Fluttershy woke up on a floor made of tile that was so cold it felt like fire. She sits up and looks at the scene before her. The room looked like Seamus's turret suite and the sky was filled with stars all around her. A figure stood ten hooves away from her, a cruel grin on his face. She recognized Jakben and leapt to her hooves. She expects him to pin her to the floor and try again, but he just stares fixedly at the center of the room. Suddenly, looking at the center of the turret, she realized that it wasn't Seamus's room. It was Melody's

She felt something touch her side and both of them yelled. Seamus looked up at her and his eyes widened.

"No…" He whispered. "You can't be here."

"Why, what's going on?" She asks, confused.

"Leave. Now, please. I like you too much. You can't be here."

She looks around for some way to leave, but no matter what she tries, she sees no way out. She looks down at him and he has more tears in his eyes. She senses that this is something he didn't plan on ever telling her. Something was about to happen that was so agonizingly painful he would never tell a soul. But she was stuck here.

He looks at the floor and chokes back his tears. "This is the day after me and Silver met. This is Melody's tower, and I want you to promise me that you'll never speak of this."

She looked down at the young colt. What could be that bad? "Why?" She asked.

He looked up at her with hot tears flooding his eyelids. "Just… watch."

At the center of the room was one huge seven-hoof drop in the floor. At the bottom of the pit was a solid mattress with twenty or so massive pony sized pillows. To the west side of the pit was a staircase leading to a throne, and upon it sat Melody, the moon behind her. She had an amused smile on her face and Jakben stood next to her on the podium.

Fluttershy saw Seamus come in through a trapdoor to the right, escorted by a sad looking doctor. There was no light, save for the dim glow given off by the stars. Fluttershy looked from the Seamus next to her to the one being walked over to the podium. This was obviously a memory.

The Seamus from the memory looked around the room fearfully; his eyes still half-closed from sleep. He looks up at Melody and Jakben, the latter looking down on him with such contempt it was nearly palpable. Seamus looks from the vampire to the Lady, who begins to speak.

"I hear you didn't do as I asked this afternoon." She said. "Is this true?"

He looked up at her, still half asleep. "What are you talking about?" He mumbled groggily.

Her nostrils flare and she stands up on her throne in fury.

"Allow me to refresh your memory." She hissed in impatience.

The floor of the pit begins to rise with thousands of cold mechanical clicks. Fluttershy looks at the monstrous contraption in wonder. The entire section of the floor rose slowly to meet the other and a curtain descended into place around the now rising platform bed.

"Allow me to offer you another chance at this." Melody continued. "What did I ask a guard to do earlier this afternoon?"

Seamus looked up at her and let a small gasp of air fill his lungs. "Silver."

"Correct, boy." She chirped.

"It wasn't her fault!" He tried to explain. "I insisted we wait a day!"

"Too bad, I told you to do it right then. You and her disobeyed. She will be punished."

The curtain slowly rose and Fluttershy gasped in horror. Silver was tied to the massive circular bed by ropes descending from the ceiling, biting into her sin where she had struggled in vain to escape. She had her legs tied wide and a gag in her mouth to keep her from speaking. She saw Seamus and struggled at her bonds, screaming through the gag.

"Since apparently you like to make choices, boy, I'll give you a few options." Melody grinned. "Bring them in." She ordered the doctor.

He left the room and brought back two young foals, a colt and a filly. The male was an earth pony colt directly on the cusp of stallion-hood, far taller and stronger than Seamus and the unicorn filly was as slightly taller than Seamus and definitely looked older than him.

"I'll give you some choices. You get to choose one of these two to have… fun with Silver… all night… as brutally as they want or can think of. The other you get to have for yourself.." She smirked.

He looked at her in fury. "That isn't fair!" he screamed.

"Cry me a river." She yawned. "Pick one."

He looked at the two young foals before him. Both were children about to become adults, but there was one thing that he knew the Lady had done on purpose. The white colt was huge, in more than one, way, if you catch the hint. Fluttershy looked at it in disgust. It was large in all the wrong places, too. It hung all the way down its thigh and it dangled limply. The tip was huge and the base was as well, but the space in between was pencil thin. The entire thing looked grotesquely bruised and the skin looked like it would resemble sandpaper.

