Over 1000 Years Ago...

Opening her eyes, a young princess could see that there was hardly anything around her that resembled a light source other than the runes that lined the walls, floor, and ceiling, Even her bed was covered in runes as her legs were held in place by thick heavy chains. She turned over, causing the huge heavy chains to rattle while she muttered quietly. "It's that song again."

"Same dream?" An elderly stallion's voice called out from an adjacent room.

"It's been almost a month since it started." She replied.

The stallion next door started to complain as he shuddered. "Argh! It's so cold up here! Sure they couldn't put us underground where it's nice and drippy with the stale air, at least it'll be warm with all the torches. Instead they have us locked away in a tower overlooking the entirety of the Everfree Forest. Don't they know that the winds blow differently here? It's a lot less forgiving."

Celestia laid there, rubbing her forelegs against one another. "Hasn't it been two months?" She questioned.

Starswirl turned his head to a section on the floor that was marred by crudely scratched tally marks. Seeing how many rows of tally he circled, he came to the conclusion of how long he's been in captivity. "Two months, six days. For you, it'll be eight days on those months."

Celestia started to gripe as she groaned. "Ugh, you would think that they would at least find some way to keep us warm. Considering our status to Equestria, it would only make sense that they would provide these provisions for us."

"Wasn't the whole point of this was to treat us like we were common criminals?" Starswirl asked. "I don't think warmth and healthy nourishment would be a concern of theirs. We're criminals remember?"

"For what exactly!?" The young princess cried out. "I was just sharing my affection with the one I love! Is that so inherently wrong?"

"For a princess who's deemed to be the ruler of an entire nation, who is also perceived to be fornicating with an adversary, then I suppose that would be a pretty scandalous affair."

"But he's not like that!" She argued.

"You're lecturing to the walls again, try something that actually gives a retort."

"You just gave me one!"

"I'm just another brick in the wall, always listening when you're least expected. Try the ones that put you in here."

Celestia gritted her teeth and got out of her bed. "You know they won't give me a voice. They didn't give me one when they made me sign a bill I had no writ in composing."

"And who's bright idea was it to cross the mirror after I told them that it was too dangerous for our dimensions to intersect any longer? Does it happen to be anypony you know?"

Celestia remained silent.

"My thought's precisely." Starswirl replied. "If you stayed, then that meant that their Celestia would have to come here. And it's not like you could've subbed yourself for Luna. One continuity cannot exist─"

"While another is present. I know." Celestia argued. "But Sombra is banished to the shadow in this world."

"This world is the key words you're looking up here. OUR WORLD already has Celestia, Luna, and Sombra, just like theirs. It just so happens that you're the only one here now. I know that it's a lonely road to look forward to and your being near him made you find joy again, but I'm afraid that your joy will have to be set aside for the better of others."

"Must I sacrifice everything?" Celestia called out angrily. "What about my emotional well-being? Everypony is allowed theirs except for me, now I'm sitting here in a cell not knowing when they'll do whatever it is they have in store for me! Their universe may be cruel looking, but it is the most beautiful cruelty I've ever experienced! I get to see my sister again, I'm able to experience love, I can be myself and be happy! Does that not matter to you!?"

"Keep shouting, maybe even the stones will hear you." Starswirl replied sadly before looking out the window to see a small gathering of guards with a larger gathering of nobles. His eyes looked up to the sky to see the moon-less night brighten up to the predawn glow of twilight. "The sun's rising. And the lot are gathering outside."

Celestia right then felt her stomach churn as she started to recede herself against the wall. The large chains that clamped around all of her forelegs rattled on while the sounds of hoofsteps started to get louder and louder. The door leading into the tower swung wide open. Two guards ran in and stood by as a heavy-set gray unicorn stallion donning a green and crimson blazer looked over to the heavy wooden door that housed the princess. He pointed to the door while giving a glare to Starswirl. As the two guards approached the door, they used their magic to disenchant the runes surrounding the locks, allowing themselves inside before the noblepony walked in to read from a scroll he summoned by his side.

"Celeste Delanise Valkyrie, formerly known as Celestia, you have been charged with the crime of high treason and in violation of Law Processu Approbatio. These violations pertain to the intimate exchange with an adversary of our kingdom, endangering our lands with your reckless actions, and the desecration of several tapestries of the noble class. Your powers have been stripped as to judge you as a commoner, and your punishment shall be carried out in such. You will be seen as a criminal guilty of all crimes against your fellow commoners as well as the nobility. Hence your punishment shall be... public atonement."

Celestia already felt herself shaking in the shackles that locked her in place. But as soon as the guards came by to remove them, she started to feel the urge to run. However, the two guards were careful in their removing of her chains, using a salted cloth to wrap around her horn and forelegs. She stammered as she quietly pleaded to the guards. "Please don't let them do this. Please don't let them touch me. I'm your princess, you can't do this to me. I swear to you that you will be greatly rewarded."

The noblepony walked up to her, holding her chin up with a hoof as he leaned in closely to her. "No amount of bribery will save you. Now face your punishment with dignity, please. You'll have to go back to being a princess eventually."

As she walked by, she could see the stony face of the noble creep into a smile. She noticed his eyes had stared intensely at her tail. Her voice was then filled with panic as she lunged toward the powerless unicorn wizard. "Starswirl, help me please! I don't want to go through this! Please, you must do something, anything!"

The unicorn glanced back at the noble, who smiled as he gave another order. "Carry her by her legs. She's resisting."

The princess was then flipped upside down, while both guards held each of her legs in their magic. Her eyes expanded as she felt the noblepony breathing behind her. He walked up behind her and whispered in her ear.

"Today, you shall have us feel like kings."

The dinner table was the quietest it's ever been. The day was spent, and so was the emotions of several royals in attendance. It was as if almost every royal family member was summoned to the table. Even Twilight rode the train in from Ponyville to attend out of a letter's request. Luna sat by her sister, gritting her teeth with displeasure. Twilight appeared crestfallen as her mentor kept her head down, unable to see her eyes. Cadance sat at the far end of the table, rocking quietly as she looked down to her meal. On the other far end opposing her was Shining Armor, who couldn't even buy a word with his wife. Blueblood sat with a bottle of wine, sipping slowly from a crystal goblet. Each of his seven wives sat looking around, not daring to speak a single vowel or consonant.

When I walked in, no one even minded my entry, or the fact that I had brought my friends and brothers with me. The only welcome I was given was the sound of a clock ticking along the back wall. The servants didn't even utter a single word while they placed the food on the table. But Cliff did manage to make a quiet yet obvious observation. "Well at least Shining and Cadance aren't fighting."

The blue-haired prince looked up to see his wife, who turned herself away at his glance.

"Okay, maybe they're just at that stage." Rickey pointed out.

Stanton then tried to cheer up the room. "Hey, so you guys wanna hear a funny story?"

"Read the room, dude." Alex said, nudging our baby brother. He walked up to the table and placed his palms flat against the surface. "Okay. Nondis called us and told us what happened today. Is there anything we can do to help?"

Dead silence.

Stanton walked over to the table, trying his best to break the ice. "Hey, I just wanna say thanks for the healing spells and stuff. My coach just looks at me crazy every time I walk out to the practice field. He still can't believe I'm up and going."

Not a solitary sound.

Mel then approached Celestia from the side. "Big Momma Celly, is everything okay with you? I know this place in town I can get some really tasty treats for you, the cakes there are to die for."

Nothing came from it, not even the mention of her one vice had changed so much as the direction of her eyes.

Rickey walked up to Shining, giving him a friendly elbow nudge. "So, how was the BBQ yesterday? You ran through that plate pretty hard."

The blue-maned prince took a peek towards his wife, still not wanting to look at him.

Alex tried again. "I know you guys aren't happy, but you could at least tell us what we can do to help."

"There's no point." A voice whispered softly, coming from Celestia's direction. Everyone turned their heads to watch as she spoke. "There's nothing we can do here. If I abstain from signing the bill, payroll for many jobs will fall through and no one will be receiving their compensation."

"So abstain from signing the bill and get another one drafted without this crap in the middle." Alex suggested. "What's a short government shutdown compared to the rights of future foals?"

"It's not that easy." I started to explain. "Many politicians have the local newspapers of their respective districts and provinces bought out. You want them to tell the truth, but the only truth that matters is the kind you can hold in your bank account. It's been like that for years now, and it won't change."

Mel looked at me and folded her arms. "But didn't you decide to fight all of that? You gave up the chance of going home and living a normal life to fight this battle."

"I just said it wasn't that easy, never said it was impossible." I corrected her. "Impossible is walking on a torn ACL like nothing's wrong for the rest of your life. This isn't impossible."

"But it's hella fucking difficult, ain't it?" Mel growled back. "If you're gonna waste your time on a bunch of people who just called it quits a long time ago, then why even try?!"

"One's despair is not inclusive to others." I replied, looking back at Blueblood. "Fighting is always an option. And sometimes even the most violent options are a better solution than simply conceding."

Mel scoffed at my statement. "So you're saying you'd start a revolution for a bunch of people who gave up hope a long time ago?"

"I dunno, maybe we need to pretend we're in eighteenth century France and fuck some shit up for us to get their attention. Might not have a guillotine out in front, but we got enough of everything else to prove a point."

"Context, Robespierre." Alex rebutted, challenging my statement. "Do you not remember who was the oppressed at the time and who was the oppressor? It wouldn't nearly equate to the hypotheticals you're trying to draw up."

"That's not the point, Alex." I answered back. "I'm just saying that it's time to stop pretending we're still on the high road. They're going after kids now, gloves are off."

"And what are you going to do, Nondis?" Mel asked, walking up to me with an angry stride. "Get yourself in a hospital again? Lose more blood and intestines? What's this master plan you got, I wanna hear it so I can know whether or not I need to cry in an office over having to worry about keeping you alive again."

"You're a soldier, not a politician." Alex added. "This is one line of work you can't do, it's just too difficult to try and circumvent red tape and move against pre-established powers."

I started peeling back my fingers, counting off the names off the top of my head. "George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight Eisenhower, even the monster Adolf FUCKING Hitler, those guys could lead men. It didn't matter how or where."

"And you're delusional enough to believe that you could take that same role? This isn't some book where you're some Gary Stu hoping to break the history books by doing the unachievable. Yeah sure you might have gotten a few radio listeners riled up with your 'I believe that we will win' speech, but that doesn't apply in a field you have no experience in─"

"Belief is universal, Mel. How often do we believe in some man that could walk on water and raise the dead? Some guy who found enlightenment and sat under a tree until he died? Some guy coming off the mountain with words carved in stone spoken by some flaming bush? Or even if you choose not to believe in something, that is a belief in and of itself."

"You're right, Nondis!" She yelled mockingly. "Belief is something we can all agree that exists! And it's like you said, choosing to not believe in something or someone is a belief too! But believing in you now... it's too much." She looked at the ponies sitting around the table. "So tell me what you all believe in. Can you tell me what miracle you want him to pull out of his ass this time? Can you tell me why the fucker I love so damn much is fighting for you while I get to stand here and watch!?"

Everyone looked to her and stared. I just closed my eyes, knowing what she would say next.

"Yeah, I said it. A human is in love with another human, oh how controversial. I love my best friend who's been there for me, even when I wasn't the best to him. I used to see a table of ponies with power, now I see a group of people using him for their own agenda." And then she looked to Twilight. "And now I see a girl who barely has a clue of knowing what to do, who made the right decision, who opened a door for another good decision to come out of it." Finally, her attention was brought to me. "And you still haven't made the right decision... Nondis, it's over. You're fighting for nothing when it's all said and done. It's time to come home."

Shining stood up as he tried his best to defend me. "Nondis is doing more than you know for us! I understand you're upset because this seems like a losing battle, but we're not done yet!"

"Shining Armor..." Cadance began quietly as she stood slowly. "Sit down. You have no right to claim about what's being done when you've done nothing to help me or even talk to me about any of this. I've been trying to grab your attention for the longest time and I can't even seem to get you to look at me when he's around. Now look at where we are."

Blueblood intervened. "I don't think you give your husband enough credit, Cadance. Shining has practiced his due diligence when it comes to doing what he can for your family."

"Well I'm convinced that he's more willing to see himself with somepony else. Maybe I should take a page from Twilight's book and leave him be." Cadance said, her voice still raspy from the painful anguish she displayed in the parliament chamber. She looked to her husband, who stared back with sadness in his eyes. "Just tell me that my wanting to be with you is too much and I'll love you enough to let you go, let you be free."

"You don't mean that." Shining replied.

"Don't I, don't I really?"

"No. You don't." I replied while interjecting. "And you'd be a stupid-ass bitch if you actually went through with it. Shining loves you and that baby to bits and the only thing you want to do is fight the one in your corner. Sure, destroy your family before it even starts. And don't mind your husband who actually rode a train to Canterlot the night he found out to call me out of my sleep at three in the morning just to tell me how much he wanted this but how scared he was over what these assholes would do to the both of you, what would happen to the both of you health-wise. Tell me how much you love your husband enough to drop him off at the next bus stop and leave him there while you go on about life."

Alex then added. "And it wouldn't be fair to compare your marriage to Twilight's dating Nondis. Nondis ain't married to her, she can let him go and he can do whatever he likes because there's nothing between them to tie them together. If my wife dropped me, then that would be a good twenty grand her father spent on the wedding, another five on her dress, the vows we made, the years we spent, and the love we shared, wasted. You have a kid, and you're talking about giving it up. I'm still kinda new to this whole marriage shit, not even a year in, but I do remember something saying 'for better or for worse'. Well how about that worse part of it?"

"But that ain't even it, chief." Cliff added. "I was told some stuff about what happened way back when while we weren't even in the picture, still walking across the stage in high school. Hell, we see windows of it on the way in. I heard that you fought a changeling queen over him and pushed back an invading army over this man. How you just gonna drop that? If I gotta go through all of that and this just to be in love, I'm either gonna make that shit count or I'm just not in love with you. Plain and simple. His ass still here, looking just as dumbstruck the first time he saw you. That's love, gave up all the pussy he could've had just to kick back with you for the rest of his life. I dunno, that's some ungrateful shit and I can't deal."

"Cadance." Twilight asked in a low voice. "Would you really give up on my brother?"

"Twilight." The pink princess called out before she could find anything else to say.

"We were trapped in the caves together, I remember you saying outright. 'We must escape before it's too late, find a way to save the day. Hope I'll be lying if I say I don't fear that I may lose him to one who wants to use him, not care to love and cherish him each day. For I also love the groom, all my thoughts he does consume.' You even took some of those words and wrote them into your vows. You cried at the thought of not being able to save him. Is this what you think of him now, even after a few mistakes?"

Cadance found the weight of her words coming back to her as she started to look back at her husband. "Shining..."

