Four years ago
The atmosphere of the room was close and hot as a a still summer night. Bodies pressed close to her on all sides, writhing rhythmically, silently against her sodden coat, crushing against her rump and back, filling every nook with searing flesh and ticklish hair.
She hissed as broad teeth nibbled the edge of her jaw and the roots of her mane, as steaming breath poured over her neck and shoulders; sighed as legs and arms gripped tight about her body with growing, shivering intensity; gasped at the firm, slow thrust of Lucent within her yet again, and again, his pace quickening to a gallop even as it began to stumble.
There was no shared orgasm this time. Star had spent herself long ago, driven to her final, exhausting frenzy after what felt like hours of teasing from Lucent and Glint's tongues and twitching hooves. She lay still, panting, as Lucent finished inside her, grunting ecstasy through teeth still clenched at her mane.
At last he let out a plaintive sigh and rolled from Star's back, his already dying penis trailing a hot, yet chilling trail over her hip. Star let out a sign of her own, quickly followed by a gasp as she felt a tongue eagerly lapping at her side. She twisted awkwardly to look at her new attacker and found Glint, his tongue splayed out across her mark, grinning back at her.
"Couldn't wait your turn?"
Glint withdrew his tongue and made a show of swallowing before he spoke. "You had him for so long, I was worried you'd never finish."
"You and me both," said Crincile at Star's ear, though her voice was little more than a sleepy murmur. "If I wanted solo canter I could have stayed in my apartments."
Glint huffed and dipped his head toward Lucent's crotch, but that only brought him a grunted protest as Lucent rolled away from his abortive ministrations.
"I'm not the stallion I used to be, you know," Lucent murmured. "You'll have to wait a while."
"You can see to me while you do," said Crincille, before draping herself over Star's back. She laid a kiss on Glint's shoulder. "Play your cards right and you won't even need Lucent."
"It's not the same," Glint replied, returning the kiss. He nipped at Crincile's jaw, eliciting a sleepy giggle from the mare, before moving in to kiss her on the cheek. "Not nearly."
Crincile giggled again as Glint shuffled toward her, trailing kisses down her neck to her shoulder, until Star loudly cleared her throat. "If you don't mind," she groused, "I'd really rather not play futon to the pair of you."
"I rather thought you'd be used to it," Crincile said as she heaved herself from Star's back. She waited as Star crawled up from between the pair, before crawling up between Glint's hooves and nuzzling at his neck.
"If you wanted a doormat you could drag Twilight in here," Star grunted, but neither Crincile nor Glint were listening now, their cuddling having turned to a frantic, grunting tussle. Evidently their need for Lucent was less than they had claimed. For now.
She rolled away from the two, dodging Crincile's flailing legs, and fell down at Lucent's back. A moment later he rolled over to grasp her, pressing cold sweat into her coat while his lips caught against her forehead. With a contented sigh, Star closed her eyes.
When she opened them again the sun had set, though she felt no more rested from her exertions. Lucent was still holding her, still cold and sticky. Worse still, the pair at her back were still hard at it. How they could keep it up for so many hours–
"Celestia's cunt!"
The bed shuddered as Lucent bucked from her grasp, and again as Glint followed. In the distance, Star heard the clatter of falling crockery and a stifled scream. She rolled over, panting, as she tried to focus on the windows and the darkening sky beyond.
She stumbled from the bed, joining Lucent close to the window, but a step removed from it, as if they could hide from the baleful, shrinking light that struggled to shine through it. Behind her, Crincile was praying. Not to Celestia, but to the old gods that their people had abandoned long ago.
In the sky over Canterlot, with a ponderous, inaudible intensity that Star felt in her very soul, the last slivering crescent of the moon slid across the face of the sun and plunged the world into darkness.
* * *
She had expected the servants to flee. That was how it went in all the adventures, when the world was about to end, wasn't it? The nameless, gormless underclass were supposed to disappear into the shadows and not be heard from again, until a bright young mare took charge and saved the world and showed them the true meaning of love, or some such rot.
Instead, after a brief panic, the stolid staff had resumed their work as if nothing were amiss, though their nervous glances were not entirely hidden in the shadows of hastily lit gas lamps. If Star had wished to convince herself that all was right with their little corner of the world, the illusion would have withered before the grim visage of the Housekeeper as she herded a pair of maids into the drawing room, both pushing trays of snacks and warm drinks.
The usually forthright Josephine hovered uncertainly by the door as the maids set about serving tea to all present, and though she tried to hide it, her eyes kept darting to the darkened windows. The unnatural night had fallen only half an hour ago, but the air was already starting to chill, even within the house.
She waited still as the maids departed, but remained by the door.