The filly was gorgeous, her entire body was muscular and her purple coat was so sleek it reflected the moonlight. She batted her eyelashes, drowning the alicorn in her pink-violet eyes. Her tail was neatly groomed and her mane flowed down her back and shoulders like rivers. Seamus narrowed his eyes and looked up at Melody, who was smiling mockingly at him.

"Well? What is your choice?" She smirked.

Fluttershy knew Seamus' answer before he spoke it. The length and girth of the male foal would be too much to take even to a mare that's been at it for a while; the pain would be unbearable for a virgin like Silver, and he wouldn't put her through that if he could prevent it.

"The mare can have Silver." He answered selflessly.

The colt beside the unicorn mare growled angrily. "I will not go with this! We are both colts!" He protested in a deep, gravelly voice.

"Too bad." Melody jeered. "Do it."

The mare was about to set off for the bed when the colt interrupted again. "I've waited a year for this! You can't just take that away!"

"Yes I can! Any more lip and I'll have Jakben show you how it's done."

The colt shut his mouth. The attractive young unicorn mare looked at Melody and did something that blew Fluttershy's mind. She blinked up at her, cleared her throat in a polite gesture, and opened her mouth to speak.

"Mother, I would like to bed the boy, if you don't mind." She said in a soft, yet commanding voice.

Fluttershy's mouth dropped open so hard her jaw nearly dislocated. That monster of a mare had a child? The mare on her throne looked from Silver to Seamus, trying to figure out what she wanted to do.

"But… dear… I was looking forward to this. I even said you could involve yourself since I rigged his decision." She tried to reason with her foal. "And besides, if you bed him there will be… complications, you know I wasn't going to let the mare live."

Seamus looked at the ruler in outrage. He was doing this under the assumption that this would save both their lives, but she was saying that was a lie and that it didn't matter, she was going to kill Silver anyway. He looked from the ruler to the filly, trying to figure out what they would say next.

"I know mother," The daughter continued. "But he's cute and I'm sure he's sweet." She winked at Seamus, who only scowled back. "Besides, you only ever tell me all the time that I should claim a colt for my own. He has looks, he seems nice and I'm sure he will be kind to me. After all, anypony who chooses to bed that monster over an actual mare like me is loyal as can be in my book."

The young colt by her growled in anger at being insulted by the royal.

"But he's a mutt!" Melody protested. "And he… doesn't deliver, if you know what I mean." She gestures downward.

The young mare sighs and takes a moment to think of a rebuttal. "You and I both know that I don't care if he's a mutt. He'll be my mutt. And besides that he's an alicorn, mares would kill to have somepony so…" She let her eyes graze down his long legged, sleek body, making the colt feel exposed. "Exotic."

"But he's still smaller than you. No self-respecting mare has a colt who can't defend himself." The leader countered. "He probably can't even do real work."

The mare arched a brow at her mother and sighed. "I can take care of myself, mother. And before you go on about his size again, we both know that I am 'new' as you so loosely use that annoyingly foalish term for 'virgin', so that won't be a problem. I hear the doctor is working as fast as he can to better his nutrition schedule to help him along with that so it won't be a problem, trust me."

Melody looked at her daughter and tried one last time at talking her out of it.

"But… he's so… mare-ish. He is intelligent and he asks questions about everything. He is annoyingly clever and the way he speaks sometimes… ugh. Gag me with a spoon when it comes to how much romantic nonsense comes out of his mouth. He talked to that mare over there for hours, praising her and spewing rhymes just to make her blush." She complained.

The mare looked at Seamus with new interest. "I like that in a colt…" She said softly. "That mysterious, romantic spark to light the fire of a relationship." Seamus did blush this time.

The leader was beat. "Fine. Do as you wish with him, he's yours."

Seamus opened his mouth to speak, but the mare looked at him so sternly that he decided it wouldn't be in his best interest. Until Melody began to speak again.

"Okay." The leader sighed. "Jakben, kill the guard. Magnus… go back to the servant's quarters."

The male foal looked outraged. "I've waited over a year this and you said tonight I would get my chance! You can't just send me away like that!"

"Yes I can." She ordered forcefully. "Leave."

He looked at the Lady once and made his decision. "No." He refused.

