Celestia released her breath in a long, drawn-out exhale through her nostrils. There had been much to absorb and consider, but she figured she had the main points nailed down.

#1: She had been kidnapped by a bipedal alien race known as “humans,” which while lacking in magic, appeared to possess an incredibly high level of scientific technology and an emotional spectrum similar to her ponies’, albeit one a bit more darker and angrier than she was used to.

#2: These “humans” had encountered another version of Equestria, perhaps even containing another version of her (though that was pure speculations), at some point in the recent past, and the results were so traumatizing that it had led them to attack her version of Equestria immediately upon first contact.

#3: She was being held on the basis of these horrific events, which might somehow involve turning them into more ponies, which may not have been so bad, but if done on a large enough scale…

She frowned behind her closed eyelids. Her observational skills had allowed her to gather much more than most other ponies would have during her brief encounter with the humans, but it still wasn’t enough, not even close. She still had no idea of the nature of this “other” Equestria’s crimes or how bad they were, much less how to even begin convincing the humans that her intentions were peaceful. Of course, she also didn’t know the status of Twilight, Shining Armor, or any of the other ponies that had been gathered at that field around the portal to the human world, or if there had been further attacks, but she kept her mind away from those possibilities. There was no possible way to glean any information about those topics as it stood now, and thinking about it would just have her worrying about what could have happened to the ponies who meant most to her in the world. Thank the Maker Luna wasn’t at the field, thank everything that might be listening she hadn’t been there, because if she had been then having her and Twilight possibly in danger might just be enough to break her, and she couldn’t bear that, she couldn’t, she couldn’t, she..

Celestia bit her lip, fighting back a few stray tears. No matter how much it pained her, she couldn’t concern herself with the others now. That knowledge was simply out of her grasp, no matter how hard she tried to reach for it. She had to remain relaxed, focus on what she did know, and try to formulate a plan of action from there. That was all she could do now.

“Alligator tears, Princess?” A wonderfully familiar voice said.

“Captain Armor!” She gasped, her eyes bolting wide open, hope swelling in her heart. “What are…you…”

She trailed off as she got a good look at the little, alabaster unicorn standing before her in a handsome suit coat covered in brass buttons, and with a bejeweled ring adorning his horn. At first glance, it was her beloved former captain-turned-prince of the Crystal Empire, but a moment’s inspection allowed her to process the jagged scar running over one of his eyes, turned milky-white by its presence. And there was more. Centuries of politics had sharpened her ability to read ponies even further than her observational skills, and what she saw in this unicorn was nothing short of pain beyond any sort of measure. Here was a stallion who had spent many a sleepless night wailing into his pillow, screaming for what had been lost. Here was a stallion who, at some point, had longed for death. Here was a stallion who had visited the deepest chasms of suffering that any sapient being could endure, and still wasn’t quite all the way back.

“Dearest Maker above, Captain, what happened to you?” She gasped, completely forgetting all manner of decorum and political maneuvering in the shock of finding this shattered shell of a stallion in her little glass cell, having apparently sneaked in without her noticing.

The unicorn allowed the smallest grin to perk up one corner of his mouth. He exhaled shakily in a way that she might have confused with a snicker if she’d been sleep deprived or not really paying attention. “You of all ponies should know, Princess,” he said in an accent she couldn’t quite place and a tone that she could, but wished she couldn’t. “After all, you’re the one who did it.”

His words hit her like a punch to the gut. “Wh-wh-what?”

“Oh, come, you always enjoyed looking at what you did,” Shining replied, stalking up to her with that creepy non-smile on his face. “Remember those stained glass windows you had in palace? Smiting Discord? Crushing last changeling hive? The crusades into Gryphon territories? All such great achievements you had immortalized in those damn windows.”

He sighed, rolling his eyes over to her, his head cocked at a crazy angle. “Of course, they’re gone now. Shattered when the bombs fell. So I guess all you have left now is me,” he closed the distance between them, teeth bared, nostrils flaring, thrusting his face into her eyes. A single, sweaty lock of blue hair dangled over his face, swinging between them as he took her face in his hooves and forced her to look at him. “Take a good look, Princess! Aren’t you proud? Do I get a window too!?”

“I…Shining, I…” there was no keeping the tears back now. They welled up in her eyes, dribbled down her cheeks. She tried to back away, but the metal cuffs encasing her legs barely allowed her even an inch of movement. All she could do was stand there and whimper.

“Oh, what’s wrong? Not as pretty as your windows?” The unicorn tsked, shaking his head in mock sadness. "Too bad, because you're stuck here."

Suddenly, his hooves squeezed together, pressing into her cheeks. "Where you fucking belong!" Then one of his hooves reared back and delivered a blow to the side of her face. Celestia cried out in pain and surprise. She wanted to sink to her knees, but of course the metal restraints kept her standing upright. She could only stand there and take it as the unicorn whaled on her, over and over again, earning a new cry of pain with each hit.

