, settings, etc. are the intellectual property of Lauren Faust and Hasbro.

[-]

"When are you going to forget about me?"

The question had come completely unbidden, after at least an hour of total silence, and for quite a while Princess Luna felt at a loss as to how to answer it.

It was hardly uncommon for her faithful student to remain so quiet during these practice sessions – he was generally taciturn by nature, and doubly so whenever focusing on his magic. And when he did speak up during training, it tended to be a purely practical question: "Would this transmutation require the application of Starswirl's Third Law or his Fourth?" or "When casting barrier magic, what stance is preferable for maximum strength?"

She could answer those questions easily enough; long before she'd become a Princess of Equestria she'd been an accomplished sorcerer in her own right (stronger even than Celestia in terms of raw power, and her sister wouldn't dare dispute it), and she was glad to pass along whatever knowledge she could. That was the reason she'd taken on an apprentice in the first place, after all.

But this?

He was continuing his task for the day's lesson as she pondered, levitating a rather impressive amount of stone and slowly reforming it into a statue of a griffin. But she could see in his eyes that at least half his concentration was diverted to awaiting an answer. Clearly, this was a question that had been brewing in his skull for a while.

Luna turned it over in her own head a few times, trying to come up with something to say in response. It was such a curious question, in more ways than one, and it had blindsided her utterly.

What he was alluding to was not hard to grasp, but why he'd chosen to ask it here and now was far less obvious. The precise wording was strange, too – not "whether" she would forget him, but "when." As if he'd already thought it over well beforehand, and concluded it to be an inevitability.

Finally, having come up with nothing cleverer or more insightful to say, she replied, "We shall not."

"Do not lie to me," said the young unicorn, raising his voice slightly. "You have been my teacher for over five years now, my Princess. If nothing else…I believe I deserve a sincere answer."

"And thou hast received one," Luna insisted, far more firmly than she felt in her mind. "We have not the slightest idea why thou wouldst even consider such an inquiry."

"Please, Princess. Do not pretend that our hooves stand on equal ground. It debases us both," he responded with a snort. "You are an alicorn. Immortal, and powerful beyond measure. In a thousand years you shall be just as mighty; just as regal; just as beautiful, as you are at this moment. Whilst I shall be so much dust in the wind."

Luna said nothing in answer to this.

"I may be your first student, Princess…but I very much doubt that I shall be your last," continued the unicorn. "As the centuries go by, you will meet millions of other ponies – many of them no doubt grander and cleverer than I could ever hope to be. Though I may be distinct in your mind's eye now, it is natural that eventually, memories of my face and mane shall fade. It is a matter of when, not if."

Again, silence. The Princess was simply stunned by the sheer amount of pent-up frustrations now being vented at her.

"How long will it take, truly?" he demanded, not waiting for an answer. "A decade? A century? I doubt a millennium! When my bones lay cold and stiff, buried in the darkness of the earth…what use will it be, for you to remember some worthless, departed nopony?!"

There was a surge of magical power as the young unicorn stomped his hooves to the carpet, waves of green and purple bursting around them. This seemed to snap him back to his senses, however, and he instantly backed away, taking on a much less aggressive stance.

"I…apologize, Princess. In my zeal, I forgot myself," he murmured, his head hung low. "I am, of course, owed no answer beyond that you have graciously chosen to offer me."

Again, not giving her a chance to say anything in response, he turned away, using his magic to return the various tomes and talismans they had been working with to their rightful places. "I humbly request that I be allowed to cut today's lesson short, Princess. I am not in the right state to learn from you, and for that I am truly sorry," he said.

His tail was already disappearing up the tower steps, to the small chamber where he now lived in the castle, by the time Luna managed to find her voice.

"Sombra…" she called after him softly. Not that it did any good.

[-]

She'd found him in the unlikeliest of places; an encounter that, whatever his fears, she was never going to forget.