I then added. "I never told anyone too much of this, but that day Twilight took on her new student, I was thrown into several potential realities this world could've experienced. That journey alone guided me to my use of magic, but I'll be damned if I didn't have a harrowing experience along the way. I met Shining twice in that journey. The first one was him fighting alongside his sister, in a war against King Sombra and the invading Crystal Empire. The second is the one I think you'd find the most interesting, it was a world where Chrysalis played her cards right, Luna was again banished to the moon because of her still being corrupt. And Celestia was nothing but a pile of decaying flesh and bones floating in a cocoon sat on her throne. And Chrysalis' next in line had control over the city, doing what she desired to whomever."

I took a short glance to Shining and then back to Cadance as I continued my story.

"I was caught in a world I didn't recognize and I tried to play my way out. So they tested me since I said that I ate meat. They threw Shining in my lap and expected me to eat him. Do you know what kind of condition your husband was in? I'm going to tell you so that you can understand the weight of your words. He was malnourished, weak, you could see the ribs through his skin, his coat missing fur in places, his eyes as cloudy as any blind man. 'Long live Equestria, Twily I failed...' Those were his FINAL words before he gave his last breath in my arms."

Shining swallowed a heavy thought as he took a deep breath. Meanwhile Cadance started backing up, mortified of what I told her.

"Yeah, that same grief you have right now in thinking about the worst to come, I experienced tenfold the next world after. Couldn't sleep for two nights thinking about it. But let's get back to the now. Chrysalis is out there and she obviously gives two shits for Shining Armor, but she'll swipe him up just to dangle him in front of you. Now can you imagine what you'd feel like if he was taken from you? Whether it'd be back then or even now. That's what he puts on the line each and every time he talks about you and your kid. And it's hard to be patient when they got your flesh and blood in the mix, your loved ones at the gallows. I couldn't imagine you just moving him to the side, while in some other parallel world he's long departed knowing no other pain can come to him."

Twilight looked at her sister in law and started to weave a magic spell, illustrating an alternate reality. "There's another world out there where you didn't reach the surface in time. And in this world, Shining's gone to be a victim while you're stuck in the darkness of the caves, alone and dying. I don't think this Cadance would hesitate to trade places with you."

The facade showed the replica of the pink mare, grieving terribly as she abandoned all hope. Her eyes were shut to the world as Shining caught a glimpse of the face of his grieving wife. She unleashed a tragic wail while holding herself for comfort, writhing as she called her husband's name. Everyone in the room was shaken to their core in seeing it, feeling sympathy for the mare in a world not to be manifested in any other way than a simple vision. Cadance immediately identified the grief with the very sorrow she felt just earlier. She turned her head away, refusing to see anymore.

Twilight dismissed the painful vision and started to speak. "I know you're angry with what's going on right now. But if my brother's trying to do his best, then maybe you should look to give him a second chance."

The pink princess leapt to the air and unfurled her wings to quickly glide to her husband across the room. She tackled him with every ounce of her weight and held him closely before taking another breath. Her hooves almost crushed him while her wings cocooned him in her grasp. She kissed him once before breaking down in tears. She whispered to him. "Honey, I'm sorry."

Shining took every bit of the weight his wife placed on him and hugged her back. "Sweetie, I know it's rough. But I had to do some things to try to make things right. I just didn't want you involved."

Alex shook his head at Twilight. "Did you have to scar the poor lady?"

"Tough love." She answered, folding her forelegs. "But that still doesn't solve our current predicament."

Luna grimaced as she watched the young married couple embrace. "I do not think it is ideal that we sign on those papers, sister."

I turned back to the two high rulers and replied. "Sign it. Shit will be dead in two months." The princesses stared at me with shock as I confirmed my words. "For the kindom suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. I guarantee by one way or another, that law dies in two months. Even if I must play the role of Judas to any politician, I will with a smile on my face."

"Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?" Stanton quoted from the bible.

"Damn straight. They ain't no saint of mine." I said with the politicians in mind.

Blueblood shrugged with a light sigh. "So, does this mean our whole operation is decompartmentalized?"

Both Shining and I stared at the prince with a blank expression. "What the fuck you just say?" I asked.

"Can you translate that to a language we know please?" Alex requested.

"Are we all united on this front?" Blueblood reiterated. "No more selected few, no more clandestine meetings in the catacombs below? We're all the way live?"

Twilight and Alex both looked at the blond prince. "What operation?" Twilight asked.

"I think I'll need a yes or no before we discuss anything further." Blueblood said with a smug smile.

"But it does involve dragging down a few politicians, might not be your cup of tea." Shining added.

Twilight laughed as she proudly accepted the invitation. "Would I really be my mother's foal if I didn't take you on that offer? You'd be nuts to think I wouldn't take down something evil for the sake of my potential nephew or niece."

Cadance stopped hugging her husband for a moment and looked at him with a tearful smile. "So is this what you've been hiding from me?"

The young prince scratched his head as he replied. "Well I thought if you got involved, it would be pretty dangerous for the two of you. Originally we wanted to keep as many names out of it as possible. I just thought if I could do something for this, it would be better to do it behind the scenes."

The princess sniffled as she embraced her husband yet again. "Next time, say something. Don't leave me in the dark on things, I get scared easily."

Shining smirked at his wife. "Funny, I thought you were the adventurous one and I was the emotional wreck."

"I'm still a mare, Shining. There are some things you can't ignore, like hormones, mood swings, pregnancy. I don't feel like being the strong one all the time. Maybe I want to be the crybaby who can't stop crying at every wedding I go to."

"That's not what I do, Cadie." The blue-maned prince argued.

"I thought it was you dispensing 'liquid pride'." Twilight jumped in, causing Cadance to giggle lightly.

"It's a totally different thing!" He stressed.

Blueblood walked up to me and stood beside me as he spoke. "And as assumed, the Princess of Love joins the fray with little alternatives. I didn't think it would come under these circumstances, but it works."

"You anticipated this?" I questioned.

"Not the means to it all, no. The ends, however, it was only a matter of time where she'd grow desperate to go along with any hope that might present itself. She'd have to come around sooner or later."

I shrugged my shoulders. "At least I don't have to pretend that I hate her anymore, outside of public appearances."

Luna looked up to her elder sister, wearing a relieved smile on her face. "At least we can all come together and find a solution to our problem. There is hope abound, dear sister."

Celestia almost seemed to ignore her sister's words as she stepped forward. While everyone else in the room seemed pretty optimistic in comparison to the mood from earlier, she seemed completely blank-faced as she approached me. She then asked. "Captain, are you saying that through your will and power you are willing to break this darkness above us?"

I smiled with a bow and answered. "I promised you two months, and you know I'm good for any time I give you, sometimes I even get it done days or weeks earlier than my deadlines."

"Would you really do something like that?" She asked.

"It's beyond me now. I have to do what's right. It's in my job description to protect any royal from hurt or harm."

The princess stood silent for a few seconds before raising her head up to face me with a saddened face. I didn't think she would look at me with such an expression, especially since it was rare for her to show her more tender emotions to anyone outside of a flash of anger. With a trembling voice she spoke.

I don't think anyone else heard what she just said. I don't think anyone was paying attention to what was going on. The only thing they seemed to be enraptured about was the possibilities of getting everything done in two months or so like I said I would. But for me, it was almost like the world around me started to fade out into some unknown darkness, the sounds swelling out as if I was submerged into the ocean while the others were screaming and chanting. Instead of feeling jubilation like the others, I felt something I hadn't felt in a very long time.

I felt completely, unquestionably, and utterly lost.

Celestia looked away from me as she performed her about-face, not wanting to see how I was going to react to her words. I called for her, requesting clarification. "...I'm s-sorry. I-I-I must not have... heard something."

She continued to look away from me, although replying. "You're relieved. You're free from your mantle. You now live as an ordinary human."

I tried to walk around her to face her, but she started to use her magic to hold my feet in place just before I could get a glimpse of her face. She refused to look at me as she continued on.

"Your work is greatly appreciated, and the pedigree of efficiency you have shown in completing your assignments have been more than stellar and ranks among the highest of any guard I put in this position. But it is unwise for me to allow you to remain should you wish to operate on a more vindictive assignment, unsanctioned by an individual in chief standing. You're disregarding the chain of command and violating many codes in doing so. To which, as your commanding officer, I have to be stern in saying that I will not tolerate these actions as long as your serve under me as it reflects poorly on the guard. Furthermore, it presents the ground that there is some insurgency being housed in my guard. And I wouldn't doubt for a second you'd rouse others to join you in your cause, as you are a very influential speaker who will bring about discourse and conflict. It is a difficult decision, one I will surely regret, but it is a just one." She barely turned her head where I could finally see the whites of her eyes. "I will not have you play this role, I cannot let you do this. So I have to set you free."

Everyone in the room stopped with whatever they talked about and looked at me with a confused stare. They ended up seeing me scowling back at the princess. Even Luna appeared defensive of her sister until I started to call her out over what she just said to me.

"So because I want to do what is right for all of us, I get tossed!? How in the fuck is that fair!?"

The air of the room, once filled with optimism and jubilation for a brief moment, was reinstated with the tense silence outside of a few select others speaking up on my behalf. Shining was the first to come to my defense. "You're seriously not relieving him, are you?"

Celestia remained quiet, not even turning to face the young prince.

Luna watched her sister's face remained emotionless, cold, and dejected. The night princess then walked up to her elder sibling and questioned her. "Are you serious? This is the conclusion you came to, to abandon hope when it shines brightest? Is this your idea of another one of your cruel pranks?"

"I do what I must... even if it is to set aside my own joy for the sake of peace."

Mel almost snatched my hand as she started to walk to the door. "Well you heard the lady, you're fired. No reason in staying to help someone who doesn't want to help themselves."

But before she could open the door, she felt resistance. She looked down to see a blue aura encircling the arm she used to drag me along. Luna hollered at her sister while she held Melanie from leaving. "Do you honestly think this was unsanctioned!? Do you believe that I went through what I went through to have you say this!? Have you grown weak over the past millennium, just allowing others to trample over you for the sake of 'peace', is that what you believe!?"

"I did not ask to be rescued." Celestia replied.

"You're right, you're not the one who needs saving! This isn't about you, Tia! It's about the little one that's sitting in Cadence's womb!"

"AS IF I'M NOT AWARE OF THAT!" She shouted, rattling the entire dining hall. Causing a few of the glasses and plates on the table to crack.

Shining stepped forward and stood in front of Luna, not with anger on his face, but something else. He looked to his wife and back to her with an understanding frown. "I know you don't like talking about it, but I know what you feel."

Celestia hissed back at the blue-maned unicorn. "You don't know a damn thing about me! So don't come to me like you're so personal to me, Shining Armor!"

"It was a loss too fine for words." Celestia's eyes jumped to where Blueblood was standing. "A loss that hurt you so deeply that you'd refuse to speak on it."

"It's beyond what you went through, it's what you also didn't go through." Shining added, causing Celestia to slowly back away. "So you'd rather distance us to not know what it is that keeps you up at night. You kept it to yourself, to hide it all from us so that we'd never commit the same mistakes, so that history doesn't repeat itself."

"You'd even go so far as to hide it from Luna, your own sister, out of fear that she'd relapse to her nightmare state." I added. "Is that why you hide under your regalia?"

Shining then added. "It's beyond that."

The princess looked around her and saw the many eyes looking back at her as she started to ignite her horn. Her eyes clenched shut as she shouted throughout the room with a loud voice, more than capable of finishing off the dining items she cracked from earlier. "ENOUGH!" Seeing the mess she left behind, she spoke with a trembling voice. "I'm sorry. But I need some time alone."

In a bright flash, she disappeared. The rest of everyone in the room tried to absorb what just happened, everyone with the exception of the two princes. Mel once again found freedom in her arm as I found freedom in my own. Alex just shook his head. "Okay, so can we run that back?"

"As far as I know, she's upset, Nondis got fired, and I think we should be on our way home." Mel added.

"Nondis is far from relieved of his duties." Luna interjected. "She wouldn't hold that decree to paper, so it's just as suggestive as her past throughout the course of my banishment. Furthermore, she can't relieve him on the grounds of him moving without consent as long as my consent stands as equal to hers as she often implies."

"So... rain check on that pink slip then?" Rickey questioned.

"What exactly did she say to you?" Alex asked me.

"Basically that I was acting without going through the chain of command and possibly starting a revolution." I quickly summarized.

"That's nonsense." Cadance replied. "You and Shining were working together, it couldn't be on the grounds of bypassing the chain of command when you're quite literally taking up orders from your superior officer. I can understand if it was through Blueblood alone, being that he had his military power stripped a while back, but still."

"It wouldn't have mattered. The moment Luna joined with us, that gave us all the rank and file to authorize every move we made while keeping a proxy for separation. It was perfect." The blond prince said.

"Adding Cadie and Twily would only let them in on the loop of what was going on and why we had to act the way we did." Shining added while pointing to me. "The only reason I was being passive on Nondis was because we ordered him to keep the appearance that there was a divide between him and us, posing as an independent but vengeful third party. And if Cadance wasn't involved, we could better keep the illusion of the divide."

"Vengeful as in how?" Twilight inquired.

"On the account that we broke up under bitter pretenses that Cadance was too involved in our relationship." I answered. "The argument we had at the Canterlot Centennial Celebration came from an authentic place because I was frustrated with Cadance talking shit while she was drunk. Blueblood decided it was better to run with it so we could plan quietly while appearing to not be in cahoots with one another."

"So you pretended that you hated Cadance?" Twilight asked, starting to realize why I would never apologize to her or go along with any written apology for the public's sake.

"Still waiting on my Oscar though." I replied with a wink to the young princess.

"But Celestia just let him go." Mel intervened, stressing on an earlier topic, pointing to Luna. "You're saying the order falls under a suggestion." She then pointed to Shining. "And you said something that pissed her off."

Stanton rubbed the side of his head. "Yeah, I'm gonna be the one to say that our plays ain't making any sense to the broadcast. So does anyone care to explain what the hell is going on?"

Blueblood and Shining looked to one another before glancing at me. "Nondis, do you remember that scroll and diary you help me nab from Arimaspi Mountain?" Shining questioned.

"I remember you cutting an Arimaspi in half and leaving it to slowly die shortly after." I replied, causing others in the room to wince at that image.

Blueblood then looked to Melanie. "And do you remember the conversation we had over that 'terrifyingly long list' that was that scroll?"

"I remember seeing all the names, yeah." She replied. "I also remember Shining Armor saying that there was a journal, classified as top secret."

"You wouldn't disclose any top-secret items that would be deemed sensitive, would you Shining?" Twilight mocked.

"I was just calling it top secret for the time being because I needed some time to digest what was written down." The young prince replied before summoning a small modern-looking journal. "I managed to jot down word-for-word of Starswirl's account of what had happened to Celestia, threw up a few times while doing so."

He then tossed the journal to me. Out of pure reflex out of the weekend's training, I caught it with my magic and flipped to the first page. "That bad, huh?"

Blueblood then answered. "Her attempt to fire you was more of her not wanting what happened to a certain immortalized prince happening to you."

"You mean that Prince Fair Charity guy?" Melanie clarified.

