The stainless white curtain that slides along the line of the long suspended metal bar serves the same purpose as that of a wall, and so does the orderly who holds me at bay with an outstretched hoof against my chest.

“You need to step back, ma’am,” he says. He is a colt with a light-blue coat and purplish mane. A straightjacket is his cutie mark.

“I can’t,” I say. “I need to be there with her.”

“We’re doing everything we can,” he replies, in a tone that sounds more genuine than rehearsed. “Please stay in the waiting room. A nurse will be with you shortly.”

Another hoof drapes over my shoulder and gently leads me away. “I know you’re worried about Cadance,” says Twilight . "It's... It's hard but we need to get back and give the doctors some room to work.”

“I-I’m sorry.” I allow myself to be guided, pulling myself away from the orderly as I myself am being pulled by Twilight, past through those two swinging doors of the emergency room and back into the adjacent lounge.

Twilight leads me to the long line of empty steel chairs just below the harsh red sign above the door labeled ‘ER’. I sit there, forcing my hoof against my eyes to squeeze the wetness out my tear ducts. I shake my hoof against the floor, making it seem that I tremble. Noticing that Twilight, however, is suddenly gone from my side–by means of teleportation, I suspect–for some reason, I stop the gesture entirely. I do not wipe away what few tears I managed to fake out; I still need those for her, and the others, to see.

As with the curse of every waiting room, there is little to distract myself with. What brings a small humble smile to my face is what I imagine going beyond those doors and beyond that curtain. After all, the same hospital is different for those who remain outside the surgical rooms, seeing nothing but these metal chairs, the artificial plant-life sitting in the corner, and the upright posture of every physician that passes by. It is a different reality altogether for those who lay their backs on that table–a table, it is called, as opposed to a bed–and see the sweaty brow of the nurse’s looming faces, blood-stained instruments, and a green fluctuating beep that slowly blinks away their heartbeat. Yes, perspectival as it may be, I and Cadance see, if her eyes are still intact, the two dichotomous halves of the same hospital. I only wish that soon, say, in a few hours or so, she will also see, as I hopefully will, that white blanket draping over her.

A spot of lavender leans out from the corner of the long narrow hallway, peeking out first from the white coffee dispenser. She trots to me, holding up with her magic a pair of paper cups containing coffee. As she nears, I wipe away the remnants of my grin and resume the trembling in my legs.

“Here,” she says, handing me one of the cups. “It’s not as good as the ones she gives you but we can’t be picky.”

“T-Thank you.” I receive the offer warmly and take a quick sip just to wet my dry throat.

“It’s just coffee…” Twilight whispers.

More than the rancid taste of such a plebeian three-in-one sachet, it is the aroma of this coffee–a smell powerful enough to waft the hospital’s reek of living death and antiseptic–that I find most reassuring.

“No,” I answer, shaking my head. “I was thanking you for being there and saving Cadance. If you haven’t been there… I wouldn’t have known what to do.”

“I heard a loud crash–”

“Oh! So did I.”

“–and ran to it. Anypony would’ve done the same.”

“But only you could have saved her.”

Twilight remains quiet for a moment, considering my flattery. She turns to me, now glaring. “When I got there, just outside her room, I saw you just standing there. You didn’t call for help. You weren’t even crying.”

“I was in shock!” I explain. “What would you do if you saw your best friend crushed and bleeding beneath a fractured and splintered pile like that?”

“I would’ve used my magic and–”

“Not everypony is as talented as you, Twilight!” I tell her, forcing tears out my eyes. “And it’s unfair that you use yourself as a standard where anypony less is a cause for blame.”

“But…” she tries but decides against it. She opens her mouth again, to say something, but hesitates once more. Shaking her head, she manages to let out some words from the lump in her throat. “You’re right… I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

We sit in silence for a moment, a length of time that, sitting here, grants us no measure. There are no means to discern the seconds we remain sitting side by side, faced towards the haunting blank wall in front of us; the clock is within the nurse’s station, and neither of us wants to exert the effort to stand and look at it. It is only when I reach for the cup of coffee resting by my side, and feel the stale coldness of the liquid on my lips, do I realize that more an hour, or more, has passed.

“Where are the others,” I ask suddenly, the silence of the past hour pricking my ear drums.

“I sent a letter to them,” she answers. “They should be here any minute.”

“…And Shining Armor?”

“I sent a letter to the barracks, telling him about the emergency. I… I haven’t receive a reply from him yet.”

“I see…” I take another sip of the stale coffee. “I’m afraid how he’ll take it.”

From the corner of my eye, I see how agitated she rubs her forehooves together. “Y-You’ve... really been great friends with them, haven’t you?” Twilight asks suddenly.

“Excuse me?”

“Cadance and my brother.”

“I wish I can be better.”

“R-Rarity, about what I said awhile ago,” Twilight shuffles in her seat, but still her eyes remain cast down to the floor. I cannot tell if she is bowing her head to me in apology, or is too ashamed to extend the courtesy of looking at me in the eye. “I want… I need to confess something to you.”

“What is it, darling?”

“You see...” She clears her throat. “These past few months I haven’t been completely honest with myself and you. While you and Applejack were avoiding Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, and I came every week to your place to try and convince you to be friends again, you must have thought of me as some sort of crusader bent on trying to reunite all of us together.”

An irritant, to be more honest, I managed not to say, like a morsel between teeth that one can’t spit away.

“But actually,” she continues, “During those times... I’ve... I’ve felt some degree of… animosity towards you.”

“Animosity!?” A hoof of mine jumps to my chest as soon as I hear that word, such a blatantly vulgar word still sophisticated enough for the drawing room. “I do not think that aside from my stubborn pride, I have done anything to warrant such an emotion.”

“Well, of course, it’s not you!” She shakes both her head and hooves in front of me. “I know that you haven’t done anything wrong. It’s me. It… started sometime between you becoming best friends with my foal-sitter and, well, you having a fight with Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. I didn't know why, back then, but I guess I know now. You see, I was… jealous. Jealous that Cadance was spending more and more time with you and less and less time with me. You’re the one she talks to about my brother, you’re the one she invites to dinners, and you’re the one to whom she tells her secrets. Even now, you’re here waiting for her beside me... Or maybe it’s me waiting beside you... Perhaps I’m still jealous. I… I imagine this is how you felt when Photo Finish chose Fluttershy over you. A small part of me–and this is what I couldn’t forgive–wants to end your relationship with Cadance. That same part of me wants to think that you’re the one who caused this accident and–”

“Twilight!” I leap to my feet, jumping back. I am not caught off guard, however. In fact, I had anticipated the accusation long before she had even considered it. “No matter what indignation may arise from something as innocent as jealousy, you know I am not capable of something like that.”

“Of course not, please calm down,” she apologizes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for even thinking of such a thing. Please understand that–”

The doors of the emergency room swing open. The nurse that comes out seems to have phased through the door, the speed of her trotting to us is not hindered by the obstacle. I notice then, looking up, the hot red light of ‘ER’ still refuses to fade out but remains there to blink.

“Are you in anyway related to Princess Cadance?” The nurse recites, in the span of a second, in a manner she would have said to whoever it was that sits in these rows of chairs. She is panting, the droplets of sweat collecting on her brow and thick-rimmed glasses.

Twilight and I look at one another. “I’m her sister in law,” Twilight responds. She points to me and adds: “And she’s Cadance’s best friend.”

“That’s close enough,” the nurse says, paying more attention to Twilight than to myself. “Have you contacted her husband yet? It doesn’t matter. Cadance will be fine. Contrary to popular belief, alicorns do not only possess that amplified ability of flight of a pegasus or the magic of a unicorn, but the regenerative ability of earth ponies as well.”

Twilights gasps in joy, and I in horror; the nurse, in her own exhausted and adrenaline-drugged condition, is unable to distinguish either. She raises a hoof, to save our apparent expression of relief for later, as she continues.

“However,” the nurse sighs, “as there have been very little number of alicorns that lived, complication such as these arises, namely: the unicorn foal. No hospital has treated a pregnant alicorn in over a millenia. There’s an internal hemorrhage in Cadance’s midsection and that same regenerative ability that is saving her life is applying too much pressure against the womb. The blood clot is pressing down against the foal’s cranium, which will cause permanent brain damage… To save the foal, we’ll need to perform an emergency cesarean delivery, and in so doing we risk... Princess Cadance. We risk that Princess Cadance won't be able to make it. ..The chances that both Cadance and her foal will survive is only about twenty-five percent... if we're lucky”

Twilight’s jaw hangs so low that it slumps her back into her seat. She is wordless, for that matter, and what words she can utter are not said, but either heaved out in the precarious breathing of her cheat or streamed down her eyes.

