The sun streamed down through the window to fall full and bright upon Celestia’s morning table, The brilliant illumination made the white tablecloth almost incandescent and a source of light in of itself. Day Court was still some hours away and this was the time of day that Celestia usually had to herself. Late enough that Luna had settled into a well deserved sleep but yet early enough that the day's issues had not risen up to the point where they had to be dealt with.

The Princess of the Sun raised a teacup to her lips intending to take a sip, only to stop and sigh as the movement allowed her to see the reminder of a subject that had lain heavily on her heart these past months. Two days after the fight at Twilight’s castle a length of gleaming steel chain had entered into Celestia’s life, and her unwilling mastery of both it and the mare locked to the steel's far end weighed heavily on her heart.

She hadn’t wanted to take possession of that chain or the mare bound to it, but the bonds of honor, duty, responsibility and friendship bound her just as tightly as that pony was. Celestia’s magenta eyes followed that gleaming length as it passed from light into darkness, past a pair of bowls filled with clean water and fresh food, to where it was attached to a close fitting silver collar.

Celestia’s eyes met those of the leashed mare as she rested in her locked cage and the princess found herself getting to her hooves to check on her dearest possession, only to be stopped by a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” Celestia asked.

“Princess Mi Amore Cadenza of the Crystal Empire is here to see you, Princess Celestia,” came the voice of Trixie.

“Show her in please, Dame Trixie,” Celestia called back, keeping her words formal.

A moment later the symbiote clad form of Trixie Lulamoon appeared, the light blue parts of her head and neck contrasting with the glossy form of her symbiote and its glowing lines of power. Trixie bore the Zodiac sword at her side and embossed into the dark latex covering her chest was a representation of Twilight’s cutie mark.

Behind her stood the tall form of Mi Amore Cadanza, Princess Cadance. She too wore one of the living latex magitech entities, but where Trixie’s was an all covering sheathe over her body, Cadance’s had been made to form into a series of wide black straps that together shaped a tight harness binding the Princess of Love, complete with high posture collar and tailcuff that forced her two tone tail high before allowing it to fall just far enough to allow modesty.

Trixie’s eyes flicked to the cage in the corner and when she spoke Celestia could hear the note of hope in her voice.

“Was there anything else, Princess?” Trixie asked, as Cadance walked into the room past her.

“Not right now, but I’ll let you know if we need anything,” replied Celestia.

Nodding gravely, Trixie withdrew, closing the door behind her.

“Not you too,” Celestia said, allowing her ears and tail to droop in disappointment. “I would have thought you would have burned that thing Cake Flank put on you and then scattered the ashes to the four winds.”

“Shining likes it,” Cadance responded, drawing a hoof along the dark strap that ran vertically from her collar down to the girth. “He likes wearing it as well, when it’s his turn.”

Celestia’s eyebrows tried to climb up into her mane she raised them so high, before shaking herself and letting out a breath.

“I’m in no position to judge what somepony does or does not want to do with themselves,” Celestia stated, staring down into the remains of her tea. “Not now. I assume you’ve come to check on her?”

“And to let you know how our other efforts are faring,” Cadance informed the senior princess. “If you would…”

Cadance’s voice trailed off and her eyes moved away from the golden sun princess before her, to the dark corner where a mare lay collared, leashed and caged. The young alicorn watched as golden magic undid a lock, lifted aside a door, and gently pulled on the length of chrome chain. Obedient to the traction on her collar, the mare inside obediently stepped out of the cage and moved forward until she was at Celestia’s side, where she bowed forward to rub her cheek against her owner’s hoof in submissive obeisance.

“Sparkles, sit,” commanded Celestia, and a lavender rump thumped to the ground while a purple and raspberry coloured tail wagged happily.

“Any change?” Cadance asked, studying Twilight intensely.

