//------------------------------// // Equestrian Bachelorette // Story: Kingdom For a Horse // by Waste Bin //------------------------------// Thorax panted for breath. He was exhausted. Last time he’d had to run that fast, he was still black. The throne room of the Castle of Friendship was enormous, glittering, and most importantly, it came with a very sturdy set of front doors. Thorax scanned the room beyond in a hurry and found several other doors[1] leading deeper into the castle, in case he had to keep fleeing. Hopefully, it didn’t have to come to that. He’d makeshift bolted the exit shut with a few thrones, just to be sure. --- [1] Thorax liked to think of them as ‘emergency exits’. --- Thorax laid his head on a hoofrest. The entrance was calming, quiet; his panting was the only sound echoing within. It took him a disappointingly long time to realize that that also meant the knocking had stopped. Thorax hopped up with joy. The love-hungry mare was gone! For the next ten-or-so minutes, he was free! Then a door slammed open, and he had a mini heart attack. Thorax puffed out his chest, stood up to his not-inconsiderable full height, and bared his teeth. Whatever happened, he would face his fate with courage, or at least end what was quite possibly the most ludicrous and nonexistent chase-scene written by an inexperienced author ever. Then his eyes fell on her, and all previous thoughts fled him. She strode in with long, confident steps despite her short height, her trot oozing authority. Her legs were thin and long, spindly even—something that other, less sensible, out-of-their-minds ponies would call unattractive. Her eyes and the way they twinkled and took in the entire room spoke of cold determination.  And her voice could break the deepest daydream. “Oh, hey, Thorax," said Starlight Glimmer, who was suddenly standing less than three feet in front of him. It might have not been as sudden had Thorax been sufficiently present. “What brings you here?” Thorax didn't reply, however. He was far too busy having a meltdown. His upper lip trembled, then his eyebrow twitched. Then his lip twitched, and his eyebrow trembled. His forehoof rose, like a charmed snake, and pointed. “Where did you get those?” He was, of course, referring to what was on Starlight’s back—something that unicorns, by definition, usually lacked. There, flapping lazily, was a pair of polychrome, delicate, dreamy gossamer wings. A pair of very bug-like wings. “Oh, these?” Starlight replied, perfectly oblivious to his quite obvious distress. “Twilight showed me this spell she’d once learned to help out her friend, in exchange for staying out of the castle today. Pretty sweet deal, eh?” She smiled at him. She was all smiles these days. “Do you like them?” Thorax was certain he was having a heart attack. His heart was very much attacking his rib cage. “They’re…” Beautiful, colourful, cool, lovely, neat, astonishing, enticing, sexy... *Chitter[2] --- [2] Well, don't just sit there. Help! Our translator just fainted! --- “...They’re nice,” Thorax finished in a hurry. He then imagined stuffing his own hoof in his face once he’d fled back into the hotel room. Thorax took a deep breath. Actually, he decided to take several. That’s what it always came down to: self-control and nothing more. He could already see himself going over this experience in the “Feelings Forum,” holding his comfort plushie, brushing its soft lilac coat— Thorax wasn’t entirely certain how his forehoof had ended up on her withers, but it withdrew so fast he thought it’d get ripped off. Starlight was giving him a look that could not have been good for his health. “Thorax? Mind if I ask you something?” Thorax chuckled nervously. ”Oh, no, not at all. Ask away!” Starlight lifted her forehoof, and for a moment, Thorax’s violent heart stopped beating. She was going to call him out for being too scared to even talk to his friends, let alone lead an entire nation. She’d titter like that one time and why was she just pointing somewhere behind him? “Why is the door blocked with thrones?” Thorax rubbed the back of his head. He was running low on chuckles. “Funny story that. You see—” Then the knocking came back. With a vengeance. Thorax let out another loud chitter and almost gained air. “Where’d they get a ram at this hour?!” Something baa’ad outside the door. “Thorax, what’s going on?” Starlight asked.  "There’s no time to explain! Quick, grab my hoof!” Starlight blinked at him. Thorax grabbed her by the hoof and broke into a gallop. The doors were slammed open, and one of the thrones was sent flying, missing Thorax by just enough to give him incentive to run faster. “After him!” came the yell of his secretary over the swarm of hungry, hungry nymphs. Thorax barrelled through a door and hit the ground running, with Starlight stringing on. At the end of the hallway, he saw another, much more ornate door, and braced for impact. Starlight forced him to pull the brakes. “Stop!” Thorax slammed into the door and fluttered to the floor like a pancake. “We can’t go in there,” she told him as she helped him up, “Twilight’s in there!” “Perfect,” Thorax slurred, “she can help us!” Starlight pulled him away before he could make sawdust of the door. She was surprisingly strong, he found. “No, she can’t!” “Why not?” Starlight leaned right in his ear. “Because she’s having a ‘Friendship problem’." Ah, yes, now that he thought about it he could very well hear the, ahem, friendship problem, in progress. Thorax made a mental note to congratulate the Apple Family the next time he was over, though he would most likely pass on appraising their cousin Braeburn’s impressive rooster. He had just enough time to finish his thoughts when the chittering of a horde of changelings was again brought to the forefront of his mind. So he chose an exit. A changeling burst through it. Thorax chose a different exit. A ram was grazing there, nibbling on the crystal wall. Also, several changelings.  