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“You cannot seriously expect me to go outside in this…”
Sunburst rolled his eyes as he fixed his messy mane in the mirror. He looked back at the closed door to his bedroom, a door that had been sealed shut for over twenty minutes now, as he waited for his lover to emerge with dwindling patience. He’d had enough time to straighten his sweater for the dozenth time and play with his messy mane for the hundredth, and yet…
Sombra refused to leave the room.
Stomping towards the door as his patience finally gave out, Sunburst knocked politely yet loudly. “Come on, Sombra. We’re going to be late!” He said, pressing a hoof to the door. “I’m sure you look great!”
There were a few moments of silence, followed by a deep, low grumble that resounded through the door. A short sound of shuffling was heard before the door between them finally opened.
Sunburst wasn’t sure what was more uncharacteristic about the normally large and imposing stallion. Whether it was the bright blush that lit his face and shone through even his dark coat, the shy expression he wore as he looked bashfully down at Sunburst, or what the stallion was forced to wear.
A garish mix of red and green wool knit itself across the stallion’s broad chest in a way that was both eye-catching and an eyesore. The vivid saturation of these holiday colors clashed and contrasted with Sombra’s naturally neutral dark coat so much that one would be forced to squint if looking directly at him. And, if you did squint, you would be able to make out the words ‘Dear Santa, I can explain!’ written across his chest in a cute, curly font.
It made Sunburst’s own sweater, an equally bright but understated red sweater with a simple depiction of a decorated Hearth’s Warming tree, look normal in comparison. It, at least, didn’t clash with Sunburst’s smaller, warmer self.
Pursing his lips and taking a deep breath, Sombra tried his hardest to maintain the affectation of regality that he’d practiced over his many years of life. “I feel ridiculous.”
Seeing Sombra dressed up like this, Sunburst was immediately beaming with a wide, loving grin. “Oh come on, you look perfect!” He squeaked, drawing in close to his boyfriend and wrapping him in a tight, yet brief hug. “Now seriously, we’ve gotta go! You know how Twilight gets about being late!”
Grumbling softly as soon as the mare was mentioned, Sombra wrapped a foreleg loosely around Sunburst and leaned down to give his forehead a gentle kiss. “As you wish, my love.” Taking a step back, he tugged on his sweater in an attempt to make himself look presentable.
Maybe if he pulled it down enough, no one could read the writing on it.
Unsatisfied with that not working, he instead brushed a hoof along the fabric to dispose of anything loose or frayed. “Even still, I am a bit confused as to why I was invited in in the first place. As far as I was aware, Twilight Sparkle wished to have nothing to do with me.”
Finishing preening himself in the mirror, Sunburst ran one last hoof through his mane to keep it a respectable level of disorder. “Well, she never invited you persay…”
Sombra couldn’t help but chuckle deeply as he joined Sunburst in the mirror, wrapping a foreleg around his stallion as he rested his chin in his messy mane. “Please tell me this means I’ll be crashing her little Hearth’s Warming Eve party.”
While Sunburst found the self-satisfied look on Sombra’s face a little worrying, he pressed his head up against his chin. “I’m sure she knows you’re coming, but you were actually invited by Spike. I think he still feels bad for, uh, you know…”
“Well, I suppose that’s fine. So long as my very presence torments her, it will be an enjoyable night.” Sombra grumbled against Sunburst, briefly burying his muzzle into the smaller stallion’s mane. “Perhaps my ‘Secret Santa’ gift can smooth things over a bit, however.”
Sunburst nuzzled up against Sombra, but he still pursed his lips. “And… what’d you end up getting her? Did you pick up that tome that I suggested?”
As Sombra broke away from Sunburst, he hummed softly to himself. “Not quite. For Twilight Sparkle, I decided on something more personal.”
Walking towards the door, Sombra pulled a package off of a table as he passed. It was a larger sized square package, one similar in size to the tome Sunburst had talked about, but the pitch black wrapping paper around it left Sunburst able to divine the true contents.
“Now then, shall we leave?” Sombra asked, glancing over one of his broad shoulders to give Sunburst a smoldering look. “Or, perhaps, we could buck all of this Hearth’s Warming nonsense and spend the night together instead.”
