~~~~~Twilight Hall~~~~~

Twilight's power quietly came to life, and the double doors swung open on well-oiled hinges. This room was unlike most other rooms in the castle - it was, for one thing, bare stone from floor to ceiling. There were only two lamps - both of them bowl shaped oil lamps that stood at the far end of the room, on each side of a tall stone plinth that had been covered in a deep red cloth. The purpose of this room had always puzzled Twilight, seeing as how no other furnishings existed within the first time she'd seen it. This time though, there were a few new things.

The walls had been hung with dark purple tapestries, frilled in gold. Four beautiful mares - each of them a unicorn - knelt to the sides of the door. They all wore tightly fitting robes of that same dark purple, and each bore a silver medallion around their neck, from which hung a spark-of-magic charm. They bowed their heads as one as she entered the room, but Twilight's eyes were on the fifth mare in the room.

Kneeling before the plinth, Silent Moon held an ancient looking brass chalice in her hooves. Her eyes were turned to the ground and her wings flared open to the widest extent they could reach. The red cloth was gone too from the plinth, revealing an indentation in the stone perfectly shaped to that of a pony. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of that, and her steps took her to just a few feet away from Silent Moon. No one spoke, but the doors of the room shut firmly behind her, clicking with the sound of a deadbolt lock.

Silence reigned in the room, until Silent Moon's lips parted in soft words, "You have proven your dedication to the Shadow, Mistress, in all ways but one." Her wings flapped once, as though this was some sort of ritual, before she continued speaking. "You have taken many things from those you love. From Rainbow Dash, you took her willpower. From Pinkie Pie, you took her innocence. From Applejack, you took her mind. From Rarity, you took her heart. From Fluttershy, you took her body." Moon's words spoke in a slow cadence, one that sent a shiver up Twilight's spine. "You have slowly come to realize that these things were yours for the taking. To do with as you pleased, to change and corrupt as you saw fit."

Silent moon smiled slowly, her milky blue eyes half lidded. "But the Shadow demands you accept that it is not merely these things that are yours to take, but all things. You must understand that when you rule, your rule is absolute. That all things belong to you, and you alone. Heart, Mind, Body, Soul..." She whispered the next word, and a chill spread through the room from its passing. "And life."

Twilight felt something cold and hard drop into the pit of her stomach, and there was a sort of... echoing emptiness where the voice of Umbra had been the past day or so. She had been left alone, to prove that it was within her to do as she needed to do. Silent moon stood slowly, placing the chalice she held under a curious little spigot at one end of the plinth. "Long ago, when I was just a child..." Moon began to speak, slowly slipping up onto the plinth in a manner that made a little lust stir in Twilight's loins. "I was lost and alone in the world. I could not see, and my parents had abandoned me at an orphanage. I knew nothing of the world I lived in except what I could touch and smell, and hear."

Moon's flank slipped into the smooth stone indentation. She was smiling, but there was a bitter edge to her words as she spoke. "As I grew, I became more and more detached from the world. I stopped speaking to other ponies, I stopped interacting with anypony I did not have to. I was given the name 'Silent Moon' for my appearance and my personality, by most of my peers." She paused, a sad smile on her face. "That seems so long ago now, even though I know it was not. Time passed. I grew into an adult, and worked at the Orphanage as an assistant. I could not do many jobs ordinary pegasi do, for without eyes to see the ebb and flow of weather, I could not manipulate it."

Twilight opened her mouth, then shut it. There was a time and a place to talk, and this was not it. Not yet. Moon continued, after Twilight nodded cautiously. "Years passed. I could not tell you how many, because the world mattered little to me at that point. I existed, but I did not live. Then... my past caught up with me." She looked to one side - one of those imitation gestures of normal ponies that meant fundamentally little to a blind one. "They came in the night, with knives and rope. They came to kill me, for what they thought I knew. I was the very last of a family line that went back millennium, and I did not know it. I did not resist them, but I did not speak. I was certain my end had come, until Dancer saved my life in far more ways than one."

Silent Moon sucked in a deep breath before continuing to speak, her words soft and shaky. "Dancer told me about my parents - about how my family had been the keepers of an ancient prophesy. Then..." She shivered softly, her eyes closing. "She showed me the Shadow. She turned me, and opened my heart and mind to a world I never had known before. I could 'see' things for the very first time in my life, and the very first thing I saw was the mare that would be my one true love." Her cheeks colored red, and Twilight could not help herself - she smiled gently.

Moon then shook her head slowly. "More years would pass. Dancer was one of Tantalus' personal agents, working behind the scenes in many a place to spread the power of the Shadow. I traveled with her, and experienced life for the very first time. None of that is important now though - what is important is that during those years, Tantalus worked to uncover my family's secret. It was my price for serving him with loyalty. Then, one day he summoned me to these woods and pressed a book into my hooves."