Thorax then realized he’d ran out of exits long before he could run out of changelings. “This is going to get awkward, isn’t it?” The changelings swarmed the two. To his surprise, they stopped just a few hooves lengths away. Thorax took that as a yes. “Welp, time for plan B then.” Thorax grabbed Starlight by the neck and kissed her.[3] --- [3] DISCLAIMER! We here at Horsewords Publishing Inc DO NOT CONDONE the actions of our protagonists. Kissing one of the most powerful mares in existence with little provocation WILL, in best case scenario, fry you instantly. Not a smart move. Don’t try this at home! --- Thorax had been pretty sure that this was not how ponies’ mating rituals should go, but he’d had ridiculously little time to research this. You can then probably understand his shock when, after their lips met, she reciprocated. Thorax would probably have described the initial feeling as ‘soft’. His brain capacity may also have been somewhat taken up at the time. He didn’t even feel her run one of her hooves on his antlers. A warmth, not unlike getting dipped in a hot spring, filled him to bursting. In his half-cognizant state, Thorax actually thought for a moment that he’d shapeshifted into a balloon—a balloon filled with sunshine, funny jokes, and something scented sweetly. Eventually, they broke off, with Thorax panting for breath again. The entire world was spinning around him. Had not Starlight’s magic kept him upright, he was sure he would’ve belly-flopped to the ground and stayed there. His eyes slowly fluttered open. Before him lay some hundred young changelings, out cold. Some were rubbing their bellies, while a few sported some adorable blushes on their cheeks, but for Thorax, it was enough they were down and out. “Changelings,” he called out to them. His subjects started getting back up on their hooves. “I have a declaration to make, and it concerns all of you!” Thorax waited until everyling, including those that had failed to sneak out or disguise themselves as debris, was in a position to listen. “Today, I learned something important,” he began, ignoring the sudden urge to write a letter to someone peculiarly specific. “Love is free, something that can’t be forced on anyone.” One of the changelings raised his forehoof. “But didn’t you just do that?” Thorax smacked himself in the face. “What I meant to say was: you can’t be forced to love someone, the same way you can’t force someone to love you.” “Uhh...” One of the changelings interjected again, this time from the back, pointing at Starlight. “Doesn’t she, like, know a spell that can do that?” Thorax’s eyebrows gained air. He turned to look at her. Starlight averted her eyes and whistled innocently. “Well, yeah, probably,” Thorax said, "but she’s the one who drove Chrysalis off, went back in time, and beat an alicorn in a duel. Way I see it, she can do pretty much whatever the Tartarus she wants.” Thorax took off to better stare down each and every changeling. “But even if you could, doesn’t mean you should. It’s inequine, and that’s not who we are anymore. “I know everyone wants to be loved, be they pony, changeling, or other. And everyone deserves to be loved, be they pony, changeling, or other. But if you are just willing to hoof out your love, to a pony, changeling or other, somepony will eventually return it.” Thorax struck a pose, spreading his wings in all their colour. “It’s how we came to be like this, after all.” Thorax landed back down. The changelings stared at him blankly. Thorax quirked an eyebrow. The changelings just stared at him. “Uhm,” he mumbled. The changelings stared at him. Thorax reached down and picked up a piece of debris, comically shaped like a ball. It glowed green for a second, after which he chucked it out the window. “Here’s some love. Go get it!” You would not believe how fast the room emptied itself, even if I wrote you an entire paragraph describing it. Thorax sighed in relief. “Thank Celestia, that that’s over.” He turned to Starlight. “Are you—?” Whatever the rest of his question was supposed to be was muffled by Starlight kissing him. Aggressively. The warm feeling flooded him again, and his head was doing ballet spins long after the kiss ended. “Well, look at you, King Thorax.” Starlight proceeded to pin him against the crystal wall like a rare butterfly in a collection. Her voice was dangerously low and husky—it made his stomach flip. “I like a stallion who can take matters into his own hooves.” Thorax sweated. He hadn't even known that an insect could sweat. There was just this look in Starlight’s eyes like they were smiling, but the rest of her wasn’t. It reminded him of a manticore he’d once seen. And it was hungry. “Remember when you said I could do anything I wanted?” Her horn turned on. “Well, you’re gonna love this.” The next bit isn't exactly kid-friendly, so we’re leaving it out. Long story short, when they came to get him the next day, the changelings had to carry Thorax back to the Badlands on a stretcher.