"For someone who really wants to be done with us, you sure do keep up with the details." Blueblood stated with a light chuckle. "Color me impressed."

Mel walked over to view the journal from over my shoulder. "So... how bad is it?"

I took a deep breath as I started to prep myself to read everything aloud. "We're all about to find out."

The guards who escorted the disgraced princess out from within her castle marched out with her in tow, flipped upside down to minimize her resistance. She wriggled and wormed in an attempt to free herself, but failed to do so before she was dropped to the ground in front of the group of some twenty nobles, each staring with eyes wide open and some with impatient tapping of their hooves.

Celestia shook off her pain and stood back up, angrily glaring back at the noble that trailed behind her. She had already made up in her mind that she'd kick him into the next town should he attempt to do anything unsavory. However, her time lingering on that bit of revenge would have to wait as the guards beside her shoved her head towards the ground. One of her eyes had been introduced to the dust and gravel of the cobblestone walkways, allowing only her other eye to see much of what was going on.

Her ears, on the other hand, were just fine. "Celeste Delanise Valkyrie, you are hereby introduced to the grounds of these yards for the total and complete confession for the crimes you have done against the country. As such, you shall recant your sin and cleanse yourself of iniquity. From there we shall purge every immoral thought from your body, every unsanctioned action from your person. Then you shall confess your wrongs before the parliament and display the renewed mark of your innocence, only then shall your power be restored."

It was at that moment the noble who approached her within the tower walked beside her and whispered. "This is it now. You stand before the very brink of hell. You will endure a terrible pain should you wish to not abide by us and maintain your dignity. Give us what we want and nothing terrible shall come to you. This is your choice, choose to serve us forevermore... or suffer the wrath of every noble your family has spurned."

Celestia kept a watchful eye on the fat noble before he brought a hoof to her mane, sniffing it as he brought it against his nose. He started to chuckle as he whispered to her again.

"The smell of being no different from the common concubine."

Incensed at his insult, she collapsed to her belly to disallow him from moving any further, her tail especially lodged between her haunches. He grimaced as he circled around her, stopping himself as she stood directly behind her. But to his arrogance, he felt a strong kick sending him into the wall of the tower behind him. Her face peeking back past her mane as she looked on with pride. She stood back up and spoke to the others. "Do you still wish to try your luck with me? I tend not to be very quiet."

The stallion she kicked back rose back to his hooves, wiping some blood out from his mouth as he angrily marched on the condemned princess. "I told you to move quietly, I gave you every opportunity to fall back in the good graces of the kingdom. But you are nothing more than a traitor."

He gave the reader a displeased nod. The reader closed the scroll and announced to the crowd. "The accused has chosen not to recant. As such, she shall be made to confess her sins through the means of purification. The guidelines of the punishments outlined by the newly written law shall be adhered to."

Cries from every direction shouted down the princess while the guards who was assigned to carry her came from behind her with heavy chains to lock her hindlegs down. She tried to fight them off as they wrestled in restless fashion to subdue her. But with her power drained and sealed away, she could only fight off three before a few other nobles started to join in and hold her down. Even if she typically had the strength to fend off dozens of stallions, her bindings only allowed her the three at once. But it was at least a dozen who piled on her, restraining her as her chains were locked to her legs. Bindings were put in place to stop her from resisting. The princess screamed as she was forced back on all fours to be escorted towards the side of the tower.

Through her one unclouded eye, she started to see the dread that was to ensue. A wooden table with an assortment of cruel tools lying in wait, one noble ran up to the table to pick up a cold iron brand and placed it in the blazing torch cage next to the table. A rack was brought out with a set of weights. The noblepony she kicked approached the table to pick up a cruel looking rake and shouted to her.

"To start off, I want to say just how beautiful your wings are! I do wish to preen them today!"

Modern Time...

I closed the book and closed my eyes. "This is a tough read, isn't it?"

Shining answered back. "It doesn't get any better from here. You might as well keep reading."

Everyone in the room looked at me as I took a deep breath before opening back up to where I left off.

The princess was thrown against the wall, her forelegs suspended by the rack they sat aside for her. Her hindlegs were extended beneath her as one of her wings were forcibly pulled from behind her. Despite her strength to deny two from pulling it out from behind her, it couldn't stop the pain of the nobles from applying the rake to her back. The princess gave out a pained grunt before her grip loosened. The princess tried her best not to give them any response, but seeing the next aristocrat pull out a cruelly-shaped three-headed whip with sharp steel leaves at the end of each lash filled her with a cold tremble.

So much was happening all at once that one of the guards had to step in and instruct that there be order before the process could commence. Finally quelling the excitement of several blood-thirsty nobles, the torture then commenced. Her legs felt the strain of being pulled in to different directions that were deemed anatomically unsafe. Her eyes watered as she wailed for them to stop pulling at her. But the only thing that happened was them pulling at the chains even more before it eventually came to a halt.

The princess whimpered as the intense pain started to pull at her joints. The guard then explained to some of the nobles that the rack she laid on was specially modified for her sister should she return with the intent of being vengeful. Furthermore, the rack had separate mechanisms to pull at each leg to maximize the slow torture. They were also discouraged from doing too much as it would render her unconscious, completely unable to elicit a confession.

But already being in pain, Celestia took heed of the guards' words and tried her best to let herself fall out of consciousness. Her dropped, but quickly came back up as the sudden jolt of pain from her falling forward caused her to shriek and jump back into place. Her jaw quivered as she panted rapidly. Her forelegs were stretched beyond her head, making any movement seem like complete agony. And the only thing she could do for many minutes was to hope that she'd fade off.

Her wish would eventually come true, but not before a loud pop came from one of her forelegs, it's joints separating from her shoulders. As soon as it popped, her body slumped forward on one side. She produced a blood-curdling scream that put many other torture victims to shame. The birds of the forest were so startled that it created a black cloud as they flew from their nests and trees into the air, flying away from the forest altogether. The stress of the pain made her scream herself to exhaustion, rendering her fatigued from the torture.

At last, she got what she wanted, she could finally rest... for the time being.

She awoke to the sight of several nobles remaining to watch her suffer. And as her eyes slowly opened, so did her brain's registry to pain. Instead of just one foreleg dealing with a dislocation, it was the other that showed it as well. She lanked forward, seeing a curtain of gray covering her eye. The dust from her other eye had ceased to be a concern as her shoulders were in a much worse state. She nudged her head lightly to see what the grayness was that covered her face. But as she moved her head, she felt a natural weight shift about on her head. That one nudge caused her to shriek briefly before some of the gray infiltrated her drying mouth. She soon realized that the gray covering her eyes was actually her own mane.

She remained hung on the wall, her mane and tail devoid of any color as she continued to experience the intense pain of her dislocated forelegs. The parishioners of the parliament stirred as they started to see her move. The guard beside her looked at another, signaling to them to release the chains. The princess unceremoniously fell forward, landing on her forelegs and jaw, causing her to shriek in pain once more. A more guttural groan was produced as she lied there on the ground, bemoaning the pain she experienced.

Her wings were completely unfurled, trying to take the place of her forelegs' ability to suspend her weight. One of the guards started to tug at her wing, preventing it from raising her up. Her eyes looked forward to see the guard overseeing the affair tower before her. She began to plead with him. "Why do you do these things to me? Have I not been a fair ruler? Have I not treated you well? Please, tell me what I did wrong to you!"

The guard didn't say a word to her, just only looking down as the other guards started to stretch her wings out. The noble she kicked earlier had been waiting patiently behind her, holding the cruel-looking thorny rake. He walked up to one of her wings and cried out. "A traitor doesn't have the freedom to fly! You will never see the skies again!" He then leaned in against her ear as he muttered. "You'll be my little caged bird, sing for me."

The rake was slammed onto the base of her wing, closer towards her back. The rusty spikes that served as thorns dug into her flesh, causing her to shriek. With a mighty pull, yanking the rake across the top of her wing, he separated many feathers and fur from her wing. The skin from her coverts grew bloodied while she screamed yet again. The sound the object produced was a sickening combination of popping and ripping fine leather. He flicked the instrument and several small feathers came gliding down, covered in a mix of fur, blood, and clumps of skin. She tried to move her forelegs to escape her pain, but the discomfort of her injuries only provided more torment to her experience.

Again and again, he sank the toothy device into her. And again, she bellowed like a horn as they raked her wings clean. On the ground, more and more feathers started to pile. Shortly after giving their attention to the front end of her wings, they finally drew their sights to the much longer feathers that gave her flight. With complete abandon, the noble started to chuckle as he grabbed bundles upon bundles of her feathers, leaving nothing but a bloodied stump to serve as her wing. The condemned princess had long started crying tears of misery. But seeing the wings her mother once called beautiful being desecrated so cruelly made her wish for death more than anything. Her eyes started to fade with the light that once graced them.

The stress was once again too much, and she faded out from reality again.

~Hour Five~

She felt herself almost about to drown. Her mind was brought back from the brink into reality again. But instead of seeing guard, it was a quartet of nobles and aristocrats dumping water over her face. She escaped the affair by falling over from the table she was laid upon, only to be reminded of the pain her wings and forelegs suffered. The mare coughed up a painful groan, somewhat waterlogged from their attempt to wake her from her unconscious state. On the table where she was once lain, there was an assortment of items such as needles, smelling salts, and even a small leaflet of spells used to drag anyone out of an insentient state.

Though she knew little of these items, she was aware of the fact that they were less than willing to allow her the privilege of slipping out again. No longer could she rely on the warm embrace of her senses being drowned out from the pain and stress she endured. They wanted to make sure that they got their satisfaction without the wait. The guard stood by from the foot of the tower as the nobles gathered around her, forcing her over to her back. Her forelegs splayed out, painfully leaving her chest wide open.

The princess closed her eyes, trying to slip out before they could do anything. But one of them brought about some of the smelling salt and introduced it to her muzzle. The sharp signals her brain sent out had suddenly intensified everything about her painful experience, including the fear of what was to come next as they started to hold her hindlegs down to the ground. Two others looked behind them from her right and broke away as if they were simply doors providing entry to an even greater humiliation.

Celestia sat helpless, her gray mane completely disheveled and concealing her left eye. She laid whimpering from the day they took from her, offering nothing but their wrath over her desire to love someone who was not them. She inwardly felt rage at the subjects she once ruled over, even her eyes started to seek out the guard that shunned her cries for help, casting her to the ground instead.

But the crowd around her started to tighten up with the exception of where the two of them parted by, allowing the one noble who antagonized her from the crack of dawn to appear. His horn was glowing, slowly introducing a blazing white-hot iron T to glow beside him. The princess eyed the tool with dread, unable to hide her fear any longer. Her terror was so great that she started to feel herself black out from the thought of what they'd do next. But again, the smelling salt was introduced to her nose, giving her too much of a taste of reality. She felt everything, including the fear causing her to forget about many other things of herself.

Some of the gathered crowd started to laugh as they pointed to her tail. The noble looked back down to see a puddle of urine slowly grow around her. He shook his head and muttered towards her. "Look at you. Look at what you've become, a filthy wench incapable of managing simple bodily functions. Is this that same lack of control you felt when you allowed yourself to be a bargaining chip to compromise our kingdom? Surely it isn't so."

Finally deciding that she had enough, she cried out as best as she could to the noble. "Please... no more... no more of this."

The noble put a hoof to his ear, leaning in as he mocked her. "I'm sorry, I don't think my hearing's survived much of your singing today. The birds obviously buggered off because of your... docile tones."

She once again pleaded. "I confess... I confess to my wrongs... Please... Please just stop."

He leaned in and whispered. "I told you you'd have us feel like kings today. I gave you the option to submit willingly. But you took my kindness, and kicked it against the wall. You took my mercy for granted and embarrassed me. And then you drag out my day. But here's the problem I have... I want you lively and awake when I take you. The others might not care too much about your being aware, but I want you to look me in my eyes as you give me the reparations I deserve. My loyalty to your family, and I only ask for your hoof in marriage. I ask only for your attention, but you barter it off like some cheap trade at the local tavern. You think you're special because of your pedigree, but we've all seen what you have. You're no different from the others."

He introduced the white hot poker to her, slowly closing the distance between it and her sternum.

"So now I want you awake. No need for being quiet now, you said that you weren't very quiet so I took that as a sign of enthusiasm. So let's not be so quiet, keep singing to me like you have been all day. I want nothing more than to hear your beautiful voice scream for me! If I can't have your first for that, then this shall serve as a suitable replacement!"

The sound of the brand landing against her chest was that of a high pitched whistle combined with a quiet bubbling and loud hiss. And just as he desired, he heard her scream once more with energy. Her throat had gone raspy from the terrible damage it suffered from her reactions to her torment. But it quickly died down, offering nothing but a dying sob. He forced himself onto her more, pressing the poker against her chest even harder until the flesh around it grew blackened. The smell of burnt blood and smoldering hair permeated the area. The eyes surrounding her watched in silence as she arched her back from the pain, trying to escape the pain as best as she could. But the multitude of stallions holding her in place only allowed her to move so much.

Finally, the iron was removed from her chest, leaving a smoldering black T.

Almost as if he was in his own orgasmic bliss, he threw the branding iron aside and marveled at the pathetically twitching princess. He panted to himself quietly, seeing the princess writhe. Finally, he couldn't take much of it longer and ran to the two stallions holding her hindlegs down. "MOVE!" He called out, starting to gather himself with anticipation and find his time to invade her. He pried apart her hindlegs and peeled away her tail to make way for his entrance. However, he was stopped.

The guard wore a stern face as he anchored a spear between him and the princess. The noble screamed back at the stallion before the guard pointed back at the princess, rather back to her posterior. Their eyes looked down and the heavy-set unicorn was surprised by what he saw.

Blood.

Instead of a pool of urine, it was a pool of thick blood that ran as a river from within her. She jolted arrhythmically, unaware of what was happening with her. But she knew that the guard stepping in was an indication that her torture would come to an abrupt end. But that wasn't enough for the unicorn noble. He argued vehemently over his unfinished business. "Move out of my way! I want to inspect this for myself!"

The pool of blood then grew to a substantial amount, causing the others to back away. The princess' haunches then started to stain with blood also, the coat of her flanks began to absorb it as paint to a blank white canvas. The guard remained adamant. "There is no need to continue. What was sought to be done has been achieved."

"But I'm not finished!"

Another guard stepped in to aim the spear directly at the noble's neck as the guard reinforced his statement. "You. Are." He strongly emphasized. "Not only has she confessed, but she has been cleansed of any iniquity of the affair. She is purified of any unsanctioned circumstance. She has suffered the weight of her crimes to the fullest extent of the law. Justice is done. As potent as it was, your service is no longer needed."

"But─"

The guard then pointed at the large pool of blood and urine flowing slowly from it's source. "Do you fancy a tryst with something like that? It's filthy. Condemning the damned is one thing, what you seek to do now is another. The brand was the final punishment I allowed. All the extracurricular activity in between was all unsanctioned, but I allowed it because I felt it would help achieve the desired result. If you're so angry, then maybe you should've taken what you could like everypony else."

