"Wow, that looks amazing!" Mia exclaimed, seeing the small feast spread before us. Platters of fruit, bowls of salad, bread, some kind of cheesy-looking casserole, as well as some meats on a tray, adorned the large wooden table. Evidently James and Mia's preferred diet was nothing new to the Silenians and Tempest.

"Welcome," Tempest said, standing up as we entered, mostly out of respect to Princess Cadance I imagined. She politely gestured us towards the chairs. "Please, make yourselves comfortable."

We did, and after a brief period of passing plates and chattering, during which James cheerfully carved the meat and gave some to both Mia and Grubber, we quieted and ate. I watched James and Mia tearing into the roast like it was going out of style, and felt a twinge of guilt. Had I been inadvertently starving my poor humans of something they really desired? It hadn't been been that long since we left the Menagerie and there was plenty of meat on the menu there. Surely they wouldn't be desperate for it this quickly? Then again, maybe the spiced beef here was just delicious. I found myself getting a sudden weird desire to sample it, and mentally slapped myself. It would be rude to puke on the table. I wanted to be disgusted with myself for having such thoughts, but instead I felt an odd little glow of pride inside. I was so close to my sweeties that I actually wanted to try something which had always revolted me, simply because they were enjoying it. I mean, technically I knew I could digest it without getting too sick, but like most Equestrians I had always found the idea of consuming the cooked flesh of an animal to be intensely repulsive. Until this weird urge, at least, which probably came from spending all my time with humans lately.

Maybe I'm just sick in the head, but I don't care. I mean, it's natural to want to try something your friends like, right?

Okay, probably not in this case. Anyway, I resisted the strange, rather repulsive urge to jam a lump of roasted flesh into my gullet, and stuck with my salad.

"So," Cadance said presently, holding a fork full of crispy salad near her mouth, "I'm still wondering what exactly happened with the Storm King. To my understanding, he wasn't the type to simply kick the bucket and make things easy for anyone. Can you explain, perhaps?" She shoved the salad in and chewed hungrily.

Tempest made a sour face, as if she'd just bitten into a lemon. "The Storm King? That scoundrel died weeks ago. It was when the monsters first came..." she trailed off, a sorrowful expression drifting across her countenance.

"If you don't want to tell us," Cadance began, softly.

"Oh hell. I'll tell you, why not, everyone else probably knows already," she grunted, and leaned back in her chair, crossing her forelegs over her chest in a way that seemed less comfortable and more defensive. "It's a tale that still bothers me though, I'm sure you'll understand why by the time I finish telling it. As you probably already know, I was the Storm King's faithful and rather stupid minion. I followed him everywhere, did everything he wanted. There were times, however, when he would disappear, sometimes for days at a time, leaving me in charge of things here."

"If news got out he was leaving, everyone would try to rush in and get any needed government business done when Commander Shadow was in charge," Grubber added with a chuckle. "You should have seen the lines!"

"Don't remind me, I might get a headache just thinking about it," Tempest groaned. "Anyway, one day, he told me he needed my help with something, and brought me on a trip."

She stopped and took a drink before proceeding.

"So, as far as I know, we had gone to check on some artifact in a far off cave, just him and I. Something he'd been playing around with on the sly, some magical thing he didn't want his soldiers to see. We left them at the airship. He even made me leave Grubber, who wasn't happy about that at all. He warned me to be careful, which I didn't listen to well enough."

"I knew the Storm King was up to something," Grubber muttered darkly.

"Yeah. Anyway, the cave seemed to go on forever. While we were in there, deep underground, I guess that's when the world changed. There was a flash of light from some kind of rift in the air ahead, and then we were attacked by a horrific entity that didn't belong in this world." She paused, staring at her forehooves, then looked back up at us with a wry smile.

"I was scared half to death, but I held my ground in front of my boss. At the time, I felt I we had something special, you know? I was his personal bodyguard, his right-hand mare. I didn't believe love existed, but I did think that maybe, just maybe, I'd found someone who wouldn't toss me away at the drop of a hat. I actually cared about him, enough to let him fuck me whenever he wanted, even though he was a cruel asshole to me in bed. I can't tell you how many times I was left bruised and bloodied, humiliated by the revolting things he made me do. There was this one time he got really drunk. After he was done fucking and beating me, he hog-tied me, pissed on me, then went to sleep laughing at me. He left me tied up on the floor next to the bed all night. I-I've never been so cold or s-so stiff in my entire life as I was laying awake there on the c-cold, hard floor, shivering while he snored above me in the b-bed." Her voice wavered and she stopped, taking a deep breath. "Another time he took a whip and a dirty toilet plunger, and he made me, he-he made me..." she sniffled a little, her eyes welling up, and paused, covering her face with her hooves.

