Familia 18: Man of the House.


                                            =Familia 18=


                                            >Rain patters against the windows as you chop vegetables and slide them into an earthen bowl.

                                            “There we go…a nice healthy dinner…”

                                            >You set the table and smile at a job well done.

                                            “Kids! Supper!”

                                            >The only answer you get is the rain on your roof, probably dulling your voice so they couldn’t hear.

                                            >In a house this old you weren’t surprised; your joints weren’t the only things that popped and echoed at this ripe old age. Normally you could hear just about everything in your tiny cottage, but not on nights like this, when mother nature was putting on a show outside louder than you could be.

                                            “Jeeze louise…making a man work like this.”

                                            >You take off your apron and head down the hall.

                                            “Sombra! Chrys! Dinner time, come get it!”

                                            >You open Chrysalis’ door and find your daughter’s room suspiciously empty. You hadn’t seen any doppelgangers of yourself around and the rain was too heavy to go out, so she had to be somewhere…

                                            >Faint voices come through the walls from down the hall, towards Sombra’s room.

                                            >You amble down that way and turn the knob the special way only you knew that got around the lock.

                                            >”-on’t be an IDIOT, Sombra!” was the first thing you heard.

                                            >Great, this should be fun.

                                            >Sombra has a bag on his bed and is stuffing his few belongings into it; several styles of rock and sediment going up to rudimentary crystalline formations, all his books he still read, and some hearty cloaks.

                                            >You know what this is when they both look at you and your first instinct is to diffuse.

                                            “Are we going on a family vacation?”

                                            >Sombra’s grimace deepens, Chrysalis only looks concerned.

                                            >Every so often, Sombra would decide that he’d had enough of his time here and would decide to leave, as he had done when he was little, but you’d always turned him around. The instances became more frequent as he grew through his adolescence and it seems like tonight was another chosen night.


                                            “What goes on here?” you ask.

                                            >”Sombra-!” Chrysalis starts

                                            >She is quickly interrupted by your difficult son, no longer a boy but not yet a man, screaming “I CAN TELL HIM MYSELF!” over her.

                                            >Silence reigns for a few heartbeats as Sombra collects himself and turns to you.

                                            >”I’m leaving.” He says

                                            “Again?”

                                            >He snarls “I’m ACTUALLY leaving this time.”

                                            “You know, I’ve heard this story before…”

                                            >You lean on the wall and cross your arms. You needed to handle Sombra a certain way; capitulating to him wouldn’t work and shouting at him was too far. He had to be a bit on edge yet still convinced he could salvage the situation for it to go how you needed it to go.

                                            “Would you like to retell it? Or can we just skip straight to the end and enjoy our meal before it gets cold?”

                                            >Sombra lowers his head to steam as he always does

                                            >”What did you make?” Chrysalis asks

                                            “Fried Gysahl greens.”

                                            <Chrysalis sticks her tongue out and gags “I don’t think anyone can enjoy eating that, poppy…”

                                            >Sombra collects himself. “Move, Anonymous. Before I make you.”

                                            >Now Chrysalis lowers her head, sparks zipping from her horn as her temper flares over the threat to you, but you disarm her with a glance and step aside.

                                            “There’s no need for anything like that, Sombra. You were raised better.”

                                            >Sombra snorts out his nostrils and brushes past you. Chrysalis then runs up to your side.

                                            >”Poppy, are you just going to let him go!?” she asks. For all her early bluster at wanting to be the sole apple of your eye, she was clearly at least somewhat concerned for the housemate she’d spent so long with.

                                            >You reach down and pet the side of her head.

                                            “Breathe easy, little bug.”


                                            >You catch Sombra before he gets to the door.

                                            “You know-“

                                            >He pauses and looks over his shoulder at you.

                                            “You’re already out here, and the food’s right over there. Sit down, let’s talk about this.”

                                            >His eyes narrow “I do that and before I know it, I’m back in my room unpacking.”

                                            >That wasn’t good, he was catching wise.

                                            >Sombra faces the door, ”I have a destiny to fulfill, Anonymous. A grand and glorious destiny promised to me ages ago. I don’t know how you did it, but I haven’t heard the Umbra since I came here.”

                                            >Red had seen to that, she said.

                                            >”What I was promised is out there, and I will play house with you for not one moment longer.”

                                            “You’re not ready.”

                                            >As soon as the words come tumbling out of your mouth, you regret saying them, but you couldn’t pull them back, so you had to make due.


                                            >You take a step towards Sombra.

                                            “You think you’re ready, everyone around your age does. You all think that way, but you’re not. The world has things worse than you’ve prepared for in it and it won’t hesitate to swallow you up.”

                                            >Sombra turns his head to you, offence radiating from his eyes on wisps of magic “You doubt-“

                                            “Yes, I do.” You interrupt. “I doubt that you can live the life you want in the outside world because I don’t think you’re ready to do it. I know that’s the last thing a father should say to a child, but…”

                                            >You glance over your own shoulder out the kitchen window, spotting a hint of the moon behind the clouds.