The nobles, completely satisfied with the punishment they gave, started to thin out as they proceeded to go about their day. Meanwhile the only stallion who was denied that opportunity had watched as the guard gave his orders.

"Alright, let's get her back to her cell. Call the servants for water and bread."

The stallion who stood motionless as the princess was carted off to the inside of the tower could only watch. Meanwhile the quartet of guards quietly marched the princess back up the stairs. As the moved, the princess started to sing through her pain, the words her mother sang to her, but adding her own.

The finally arrived at the chamber atop the tower. Starswirl looked on with horror as he shouted to the four guards. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, YOU FIENDS!? SHE IS A PRINCESS OF EQUESTRIA! AND YOU STOOD BY AND DONE NOTHING!?"

"We follow our orders, wizard. Maybe you should do the same. You wouldn't be in here, helpless to do anything."

The guards guided her back to the room of seals, closed the door, and locked her away. Meanwhile, the princess lied helpless in her bed, chained up out of anticipation of her healing ability. But her heart grieved for what had happened to her and what all she had lost.

With a soft, broken, raspy whisper, she sang to her self one last time. The song her mother sang to her once before... but changed to what she then realized had happened to her.

Present Day...

If it hadn't been from the crying of some, the room would be stone quiet. The mood was far graver than it was when we first entered. Cadance was beyond mortified, clutching her belly for dear life as she heard me read the words out loud to the room. Luna stirred with fury, parts of her mane and tail already starting to transform freely, her eyes had begun to turn and her coat started to blacken. Blueblood's wives comforted each other while he himself was reintroduced to the anger he showed earlier in the parliament chamber. Twilight couldn't stomach what was being read about her mentor and had to find someplace to help her cope with the sickness.

But it wasn't just the ponies that felt disgusted.

Melanie sobbed quietly, hugging herself as she couldn't think of going through such pain for anyone or anything. Cliff had to pace back and forth to walk off his anger. Rickey and Stanton sat motionless, staring at the walls while they couldn't fathom what they just heard. Alex had walked out of the room from the moment I started off reading about they had done to her while she fell unconscious.

I, on the other hand... was bloodthirsty. "And they all lived happily ever after." I said closing the book slowly with my hands trembling. Without much thought, I just chucked the book at a wall and kicked over a chair. I wanted to do nothing but shove my sword at that bastard's brains and show it right back to him when I pull out. I then started to shout at the ceiling. "HEY GOD, DEITY OF THIS WORLD, WANNA EXPLAIN WHY THE FUCK THESE GUYS GET TO WALK AROUND!?"

Ironically, it was Luna who seemed to be the voice of reason out of all of us. Though her appearance may not have showed it, she was a lot calmer than the rest of us. "They wouldn't be now. They're long dead. If this happened a thousand years ago, then it's right to assume that they have long since faced their eternal judgement."

"Eternal judgement or not..." Mel jumped in. "This shit is wrong! Celestia lost a fucking child over this bullshit. I can't... I can't even." The woman sniffled as she wiped her eyes as best as she could.

Alex cracked open the door and asked. "Okay, so everyone else is talking. Safe to say that everything's all done? I'm not trying to hear that shit. I didn't come here for a graphic reading of Passion of the Christ."

"We're all done here." Stanton called out to our brother.

Shining sat quietly as he looked at Cadance, trying to make sure she was okay. She nuzzled him and spoke quietly to the room. "What was read in here, we can't show to the world just yet."

"Why not!?" One of Blueblood's wives called out, namely Gleaming Star. "The world needs to know what happened so that we can truly remove this law once and for all! We say nothing and we'll be in the same situation possibly fifteen or twenty years from now!"

Luna quickly answered. "Claiming something that was written well over a thousand years ago detailing an account of what happened to my sister will only bring about either sympathizers or conspiracy theorists on both sides. It came in an unmarked book that had to be rewritten. It may also alert some groups that could work in the shadows to keep certain laws alive."

"Last thing you'd wanna do is give them a heads-up that we're in the know and can provide evidence. Knowing that, the'd already have several counter measures against us." Shining cosigned. "Moving quietly from here on is our only answer."

I looked to Luna and asked. "Okay, one last thing before I leave out of this room and go looking for a certain somepony. Am I fired or not?"

"Again, a suggestion in my eyes, not an order. No paperwork to back the proceedings, no point in adhering to them." Luna repeated. "Though I do have to inquire as to why you are adamant in seeing my sister."

I closed my eyes and thought quietly about the moments I had with her in the past week. From the time I walked into my room and saw her trying to cover her chest to the time she sat me in this very room to strongly warn me against laying hands on Luna. All of those things only added fuel to my ambition.

"I think it's time she'd know that we understood what was going on."

It took me a good five minutes just to walk from the dining hall to the private quarters of the high princess. But that wasn't really what kept me from knocking on the door. Instead, it was me sitting in the hallway pacing back and forth to make sure I didn't say anything stupid or irresponsible. I was carefully planning my approach to her, knowing that if I had said something out of context, it would only result in my getting terminated for real.

And I had two things to do here: Have her reconsider her thoughts, and possibly join us in our quest.

I could not show sympathy, no matter how much I wanted to. I had to come from a place of understanding and know that if she felt uncomfortable, I had to find a way to press without pushing her the wrong way and her closing me off for good. So it took me a good thirty minutes before I could clear my throat and bring my fist to the door.

I gave three knocks, and then I waited. No answer. I knocked another three times after a while, only to receive dead silence in return. I carried on for a third time, and the answer was pretty much the same. I placed my hand on the door to knock a fourth time, but my answer came a lot differently. My arm received a painful jolt of electricity before I was able to let my knuckle touch the extravagantly gilded wood. I quickly pulled back, holding my hand while suppressing any profanity that was about to jump from my lips.

Obviously knocking was out of the equation. It was time to talk. "...Cella... you there?" I asked as informal as I could be.

No response. It was still obvious that she was still inside, just unwilling to answer.

I stood against the doorway, and sat myself down without touching the door. "...I'm gonna try to convince my mom to make you another cake. Just to say thanks for everything you've done for me."

Nothing.

"Do you have a flavor you'd like? Maybe a run-it-back of the red velvet cake you had for Thanksgiving?"

Not a word.

"...You know. My world has a holiday that happens to fall on the exact same days of Hearth's Warming. In fact, it has a few. You have Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day... which isn't as violent as it sounds." I finished off with a chuckle, trying to be lighthearted.

Still nothing.

"But from what I was told about Hearth's Warming, it's pretty interesting that there's some similarities shared between it and a holiday our family happens to celebrate. Granted the purposes are a lot different..." I thought about telling her the religious purpose of it, but instead opted to tell her about the common practices. "We have stories of a fat jolly man called Santa Claus who could magically work his way down chimneys and break into people's houses while they're sleeping and leave the kids gifts if they were good, and coal if they were bad." I started to laugh at the sarcastic way I had described it. "Can you imagine some three-hundred pound guy walking into your house to give you a toy you've been wanting for a good three months or longer?"

Silence.

I stood up on my feet and took a deep breath. "You know... I thought I could come talk to you, just like you did with me when my mom practically dropped me from gift list. But if you don't want to talk, then I can do hugs. Hugs are nice too." I then looked at the door with a grimace. "I know your magic is all over this door, and you taught me that magic is an extension of one's self or will. So if I can just share what I have with even that little of you, then I'm fine with that."

I placed my arm against the door, managing to get a substantial shock from the initial touch. My arm had started to ache all over when I gritted my teeth. And it was more than what I was willing to put up with, but I had to press myself to do more for her, to show my dedication... no matter how many Darwin Awards I'd win for being stupid.

I truly hate my sense of dedication sometimes.

I used my other arm this time, getting the same treatment. At that point I was sitting with two seared arms and enough pain to render morphine useless. At this point there was only one way to get through, and that was to... ugh... do what some would call 'full retard' and place my head on the door. But first, I had to check something. "Okay... My arms are shot from touching the door, I doubt they'll do anything but explode like microwaved hot dogs on the next go. So... I going to place my head on the door." I placed my aching arms on either side of the doorway, ready to anchor myself in a way where I could get myself out if it got a little too dangerous. "Okay, on the count of three... One─"

The door instantly cracked open and I was left staring at a crestfallen princess, she wouldn't look at me as she stood there. But her voice was far from it's tranquil and pleasing timbre. "Is pain some sort of a joke to you? You realize that placing your head on this door could've killed you, right?"

I didn't give her much in eye contact as I spoke. "Yeah, let's just say that I'm not the kind of guy who takes getting fired too softly. A man's gotta make a decent living, for me it was my purpose in life."

"Why?" She questioned. "What purpose in life would cause you to abandon your health so easily?"

"A lot of things. Friends, family, brothers in arms, and even love." I answered. "What good is it to take love and not give it?"

"Even if it hurts you so terribly?" She asked, starting to show some frustration.

"Yeah, love don't exactly want us either. But why abandon that pursuit when it's possible to win in the end? I would even go so far as to say that it's 'likely' in the end as opposed to the word 'possible'. For me, love has to be proven."

"So you'd die for love?"

"I'd rather die for what's right than live for myself." I replied, opening the door a little more for her to see me. She seemed a bit upset that I had started to barge in on her, but I had to in order for her to not cut me off so easily. I walked over to her bed and sat down. "My grandfather raised me on that, telling me the story of how he had to fight a war in a land that wasn't his own for a government ideology that was programmed within him to defend. And at the time it was just black and white to him. The ones with slanted eyes were the bad guys, anyone else wasn't. Go in, shoot up everything, push ahead, rinse and repeat."

"How does this have anything to do with you?" She questioned, keeping the door open.

"You'll know in a bit." I said, continuing on where I left off. "My grandfather was a man brought up from a rural town, who believed that Jesus was Lord and America was God's gift to the world. 'If it hadn't been for us, everyone would still be kissing Hitler's ass.' That was something my grandmother claimed he said before the war. And he believed that until the very first day reality hit him like a freight train. For months he was stationed in that land they called hell. Venomous snakes nailed to trees and spikes dug in for his fellow soldiers to fall into. Nightly raids that caused him to have very little sleep. The sounds of grenades and bullets flying by his head. Calling in airstrikes that burned the flesh of any man, enemy and ally alike. He told me a story about having to see that once, he wept as he told it. But there was never a story that made him break down like the one he told me the next day."

Celestia looked at the hallway outside and finally started to close the door, but leaving it cracked.

I carried on. "It was a small rural village in Northern Vietnam. The commander made a choice to 'liberate' that town from the Viet Kong, the opposing forces my grandfather fought against on their turf. And of course, to show off, the men who wanted to pose by the flagpole in town decided to try and take their flag down and put the American flag up. It didn't go so hot, the flagpole was rigged with a grenade. The moment they tugged for it, it came down and exploded, sending a signal to the opposing forces in the village. So it went from a simple 'liberation' to something far worse. They fought their battle, lost twelve of their men while keeping the village. The commander was furious, so he ordered all the villagers to be rounded up in the town square and lined up. And on command, they were to fire their weapons, killing everyone in the line."

"Even the young ones?" Celestia questioned.

"Women and children. No prisoners, no survivors. That first row they had was nothing but preteen boys and moms. My grandfather had a dissenting voice in saying that what they were doing was wrong, but the commander only wanted vengeance. To him, everyone was an enemy, even the young boys who'd hide grenades in their clothes and hugged soldiers, in the very fruit they offered. But there was no way of telling, he wanted to make sure. My grandfather was steadfast on not wanting to do it, but the commander pointed a gun at his head and threatened that he'd chose either to be left there to die or die in line like the rest. He made a choice to live, and the rest is history."

The princess remained quiet for a while before speaking. "It followed him."

"Like a ghost, each of them." I concluded as I started to think more about him. "I don't know if he called out what I was from that point on, but he knew that I was going to get myself into trouble in some way. So he stopped me from being like he was way back when, preparing me to make the decisions he couldn't." I started to laugh lightly. "So here I am in some other land, fighting battles I have no business in fighting because I feel like I can make that one choice he couldn't. And I'm ignoring everything in my mind that tells me to run away because if I did, I'd be no different from him─"

"And that wouldn't be what your grandfather wanted." Celestia said, finishing my sentence.

I started to get up, only to have something glue my pants down to the bed. I looked back up to the princess, who's horn was glowing, creeping her hindleg up to quietly close the door. A soft click was all I heard in that moment as she walked over to me with a frown on her face. Her eyes glanced to me for a second before she closed them and sat beside me. While she sat down, she summoned a golden brush from one of her drawers and dropped it in my lap.

"I'm sure you notice how much hair I have in my mane and tail." She said with a calmer voice. "This is your punishment for sitting on my bed without my permission."

"That's a punishment?" I asked.

"I'm sure your arms will be very tired after brushing my hair for a while." She said before looking at the light burn marks on my hands. "You're just so reckless, aren't you? Putting so much of yourself in service of others, I feel as if that's been an issue long before your being in the guard."

"To be honest, I got in my fair share of curbstomps trying to defend someone's reputation. Never did end well."

I looked over to see Celestia just gazing into the air with a distant smile on her face. It was surprising to see her smiling so warmly, especially with the added context of what I had just recently read out. But her smile didn't exactly exude strength, or a sense of overcoming an obstacle. She moved her eyes towards me and took a few seconds before looking down at her chest plate and speaking. "You're so much like him, it's terrifying."

She levitated a book off of her private shelf and opened it up to the front page with a sepia portrait of a pegasus stallion wearing a crown on his head. At the bottom was the nameplate of the immortalized figure. 'His Royal Majesty Prince Fair Charity, Captain of the Royal Guard.' He wore a determined expression, with one wing spreading out and a cape that flicked out over that wing. His mane was something akin to a viking, his long locks producing two large braids back into a singular ponytail. His tail was braided but of moderate length. He looked as if he could easily conquer an entire nation with just his eyes alone.

"Handsome, isn't he?"

I looked back up to see Celestia wearing what could be the largest blush I've could've seen her wear. She placed her hoof over the crystal at the center of her chest plate as she thought more of him.

"You know, meaning that I am not seen with someone doesn't mean that I haven't had aspirations for romance throughout my life. I've experienced love more than once. Sombra wasn't the only one, though his hurt me the most because of what happened after. Of course there's the pretty standard crowd of courtly affairs, but then there is a very elusive club of stallions I've crushed on in return. Of all an entire army of a thousand that vowed their love to me, I can say there was but three that I truly saw myself willing to embrace."

She temporarily placed the book aside and reintroduced the brush to me, non-verbally urging me to get started with her mane. On that note, I grabbed a lock of her astral mane and started brushing away as she suggested. As I started, she went through the book highlighting the immortalized prince.

"I'm going to share with you a story of one of those romances... and my subsequent desire for revenge."