The town had been known as Hoofwell, then. Calm, rustic, and peaceful…or at least as much as any place could be, deep into the Age of Discord.

Discord had been no ordinary tyrant – surely, he would've considered properly ruling as too boring a way to spend his time – preferring instead to step in and make mischief wherever the mood happened to strike him.

As such, local despots were not an uncommon sight to see spring up in his absence. True, their existence was a precarious prospect from one day to another; at any moment, after all, the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony might pop in and transform them into a rutabaga. Just because.

But perhaps the unicorn who had dominated Hoofwell for decades on-end was simply lucky, or else its citizens were rather quite unlucky. Because from the moment that he'd come to the quiet mining town, eager to exploit its ample gem deposits and sturdy workforce, Discord had been nowhere to be seen for miles in any direction.

This unicorn, who carried the deceptively unthreatening name of Vanishing Cream, claimed that this was because he could claim descent from Princess Platinum herself, permitting ancient magic that only he could use to keep Discord away.

Both claims were spurious at best – Platinum was generally agreed by historians to have borne no foals, and Discord tended to shrug off even the most powerful of barrier spells as if they were toilet paper – but this was a unicorn nopony was ever going to say such things in the face of.

For whether his assertions regarding his lineage were true or not, there was no doubt that he wielded magic of rare might.

His special talent, as befit his name, was banishment. Most unicorns, if they were powerful enough to perform teleportation magic at all, could only cast it upon themselves, and only across short distances. But the tyrant possessed the ability to cast such spells offensively, and took full advantage of such.

Those who opposed Vanishing Cream were dealt with swiftly and mercilessly; teleported directly into harsh dungeons or, in extreme cases, off of the planet entirely. Rumors held that those ponies now lived amongst the stars themselves.

Many attempts to depose him occurred, but none succeeded. Eventually, the ponies of Hoofwell stopped trying.

And so it came to be that, by the time Sombra was born, Hoofwell was a dreary and desolate place. Everypony kept their heads down, working from sunrise to long past sundown each day extracting riches for their cruel master.

Talk of rebellion was treated with ridicule at best and violent censure at worst. The wicked unicorn was quite eager to punish entire crowds for the actions of a few, and with none nearly powerful enough to challenge his rule for more than a few seconds, nopony was willing to take that risk.

Sombra had been a gangly filly, which was something of a problem – those ponies in whom Vanishing Cream saw no potential for physical labor, tended to quite literally disappear.

His parents, desperate to prove his worth, pushed their son to the brink. From the moment he could walk, he was already being made to carry stones, larger and larger each time. Often, he'd collapse, his knobby knees giving way to the weight and sending him crashing to the ground muzzle-first.

But he would always get back up, right afterward. Even when it hurt so very much, just to stand. Because that was what his parents expected of him, and he knew he couldn't let them down.

Sombra's parents had both been earth ponies, so the horn had perplexed them from the moment he emerged from the womb. Initially, they had prayed – to whom, they could not say, as there was only one known deity in Equestria and he sure as hoof didn't take beseechments – that the feature was purely cosmetic, and wouldn't do much more than spark a bit when their boy grew excited.

For several years, that was precisely the case.

Vanishing Cream, like so many other tyrants, was possessed of overwhelming paranoia. As he could not conceive of being bested by anypony other than a more magically gifted unicorn, any sign of magic at all was punished severely.

Most of Hoofwell's adult unicorns had been banished to various prisons years ago, never to be heard from again. Newly born unicorns were watched closely from birth, and in most cases "marked" by a spell that would alert Vanishing Cream's forces upon each and every instance of magic.

And as for the punishments, they were as simple as they were cruel. Upon the first infraction, the foal would be beaten within an inch of their lives. Upon the second, they would be snatched away from their parents, and taken to their wicked master. What happened to them after that…nopony knew for certain.

So one could only imagine the shock and horror upon the couple's faces when they'd returned home to find the young Sombra giggling and levitating crystals around, forming elaborate and colorful structures to surround himself.