“Nothing for the past two months. Ever since I found her like this in my study. The name tag and cage I added though. They seem to keep her calmer, especially at night,” Celestia brushed Twilight's mane as she spoke, setting a gold name tag with the word “Sparkles” on it swinging back and forth.

Cadance watched for a few moments as Celestia groomed the leashed mare, noting that “Sparkles” ears were swiveling back and forth as the conversation continued.

“What happens at night?” Cadance probed, watching both mares for reactions to her questions.

“Night terrors, thrashing, sounds of an animal in pain,” Celestia answered, her brush strokes growing unconsciously in firmness until the pony beneath them began to wince in discomfort..

“I’m sorry Sparkles,” Celestia said soothingly, as she removed the leash from Sparkles collar. “Why don’t you go out on the terrace and play.”

Tail wagging in a fashion more dog-like than belonging to a pony, the mare that had been Twilight Sparkle trotted out into the high walled garden terrace that bordered Celestia’s sitting room. Both older princesses watched as Sparkles began to bat a rubber ball back and forth in play, the deep black of her suit gleaming glossy highlights in the sun.

“Bad, but not as bad as it could have been,” Cadance said, under her breath.

“What in Tartarus took you so long to get here?” demanded Celestia, in a hard whisper. “I’ve got no idea how to deal with this. Luna tried dreamwalking into her nightscape a week ago and came out asking to be bridled and ridden until she dropped. Ridden by a stallion. Twilight won’t talk, she won’t even try to talk. She won’t use her magic, won’t even try to do anything like a pony. If I try to force her she just looks at me like she can’t understand what I’m saying. If I take her collar off she just stares into space, not eating or drinking until she collapses. And when I do put it on her, she’s like this. Barely more than an animal. A pet.”

Cadance took the impassioned, but whispered rant with calm acceptance. She knew, or at least suspected, what forces were driving her mentor like the whips of a thousand furies.

“You know where I’ve been, and why I couldn’t get here until now,” Cadance replied, keeping her tones reasonable. “We had to track down the rumors of Rarity being sighted near Whinnyapolis. You know that. As much as Twilight needs my— our help, finding and containing the Nightmare has to be our top priority. You told me that yourself.”

“I know. I’m sorry Cadance,” Celestia apologized. “It’s just, this isn’t something I can use the Elements on, or banish to the moon, or anything. And everywhere I look, I see those symbiotes, feeding on ponies. It’s like I’m surrounded by reminders of how I’ve failed Twilight.”

“You love her, don’t you?” Cadance gently asked, seeing past the royal facade to how much pain the solar alicorn was in.

“Like the daughter I never had,” admitted Celestia, ears and shoulders slumping. “Like the daughter I never can have.”

“And seeing her like this hurts you, even though you’re trying not to show it,” Cadance supplied, getting a tearful nod in response.

“Good news first then,” Cadance continued. “Twilight is still in there. At the very, very worst, there is still an active mind working behind the shield that she’s thrown up to keep what has become a terrible multiverse away.”

“Shield?” Celestia asked, grasping Cadance’s meaning. “You mean all of this; the collar, the suit, acting like a pet… it’s a defense mechanism?”

“Yes, and you accepting her in this mode is helping her heal. You are helping her heal. Never doubt that,” Cadance assured the great white mare. “But to truly help her return to the Twilight we both know and love, we have to understand what broke her in the first place.”

“Those Tartarus cursed suits,” growled Celestia, and the temperature in the room rose several degrees.

“No,” Cadance countered, drawing a look of surprise from Celestia. “The suits enabled the situation and started Twilight down this path, but they were far from the cause of her final break and attempt to escape from reality.”

“Then what was?” Celestia demanded, as the temperature in the room continued to stay elevated.

“Trauma. Rapid hammer blows of trauma straight to her core foundations that came on top of Twilight not only discovering her sexualtiy, but also discovering how those awakened desires could be exploited against her,” Cadance began.