Royal Throne Room
Canterlot Castle
512 Years Ago...
+++Point of Perspective: Princess Celestia+++

Life in Equestria was so vastly different. But the more things around us change, the more certain things seemed to be preserved in time. I could easily say that my time being on top had hardened me to many things pertaining to the daily struggles of my citizens. But how could I dare to close my heart to them, to the ones that look up to me, who's lights are so bright yet so easily extinguished?

There's no way to do more for them, not without my being involved, not without my citizens practicing an undesired plea for charity. The economy would greatly suffer. And for many of the wealthy landowners who provide plots of land to use for farmers, offering protection for the denizens who elect to raise families in their steads. Giving them rights to find the means of work to live on, to provide for their families. How much more could I be involved, even the lords and nobles who serve under me are all offering their wealth to me. And I ensure the prosperity and happiness of many sects, be it the church, the merchants, the guards, and my citizens. In my years, I have kept a fair balance to preserve the health of this nation.

...And yet, my subjects suffer.

Years upon years of serving in petty conflicts, succumbing to cruel winters, and economic turmoil, my guards have started to dwindle, leaving me with very little option than to replenish the numbers with a method many citizens had originally felt was much fairer than most other alternatives.

Taxes are an unavoidable cost of running a country. Should you wish to keep it afloat, you must pay others to manage those situations and mitigate the potential losses to ensue. And as such, many citizens who were born on a land owned by nobles were obligated to pay their taxes for their protection and lands. If you tended to the land, a small percentage of the crops you raised was free for you to own. But with increasing demands for food and some nobles not willing to downsize their lives of luxury, that combined with cruel winters and infighting, it led to most of the food going to the nobles and the guards that served for them. That means there was very little for them to sell or trade. And as such, it left little to no gains from their hard work. Taxes would be due, and their inability to pay caused many to serve a life of terror in the dungeons, that or sent to labor within the deadly gem caves of Canterlot.

So when it was suggested to the families of farmers that their sons could be conscripted into the guard instead of their families being sent to work in the caves, it offered many of them solace. It was a way to work off their debts for a lifetime and the lands then became more impregnable with able-bodied colts trained to take on any force that endangered their lords and families. Serve for twenty years, which for many was long enough to acquire families of their own.

But there were significant drawbacks.

The plan in itself was only designated to the parents of the conscripted, so if one was to serve and complete their tenure, they'd fall back into their life of serfdom. And if you couldn't pay, the process repeats itself as long as sons were had. If you had nothing but daughters, then the dungeons would be the only option.

Some of the noble families who have a long history of service or affiliation with the guard had their sons conscripted to higher positions on top of obtaining higher education, leading to officers appointed by privilege. And some indecent officers had easily dismissed the young trainees to more dangerous assignments and perilous situations. This was especially true for corrupt nobles and aristocrats who also served in the parliament. Those that did would raise their taxes to an inconceivable amount and would force the sons away to serve for their lands while sometimes courting their sisters for a much more explicit purpose, and that only added fuel to the fire should some turn to become maids to the manor.

If their only son died as a result of incompetent leadership or tragic misfortune, the family would be given their helmets before being sent away. If the time was deemed too insignificant, then the family were to be sent to the caves to work. And over the past half century, the lower-class citizens realized their options all had bad written all over it. There was no staying past twenty years as it would then have them encroach on an officer's position, and the nobles refused to allow any longer years of conscription past that upon the law's authoring. Many didn't even live past five years of service, being sent to their deaths or rendered unable to serve.

However, there was one young farmhoof who proved himself to be too much for any opponent.

Fair Charity, who was then named Fair Share, was a young teenage conscript who simply outmaneuvered his opponents on the fields of battle. He was gifted with endurance that he even gave a few earth ponies their money's worth, and he was incredibly bright-minded. And when he approached his tenth year of service, one spoiled noble gave him an order to infiltrate a neighboring country's military camp, a textbook suicide mission. But thanks to his mental and physical abilities, he came out as a conqueror, while compromising several siege engines they seemingly developed for use against us. He grew to be the champion of the citizens from that point on, unable to truly be denied of his gift no matter what the nobles proclaimed.

His reputation would only grow as a battle ensued between the country who declared war on us as a result of our sending a spy to sabotage their weapons. Some of the more affluent nobles called for me to send him to the gallows for causing the war, but I knew there was little to no means to stop them from invading. So I denied their request while appeasing them by placing him as the spearhead of the front line, to which they already scoffed at because they felt he would die early on.

And to my amusement, he lived to speak of his experience. And he didn't just survive, he lead the front line on a counteroffensive that pommeled the enemy back into their camps to regroup for their next attack. The next day was more of the same. And the day after proved to be an embarrassment for the opposing forces. It intrigued me greatly, so I took to the field myself and saw him with my own eyes. Before the final charge of the enemy, I ignored my guards in lieu to see his combat abilities first and foremost. I even threw myself into the conflict for a morale boost, but he wouldn't even let me stand a single inch beside him, staying in front of me with each step I took. And anypony who dared to get close were so effortlessly cut down that I would only blink to see them fall before him like wheat in the months of harvest. His long mane was braided to minimize it's interference with his fighting, but he refused to cut it, citing that his mother called his mane the fairest thing about him. He also made a few jokes at the expense of his privileged superiors, citing that their inability to fight on the front line made them as suitable as expecting mothers themselves.

I couldn't deny myself, I was awfully curious about him from that moment on.

After that day, some of the nobles warmed up to him and called him a brilliant tactician and a strong protector. And when the others who were truly corrupt couldn't deny me, they begrudgingly fell back as I announced him to my personal guardian core, an elite group of four more mature stallions willing and able to lay their lives on the line for my safety.

He declined the offer, requesting instead that he'd be made an officer.

Shrieks of disapproval sounded from those officers who only gained their position out of privilege, but I was more amused by the hypothetical scenario of my appointing him to a position of power. And he had many of the traits that I preferred in my guards; Noble, fierce, intelligent, and honest. When I asked him of why he wanted the position, he proudly spoke.

"I want to be able to not only do what I am doing for my own family, but I want to be able to protect everypony in this kingdom. It's not fair that so many has to suffer because some greedy stallions want to abuse the system and use their power for their own gains! I loathe a future where my son has to fight a war because of our being forced to serve an unjust lord. Forgive me for being ambitious, but I want to change the world for the better."

Everything he spoke was far too similar of how I felt at the time. I couldn't deny his request, even if it meant that the nobles and aristocrats, who paid for their sons to sit in those seats they weren't even qualified to fill, threw a fit. So I went above them and decided in my mind that my answering to them would be worth it for just this once.

That day, I announced the first ever Captain of the Royal Guard.

~5 Years Later~

Time had passed since he avowed himself to my service, now being an officer of the guard. The many corrupted generals who inherited their position made many calls to disallow him to serve so close to me, quoting that the Royal Arms would service me just fine. However, he made the argument that the four who stood in those positions had started to show their age in many aspects of their lives, citing pain and impaired sight. And it wasn't as if I myself was ignorant to it, it was why I ultimately had to make a change for their sake as it was extremely difficult to replace them, not to mention they were just as stubborn to death as they were to retirement.

But what they didn't know was that I was paying close attention to Fair Share, even having some interest in him.

So when it was told to me that he had been gravely injured by a dragon found in the gem mines, I took it personally and ignored my guards once more for a more serious encounter. The pain I wanted to inflict was something great, so great that I knew others would only find themselves in my way by trying to protect me. And I was not going to risk their lives out of my showing indignation.

So when I had arrived to face off against the creature, he seemed extremely passive to me. I readied myself for a fight while he laid there in his cavern peacefully. As I was about to strike, he turned to me and spoke. "So you are the ruler of this realm?"

I took my halberd and announced loudly to him. "Yes. I am Princess Celestia, high ruler of this kingdom and owner of these caves to which you illegally appropriated."

"You're here to reclaim your caves?"

Feeling as if he wouldn't live to tell anything to any other, I instead told him the truth of my visit. "No. I have come to fight in place of my grievously injured Captain of the Royal Guard, who received his injuries on the part of battling with you."

"You fight for him?" He asked. "And not for the wealth of your caves?"

"I fight to redeem his honor, and to claim your life should he expire."

"Ah... vengeance." The dragon grumbled slowly before turning away from me again. "You ponies are all the same."

"Turn and meet your end, coward!" I screamed at him.

But he didn't turn around to ignore me, as I soon found out. He simply grabbed a large half eaten ruby and sat it down before me with a quiet grunt. He then turned to gem around to reveal the decaying corpse of what appeared to be a young filly stuck to it like glue. The smell it produced was truly grotesque as he spat back at me. "The funny thing is that your captain gave me these caves to run amok in."

I tried my best to brave the odor as I raised my halberd to him. "He would do no such thing, you monster."

"Who is the monster?" He then asked. "Am I the monster for simply feeding on these gems in between my naps, or are you the monster who would liberate a place to cause great pain to your own citizens? And all for what, vengeance of one who merely asked to be injured, to appear as if he fought me when all we did was strike a deal?"

My halberd inched lower as I started to become confused over what was told to me. "What?"

The dragon then explained. "Now initially we did fight, but he got the better of me by causing these crystals to fall on my head at every turn. Even now I have splitting headaches from what your captain inflicted upon me. So instead of taking my life, he gave me these caves to rummage through. He even gave me permission to destroy all the rails that hindered my advance. He even told me to destroy the ones I simply saw. And why, because he said that there were many who die here, enslaved to repay the debt to their corrupted lords. Those who died here would simply rot here, never to be recovered or shown the respect of a proper burial."

"He said these things?" I asked, starting to believe in his story.

"I did not believe him until just yesterday. The ruby you see before you was a delicious one, but I bit into it a bit too much without looking at what was on it. And now I can't get the taste of rotten pony flesh out of my mouth, no matter how hard I try to breathe my flames."

I walked up to the gem, observing the putrid corpse glued to it. "...I thought they were supposed to reclaim the dead. I had ordered them to do what they could to reclaim them." I eventually started to feel my anger focus from the dragon, instead directing it towards the nobles who felt it necessary to dismiss these issues as items of non-importance. I turned away from the small corpse. "Poor little one, to see your life so short and given no respect for your labor."

The dragon then asked. "So is your business still with me?"

I couldn't deny that his story was truth. It matched with Fair Share's personality all too well. So I took my weapon and left the caves condemned, citing the dragon being a threat far too critical to resume operations. Once I finished with that affair, I turned my attention to ensuring that my personal doctors and mages tended to my beloved captain. And as he was finished with his healing, I started to question him on the matter.

His response. "I didn't want it to get out that I let him have the caves. If it did, then I would be sent to kill him, and countless others will be sent to clean up after him. I cannot allow my fellow citizens to remain enslaved in some cavern where they die inglorious deaths. I want no part in keeping that system alive. If this opportunity came, then it is for a much higher purpose."

"And to what purpose, what would you seek?" I questioned him.

He smiled at me, still bearing through the pain as he spoke. "If they can't go to the caves to work, then they can serve in the guard. Even fathers who have no foal suitable of purpose may join to defend his kingdom. But not without knowing their own power."

I questioned him once more. "What power do you see them having?"

"Knowledge." He answered promptly. "I want to do something different with the system. Instead of having to send others to fight to their deaths while thinking that there was no purpose to their lives other than to bring glory to their lords, I seek to educate them in their service. They will learn to build, to read, to write, and to lead. I want to restructure everything where pointless bloodied skirmishes between nobles and aristocrats aren't waged on the whims of a petty squabble between cousins over a common maid or some romance of convenience. We shouldn't be sent out to die because two lords want to play chess with our lives. We're not as replaceable as wooden pawns, we take years to grow."

"And how would you do this?" I inquired, wanting to see more of what he had in mind.

"I would work until I can buy my own land. Then I would set up a camp there to train incoming guards in a myriad of things, like how to read, how to write, how to spell their own names, how to fight for what is right, and how practice restraint. I know that bloodshed isn't the answer to it all, but if I can just teach a few, then they can teach their children, and their children's children. Generations will pass until the powers of these corrupted nobles become all but void."

I started to laugh at him for how well thought-out his plan was, it almost seemed as if his leadership was beyond the battlefield. He was a bright mind who knew how to lead others, who had a passion for informing others of their power and changing the world around him. He was kind, ambitious, strong, and attractive. Too kind a soul to be a general, too tactical to be anything other than that. For a second, I envisioned a crown on his head and saw him standing by my side... just like him. At that moment, I had started to see shades of Sombra on him. And the only thing I could think about was how I wanted to keep him to myself without having him suffer through so much controversy.

I couldn't give him anything he wanted, he wouldn't be able to earn the money to buy the land sufficient enough to open a camp. It would take generations to accumulate that much wealth, and by then he would be lost to me. I felt saddened at that realization and something came from my mouth out of instinct. "You'd be a much better prince than you would be a farmer."

"I'm no prince. I'm far too dirty and uncouth to be something so heralded." He replied humbly with a chuckle.

The only problem was that he felt I was bluffing. But when it came to him, anything in my mind was possible. I wanted to see his dream come to life, and I wanted to give it all to him just to show me he could do it. I wanted to see his ambitions bear fruit, fruit I could see becoming an even brighter future for my kingdom in the centuries to come. He was the hope my citizens needed to have, and I couldn't let them suffer any longer. So I bypassed many clerics and nobles when I made my proclamation just seven days later. I ordered that he'd come to own two-hundred acres of land, become in possession of the entire royal treasury, and a crown to be worn on his head.

Fair Share, from that day on, I dubbed him Prince Fair Charity.

~10 Years Later~

I couldn't even begin to describe my peace of mind in seeing him serve beside me as my own prince. The first year kept him busy when it came to several other power struggles aimed for him, expectedly by nobles holding power in the parliament. Though it turned out that my giving him authority over much throughout the kingdom payed off in dividends.

But my decision to do so came at an ironic cost.

The eighth year of his rule, we both paid a visit to a lord who was assumed to be withholding surplus taxes he inflicted upon his own province. When we arrived in the village leading to the villa, we weren't greeted by throngs of citizens wishing us well or even misled denizens who believed we were there to collect more taxes on their income. Instead it was the smell that greeted us. The sick was laying among the side of the streets, dying. Some of the dead was already rotting, being carried over into mulch. The living were too afraid to step out in fear of being a victim to some speeding carriage. And those that weren't stood at stalls filled with rotting produce, some growing mold.

But when we reached the gates of the villa, it was as if we were moved from a war-struck village to an oasis of beautiful flowers and elegant fountains trimmed with silver and pearl. When we arrived, it was the maids that greeted us outside. When we had entered the manor, it was the servants who guided us. But when it came to the time of introductions, the noble gave two clops of his hooves before the quite villa became that of a spectacle devoid of a music number.

He had three maids serve us the entire time, and they turned out to be the best looking three in our presence. Fair Charity saw one that caught his eye, claiming her to be a sister of a fallen friend. He demanded to see her disrobe, which made the noble a little antsy, and it also made me a little livid as well as jealous. But it made her completely unravel. The moment she took off her dress, we saw cruel markings and lacerations across her body. She hid her face until Fair Charity called her by the name her brother had given her. By then, she had started crying, falling to the ground as she knew her dead brother had somehow sent for her.

