Twilight and the Spartan Stallion 2

Part 2: Bargaining Chips

Twilight Sparkle awoke with a quiet moaning sound. Her foal was sitting nearby on her haunches, looking around curiously with big innocent eyes. The purple mare jolted, snatching the baby up and pulling her to herself. The infant fussed, squirming a bit. This was NOT the hospital. This was… this was… where was here? She looked around in wonder.

She was in some sort of smooth, dry cave. A quick glance at the walls said it was not carved, but worn away by water or acid. Glowing white Ghost Mushrooms clung to the walls in odd patterns, lighting the place with their eerie luminance. Hanging roots high, high above her head told her she was deep underground. They were too big to not be something simply enormous. “What is this pla-ahhH!” she shrieked when the filly shoved her head rudely up into her teat, suckling hungrily. Nodding back and forth until she found the nipple, she fed herself eagerly. Twilight tried to relax, for her foal’s sake. She stroked her back slowly, taking deep breaths. She wasn’t used to all this yet, and being in a strange place didn’t help. “Okay think, Twi. Last I knew I was…” she furrowed her brow, remembering Spartan Shield and everypony else gathered around her in the hospital. Had she fallen asleep? She must have. “We didn’t even get to name you, poor thing…” she stood still while her foal fed herself, as best she could.

Lighting her horn with some effort— she suddenly wished she hadn’t. They were everywhere. All around her. On the walls, in the dark crevices, on the ceiling and in the tunnel thresholds. Their shiny black carapaces and giant blue eyes glittered at her. They peered at her curiously, buzzing their wings in an ever-present, quiet hum. Twilight’s mouth fell open and her pupils shrank into dot. “Skreeee!” One volunteered to say, making the poor mare flinch. The nameless foal whimpered fearfully at the loud sound, hiding under Twilight’s undercarriage. Her little body shook, and she clung to one of Twilight’s legs. Changelings!

“Enough. I’ll not have her harassed for no reason.” A voice that was two-toned said. It sounded both male and female, and carried the hum of the hive with it. Twilight clenched her eyes shut, hunching instinctively over her young. She couldn’t look. She didn’t wanna look. She had to look. A tall, slender form not unlike an alicorn stood in a lit entryway. “Twi. Light. Sparkle.” She grinned with all her cobra-like fangs, gossimar wings spread to their full span.

“Queen Chrysalis.” Twilight spat the word like it tasted bad. “What’s happening?! Where have you taken me?! What do you want?!” she went right into a string of questions. Her foal began to cry at the mean-sounding words. The mare hunched. “Oh no no, don’t cry…” she whispered, nuzzling and trying to soothe the filly. “I wasn’t talking to you its okay. Mommy loves you, ohh…” The foal stared up at her mother, whimpering and hiccupping some.

Chrysalis grinned a lopsided, rather diabolical grin. “I think you mean ‘Where have you taken us?’” she snickered a little. “Honestly Twilight, you call yourself a mother?”

The insult struck home, for Twilight blushed angrily. “More mother than you!” she wrapped her filly up in her arms, holding her close and coddling the fretting infant. The sandy-colored little pony wuzzled against her, burbling at her mother’s attention.

The buzz of the hive suddenly got louder. WAY louder. There was anger and chittering and mean, violent gestures from the hundreds of gathered changelings. Twilight looked around fearfully as they menaced her from every wall, every stalactite and crack and hole. It was palpable. The purple mare clung to her daughter, ready to defend her if one of them sprung at her. Suddenly, Chrysalis threw her head back in uproarious laughter. It shook the cave, quieting the droning of the hive, and she stomped a hoof a few times. “You don’t know much about changelings, do you?” The queen sneered with a wretched smile. “I am a queen changeling! I have millions of children!” she made a grand, sweeping gesture to everypony present.

Twilight gaped. “How is that possible?! Your body wouldn’t be able to withstand it so many times!” She stroked her foal’s withers over and over to help soothe her.