“I never should have taken her to Shaushka’s. I never should have done a scene with her,” sighed Celestia, and the heat in the room disappeared like fall’s promise of winter as Celestia allowed herself to show the guilt she felt over her faithful student’s fall.

“Of course you should have. Shaushka is a fine teacher of the erotic arts, and who better than the mare she trusts more than any other to introduce her to the worlds of dominance and submission?” Cadance again countered, doing her best to bolster Celestia’s flagging confidence.

“But—” began Celestia.

“The first hammer blow was watching you die in her hooves,” Cadance interrupted, diverting Celestia's self-blamd while holding up a hoof to block any retort. “Not you you, but a you that could have been. And this was after being sexually assualted… raped, again. And then she loses her new student. To a glorious purpose that Starlight—”

“Princess Solar Starlight,” Celestia automatically corrected in such a Twilight fashion that Cadance had to smile for a moment.

“To a purpose that Princess Starlight will find fulfilling, but still losing her” Cadance continued, adding the correction. “Naturally feeling somewhat adrift, she returns home, finding what seems to be you waiting for her, only for her joy to be betrayed as she is thrust directly into a battle not only for her own soul, but for the souls and right to self-determination for everypony she knows and loves. And all of it caused by a twisted reflection of you. A monster wearing your face and sounding exactly like you.”

“I never should have let the Luna of that world have Cake Flank back,” Celestia said, and the next emotionless words brought a chill to Cadance. “I should have had her executed for crimes against Equinity.”

It took a moment for Cadance to continue.

“Um, we’ll get to that in a minute,” Cadance said, picking up the thread of her summary again. “So this other… alicorn, attacks Twilight, attacks her friends, and in the end is completely brought down by you in a display of masterful sexual dominance.”

Celestia’s head turned to focus on Cadance, and behind those magenta irises flared something hot and hungry that made the young alicorn feel very much like prey at that particular moment.

“Uh…” Cadance hesitated, losing her train of thought.

“Have a sip of tea, Cadance,” Celestia ordered, in a low voice that fairly rippled with power. “Give your throat a rest for a moment.”

Cadance obeyed, unable to refuse the strength of will that was Celestia.

“Good girl,” praised Celestia, in that same intent voice. “Carry on.”

“Um… yes,” Cadance responded, shaking her head for a moment as Celestia deliberately broke eye contact with her and released her from the solar will. “So Cake Flank is brought down and at this point Twilight is still reeling from one shock to another, but if nothing else had happened she could have recovered.”

“Rarity and Applejack,” sighed Celestia, looking off into the distance.

“Opening that pod and discovering that Rarity had joined with the Nightmare spirit in order to protect her mind, and what how badly the suits had broken Applejack,” Cadance paused, before asking, “Have I told you that we’ve learned how the suits actually break a pony down into a submissive slave?”

“Not the exact mechanism, no,” Celestia answered, huffing out a breath. “And I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“No, you won’t,” Cadance replied, pausing as she considered how best to shape the words she was about to say. “It’s pyromancy. But with a degree of precision and fineness that I wouldn’t have believed was possible if I hadn’t heard it myself or watched it happen in front of my own eyes.”

“Sunset Shimmer,” Celestia stated, and the temperature in the room again flared up a few degrees.

“Cake Flank’s Sunset Shimmer,” Cadance hastily advised. “The Sunset Shimmer that she twisted and drove insane for her own purposes.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier, especially as my own Sunset is still out there, somewhere. But go on,” Celestia said, taking a sip of her tea and looking out onto the terrace where Sparkles frolicked with a butterfly.

Cadance followed that gaze. Her trained eye taking in Celestia’s determination to protect and care for Twilight, her desire to see her faithful student restored to her rightful place, but Cadance also saw the hungry flames that danced behind those great lavender eyes. The pride of possession, combined with the desire to simply take what was both her due and what was freely offered.