Cadance twitched, seemingly wanting to take the obviously miserable Commander into a hug, but then Grubber surprised us all by sliding over to her and doing so himself. For a bit, he put his arms around her, comforting his rough-looking boss in barely audible tones. I saw Cadance gently nodding, and understood without needing words. I was also glad Tempest wasn't as completely alone as I'd thought at first.

"Th-thanks, I'm okay," she breathed after a moment. Grubber released her and went back to sitting nearby with his notebook, looking as if nothing had happened.

Tempest's face hardened and she brushed the tears away roughly with her hoof. "Well, you don't need to hear about that part, anyway. To make a long story short, I let him do anything to me and didn't complain because I thought it was his weird way of showing affection. I know, I'm an idiot. I'm certain now he didn't even have a fetish for the things he did. He just enjoyed hurting me, watching me suffer under his will, seeing how far I would abase myself so he could laugh and mock me. In essence, abusing me was his real fetish, making me grovel before him while he reveled in his own power. I was perpetually ashamed of the swollen purple welts I had to hide beneath my armor before facing anyone in the morning. I was a stupid fool, and I mistook his perverse brutality for passion for way too long." She sighed and dragged a hoof down her muzzle.

"That's horrible," Mia said softly. "What a jerk."

James didn't say anything, but I could see from the fire in his eyes that the Storm King was lucky to not be present.

"It was what it was, and honestly I kind of deserved it," Tempest continued. "I did bad things then, things I'm not proud of. Anyway, to get back to the story, as I gazed up into his eyes in that moment of danger with that dreadful monster staring us down, I was fully prepared to sacrifice myself to protect him, no matter what the cost. But then he took all that away from me in an instant of pure villainy. I looked up to him, stupid cow that I was. I trusted him enough to die for him, and then, down there in that dimly lit cave, he gave me this weird little half grin.

'Try not to scream too much, okay? I feel bad enough about this already,' he said.

'What?' I asked, confused.

Then he stabbed me deep in my left leg with his spear and ran away chortling.

'Why?' I cried out as I fell to the ground. I was in total, utter shock. 'Why would you?'

'Nothing personal, Tempest,' he shouted back, his insolent voice dripping with self-satisfied flippancy. 'But better you than me!'

I flopped around in the dirt uselessly. I think I was crying, it's kind of a blur now. I was all messed up, you know? Not just the injured leg, but I was also emotionally wounded. I didn't want to die, but I'd been ready to do it heroically, and now I was just helpless and worthless. I'd gone from being special, to being some piece of chum he tossed to the sharks while he made good his escape, and that was how it was going to end. All my noble delusions turned to pathetic, weak struggling on the ground. I was reduced to a bait worm on a hook, and the bigger fish was coming to swallow me." She paused a moment, remembering. I could see another tear trickle down her cheek, which she wiped away hurriedly with a snuffle.

My friends and I stared at her, none of us saying anything. It was a cruel, sad little tragedy that had befallen her, and despite her own air of toughness and penance, I felt sorry for this lonely, beaten mare.

Finally Tempest shook herself and continued her tale of woe. "As for the creature? It was awful. It stomped over like some kind of twisted caterpillar, too many legs pounding the ground, gobs of drool coating the gaping hole of mouth, and some kind of gnashing sound coming from deep within, like a grinding wheel in a grain mill.

I closed my eyes, and I think I whimpered a little. I don't know what frightened me more, the nightmare beast looming over me, or the utter lack of honor in the shameful death I was about to receive. I felt its hot breath on me, a stench of death and rot that just kept coming out forever in a constant flow. Whatever that cursed thing had inside, it wasn't lungs.