“Changeling, Twilight. Change. Ling.” Chrysalis rolled her eyes a bit. “We have one fertile female, a progenitor, and the rest of the hive.” She smirked. “Whiiiiich brings us to why you’re here.”

“Why am I here?” Twilight scowled. “I just gave birth! My husband will be worried sick! What’s to keep me from just teleporting away?! I can go almost a mile now, you know!” she lit her horn, ready to vanish with her foal and flee.

“Teleport where, Twilight Sparkle?” Chrysalis grinned with all her fangs. “Up? Down? How far underground are you? Do you know? What’s to keep you from popping up inside a wall and killing yourself or your foal instantly?” she smiled nastily at the image of instant gore that would happen. Twilight went a little pale, looking down at her child. The glow on her horn fizzled out. “And even if you made it to the surface?” she fluttered her wings to hover over to the mare and seat herself regally. “I would love to see you teleport ten thousand miles across the barren wasteland. At almost a mile per teleport spell, that’s… what? A month or so of travel?” she watched Twilight’s expression carefully. “If you didn’t stop to eat or drink or sleep, and left the foal behind of course.”

“Ten thousand miles?!” Twilight gaped. “There’s no land mass that big! There’s no such continent, much less attached to Equestria!”

“Really?” Chrysalis smirked at her not-so-scholarly argument. “How big is the Everfree Forest? Do you know?” she waited in silence, because of course Twilight didn’t know. Nopony knew. “How about the Misty Mountains? How many miles of tunnels are there?” Again, that was something nopony knew. Not really. “No? Don’t know?” she smirked. “Well then, I wouldn’t underestimate the southern badlands either. Ponies don’t have maps of it for a reason, you know.” There was a trill in the hum of the hive. “Though we do have lots and lots of partial maps… drawn by brave pony explorers, of course.” She let the nasty implications sink in.

There was a long silence between them. Chrysalis waited patiently for her next outburst. Twilight sat across from her, quietly cuddling her foal for a time. The little bundle of joy and hooves tittered, bleating happily and trying to hold her mother’s face in her tiny hooves. The big, soft eyes cut at Twilight’s heart. She was in a bad, bad position. Her poor filly, what could she do? She couldn’t run, not without risking her daughter’s safety. She let out a quiet, feminine huff of distress, pulling the foal to her chest and looking up at Chrysalis rather submissively. Until she had a plan, she couldn’t do anything. Not yet. She needed more information first, so she and her infant could make their escape. “What… do you want?” Twilight said softly.

Chrysalis was pleased that Twilight seemed to finally understand her position. She leaned down into the purple mare’s face. “My last husband died of old age a couple of years ago. I need a new companion to keep my race alive.” She paused for a time to let her blunt words process in Twilight’s mind. “I want Shining Armor.” She whispered.

Twilight’s mouth fell open in shock. “Shining Armor?! You can’t have him! He’s not going to come here to… to…” she covered her daughter’s ears and lowered her voice to an angry whisper. “To breed you! That’s sick!” she said, red-faced.

“That is our way.” Chrysalis snorted. “You, Twilight Sparkle and… foal, are my bargaining chips.” The Queen rose up and turned about. “I’ve already sent a message, demanding the trade-off.” She folded her insectoid wings. “If they refuse, well,” she looked over her shoulder to smirk at Twilight. “At least we’ll have each other for company while my hive dies out.” Her jowls lifted to silently threaten with her fangs. Twilight shuddered, and the foal whimpered.

“You won’t get away with this.” Twilight mumbled lamely, embracing her little one. “They’ll come for me. They will. And you’ll be sorry.”

“I hope they send everything they’ve got. Shining Armor can march the entire Equestrian guard down here.” Chrysalis chuckled, flicking her tail a bit. “And when the battle is over I’ll pluck him from the wreckage, browbeat his free will into nothing, and… well… ensure the survival of my species.” She winked lewdly.

