The royal couple was a unique bit of fun, so he decided to be a bit more meticulous with his meal; he didn’t want to miss a chance to torment one that deserved his position the least.
To that end, it was a good thing they had used a sleeping spell, because it allowed him to pull Shining Armor out of bed and tie him securely, prepared to watch his wife be devoured. Blueblood tied Shining’s front hooves behind his back, his front legs forced forward until they were even with his. He ensured that Shining had a nice view, even placing himself between Shining and a mirror so he could see Cadence gobbled up from two directions.
He kicked Shining in the face with a front hoof, the the most efficient way to awake him. Shining awoke, eyes going wide as he struggled, first looking to Cadence still sleeping on the bed, then to Blueblood. Blueblood looked down with a condescending smile.
“You won’t get away with this!” Shining said by reflex, looking disgusted when he saw how absurdly wide Blueblood had his muzzle.
“It’s been embarrassingly easy to win,” taunted Blueblood, “Celestia and Luna are dead, fed down my throat and turned into magical slop. After you two, your cute little sister will face the same fate. I apologize though, you won’t get to see Twilight die.”
Wanting Shining to hurt more than the others, Blueblood pried Shining’s horn with his magic. The combination of the null spell, and knowing how the thing was connected after popping off his former preys’, he was able to finally crack it off. Shining groaned the whole time, then almost squealed when it popped free. Blueblood tossed it in the trash for effect, but would be getting it later.
“You don’t touch her!” Shining growled, ignoring the stabbing pain in his head.
Blueblood lifted Cadence from the bed and shook her awake, though he wasn’t going to explain a second time, so she’d go in having no clue what was going on. Blueblood gave Cadence enough time to see who was eating her and that her husband was useless, but no more, as he pulled her back to his throat.
“You won’t get away with this!” this prey had the same reflex, “Shining help!” despite having seen that he can’t.
“I’ll think of something!” Shining yelled uselessly, then glared at Blueblood, “YOU are dead!”
“I assume you meant your wife with that,” taunted Blueblood. “Otherwise it doesn’t make sense.”
Blueblood glimpsed at Shining one more time. Shining’s face was simultaneously red from his rage, yet his expression was a delightful show of abject horror. Blueblood made himself go slowly, wanting to torture Shining with a nice long look of his sweetheart’s consumption. Besides, this was the only time Blueblood have an audience, so he should make use of it.
Blueblood pushed her muzzle to his throat, swallowing to take in her face, slightly disappointed that she wasn’t a crier. No matter, he was sure Shining would be. She did have a delightful strawberry taste, however, which more than made up for it. He let his throat slide over her head, up over her horn, and back to her neck as slowly as he could. He kept swallowing despite holding he back, letting her get a nice feel of what was happening to her.
“I’m so sorry, Shining, I couldn’t protect you,” the prey said, “I love you.”
“I love you,” Shining said. He didn’t give Blueblood the pleasure of any more words, but never stopped struggling, not for a second ceasing his attempts.
Blueblood held the prey’s wings and forelegs against her, but still went as gradually as he could, ignoring the increasing hunger from below. He pushed all the way down to her hips, which seemed below average after his previous prey’s wide rump. His stomach was burning with desire, but Blueblood took her down at a crawl, facing Shining as he finally pulled her hind legs in; Shining couldn’t look away as he watched her hooves, then the excess of her mane as she slid to her delicious doom.
Shining’s escape endeavors slowed as he watched, then finally ceased, simply trembling there as he fully accepted that they were getting fed to Blueblood and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The terrified anguish on his face, though, made it worth not swallowing it down immediately.
Blueblood pulled Shining over to put his head against Blueblood’s stomach to feel her struggle weakly, resulting in Shining choking out a sob.
“Mmm, your turn,” Blueblood lifted Shining, not getting much of wiggle from him. Blueblood cut Shining’s bonds so he’d be able to kick inside, but swallowed the ropes anyway.
He did get to taste the salt of his prey’s tears, which was a good thing since he was completely bland otherwise. He just felt pressure against his tongue, but didn’t get any taste. He should have known. Regardless, this prey went in just as lazily as the last, Blueblood having so much fun tormenting him that he wanted to drag this one out too. He still had plenty of time left to feast upon Twilight.
Much to his delight, Blueblood discovered something about the effects. It seemed like he could swallow or digest, but couldn’t do them simultaneously, so it wouldn’t start digesting them until they were there together. He was doing them a favor; not many couples got to die simultaneously in each other’s grasp. It was like one of the performances Blueblood liked, though they used knives instead of swallowing. Regardless, the similarity made the situation romantic.