"Now, I know what you thinking, the humans help, right? They will help soon, Geneva Convention, all that, but bad news," he cradled her chin in a hoof, running the other hoof over the jeweled band on his horn. "This not my suppressor. Is a cheap replica I made."

He stepped to the side, gesturing to the door, which glowed with the obvious, pink hue of his magic. She would know it anywhere, just like she could take one look at the sick way that hue crackled unstably and popped along the edges with barely-controlled power and know that the pony behind it was not right with himself. Voices boomed from the other side, the humans probably throwing themselves at the door, but she knew what the unicorn was capable of. It would take an army throwing itself against the steel for a month to get through that.

Her eyes drifted back to him, at the bags under his eyes and the way he grit his teeth when he looked at her, and she wanted to burst into tears, disregarding the pain rippling down the side of her face. "Maker above, Shining, Maker above."

"Yes, cry! Cry for god!" His hoof lashed out again, catching her on the chin. "Cry out just like I did when you finished with me!" Another blow, this time across the bridge of her nose, stars appearing in her eyes. And again, he held her face to scream right into it: "Cry to some nonexistent thing just like I did every night after you killed my Twily!"

That hit her harder than anything he possibly could have done. Her swollen, stiff jaw dropped, her throat seizing. Despite her best efforts, her eyes filled with tears, turning into shimmering, vermillion pools locking with his. "Wh-what?" She managed to squeak.

That threw him for a loop. Shining Armor looked confused, uncertain for the briefest moment. He looked around, as if all the answers might be on an inspirational poster tacked up someplace in the room, then his gaze fell back to her. It hardened again, and he advanced, glaring at her with every single fiber of hatred he could gather up from the deepest, darkest places within himself. He held the point of his horn against her throat.

"I could do it right now," he said simply, keeping his horn pressed to her throat. "It would be easy. Wouldn’t kill you, we know, but it would be fun watching you choke on your own blood for a while, gasping for air while your throat healed, trying to grasp at the injuries in agony, begging for some way to breathe again as you drowned on your own blood."

It was no surprise to anyone that the Prince was suddenly so eloquent. He had probably spent months on end daydreaming about this moment, planning out what he would say down to the last syllable. And now, here it was, the moment he had been waiting for. The humans might as well have been on the other side of the planet for all they mattered. To him, they were barely even a light tapping coming from someplace far off. To him, all that existed was the princess, his horn, and the steady crackle of magic building up within himself. Celestia knew how right he was: it would be easy. She could feel the magical energies building up, he was just holding them back now, working up the courage to simply let it go.

She couldn’t help it. The pain she saw in one of her closest friends, the implication of what she had done to her beloved student, it was too much. A choked-off sob filled the room, echoing off the plate metal. The walls finally broke down, and tears flowed from Celestia’s eyes, dribbling down her chin, rolling onto Shining’s horn. She hated herself for a moment then, showing so much weakness, but the pain inside the unicorn was palpable. She could actually taste it in the room, almost feel it radiate from his every motion, every single word he spoke. It was enough to make most who could feel it break down, but then, there was the implication of why that pain was there.

Twilight. Dear Maker above, Twilight…

“I-I’m so sorry, Shining,” she sobbed, hating herself for sounding like a little filly after being scolded but unable to stop herself. The words came dribbling from her mouth almost as fast as the tears rolled down her cheeks, squeezing out her eyes. “I’m so, so sorry…”

“You fucking aren’t!” He screamed, his voice cracking mid-sentence. Steeling himself again, he pressed the horn even deeper into her throat. When he spoke again, it was with an eerie calm: “At least, not yet…”

They stood like that for a solid minute, though it might as well have been an eternity. Just the Prince and the Princess, one absolutely ready to kill the other. Who knows how long they might have stayed like that, or what course Shining Armor might have chosen, if it hadn’t been for one, good thud from the other side of the door.

Shining dispersed his magic and looked over his shoulder. Then, with a sinister little half-smile, he turned back to her. “I wish to continue this…line of discussion Princess, I really do,” he nodded to the door. “But then, I doubt they let me see you again after, even with my status. So just let me leave you with this…”

The unicorn took her cheeks in his hooves and squeezed, tears soaking into the keratin as he gripped her face and stared sadistically into her eyes. This time when he spoke, his words were garbled by his own emotion, though their meaning was still as clear as ever:

“You. Ours. Now.”

And then he left. Just like that, he turned around and trotted back out the door, which finally swung open. Immediately, one of the humans rushed in, this one with another tuft of fuzz on its chin, though she couldn’t even see through the tears blocking her vision. She barely even watched as the human tackled the unicorn and dragged him back out, screaming ”Chyort,” over and over again as he rushed the little white body out of the cell. Somehow, she still sensed the maniacal smile Shining kept on her the entire time he was being dragged away.

“Maker above, Shining,” she whispered. “What happened here!?”