“Eww!” Twilight shrieked, face-hoofing. “That’s gross!”

“Thinking of your brother doing that?” The Queen was having too much fun with this conversation, it was easy to see. The hundreds of changelings present were looking left, then right, then left again as though it were a fascinating tennis match.

“Can’t you just get somepony else? Maybe find a matchmaker or--!”

“Don’t insult me!” Chrysalis snapped angrily. “Shining Armor is by far the most powerful stallion alive right now. The finest horseflesh for royalty’s sake!” Twilight stared at her, and a wry smile found her face. Clearly, she’d not studied her husband too closely. Chrysalis did look a little leery of the purple mare’s smirk, but continued anyway. “Ahem! Come! I’ll show you to your room. I’ll not be written in the history books of my hive for having been cruel to a new mother and foal. You’re my bargaining chips, but you’re no good to me starved or injured.”

“What if I refuse?” Twilight said hotly, scowling.

The tall changeling rounded on her, startling the mare. “You want to starve, down here in the dark? Or, perhaps let mother’s milk to run out?” Chrysalis threatened easily. Twilight hung her head miserably. The foal burbled with disinterest. “Good. Then follow me.” Perching her daughter on her back, clinging to her withers, Twilight obeyed and they walked into the darkness of the endless maze of changeling tunnels.

The foal looked around in wonder, at all the changelings clinging to the walls and watching them with hungry eyes. Growing fearful, the nameless filly bleated. A few sparks of infantile magic flicker-buzzed on her stubby little horn. A hiss of dust and earth fell from the ceiling, getting right into the eyes of a changeling clinging to the wall. It screeched, falling comically on its head with a crash. Neither Twilight nor Chrysalis saw what happened to make it fall.

=-----=-----=-----=-----=

“—And if you ever wish to see Twilight Sparkle and the foal again, you will deliver Shining Armor to me before the new year begins. Signed, Queen Chrysalis of the Changeling Empire.” Celestia finished reading aloud, curling the scroll and setting it aside with a quiet sigh. “She’s been taken.”

“We must act quickly, Shining Immortal Majesty! Let me lead the charge, I am a warrior still!” Spartan Shield practically knocked Shining Armor aside to have his say first. “I do not know what ‘changelings’ are but I am sure they can be killed as easily as anypony else!” he stomped a violent hoof, startling a nearby squire. Celestia opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted.

“Spartan, we can’t send an army down into the changeling hive. They’d be slaughtered!” Shining Armor argued. Holding his helm under one shoulder, the white unicorn stepped forward with a soldier’s frown. “Princess Celestia! Let me lead a small strike force into the badlands. We can find Twilight and bring her home without alerting the entire changeling empire that we’re there.” Celestia made to speak again, but didn’t quite get there.

“Bold and nothingness, battle virgin!” Spartan snapped at Shining Armor. “Shining Immortal Majesty! Release my armor from the museum, I will go alone if need be! We cannot leave Twilight to such a fate!” his great chest coiled with muscled fury, and he reared like the warpony he was. Celestia tried to speak a third time.

“Well tarnation, Spartan, whut about us, huh?” Applejack wanted to know. “We can’t just sit here all nice and smiley while somepony else goes into the Badlands for Twilight!” She adjusted her Stetson down into its serious-face mode, just above her eyebrows where it was tight on her head. The white alicorn just could not get a word in while her subjects shouted and conversed back and forth.

“We should all go!” Rainbow Dash said, snapping her front hooves together. “We’ll show those changelings for stealing our friend and her kid!” It was straight to violence for the cyan mare as well.

“What about Pinkie Pie? The poor thing is still unconscious in the hospital! Whatever ruffian caught her off guard must’ve really hurt the poor dear!” Rarity worried aloud. “Shouldn’t she be kept in the loop?”