Cadance suppressed a shiver at knowing it was only great self-control, brought on by the will to do what was right. that made her Celestia a true monarch. She had seen and felt first hoof what it was like if those chains of self-control ever slipped, and it was only her own faith in those bonds of iron will that gave her the courage to carry through with her ultimate plan.

“When the suits are trying to break a pony, they demand that the pony surrender to them. When a pony naturally denies that the suit then targets that precise part of the captive’s mind the denial came from and either burns it away or otherwise cuts it off from the rest of the pony’s mind,” Cadance explained. “Every time a pony denies the suit, they lose another bit of their ability to refuse. Burned away with a pinpoint piece of pyromancy. Eventually, there is nothing left of the pony that is capable of refusing, and they succumb.”

“And when a pony is particularly stubborn… “ Celestia added, her eyes going to the door whose other side Trixie guarded.

“Nearly all of that pony’s willpower and self-volition is destroyed,” Cadance filled in. “You get a compliant and barely functional 143, from a wilful Trixie. Or a nearly mindless automaton… from a stubborn pony like Applejack.”

“What is Applejack’s current condition?” Celestia asked.

“The suit only really tried to break her for a couple of hours, but in those hours it wreaked utter devastation. All of the Apples are stubborn, but Applejack doesn’t know the word ‘quit’, and nearly every part of her mind is connected to that stubborn determination,” Cadance related, taking another sip of tea to calm her nerves. “If you tell Applejack to do something, she does it, and while she’s doing the task she acts completely normal, able to answer questions, talk shop and even offer suggestions about how to do the job better. But once the job is done she’ll just stand there, not doing anything at all, until given another command.”

“That sounds very similar to 143,” Celestia commented. “Is there any chance of healing either of them?”

“We can’t heal it directly, but there is hope,” Cadance replied, idly toying with her high collar. “The mind is able to reroute itself around damaged sections. Given time and directed therapy we should be able to restore Applejack, 143 and any other pony the suits have broken.”

“Which explains how Twilight was able to resist the effect,” commented Celestia, pride in her voice. “The personality trick she used rerouted the suit’s damage around the damaged parts of her mind.”

“Rerouted yes, but not before significant damage had already been done,” Cadance corrected. “Twilight’s personality had already suffered by the time she came up with that trick, and so her brain still had to reroute around those burnt out pathways, and what it did was send her willpower through the lesser used areas of her mind. The parts connected with sexuality and eroticism.”

“That… That actually explains a lot,” Celestia noted, seeing the once shy, bookish unicorn she had known in her mind's eye.

“It also explains why her chosen place of refuge is as your submissive possession. Twilight trusts you on deep level, so when the last blow of seeing Applejack and Rarity so changed by something she blames herself for broke her, she gave herself into your care and keeping,” Cadance paused for breath. “Because she knows you will only do what’s best for her, and she was given a rather blatant example of the pleasures she would experience if you chose to… use her.”

“I would never—” Celestia began, only to be cut off by the Princess of Love.

“In her current condition, no. You wouldn’t. But if things were different. If she came to you with a sound mind and of her own free will and desire, you—” Cadance interrupted, only to be interrupted herself.

“Did,” Celestia interjected, taking a small amusement from the surprise on Cadance’s face. “Twilight knew what it’s like to be on the end of my leash before this happened.”

“Oh, um. Uh,” Cadance stammered, a hot blush coming to her cheeks as she imagined a future with herself on the end of a similar leash. “Umm.”

“What about Rarity, or rather Nightmare Rarity?” Celestia asked, giving Cadance a chance to recover herself by changing the subject. “Is there anything we can do for her?”

“Nightmare Rarity is turning out to be a literal nightmare to deal with,” Cadance commented, squirming slightly as a remembered phantom fullness tingled her nethers. “As a unicorn, she had an unparalleled ability to both manipulate fine objects and magically multitask. Combined with the power of the Nightmare and the suit seeping into them both…”

“Equestria hasn’t seen a latex sorceress in generations,” Celestia noted, almost absently.