“We can’t afford to waste time,” the nurse concludes. “Usually, in emergencies like this, it is the immediate family who makes the decision, but in their absence and in the time we have left, you will have to decide.”

I look to the nurse and to Twilight, who is now unable to make the decision.

I breathe, not deeply but aloud, before I take the nurse’s attention. “So...” I say, clearing my throat, “please clarify this for me: what are the odds in the remaining seventy-five percent that Cadance alone will... not make it.”

“We are not sure. We are looking at somewhere between twenty to thirty.”

Only that much?

“I understand...” I hold the silence for a while, if only to increase those percentages with every passing second. “Please, proceed with the surgery.”

“Rarity!” Twilight jumps up. “How can you be so sure!?”

“It must be fate that... before the accident, Cadance and I were talking about how much it will mean to her to be a mother. That her foal is the best thing that happened in her life and she’d give up everything–even herself–to save it. So... with that said...” I turn to the nurse, “Please perform the surgery and prioritize the foal at all cost, even at the expense of Cadance’s life. I am sure that this is what she wants.”

The nurse turns to Twilight, disregarding my position as a mere friend to weigh on her judgment. “We will not be able to retract that decision.”

Twilight turns to the nurse and I, switching glances. To aid her decision, a hoof of mine slithers up to hers as I force more tears out my eyes to indicate that I somehow share the burden of choice. “Please Twilight," I say, "you know Cadance, you know what matters more to her.”

Twilight shuts her eyes. She wipes the tears off her face. She nods, turning to the nurse. “Please do it... Please save the foal.”

The nurse turns away, and trots back through the pair of swinging doors into the 'ER'. But before she can return to the emergency room, I call out to her, “W-What is it,” I ask, “the foal, I mean.”

“It’s a unicorn colt,” the nurse answers without turning back. She makes her exit.

I return to my chair and, seeing my friend there slumped in her seat, decide to shuffle next to Twilight to drape a hoof over her shoulders. It will be less suspicious, after all.

“This is so wrong,” Twilight says, her voice muffled by her hooves. “Cadance doesn’t deserve this.”

Perhaps she does.

“I... I still haven’t told you,” she coughs out.

I levitate a nearby napkin to her and push the cloth against her tears. “Hush now, don’t talk yet.”

“No, this is important.” She takes the napkin and lets it soak with the endless tears. “When I started hating you, I... started hating Cadance as well. I kept thinking to myself, ‘How come i-it’s Rarity that gets to be close with Cadance, and not me. Haven’t we been... longer than they have.’ I-I... I’m so horrible. I should be on that stretcher, not Cadance.”

I give her what she wishes to hear.

“Please don’t say such a thing and please don’t blame yourself.”

“I’m sorry,” she croaks out. “I am so... so sorry.”

“I am absolutely sure that Cadance and her baby will make it out of here alive and healthy, and you’ll be a darling aunt when you walk out of this hospital with them.”

I cradle Twilight in my embrace as she presses her head against my chest. I run my hoof down her mane and one to her back, feeling the small bumps of her spine. It is fortunate that, in our current position, she is unable to see how I stare at the red light above the door.

I find myself wishing for some freak accident, anything that will have that red light blink out and have a horrified nurse burst out to apologize how they are merely doctors and surgeons and not miracle workers.

How perfect would that be?

I can see it now—the bloody hooves of Twilight holding a red streaked blanket, the dark gory smears stained by her falling tears. She would then look at me, open her mouth and . . . but I would of course not listen, transfixing my gaze instead on the dead foal, and all that that implies. I cannot care any less for the creature’s fate; it will be inconsequential in the end. But the wish, fanciful in itself, hinges somewhere in that remaining twenty to thirty percent.

But if Cadance somehow makes it out alive then... Before she wakes up and exposes the truth, I will have to do prevent her from speaking... I will have to–

My thoughts are put to a stop as several trotting hooves come–not from the emergency room door–from the general hallway. Twilight pulls away from me, having recognized to whom those light steps belong, and turns to welcome the pair of pegasi coming our way.

“We flew in as fast as we could,” Rainbow Dash says to Twilight. She sees me, scowls, and adds, as a matter of necessity, “...And AJ is on her way.”

Before I can reply, it is Fluttershy who, out of concern for the mare in the operating room, immediately diverts the conversation to the subject at hand.

“How’s Princess Cadance?” the mare asks to Twilight. “Is it serious?”

Twilight is rendered mute for a moment, and I am the one forced to answer the inquiry. “The doctors are doing everything they can to save the foal... there’s a chance that Cadance won’t–”

Rainbow Dash darts to Twilight and takes her by the shoulders. It is apparent that she does not want to hear my voice. “Twi, tell us, what happened to Cadance?”

“It’s an accident!” I try again. “The chain–”

“Twi!” Rainbow Dash screams, rattling the unicorn.

Unable or unwilling to shake off the cyan pegasus, Twilight Sparkle finally answers in a string of words broken by a series of sobs. “It’s... an accident... the chandelier... fell... and she... If it wasn’t for Rarity and I...”

“Wait!” Rainbow Dash interrupts. She turns to me and there, finally, I have her attention. Reflected in her glare is the piercing glower of a hawk’s eye over its prey. “You were there when in it happened!?”

The world stops, for a few short seconds, when I see Fluttershy jump to hold back Rainbow Dash from pouncing on me.

I am piecing together, during this pause, the apparent inconsistency in my mind as to why Rainbow Dash would suspect me–despite rightly and accurately so–to have been Cadance’s failed murderess, whereas it has not been three nights ago when she does not even know of my affair with Shining Armor. I can only suspect that it was during–or after–Fluttershy’s hysterical theatrics that the rapist disclosed my secret to her rape-e.

“You did this!” Rainbow Dash roars. Under normal circumstances, she can no doubt break through anypony who tries to grab her. The fact that she cannot now owes more to the danger of hurting her deaf-mute lover in doing so, more than her still-crippled appendages.

Thankfully, before anger pries away reason from what’s left of Rainbow Dash’s sanity, it is Twilight Sparkle–in place of my absent dearest–who stands in her way between us.

“Calm down, Rainbow!” Twilight says aloud, in case she may not be heard amidst the profanities foaming out of the pegasus’ mouth. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s her! It’s Rarity! She tried to kill Cadance!”

“Don’t be absurd!” Twilight, moving forward, stomping her hooves onto the floor. “Rarity wouldn’t do such a thing.”

“She did this!”

“There’s no reason she’d hurt any of us, much less Cadance.”

“It’s because she–” something internal shocks Rainbow Dash into silence. She bites her lower lip.

“It wasn’t Rarity.”

What makes Rainbow Dash stop, I wonder. What is it that froze all that flame? Whatever it is, it manifested itself in Twilight’s face. I cannot see Twilight’s face, for her back is turned to me, but that visage is the full focus of Rainbow Dash’s attention. Did Rainbow Dash see, in Twilight’s eyes, how our friendship would end in pieces if the sister-in-law knew the best friend is fucking her brother? Or did the pegasus see the unflinching confidence in her statement that, to shatter it, would make the bearer crumble upon herself. I like to think, however, that the reason Rainbow Dash hesitates is because she saw her own reflection in Twilight’s still-red, still-crying eyes.

“...It wasn’t Rarity,” Twilight repeats.

Finally, in an act of surrender, Rainbow Dash places her hooves down to her sides as she rests her weight against Fluttershy. It is not an act of calming down, but of surrender, as how a puppet would grow languid if the strings holding it up would suddenly snap–snapping like the chain of that chandelier that crushed Cadance. But perhaps it is a bad analogy, the puppet, for I know that once Rainbow Dash fell to that state of helpless inactivity, it is from my strings that she dangles.

“Y-You’re right,” Rainbow Dash mutters. “You’re right, Twilight... It... It wasn’t Rarity.”

I run my kisses up Applejack’s navel to her collarbone, moving further somewhere along her neck and muzzle. With my hooves, I press against her shoulder to try and push her down to the bed where we still lay. But I am met with some resistance, and the expensive purple fabrics of the sheets do not even rustle under the movement.

Despite the enthusiasm of my savage kisses, I cannot help but feel the restraint in Applejack’s muscles. As my body quivers, I feel her shudder and tremble against mine; as I moan, it is the sound of pained groaning that breaches the confines of her dry crusted lips.

After several seconds of this exchange, my suspicion is made true when she holds me back by the shoulder.

“Ah’m sorry, hun,” she says. “Ah just can’t do this right now.”

“Dearest?” I ask, tilting my head.

“It’s just that ah can’t give ya the attention ya deserve.” She hits the mattress with her hoof. “Ah’m worried sick about Cadance.”

Even on her deathbed that bitch still manages to intervene with leisurely activities.

“She’s still on that stretcher,” she continues,“surrounded by a bunch of’em doctors and Calestia only knows what’s happenin’ there right now.”