The conversation diminished into lots and lots of ponies arguing back and forth about the best course of action. Celestia held her temple, feeling a migraine coming on. Spartan boomed, Shining roared, the remaining mane six shouted— the double doors of the throne room suddenly burst open with all the violence of a goddess. “THAT!” a crack of thunder carrying a single word rolled across the room. The Royal Canterlot Voice! “IS! ENOUGH!” Spartan turned with a deep and angry frown. Princess Luna, flanked by two Lunar Stallions, stood in the doorway. “In all the eons we have not heard such rabble during the open courts of the Sun’s reign!” She strode quickly and authoritatively into the room, parting the crowd. Everypony other than Spartan and Celestia went submissively to their knees, shivering a bit. Luna and Spartan briefly locked eyes, the unsteady truce between them crackling like a hoof-full of bending straw. She was not HIS Princess, he would not bow. He only inclined his head slightly. That was all the respect she would get out of him. Given that he had no large tableware to throw at her at the moment.

“Luna.” Celestia said, sounding somewhat relieved. “Word has reached you, I take it?”

“Tiz hard not to. Word of Twilight Sparkle’s abduction spread like wildfire from the hospital alone!” Luna mounted the dais and sat on her throne next to her sister with some authority. The dark and angry goddess looked at the rabble below. “Find thy senses and be silent!” she commanded them, taking the volume down a notch at last. “We shalt have no madness in our own courts.” When everypony looked sufficiently sorry (other than Spartan), Luna cleared her throat and spoke normally. “What will we do, sister?”

Celestia bowed her head, quietly calculating for a time. She could not give Shining Armor to Chrysalis. He would be a part of a terrible servitude. The Royal Wedding had been her first shot at him, thankfully that had failed. Celestia could not send an army, that would be too much bloodshed even to retrieve the Sun’s Favored Foal and her young. She could not send a strike force either. If they were discovered in the hive, they would be massacred. She looked at the ponies gathered around the base of the dais. They looked to her for wisdom. For leadership and courage. They wanted to know what the plan was, the plan to rescue Twilight Sparkle and the unnamed foal. She… she couldn’t think of anything. All plans involved going into the badlands, and any sizeable force would simple be brunted, captured, and more than likely killed. So much horseflesh had been thrown into the cavernous deep that was the hive in the eons past. Nothing ever came out again. Not since the drawing of the borders of the world had any army uprooted the changeling empire. Nothing that went in ever came out again, not even cartographers and curious explorers. Celestia did not even send diplomats or ambassadors there anymore, they never returned. There was no viable option of rescue. The white alicorn suddenly drooped, her wings limpening around her.

Princess Luna watched her sister think, and saw it a split second before Celestia made to speak. “You don’t mean to say--?” the dark princess gaped at her.

“I cannot commit an army to rescue Twilight Sparkle and her foal.” Celestia said stonily, looking down at her hooves. “Nor a strike force.” She amended. “Nor a singular stallion, with his heart in the right place.” She looked to both Shining Armor and Spartan at the same time, then back a down again. “She is lost. As is the foal.”

“What?!” They chorused as one.

“I will not send a group of ponies to their doom to rescue just two.” Celestia said quietly, her eyes lidding with sorry. Her heart was breaking, her sister saw. Her protégé was like a daughter to her. But… but she was the ruler of Equestria first. She would not send a single citizen to their certain doom to rescue two ponies.

“You jest!” Spartan shouted in disbelief. “She is my wife!”

“You can’t just write her off!” Shining shouted as well, eyes wide. “She’s my sister!”

The rest of the mane six herd stood, staring in utter silence. They couldn’t believe it. Celestia was just… just giving up on Twilight?! “You must understand, my little ponies.” Celestia’s voice was soft and sorry. “The Changeling empire is vast and subterranean. To give them a powerful new progenitor like Shining Armor would be to multiply their population ten times over. They would spill into Equestia, the Gripphonian Mountains, and the Sea Pony Straits. Sheer numbers would overtake us all.” It was a terrible thing, showing them the chessboard of the gods and how very dark it could be to see several moves ahead if something went wrong.

