//------------------------------// // Chapter 41 // Story: Responsibilities // by Hiver //------------------------------// “Shining, you look stressed. You need sleep,” I said as he stressed about trying to get the last things finished for the ceremony. He paused for a second before he sighed, “…That would be nice. But I need to get this finished.” I facehoofed, “I don’t mean now! Later!” Shining Armor sighed, “Yeah. That won’t happen for a while.” “I figure that come with a foal,” I said with a nod. Didn’t exactly talk me into wanting one to be honest. Eventually maybe, but not yet. But Luna loved foals. Shaking that thought from my head, I walked up next to Shining Armor as Rarity held out a selection of identical crystals for him to pick from. “I…I don’t know…” He said and looked between them, “Which one do I pick!?” I thought for a second about telling him to simply pick one, they were identical, but then thought better of it and just left them to it, moving over to Sunset where she was looking at the spinning crystal heart. She glanced at me before looking at the ancient artifact again, “Amazing, isn’t it?” I looked at it as I sat down next to her, “It is. You can almost feel the power coming of it and I’m not even a changeling.” Sunset nodded and hummed in agreement, “Yeah. I can’t even begin to guess how difficult it was to create.” “Pretty amazing.” There was literally an epic fuckton of power in that thing, it kept an entire city-state with farms included free of snow and nice and warm in a frozen landscape. I couldn’t even calculate how much energy that was. Sunset turned to me, “You ever think you will do something like this?” “Like what?” “Like this,” she said and motioned at the castle, “Your own castle, your own land, ponies that rely on you…” I shifted my wings and shook my head, “I hope not,” I said before I sighed, “At least I don’t want to. Not sure I CAN avoid it forever with what I am. I want to though if at all possible.” Sunny nodded and bumped her side against mine, “I can see where you are coming from, for sure. That’s a lot of responsibility.” “Yeah, I would be constantly terrified of messing up,” I agreed and then smiled at her, poking her side with my wing, “Luckily, if it ever come to that, I have ponies I can rely on.” That got me a smile in turn and she was about to say something else but was interrupted as Princess Cadence, Luna and Celestia exited the castle. Shining quickly looked over from where Rarity was fuzzing over his mane. Extracting himself from beneath her brush, he trotted over to Cadence, “Okay, I chose the honor guard, picked the purity crystal, and I know exactly who I want to be our crystaller. So, all we need is…” He paused and frowned in though. Cadence rolled her eyes, “The baby?” Shining got a slightly panicked look in his eyes and I shook my head with a grinned and made my way over to them, “Give him a break, Cadence. He hasn’t slept for days,” I said with a grin. Cadence shot me a look at that instead but before she was able to say something, Twilights voice filled the area, “We’re here!” Looking over, I could see the Baby of Doom flying about in a giant pink bubble of Twilights magic, Pinkie Pie hanging from the babies legs, her wings easily keeping the earth pony in the air. The little alicorn didn’t even look strained, laughing and giggling as she fluttered about in the bubble. Am I the only one that feel like ducking and covering? Nope, apparently not, Sunset put Celestia between her and the baby. Smart filly. “She’s a reaaaaly strong flier!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she dangled in the air, moving back and forth as the little filly moved along in the bubble. The BMD cooed and giggled. I cringed and readied a shield spell just in case. If she was as strong as she seemed, I wasn’t even sure a shield would be enough, but it would be better than eating a beam face first. Cadence lit up her horn and extracted her baby from the bubble and Pinkie Pies grasp, pulling her over towards her. The baby didn’t like that. She screamed. She screamed so the ground shook and the castle seemed to almost wobble. Holy shit! Scrambling to cover my ears, I quickly looked around for falling debris. The sound suddenly stopped, and I sighed in relief. Nothing had fallen on us. Bloody hell, that little menace will be the death of… Crackle. Crackle. What in the world is… I had just enough time to turn my head to see the Crystal Heart shatter into a billion little shards. There was a gasp from everyone at the sight as the core of the Crystal Empire rained down on the ground. Well… Shit.