“Any pony that tries to get in her way finds themselves suddenly bound in latex extruded from her suit, or by one of the symbiotes she has with her. Bound, or hooded, or webbed, or —” Cadance’s recitation was stopped by Celestia’s hoof on her muzzle.

“Or hooded while a latex chastity belt drove a pair of cocks in and out of both their holes anytime they tried to move, trapping them between wanting to move, and wanting to not move,” Celestia filled in, taking away her hoof. “Shining Armor told me how he found you. I’m guessing it’s one reason you’re still wearing the symbiote.”

Cadance could only nod, fighting to keep herself from dropping into subspace just from the memory of being so completely, so erotically, controlled.

“Shining doesn’t wear the suit, does he?” Celestia probed, drawing a shake of the head from Cadance.

The Nightmare did something to my suit when she made it bind me so I couldn't stop her from escaping. Even with the core code commands, the suit won’t come off now. Shining managed to get it to unhood me, and make it stop trying to tame me, but he couldn’t get it off. I’m a half-trained draught mare locked into her hauling harness,” Cadance blurted out, the words coming in a rush. “And now it’s bonded to me. The only way it will ever come off is if we manage to duplicate the poison Princess Starlight used to get Twilight’s old suit off of her.”

“May I have a look at it?” Celestia gently asked.

“Oh, okay,” Cadance said.

“Stand here, please,” Celestia commanded in a silky voice, indicating a spot beside her.

Wordlessly, Cadance did as she was bid, trying to hold back the feelings Celestia’s orders were creating inside of her. The soft alicorn tried and failed to hold back the small whimpers of pleasure that Celestia’s tugging and pulling on the extruded straps of the suit drove out of her. Pleasure that only increased as Celestia used her magic in an attempt to delve into the mysteries of this particular symbiote, which reacted clenching even tighter against Cadance’s delicate nub and teats.

The examination seemed to go on and on, until a lusty moan forced its way up the long column of Cadance’s collared throat and escaped from her open maw.

“Remind me to muzzle you if I need to do this again,” Celestia commented, before adding. “I’m done, you can sit down now.”

“Yes Miss— Ma’am,” Cadance responded, having sat in place in automatic obedience rather than returning to her chair. “Yes Ma’am.”

“Cadance… you are a happily married mare,” Celestia reminded the pony sitting on the floor. “Anything between us would have to be with his consent and approval.”

“He gave both when I told him I was coming here today,” Cadance replied, a sly smile coming to her mouth. “But before we go there, did you find anything?”

“Your symbiote has been reinforced with pure darkness. Power drawn from the night itself is now part and parcel of your bindings. A gift from the Nightmare, and I’m guessing one that only responds to her will,” Celestia explained.

“Making it even more imperative that we find and either capture Nightmare Rarity or convince the Nightmare to release Rarity back to us,” Cadance replied, sure the moisture leaking from her nethers was making a puddle on the floor beneath her. “And for that we need Twilight. She’s the only pony that has a chance of getting through to Rarity, and maybe even the Nightmare itself.”

“Do you have a plan, my little pony?” Celestia asked, her full smile suggesting that she knew what was coming next.

“I do,” Cadance answered, her nethers clenching at what she was about say. “First off, you’re going to need a cage made for two.”

Twilight’s discarded leash floated up on a wave of golden magic and locked securely to the tall, tight collar around Cadance’s throat,

“You say that like I don’t already have one ready for you,” was all Celestia needed to say.

After all that our heroine has been through, it was finally too much for her. But never fear, Sister-in-Law is here.

Nearly every month my patrons get to vote on which story they would like to see me work on following my commissioned story. In February my patrons voted for this story.

But now, with Brightly Lit 2 on hiatus, my Patrons now vote on the order I will be writing things during my Brightly Break.

If you want a vote on what I write, join my Patreon and for as little as a dollar a month and cast your ballot for whichever story you would like to have me update.