Sighing, Sunburst used his magic to grab a much smaller and more festively wrapped package from the table. He moved to approach Sombra at the door, leaning up to place a quick and gentle kiss on the tall stallion’s cheek. “We’re going and that’s final. We’ll go out, have a fun time with our friends, and once I get overwhelmed and exhausted we can spend the rest of the holidays together.”
Sombra leaned down to kiss Sunburst’s forehead in turn. “Then I will just have to make it through Twilight Sparkle in order to have you all to myself.”
The walk to Princess Twilight’s castle was blanketed in snow. Earlier that day, it seemed as if Ponyville’s weather team had taken the planned forecast of a light flurry to mean a full on snow shower, but at least by now the thick clouds had cleared away into a starry, moonlit night. While Sunburst had gotten used to a blistering winter after several disasters in the Crystal Empire and with the little snow princess Flurry Heart, he still held close to Sombra for warmth as they walked.
Sombra, having recently spent several days getting tortured by windigos in the blizzardous outskirts of the Crystal Empire, was mostly unaffected by the cold but happy to keep Sunburst pressed against him for as long as possible.
Sadly for him, the walk to Twilight’s castle wasn’t a long one. Sunburst’s new Ponyville home was essentially right in her backyard for various Friendship Problem or Vice Headmare needs. It did, however, mean that its tall, crystalline structure loomed tall over their home and occasionally cast a harsh shadow over it as well.
And, much to Sombra’s chagrin, the beautiful crystals were currently wrapped in the most garish Hearth’s Warming decorations.
While Sombra kept his comments on Twilight Sparkle’s sense of taste mostly to himself, Sunburst could have done without him cursing the very land the castle was built on as they approached the door. Especially with the way the stallion’s eyes glowed as he said it.
As Sombra pressed his way in through the heavy front door, the party inside ground to a halt. The dark stallion haunting the doorway loomed tall and imposing, especially so when moonlight poured into the foyer from behind him and cast his shadow across the numerous partygoers.
Squeezing past the stallion taking up the better part of the doorway, Sunburst nearly stumbled over his own hooves as he dipped his head in apology. “S-sorry we’re so late! We got caught up with, well, a few things…”
With a bit of a shared chuckle at their expense, the party guests quickly returned to their holiday merriment. And as the door shut behind the two stallions, Sunburst nudged Sombra with his shoulder.
“I’m going to try and interrupt Applejack’s conversation so I can give her this.” Sunburst said, hefting the small present he held with him. “While I pace around nervously for twenty minutes to build myself up, you should try and mingle a little.”
Sombra grumbled deeply at this, wrapping a foreleg around his Sunburst in order to pull him closer. “I never agreed to these terms. Why would I bother mingling when I could just keep you to myself?”
While the loving muzzle currently pressed against his neck was both tempting and distracting, Sunburst somehow resisted Sombra’s charms and pulled away. “Come on, it’ll just be for a little bit. If you want, you can just talk to Shining until I get back.”
As Sunburst said that, he gestured towards Shining Armor who was currently enjoying a conversation with Big Macintosh, Spike, and Discord across the foyer. Hearing his name and seeing the gesture, Shining Armor smiled and happily waved Sunburst over to join him.
When his eyes rolled over to Sombra, however, his smile and eagerness faded and he returned to his conversation.
“Or… maybe you could try and track down your Secret Santa. That could be fun too!” Sunburst said, though he didn’t sound too convinced himself. Leaning up, perhaps to distract from his lack of confidence, he kissed Sombra briefly on the cheek. “I won’t be too long, I promise.”
Watching Sunburst walk away, Sombra finally took in the party around him. Dozens of Twilight Sparkle’s friends and family gathered around in the castle’s colorfully decorated foyer, most gathered into small conversational groups while the shyer of them clung to walls or the various tables of refreshments. There was a thrum of jolly activity that filled the entire room, fueling loud, delighted chatter between everyone.
And yet, Sombra still stood alone. The only thing jolly on him being the sweater he still attempted to hide.
But not for long. While he was preoccupied with watching the crowd enjoy themselves, he wasn’t paying attention to the sound of little feet approaching from his side. It wasn’t until a sharp claw poked into his side that Sombra finally responded.
The room grew darker around Sombra as he turned to face the offending creature, shadows curling from the tips of the stallion’s pitch black mane while he glared downwards.
And downwards.
And even further down still, craning his neck down to look over his broad chest to see a very short purple dragon. Looking over to where Spike the Dragon had previously been, Sombra saw that Sunburst had taken his position in Shining Armor’s conversation.
