Within You - [Twibra]

Nine

As the doors announced their closure with a resounding crash, Sombra added a touch of haste to his slow pace up the stairs.

It only took him ten seconds.

Sombra stopped his steps in their tracks.

It took ten seconds for his stomach to do a flip of discomfort and confusion. Something in his very recent conversation with the alicorn did not sit well with him and, as was evident, this feeling did not take long to manifest itself.

"'Maybe you should take a more proper nap'?"

Sombra felt the sensation that he was chewing stones when mentioning the phrase, so he unconsciously preferred to continue repeating it only in his mind with the intention of verifying its authenticity.

And it did get repeated several times.

"What the hell do I care whether or not she wakes up with a broken neck from sleeping in a chair?" He rolled his eyes and wrinkled his face slightly.

He let out a short sigh through which he hoped that his feeling of uniqueness would completely dissipate, ending up deciding that he should not dwell on the matter so much.

His conclusion was that perhaps he had been paying real attention to the big (sometimes also small) rather sentimental and cheesy lectures regarding friendship that the princess gave him; instead of ignoring them and pretending that he heard them, as he had already done several times.

His footsteps up the stairs resumed and he forced his mind to think about something else the rest of the way.

When the door to his room was finally in front of him, it didn't take Sombra a second to notice the two new ponies standing firm and expressionless on each side of the door.

Despite the lack of expression on their faces, their gaze could not hide the contempt that the hearts of both guards felt towards him.

In any case, he could not show more indifference to this fact. His gaze remained fixed on a point ahead while both guards still remained in his field of vision, not bothering to even give them a sidelong glance.

He planned to keep it that way until the day he got rid of the princess and finally left the Castle to carry out what he should have done a long time ago.

When the doors behind him took over providing him privacy, a touch of comfort was released within him.

A flash from the bathroom that caught the corner of his eye made him turn in its direction instinctively; only to indifferently look away in a matter of seconds and return it to the front. Sombra ignored the unspoken call that the room gave him as best he could and walked straight to his bed.

His mental energy had been drained completely and faster than normal, so there was not enough of it for the small nightly grooming routine he had created for himself in the short two weeks he had been in the castle.

He stretched out his front limb to arrange the book on a part of the nightstand that was next to his bed and took advantage of the approach to turn off the light as well.

Initially, his plan had been to stay reading until his eyes forced him to stop; However, his energy seemed to have been exhausted much earlier than normal and the only thing he wanted at that moment was to close his eyes and stop thinking so much, stop feeling so much.

He gratefully received the softness and comfort with which the bed enveloped his strangely tired body once he finally lay down, letting out a heavy sigh and not thinking much before closing his eyes and letting his consciousness drift away and move to another plane.