Fortunately for me, however, the Storm King's goofy running and cackling laughter swiftly attracted the monster's ire. It turned towards him, then barrelled right on past me like an angry bull chasing a rodeo clown, relentlessly pursuing his tantalizingly stupid elbows-and-knees-out monkey hobble. It knocked him down, then it swept him bodily into its gigantic maw. The last thing I heard from him after his curses turned to cries of agony, was the crunching and snapping of his bones in the gizzard of that indescribable horror from the shadows."

"How did you escape?" Mia asked, riveted.

"Well, the monster swallowed him alive, then it just crawled right around past me and went back to who knows where. Apparently it was satisfied with eating his mangey, treacherous ass. I eventually dragged myself up, stumbled a very long way back to the entrance, and Grubber here got me to safety."

Grubber puffed his chest out, proud of his achievement. "Piece of cake," he said. "I may be a chubby wimp, but I'd never leave my fri-, er, my boss behind to die on purpose." The usually agreeable fellow spat the words out with a rare simmering rage, and I could see a brief flash of how much he hated the late Storm King.

"Did you guys ever go back to find the artifact?"

"You know, it's funny, but we never could find the cave again," Tempest mused. "It was as if it had disappeared completely. And now, the whole area is off limits. It's extremely active with very dangerous monsters."

"Interesting," Cadance mused, tapping her jaw. "I wonder if there is some relation between the artifact and the proximity of that rift."

"I don't know," Tempest said. "I was trying pretty hard not to die, and to tell the truth, my mind wasn't really on that at the time."

"And you have no idea what the artifact was."

"None whatsoever, except the Storm Prick seemed to think my magical energy might help him use it somehow."

"I see. And since that day you've ruled Silenia on your own."

"Well, things kind of went bad after that. We got back to find out there were creatures running rampant all over the place. They'd spawned from nowhere, and were creating no end of destruction. The Storm King was dead, and there was nobody to lead the country."

"Except you," I said.

"Basically. With the King dead, there was chaos. The nearby countries he'd conquered were totally unable to defend themselves or organize a response to the monster invasion. In Silenia, the people demanded a new leader. They demanded me. I didn't want it, I just wanted to sit in some dark corner and feel sorry for myself, but I had a responsibility to save these people as best I could, so here I am. What choice did I have? It was partly my fault things were messed up. I couldn't leave these people to die."

"That is the spirit of a true leader," Cadance said gravely.

"It doesn't end there," Grubber explained eagerly. "The surrounding countries begged for assistance after the fall of the Storm Empire. Silenia, having been the source of their problems, couldn't refuse. They have their own legal rulers, but they put Tempest... er, Commander Shadow, in charge of military actions."

"I had no friends, and now I'm everybody's hero," Tempest sighed. "No pressure, but millions of lives depend on your ability to out think a horde of monsters that just randomly appear places without rhyme or reason." She rubbed her face. "I can barely sleep at night."

And I had thought I had it tough leading my own section at Menagerie, I thought somewhat shamefully.

"Anyway," Tempest began, then the door banged open and a harried-looking guard rushed in. "Ma'am! Commander! Sorry for the intrusion, but I must relay you a message!"

"Of course, come forwards," she said.

The big guard rushed up to the much smaller mare and leaned down to speak into her ear, which drooped further the longer he spoke.

"I see," she finally said, tiredly. "Okay. Go tell them to wait, I will be there directly." She turned to us, and smiled wryly. "A matter has arisen which I must attend to. I'm sorry to cut this short, but we may continue some time tomorrow, at your convenience, and provided I haven't been pulled into a hundred pieces yet."

"Do you, I mean, can we assist you in some way?" Princess Cadance asked.

"Not just yet, I'm afraid. This isn't that kind of issue. Just take some time to relax after your journey. Finish your meals, explore the castle if you like. I advise you not to leave the safety of the building, though with any luck, it'll be a peaceful evening, and the monsters will limit themselves to simply testing our defenses at the city walls. If you need anything, Captain Rango will be around."

She turned and started to leave, then looked over her shoulder as an afterthought, speaking with a tone of darkly ironic humor. "And welcome to the Shadow Coalition, by the way."

She then turned and headed out of the room with Grubber in tow, closing the heavy door behind her.

"Guess we'll just give her the presents later then," James said, waving at the cart of stuff we had left sitting by the entryway.

"Guess so," I agreed.