She lifted up a hoof. "That book, you are not ready to see, Mistress. But within it were words from a great pony, which lived long ago. Those words told me of the path I would take - if I wished to see my beloved safe from harm. It is this path which brings us to this place, on this day." Silent moon reached down behind her with her hoof, and brought up a wickedly sharp looking knife - its edge honed to a nearly mirror sheen. "This is your final test, Mistress. For though you have taken the life of the guilty, you have not taken it from one you call friend."

Twilight stared at her in mute horror, as Silent moon stretched herself out on the plinth slowly - her body molding into the top of it easily, as though it had been carved just for her. "In so doing, you will take my life force for your own... and with it, all of my pegasus magic... " Moon laid her head down on the plinth - and even in profile, Twilight could see her smile slowly. "You will become greater than any Shade before you, and the world will tremble at your step. All will be reborn, and a new world will dawn." Her words trailed off into the whisper. "Nothing can force you to make this choice, Mistress. It must be of your own free will."

Twilight felt the lump in her throat, and tried to swallow it down. She had expected many possible things - a spell, blood perhaps, some other absurd action but... this? "And what if I refuse?" She asked quietly, her hooves feeling leaden and still. She wanted to refuse. Certainly, this was not necessary! She could free the world, and free Equestria, without having to undertake such a barbaric action!

Moon's voice spoke again - still soft, gently musical. "Then you will be too weak to face what is to come. Your enemies will converge and destroy that which you love so dearly, and your friends will abandon you in your darkest hour. In the end, you will die, and the dreams of countless living beings will die with you." There was no scorn, no admonishment in those words. It would have been easier to deal with if there had been.

Twilight stood stock still. Moon looked disinclined to speak - perhaps because she was already prepared for her death. She had no more words that needed to be said, and Twilight could find none to say. Words felt meaningless now - like abstractions that were just scribbled onto a chalkboard, they had no context for a situation like this. Twilight had never imagined she'd find herself in a situation where her vocabulary could not match up with what the time and place demanded.

Yet words simply failed her here. Her heavy hooves carried her up to what she now knew was an altar of sacrifice, and looked down onto the pure white body of Silent Moon. And so here am I faced with the truly impossible. She thought, with no small amount of guilt in her heart. My hooves might not be clean, but I have never taken the life of an innocent. Twilight knew then what the point of this had to be. She intended to wage war - a war that would undoubtedly claim untold lives - upon half the known world.

Wars came with costs. Sometimes, those costs would be inflicted upon those who deserved none of the suffering war could incur upon them. Twilight was naive, but she wasn't an idiot. It was without question that her orders would cause the death of innocents, and the day might come where she would have to do so... intentionally. Thus, the paradox. Here, before her, she was being forced to acknowledge that. A dagger thrust into her hand, a sacrifice laid out upon the table. Was she truly prepared to make such a choice?

Could she make such a choice? Did she have the right to do so? Or had Rarity been right all along? Nopony in the room spoke, and Twilight desperately wished one of them would do so. Yet she knew the mares along the wall would not speak - she knew Moon had nothing more to say. For the briefest of moments, Twilight felt incredibly bitter towards the white pegasus. She wanted to hate her for putting Twilight in this position. She wanted to despise this mare so it would be so much easier to plunge that knife into her heart.

But she could not. She would not show this pony hate. Just as she could not hate Celestia, no matter what Tantalus might have said. She could not hate Umbra, no matter how painful her journey had been. Just as she could not hate those enemies of Equestria, for they were doing only what they thought necessary to advance the cause of their own cultures and peoples.

Therin lay the lesson, and also the problem. She would have to kill, but she could not hate. If she truly fancied herself a ruler, she would have to learn to separate her enemies from her emotions. She could display rage, or doubt, or fear, or even smug confidence towards her foes - but she could not hate them. Down that path lay King Sombra, and she was not going to make the same mistakes he made.

She could not use diplomacy either, for such overtures lasted only so long as the one you'd made them to lived. Oftentimes, they failed altogether. That was Celestia's mistake - believing that with enough sweetness and light, that the enemies of the state would simply bury their weapons and merrily start planting flowers with them. That did not make her bad just...a little naive. Twilight was certain once things began to degrade, Celestia would come to see sense.

No. She needed to dominate them. To destroy her foes she would force them to bend knee and submit to her rule. As she had done to Applejack, and Fluttershy. That meant creatures that did not deserve death would get in the way. There was no avoiding it. Examples would have to be made, and that meant deaths that were pointless, meaningless.

The Shadow wanted to know if she was prepared to live with that reality. To accept responsibility, as a ruler ought to, for the lives that would have to be ended. Others would hold the blades in the real world, others would drive them into the flesh of her enemies - of Equestria's enemies. That would be in the future, when she sent an army to show the Changelings who ruled these lands, who protected these ponies. Or it would be, if only she possessed the will to do it herself.