“P-Princess! Please reconsider! I could-!” Shining tried.

“Shining Armor.” Celestia suddenly affixed the stallion with her gaze, her eyes flicking to a milky white for a few moments. “You of all ponies would not be going even if I would send anypony there. It is you she wants. Therefore,” she paused and looked to one side. “Captain Grey, place Shining Armor under home arrest.”

“What?!” Shining Armor gaped.

“You’re the prize she wants, and if she already has spies here again, Chrysalis will stop at nothing to get her hooves on you.” Celestia said somberly. “Therefore, you will not leave the palace grounds, until we can figure out an alternative.”

“But-!”

“That is an order, Captian.” Celestia said far less gently. “Or shall I place you in a cell?” It was a very, very cruel thing to say. What would his wife think?! What would anypony think, the captain of the royal guard suddenly in chains? The white stallion hung his head submissively, nodding his assent. It was better than being put in jail. Captain Grey tried to smile at his fellow Captain, but his heart just wasn’t in it. Shining Armor would have at least two guards with him at all times from then on. How depressing.

“Yer… yer not gonna do anything?” Applejack said softly, taking off her hat to look up at her sun goddess in disbelief. Celestia could not bear to look at her, and hung her head. The farming mare looked around at her friends, all with equally mournful and disbelieving looks on their faces. “Nuthin’ at all?” she tried again. Celestia said nothing, and the silvery touch of tears went down her muzzle as she gazed at the floor. “C… c’mon ev’r’pony… let’s get outta here.” She turned and began to herd the others away.

Shining Armor turned away as well, heading to the owlry to write a letter to his wife. He would need to explain why he wasn’t coming home for dinner, and that he would need a suitecase to stay in the royal apartments… for how long? He didn’t know. He looked over his shoulder, up at Celestia. He had never seen his goddess weep. He turned and left with the others.

Spartan Shield was the only pony to remain. Luna watched him carefully, in case he decided to dash up the dais and attack. He did not. He only stood at the bottom stair of the dais, looking up at Celestia with his bad, sad eyes. It was an alien expression, one that made Luna’s heart sink. “Look at me.” He whispered to Celestia. The milky alicorn had to gather her strength to look him in the face. “Truly?” he whispered, as though he needed to hear it again and again. “Truly, you will do nothing?” he cocked his head at her.

Celestia heaved a quiet sigh, “One…” she shuddered, and hung her head again. “One mare and one foal are not worth the lives of entire nations, Spartan.” She whispered, holding up the glass shield of logic. “The surge of the changeling population would shift the face of the entire world. It’s not worth it.”

“IT IS TO ME!” Spartan roared, ripping his throat raw with one belting shout. “She is to me! How can you be so cruel?! To abandon her?!” guards started forward when the Spartan started shouting and swearing at her Majesty. His savage streaking of insults was a blue-streak that made even the hardest soldier’s blush. “You’ve abandoned her! My wife! You’ve abandoned her-rrr!” they dragged him away, kicking and screaming. It took over half a dozen guards to do so. The double doors of the throne room slammed noisily closed. Celestia broke down just then, and wept. Luna waved a mild hoof to end the Noonday Court for the day, guiding her sister to more private chambers to mourn.

=-----=-----=-----=-----=

After gathering Pinkie Pie onto a cart and hitching Big Macintosh to it, the entire herd made its way home. They took the pink mare to the Ponyville Hospital, where she could be monitored closely. Other than the powerful blow to the base of her skull, she seemed okay. It appeared to be some sort of shallow coma, for her eyes moved like she was dreaming.

The others gathered at Golden Oaks Library, desperately thankful Spike was away visiting draconic relatives for a few months in the northern lands. Spartan sat stony-faced, not knowing what to do with himself. Did they need have a funeral? When would Pinkie Pie awaken? They’d never even named the foal! All was sadness and misery.