"Begging your pardon, m'lord," she said, turning her attention to Lucent, who lurked in a wing-backed chair in the corner, wrapped in a thick velvet gown. "Shortbread has asked I relay her apologies for her absence. She was out the door and off to the city the moment the sun– um. Said she had to tend to her old mother."
"That's good of her," Lucent murmured. His eyes were closed. "Thank you, Josephine. That will be all."
Josephine's mouth worked a moment, as if she wanted to say more. Instead she bowed her head a moment, then looked at Star. The question she wanted to ask was obvious.
"The Princess will take care of everything." Crincile emerged from shadows that had hidden her so completely that Star had forgotten she was even in the room. "Go and find Twilight Velvet, please. I'm sure she'll appreciate your help with Guiding Light."
"Ma'am," Josephine replied, before shuffling from the room.
The silence that came in the wake of her departure was oppressive. Given the low lighting, the room should have felt more like an intimate evening than some twisted council of despair. Star glanced toward the window again, where the now bright, blank face of the moon glared haughtily over the land.
"She's not coming, is she," said a shaking voice. Star blinked. It was a moment before she realised it had been her own. She looked at Lucent and licked her too-dry lips.
"Whatever fate has befallen her–" Lucent abruptly rose from his seat and strode to the window. "No doubt the court is already preparing a succession. Organising the cohorts. I shall have to attend."
"We'll come with you," Crincile said, before Star could say the same. Lucent turned his head and nodded to them.
Star reached her magic toward the bell pull, but then thought better of it and stalked toward the door instead. A maid had just passed by when she opened it; Star leaned out and hurried her to have the coach prepared, then shut the door again.
"The two of us will be enough. We can't leave Glint by himself and I doubt the others would want to go out in this... whatever it is," she said.
"And there's Twilight's foal to think of," Crincile added.
Lucent turned from the window, though when he looked at Star it was only as if by habit. His mind was elsewhere entirely. "It may not matter. The moon is–"
His jaw snapped shut. Lucent shivered his head, ruffling his mane every which way, and turned to the door. He paused when he opened it and looked around the room. "I must say goodbye to our children."
He smiled briefly. Then he was gone.
* * *
As the crow flies, the Palace was only a short distance from Lachrimose House, barely more than a few kilometres, but the roads between the two were so circuitous and narrow, and so crowded once they came close to the city proper, that the journey felt ten times longer. There had been many a time when Star had wished for the gift of flight and the freedom to roam at will, if only to avoid the heavy traffic between home and the University. Not to the point of giving up her magic, of course.
Tonight – it was difficult to think otherwise, despite the time being a little past three in the afternoon – the roads were deserted. More accurately, they were abandoned. Ponies were reputedly a fractious lot, prone to terrified flight at the sight of a misplaced cloud, if some of Star's more exotic acquaintances were to be believed, but she had not seen them so live up to the stereotype as now. Debris littered the streets between abandoned and overturned carts and wagons. Clothes, tables, hats, expensive baggage, all had been cast aside as the ponies fled the unnatural darkness. It was as if a swirling tempest had stormed along the streets, carrying all before it.
So short was the journey that they had reached the palace before Star had even finished mixing a sorely-needed drink. She glanced at Lucent's cool disapproval, shrugged and downed the entire thing in two swallows as they passed beneath the wide palace gates. The guards hurried to close the sturdy oak and steel doors behind the coach, something Star had never seen before.
Another coach stood in the courtyard, its open door emblazoned with a familiar, heart-shaped crest. The mark's owner stood a short distance beyond, conferring with an old stallion who almost cowered behind a stuffy tunic and an oversized mustache. Now and then her wings would lift and ruffle, their feathers crackling with magical tension.
At a particularly harsh exchange, the servant – Star supposed he was Celestia's majordomo – bowed his head and retreated into the castle keep. Star couldn't help but wonder when Cadance had become so forceful. About anything. She sauntered across the yard, trailing Lucent and Crincile behind her, and put on her best grin when Cadance looked up and saw her.
"Star!" Cadance hooves rattled on the cobblestones and she turned and pulled Star into an unexpected hug. "Did you bring– Lucent, oh thank Celestia you're here!"
"He brought us, really," Star muttered, dropping the smile again. It was hurting her cheeks. "Speaking of her plumpness, what's going on?"
Cadance's hooves slide from Star's shoulders. Normally she would have chided Star, or at least frowned at her, but there was nothing. The young Princess's wings dropped by her sides, trailing on the cobbles.
"Nopony knows where she is," she murmured. When she looked up, it was to fix Lucent with an unsteady gaze. "They're talking about putting me on the throne, as if I could raise the sun! What do I know about ruling a whole country?"
"As I understand things," said Lucent, drawing to Star's side, "it's not so different to foalsitting."