A leader - a true leader, as Celestia had often taught her, cannot be unwilling to go where she expects those who follow her to go. She must be willing to take the blood on her own two hooves, she must be willing to act - knowing what the consequences will be with all of her soul. For she has seen those consequences first hoof, and knows what they mean. She had to know - blood and bone - the cost of saving all the ones she loved.

She had coldly watched as her power had snapped the neck of Filthy Rich. There was no coldness in her now, only warmth and gentle purpose. How much did she owe this quiet mare? She did not know. She'd probably never know, and that was part of the price too. Her power took up the wicked bodkin, and brought it to her hooves. Moon was silent, as her namesake. She almost appeared asleep - as though she was completely at peace. Perhaps she was, and Twilight was simply making it official.

Her hooves did not tremble, as the blade touched flesh for the first time. A swift death, as painless as she could manage. It was almost childishly easy - even clumsily holding the knife in her hoof - to drive it point first down through the white mare's body. To send the blade through Silent Moon's heart, spilling its blood into the altar she lay upon was... Easy. Frighteningly easy, as though there really was nothing to killing another pony. Even stranger, the thought did not disturb her for very long. Only for a few moments as the blood of Silent moon's heart spilled out into the collector holes that lay beneath her body. Silent Moon made only two noises - a soft gasp of pain, and then a sigh of relief - her face still relaxed in peace as her life bled out under Twilight's hooves.

Twilight took a life, an innocent life, for the very first time. For the countless others she wished to save, she had killed a mare she considered a friend.

Twilight closed her eyes, and felt her final tears fall onto the coat of Silent Moon, lamenting the first true casualty of her war. Then the time for lament was over - for Shadow's time had come. The power roared out of her, engulfing the body that lay before her - it seized the chalice that lay at the wayside - now dripping with thick crimson life. Twilight felt her body arc with pure shadow power as a cascade of darkness blotted out the light of the oil-fires No other light could be seen in the room, and no light was needed. Twilight felt the metallic taste of the vessel against her lips, and opened them willingly as more and more of the Shadow poured into the limp form of the pegasus before her.

Twilight felt the sweet droplets of life's essence passing her lips - so full of magic it was like tasting liquid lightning. Then more came - a torrent of magic and blood, and she lifted her lips up to it and accepted it all. She could see nothing, but she could hear her own moans escaping around the thick, viscous liquid that poured down her throat. She drank deeply of the Shadow and the blood she had spilled in its name. The Shadow took her body and changed it now, and Twilight could feel the soft hooves of Umbra wrapping around her.

Yet she knew she was not dreaming. She knew this was real, that she was feeling the hooves of another pony touching her body tenderly, holding her in its arms. She felt a weight in her shoulders, as that pony... as Umbra took her body and reshaped it. ~"You have served so loyally, child. You have exceeded all of my expectations of you."~ Whispered that musical, sexy voice. ~"You have earned your reward, to stand at my side not as a servant - but as my true daughter."~ The voice laughed, and Twilight found herself laughing with it. Why would she not? There was joy to be found in the darkness, in the hooves of a loving mother.

The power was gathering now in her upper back - and her body writhed and changed at the whim of her Goddess... of her new Mother, that she had set free. Pain laced with pleasure flooded through all of her limbs, and suddenly white hot pain for a few brief moments as she emerged from her own cocoon of shadow and emotion. What Tantalus had set in motion, Umbra had perfected. Slowly, surely, the darkness transformed before Twilight's eyes. There was still no light to see by, but that was no longer a hindrance to her now.

Twilight looked up into the loving emerald green eyes of Umbra, and felt a soft gasp escape her lips in shock. Her eyes traveled down the sleek and sexy figure - a pitch black Alicorn in all but eyes. Her curves were beyond perfect, her very shape was the definition of sexual allure. Her mane dripped liquid shadows around her, just as Twilight's had done...her wings were wide, and beautifully feathered. Twilight looked closer there - and could see her coat, mane and feathers were not perfect ebony, but many, many shades of black and dark grey that rippled in the darkness. Twilight found her voice, and realized that it sounded... different. Darker, sexier - more like the beautiful mare before her. "How?" She whispered softly, her hooves coming up to brush at the sleek coat and found it to be silky smooth to the touch.