Spartan eventually took a little stained glass decoration with a sun pattern on it out of the window and threw it angrily upon the floor. It shattered. Everypony flinched, and they watched him sit on his haunches and sag miserably. The setting sun threw his shadow, long and dark, upon the floor. He was a new father, a providing husband, a loving companion… no more. They could see his mighty muscles, good for nothing, quivering with barely held-in sobs. Big Macintosh rose from the table everypony was sitting around. He sat shoulder-to-shoulder with him, putting a powerful arm around the stallion. Spartan leaned wordlessly against him, burying his face in his hooves. Applejack went to sit on his other side. Then Rarity, then Fluttershy, then Rainbow Dash. The mighty warrior wept, pressed in from all sides by his herd. They cried with him, and he was not ashamed.

The library felt so big, so dark and intimidating without her. It would never be the same. Truly, Twilight had been the lynchpin of the entire group. The alpha mare. The mare in charge that everypony looked to for guidance and wisdom. Now she was gone. Gone so far into darkness not even Celestia’s light would try reach her. Let us not linger here, dear reader, tiz rude to stare at the misery of mourners.

=-----=-----=-----=-----=

Several Days Later...

=-----=-----=-----=-----=

Mr. Cake startled a little when Spartan Shield came into Sugar Cube Corner. He was always so rough with the door, the bell almost broke everytime he came in. “Heya, Spartan.” The knobby-kneed yellow stallion said politely. Word had spread around Ponyville about Twilight’s fate, so he tried to be as friendly as possible. “Anything I can get’cha?”

“Just coffee, Carrot. It’s getting cold out.” Spartan said, seating himself. Mr. Cake was among the stallions that came to Spartan’s weekly symposiums (stallions only!), and they’d become close friends over poker and drinks and odd jobs together. “Colder than ever before.” The stallion added miserably.

“I… heard about what happened.” Mr. Cake mumbled softly, getting the coffee pot and pouring a steaming mug. “On the house, buddy. You need it.” He said, pushing Spartan’s bits back toward him. The broken warrior didn’t argue. With no one else in the shop, he was free to sit across from his friend in case he needed to talk.

“Twas thou that helped me woo Twilight in the first place, with your odd chocolates.” Spartan smiled lovingly at his friend. “If not for thee, she may not have married me.” His words were quiet, but genuine.

“Well! I’m sure you would’ve found a way.” Carrot smiled, turning his ears back bashfully.

“She ate a few of them off my belly.” Spartan smirked a little wider, his eyes seeing the past. “We were correcting history books, you see, but soon she became more interested in me and the chocolates.” He managed a quavering little chuckle, remembering the intimate caress of Twilight’s lips on the softest parts of his undercarriage. Mr. Cake smiled, nodding along with the story. “What of thee and the ah… missus?” he tried to use a modern term, but both stallions knew what he was talking about.

Earth Pony and Earth Pony did not make a unicorn and a pegasus together. The dominant genes just would not allow it. The twins couldn’t be his. Mr. Cake had been in denial for ages but… it was genetics. He never spoke to Mrs. Cake about it, and had made up a story about great-great grandfathers and second-cousins-twice-removed to cover up her infidelity. They’d never talked about it, never brought it up. But, privately, the poor yellow stallion did hurt for it. Spartan looked him in the face while he tried to find words. “Eh… n-not yet.” Murmured the baker, looking to one side. Spartan frowned with disapproval, but said nothing about it. Everypony had his own marital problems these days. Even Shining Armor was being held against his will from his beloved. (Then again she could come visit whenever she wanted…)

“Then, let us be together in our female-based misery.” Spartan sighed, drinking deeply from his coffee. Mr. Cake got his own mug and joined him for a much longer chat, steering the conversation away from wives for both their sakes.

End of Part 2

Next Chapter: The Oracle Speaks Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 16 Minutes