Chapter 11
Cadance
Nightfall had not come peacefully to the residence of Twilight Sparkle.
“Shining, be reasonable. She’s only a baby.”
Shining Armour paused at foot of the staircase. He turned, looking back at his sister.
“I am being reasonable.” His decision was made and now he was going to sleep on it, and by it, he meant the couch on the ground floor of the library. It was a light aquamarine colour that clashed horribly with the purple colour his sister favoured and felt just about as comfortable . It was far too short to fit a pony, and the arms were so high that they curved his spine into in an unnatural U. He twisted his back and groaned when it cracked audibly, loud enough to give him pause and wonder if he might just have broken something. Thankfully he could still feel his hind legs and the tip of his tail. Whoever had convinced his sister to take in this terrible aquamarine couch would be the receiving end of his ire come morning.
** ** **
Elsewhere Lyra Heartstrings sneezed and began wiping her nose with a handkerchief in annoyance.
“Are you coming down with a cold?” Bon Bon asked upon hearing her grumbling housemate.
"Someone is talking about me... I just know it."
** ** **
Back in the library, Shining Armour gave up trying to sleep. He simply let his head fall back on a borrowed purple pillow and settled for staring up at the ceiling. He didn’t have to sleep here. It wasn’t as if Twilight had banished him to sleep on her extremely uncomfortable couch. There was a guest bed, a nice feather down bed, but it was in his sister’s bedroom, the very same room she shared with that…that thing. Shining Armour turned again, unable to sleep.
“I’m not going to sleep in the same room as a Changeling and neither should you!”
“So what do you want me to do, force her to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs?”
He heard his sister’s sarcasm, the low pitch she used when she was upset. It was sometimes funny, but today he didn’t care much for it. They had both gone to their respective beds angry
He turned his head on the pillow and continued staring up at the ceiling of the library.
His sister, Twilight Sparkle, may have been a hero of Equestria, the Element of Magic, and may have fought changelings, but she didn’t understand those detestable creatures, not really. Not in the way he did. Shining Armour let out a shuddering breath, one that left him cold inside, and began rubbing his forelegs together. No matter how it looked, that thing nestled against his sister was one of those… those things, one of those predators, and nothing would change that. It wasn’t anypony’s family. It wasn’t anypony’s foal He would never let his guard down... Never again
Just as he finished those thoughts, a sound reached his ears. It wasn’t the hum of insects outside the window. It was the clip-clop sound of soft hooves moving towards him. “Twily,” he called out. His reply was the silence of a moonless night. It was too dark to see any further than a pony length distance. His ears flicked up and turned to follow the sound. The hoof steps slowed but did not stop. It continued its approach but not in a straight line. It was circling him, stalking him.
Unbidden, an icy knot took hold and twisted his stomach. “Not Twily,” he whispered fearfully. If not her, it could only be one other thing. His instinct as a pony screamed at him to bolt from the room. In the corner of his mind, a panicked colt cowered, frightened of the green mare looking for him. But instinct would not prevail tonight. His training with the Royal Equestrian Guard came roaring to forefront. Shining Armour pushed his blanked aside. He readied his horn. The muscles of his legs grew tense and ready to strike. And all the while the sound of hoofsteps grew closer, one footfall after another until a pony shape emerged out of the shadows.
Shining Armour didn’t waste a second. He leapt off the couch and went charging into the shadow. His magic threw the apparition backwards and against the wall with such force that it lay stunned and dazed. His hooves reached the wall soon after, bearing his full weight on the shadow to hold it fast.
“Ah!” A sharp feminine cry rang out.
It took a moment for the adrenaline to clear from his head and for Shining Armour to notice the strands of pink mane between his hooves.
“Cadance!” he yelled as he dropped back to all four hooves. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” Cadance managed to answer between heavy breaths of her own. “I’m not hurt.”
“What are you doing here?” Shining Armour asked. He was still unsettled how close he had come to injuring his own wife.
“Does a wife need a reason to see her husband?” A smile crossed the pink alicorn’s lips. It was a kind, loving smile, but it was a fleeting one that faded when she spoke next. “Why weren’t you home? Why didn’t you tell me you would be gone for so long! You promised me that you’d tell whenever you left the Castle.”
The demanding tone in her voice was not lost on him. This was a side of Cadance he hadn’t known until after they were married. He had expected life to change upon marriage. There would be less time in the officer’s club. Fewer hours in the night to casually spend on paperwork. He had expected that he would put his wife first and foremost on his list of duties. But he had not expected to spend each and every moment, of every hour of the day under her watchful eye. “I know I did. I’m sorry. Something came up….”