At least the bland taste didn’t rile up his hunger quite as much, so he didn’t feel the need to speed things up. At the end, when the prey’s hooves were about to disappear just as his wife’s had done, he could feel his front pop into the stomach. His other prey jerked when she felt movement, but then his stomach shifted as they hugged. Ah yes, romantic, he so called it.
His stomach was massively bloated after devouring two ponies together, but the load would be no problem for his increased metabolism; he’d have a trim stomach in less than a minute.
“Til death do you part,” Blueblood’s words were the last thing they ever heard as their bodies were rapidly broken down into compact nutrition.
Blueblood stroked his gut as it disappeared, spitting out a new horn for his collection, and smiling when the prey stopped moving, the royal couple’s life together ending together. The moment a prey finished was an incredible power trip for him, even if these preys weren’t nearly the trip as the two prey before. He had always heard ponies talking about murder taking a toll on a pony’s mind. The ponies that told him that were fools though; there was nothing better than the feeling he got when he himself dispatched his opponent down his maw.
Now just one more needed to be disposed of for Blueblood to win the line of succession.
Twilight Sparkle was the final obstacle. When he opened her door however, he found her awake, seated at a desk and deep into a book. She was REALLY into the book, so Blueblood carefully hovered his little magic nullifier and removed the final threat to his success. He didn’t grab for her however, instead he cleared his throat; he may as well have some almost intellectual conversation before pigging out on his final course.
“Prince Blueblood?” Twilight asked after spinning around, taking a moment, but at least she recognized who he was. It was unsurprising, since she made it her business to know everything. It was another thing that annoyed him about her.
“You’re Celestia’s ‘nephew’ right?” Twilight asked, perhaps as a jab, and not bothering to hide her disdain. She’d dealt with more than her share of Blueblood complaints even above Rarity’s. “I didn’t hear you come in, since you didn’t bother to knock. What do you want?”
“Now, now, is that how you speak to an old friend,” smirked Blueblood, “Don’t you remember me from that Gala? We even said ‘hello’ at the last Gala. And here I thought you were the Princess of ‘Friendship,' whatever that means. I guess if I attack, you can be friendly at me in defense.”
“You don’t even have the right to mention that Gala,” yelled Twilight, “Not after the way you treated Rarity. For all you know you could be disrespecting the dead!” it was a good thing Blueblood got the silence spell on the room already.
“Yes, I am disrespecting your dead friend,” chuckled Blueblood, “It’s not like I haven’t done worse to her, like that one time I swallowed her whole and dissolved her body into slush. I just gave you closure; wasn’t that nice of me?” He added mockingly, “I know her others went out of business, but I did visit the one here in Canterlot for a suit in her memory. I’m just full of kindness lately!”
Twilight looked like she didn’t believe him for a moment, then the spell must have come to her memory, because she got wide-eyed and tried to use her magic. She clenched her teeth from the effort, then looked like she was trying to formulate a plan in her head. The only one she could think of was Rainbow Dash’s favorite plan, charging at him full force and hoping he wouldn’t catch her in time with his magic.
He let her get over half-way to him to give her false hope, then caught her securely, pulling her legs up to let her plop onto the floor right in front of him. He smirked, then secured wings against her as he had so many others, floating her upward again. She looked at him, more shock and anger than terror; she would probably make a more dignified exit than her mentor did. To her credit, though, she didn’t say ‘You’ll never get away with this;' she knew he would.
“Blueblood, you have to stop,” Twilight used reasoning as her begging, “You don’t understand what murdering a pony does to you; you will never forgive yourself, I can tell you 100% that you will regret this more than you think. Now if you let me go, you’ll have one less murder, and we can make a deal. I’ll say that with an honesty collar on if you want. There’s even a spell that will kill a pony if they break a promise. Equestria is better with two rulers, as we’ve found over the past few years, so if you’re doing this for Equestria...” She finally ran out of arguments.
Blueblood let her speak on simply because she made such amusingly good excuses to let her live; he waited to speak until she finished.
“I suppose you’re doing this for Equestria and not yourself," Blueblood said non-sarcastically, “You know, if I were doing this for the good of Equestria, that would have swayed me, it might have been nice to have a flunky waiting on me, though you better believe I’d have that horn removed even then.” He grinned widely, “But I’m not doing it for that; I’m doing it for the same reason I always do things; helping myself.”
Twilight’s brave face was gone, replaced by a look of horror at the realization of what an unreasonable monster she was dealing with.