He took off at a dead sprint for the bed and Silver struggled at her bonds with renewed fear. He leapt up onto the bed, but misplaced his jump and fell a foot short of where she was. She screamed and fought so hard her wrists began to bleed from the taught rope cutting her soft skin.

The mare saw this and began to try to herd Seamus towards the door. He evaded her and saw a lot of things happen all at once. First, the colt moved behind Silver to try to mount her. Then, Jakben took one deep inhale, the smell of blood filling his vampiric senses. His usually slatted pupils dilated to swallow his iris and the whites of his eyes, leaving them one huge black orb of hunger. Then the worst happened. Jakben jumped off the podium and landed with a crash next to the colt, who was trying to now scramble away from the feral vampire.

The mare levitated Seamus and he struggled desperately to escape and save his friend. But her intervention was too late; Jakben fell on Silver. The vampire stopped for one brief moment before he put his hooves on both sides of her head, almost gently as to make it easier to see that she was about to die. She looked at Seamus, her eyes full of regret and terror, gave one last pitiful whimper, and Jakben snapped her neck backwards. The agonizing sound seemed to echo throughout the room for hours.

Seamus went numb inside. He just felt nothing. His soul simply disappeared at that moment. He stopped struggling and looked blankly at Silver's corpse, which the vampire was now tearing into, snapping her ribcage like toothpicks to get at the her still-beating heart. Fluttershy saw the two leaving and moved to follow.

But as she looked back, she saw present Seamus by Silver's side, grieving and crying, screaming like a wounded animal while Jakben tore her apart. She never wanted to be in the room again, and she saw why he never wanted tell any of this to her.

Fluttershy followed the two down the tower and then up to his turret suite, where the mare set him on his bed and lay down next to him.

He was in shock. He wouldn't move or even scarcely breathe. She lay next to him, trying to comfort the colt, but to no avail. He looked at her on occasion, trying to figure out if maybe this was all a nightmare he would never wake up from. But soon he began to come out of the initial shock and grief crashed down on him. He cried and said things that Fluttershy and the mare have both decided were either merely him saying things out of grief or it was just incoherent. They both discarded his words because they knew that he was stricken and that he wouldn't truly be in his right mind.

He lay there for hours, sobbing into his pillows, blaming himself for her murder. He tried multiple times to jump off the high platform to the bed, but each time the unicorn mare would stop him with a quick flash of magic. He begged her to let him do it, to let him join Silver, whose death he had ultimately been the reason for. He asked her for hours and even after the sun had risen over the eastern horizon.

Eventually he just lye there, his thoughts trying to grasp at why she was dead and he wasn't. He had been the cause for all this, after all. His tears were spent and his eyes were bruised. He was tired beyond any belief, but he didn't want to sleep. He saw it as the biggest disrespect he could ever make to Silver. But soon he began to drift off, his body overruling his mind, telling him that he needed to recover and that he needed to rest.

Eventually he fell into and unwilling, fitful sleep. The mare, feeling awful about the tragedy that had just taken place, pressed against him and followed him into unconsciousness, hoping that, in some way, she could maybe make up for the tragedy her mother had now wrought.

The next morning Melody didn't call for Seamus. The mare that was the Lady's daughter had claimed him and now he was under her rule. Not that that registered to him. He lie in bed, unthinking and unmoving, trying to forget about the death of the beautiful mare that he had wrought. Why hadn't he just made things simple and just bedded her and forgot about her? He knew that even then, he wouldn't have forgotten.

The mare had been the one pony here with morals and that he could talk to. That mare had been his one vent, his one and only moral beacon. But that was over now. Jakben had taken her from him and she would never be seen again.

The mare that was Melody's daughter lay next to him, stroking his mane, trying to get him out of the bed somehow. But no matter what she tried, he just lay there, ignoring her and her words. He had simply lost all incentive to do anything. He slept sometimes, fitful bouts of slumber that she would always leave the room for. He would mumble and cry in his sleep, his nightmares destroying him further.

At last she left, unable to watch him decay further. She knew that he needed a reason to live. He hadn't bathed or eaten in the entire five days he had been in the palace. She didn't know what to do. Anything she said he wouldn't listen or respond to. It was as if he found no reason to speak. He would listen, yes. But he would never respond.

Once she saw him almost get up, but he was just rolling over.