And the looks on our faces had grown to pure hatred. Fair Charity spoke in my place, proclaiming her family's name cleared of debt and bought her freedom. As he did that, he also decreed that his withheld funds for the past ten years would be repaid with interest to the crown. It was also announced that his family's house was placed under restriction until further notice, which reverted the tax rate of his citizens to a more normalized state and made the demand that the stores of his home be emptied but for a week's worth of food for himself. Of all the goods that was reclaimed from his stores, it would then be rationed evenly among the villagers.

From there, we left the village with the girl riding next to us.

I couldn't help but feel saddened for her, sympathetic to her plight. How couldn't I, I knew what had happened to me in days long gone. So I opened the doors of my castle and offered her a place to stay until she could recover. In the months leading up from then, she was almost mute. But we would walk by one another each day until she could tell me how she felt.

Lazuli Spring was her name, Lapis was what her brother called her.

I fed her, gave her what I could, and then Fair Charity would sometimes take her to his camp to talk about her brother, to give her closure to her departed brother's story. It was only after a day was when she was brought back, telling me more stories about her brother's adventures along side Fair Charity. I had also started to share a few stories about Fair Charity myself, among other heroes I had gotten to know throughout my life. We continued to share stories for a while, exchanging thoughts, revealing hidden truths. We essentially became the best of friends.

But in the months that followed, her health began to blossom, her mane and coat had healed completely, and she soon found herself to being the envy of every stallion in Canterlot. But her eyes had only gone for one stallion in particular...

...And his eyes were on her as well.

Fair Charity, in taking care of her and teaching her how to read and write, started to fall madly in love with her. And it took almost a year for the two to declare themselves to one another. But while I had worn a mask around them, I started to hurt inside. Seeing them happy had made me terribly ill with envy and grief-stricken with melancholy. The world around me had gotten darker, the light I looked for had started to fade in front of my very eyes. And I was given nothing but heartbreak while their love flourished.

I felt like an outsider... that is until one cold, cloudy day.

The weeks leading up to their wedding, Lapis had shared with him one of the stories I had told her. When she wasn't talking at first, I had started to tell her a story of everything I had went through in times past, all the torture I endured, the things they did to me because I decided to fall in love. I didn't tell her everything that happened, but I told her enough to encourage her to open up to me more.

But for Fair Charity, it opened up a fresh wound that I wouldn't have the time to heal. Eventually, we walked into my room and he sat on the bed quietly, looking at me as I walked in whatever mundane direction I chose to wander. But I didn't care about the reason for being there, I wanted to have my moment with him.

I know, selfish of me, but I wanted that much.

It was perfect. I knew because of the law that confined us both, he had started to feel the recurring urges of lust, urges that would have to remain fiery until the night of his marriage. And if there was one distinctive trait that had to have been an overarching negative, it was his own libido. In the years leading to his rule, Fair Share would have his way with whatever mare offered herself, which his ascension had given him the option to bed many at once. And of course that bit of envy danced about in the back of my mind as I crowned him. It meant that he had ten years of pent-up energy and he was closing in on the day he could finally fall back into old habits. But there was one caveat.

The law didn't forbid any royals within the country from fornicating with one another, a blinding loophole that too few would ever come to know. Equestrian blood, Equestrian crown, Equestrian heir. By those unwritten rules, we were free to do as we pleased. But I was never one to make such a move on my own, I always waited for him to make the first one.

And he did.

I don't think there was a moment in well over several hundred lifetimes where I sat on my bed, panting as heavily as I did when his forelegs wrapped around me. I felt his body hunch over mine and his breath grazing my neck from behind me. And there I was, quietly moving my tail aside as I started to wait for the command to present myself to him. But instead of that, he urged me to take off my regalia, citing his desire to place aside our crowns for just a moment where we could feel like everyone else.

I should've known from the minute he held me down that I wasn't going to get the moment I cultivated for fifteen years.

He screamed at me, demanding why we all had to suffer, why I had to suffer for something like this, something that felt so natural. I couldn't give him an answer out of fear that if he did ask, I would be easily persuaded to tell him everything. But what I didn't know was the fact that one of my scrolls was hanging out of one of his saddle bags. Sitting on top of it was an old book with a swirling cutie mark surrounded by several stars.

If I had any lustful expectations before that moment, they were all quashed with the sound of his voice. "WHY!?"

I had little to say to him.

But he had more to say to me. "Why, why would you go through all of this and not tell anypony!? Why did you suffer in silence for so long!? Why, Celestia!? Why didn't you tell me?"

I calmly replied, trying my best to not cry. "I just thought you didn't need to know."

"That I didn't─" He hopped off of me and pointed to the book, screaming all the while. "I shouldn't have to go looking for this for me to know something about you! I thought you trusted me with your life, your kingdom, but obviously that's still a runabout way of saying that you don't trust me all too much."

"I do trust you." I tried to argue calmly. "I just didn't want you to pity me over something like this."

"Ten years, ten years I've been restricted from what's natural because of the opinions and envy of some long-deceased regime. But obviously that's just holding a candle to whoever lost something because of their own lust. Or worse, what you've lost as a result of their meddling!"

"I just said I didn't want you to pity me." I angrily replied. "What happened to me was a long time ago and I've completely let go of that."

"Have you honestly?" He asked, giving me no room to breathe. "Have you even thought about what it feels like to love someone and fear that a relationship with them is out of the question because of some unorthodox law that kept me from even showing a morsel of that to you!?"

I felt an unusual sensation running through my chest. It was incredibly bittersweet, to know that I was loved for some time, but overlooked for someone else because of a law they knew they couldn't break, fearing that either of us would get in trouble. In short, he was even protecting me from himself. I looked back at him as he just angrily stared at me.

"Ever since I served in your guard, I was told to never grow close to you. I was told that a commoner like me would find their entire family at the gallows for anything as small as a chuckle from you. But if I had known about this from the start, I would've been able to change everything much sooner!"

As much as my heart was beating, I still couldn't bear the thought of revealing my emotions to him so openly. So I put on a brave face and tried my best to play off my feelings. "Please stop. You of all ponies should know there are some things that never change. Your dream was something I wanted to see for myself fulfilled. Compared to you, my dream means nothing."

"And you honestly believe that in your heart?" He asked while pressing the issue. "Please tell me now, I want to know the Celestia I eagerly stepped in to defend, the princess I swore my life to, my best friend of fifteen years! Please tell me you're still the princess I used to love!"

Another tinge of bittersweet emotions twanged at my heart. What I felt earlier had intensified, so much that I had no other choice but to turn away from him and run to a nearby corner. The pride inside of me refused to allow him to see me cry, and I was damned if I let him see me wallowing in some ancient despair. "Used to love? So now you don't?"

"I swore myself to another, one whom I am to marry in the coming week, that I may have to put off for next month because I am not returning to Canterlot until I am ready to siege the city with a force so mighty that it levels the mountain. I am right there when it comes to fighting for you. Do you understand!?"

"Then why the hell are you even here!?" I screamed into the corner I stood, trying to hide the tears running off of my cheeks. "You don't love me, so leave me be and just be with your wife!"

I felt a hoof fall on my shoulders, followed by his head nuzzling against the side of my body. "Celeste, do you know why I do the things that I do? Because if I didn't, I would never do my mother justice. Her final words to me were to make a change in someone's life and that it would be for the better. The world is cruel and ugly, but there are times and ponies when the world isn't. And at it's worst, it's still the only one we know, foul and fair."

I couldn't even stand, I just fell to the ground and kept my head in the corner, refusing to let him see my tear-stained face. But he guided my head into his, leaning against me with his forehead, parts of his mane covering my foreleg as I tried to wipe my own tears. Instead, he wiped them for me while he spoke.

"There was a song my mother used to sing when she had gotten sick, she sang it to me when she was on her death bed. And now I think you need to hear the message behind it."

"Please, stop." I urged before he started to make me even more emotional.

It was the first time in centuries anyone had seen me give up all of my pride and become vulnerable before them. I couldn't bear the thought that he was seeing me so distraught. And it had come in the most brutal way possible, from the one that I let get away. I was so mad at myself then because I could've had him for myself, and I would've told him sooner what happened to me. I was already ready to give myself to him, to become a mare of his own claim. But this had to be the one thing I was the most embarrassed by.

I sat there for a while as he stroked my mane, cleaned my cheeks, stood by me in spite of my own pride willing me to shove him away. But he stayed for me, and it made me even sadder that I would never have my love for him reciprocated. Even the scar on my chest was revealed to him, and he nuzzled it, showing love and affection unto it.

And even after several minutes of my being with him, I learned nothing. "I don't need you to feel sorry for me." I said, trying to feign a pout.

"And yet you cry from that pain."

Admittedly, he was right. "It is long passed. I have healed my wounds!"

"Save the one that haunt you most."

"That is my failure, to provide protection for those closest to me." I whispered, thinking of what all I've lost over the past five centuries and then some. But seeing him laying against me had provided me with something other than a bittersweet sense of defeat. It filled me with quiet blossom, a budding flower called hope. "And you are closer to me than any other."

"Then let me find justice for you. Let 'someday' be tomorrow." He said, standing to his hooves.

I tried to follow beside him, pleading with him. "Not for my sake, please. Not this path."

He stopped and placed his hooves on my cheek, holding my head still as he spoke to me. "If I die on this path, then I will regret nothing. It is for me as much as it is for you. I want you to see your someday come. And if not in this life for me, then the next... and the ones to follow."

"Charles."

"Celeste. I swear to you that I will give you the freedom you deserve. It's what I owe you in place of the love I cannot give you."

I started to scoff, sniffling as I moved his forelegs away from me. "Then why even try?"

Without warning, he closed the distance between us, letting his lips touch mine for only a second. I stared, almost lost into him. We started to part, as he sang one last word.

Before he could leave the room, I locked the doors for a short while, just long enough to confess to him. "I shall dream of you. Even the little moment that we had, just the tiniest things, I will linger on for nights. And I may lose myself to the passion that will ensue, thinking about your return. But you better come back to me, somehow."

"I shall return, and with a legion far stronger than might itself. And I shall wage a skirmish in the name of justice against those who continue to hold over you. And when I win, you shall be free."

I unlocked the door, allowing him to leave me behind. He waved his goodbye and I stood in my room, quietly fantasizing about the second my lips felt his, of how I would've allowed him to linger on for much longer.

...But the years taught me to never want for myself. And life has a cruel way of showing that to me. Five days later, an envoy was accompanied by a servant who held an exquisite jar... And what was pulled from it was the cruelly torn remains of my hopes and dreams. It took but three seconds to process what was in the jar before me. And it took an hour for them to separate my grieving self from his severed head, to be passed on to his soon-to-have-been wife. The next day, she cast herself from the battlements of Canterlot onto the mountainside.

Life was far too much for me in those days.

I was never used to having anypony so close to me unlike those two were. It was as if I had a family again, but one that I could go the extra length for. Their deaths caused me to resign myself to the melancholy of my own immortality, or rather the lack of mortality I possibly have. There are ways for a being such as myself to die, but the process is strenuous. I found that out a few centuries ago. But even then, my life could not be so easily taken.

Believe me, I've tried.

The following fifteen years of my sole rule had become quiet. There was no pomp and circumstance. Many in those days had claimed that I had never once smiled. Those who died would die, and those who lived would only go on to greet death at their door. Every guard I saw who declared their fealty to me, I couldn't get close to because I knew it was here-today-gone-tomorrow for them. So why did it matter to me when and how they died? I didn't care for it anymore, I cried my tears and dreamed my dreams of being at the wedding that was to never come. Those rivers, the reservoir of my emotions had dried up in the months following their passing. Now, it was just me in a world of dying dreams.

The citizens, however, weren't happy in the slightest bit. Their champion being long gone and with the dragon answering a call from the Dragon Lord of the east, the operation of the gem caverns resumed. Nobles who realized the dangers of educating their citizens had placed multiple measures against their citizens from attending the military camp Fair Charity had installed. Instead, it was remade into a retention center for those who failed to pay their taxes. There they would be tortured or worked to death. And any of the remnants who were learning at the camp were suddenly reassigned to the caves, where they worked until they dropped dead from exhaustion. That only left behind the uneducated, the easily manipulated, the corruptible.

As for the instructors picked by Fair Charity, they were given a new purpose to educate the young noble lords and aristocrats that wanted to boost their family's name. But what was there to boost for them, other than seeking glory by marching hundreds more towards their deaths? It was almost as if Fair Charity's era of guardianship had completely eroded into nothing but the sands of time.

Back then, the guard had so much pride, so many young stallions who could fight, smarter tactics, higher morale, and the citizens who joined were made aware of their power. It was possibly the strongest military force Equestria birthed since the inception of the Wonderbolts. But very few could hold the mantle of being Captain of the Royal Guard, a position many aristocrats thought they could buy their way into. There was no one to replace him in my eyes, no one who I would allow to get close to me. So the position remained vacant for some time. And it didn't phase me that I didn't have anypony there. The guard could be disorganized, I was just that vacant to the world.

Those years truly felt as if I was going through the motions, sign this, go here, wave at the dying citizens, wander my garden, stare at my sister from afar, raise the sun, raise the moon, lay down with my head on the pillow while thinking about what I could've done differently to keep him here with me, come to terms that fate had no desire to see me happy, tire myself to sleep, wake up, eat, and the process repeats itself.

But then came one day when I had arrived to another training camp, but this one was established by the parliament, a crude leap downward from the grand vision Fair Charity once had. The place was almost a cruel parody of what he wanted to do, what he wanted to provide for Equestria. It was abhorrently disgusting, to see the very few new faces shoved into the ground like they were third-class citizens. Walking by one of the barracks, I could even see one younger unicorn colt being forced upon by his superior, of noble blood of course.

I didn't say anything, but I did find myself watching with a close eye. When he finished, he was shoved aside and mocked for being too poor to reproduce, citing that it was better for him to serve the guard in this manner. Abuses like these were common, and it was often accepted in many social circles of the higher tiers of wealth. As long as they couldn't sire any illegitimate foals, then it was acceptable.

I watched the poor colt pick himself up and redress himself back in his training armor, crying as he did but moving without a single whimper. He walked away, leaving a small trail of the stallion's seed behind before walking back to the barracks. I quietly trailed him, looking for the very same barracks he left to. When I had arrived, they were giving a lecture to the younger recruits on how to hold a spear. When the young one arrived after cleaning himself, he was openly chastised for being late, and was subject to twenty lashes on his back before he could continue.

When I was finally announced to the class, the young colts all watched me walk by with a scowl on my face, they cowered in fear that I would show the same hospitality provided to them by their blue-blood superiors. The noble brats, however, they did their usual kissing up and praising me in every conceivable way. But the one I kept my eyes on was the one they had mistreated since I arrived.

