Twilight Luciferian leaned back in his seventh favorite chair and raised a delicate wine glass to his lips. It was not filled with pony-wine, though; instead, it was brimming with a silver, metallic substance similar in appearance to thin mercury. He took a sip. It was delicious.
Around him was his library, an assembly of seemingly endless shelves assembled in a nearly circular room carved from dark stone. Beyond it was his tower, the ancestral home of House Twilight for time immemorial. This place had been the home to countless dark wizards, and the walls still dripped with pain and depravity. They were perpetually damp.
This was Twilight Luciferian’s home, accessible only to him; beyond it lay endless impassable jungle, contaminated endlessly with millennia of noxious defense spells. More importantly, though, it was home to his books.
On this particular day, though, he had not yet decided what to read. Instead he lay back, sipping from the glass of silver fluid.
“I cannot believe my luck,” he said at last, nearly laughing. “I succeed on every front. Not only did Necrophile’s students fail utterly, but the candidate the idiot chose is exactly who I need. A mare. No competition for the princess’s affection, unless she’s some sort of absurd pervert. I mean, could you imagine? If it had been some young, handsome, impressive upstart stallion who had succeeded?”
Luciferian turned sharply to the mare standing beside him, levitating a silver tray in her violet magic. She recoiled from his gaze, but did her best to smile. She, like Luciferian, was a unicorn- -but not a white one. Her skin was mottled with both gray and pale violet, and her mane bore stripes of both. She was gaunt and pale, having never been exposed to sunlight, and one of her eyes was covered with a bandage.
“That isn’t a rhetorical question, Failure.”
“Y- -yes, daddy! It would have been terrible!”
Luciferian smiled, and took another sip of the fluid. He watched Failure trace the glass with her eye, watching every sip. Of course she did not have the mental capacity to know how to operate poison, nor would poisoning a master of alchemy be easy- -or even possible.
“Even better, she’s weak. A chronoplexer, yes, but that just means she knows the spells. It’s an innate trait of or species. A unicorn can learn any spells he desires if he applies himself thoroughly, but his actual raw power is limited purely by his genetics. Which is why the pureblood Houses will always rule.”
“So I might...I might have potential?”
Luciferian levitated the fluid out of his glass, and then proceeded to shatter the vessel on his daughter’s face. She squealed and stepped back, dropping her tray narrowly avoiding injury to her remaining eye.
“I was not talking to YOU, failure. Did I give you permission to speak? HMM?”
“N- -no, daddy, I’m sorry!”
“Then stay SILENT.” Luciferian glared at her, then engaged a repair spell to restore his glass. He set it down on the tray on the floor. “You’re lucky, Failure. I’m in a good mood today.” He leaned back and sighed. “But the chronoplexer… oh the things I could do. To travel through time alone would be impressive, but even Strswirld could not generate alternative realities. I would so love to study her, to understand what it is about HER that makes her able to do what I cannot. Perhaps I should begin building a relationship.” Luciferian smiled. “Is it not a king’s prerogative to have as many mares as he desires.” He shivered in anticipation. “I am going to cuddle so many mares...I would like to assemble the entire kingdom’s female population into a vast heap, and just sleep on top of it.” He paused, then pointed at Failure. “You are not allowed in my mare pile. You would have to sleep on the ground and be cold. Because I hate you.”
“I know, daddy.”
“Just so long as you know it, and remember it well. It is because you are a failure, in every sense of the word. Such a sorry disappointment.”
Failure looked down at the floor, but Luciferian relished the shine of fresh tears in her eye. She deserved everything that came to her.
“I think I will review the concept for my nightly meditations.”
“Of constructing a heap of cuddle-mares?”
“No, you idiot. I’ve memorized those tomes completely. “Find me the collected work of T. Loganberry. Chronoplexy is not an art an ordinary wizard can practice, so I have grown quite rusty. I wish to read theory today.”
“Yes, daddy. I’ll go get it.”
She turned and slowly limped off. Her speed was greatly reduced by lacking a left front leg from the knee down.
“You have no idea how hilarious this all is,” said the other mare in the room.
Any hint of cheer that Twilight Luciferian might have possessed instantly evaporated. He glared down at the mare sitting beside him on the floor, leaning against his chair and engaged in peeling an onion. She was in the process of peeling an onion. The mare was not a unicorn, and more closely resembled an unusually tall earth-pony. Her body was yellow, and her hair crimson. When she looked up at Luciferian, her eyes were pure red.