"Wait…" Fluttershy pondered. "Why isn't he waking up?"

She was in his dream, so he should be waking up. But this nightmare wasn't ending, and she was still here. She sees the mare enter the room again, but she moves to leave almost as soon as she enters. Fluttershy decides it's worth it to follow her this time. She follows her down the tower and into through the door into the next room.

Melody sits on her throne, her massive bed being cleaned by a multitude of servants. She looks bored and Jakben stands next to her, not breathing or moving. If one didn't know he was a vampire, he could be mistaken for a statue. The mare cantered up the steps to her mother's throne and looks down at her.

"I'd like to talk about my second colt." She said to her mother.

The Lady nods and waves the servants out of the room. "What did you have in mind? I'm thinking tall and strong. Magnus is still looking."

The mare rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I'd prefer a male that doesn't have mutant genitals, thank you. I was thinking something like Seamus. A pegasaus, maybe."

The Lady groaned in annoyance. "You need a colt that is strong-willed and has the stones to do real male, physical work. Your second should always compliment the other's flaws."

"Okay, but not physically, mentally. Seamus is strong willed and has a lot of opinions. I need a colt that has the same build, but will compliment Seamus's weaknesses. Do you know any auctions that are going on?"

"No… I do know a pony, though…" Melody mused. "He deals in wartime slaves. He might have something for you."

The younger mare arched a brow. "Wartime slaves? Sounds more like kidnapping."

The Lady shrugged. "The foreign ones are always the best. Most don't speak our language, so they don't talk much, how I prefer it. The only problem is that they aren't bred for a specific purpose. They just let their males breed all over the gene pool."

"When can I meet this pony?" The mare asked.

"I can have him here by next month. Should I tell him to bring his entire inventory?"

"Yes. I need a very specific pony." She said.

The lady smiled. "Picky, like her mother."

"Kind, unlike her mother." She countered; the Lady scowled.

"Hypocrite, you have a slave mate, too. So you have no right to talk."

"I would never treat another pony like a slave, especially a brilliant, handsome young colt like him." the daughter snapped back.

T he royal mare left without another word.

The mare opened the door to Seamus's suite and nearly screamed. The walls were covered in massive paintings, drawn in blood and anything else the alicorn could get his hooves on. He sat there in front of the paintings, smiling while his wrists bled out onto the floor. He looked at it with a lost expression, his eyes glassy, as if he were looking past it and at something totally different only he could see. He actually looked peaceful, almost content.

She ran over to him and healed his wrists. He didn't notice, he was lost in whatever waking dream he was drowning in. He looked at her with a small, innocent smile.

"Hi." Was all he said, one syllable housing a thousand words of unrequited love.

His breath and voice was airy, light. He didn't know her and neither did he care to. He merely smiled and looked at her like he was surveying some sort of strange animal. She feared he had finally gone mad, but she suddenly realized that he was completely calm. He was never more at peace with himself than right then, in a pool of his own life's blood, staring at the mural he'd drawn on his domed ceiling.

A single drop of blood hit her on the head and she looked up at the mural and nearly screamed again. Until she saw what the portrait was. A massive portrait of Silver, her long copper mane flowing out onto the bed that Seamus had lain in yesterday. The lamps cast an unearthly, unnatural light on her, making her long, white coated body seem to breathe and live right upon the wall. It looked as if she could reach into the wall and be in the room with the mare. The short maroon skirt she wore exposed her smooth, muscular flanks and her long sleek legs looked as if she could run her hooves down them. The painting was unearthly realistic, as if there was an element of mysticism about the scene.

The rest of the walls were covered in paintings of her from every angle and every pose, her muscles flowing majestically beneath her coat. In one it was her last moments, her, tied up and on the bed, trying to scream something, but it never made it out. Everything was so realistic it scared the mare, the scenes were all drawn from Seamus's perspective, so all of them appeared as if Silver was in the room with them, like windows into different times.

She looked back at Seamus, who was once again staring passionately at the portraits. She wanted to say something, to get him to wash them off, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Fluttershy stared in awe at how skilled he was, every detail of the paintings were done in magnificent, tediously extravagant style, her shocking green eyes so realistic that they seemed to look out at them. As that was how they were made, every one had her eyes fixed on the viewer, making it as if she was looking directly at you.