"Look, mama! Papa!" he'd squealed in delight; his voice high-pitched and jovial, with a slight lisp. "I made some new friends!"

He hadn't understood, of course. How could he? They'd never thought to explain – how could they warn him, after all, away from something he had absolutely no concept of? For young unicorns, magic came as naturally as breathing, even if the word "magic" had never been spoken in their presence.

So what was he to think when his parents swarmed over him in a panic, begging him to stop the spell (what in the whole wide world of Equestria was a "spell," anyway?) while their eyes darted about their small home, as if expecting attackers any moment? The young Sombra had had no idea what'd gone wrong; what he had done to earn such expressions of anxiety and fear.

He'd tried to ask them, but the words wouldn't come. Only hot, sticky tears, brought on by the utter pain that was emanating from Sombra's parents like a wave.

Instead, his father had addressed him, his words chosen slowly and carefully. "What you just did, Sombra…making your horn glow, and doing…things with it…" he'd began, clearly uncertain how to broach the subject.

"You must never, ever do it again. Do you understand us, dear?" his mother had finished, trying to wipe the tears from her son's tiny face.

"Never."

[-]

Sombra's parents had stood vigil over him night and day for a whole week following that unfortunate day, fearful but willing to fight whoever might come to hurt their son. They were scared of what he'd done, that was true, even disappointed…but Sombra was still their foal, which meant nopony was going to lay a damn hoof on him so long as they lived.

But to their surprise, nopony did. There wasn't even an inquiry. Vanishing Cream's henchponies weren't exactly known for their restraint, to put it mildly…but for whatever reason, they seemed not to have even noticed their son's transgressions.

There was a reason for this, although neither earth pony had any possible way of knowing. The spell used to detect instances of magic in Hoofwell was a rather simple one, if extremely powerful; as such, most any sufficiently learned unicorn would be able to "mask" their energies from it, given enough time to prepare.

Sombra, however, did so completely unconsciously – signifying a level of raw power that was nearly unparalleled in the history of Equestria.

Indeed, while it'd be centuries before Professor Inkwell would develop the first standardized scale for quantitatively measuring such, Luna could only name perhaps three or four unicorns with comparable potential, ever.

All this meant absolutely nothing to Sombra himself, of course. Using what his parents called "magic" had been the greatest feeling he'd ever experienced: putting his very essence out into the world and twisting, pulling, mastering. He'd never been in a position to control anything in his life before, and the feeling was…

There were no words. None that the young unicorn knew, at least.

More than anything else, he wanted to do it again. To test the limits of this new, strange, wonderful power, and to break through them just as quick. To feel once more, even in this small, tiny corner of this small, tiny town, as if he was in control of something.

But his parents had sat him down, numerous times since that fateful day, to explain in harsh tones that were he to do magic again, bad things could happen. He could get hurt. They could get hurt. And worst of all…they could lose him forever.

Sombra didn't truly understand – to the gangly foal, Vanishing Cream's edicts were as strange and unknowable as the stars themselves – but he obeyed all the same.

He loved them too much not to.

It was hard, though. Once he knew he had the power, it was impossible to ignore it. It built up constantly, growing and growing in his very core until it seemed almost fit to burst. Holding the magic in gave him splitting headaches, and required nearly around-the-clock concentration.

Sombra became skilled, from a very young age, at breathing exercises and (what could charitably be called) meditation. He needed to be, because he could not afford any mistakes. The moment he slipped up sparks tended to fly from his horn, brilliant green and purple hues, and as such he grew to dread simply interacting with other ponies. One second of weakness, just one, to the wrong pony, and…

Well, he wasn't completely sure. But for his parents' sake, he wasn't going to find out.

Things became even more difficult when, from the perspective of Vanishing Cream's regime at least, Sombra became a stallion. This was the age when, in later and more enlightened times, fillies and colts would tend to be sent to their first years of school.