                                            “Call it a hunch.”

                                            >Sombra breaks his gaze from yours and kicks the door open, the rain has picked up outside into a steady torrential sheet washing over the graceful countryside. The bugs and birds have all taken shelter from the storm and Sombra simply looks out over it.

                                            >”You’re wrong.” He says. “I have prepared every day of my life to hold a kingdom of my own, the outside world does not frighten me.”

                                            >He floats his hood up over his head as he walks out the door. “And neither does leaving you!”

                                            >You could have told him of all the dangers in the woods, how his time here was to try and weed out that isolation and anger he suffered from to make sure there was never another Luna, you were sure there were things you could have said to make him stay, but all you could do as a worried father was rush out the door after him.


                                            >It takes barely a moment outside to get soaked to your bones tailing after Sombra, but he powers through it determined to get away from you.

                                            “Sombra, you need to stop!”

                                            >”It’s over, Anonymous!”

                                            >Sombra pushes up the hill that sits in front of your house against the raging storm. “This little experiment of yours, whatever it is, is over for me!”

                                            “It’s not-!”

                                            >”Go back to your cottage! Back you’re your children and the honeyed words you feed them to keep them docile!”

                                            “I do that so you stay SAFE, Sombra!”

                                            >He pauses and looks back to you, his green eye standing out against the darkness. “Safe? SAFE!?”

                                            >He stomps his hoof, bringing up jagged black rocks around the two of you from the depths of the earth. “What use is safety if we never lay eyes on the world beyond!? What are you protecting us from if you never allow us to reach!?”

                                            “Yourselves!” you shout, holding your clothes to you tightly.

                                            “You know there were children before you here! One of them fell to the same darkness I see in YOU and there are those still suffering for it! I know you want to prove yourself, but you don’t have to! Not to me!”

                                            >”I do not-!”

                                            “I know how hard you try to succeed but that’s not all there is to living! And if I must keep you here for longer just to make sure you don’t drag yourself and the ones who love you through Tartarus for YOUR hubris, then I’ll do it in a heartbeat!”

                                            >A long silence passes between the two of you.

                                            “I wasn’t smart enough back then to prevent a tragedy from befalling my family, so I’m trying again now. You’re staying, son. You’re not ready to go yet. Now stop this and come home.”

                                            >Sombra snarls at you and stomps his hoof again, breaking one of the crystals behind him and walking through the gap. “Goodbye, Anonymous.”

                                            >You lower your head, that was his last chance.

                                            “I. Said. STOP.”


                                            >Everything stops.

                                            >You never raise your voice in your house, as talking to children was always better than screaming at them. Shouting just made kids block you out or ignore you, and it was all over once you scared them.

                                            >So, over the years, you’d practiced and cultivated a way of speaking that let you get your point across without raising your voice.

                                            >Sombra stands motionless, hoof off the ground and mouth agape.

                                            “Is that the rain…or are you sweating?”

                                            >”What…did you-“

                                            “I told you to stop.”

                                            >You trudge up through the wet grass to your wayward son, the rain went away so it was easier to move at least.

                                            “And like a good child, you listened. I’m proud of you.”

                                            >Sombra turns his gaze to you with a look you remember from when he was first getting to that age.

                                            >For a pony like Sombra, who spends so much time reading and trying to understand the world around him, even if it was in his words “to know what he would rule”, little shook him.

                                            >Save for things he just plain couldn’t understand, and those thinks shook him to his very core.

                                            >Dark pinprick pupils shake as they look into your eyes. “Th-the rain…how did you-And-“

                                            “Hush, now.”

                                            >Sombra stops talking, letting you put your hand to the side of his face.

                                            “To be clear, I always dislike talking like this. Most of the time I don’t have to but…you’re really stubborn!”


                                            >You sigh.

                                            “I told you, you’re not ready. You’re not ready to be out alone in the world and the world isn’t ready to deal with you alone in it, that’s part of why you’re still here. Now turn and march.”

                                            >Sombra turns around in the dead silence of the night, clouds parting and the moon glistening off the shattered remains of his crystals before he crunches them underhoof.

                                            “I know the world calls to you, son, and I can’t stop that call forever. That’s why I have to try extra hard with you to make sure that your stubbornness doesn’t win out before I HAVE to let you go.”

                                            >Sombra walks back to the house, head low and teeth grinding as he tries to figure out exactly what’s happening to him, passing Chrysalis who smugly looks at him, already knowing.

                                            >Father’s word was law.

                                            “You’ll leave, Sombra, one day. When that day comes, I’ll feely let you go…”

                                            >You walk past him and sit at the dinner table, looking him over in your living room.

                                            “But you are not EXCUSED yet. So, please take a seat and let’s enjoy our dinner and tomorrow will be one day closer to the day you’re independent.”

                                            >Sombra pulls a chair up to the table and sits across from you, seeming to see you for the first time while you think you truly see him for the first time.