“...Very well,” I respond, pulling away from Applejack. “As you wish.”

“Ah’d just like to hold ya now if that’s alright.”

“It’s alright.”

We sit up from our salacious position. I hold my forelegs above my thighs as Applejack wraps hers around my hips. She pulls me even closer so that our chests touch, even as she nuzzles her face against my neck.

“If that accident had happened to ya...” she mutters, “ah wouldn’t know how ah’d take it. Just thinkin’ bout that hurts mah chest, y’know.”

“I know, dearest.”

“Ain’t ya worried, hun?”

“I was... I mean, I am.”

“But ya seem kinda...”

“Kind of what?”

She pulls back, slightly, looking at the face I refuse to show her. “Forgive me for sayin’ this but ya seem kinda indifferent.”

“Indifferent?” Without offense to my dearest, I did not even know that such a polysyllabic term existed in her vocabulary.

“Yeah. Ya don’t usually want to take the lead unless yer feelin’, ah dunno, happy?”

“I’m sorry if it appears that way to you. I’m trying to cope after what happened to Cadance.”

“That’s some way of copin’.”

“Excuse me?” This time, I hold her back so that her hooves are removed from me.

“Ponies don’t usually wanna make love when their best friends are hurt.”

“Like how you accepted my advance a few nights after you beat up Rainbow Dash?”

Applejack’s face is not a blank, despite trying to be, as a glare still leaks out despite her attempt to hide it.

“I’m sorry, dearest. I shouldn’t have said that.” I push myself into her embrace once more.

“Ah’m sorry too.” She sighs, accepting the apology in the way she wraps her hooves around me.

A knock on the door makes Applejack and I look. We tear ourselves away from one another, dusting off the sweat from our manes and straightening the creases on our coats.

Pulling down the strings of the blinds, the layers of plastic lines fold up the window and the omnipresent sunlight floods the inside of my suite. With the same magic, I grab on to the door handle and pull it open to address the impatient knocking from the other side.

Whereas I expected a familiar Twilight or the rest, Applejack and I are met by the stone face of a royal guard.

“May I help you?” I ask the colt.

“Miss Rarity and Miss Applejack?” he asks, turning to each of us in turn.

“Yes,” Applejack answers. “That’s us.”

“A letter from Miss Twilight Sparkle about the condition of Princess Cadance.” Bowing his head, the guard produces a scroll from his breastplate. He hands the message to Applejack; I snap it from both of them.

Slowly, like that of a filly flipping the semester’s report card, I open the paper for myself to see:

Dear RD/FS/Rty/AJ,

Cadance and the foal both survived the surgery! But the foal needs to stay longer in the incubator. Please hurry and visit them as soon as possible.

-TS

PS: Cadance just woke up!

I suck in a cold gasp; I had never tasted the sting of ice in my lungs as in that moment, my eyes scrambling over that last line.

Cadance just woke up...

Impossible! So soon?

I look up from the letter, to the royal guard in front of me and the spear that rests on his side.

Am I to be arrested? Has Cadance already exposed me?

But the guard shows no indication of imposing his authority. He stands there, waiting for the both of us to comprehend the entirety of the message. As mine is already apparent, in the horror-stricken visage I cannot control, it is Applejack’s reaction that he waits for in the both of us.

“Why that’s great news!” Applejack says. “And here ah was worried sick just a minute ago.”

“Unfortunately,” the guard continues, “there is still cause for worry. You see, though the Princess has woken up, she is still paralyzed by the shock. The doctors don’t know as of yet if she will be able to talk or if she can’t, which is why Miss Twilight Sparkle is asking everypony to come to the princess’s aid alongside Shining Armor.”

“Shining Armor is there!” I try to ask; the sentence came out with an exclamation.

“He was. He left seconds before I did.” The guard flaps his wings, showing how he is able to reach us first.

“Well, so much for relief,” Applejack sighs. “We’ll be there lickety-split. Just let me get mah hat.”

I follow Applejack back into the room, giving a small nod to the guard before magically closing the door before him. I turn my back and lean against the door with the knob behind my forelegs and the slit parallel to my spine.

Applejack walks to my bed, passing through the hazy spotlight of the dark-gold sunbeams slanting from the window panes. A peculiar abreaction washes over me, stemming from the knowledge that Cadance has survive and amplified, most of all, the sight of Applejack, here in the privacy of my room. Standing there, the rays of the sun revitalize the bright orange of her coat, polishing it, even, in a shade of pristine aureate. And even the dust, dispersing around her within that light, twinkles in infinitesimal dots of white as they mirror the sun.

I know that, in a few days or even hours, I may never again be in seclusion with Applejack like this.

If Cadance tells everypony then...

“Jacqueline...” I call to her.

“What is it, hun?” Applejack responds, inspecting her hat before dusting of some motes and microbes from its surface. “Glad that Cadance made it. Alicorns like’em sure do so recover fast it’s scary. Scary in a good way, mind ya.”

“I... I’m not going.”

“What’s that?”

“I said I’m not going... to visit Cadance.”

“Why not?”

“I do not think I am quite ready to face her in her condition. It’ll hurt me too much.”

“But yer that gal’s best friend. She’s waiting there fer ya.”

“Jacqueline, please don’t argue. You wouldn’t understand. I myself have yet to recover from the shock of... the accident.”

“Well, if ya say so.” She sighs, then shrugs. “Still, it’d mean a lot to Cadance that you’d be there for her.”

“Thank ya, dearest.” Hugging Applejack, I give her a peck on the cheek. “I love you.”

“Ah know, hun,” she chuckles. “Ya tell me everyday.”

I lead her out the door, granting her my blessing, and her leave, with another kiss. I want to savor that soft embrace, which, at back of my mind, I know very damn well may be our last. But Applejack, innocent Applejack, does not find oddity in the gesture; for her, it is simply one of the thousands of kisses we have already shared. So she pulls back almost immediately, eager to see to the recovery of our princess. She leaves, waving back to me, with the guard-escort accompanying her back to the hospital.

Even when she is already yards away, I remain standing in the doorway, with one foot in the darkness of my room and the other stepping on to the broad daylight. I watch that glowing speck of beautiful orange shrink smaller and smaller until, around the far corner, she is lost somewhere amongst the towering concrete buildings of Canterlot.

As soon as she is gone, I am left alone in my suite. Sealing myself inside, I lock the door closed and shut the blinds. The golden spotlight, from which my dearest Applejack stood beatified and lavished, is shut off. The room languishes in a heavy darkness that is almost a miasma, and I sit on its center.

I have half a mind now to rush to the chiffarobe and pack whatever dresses and bits I can fit in a suitcase.

I remember doing that, once, long ago. How old was I then? I can no longer recall. Was it sometime around Sweetie Belle’s third birthday–or was it her fourth? I do not even remember the reason. I did it, perhaps, either to get attention or to escape from it, a rare motive for one with my egotism. And when I did go, back then, after having run away, no doubt that it was within Canterlot’s high walls that I sought my recluse, for it cannot have been any place but Canterlot. And I remember how I was there for a short dreamy while, before I woke up and found myself to be a seamstress in dreary Ponyville. How old was I then too, when I first looked back and measured time not in years, but in cities?

Where am I destined to next if I am to run this instant, while I still can?

But as I pry the layers of the blinds, risking in some light, city-god that is Canterlot breathes into me: a great host to all manner of jagged towers and spires of concretes, its colossal castleworks and mansion and palace, its living, breathing regality that sits atop all else; I know that no other city would be a substitute.

At last, having waited for so long, the door to my room opens. I do not need to turn to know who it is, the fact that he did not bother to knock is proof enough that it is him and no one else.

“To be honest, I expected you earlier,” I say. “Shining Armor.”

The room seems to shake as a loud thud echoes within when Shining Armor slams the door shut.

I turn around to see him, giving him the attention he so ruthlessly tries to evoke.

From the eyes of those whom are not ours, one may see a familiarity in the scene. I, too, can remember it as well. It is the first night of Shining Armor and I. And I cannot forget how, in this very same room, he stands then as he stands now: powerful, furious, menacing and merciless. He has the same face as he did back then, that which appeared, and felt, to be carved from the shard of a monolith.

But there is a significant difference, of then and of now. Of then, Shining Armor was fearful of what he can, he will, and he did to me; and I am but the frightened and excitable little virgin who quivers at the thought being subverted by a prince. Of now, Shining Armor holds in himself the confidence of being in the right; and I, try as I might, cannot find a hint of fear in me. I want to say to him how we have matured so much and traveled so far in only a span of a year since our first night, and this, now, is the unforeseen inevitability resulting from the mistakes of our younger selves.