No, he had not expected Cadance to be so controlling.
“Involving Twilight,” She finished, cocking her head to the side.
She wanted answers. It was a gesture he had become familiar with. “It’s complicated family business.” Shining Armour tried to hide his worry and fear that Cadance would learn of that thing upstairs. What was he going to do?
“Aren’t I family?” Her tone sounded hurt, and that hurt him even more.
“Oh of course you are, dear.” His forelegs moved without thinking to hold her close to the barrel of his chest. “It’s just complicated.”
Wordlessly, Princess Cadance accepted her husband’s embraced and pressed her body against his muscular chest. “Then explain it to me in small simple words.” She leaned towards him until her breath felt like a hot summer breeze on his face. “I miss you Shining,” she murmured into the corner of his mouth as kissed him.
“Cady,” he lifted his head, breaking the long kiss. “Not now. We have to stop. What if Twilight hears us?” Shining Armour was mortified at the thought of his sister walking down the stairs to find him… umm servicing his Princess.
Cadance looked up with a naughty grin, a naught, salacious grin that called to stallions in a way that was most certainly illegal for a former foalsitter to have. “We’ll be as quiet as a mouse.” She whispered as she wrapped her forehooves around him.
“We...” He stuttered in panic. “We’re in the middle of a public library. We can’t.”
“Why not? We might be lucky. I don’t think it would be so terrible to conceive an alicorn princess in Ponyville’s Book and Branches library. Our daughter could be the Princess of Books, patron of Knowledge and mistress of the written word. Twilight would just love her to bits.”
“Yes! No! Please don’t joke about that. We don’t want a scandal.”
Heedless of his words, her wings opened out in sensuous display of feathers that no hot blooded stallion could ever mistake its meaning. “Maybe all you needs is a little... encouragement.”
Shining armour had no time to reply before he felt the warmth of her breath and the soft touch of her lips upon his neck. Oh Celestia, he could feel her tongue dance over his skin leaving a warm, wet track. He could smell her sweet scent as he felt the first touch of her body on the underside of his body. Her hooves worked back and forth along his barrel in a relaxed pace. They were so soft it left him gasping aloud. He wanted this, he really did. She was in heat.
“Cadance,” he reached out and joined his wife. He nuzzled the skin along her belly, letting her enjoy the sensation of his hooves upon her. He was gentle and understanding. He caressed the undersides of her body sending visible shivers down her spine. He took hold of her black foreleg. His lips touched the tip of her hoof and he began kissing her all the way to her cannon.
Black? He froze. Her fur was black. Her foreleg was narrow and spindly. That couldn’t be right. He had held her foreleg many times before. Cadance’s hooves weren’t black. Her coat wasn’t black. They were… his mind stuttered unable to provide an answer. He looked at the fore leg he had been kissing and for the first time noticed it was full of holes.
Changeling!
“Get away from me!” Shining Armour yelled and roughly pushed the monster away.
In the next moment, the horrifying visage was gone. There was only Cadance, the pony he had known for nearly ten years. His racing heart began to slow. It was just Cadance, with her familiar pink coat, and her mane of dark violet hair streaked with locks of rose and gold. He felt relief and in the same breathe knew he had just made a terrible mistake. Cadance didn’t say a word. He opened his mouth to say something, anything. But how could he explain? How could he tell his wife that his thoughts were of that mare, that monster, when they were together in their most private of moments?
“I’m sorry Cady.” His words hung in the air, impotent. They were just two ponies on the floor of a darkened library. His fore hoof had reached up to fall upon her withers, but it might as well have been on the moon. Shining Armour didn’t need to look into her eyes to know the hurt he had caused. “I know we have been trying for a foal…”
‘Not one. Just the first of a very large herd’, he reminded himself. Cadance wasn’t exactly subtle when she broached the subject of starting a family. Cady wanted a big family, even a much hoped for alicorn foal. She even joked she wouldn’t be satisfied until she could field her own hoofball team with the regulation maximum of six substitute players. He opened his mouth…
“Just not tonight, please.” It was a poor, shallow excuse. If he had to guess, Cadance knew it too. This was the one thing that she had ever asked of him and he couldn’t fulfil his part.
He waited.
She made no eye contact and her wings now draped lifelessly across her back. The previous look of amorous passion was gone. She looked disappointed. ‘And how could she not?’ He knew the question that was on her lips. It was the same unspoken question he had often asked himself. ‘Do we need to see a doctor?’ Was there a problem with the stallion she had married? Had an alicorn Princess mistakenly chosen a gelding? A part of him was incensed. Angry that that he could not perform his husbandly duties without a panic attack. He was in the prime of his life. He was the Captain of the Guard. A stallion’s stallion. If asked, he should’ve been able to sire a dozen foals from his harem of wives. And yet here he was. His eyes fixated on the pink hooves of his wife for reasons he couldn’t understand. Did they need to see a doctor? Had he become impotent?