"The foals are bigger," Cadance muttered. She glanced around the courtyard before shuffling closer to Lucent. "Kibbitz tells me Prince Blueblood is in court already, talking up a storm about something. He wasn't able to find out what."
Lucent bobbed his head and snorted. "With Celestia's blessing, he's negotiating a way to restore the cohorts. Nothing else should matter until we can return the sun." He paused as a bell chimed within the towering castle. "Court is standing. We should hurry."
Cadance turned, paused and looked back at the trio. "Thank you," she said. "For being here. Aunty Celestia may have adopted me, but you're the closest I have to family in this place. It's just a pity Twilight isn't here as well."
"That is a point," Crincile replied as they made their way into the keep. "Where has that girl got to?"
"She's staying in a town called Ponyville, out in the provinces." Cadance's ears briefly rolled back against her head. "Aunty intends– intended to hold the Summer Sun celebration there this year. She sent Twilight as harbinger."
"Surely an appropriate use of her talents," Star muttered.
"She's an excellent organiser," Cadance countered. "I'm sure her social skills could use the exercise as well."
"I suppose, out there, she's well away from whatever this insanity is," Star said as they reached the closed doors of the Celestial Court; the corridor she was accustomed to using stretched away in the other direction. "And I see we've taken a shortcut."
"Desperate times." Cadance trotted toward the doors before angling to one side to confer with the guard, who listened as she spoke and replied with a single, firm nod and a salute.
At the guard's signal the doors opened on silent hinges, releasing a wave of indignant mutterings from within the court chamber. The usually ebullient crowd within was much reduced so far as Star could see, but all shared the same taut expression and moved in the same nervous dance, seeking assurance where none could be found. Uncertainty tugged at their ears and heads, as if they were puppets and their master was having a seizure behind the scenes.
Cadance stepped forward, with Star and the others trailing in her wake. She ignored the knots of nobility that tried to draw her into their orbit with fervent, whispered pleas and promises; her eyes were set on the far end of the hall and the dais of the throne, where Blueblood stood to one side. Lurked, more accurately, at least in Star's opinion.
At the foot of the dais her son waited, decked out in dress reds and wearing the darkest expression she had ever seen. She pulled away from Lucent's side and toward Shining Armor, who acknowledged her with a curt nod and nothing more. Not even Cadance seemed to draw his attention. She glanced out at the crowd and then leaned toward him.
"I don't suppose you have any idea what's going on?"
"Even if I did, I couldn't tell you," Shining whispered without looking toward her. "I've already lost one Princess. This isn't the best time for a catch-up."
"What, not even a hello kiss for your dear old mother?"
"Definitely not the best time, mom." Shining leaned a fraction toward Star and sniffed quietly. "And I'm pretty sure having you anywhere near my face would count as drinking on duty."
"I only had the one!"
"Bottle," Shining shot back. He cleared his throat and looked away. "We'll speak later."
He marched off to the doors, presumably to order more of his guards around. With nothing else to do Star sat down and looked out at the crowd, who were doing their level best to ignore her, then at Blueblood, who was in a three-way conference with Lucent and Cadance. Crincile hovered delicately to one side, her shoulder pressed against Lucent's flank, whilst her eyes bored burning holes into Blueblood's temple.
Whatever they were discussing had Cadance shaking her head and Lucent tensing his shoulders and neck as if to bite the oblivious Prince. The conversation ended before that could happen, with Blueblood raising his nose and closing his eyes as he turned from the trio to once again stand beside the throne. Lucent twitched his lip a moment before stepping down the dais to Star's side.
Cadance and Crincile followed shortly after.
"He's intending to lay claim to the throne," Cadance said, without preamble. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, shaking her head.
"He can do that?"
Star looked at Lucent for her answer, but it was Crincile who replied. "It is possible. House Platinum ceded dominion over the Unicorn Kingdoms to Celestia by treaty, in return for the Duchy of Canterlot. If Celestia is gone, he could argue that there is no clear line of succession."
"But I'm right here," Cadance said, twitching her wings. "He's either blind or–"
"Ambitious," Lucent cut in. "But he's agreed to delay his claim until we can return the sun. Until then..." he looked at Cadance, then up at the throne. "It's your rightful place, my dear. Take it while you have the chance."
Cadance swallowed and nodded, turning to face the throne. The room fell silent as she ascended the dais; when she glanced at Blueblood, he snorted and turned his head away.
The murmur of voices resumed as Cadance seated herself on the throne. She looked at Lucent, then at Star with a shy smile, and raised her hoof to address the crowd.
And then the sun returned in all its blinding glory.
"Well I suppose that solves that," said Star, once the yelling had died down. She looked around the little group, ignoring Blueblood's dour grimace, and grinned. "I don't know about any of you, but I could use a drink."