“Good afternoon,” I tell him, “though I might say that I expected you sooner. This, however, saves me the trouble of looking for you. As I, too, have something of grave importance to say. So, who shall go first?”

Shining Armor marches toward me, his hooves making no sound against the tiles. Once within the reach of his forelegs, Shining Armor grabs me by the shoulder and pushes me against the wall. I feel my back slam against the granite, and the sudden motion pulls the string of the blinds.

“I see that you do not see me enough of a lady to permit me the initiative,” I smile. “Very well then, dear, speak your mind.”

Several thin layers of sunlight splay lines of yellow across Shining Armor’s front, inch-long levels of gleam that outlines what should have been a shadowy figure in the dark. The armor he wears sparkles under those layers, to a glinting hue of the shade’s color that permeates its wearer a saintly, almost angelic, beauty in itself. Even as he glares down, with the eyes of a manticore and the visage of an impassive judicator, I cannot help but think of how much I missed his touch on me, his hooves all over my body and my body all over his. I resist the temptation to kneel down and run my tongue against his wide chest, his broad shoulders, his sturdy–

“Did you try to kill my wife?” he asks.

“It makes me think,” I answer, “whether you would accuse Cadance of murder if I was the one who was crushed by that chandelier.”

“This isn’t a joke anymore!” he roars. “This is my wife’s life we’re talking about.”

What’s the difference? I’d like to say to him, if not that the humor is misplaced.

“Your wife!” I screech. “It’s always been about Cadance because she’s your wife, isn’t it? Even as you fucked me, you were thinking of her every time, weren’t you?”

Teeth clenching, Shining Armor grabs me by my foreleg and shoves me down to the floor. I fall on my knees with a thud.

“If she wasn’t your wife you wouldn’t care for her as you do now!” I scream to the floor.

“Did you try to kill Cadance!?” he roars.

Turning to him, teeth flared, I answer: “So what if I did!?”

Shining Armor’s hoof, reaching for my mane with an intention to pull, freezes into stillness as he hears my words. Before he can recover, I shout:

“What if I did?” I repeat, forcing tears out from my ducts. “Would you have come back to me? Would you have gone to me once Cadance died? What would I get with her death... So it wasn’t by her death that I’ll get you, but yours. If Cadance knew about us then, and maybe then–! ...But before I can tell her... the accident beat me to it. To be honest, I do not know if it was fortunate for me or not. But it happened... You see, no... I didn’t try to kill Cadance... But if somepony did, I’d like to write him a big fat check.”

Shining Armor raises the frozen hoof, no doubt to slash it against my face. I bite my teeth, in turn, showing him that I have no intention of hiding my cheeks. And he, looking down at me with rage fueling that raised limb, douses the hot fury when he shuts his eyes and moves down his shaking fist back to his chest. Breathing out the puffs of flame that had gone out, Shining Armor holds his hoof against his throbbing temple. He collapses, slumping down the bed, to a state of helpless inactivity.

Knowing that his moment has come and gone, along with the dangerous emotions it has elicited, I figure that now more than ever, while his heart is at its most vulnerable, is the apt moment for me to play my turn.

Standing up, I say to him, “Now that you have said–or asked, rather–what it is it that troubles you, will you now permit me to speak what I have in mind?”

Shining Armor does not reply. I trot pass him, back to those window blinds once more, shutting them close. Conversations such as this, after all, are not to be discussed in broad daylight.

“You know, Shining Armor,” I say, “As a filly my parents always heralded me to be a bright young unicorn, smart and with a good head on my shoulders. Even my father’s eventual customers–he was a jeweler, you remember–all praise me of having those necessary traits a mare must have if she is to survive in this concrete jungle: brains, beauty... and cunning. I just did not think that my conquest would be this great... or this difficult.”

I move to the nearby cabinet. I levitate from it my cigarette case and pluck out a stick. I tap one end of the roll on the surface, before sparking it to life with my magic and placing it between my lips.

“Shining Armor,” I say, breathing out a thick clump of smoke, “you will leave Cadance... for me.”

I said it, not as an imperative, but in the manner one would pronounce an impartial fact.

“Am I?” It is not a question, but a challenge.

“Yes.”

“What impudent conceit made you assume I’ll–” He stops. He looks up. “Unless you have some sort of blackjack you want to spring on me.”

This time I merely look at him. I take a long deep drag of the cigarette and open my mouth, letting out the curls of gray suspended between my lips.

“...the affair,” he concludes. “If I don’t leave Cadance for you then you’ll expose me.”

“In principle, yes,” I respond, “but not quite.”

“Nothing!” Shining Armor leaps to his feet. “And I mean nothing you can do or say will make me–”

“I’m pregnant.”

And there, plastered on Shining Armor’s face–in the sudden widening of his white eyes, of his jaw that parts and is drawn open, in the scrunched muzzle–is the absolute expression of repulsed stupefaction. The moment hangs, with me repeatedly emitting the room’s effluvium of tobacco-waste.

“Let me begin by saying that ‘yes’, this child is yours. I have not slept with any other stallion. I wouldn’t sink so low as to give any of them the privilege. Not after what I have achieved in your bed.”

I do not know if he hears me, as the phrase ‘I’m pregnant’ no doubt still rings in his ears. And as though the weight of those words alone drags him down, he sits, slumping on the bed.

Looking at him like that, struck with fear versus an inexplicable horror, I feel a growing contempt for his display of consternation.

“Oh, don’t sit there shocked!” I say, throwing my cigarette against the wall. “You have no right to uphold that innocent superiority of being shocked, you are in on it. This thing in my womb is mine as much as it yours.”

Placing my hoof against my navel, and making sure he sees the gesture and what it represents, I give him enough time to think before I proceed. The moment does not come, however, and I speak, hoping that my words will slip through the tangled webs of his mind.

“You may meditate on the further implication of this... revelation, but I only ever limit myself to the social dimension of the consequences. Specifically, when the news and gossip spread throughout Canterlot that I, the great Miss Rarity, was impregnated by Prince Shining Armor. No, dear, I do not intend to harm you. I will not have your honor smeared, as even I know that nothing I can do to you will make you come to me. So, I am telling you frankly that the object of this smear is not you...”

“...but Cadance,” he mutters, completing the sentence.

“I’m glad you understand.” I take out another cigarette from the case and light it. “If a scandal of this nature is made public–by professional manure slingers such as Miss Basket Case or Miss Pep Talk or I–it will do no actual damage to you or your reputation. Nopony will be surprised. In this day and age, society expects affairs such as this from every stallion. Beyond a few glances and raised eyebrows in ballroom parties, you will get off easily. Quite the contrary, now that I think about it, the scandal will produce for you the reverse effect. For having impregnated both an alicorn princess and Element of Harmony, you will receive among your fellow colts and stallions the prestige of envy and pride for the undertaking, and achievement, of a conquest of such magnitude; for the mares, you will receive an aura of sensual glamour, all of them wishing to be your next prize and be labeled among the ranks of Cadance and myself. You will be looked up to, admired and even lusted for...

“But what of Cadance? What about sweet and dearly innocent Cadance? Your love, saint and goddess? What about her image of reflecting the supposed romantic idealism? What would she be, in the eyes of everypony that meets her? Will she be branded as a failed lover? A bad wife? Sexually unsatisfying that you so have to cheat on her not a year since your wedding? I will leave all these questions for you to evaluate... and to consider.”

Without looking up, Shining Armor responds from what self-esteem that has yet to crumble. “B-but... if you make this public, then your own reputation would be in jeopardy.”

“Yes, it will.”

“And your own social standing means much more to you than ours is to us.”

“It does.”

“You’ll be humiliated, for whoring yourself to me... which you actually are.”

“I will go down; there is no doubt about that.” I answer, lighting another cigarette. “But, make no mistake, I’ll be sure to take Cadance down with me...”

“You’re insane–”

“Otherwise,” I interrupt, ignoring his insult. “I’d abort the foal and remove any evidence of our affair.”

“Y-You’d use your own child–”

“Not my child, Shining Armor,” I hiss, plucking the cigarette from my teeth. “Ours. Our child. Our foal. Our sin, finally made real, for the world to see—a breathing living reminder of what I am and what Cadance is not.”

“This is monstrous!”

“And there was a time–mind you–when monstrosity was called Machiavellianism, but now I prefer to call it blackmail.”

“Blackmail doesn’t even define what you’re doing!”

“For once, Shining Armor, for this once I am playing straight, and so should you. What I am counting on, is that you love Cadance more than I love my social position. You still need to make your choice: leave Cadance and save what you can of her halos and laurels; or watch her go down in the history of her immortal life as the princess of love whose husband was cheating on her. If you don’t love her, then just leave her and you can have me in her stead. But if you do love her, then leave her to protect her from the damage of what I can do. Either way... You will be mine in the end.”