“Give my regards to your mentors, your brother, and your sister-in-law, and your whore designer friend, ” said Blueblood before pushing her in, adding a lie that he knew she’d believe to magnify her anguish, “I’ll tell your other friends and your little pet to give their regards to you on their way in.”
That got her talking again, “Please, allow my friends to live; they can still protect Equestria with Starlight Glimmer in my place, and I’m sure they can find someone for Rarity. They are not in your way; you’ll only be destroying a powerful weapon that you might need later.” Blueblood hated that she’d die thinking he was too stupid to know that, but he felt the trade-off was worth it.
“Shut up!” Blueblood finally said, annoyed, “We both know that this is the death you so grossly deserve, food for your better. Face your execution down my gullet.” He added with a chuckle, “Also, adding Starlight Glimmer to the list. That was REALLY stupid to mention another friend’s name. Any more I should add?”
The funny thing was that in reality it would probably be this pony that ended up there. Blueblood wasn’t stupid; he wasn’t going to make a decision like that himself. He’d delegate the finding of a new Magic, not to mention a Generosity, to the surviving members, and they’d likely make the same choice. He might have to order them to do so if they wait too long, but he’d order them in a pretend-nice ‘fate of Equestria’ way. They were suckers for that.
It was time for the flavor test, and he stuffed her face into his throat like so many others. She tasted like grape, which would have made him laugh if he could have; if his prey had learned that ponies were flavored so appropriately, she’d have probably wasted months studying it or even writing a book. She wasted so much of her time studying things that were so useless that she may as well have not been studying at all.
The prey acknowledged the inevitability of her situation, and not only didn’t kick; she actively tried to push herself in faster, literally trying to crawl down his throat like a giant worm to get it over with. He started to go slower because of it, and when she realized that, she stopped her writhing and simply lay still. So boring.
Luckily her compliance didn’t play out to the very end. As it went down over her torso, sliding over her legs and wings, down to her hind legs, she began to twitch and kick, and he could actually feel her heavy breathing within him as she slid down his neck. By the time she was being pushed out into his stomach, she was kicking in abject horror like the best of them, literally.
“Please, I don’t wanna die!” she shouted so loudly that it barely sounded muffled. Those were much better last words; she was more like her mentor than she’d ever know.
As he felt her kicking and flapping slowly glide to a stop, he thought of all the things that annoyed him about this pointless little princess, and actually arched his back and moaned when she ceased moving. He then spit out her horn, let out a belch that literally shook the walls, and pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket to pat his muzzle. He reveled with a smile of victory as he watched the last hope of ‘friendship’ fade away to leave his thin physique once again.
His victory was complete. He’d go to sleep in his room, and would be awoken tomorrow morning when they ran out of other choices, informing him that he would need to take care of things temporarily. He’d pretend to be sad for the tragedy for the sake of the fools, of course. He could even cry for show, believably since his beloved ‘aunts’ were gone; he was good at pretending to have emotions that he didn’t actually have where required. Since they’d believe his rule temporary, not even those foolish enough to doubt him would stand in the way, but once no pony showed back up and they saw that he could, in fact, rule well, they’d keep him on.
And he would rule well, because he’d acknowledge the things he doesn’t know about and delegate it to an expert in the field; that was a very important part of what leaders should do, and it’s something that wasn’t being done enough, especially with Twilight. Rulers weren’t supposed to learn to do things themselves, they were supposed to delegate; otherwise they would have to learn everything.
Given that he’d initially be using Celestia’s experts, his rule wouldn’t be much different than hers, but gradually he would come up with good reasons to change each one with ponies that he had already chosen. Within a few years, they’d have a brand new Equestria, and everyone that mattered would be better for it. Everypony else would be at least decent for it, enough that they wouldn’t complain.
As for the horns, he wanted nothing more than for them to be on display in his throne room. So he was clever; he’d place them somewhere they’d be found, and they’d be shown to Blueblood by the sad ponies that found them. He’d say that they should put them in a memorial, which of course should be in the throne room, right above the throne. They’d be on a plaque just like one that someone might use to mount a fish, and in the end, that’s what they were. If only he could have had their whole heads mounted.
He didn’t care if he was the only one that knew their significance, though if he didn’t figure out immortality and ended up dying, he’d probably tell them what he did on his death bed, so he could let these fools know how they had been bested by his superior mind.
It didn’t matter right now though. He slipped into his bed, still time to get a good sleep. He’d need rest, because tomorrow was the first day of his illustrious rule.