* * *
The fact that the Palace contained not one, but two, fully stocked bars with table service should not have come as a surprise to Star. In truth, if she considered the matter a moment, it made a lot of sense to give the palace staff some place to drown their sorrows at some remove from the prying eyes of the public. At the same time, it was difficult to picture the Princess wandering into a bar of any sort and ordering a pint. Or even a glass of white wine.
A mystery, Star decided, is what they were. At least this mystery had a nice patio overlooking the palace grounds. She raised her drink, a rather potent Oxenshire stout (brewed by cows, it claimed), in a general salute to the world and took a healthy swig.
"I should do this more often," she said, setting the glass down. She looked across the table to Lucent and Shining Armor, both of whom nursed their own drinks. Lucent sighed and sipped at his; Shining only stared off into the distance. Of Cadance and Crincile there was no sign.
"You would need an invitation, dear." Lucent set his drink aside and let out another heartfelt sigh. "This has certainly been quite an exciting day," he said, turning his face to the setting sun. "I was quite ready for the world to end. Did you see what happened to the moon?"
"You mean apart from it flying around like a demented pegasus and blocking out the sun?" Star looked across at the palace and shook her head. "Seemed entirely normal to me."
Lucent shook his head. "The Mare was gone. She's still gone now."
"A bunch of craters can't just disappear," said Star. She turned to the east, where the fat full face of the moon rested just above the horizon, blank as the mind of a first-day freshman, and pale as his gums. "Oh. Well. I certainly am glad I didn't pick this week to quit drinking."
"It certainly ranks among the stranger things I've seen," Lucent concluded. He knocked back the rest of his drink and set it aside. Then his ears twitched forward. He set up and peered out at a raised plaza some distance away. "Ah, the Princess has returned to us at last. Looks like she's brought a guest as well."
"Probably one of her long lost students, back from whatever corner of Tartarus Celestia lost her in," Star said, turning her attention to the crowds below. Bureaucrats, in the main, or palace guard on patrol. A few tourists too foolhardy to be scared off by the mere end of the world. "Perhaps now she'll let Twilight live a normal life instead of locking her away in that tower."
"You're assuming Twilight isn't locked in that tower by choice," Lucent said.
"Given the alternatives," Star replied, "I wouldn't blame her. There's a reason Celestia's students all have memorials in the palace gardens, and it's not because they died of old age."
"I should attend to the Princess," Shining said. He put his drink down and made to stand. Then he paused, which caught Star's attention. She saw his eyes narrow as he stared at the chariot, before slowly seating himself.
"That isn't possible," he murmured, frowning. "Twilight, you mad genius."
Star's eyebrows crawled up her head. She looked across at the chariot and Princess Celestia, who was speaking to a gathered crowd while another pony lurked close to her legs. A foal? No. The perspective was throwing her off. Yet whatever the conversation was, it was clear from Celestia's bright, broad smile and the constant touch of her wing to the newcomer's side that she was inordinately happy about her current circumstances.
"What is it this time?" Lucent's normal baritone was deeper than usual, his poor attempt at a whisper.
"Remember she had that whole crazy theory about that foals' book she found?"
"That Nightmare Moon was a historical figure? I assumed she'd grown past that."
Star tuned the conversation out as she peered across the intervening space. Her eyesight wasn't the best these days, but she could just about make out the younger pony's mark, a crescent moon, and the broad, powerful wings on her back. For a moment she pondered how available the mare might be, until her gaze came to rest on the newcomer's face, and the horn protruding from her forehead.
"Lucent, I need another drink." She sat back and rubbed her eyes."Because I am not remotely drunk enough to be seeing another bloody alicorn."
"One of those alicorns is my fiancée," said Shining, before downing his drink in a single, long swallow. "Another princess. Twilight will go insane when she hears about this."
"And to think she missed it all," said Lucent.
Star tapped her hooves on the table, before waving to catch the attention of a passing waiter. She shook her head. "I don't know, Luci. I think she might be more involved in this than we think."
"What makes you say that?"
"Call it a hunch," Star replied.
"If you're going to be like that..." Lucent drained the last of his drink and stood. "I think I shall find Crincile and return to the house. The others will be worried." He nuzzled at Star's cheek. "Don't be all night."
Despite herself, Star couldn't help but smile at the touch. She sent Lucent away with a kiss and sat back to watch the plaza.
The Princess and her companion were alone now, their heads held close together in quiet conversation. Here and there the younger mare seemed to lose her focus, staring around the palace as if she had never seen its like in her life, but sooner or later her gaze came back to Celestia. Star couldn't hear what they were saying for obvious reasons, but years spent spying on recalcitrant students across raucous lecture halls and union bars had taught her how to read lips well enough, and one name was on the both of theirs, over and over and over again.
Twilight Sparkle.