Shining Armor is stagnant for a long time, still but not lifeless, a difference too difficult to discern until one sees his eyes. His eyes, remaining wide, see straight through the hooves that cover them. What is he seeing now, I wonder: His past with Cadance? His future with me? Regardless, reality is wiped from his vision, replaced in its stead is flashing slideshows of memory and imagination.

After I have finished my cigarette, crushing the cinders beneath my hoof, that statue finally moves. First, it is the small tensed quivering of his lips, dry now, in his attempt to speak. When it fails, he moves his hooves next, tearing them away from his watery blue eyes, hoping that, in those pearly beads he sheds, is the answer he cannot word. But knowing that I will not take his tears as an adequate response, he is forced to articulate:

“A-Alright, Rarity...” He heaves out a painful breath. “You... You win... I... I can’t.... I can’t let Cadance pay for my sins...”

“Good.” Try as I might, I cannot find it in myself to smile. His answer shows only how much he loves Cadance. “The sooner, the better. We’ll tell Cadance everything today.”

Shining Armor stands up, but I raise a hoof to stop him.

“No,” I say. “Not now. Twilight and the others are still there. Let’s wait an hour or so, and then we’ll go.”

I take a third cigarette in the case and light up once more. I do not remember when I had smoked so many in such a short span of time. At most, I restrain myself to one stick an hour. I levitate the case to Shining Armor; he does not accept the gesture. Tossing the case to the side–and only then did Shining Armor take one–I retreat back to the window and look up to graying sun above.

“It’s going to be an early night,” he says, facing the floor, “it’ll… it’ll be cold outside.”

“I’ll call us a cab. Should I wear my sable?”

“It’s just windy. Just... ready a muffler or something.”

We wait, in this darkness where even Celestia’s sun remains locked out of the window. Even with the blinds folded down, I slide the curtain close and trot to the kitchenette. From the wide selection of liquor, I take out a brandy from the lower cabinet, the shiny bottle of Cognac to be specific. I pour myself and Shining Armor half a glass as this is only a cause of premature celebration, after all. We cannot afford to get drunk; there is much work to be done.

I leave his glass on the drawer top beside him as I rest mine on the armrest of the ottoman where I sit, directly in front of him. I lean back, my legs folded, sipping at my drink and burning away the stick in my hooves. Shining Armor does the same, almost, as his own cigarette is barely touched; the tip is already a long line of ash, eating its way to the stub, ready to crumble at the slightest nudge. In this darkness, where the curls of smoke dissipate and collapse among the density of the unwholesome air, two dots of two flickering red lights dwindle with a wink.

Walking side by side, I return through the hospital’s hallways with Shining Armor. The eyes we attract from nurses and patients, all of whom know him undoubtedly, are all placed beneath a raised brow or crooked forehead. It is because, my conceit would want to believe, of my choice in fashion–a rich brown muffler and a pair of dangling earrings–in visiting an incapacitated patient; or because of how close, scandalously close, I stand beside the prince of Canterlot, purring as I nuzzle his neck. I can read it in their eyes—this is not at all inappropriate for the common propriety of such a place.

By contrast, Shining Armor acts decently in his unresponsive zombification. It makes me think, too, that his desuetude is what draws the attention of the nurses and doctors to think that he, the visitor, rambling in how he walks and shaky in how he stands, is a patient suffering from an inoperable illness.

As Cadance’s private room is presented before us, we are welcomed, by the doorstep, of the same nurse that addressed Twilight and myself about the cesarean yesterday.

“Can I help you?” the nurse asks.

“I’m Rarity, the best friend from yesterday, and this is prince Shining Armor.”

The nurse pauses, looking at us and the close proximity by which I press against him. “Ah, yes,” the nurse says. “Prince Shining Armor, Cadance’s husband.”

I believe that the nurse deliberately added emphasis on the word husband as a remark on my apparent indecency. I do not mind much; I know that middle-class ponies such as she, who would never amount to anything in the social ladder, never had an inkling of subtlety.

“How is Cadance?” I ask, as a precaution regarding the princess’s condition.

“Yes, Miss Rarity, she’s awake but still paralyzed by the shock.” The nurse adjusts her glasses. “She can hear and understand, we think, but she refuses to talk. We’re feeding her intravenously and–”

“That’ll be all, nurse.” Dragging Shining Armor by his hooves, I pass through the mare. “And please notify us if any of our friends were to visit. Tell them, too, that we are not to be disturbed.”

Giving such instructions, I half-expected the nurse to bow and say, ‘As you wish, Miss Glass Slippers’, like the hundreds of managers and receptionist of our hotels who received similar orders.

The nurse does not say anything. She turns around and walks to our opposite direction.

It is by sheer innocence, I believe, that there are no royal guards in constant vigilance of the room. Perhaps Shining Armor, from last night or earlier, or a physician with equal authority, has dismissed them, believing that the atmosphere they create is the not the healthiest for a recovering patient such as she.

Pushing the door open, as we enter Cadance’s private room, I am welcomed with a blast of color so pure that it is almost blinding. The whiteness makes me squint my eyes and almost makes me cover them with my hoof, repelled like a lamia under the day, or a kraken yanked from the dark oceanic depths and into the bright sunlight. It is as though Cadance’s soul, having stayed in one place for so long, had purified the room of any toxicity. Only a shade of the princess’s paling pink coat, peeking out of her still-blood-stained bandages, stands out against the pristine white walls, the polished white ceilings, the scrubbed white floors and fresh white sheets. And there she lies at the room’s epicenter, outstretched on the bed in a posture of genteel dormancy, looking up and her hooves on the side of her lap. But it is difficult to simply say that she is lying on a bed, for it is as though she rests on the cradle of an altar, exalted by the sunbeams that pierce the lenses of the window panes. The patches of her broken skin, still healing and still alive, is not a wound from an earthly injury, but stigmata from the almighty herself.

I walk close to the bed, observing the details of the broken features that I brought upon her. I have not read, or heard, the full report of the damages of her body, but it will pale in comparison to what I see now. A white patient’s smock, more akin to a saint’s robe, hides most of her coat. The bandages, white in most and red in some, wrap around the taut extremities of her legs. A small patch of her belly is exposed, and I can see, running through her midsection, the scar of the cesarean operation. Her wing, all bone and torn of feathers for now, is a skeletal-like hand outreaching toward the window. And, just above her unscathed cheeks, inviolate muzzle and uninjured chin, she is rendered blind with a thick layer of bandages circling around her eyes.

Shining Armor pushes one hoof forward and, with it, drags the rest of his legs and body in the slow arching shamble. He reaches the altar-bed where his saint and goddess lies bleeding, and there, placing his head against her bosom, he holds her forehooves and kneels, speaking in a misunderstood utterance of a confession:

“C-Cadance...” he whispers. “Honey... I’m here.”

There is no sign of response from the princess. We cannot even tell if she is awake or comatose.

“Honey...” Shining Armor mutters, louder this time. “I... I’m leaving you... for Rarity...”

And still, even as he says those words, I cannot find any form of reaction from Cadance’s dangling body. Even the pace of her faint breathing, which should have been still in shock, remains constant. If she can hear him now, the news is of no surprise to her.

“Cadance, love,” he continues, “please understand that... that I love you more than anything. And that I’ll always love you, above all else. And that... what I’m doing here... you might not understand... or... or forgive... but... remember that I’m doing this because... I... I love you... so much... If... If you can hear me now... then please believe... me... when I say that, given the choice, I’ll choose you over anyone else... but I don’t have that choice now... so... please... please understand... please know... that I love you...”

And even there, as Shining Armor pours his heart out, there is not as much as whimper from Cadance. I am forced to conclude that she, if not sleeping, returns to the safety of the unconscious.

Shining Armor makes the same conclusion. He stands up, wiping tears from his eyes, and shoves shoulders with me as he stomps out the door.

I am left alone with Cadance, for a moment, as I know I have to return again to my prince. But as privacy such as this seldom presents itself, I am tempted to make the most out of it. I will not smother her with a pillow–though the delicious idea crosses my mind–for the sole reason that no doubt I shall be the prime suspect to a crime I cannot talk myself out of. No, instead, I creep before her, sit on the bed, and lean my whole body across hers as I whisper into her ear:

“Shining Armor is mine now,” I say in between clenched teeth. “And if you try to take him away–his title as a prince, his rank as captain, his treasures, or his very self–then I swear by Discord, I’ll kill our child in its sleep.”

Wiping a lock of mane behind my ears, I stand up and march to the door, satisfied at the thought that, with this threat, I have finally got the better of Cadance. But, as I reach for the knob, I hear a voice behind me.

