“There are two things that can drive a living being to near madness. Cause the most unbridled of actions. One of those things is love. The other … is power.”
There had been times late at night when he stared up at the ceiling of his chambers, knowing that sleep wouldn't come to him until the sun rose, in which he wondered if the feeling of his own father's blood on his hands would be something that he could not face in the end. Self-doubt didn’t suit him - it was something that only the weak and the cowardly succumbed to - so he pushed those kinds of thoughts away quicker than they came, and refocused his mind onto only the here and the now.
But the time comes when Tirek has the old man falling at his feet, bent to his mercy with his hands around his neck, and it is positively easy. Their battle has weakened the King, but it has only made him stronger and reinforced his determination to do what needs to be done. His skin itches with the magic that flows through him, and he can feel bloodlust with it surging like the tides.
Vorak has been softened by decades of submission to the whims of bloated nations like Equestria and a grovelling belief in the lies of their self-aggrandizing ‘morals’. Tirek cannot admit much loyalty to his homeland, but he is doing all a favour in ridding them of his father. Fingers scratch desperately at his own and claws scrape the skin from his knuckles, but he does not soften his grip. He feels the final few desperate twitches of muscle and watches the light leave his father’s eyes. Tirek releases him, almost gently, and he slides lifelessly to the ground. He does not move again.
His mother is screaming. The guards who were foolish enough to try and stop him lie spread across the throne room, limp and broken like string-limbed dolls. Of those who knew better and stayed away only a few remain, trembling in the doorway of the vast throneroom, gripping their flimsy spears like lifelines. The others have fled the castle, but he will make no move to pursue them. Let them spread the word, and leave out no details. A healthy dose of fear is always efficient in quickly establishing a new order and quelling any resistance - he has learned that well.
He had also learned that there is almost never a good time to let your guard down.
Still, he barely catches the trident being driven towards the back of his leg. Pain shoots through his hand as sharpened prongs dig into his palm, but he ignores it and pushes back against the force at the other end, throwing his attacker backwards across the room and crashing onto the steps leading up to the two thrones.
A scream splits the air as his mother impacts. Her weapon falls from her hand and clatters to the floor as she doubles forward, eyes clenched shut with pain. Unruffled, Tirek sighs and starts towards her. “Mother, do not make me have to hurt you.”
She does not grace him with a response and instead struggles back onto her feet, grasping blindly for her trident. A futile effort - he is too quick for her, and with his magic he pulls it from her reach. She sobs with despairing frustration, and those few distracted seconds give Tirek all the time he needs. He swings the weapon back towards her trembling figure, and strikes her hard across the side of her head with the crooked wooden helve. She crumples without so much as a sigh, and lies there still, just metres from her husband. All that betrays any sign of life is the rise and fall of her chest.
Tirek regards her with mild disappointment before turning to leave, but stops in his tracks at the sound of a shallow whimper, like that of a dying animal. Clenching his fists, he inclines his head towards its source.
Scorpan is curled up amongst the ruins with dust on his fur and red smearing his palms. Tirek raises an eyebrow. He had almost forgotten about him. He marches back towards his brother until he stands above him, looking him down, and gestures back towards the two prone figures of their parents “They have made their decisions. Now, what is yours?”
Scorpan appears consumed by horror beyond any show of rage or hysterical tears. He does not have anything that he can use to defend himself - mother never liked the idea of them playing with sharp things and that had always suited his feeble sensibilities perfectly, but now this weakness has come back to bite him, as he should have always known it would.
“I … I-” He looks up at Tirek as though seeing a stranger. Their eyes meet and, for the first time, Tirek is not entirely sure that he can read them. The elder’s words from many, many years before come back to him for a fleeting moment.
“I sense his fear of - and devotion to - you.”
He takes up their mother’s fallen trident from the floor, and aims it squarely between Scorpan’s eyes. “I need an answer, brother.” His words are soft, casual. Scorpan’s gaze falls upon the three curved and sharpened prongs mere inches from his face. He bares his teeth uneasily, not looking back at his brother, and for a few seconds everything around them is pregnant with a strained silence.
Tirek does not need Scorpan’s words, it seems - surrender is signalled in the slow dropping of his hands and pained curling of his fingers.
“A wise decision.” Tirek concedes, turning away and snapping the trident in two.
(Later, Tirek realises, he was a fool not to skewer him then and there, a fool for not realizing why his brother could not speak to him, why he could not even look him in the eye when he avouched his “loyalty”).
But in his moment of victory, silent elation momentarily clouds his judgement. He leaves Scorpan curled up and shaking at the back of the throne room. Mother still lies unconscious, a dark bruise now forming just below her hairline. He would prefer if he did not have to dispose of her, but he will have to wait until she wakes before he can make his final decision. His father’s body still lies where he fell, but Tirek cannot move him now, not immediately.
He has work to do.
The Equestrian princesses are just as he had expected them to be - glistening with ornaments; circlets of gold and obsidian each outlining their haughty faces, and sickly pristine in every way. Their magic - though shallow and soft - is formidable. It is the only strength they have. He could crush their fragile bodies like insects otherwise.
The Traitor stands at their side. He can be given no other name now; the blood that they share is muddied beyond repair. It is cruel, really - some sick joke played on Tirek by the universe at large - that it is only now that the whelp has at last grown a backbone.
Chains crawl up his chest and arms to bind him and sear his skin with their blistering heat. The blighted earth beneath them splits and his legs slip out from under him, his hooves skidding on the shifting ground. He roars with futile anger and lashes at the chains with what little magic he has left, but they hold firm and his struggling only allows them to drag him down further. The endless darkness of Tartarus opens below, ready to accept him.
The Traitor does not look away, not this time. He is not triumphant. He is not scared. He is not angry. He simply looks disappointed, and a touch pitying, like he did not want it to end this way.
Tirek screams with a blinding, burning fury until his throat is raw; until he is so far down that the Princesses are lost from his view and the ground has closed up above him.