"Why?" King Anglacite stomped around in his throne room.
The icicles forming along his antlers were swaying and breaking off to hit the ground below in a loud thud. The large confines of this room felt as cramped as ever to him.
"I'm a GOD!" he shouted with his hoof raised to the sky. "I should be allowed such things! I have changed wives many times before," he rubbed his chin. "Even though that was because they always died and I wanted something new." He stomped the ground angrily, cracking it. "Why does she reject me?!"
"Is there a problem, my god-king?" a guard asked.
"No."
"But it sounds like--"
Anglacite looked down at the armored reindeer and pressed his face against it, pushing down harder and harder until the sounds of cracking stopped and the guard found himself embedded into the ice floor.
"What the...?"
"She keeps rejecting me, but I keep doing what the others loved before!" he repeated. He stopped atop the guard, squishing the deer's muzzle with his hooves. "Perhaps using the pelt of another intruder pony would help bring her to me."
The guard mumbled, prompting Anglacite to step off of him. "What?" the god-king asked.
"If you're really trying to get another queen, then why not try to appeal to other methods of romantics?"
"Because they're not tundran."
The guard looked at his king sideways. "What?"
"You heard me." Anglacite turned around and slammed a hoof to his chest. "If I don't do it my way then nobody will understand."
The guard could almost hear the chorus and see the sunlight shining gently down upon his 'regal' and 'patriotic' ruler.
"Uh-huh...And this has worked before because...?"
"Worked? I just took whomever I wanted to be my bride," he boasted proudly.
"Wh...THEN WHY ARE YOU TRYING ROMANTICS NOW?!"
The god-king grinned and stood proudly. "Because I like a good challenge."
His guard lost any ability to process what was told to him for the moment so he just stared blankly into the distance until system reboot.
"Now then," Anglacite wondered as a huge assortment of vertical containers rose from the floor. "Which one should I try this time?" He tapped each one of the containers -easily thrice his size- and passed them. "Kill all of her enemies? Naaaah. Too easy. Threaten to salt her lands if she refuses my proposals and advances?" He stopped for a moment and pondered on what he just said. The sheer thought of it all, the chance of such an action being performed...he needed to ask himself aloud and straighten his moral compass. "Doesn't that mean the same thing?"
"Not necessarily," the guard answered.
The god-king looked over his shoulder. "Oh, you're still there?" he spoke in an uninterested tone. "I thought you were dead."
The guard's eye twitched and he spoke in a quiet manner that hinted at a hidden undertone of pure rage. "I've been here the whole time. You JUST put me in here."
The god-king ignored the plight of his guard and continued fumbling through the order of things.
"Ahhh. This one is my favorite: Force into marriage using position of power..." Anglacite ripped the container out of the floor and tossed it behind him, letting the thing slam onto the guard. "But that's too easy."
The guard, now dead, floated next to his king with a disappointed and angry expression. "These won't work," the guard continued.
Anglacite groaned in annoyance. "You're dead. Leave me alone. Go to the other side or the 'Valley of Flowers' or whatever it is you mortals do." The god-king stopped for a moment and dropped his head against a container. "Romance is hard," he sighed.
"I know...I have some suggestions, though." The guard cleared his nonexistent throat. "What if you invited her for a little talk so you know what she thinks and you can discuss your lives and see what you have in common."
Anglacite looked at the ghost. He was utterly appalled. "Trying to learn about the other? Talking?" He glared at the guard. "If you weren't dead, I'd kill you again...Actually."
The god-king threw the container into a wall and picked up the squashed corpse from the ice, fixed it using frost essence, then started the guard's heart again. In no time at all, the deer rose up and started gasping for air. I'm alive!" he cheered.
His joy didn't last long because the god-king picked him up, stood on his hind legs, then threw the guard through a window. The stag wiped his hoofs and nodded as it was a job well done.
He sat dramatically upon his throne with his hind legs hanging over an armrest and a foreleg posed over the reindeer's forehead. "Can I not have someone to love truly? Oh, woe is my heart."
The doors of the throne burst open to reveal Princess Celestia.
"What are you doing here, pony-song?" Anglacite asked.
"I felt your love for me and came as fast as I could. I feel the same!"
"You do?" the god-king said as he fluttered down to the princess.
"Yes. Now let us kiss."
"I'll never hate the ponies again and they're all invited to my kingdom for the wedding!"
And then they kissed. Seeing the actions, Copper and Stelimus felt intrinsically romanticized and approached each other calmly and carefully, passion in their eyes. In nary a few seconds that felt like ages, they--
"Copper, are you in here?"
The pegasus yiped and threw her book in the air before grabbing it and clutching it close to her chest. Her heart was pounding in terror and she was sweating profusely...through her fur...somehow...biology? The couple's eyes met, but only Copper's was filled with anxiety as her chest heaved with each gasp of air. She smiled sheepishly as Stelimus narrowed his gaze and frowned at her.
"What's that?" he asked as he pointed to the blue book in Copper's forelegs.
Copper scrunched up her mouth and looked away. "Nothing," she answered.
"...You only act like this when..." His calm tone suddenly became a booming yell. "Were you shipping my dad and Celestia again?!"
"That's with PRINCESS Celestia!" she corrected. Realizing her mistake, she shrunk down.
"AGAIN?! That's the seventeenth time!" "Give me the book. It must be burned."
"No."
"Give me the book! Fire will purify the tainted literature."
Copper jumped off her chair and pushed it at the stag. "You can't destroy my fantasies!" she yelled. "Fire bad!"
"Fire good. It VERY good. NOW GIVE ME THE BOOK! No sane mind must witness what you write lest they lose their souls to a vortex of pain, confusion, horror...and other...bad...things."
Copper puffed up her mouth. "That's not very nice."
Stelimus tried to grab the book from where he was, but the mare dodged him easily and left the giant, king-size bed between the m.
"Stop running!" Stelimus ordered.
"You'll never get my fantasies!" the mare yelled before she jumped out a window and flew way.
Copper left Stelimus utter baffled at what had just occurred. "What is WRONG with you!" he shouted through the window while shaking his hoof.