“R-R-Rar...rity,” it mutters, desperately, between broken coughs and sobs. “S-Shi... Shining Armor, he... he doesn’t like sugar and cream in his coffee... A-A-And... he... he still can’t... fix a tie... always help him dress and... and... he likes those hayfries very much... b-but it’s unhealthy so... please cook lots of green vegetables from and... and...–”

Slamming the door close behind me, I walk out of the room.

I knew I would find Shining Armor in his room, rather than mine. It surprises me still, as I did not expect even him to be courageous enough to re-enter the place where he spent many a fond moments with his wife, or enduring enough to bear the assault of memories from all sides.

Sitting there, on the floor, slumped against the balcony’s glass door, he holds his forelegs around his knees. He is aware of my presence of course, even without him looking–and even if he did look, I do not think that the tears in his eyes would depict me visible through his watery vision. He is sobbing, soundlessly, and disconsolate. More than pity, it is hate, or disgust, that I feel for him, that he can allow me to see this brooding side of him. This is not the proud figure of a crusader that I love. Even the beastly brutal side of him, brimming with power, that made him force himself on me, is more preferable than this display of weakness. But I permit him this release, despite my disapproval, as even I know that this is one of those rare moments in which one’s strength fails.

So, paying him little mind, I trot to their bed, which will soon be ours, and there I lay, pressing my muzzle against the pillows. The faint scent here that still lingers is of a familiar raspberry, her smell.

I worm against the smooth fabrics of the bed, rubbing my back against the silk and my mane against the pillow, savoring the texture of the sheets where Cadance and Shining Armor once made love.

“Shining, dear,” I call to the figure on the floor, though ‘Shining’ is the last of his traits, “this bed... still has Cadance’s smell.”

When he does not move, I rise from the bed and grab him by his forelegs, dragging him to the bed. There is little resistance in him, resistance made by the weight of lethargy.

But it is once that we are an inch away from the mattress, as I run my wet tongue against his neck, that life surges back into my prince. And surges it does, violently, gushing out with anger.

Shining Armor tears my hooves from him. He slaps my face. He throws me down the bed. He jumps on top me.

I do not scream. I do not feel a hint of fear or panic. The hot pain in my swelling cheek is, in a word, delicious, and it makes me run my tongue against my lips.

There, I lay, imprisoned between the brawn of his forelimbs, roofed over by his broad marmoreal torso, his nostrils flaring and his red eyes–red with tears or anger or both–looking down on me. And I quiver, neither in fear nor excitement, in a tense anticipation of my own victory over him, over Cadance! For I know, as well as he, that I will win him as soon he shoves that stiff throbbing cock inside, be it in lust or anger or hate or pity, and seal ourselves together in an act of concession to vulgarity.

And then, I win: Shining Armor pushes his whole shaft deep inside me with one painful, mighty thrust. The sudden invasion and the sensation of being filled all at once, makes me gasps, and wince, and moan, and shriek with a cackle.

I feel on him, on his back, a violent shudder, more violent, but less brutal, in the way he keeps pushing his cock. It is because of the sound I made, I believe, that gave rise to the emotion that made him quiver. But that emotion, fear or excitement, does not last long as his face, his grimace, turns to me.

I look up at him, directly in those red eyes, as though to challenge him. Do it, my eyes say to his. And I swear I can feel that weapon, hot and buried in me, bulge a little.

Anger, hate and contempt, then take complete control of his body. His muscles grow tense. Grabbing my chin with one hoof, he turns my face to his, making sure I can see the rage in his eyes, as he holds me down by the shoulder. His other forelimb coils tight around my frail figure to hold me in place as he pulls his cock out and strikes back in. I feel the tip of it slam against the end of my womb, tearing through the thin membrane of my cervix, where I feel once more the seething heat of pain that makes both my legs shake and coil in the air.

He continues fucking me like this–if fucking is even the word for how he subjugates me–shoving back and forth, vigorously, to inflict pain in me. And I do feel the pain, of him scraping my inside, and it almost, almost, makes me bite my lip. But I show him no indication, from my face, from where he can feel the least bit of victory. The victory, which is his every thrust and blow in me, is, after all, mine and mine alone, my victory over him and Cadance.

Harder, my eyes challenge him. And his strikes grow in power, in brutality, the savage and cruel lunge of cock that scratches the filthy itch around the edges of my cunt, as though to force me to bleed from within. He leans forward, weight pressing across me, as he opens his maw and bites down on my shoulder. I can feel his whole set of teeth break through my skin and a droplet of blood trickle down my coat and to the bed. But still, my face remains motionless, eternal.

Harder, my hooves beckon him on, for both the bite and the fuck. And though his teeth lets go of my shoulder–perhaps out of disgust of the taste of that bluish-black blood–the pace of his piston movement increases. Faster his cock slides in than it slides out. Perhaps there, too, drowned in the sea of overwhelming pain, my womb is bleeding already and, rather than marecum, it is the blood from my ruptured vag that serves as his lubricant. It does not slow him down, and only enforces him to go faster and deeper with each ugh, ugh, ugh grunt that accompanies the whapping sound of his ramming thrusts.

Harder! my whole body, already wracked in pain, still screams to him, it’s not hard enough! Already, from the push of his body against my body, I am forced back against the bed’s headboard and my frame is bent and curled upwards as he looms above me, hammering down with roughshod aggression. If this is meant to show what power he has over me, to humiliate me in the privacy of his bed, then a spit to my face would complete the degradation. Perhaps I would even be aroused with the gesture! But Shining Armor would not do so, even if he can wish it, for he still, at least, retains some dignity of proper decorum.

And here, writhing in pain, under the prince I have given all of myself too, thinking–perhaps wishing–of a way he can punish me further like the bitch I am, my mind inappositely flips further through the mental repertoire of my pretermitted foalhood, long forgotten but, apparently, still lingering in the outskirts of my mind. I do not know, for the life of me, why I remember this now:

As all young mares of my age then, I took a guilty sense of curiosity towards my sexuality the day I discovered what my pussy was for. It was not a perverted curiosity, for I still prioritized the dignity of being a lady and always did I excuse myself from public display of indecorum. But since that revelation, I have always looked at mares and stallions, in my mind’s eye, with an abject inquisitiveness as to what they did behind those barred doors and shut windows, and what sounds they made, and why they tingled and blushed as they get out. And it so happens that I was in my seventh summer, when my birth mother dragged me to Las Pegasus on one of her business trips, surveying, without her permission, through those midnight streets, that serendipity forced me to see the naked act without the filter of veils or adult supervision. There are no veils there of course, nor supervision, not in the dark alleys of Las Pegasus where I heard the long tortured moan of a mare. It attracted me, out of that unhealthy curiosity, to that corner where I saw those two adults engaged in their debauchery. One of them, a pegasus mare with red mane and yellow coat, bent over the garbage bin, and, from behind her, busying himself against her, a stallion with a black coat and green mane. The stallion plows quickly, as though something were to catch him if he slowed down, rubbing and pressing his hips against the mare’s flank; and the mare herself, melting in absolute surrender to the stallion, has her body hitting the lid of the trashcan. And only when the stallion pulled back slightly that I saw, in between their haunches, a long phallic article connecting them both. So this, I remember thinking, a lump forming at the back of my throat, this is what they do. Of course, the two of them saw me watching, studying them both, and the mare let out a loud hysterical cry while the stallion only laughed and humped faster and faster as he pulled on the mare’s wings. At last, when they finished, the stallion pulled out his dangling fifth leg out of the mare’s body and, levitating his saddle–I remember now that he was a unicorn–took from it some several corroded bits to which he nonchalantly threw on the mare’s back. As he exited the alley, he passes by me and rubs my mane with his still-moist hoof. I remember him saying something among the lines of, “That’s how it’s done.” I never told anyone of the scene I saw. My curiosity satisfied, I lost my taste for the sexual act until...

Until...

Shining Armor is on his back now, and I am impaled on top of him. I do not know, in my vivid recurrence of the past, how we changed our positions that I am now straddling him. He stays still, below me, in absolute surrender, both his forelimbs wrapping around his eyes. Perhaps he is crying again, at the thought of Cadance, which only makes me feel more indignation and disgust for him than how he fucked me not an hour ago.

I inspect my own ruined body, wracked with pain and nothing else, to see no bruises, only those red chafe on my limbs made when a hoof is pressed against them. Everywhere else, my coat is thick with beads of sweat trailing from my face or my chest. The red badge of the bite bark still flows from it a few dribbles of blood, splashing my beautiful white coat with a pink tinge from the shoulder down. Inside me, by contrast, is however dry. I do not know if Shining Armor has yet to splatter his stallion spunk inside, or he already did and the thick filament had just already crusted on my walls.

Has it always been this disgustful?