She reached her hoof out to touch one, but she heard Seamus take a sharp gasp of air and lowered her arm. She looked at him and he looked back at her.

"Could you leave me alone for a bit?" He whispered.

The mare nodded, respecting his decision. She left the room and Fluttershy stood alone in the suite with the colt. He fell to his knees, he couldn't stand any longer. He looked up at his portrait and his eyes were filled with tears. He didn't say anything, but just looked up at Silver.

Fluttershy felt she was intruding on something private, so she turned around. Present Seamus looked up at her with bruised eyelids and a confused expression. She looked from the alicorn in the memory to the one in front of her.

"Why didn't you wake up?" She asked him.

"I was wondering that myself. I should be waking up, but apparently my subconscious has other plans."

Fluttershy wondered why, what would be so important that his own subconscious would rebel to show her? She shook her head. So much had just happened in so little time. But more was about to. Suddenly, as if to its own accord, time began to fast-forward itself. In a blur, the paintings on the walls disappeared and the sun began to set and rise rapidly. Seamus suddenly seemed to realize something while the events were taking place.

He looked at her and looked at the rapidly changing scenery.

"One month passed." He explained. "I hope that you don't judge me for any of this." He said

"I won't. What's next?" She asked.

"Sky." Seamus said softly, as if the name was so sacred he could barely say it out loud.

"Didn't you say Sky was your best friend?" She asked, hoping things were about to get better.

Seamus nodded. "And a lot more than that."

The scenery settled and she saw Seamus on his bed, reading a book nearly as big as he was. He looked happy, content to be able to relax and just read. The mare walked in and set another book down by him. He smiled at her and returned to reading. She looked at him and cleared her throat to get his attention.

He looked up from his book to see her looking at him with large, excited eyes. He tilted his head to the side as if to ask her what was going on.

"The trader is here today." She chirped merrily. "I can get another colt as my birthday present."

He looked at her in annoyance. "I know why you want to get another pony in around here. You think I don't talk to anypony enough."

She dropped her façade of jovial excitement to look at him seriously "You never leave this room. I had to drag you out of it the last time and that was for a monthly checkup. You have to go out of this room sometime. And yes, you never really do talk to anypony. You need a friend."

"You're my friend, and I'm talking to you right now. And I get all my meals delivered up here by that nice old guard who likes radishes and avocado for breakfast."

"But you need a pony you can relate to. I can't relate with you since I'm not a colt and I'm not at all like you. You need to think of other ponies sometimes."

"I'm fine up here." He denied stubbornly, then continued reading his book.

"You've been like this ever since Silver passed. You never leave and you never want to do anything but sit up here and read dusty old books on old, meaningless magic. What type of magic is that anyway?" She looks over his shoulder. "Alchemy? Kid, you have got to go talk to the doctor about that stuff because I have no clue."

Seamus just ignores her. "I am perfectly okay and you don't need to worry about me."

She slides onto the bed and pulls him down onto her, their lips a hairsbreadth from each other's. She'd tried this twice, and each time he had done this. He pushed away from her and looked back at his book, irritated by her advances. She grew impatient and grabbed his head, trying to glean one kiss from the handsome colt.

He bit her bottom lip so hard it nearly drew blood. She fell backwards, shocked that he could be so averted to touching her. He looked at her with dark, hate-filled eyes and resumed reading. She got out of the bed and cast one longing look back at him. There was more damage done in that murder than she could even fathom, and she knew it. He was scarred, and he needed somepony to help him, or else he could just recede farther away from everypony.

She leaves the room and Fluttershy looks down at Seamus. He looks angry, furious as he reads the book. But soon he begins to slow down, his breathe began to come out in muffled sobs and he turned away from the book. Tears spilled out and rolled down his cheeks, dripping like small rivers onto the bed sheets. He buried his face in the pillow and cries pitifully into the feather-down.

Fluttershy looks at to her side to see if present Seamus was still by her, but he was nowhere to be seen. She looks back down at the sobbing young colt from the past, his maroon coat stained with tears and his black wings clenched to his sides. She felt like crying herself at this nightmare-ish, tragic story.

Little did the shy mare know, the tragedy was about to be doubled.

Any feedback is good feedback! Read and review... please?

Next Chapter: That Handsome Stranger Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 48 Minutes