But in Hoofwell, it instead signified the start of a lifetime working in the mines.

Loading rocks, gems, and heavy equipment onto his back, or dragging them behind him in rusted carts, was made all the more miserable by the knowledge that he could make the work a hundred times easier, with merely a thought.

It was always on his mind, every second of every day that he labored for his pitiless master.

[-]

Years passed by, Sombra's life static and unchanging.

Each day, he would do the same exact thing. He would awaken before dawn, trudge toward the mines, and do precisely what he was told until released. A single, short break for lunch was the only respite he received. And it was quite necessary, for once his workday concluded, long past sunset, the last thing on Sombra's mind tended to be food.

Exhausted, he would drag himself back home, managing just long enough to collapse in a heap on the floor. Only to repeat the entire process several hours later.

It was harsh, it was cruel, and it was never-ending. And Sombra hated it with all the fire a young colt could muster.

Countless hours of blood, sweat, and toil had stoked a heart full of bitterness and resentment…not to mention confusion. Soon, he knew, he would be old enough to strike out on his own, apart from his parents. He might even be free to wield his magic with abandon elsewhere.

But truthfully, where could he go? He had never known, had never even seen a glimpse of, the world beyond Hoofwell; he knew only that to venture forth would be to place himself at the mercy of all that Discord had wrought upon their land. And weak and naïve as he convinced himself he was, Sombra was certain he wouldn't last a day.

Which left only one other conclusion: that this was all there would be to his future. He would drive pickaxes into sediment, and cart heavy packages of jewels to who-knew-where, for the rest of his natural life. After which, he would die…and not one pony would notice or care in the long run.

At most, the greatest happiness, the only happiness he could possibly hope to wish for, would be to find a similarly hard-laboring mare and start a family. One which would consign any potential children to this selfsame fate, of course.

There was one who seemed interested, or at least Sombra thought so; admittedly, he had absolutely no experience in judging these sorts of things.

He hadn't yet bothered to learn her name. Her coat was a deep green, her mane rose-colored and cut short. From what little he'd thought to observe, she was strong and hardworking, gifted with a zeal for her duties that was almost but not quite infectious.

She seemed to make an effort to lend him a smile every time they passed in the mines, which made Sombra feel distinctly awkward. He didn't see very many smiles in his day-to-day life, and while he tried to return them when possible, he had no idea if he was doing it right.

He did not, however, return her repeated entreaties to share a meal together. Oh, he attempted to be polite about it (well…he thought he was being polite), but each time he firmly refused. Eating together would likely mean conversation, and that was just an invitation for a slip in his control.

No…everything was safer if he did it alone. Eating, sleeping, and work itself whenever possible.

There was another reason that he wasn't interested, however, that had little to do with caution. Sombra was still a blank flank, and just beginning to reach the age at which that was somewhat unusual. The green-coated mare, by contrast, had earned her Cutie Mark over a year ago: a minecart.

This was hardly an atypical sight around the mines. Most of Sombra's fellow laborers bore pickaxes or heavy rocks or something else similar. But in a way, this had come to terrify the young colt.

Whatever transcendental entity or law that governed these things – Fate or Destiny or whatever one wanted to call it – had seen fit to mark these ponies with signs of stagnation. They were mineworkers, slaves to the will of another, now…and that was all they were ever destined to be. There was no escape for them.

So in a sense, Sombra found his own bare flank almost…comforting. So long as it remained unmarked, he could at least try to fool himself into believing that he might still enjoy a better future.

Therefore, he could never allow himself to be contented, even for a moment. Never spare even the slightest thought toward settling down – with the green-coated mare, or anypony else for that matter. Because somehow he knew that, the instant he accepted that this was his lot in life, and that nothing greater lay distant over the horizon…

The Mark would come, as ordinary and as decidedly final as the others. And with that, the very last shred of hope would die in his heart.