I place my forelegs behind me, pressing my hooves against his thighs, to be used as column of supports as I move my body up and down. I realize, when I first move up, that he already did cum inside me. Some of it drips out of my greasy snatch.

No... Not always...

There was a time, not too long ago, when this was the happiest expression of love she could commit to me...

She...

I throw my hips, as high as I can, so that his tip will stab my walls when I slam back down. Each time my cunt squeezes tightly around the root of his tool, creating a nasty squelch. I inspect my body again, more introspectively this time, and find, to my surprise but not disappointment, that nowhere in me do I feel an ounce of pleasure.

It seems senseless now, even as I bounce my flank upon him, when I feel nothing but pain. It is as though I have placed myself into this living torture device–as he does to me the second he rammed himself inside. But I keep on going, regardless, moving my hips about just for the sake of reaching another orgasm neither of us wants.

“Don’t be so sad, Shining Armor,” I say, laying myself flat on him as I stir the cock inside me with my gyrating movements. “I promise it won’t be as bad you imagine. All I ask from you is your cooperation in my occasional social gatherings; to stand and smile there beside me, and shake hooves with ponies you won’t know or care about, and bear it a little as they bore you to death about their yacht clubs and golf memberships. And... ugh.. in turn, you can fuck me like this every night for the rest of your life.”

I do not know if he hears me, but I do know that he is awake; as soon as I try to reach for his lips with mine, he immediately pushes me away, with his hooves that jump in the reflex of self-defense at the slightest hint of a kiss.

I lay myself flat on him, my hooves on his side, pressing my muzzle in against the concave integument of his bony ribs; I make do with light taps of kisses on his heaving chest. The kisses have little meaning in them now, no different to that of my springing hips that only hurts me with each successive blow. The gesture is a conditioned habit, perhaps, serving only as an additional stimulation to my stale dry lips.

I remember, too, when kisses were romantic, that such a thing as romanticism exists. It was not long ago. The last ebbing rays of it are gone, hours past, when she unwittingly left to care for Cadance.

She, again. She who made all these kisses and lovemaking so desirous and special, once. She who was always so lovely and so loving. She who I cannot rid from my mind, because I am seeing her now... there, standing by the door left ajar.

“Rarity?” Applejack says. It is not a question, but a statement of a recognition that wishes to be denied.

It surprises me, not so much at her bearing witness to my debauchery, but how utterly shocked she stands to see it. The dusk behind her draws the outline of her silhouette, and even in her shadowy figure, I see how one of her forelimbs raised to cover a gasp, or scream, in a gesture that cannot be anything else but feminine.

And even as she stands there, pale-faced as though bleeding out like the setting sun, mouth agape, bright hot tears streaming from her emerald eyes, I continue to ride Shining Armor like a slutty cowgirl. I do not slow down the rhythm of my rocking hips, hastening even as I receive a fresh new spurt of prince batter.

Even with him still cumming, I place my foot back on the mattress and stand back, dislodging myself from the cock. I can see, and no doubt so can Applejack, that a thin rope of white spillage connects my fuckhole to his erect dick. Shining Armor is still stagnant, by the way, utterly placid and unmindful, having completely lost all damn in the world. I place myself between his legs.

I slam my face down on the tumid cock in front of me, mouth open, as I lap and kiss and lick the throbbing organ. I hold and rub my muzzle between the base and his scrotum, sniffing the musky odor of his cock mixed with my own juice. I feel, here against my face, the warm-cold sheen of our fluids stick and drag a viscous and dripping imprint on my cheeks. I enclose my lips around the side of the cock, sucking in my mouth the salty liquids. I press my tongue flat against the root, before running it up to the tip, coating the length with my drool. Then I slurp back the mess, collecting it in my mouth, before spitting it back to the cock again. I repeat the motion, several times, without fail, before ultimately swallowing back the soup of cock-flavored spit back to me with a loud “Ahh...” With Shining Armor’s cock moist and ready, I open my mouth as wide as I can to stuff as much of the length. I feel it, deep down at the back of my throat, massaging my windpipe with each beating throb. The giant ‘O’ that are my lips pushes further down, circling around the very end. My nose presses down against his loin, signaling that I have reached the finished line; still locking my whore-mouth in place, I let my tongue out and keep lapping it against his balls pressing against my chin. A ring of his cock scrapes my tonsils, and I gag, coughing around his cock, as I pull back, feeling the whole thing slide out in my throat. But I do not eject him entirely. I leave the tip in, just between my lips, as I let a moment pass for me to regather my enthusiasm and force that cock back to crush my throat. How I wish he would cup his hoof at the back of my head and force me balls deep, to choke on his cock until I turn red. But his lethargy means I have to exert the effort myself. I began to work on it, moving my head up and down, letting it disfigure my face in how I make the cock bulge the shape of my cheeks and jaw. I continue to go on like this, making unnecessary loud gruffs and moans.

And all this while, in this profligate oral performance, in this pigging out on Shining Armor’s tasty meat stick, not once–not even for a split second–do I take my eyes off Applejack’s.

Yes, this is me, my whole display says to her, as I swallow Shining Armor’s massive load, pumped directly to my stomach, and as I pull out, letting the next hot wave coat my face.

This is your mare, Applejack.

The last arch of the sun sinks down, devoured by the encompassing darkness. Applejack rears back and shuts her tear-soaked eyes, droplets springing out of the corners as she does so. She turns around, and turn tails as though demons were set loose upon her.

With the object of my vision gone, I return to Shining Armor, still ignorant of the third-party that had watched us. He is still lying there, just barely breathing, whereas his cock, having concluded a fresh ejaculate, still beats and throbs in the afterglow. It seems at that moment that Shining Armor’s body has died, and only his beating cock, taking the place of his heart, is keeping the corpse alive.

I finish him up, licking the excess spit and cum pooling on his thighs and loin; as well as cleaning my own face by scooping up his funky cream and depositing the collection back in my mouth. Then, having cleaned us both, I give one tap of a goodbye kiss on the tip.

“I’ll be back,” I say, licking my hooves. I do not know if I am talking to Shining Armor now or his cock. “Then we can continue... I’ll just... take care of somepony.”

I stand up, wobbling, shambling, feeling like a cum bag, or bucket, for Shining Armor’s sperm. Still reeking of aftersex, with mustardy jizz and juices still dripping down my swollen fuckholes and down to my ankles, I make my way out the door.

As I trot out of the room, the chill of the newborn night bites my moist body. I see Applejack far away, though not distant, alone on the landing of the spire’s spiraling staircase. I have prepared to meet her, of course, only that I expected her to have reach her suite, after how fast she ran away from Shining Armor’s room.

I approach her, there beside the trash bin where she remains still. She is standing on her hind legs, leaning with one of her forehoof against the wall for support and with the other firmly clasped on her chest. She is vomiting, or dry heaving perhaps, expulsing disgusting sounds from her mouth. She looks up, seeing my shadow–an outline she no doubt recognizes–placed on the wall beside hers. Applejack briskly turns around in shock, both her forelimbs grabbing the lid of the trash bin behind her.

“R-R-R–” she tries, stuttering.

“Good evening, dearest,” I greet back.

I let a moment pass so that she may at least compose herself. The moment does not come.

Applejack raises one shaking hoof and points toward the room of the royal couple. “I... I saw you there... just there... up there... in that room... with S-Shining Armor.”

“Of course you did. I saw you too.” I whip back my mane. No doubt that if I can I smell the strong scent of cum still on and in me, then she can as well. Maybe my face is still dripping with leftovers for all I know.

“But,”–and here, she composes as much of herself as she can manage–“but how the hell do you explain what I saw there!?” she roars suddenly.

“Who said anything about explaining?” I ask.

“W-What...?”

“I apologize, Applejack. And no, not for what you saw–Celestia knows I am not sorry for something that feels so good–but for what you didn’t. I usually instigate events than permit them to happen to me, so I am sorry for not having told you this a fuck sooner.”

Applejack’s head jumps back at the sound of profanity. “T-Told me what?”

“That I’m breaking up with you.” I laugh. “Oh goodness, I hate putting it that way. It sounds so... hell, it sounds so adolescent.”

“B-But...” she babbles, “But t-this don’t make no sense.”

“Sense, dear, is that last of what I’d expect from you dense earth ponies. How could you have not seen it, Applejack?”

“S-So everything Dash told me...”

“Yes! It’s true. All true! All those parties I’ve been running off too were held, not in ballrooms, but in luxurious five-star beds of five-star hotels of countless stallions. Loud, noisy and fun parties, as messy as what you just saw there in that room!”

“A-And that time... in yer room–”

“In my room! Shining Armor and I! Ha! With that door! And with you not knowing what’s happening on the other side! and with us laughing at you all the while!”

“All this time you were cheatin’ on me...” she says, her head slowly falling down.