Spike beamed up at Sombra, hiding his offending claws behind his back as he shifted from foot to foot. “Hiya!” He said simply, his voice as chipper and kind as it possibly could be.
Despite the inherent innocence of this little dragon, the shadows around Sombra remained looming and his glare remained piercing. “Little dragon, to what do I owe this… interruption?”
“Well you didn’t look too busy so I dunno how much I’m really interrupting. And it’s Spike.” Spike glowered briefly, eyebrows furrowed, before returning to his natural smile as he pulled a claw from behind his back. “Here, I wrote it on this card I got you so you won’t forget!”
In his outstretched claw, Spike held a white greeting card towards Sombra. Upon accepting, Sombra saw that the front was covered in a very colorful comic tableau of… a dark, shadowy creature being exploded by the Crystal Heart’s light while a heroic, and very muscular, purple dragon stood tall and confident in front of the scene.
Opening the card, he read the message written inside with what seemed to be a green colored pencil:
‘Sorry for sort of killing you for a while
No hard feelings right?
Happy Hearth’s Warming!
-Spike the Dragon’
For a moment Sombra was unsure how to respond, but found his face pulling up into a strange little smirk as he perused the front again. “Certainly a very flattering depiction of the event. Your apology is… appreciated.” Sombra said, storing away the card. “I take this to mean you were my Secret Santa then?”
Spike shrugged coyly with one claw still held behind his back. “To be fair, I was gonna make that for you no matter what. Sunburst told me you were still pretty beat up about it.” Pulling his other claw out, he held it out to reveal a long, colorful scarf bundled up in it. “This is what I really got you. Rarity and I figured you could use a bit more color so she helped me crochet this thing together.”
“Is that so…” Sombra said with a narrowed gaze as he accepted the cloth.
If Rarity had anything to do with this scarf, it was clearly only in an advisory role. The loops were a mess, some entirely too loose while others were tight enough that Spike must have forced the hook through. They grew more uniform the more the scarf stretched on, but that only removed the only distraction Sombra had from the absolutely garish color scheme. Starting with a black yarn similar to his coat, it transitioned first to a Sunburst-esque orange, then red, and then just followed the colors of the rainbow.
Sombra glowered as he looked at it, unhappy with how its mostly bright colors clashed with his dark ones.
And then he looked down at Spike whose expression had taken on a bashful quality, the small dragon kicking at the ground with his arms folded behind him. “I was just gonna make it your guys’ colors, but I got waaaay less yarn than I needed. So I improvised with some of Rarity’s.”
Breathing a sigh through his nose, Sombra swallowed his complaints and wrapped the scarf loosely around his neck. True to its function, despite its shoddy look, whatever chill bit at him now had a harder time about it. “Thank you for this, little dragon.” He grumbled, then thought better of it. “Spike.”
Spike’s face lit up with a large, beaming grin. He opened his mouth to respond, but his train of thought ran awry when he heard the sound of hoofsteps approaching.
“Spike, our brother is looking for you.” Twilight Sparkle sighed as she trotted up beside him, turning her head to completely ignore Sombra’s presence in the conversation. “He and Sunburst wanted your opinion. Something about O&O rule changes?”
Spike perked up at this, his head shooting up as he looked over to where the two stallions were standing. “Dang it, they better not be talking about a new campaign without me!”
Rushing off as fast as his little legs could take him, Spike exited the conversation expertly and left Sombra alone.
Well, alone with the Princess of Friendship. Which, in Sombra’s opinion, was a bit more annoying.
“And here I was enjoying the conversation with your young ward.” Sombra hummed as he watched Spike prance off to join the grouplet of nerds. His attention then turned to the alicorn mare standing before him. “Did you interrupt purely for that, or was Princess Twilight Sparkle that desperate to get me alone?”
Twilight rolled her eyes, scoffing as she did so. “Not everything is about you, you pompous, egomaniacal-” Pursing her lips, she shook her head before she unleashed an unprincesslike tirade that would certainly ruin the spirit of the holidays. Instead, she stomped a hoof and glared up at Sombra. “I don’t want you talking to Spike. I don’t know if you have something against him for helping destroy you, or if you want to use him in your silly games, or if…”
Sombra tuned her out at this point, drawing up a hoof and dragging it along the fabric of the scarf around his neck. For what it was worth, it was far more tolerable to wear than the sweater Sunburst forced him into.