I glanced back to the practice dummies they had and saw many thrust holes in them before turning my attention back to the young colt. They also noticed my attention had been brought to him and felt as if that he was looking back at me. So the one that sodomized him came forward again, standing in front of me holding a spear in his hooves, claiming that he would destroy him if he ever showed disrespect to me ever again.

But I saw it in his eyes, he just wanted to inflict whatever cruelty he had in mind, and he didn't care who would be his next victim. He was hungry for blood, eagerly wanting to drive his spear into that boy, more so than he already impaled him earlier. But the young colt, he was just doing what he had to do to make it to the next day. He more than followed his orders, they just picked on him because they could. I then intervened, citing that there needed to be training taking place. So I asked them to run a few drills.

I could tell that fifteen years made a monumental difference in the training methods applied. In the years following his death, Fair Charity made sure that each spear hit a vital spot, to make sure that it was clean and efficient. But now it was like watching them fling spears into straw dolls like novices. And some of the recruits there were teens. There was no uniformity, no discipline, just shove the pointed end into the thing you're looking at.

For the first time in years... centuries... my entire life, I started to feel... curious.

I wasn't satisfied with the effort that was displayed in front of me. So I called out three colts, one of them being the one I looked at for some time. I had lined up two dummies in front to be used as I ordered the other two to make their charge into their dummies. One hit where a vital would be, the other hit where a wing would've been.

Before the young colt I singled out could make his run, I halted him and openly corrected his posture. "Your spear is too far forward, you've maximized your reach but have no follow through. If parried, you'll lose your weapon, and that's your life. Instead of holding it out so far, bring it in closer to your body. So when you run, you don't lose control of where your spear is thrusting into." As I instructed the colt, I also guided him with my hooves, nudging his spear into a proper position. "The tip should be centered to your eye, not leaning out or diagonal, this will teach you controlled accuracy."

The teenage noble grimaced at my closeness with the boy and feigned his praise with a smile. "Your majesty, you impart much wisdom to us today. I ask that you would relax yourself as opposed to teaching somepony slow to learning. He's mentally retarded, incapable of being used on the fields of battle."

My curiosity started to grow.

I looked to the young colt and saw him about to run for the dummy again, quietly awaiting my orders. So I gave him one. "About face." He turned around and faced his peers. I followed suit and turned around myself before giving my next order. "Right face." He was immediately facing the teenage colt who threw himself on him earlier. I then called out. "Ready your mark!"

I heard a grunt from behind me, no doubt the teenage blue blood. He screamed at the colt. "Hey, watch it, you're pointing that thing at─"

I'm sure by then he found out when he looked down that there was magic holding his hooves in place. There was no running for him.

"Hey... Hey this isn't funny!" He screamed out, trying his best to break out of the magic that sealed his position. "Stop it, I'm not the stupid dummy!"

"CHARGE!" I ordered loudly.

A youthful roar erupted as I heard the teenage stallion screaming for his life. But in an instant, I heard both of their voices falling silent while the others started to scream for assistance. I turned around and looked at the colt's face. And right then, my curiosity was satiated.

The young boy had peered over the dead stallion, with a disconnected smile on his face, completely aware of what he did and how much he hurt the one that hurt him. I could already see how elated he was, his method of mourning was simply shoving the spear in and out of his body, returning the favor for the earlier offense. He didn't stop either, he had to be bashed against the head by the friends of the fallen blue blood. The other higher ranks grabbed him and escorted him away to be detained until trial had commenced for the young boy. But for me, it was like watching a young foal experience the greatest satisfaction in his young life.

...I started to get curious again. But now for a different purpose.

~1 Month Later~

I never did understand why there was so much fanfare for a public execution. It felt like the one thing that made sense to me was that there would be some members of both families in attendance, each trying to vouch for why the condemned should either live or die. But for the masses, it was something interesting because of the case being presented. Here was a young colt sentenced to hang, accused of killing a member of a noble family, the first-born heir to the lord of a nearby province no less.

The crowd was jeering, but not just for the execution to take place. They were jeering because they felt that justice was already done. But as predictable as it usually is, the family of the noble paid off the witnesses to say that he was murdered in cold blood. For many, it was an easy way to gain themselves twenty bits for their troubles, especially since it was true.

The boy did commit murder, that's no question. But the motive for the killing had only one witness who would not come forth, me. But I didn't come forth for a reason, I didn't need to do so for the time being, especially when all I have to do is halt the execution and pardon his crime. After all, I did have a hoof in the death of that noble brat. But my reasoning was to lure out the family of the deceased, namely the father.

Years ago, he paid off two guards in Fair Charity's escort, who were already close friends of another member in parliament, and had them direct large beasts to intercept their unit and obliterate the accompanying regiment. It came with resounding success.

Miraculous fortune that I would help take the life of his heir.

But now that his family was here, I could see the bastard who plotted the demise of Fair Charity with my own eyes. Yes... I lusted for blood. All of it. I wanted to see my hooves stained with crimson instead of the mundane and uncomfortable golden slippers I wear.

I wanted to finish what he could not.

So when the noble stepped forward, claiming vengeance in the name of his dead son, he pointed to the executioner and signaled for the rope to drop. But unfortunately for him, the rope had been cut. As predicted, I halted the execution myself, feigning that I would take his life instead.

I remember how I felt when I had walked forward with my halberd in my possession. I was... genuinely curious, but nervous. I had never committed a public execution before, so this would be my first in that regard.

"Surely seeing a body struggle to breathe isn't the grand vengeance you seek, is it?" I asked him.

The stallion gawked at me as he saw me holding the halberd in my possession, it's blade lodged in the wood where the rope once swayed. The young colt breathing heavily with relief as his life would continue for a while longer. "Your majesty, he is a murderer! I cannot allow him to live!"

"But surely you'd rather a more fitting spectacle. A bloodless death for a bloodied one doesn't seem very just. If your son's blood was spilled, then why simply give him the common criminal treatment? I would like to think that you'd be more enthusiastic about my willingness to rent my blade for a more fitting method? Perhaps you would prefer that a criminal's head be on display for the others to know their place?"

It was a method pulled straight from the grave of the stallion I loved. I'd walk him into a more comfortable position, I'd point him towards the bed, he'd get excited, I'd undress him for the big moment, and I'd drive the dagger where it hurts him most. And just like me, he fell for it. His criticism soon fell to excitement as he made a request. "Why your majesty, why haven't you presented this idea earlier!? I would've easily allowed the executioner to lop off his head! The message that would send would be substantial! If you would, would you allow me the honors of seeing to his end myself?"

I placed the halberd on the stage, and invited him to pick it up. As he walked around, he quickly discovered it's weight was not ideal for his physical capabilities. I took moment to magically lock his hind legs in place. And with resounding success, the stallion didn't even notice his being unable to move from that spot. The short little exhibition of him wearing himself out trying to grab my halberd made him too weak to resist. He started to laugh nervously as the citizens proceeded to boo him over his inability to pick up my weapon. He then conceded defeat.

"Well... I suppose that this is a matter that only you can rectify, your highness."

I nodded slowly. "Indeed, I wouldn't have expected you to get this thing to budge in the beginning. After all, I did configure it's weight to crush armor and bone alike. It's much easier to use in battle as opposed to the traditional sword or spear. Though the blade is beautiful, would you like to see the details up close?" I inched the blade of the ax head towards his face, showing the runes that lined the outside edges before the blade's narrowing.

The stallion nervously chuckled yet again. "I see. It's a very beautiful blade. It is only a shame that it's majesty is soon to be tainted by the blood of a murderer."

Most befitting words I've heard in years. "I agree. It is shameful that I would use it in such a manner." I said before hiking the blade underneath his chin. The stallion froze, just then realizing that he couldn't move from where I had him locked to. "You're so right, it's nothing short of a disgrace."

I watched as the stallion squirmed in my magic, his neck brushing against the sharpened enchanted blade. His eyes darting every direction for salvation while I leaned in closer. He began to plead with me. "Your majesty, the blade is on my throat."

"I know. But you want to know something else? There's always this look a pony has when they've done something terrible to someone and just moments later, they get their comeuppance. It goes without saying your son had that same look of desperation on his face when he died. It's almost funny, you're wearing that same exact face. So is there any reason why you'd wear that face right now?" I quietly whispered to him the proverbial nail in his coffin. "I suppose it wouldn't have anything to do with the ambush you set up for Fair Charity, now is it?"

Before he could reply, I sliced into his trachea, disabling him from speaking loudly. Instead, I heard the blood gargling from his throat, combined with his frantic breathing through the new hole he had to breathe through. It was interesting seeing him hiss so panicked-like. And my blade was firmly lodged in his windpipe, disallowing him some much desired air.

"But in order to save your own life, you'd be more than willing to do whatever it takes to satisfy me, wouldn't you?"

I knew that with each nod he made at that moment to confirm my question, he suffered not only pain but also risked drowning himself if he moved too erratically.

"So you'd give me anything I ask for? Anything I'd want out of you? Even your first-born son, you'd give me those to make me happy right now, correct?"

He nodded a bit faster, confirming my statement.

I leaned in to whisper in his ear. "I want my lover back. Can you get that for me, can you get my beloved Fair Charity back for me?"

A small gargle was all he gave me.

"Then why do I even bother?"

I tapped my hoof against the pole of blade and then pushed. As simple as that movement was, I watched as his head tumbled to the ground with as little noise as a whisper. Instead of hearing the crowd, who was stunned to silence, I heard the sound of his wife screaming as I took his head from his shoulders. I grew... quiet with the feeling of knowing my vengeance had been complete.

But then it was replaced with emptiness, I asked myself saying 'surely this wasn't all there was' before I felt a gush of blood stain my face and chest, it's warmth splattering around me, pooling around my hooves. The headless body still stood because I still used my magic to hold it there. But when I had looked down, I saw the eyes of the noble frantically glancing around, rapidly blinking before looking up to see me. He couldn't move much on his face, but the despair in his eyes was more than enough to verify what I had felt.

I just laughed. Louder and louder until I had nothing else to send out but tears of satisfaction. To think that vengeance would be so empty, yet so full of warmth. I never thought that taking someone's life would be so terrifying but liberating. It almost made everything that happened to me seem to be a minor consequence. But all I had to do was set aside my own morals and just dive in. It was taboo, it was so frowned against, it was so wrong... and yet I couldn't feel any more right. He deserved death, so I gave it to him. How much more just could that possibly be?

Luna... I'm beginning to believe you were on to something when you came for me that day.

"Ponies of Equestria, my humble citizens!" I said with the largest blood-stained smile on my face, experiencing damn near orgasmic bliss. "Thine princess has arrived."

The wife trembled as she held her son, covering his eyes as she tried to stifle her wailing. The crowd didn't know what to say, it just appeared that their princess had gone from not smiling for well over a decade to suddenly smiling with blood all over her. But I didn't care, I was riding the high that was my first kill in the name of vengeance.

So I finally explained myself. "My humble citizens, your princess hears your cries! Your calls for justice in a land ruled and owned by greedy lords and selfish aristocrats! Nobles who seek to take advantage of you by leaving you in squalor, forcing themselves upon you when you are at your weakest. Taking from you when you have very little and leaving you with nothing, then requesting that you give them more in exchange for your suffering! I know your plight too well! I've once known a stallion who suffered these things, and rose above them to challenge the ones who oppressed him. And this one who I've claimed is the MURDERER of Prince Fair Charity!"

The crowd started to erupt with bitter anger towards the dead stallion, who's head I picked up and tossed to the raging crowd. As his head rolled on the ground, they began to cheer openly, to the dismay of his family.

I pointed out in the crowd, the first one being his wife. "Her." Then his brother. "Him." And his sister. "Her." His nephew. "Him." His uncle. "Him." And finally his young son. "Him. Those are the ones who carry his blood, do with them what you will, citizens! Make this your declaration against those who live lavishly off of your backs!"

As the crowd started to go after the ones I pointed out, the brother of the dead noble called against me. "Madness, you insinuate madness!"

Those were the last words I heard him say before the crowd swallowed him whole, wielding an assortment of tools and blades. As I watched their entire family being slaughtered, I started to sing to myself with a large smile on my face. Slowly as I watched their heads become raised on sharpened pikes.

Current Day...
***Point of Perspective: NONDIS***

My arms were already sore enough from dealing with Celestia's magic, but having to brush her mane and tail made my shoulders ache like I had been lifting weights at the gym for a good two hours. The only difference was that I was brushing her mane and tail all night long while she told me her story. Even now, the hour of daylight approaches. I came in here hoping that I could somehow convince the princess to join us...

Now I had a feeling that she had already considered it.

"So what happened then?" I asked.

"Well, we pretty much had a bit of a civil war. I was leading the forces of the citizens while the parliament lead the forces known to be the Equestrian Coalition. Houses became divided, brothers warred against one another, and many stallions lost their lives... especially when I myself was their opponent."

"So is that why there was the great shortage of stallions here in Equestria?" I asked.

"Precisely. The families who were losing brothers and sons left and right started to take preference to having girls, as there were several codes forbidding mares from entering the battlefield. It was a war that took fourteen years to draw to a stalemate."

"Running out of resources?" I questioned.

"No. Running out of stallions. Nobles who assigned themselves to fight, the ones who actually found it within themselves to meet me on the fields of battle, they too suffered great losses. And there were too few of them to keep going. It had gotten so bad that young colts as early as twelve were forced to marry and sire foals before being sent off to train. And it was needless to say that they had envisioned glory for themselves. So they found their way to the front lines..."

"Only to get themselves killed." I concluded.

"In my name, no less." She replied somberly. "Mares did not view me favorably in those times, seeing that I had taken away from them so much more than what they were willing to give, all for my own vengeance, for my own campaign to free myself. So when the guard almost collapsed in on itself, I had to make a dire choice, we all did. So we stopped for the sake of peace, to keep our kingdom strong... relatively speaking."

"But how do you do that when mare's aren't allowed in the guard and with the stallion shortage?" I asked. "Wouldn't that make Equestria easy to conquer?"

"We simply allowed mares in the guard following the Great Armistice Treaty of 532 C.D.V.. From then on, the guard camps had finally started to implement the very method Fair Chairty had insisted upon from the beginning. Taxes had become significantly less. And there was an emergency breeding clause that had to be implemented, it was mandatory that each colt would assign themselves no less than five mares to breed, that lasted for a decade."

I have to admit, that would've been a favorable time to be a guy still living in this world. "So you lost the war on the account of a stalemate. So they kept Processu Approbatio in spite of all of that?"

"There were more pressing issues to address, such as the continuation of family lines, allocation of goods, tool making. The country had to put a lot of focus on rebuilding itself. I had to set it aside until things were back on track. Even now, the shortages of stallions for some mares are a recurring issue. It's just in our code to breed more fillies than it is to breed colts now."

I pulled out my phone, seeing that the battery had been close to dying. It was well past five in the morning. And being that my shift was slated for a few hours from now, there was no way I'd get any rest today. "So long story short, you tried to war your way through, it didn't work as planned."