Umbra smiled - and Twilight discovered her to have bright white teeth, not unlike her own. ~"Oh my dearest daughter... this is all because of you."~ Her voice melodiously spoke, and she leaned in to kiss Twilight softly upon the mouth. Their lips met and Twilight's spine nearly cracked as she arched up into those lips, her eyes half lidding in maddening pleasure brought on by the merest touch. Umbra withdrew after a moment, leaving Twilight panting softly, her eyes widening as she processed the intensity of that moment. ~"You gave me this form, little one. Silent Moon provided the body, and you provided the magic to ensoul it. I admit, it is a little new for me..." She wiggled her flank, her long liquid tale whipping about coyly. ~"But I think I like the possibilities of it. Of course, I'm not the only one with a new body... After all, you could not be my daughter if you did not resemble me, hmm?"~

Twilight's eyes nearly popped out with shock, as she turned her head slowly to regard the beautiful set of wings which now adorned her back. They practically vibrated with pegasus magic eager to be free and wreak their will upon the weather outside. Silent Moon's last gift to her, and with it a kind of power she had never dreamed of wielding before. ~"They do look so lovely on you."~ Umbra opined - a gentle hoof gently stroking along the edge of them and sending chills down Twilight's spine again. ~"Just right for my daughter."~

A pair of soft blue lights burst to life where the oil torches had been, showing the plinth bare of anything but a pool of slowly drying blood. Twilight found her voice again, a slow smile coming to her face. "So... how does this work, now?" She asked quietly, turning to face the Alicorn Goddess named Umbra. She tilted her head up and spoke in a quizzical tone. "Since we're obviously not going on quite as before."

Umbra cooed gently. ~"Actually, we are. I may have a physical form now..."~ She stretched out her limbs, and Twilight took the moment to enjoy the sight of her moving - it was like every twitch of her hip was an invitation to depraved fun. ~"But my core of power remains firmly with you, daughter of my soul. It is to you that will fall the responsibility to rule."~ She lifted her hoof and pressed it against her chest, smiling coyly. ~"I prefer to advise and guide anyway. I shall ensure you never lack the knowledge to accomplish your goals... Of course, there are other advantages to a physical form."~ She purred out at the end... her voice going husky and soft.

Twilight felt a little smile curl up her lips, and she felt her feathery wings slowly flare up on her back - stiffening in reaction as she leaned in close to Umbra's face and whispered softly. "Oh?" Her eyes danced with mischief - and she brazenly pressed her lips back up to Umbra's, that electric thrill of pleasure setting alight all of her nerves. She felt her body being lifted by those powerful hooves, and set down upon the stone plinth. Her flank sank into the stone depression, still faintly wet with blood. Twilight made a little face... until she saw Umbra's hoof coming up dripping with the crimson liquid.

~"Feed..."~ Whispered the Mistress of the Dark, and Twilights lips wrapped around that hoof - and found the blood to not be coppery or bitter - but as sweet as the loveliest wine she'd ever tasted. Her eyes widened and Umbra smirked in satisfaction. ~"You can take new power from blood, my daughter. Go on, have a taste of mine."~ She said in a saucy tone, and Twilight felt her incisors lengthen a little - sharpening with metamorphosis magic as Umbra manipulated her body like a toy. ~"I wish you to taste of your Goddess... and then your Goddess will taste of you."~

Twilight smiled slowly at the promise and took the soft hoof gently in her own. She nuzzled up against the appendage - soft but firm. She could imagine it striking her flank over and over, spanking her like a naughty little filly. Or she could imagine it dipping between her legs, slowly clopping her off as she exchanged deep passionate kisses with Umbra. Or any number of a thousand and one erotic exercises that were playing like little films in Twilight's head as she slowly bit down on that wrist.

Once again, it felt so easy to sink those sharp fangs into flesh. She could easily imagine doing so to any number of creatures - Blood came out of the wounds, so Umbra's body was a flesh and blood creature. It splattered onto her tongue and tasted like divine nectar within her mouth as she sucked like a baby at a bottle - only a little though, for within a moment of swallowing the first drop she could feel the pure rush of energy flooding through her body, instantly revitalizing her in ways she hadn't imagined possible. ~"Yesss... Such a beautiful creation. The best of all pony worlds."~ Purred umbra softly, as she lifted Twilight's pleasure etched face up to smile into. ~"Thestral, pegasus, unicorn, earth pony and more...It's all here inside of you, and a big dose of me just for kicks."~

Twilight licked her tongue over the slowly receding fangs, her gaze soft upon Umbra. "Goddess..." Whispered Twilight, feeling the tension inside of her loin vibrating like a harp string. "Please... Take me." Her voice gently whimpered into the air, unable to stand this state of sexual need just from being close to Umbra.

Umbra gave off a joyous, triumphant laugh. ~"Oh yes, dearest one... That is a reward you will never need to ask for again."~ She purred and nibbled her way down Twilight's side, speaking softly again as she rubbed her cheek up against Twilight's thigh. Her next words were gentle, joyful and loving. ~"Yes... You have earned my favor, Twilight Shadow. Now enjoy the fruits of your sacrifice."~