“I was cheating on you not with some harlot or some roué but with a prince! A prince, for crying out loud! Why, you should feel flattered.”

“Flattered!?” she looks up suddenly, unable to believe her ears. “I should feel flattered?”

“Oh, you ungrateful little guttersnipe,” I groan. “Talk about casting pearls before swine. Do you know I can buy tramps like you on my bed for the price of a meal? You should be thankful that I even let you have a taste of me so you wouldn’t resort to rape!”

“No! No! ...Ah don’t believe none of this!” she shouts, running aside, away from me, to the trash bin and the wall. She removes her hat and takes out from it a small ring with an amber jewel. “R-Remember what ya said to me, just last night... R-Remember it? When ya said ya love me and ya’ll–”

My hoof snaps forward, flinging the ring away from her hooves. The small circle of silver traces an arc in the air before landing on the ground. It spins there, for a few seconds, rattling on the floor until all momentum drains away and the rings falls flat. Applejack and I looks at it, her mouth wide open and fresh new tears flowing like river down her cheeks.

“Oh, ‘Love,’ I used to throw that word around like corn to a chicken coop,” I sigh. “Seriously, Applejack, think about it–and I mean really think about it–did you honestly believe that somepony like me, the great lady Rarity, would fall in love with somepony like you!? You, who is but a lowborn cowpony? Did you honestly think that I would spend the rest of my life in an... an apple farm!?”

“It ain’t true...” she muffles out, shaking her head. “What ya just said ain’t true.”

“I didn’t say anything. I asked you a question.”

“Ah’ve always... always–”

“You see, there is no plausible way you can make me happy. Financially, you cannot support me. Sexually, you don’t satisfy me... No, Applejack, I never loved you, not once. You were just an exciting little fling for me, a cause of ruckus and gossip and publicity to raise the eyebrows of my peers. Now the fashion has gone stale, and so have you.”

I stand still, in front of her, waiting to be slapped. Applejack does not move. Her head is cast down, so that I cannot see her eyes, only the star-lit liquid dripping down her chin. Her head makes small nods–or is it shaking like that?–in some sort of acceptance. I circle around her and proceed to the stairway leading to my suite.

“Oh, and one more thing,” I say, turning my head back. “I won’t be going back with you girls, so as soon as you get back to Ponyville, please pack and take your things out of my house... and leave the key under the welcome mat.”

There is no visible movement in her beside that series of sudden intakes of breaths, like internal hiccups, of a sobbing heart.

I continue to walk up the stairs, stiffening my neck, I cannot permit myself to look back now. Step by step, up this long narrow staircase, my destination seems to stretch on away from where I am, as though with each clop of my hooves against each step my suite shies away.

Finally, after minutes that dragged on like hours, I reach my room. I have no further desire than to rest, in an attempt to escape my thoughts before they catch me. Inside there, I see a mare with a dustpan and a broom. I ask her who she is. She says she’s the cleaning lady. I tell her that she better get the hell out of my room before I throw her out the window. She drops her tools and runs out.

I slam the door behind me and lock it closed. I feel that I am still in that staircase, running up, away from what may catch me from below. I cannot allow myself to stop. Then I continue, my hooves racing, to the windows, shutting it and the blinds and the curtains.

Then I run to the bathroom, and there I lock myself inside, before throwing myself against the sink where I vomit. I disgorge, painfully hard, into the basin, making loud disgusting belches that echo off the tiled walls. I turn on the faucet and watch the sick green-black puke wash down the drain.

I feel as though I spewed out my very soul in the revolting expulsion. It feels as though the whole weight of my past and my thoughts has finally caught up to me all at once as soon as I stopped moving, slamming against and into my core, holding me down this sink, and escaping out my mouth.

I lean against the basin, as though something is wringing my stomach, as I vomit once more, coughing out the foul liquid matter that flows to that small little void.

A limb-numbing exhaustion creeps all over me, a sense of displacement and vertigo. Putting my hooves up, I begin to splatter water to my face, washing away the tears I did not know were there. I reach for the medicine cabinet and take out from there a bottle of pills. The tight top does not come off until I start hitting it against the wall; and when the cap falls so did all the bottle’s contents. I drop on the floor, picking up three and four and five and seven of the pills and popping it all in my mouth, crushing the rest beneath my hoof. When I slam closed the medicine cabinet, the mirror reflects in it a sight that makes me jump: a white coated unicorn-mare, her make-up gone, her mane disheveled, black tears flowing like petroleum from the corners of a ruined mascara. She is breathing heavily, her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide.

“No!” I yell, slamming my hooves against the mirror. The glass shatters to a hundred pieces, raining down on my foreleg and painting it red.

The pain now neither comes from the twist in my abdomen nor my bleeding foreleg, but to the pressure crushing my heart. The pain in my chest is an agony that is incomparable to all else I have felt in my life; the ache stings and burns and chokes so much it makes me slump down the tiles. Coiling with this anguish inside me, my body rolls into a ball. I feel it, alive, the guilt and the fear of guilt, crawling about like maggots and devouring what parcel of soul I have yet to regurgitate. With every panting breath I take, the pain grows further.

I scream a cry and cry a scream, the sound of my wailing hurts my throat and ears as the howl bounces around the walls and back into my skull. Tears, endless tears, keep running down my face.

Apple... Applejack...

I see faces, all of my faces in those reflections everywhere. There, on the water dripping down the corner of sink, is Lapis Lazuli. There, on the shards of broken glass, is Rarity. There, on the gilded door knob is Miss Glass Slippers.

“No! I don’t regret a thing,” I hiss to all and none. “Not a thing. I don’t love Applejack! I love Shining Armor!”

But... If I can run to her now, I can still...

The thought–or shed of hope–makes me leap to my feet, withstanding the pain; I know that my excruciating torment is nothing compared to what she is feeling.

I reach for the doorknob, and stop.

No... I’ve already gone too far to back down now...

My whole body falls forward, slamming on the door, with one hoof hitting against the barrier.

...I’ve already cut ties with Applejack.

...I’ve already got Shining Armor.

...I’ve already won against Cadance.

My teeth clenches hard enough that they might break. I keep pounding my hooves on the door.

I’m almost there... I am so close... So close to getting everything that I ever wanted...

I collapse, down the tear-soaked tiles.

It’s worth it! It’ll be all worth it in the end.

The jewelry is of Cadance’s property, but just the jewelry. I am polite enough, and humble enough, to borrow only those that are not excessive in size and quality. I only adopted those few just to match the dress I wear: a string of pearls around my neck to complement the naked breastbone of my purple blouse, cabochon amethyst earrings–in the shape of inverted hearts–to match the color of my mane and the black brooch, and an anklet made of dark-green jasper that peeks from the small slit of my maxi.

Satisfied that I am presentable, after running my hoof to fix a few creases here and there, I breathe out and wear my biggest smile.

I push through the two giant swinging doors. As of all the suites in Canterlot’s castle, there is no shortage of these swinging barriers from which one can make a grand entrance.

Inside Applejack’s room–as I have expected–I see them all there, centered to a single point around the crying earth pony. Even now, after several hours since our last encounter, she still has enough tears to shed down on her friends’ coat.

Applejack is in the middle of the group, of course, pressing her face against the consolation of Rainbow Dash’s chest. When the cowpony sees me come in, her eyes go wide and her heaving goes still. Shocked into stillness, she does not know if she is to run to me or stay there in the safety of our friends.

Unsurprisingly, Rainbow Dash is not at all happy to see me. In a word, she is gnarling; in another word, she is crying, too. But her body, invisible to the naïve, tells a different story, skewing sideways as she leans and wraps her opportunistic hooves around the orange earth pony she once loved. Her bloodshot eyes are ready to jump out of their sockets to attack me. She cannot let go of Applejack, of course, so I worry not about her pouncing on me and ruining the perfect arrangement of my dress.

Rainbow Dash’s rapist, Fluttershy, stands close between her lover and Applejack. Even if she knows that I am here, she does not look at me.

Twilight, standing behind Applejack, and joining her hooves around the others in a desperate attempt to join the group hug, now stares at me with a wrinkled muzzle and an open jaw. It is not a face of shock but, close enough, that of disgust.

Before any of them can say anything to me, as words are no doubt waiting on the tip of their tongues, I remove any illusion of my desire to even hear it and begin to announce the reason of my visit:

“Hello, darlings!” I say, my loud high-toned voice ringing around the room. “Am I interrupting something? I sure do hope not. Anyway... I have spectacular news! I cordially invite you all to tomorrow night! For tomorrow night is my wedding! Tomorrow night, I will get married... Tomorrow night I shall be a bride... A bride, to Shining Armor!”

Author's Notes:

There will be no more clop scenes in the last two chapters of All About Rarity.