"Which is why I try not to resort to violence or talks of revolution. I know the cost of it all too well. And that's why I felt that I had to release you, because I feared you would've walked the path Fair Charity once did. And knowing my luck, that means that I would lose you somehow."

"And you didn't want that to happen?"

"Well I've gone through most of my life losing as opposed to gaining. I've lost friends, family, lovers, students, guards, anything you could possibly imagine. At this point, I just don't want to risk it because there's been so much cultivated from all of this."

"And you don't think you're strong enough to keep going after it all goes away." I guessed.

Celestia looked at the sky and realized it was time to bring the sun back into the sky. She walked towards her balcony and waited for the moon to fall before she did her usual handiwork. The moon slowly crept out of the sky as Celestia stared out to the kingdom she ruled. "Everything my light embraces, it's all my responsibility, but at times I would trade it all just to be able to have what I couldn't. A huge royal family to embrace me, a beautiful best friend to remember, a great figure to train my guards and a leader to lead in tough times, a husband to hold me, my being a mother, my sister standing by me for a thousand years, my own mother guiding me every step of the way."

"But think of what you have now." I argued.

"I do." She promptly replied. "I have an appointed troublesome nephew, an appointed niece who will have her own family, a good guard watching over her, a really great student who turned out to be an even better friend and a much better leader than I ever would be. I found my successors, I found my friends, and I even have my sister back. But can't I have everything, both past and present?"

"You can't have everything. Hell, I want my grandparents back. I want the simple life of living happily, but I can't do that because I am who I am because of their not being here. And I know what a world of what-if's look like if even the tiniest thing changes. If all the bad has to go away, then so would the good."

"So are you saying that you'd prefer to suffer?" She asked.

I walked up to her and took a moment to breathe as I thought of what to say next. But instead of saying anything first, I just acted and placed my forehead against the princess' own. She grew completely surprised and even a bit annoyed with my sudden intrusion of her personal space. But doing that gave me something to say. "...Can I borrow some of your energy? I kinda need the hardheadedness you got for the next few weeks. Things are gonna get pretty hard for me."

The princess seemed flustered at the idea of my calling her hardheaded. "And what exactly are you insinuating!? Are you saying that I don't listen!?"

"I'm saying I need your toughness, Celly. I can't go through what you did, but you do inspire me to keep at it no matter how hard it may be. Yeah, I might feel like I want to watch the world burn for a while or that I wouldn't care if it did, but even finding some way of coming back to who you are from all of that, even your most... curious moments. You still found a way to come back and hit hard on everything you do and know." I then smiled in her face. "What I'm trying to say is that I need all of what you've got. The temperance, the tranquil anger, the bouts of apathy, the well of empathy, all that. Your energy is what's gonna keep me going."

The princess grimaced for a second before using her magic to lift my head away from hers. "Motivate yourself, try starting there."

"I'd rather your energy." I answered back. "Thousand years of 'I've made it through' would be a great testimony to live by. I fucking love it, you're way more hardcore than me."

Celestia walked towards her room, starting to put back on her regalia, covering her scars. She looked to the jewel in her chest plate before asking. "How much do you know about me?"

"Not enough to know you." I replied.

"Good." She said before turning back to me, almost with a sad look on her face. "It's better to be that way than to be close."

"So you think bad things will happen if we get close?" I asked. "I thought you wanted us to be friends."

The princess giggled at my statement. "Oh, well lets keep our friendship... Nondie."

I had a genuine buck-back moment, questioning whether or not she had actually given me a nickname. I turned around and started pointing my thumbs behind me before she walked up to me, tilting her head at me curiously.

"Yes, you. I'm calling you that whenever it's just us two."

I shook my head quickly before speaking. "Now to clarify, you said that you were off the menu, right?"

"Oh no, I want no part in that. I have my reasons and you know them well. Besides who needs romances, that love stuff is for the birds." She answered with a warm smile.

I started to smile back at her before the pain in my shoulders distracted me. I grunted at the aching sensation before turning around to leave the room. "Well, I'm gonna leave you to your morning rituals. Maybe sometime later, you'll join with us for breakfast. Maybe even talk to us if you feel like it, take your time."

The alabaster princess held the door open as I was about to leave. "What about you, you should be able to get in a small nap before your shift starts."

"I usually wake up at around this time. I go on my morning runs before I hop in the shower and see you guys."

She hummed quietly. "Well be sure to wrap up, Nondis. It's cold out today, there's ice on the roads so be careful."

"Sure thing, Celly..." I said before I paused for a moment and asked back. "Hey uh, Celly rolls off my tongue a little better. Is that okay with you."

"As long as it doesn't come with the 'Big Momma' tag that Melanie often uses, it would be awkward coming from you."

"Got it. Well... good morning to you."

As the door closed behind me, Celestia turned around to see that the moon had completely vanished from the sky. Her eyes lingered downward as she whispered to herself.

"...In this life or the next... You really meant that, didn't you?"

A few hours later, I slowly trudged my way into the dining hall, feeling every bit of fatigue from my not sleeping in. Blueblood and Cadance were the first to notice. Shining had started talking with his sister, who was still enveloped with thoughts of yesterday. Blueblood's wives were all conversing with one another when I had walked in. To my surprise, all my human friends and family were sitting at the table. It seemed as if they had slept overnight instead of going back home.

Mel pointed out my appearance. "Holy hell, you look like a damn zombie."

"The horde has arrived, don't mind me." I called back out tiredly.

Alex shook his head with disbelief. "What the hell were you doing all night, packing your bags?"

"Writing your letters of farewell?" Stanton added.

"Couldn't sleep after the story?" Mel asked. "I still had to process a lot of that before I had a few nightmares of my own. Too bad Luna couldn't come and rescue me on that one like she does with you."

"I had my own demons to fight against. I apologize if my performance was lacking." Luna replied with a yawn. "I just thought about Tia all night."

"We all were." Cadance said quietly.

"And what about you guys?" I asked the group of humans. "Don't you all have other things to do as opposed to spending a night over here?"

"We really started talking about you for a while." Rickey announced.

"I don't know how you're gonna do it, man. A thousand years and ol' girl still trying to bury her demons like that. That's gon' be some hard-ass change." Cliff said with a shrug while scratching between his dreads with a rat-tail comb.

"Needless to say she's not gonna talk about it." Shining interjected. "I can't imagine she would."

"Do you blame her?" Twilight asked, still seeming overwhelmed. "Stuff like this is a personal pain, I don't even know if we should've opened that book to begin with. And that's coming from me.

I looked around to see not a single servant in the room. I still smelled food being cooked, but I didn't hear any voices at all coming from the kitchen next door. Vanity Fair, however, scoffed over her growing hunger. "Well either way, we can't do much of anything on an empty stomach. Blueblood, won't you call for something?"

The blond mane prince looked at me. "So, any ideas from the human world you might want to share with the class? The last suggestion was a treat and then some."

"I'm already having relapses." Shining added a second before the sound of his stomach growling sounded throughout the room. "That place you guys took us to, they wouldn't happen to deliver, would they?"

"Not at this time of the morning." Stanton answered. "Maybe we can head over to waffle house?"

"I feel an All-Star platter in my spirit!" Cliff announced while shaking his right hand in the air. "♪Yeee-Loooord♪!

"Ah, hashbrowns." I moaned greedily.

"♪Texas toast!♪" Cliff started to preach. "♪Scrambled eeeeeggs!♪"

"With cheese on top!" Stanton said before he jumped out of his seat! "That's a breakthrough right there!"

"No." Melanie interrupted. "...Big Momma Celly's pancakes."

Cliff started dancing as soon as she said it, stopping himself before he really started to make a fool of himself. "Okay, now we ain't havin' church in here!"

Shining rubbed his chin as he watched our reactions. "You know, I heard she was a good cook, but I never had Celestia's pancakes before."

Cadance groaned while rolling her eyes. "Shining, if you never had them, then you should ask her to oblige you just once."

"Mana from heaven." Blueblood mumbled.

While everyone in the room had already shifted their thoughts to food, Twilight's was still on her former mentor. "...I wonder how she's doing."

Everyone had grown incredibly quiet, the entire room shifted to the silence that once filled it less than twenty-four hours ago. I looked around and saw the smiles that briefly showed on their faces wiped clean away. I started to announce. "Well, she's fine. She's pretty damn strong, I give her that."

Twilight then turned to me. "And what about you? Last I remember Luna saying, her firing you was supposedly a 'suggestion', are you sure that wasn't a full-fledged decree? What if she already took the time to write your walking papers? You get kicked out the guard, and then what's your plan for the future? Do you just go back to your world?" Shining tried to reach out for his sister before she asked me quietly. "Do I ever see you again?"

Everyone in the room looked towards the door, seeing Celestia coming from the kitchen with at least ten plates stacked with pancakes. Her mane shimmered brighter than I've ever seen it, her smile as warm as it ever was, her eyes brimming with life as she walked by everyone, laying plates in front of them.

"Wow... you're practically glowing this morning." Cadance said to the high princess.

"If my mane and tail looks good, then you have your Captain to thank." She said pointing a free hoof to me. "He stayed up all night just brushing away at me. I never figured him to be a good royal groomer, but here we are!"

"You... grooming Celestia?" Twilight questioned with a quirked eyebrow.

"It was punishment for sitting on her bed without permission." I said, rubbing my still aching shoulders.

"Sitting on her bed?" Shining asked.

"I was telling him a little story of a prince I once knew and his ambitions for the future. And thanks to him brushing me for so long, I just kinda rambled on for a while. I haven't have a conversation like that in ages, it felt really good to wear some ears down every once in a while, thought I urged him to sleep in for a bit before reporting in."

"As you can tell, nothing's changed. I'm still a guard..." I said before a thought came to mind about Fair Charity. "...You know I forgot to ask, who succeeded him after that."

"After who?" Celestia inquired.

"Fair Charity, I mean."

The white alicorn sighed as she started to think aloud. "Well, some years after the conflict, I installed that one little colt that I saved. He went on to be a great guard, finishing off where Fair Charity didn't get a chance to in educating the masses."

"What happened with him?" Shining asked. "Not often I get to hear about the unwritten histories of the guard."

The princess smirked as she looked to the sky. "Well, I do know he became quite the herder... and a bit of a troublemaker at that. But he did go on to delve into the areas of the citizenry I couldn't hope to reach. You should know him... He's often the most antagonistic of us."

I flinched for half a second before placing my hands on my waist and slowly turning to a certain alabaster stallion. "Really?"

"As I said, I prefer not getting my hooves dirty."

Cadance blinked, completely caught off guard by what was revealed to everyone in the room. "Well either way, there's still a lot we need to discuss."

Luna approached her sister from behind. "Tia... why didn't you say anything to me?"

Celestia appeared to become saddened, not looking her sibling in the eye. "I just didn't want you to stay angry with everypony. I didn't want you to commit the same mistakes I did. I know you, you're just like me when I was younger, liberal, free-minded, open to exploring new avenues, and willing to love without consequence. But I also know what you felt then, a sense of self-liberation. But I went about it the wrong way, and it threatened the entire kingdom. I didn't want you knowing because I felt you would've torn the city apart trying to prove a point. And I know that Nightmare Moon was still fresh on your psyche, I couldn't risk you knowing."

"But you lied to me, Tia." Luna explained. "You told me nothing when you already gave your trust to me. You said that we would never hold anything from each other since I returned. And now you hold one of the biggest secrets of your life from me, what happened with you since my disappearance. I can't say that I'm very happy in knowing what happened... none of us are."

Celestia looked around and saw all of us looking back at her. Her ears folded back as she turned to the ground, scraping her hoof against the ground shyly. "So... all of you know?"

Twilight held back her tears as she whispered to her former mentor. "Celestia..."

The high princess smiled as she quietly held at her chest. She looked at her student for a moment before noticing me behind her. She stared at me for a while before she found herself losing balance for the fraction of a second. She looked at the golden chest plate and frowned. She lowered her head as her horn ignited, her golden aura surrounding the sides of the most prominent piece of her regalia. Removing it as if it was a heavy burden, she laid the heavy chunk of metal down to her hooves and turned her head, letting her mane reveal the T-shaped scar on her chest.

Everyone in the room gasped as she whispered among herself. "In this life or the next... You promised me that."

With determination, she stepped on the top of her chestplate, overcoming the insecurity and fears she once hid behind. With newfound confidence she stood proudly. With gusto she announced to the room.

"I am signing the bill they gave us. Equestria cannot afford a day off from our guard while they watch us bicker over red tape politics. As for what ensues after that, my faith shall remained unmoved. Someday will come. We are older, we've learned, and we are wiser in doing so. We do not have our armies, nor will we need them. This shall be a quiet affair, and none will know of it until the time comes."

She looked to her niece and announced.

"Mi Amore Cadenza, be the mother I could not."

She glanced to her appointed nephew.

"Blueblood, you keep your quiet edge as you once have."

She brought her attention to her former student.

"Twilight, you know your purpose in regards to our country's future, continue to serve it well."

And finally she looked to me.

Okay, this one was a long one to trudge through. But to be honest, I was actually sitting on this one particular plot progression for a while. I just never got to the point where I could release it because there was no proper context as to why it had to be introduced until now.

So yeah, this is pretty much the excavation chapter on Celestia, which is why it happens to be a bit longer than most others. I wanted to address the issues of her past and explain why she felt the need to be so conservative. I'm only hoping that I gave an adequate amount of foreshadowing leading up to this reveal, as it did take me 2 years to finally script out past the Notepad phase. But of course, I wanted this bit of information to be saved up until it was needed. But I hope that it provides some character reasoning towards why Celestia is the way that she is when it came to certain things.

But alas, feeling more confident in herself around her friends and royal family, she can confide in their abilities to carry on as if nothing happened while shedding the weight she carried for the thousand years her sister had been banished.

Cadance and Shining had been stirring on some issues since the night of her finding out about her pregnancy. As the situation unfolded in the previous chapter, one would expect it to come to a boiling over where she would dream of the hypothetical of ending her marriage for his sake, taking the cue from her sister-in-law. However, dealing with the literal hypotheticals, it had to be Twilight that coerced her to reconsider, especially since she was exposed to the other realities Equestria had to offer when her friends had their destinies altered.

But Nondis, as explained in this chapter, had to be the one to sit Celestia down and reason with her on why she felt like she had to push aside the idea of his angry rhetoric at the beginning of the chapter. He also explains his own drive as to why he makes certain decisions and how he often frustrates himself with his own drive.

Other than what I've told you, I pray that the chapter was somewhat revealing and I do apologize if the chapter itself is a bit lengthy, I just didn't want to break things off on such a sour note, especially since this chapter in particular was rather dark, even for my own tastes. But I am going to have another chapter similar to this format in the future... pertaining to someone else.

But I hope you all stick with me on the remainder of this journey.
Happy Holidays. I hope we all make it into the new year together.