“He was simply giving me a gift, nothing more.” Sombra said, his hoof grazing along the scarf’s orange section. “I have no intention of bringing any harm to him. Surely having to spend years living with you has done more harm than I ever could.”
Twilight growled, her glare growing ever sharper as her horn lit. “How about you-”
Before any Beams of Friendship fired and sent Sombra back to the wastelands surrounding the Crystal Empire, the stallion quickly placed the sleekly wrapped gift he carried between them. “On the same subject, my gift for you. Isn’t it fateful that I received you, of all ponies?”
Twilight scoffed again. “About as fateful as me getting Yona.”
Still though, she grabbed the gift in her magic and squinted as she turned it over and inspected it closely. She didn’t dare tear the wrapping paper and tried not to jostle it too much while she looked it over with a cautious eye.
“It won’t explode, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Twilight hummed. “I can never be too sure with you.”
Rolling his eyes, Sombra looked towards Sunburst. “You can be assured, I would never harm you in front of Sunburst. For some reason, he seems to like you quite a bit.”
“It’s called being my friend. Maybe you could try it sometime.” Twilight grumbled as she, still very carefully, began to peel the black wrapping paper back to reveal…
A tome. Old, weathered, and leather-bound, it was clearly not something that one could pick up from a library or standard bookstore. Opening it up and flipping through the first few pages, the detailed notes on crystal magic and annotations delicately written in the margins told her just how rare it was.
“A piece of my own personal collection.” Sombra said, looking over the pages with a soft smile. “I am well aware that there have been developments since this was written, but the discoveries of my advisor and I helped lay the foundation.”
“That’s…” Twilight paused for a moment, eyes still scanning the tome’s pages. “That’s actually kind of thoughtful. Thank you.”
Sombra’s nostalgic smile quickly turned to a self-satisfied smirk. “Perhaps, with this, you might finally learn something worthwhile.”
With that, Twilight’s face fell as she snapped the tome shut and teleported it away for later review. “I have no idea how Sunburst can stand you.”
“I’m told I’m an acquired taste.”
Before Twilight could respond with her own retort, something about washing Sombra’s mouth out with soap perhaps, Sunburst returned to diffuse the tension by nuzzling up against Sombra’s side.
“I heard my name.” Sunburst said, tilting his head as he looked at Twilight. “I hope I’m not in trouble!”
“On the contrary, my love.” Sombra said with a low, grumbling laugh as he nuzzled down against Sunburst. “Twilight Sparkle was simply graciously accepting my gift. Isn’t that right?”
“That’s… right. Yes. Very appreciative.” Twilight said, nodding a bit too much as she looked to Sunburst. “So appreciative that I think I’ll leave you two alone and look over the tome right now.”
Twilight Sparkle turned to leave but, as she did so, she looked over her shoulder at Sombra one last time. “And Sombra?”
“Hm?”
Looking down at the garment stretching across his broad chest, she gave a small smirk. “Nice sweater.”
Sunburst’s expression brightened immediately, the dorky stallion smiling broadly. “Doesn’t it look great on him? I picked it out myself!”
Defeated, Twilight Sparkle grumbled and turned to leave with a heavy sigh.
As they watched Twilight walk away, Sunburst leaned against Sombra and rested his head on the side of his chest. “Am I going to have to punish you when I learn what you two were really talking about?”
Sombra scoffed, though a curious smirk did cross his lips. “I would love to see you try.”
“How does ‘no hayburgers for a month’ sound?” Sunburst asked with a soft giggle. “Anyway, if you’re ready to go then we can.”
Sombra looked down at his lover, then over to the grouplet of nerds still talking away without him. “Are you sure you’ve had your fill? You seemed to be enjoying your conversation.”
“Well…” Sunburst stroked his goatee with a conflicted look on his face. “I wasn’t able to ask Spike when he would be willing to run a game next. Or if they’d be fine with me giving DMing a shot for once.”
With a swift move of his hips, Sombra nudged Sunburst gently. “Go on then and I’ll join you. I would love to hear a bit about it, considering you enjoy it so much. Perhaps one of these days you can convince me to join you.”
As Sunburst’s face lit up as bright as his namesake, he grabbed Sombra’s hoof and practically dragged him towards the talk of dice rolls and adventure.