“Several reasons.” She stood up and leaned against Luciferian, putting her chin on top of his head while she hugged his neck. “Mainly, Twilight, why are you bothering? Political intrigue is pointless. And so boring. Not enough violence. And for what? Some tiny northern realm? What are you, a yak? With my power, I could give you all of Equestria...if you would just manifest me...”
“At what cost?
The mare stared at him with her featureless red eyes. Her mouth widened into a sickening smile. Her teeth were black and pointed. “Everything.”
Luciferian pushed her away, or tried to. She slithered out of his grasp before he could even make contact, and returned to her onion. It had begun to bleed, and its screams echoed deep within Luciferian’s mind.
“It’s not time. It’s not time...” He shook his head, and took a large swig of silver fluid, emptying the glass. He followed this with deep breath. “This way is better, for now. Until I really need to.”
“Then you’re delaying the inevitable. Why are you waiting? You want the princess, why not take her? Throw her down and snuggle her until she’s RAW. Or whatever you horse-things do.”
“That is not how this works.”
“Why? Too civilized? But you bothered to summon me, so...” The mare stood and smiled. “Although, if you want to get a head start, why not try HER?” she pointed to where Failure had gone. “You’ve seen her. Thin, bony, constantly clammy. Just the kind of girl someone like you would want. She would fight Celestia herself for a little touch from daddy. Don’t you even want to try?”
“Don’t be crude. She disgusts me.”
“Well, then, there’s always me.”
“No.”
The mare laughed and pretended to pout. “Why not? Aren’t I pretty?”
“Because sometimes I can see through that veil you wear. To the thing on the other side.” Luciferian looked at her. “You are not a pony. Do not think I do not realize the gravity of the fact that you even exist, let alone that I managed to summon you.”
“I don’t think. I KNOW.”
Failure returned, now carrying a single large book. Exactly the one Luciferian had asked for. He knew it well; he had read it several times. He knew the exact number of words, pages- -and the weight. He was also fully aware of the carrying capacity of his daughter’s magic.
The violet glow around the book began to flicker. The yellow mare began to laugh. “Oh, yes! Do it! You know you want to!”
“Daddy, I have your bo- -”
The exceedingly weak levitation spell suddenly failed. The book dropped to the floor with a thump, and the whole room fell silent. Failure stared at the fallen book, her eye wide as she stared at it. When she looked up at her father, he was already standing.
“Daddy, no! I didn’t mean- -”
A whip of electrified violet energy slashed across Failure’s body. The force was so great that she was knocked to her knees. She screamed, and instinctively tried to curl into a ball. Luciferian was too fast, though; the second blow went across her face.
“That. Is. Not. How. WE. TREAT. BOOKS!” With every pause, the whip fell again and again. With each blow the girl screamed, but the wails grew more and quieter as she began to reach the edge of unconsciousness. Luciferian was forced to cast a spell to keep her alert and sensitive.
“How can you be this much of a failure? HOW?” The whip came down. “How could a clone perform this poorly? Look at you! You’re not WHITE!” Another blow. “And it’s your fault. ALL YOUR FAULT!”
“Daddy!” sobbed Failure. “I’m sorry! I’M SORRY! The book was too heavy! EEP!”
She was hit another time. “That crystalling crystal was YOUR FAULT! I made it myself, from my own flesh and blood! Meaning YOU! And now I have to look at you, I have to SEE you, to remind myself of EVERYTHING!”
He lifted his heavy armored leg- -the only clothing he wore at the time- and punched his daughter in the nose. Her head was thrown back and she sprawled across the floor. Luciferian levitated her and brought her back, raising his left hoof again.
Except that when he did, the yellow mare raised her own hoof- -and Luciferna’s stopped.
“Excessive punishment to get your jollies? That’s fine. I find it super funny. Even funnier? She still loves you. She really thinks this is all her fault, and that she deserves this. But if you keep going? Well, you know. Once punishment gets that severe, you’re just beating a dead horse.”
Luciferian growled but was forced to acquiesce. He dropped Failure to the floor, where she collapsed into a blubbering heap. He walked past her and picked up the book he had dropped. Of course he could have levitated it from a distance; there was no reason to send failure to collect it at all. He knew right where it was. But, as always, she deserved this.
“Here.” Luciferian threw a butterfly needle and some tubing at Failure’s feet. Failure looked at it, and then up at him. A thin stream of silver was trickling from her nose.
“D...daddy?”
Luciferian held out the wine glass. “I need MORE.”