Cadance finally spoke up. Her tone was subdued. “You didn’t have any trouble before the wedding.”
“Before?” He trailed, not understanding what she meant. They had been saving themselves for after the wedding. Their first time would be special. “We never…” He began, but before he finished he knew that was a lie. It was a secret that he would tell nopony. Cadance might have given her maidenhood to him but he had already... been soiled by that creature.
“When you gave me our beautiful daughter, you didn’t have a problem.”
He froze. His eyes grew wide. Fear. That was that was what he felt, choking fear. It couldn’t be. Not her.
Slowly she lowered her snout until it reached the side of his trembling ear. “Perhaps you prefer it this way?” Her voice still sounded like Cadance but it spoke in a way Cadance never would. The smile on her pink lips had grown very wide. Her eyes flashed green in a blaze of terrible changeling magic. He saw her feathered wings break apart to leave the wings of an insect. Pink fur burned away and in its place was a black coat devoid of all colour. Her horn grew flat, sharp, and finally crooked and gnarled. It was ugly and alien.
“Don’t come near me!” He had to escape. He tried to push her away, but she was too strong. Her hooves were iron chains upon his withers, embracing him, holding him tight and helpless under their grip. With a single unrelenting push, she threw him onto his back. He looked up at the mare towering over him. Their eyes met, and in an instant, all the strength in his body was gone, like water draining out of a broken cup. Queen Chrysalis's eyes glowed a poisonous green as she spread open her damaged wings with the same grace and allure as Cadance. “You, like?” A grin twisted Chrysalis’s snout.
The two words chilled him to his core. And yet despite himself, his nostrils flared open as he took in her scent. She was in season. Her pheromones advertised her youth, her interest, her fertility. “No.” He answered and turned his head away.
“Oh, your pretty mouth tells such terrible lies, but your lower half is such a paragon of honestly.” Her hoof ran through the fur on his body until she reached down and took hold of him.
Shining Armour whimpered. “No, please.” He pushed and squirmed. It was all in vain. She was simply too strong. She was always too strong. His struggles only served to excite her even more until it become an open invitation for her to move even closer, to straddle him and push him down onto the damp pink mattress underneath.
Drool ran down her mouth to pool on his white fur. Their bodies were now only a few inches apart. The urges to breed and feed were mixed into one heady confusing brew. Her eyes flashed even brighter, and greener until finally…
“Yess! Love me.” Queen Chrysalis shrieked as she made her claim. “Make it perfect!” Her jaws flew open, wider than was possible for any pony as if to howl her victory.
He wanted to scream but the sound was stuck in his throat. His lungs were not under his control.
** ** **
Shining Armour sobbed quietly.
How long had she used him he could no longer tell. It could have been minutes or it could have been weeks. She had taken what she wanted. His body was spent. He couldn’t move. Her bite or her magic had paralysed him. He couldn’t even turn to look at her. His body was no different from a seamstress’s ponikin. All he could see was the ceiling and the pink and violet purple tapestries that decorated Cadance’s bedroom in the Royal apartments. All he could do was shiver as the sharp dagger points of her long canines dug into the nape of his neck. These was pain, but it was only a faint echo compared to ice that entered his veins and horn when she fed on his love. He felt so very cold and warmth of her body upon him only heightened the contrast.
He felt the bed sheets shift and the mattress roll as the pony he shared the bed with moved. She was awake again.
“Was it as enjoyable for you as it was for me?” Chrysalis asked.
He wished she was mocking him, but her voice sounded sincere, curious even. He could not answer regardless. His mouth was as immobile as the rest of his body. He felt the tip of her hoof trace the bones of his jaw only to land on his nose. He wished she would stop but he couldn’t move.
“Oh what will your sweet Candy think now of her sweet Knight in Shining Armour.” Chrysalis ran her hoof through his blue mane.
Then she was leaning over his head and whispered into his ear. “Captain of the Royal Guard, you’re indeed a prize.” She hummed. “But you are my prize, mine! Remember that you will always be mine!”
** ** **
Shining Armour snapped opened his eyes. His hooves were already in motion as he threw off the purple blanket and braced himself to tear off the parasite feeding on his body. His heart was still pounding in his chest when his hoof came up empty. There was no changeling, no Cadance. There was nopony in the room, only the crest of House Twilight which hung proudly on the wall alongside his sister’s cutie mark. It took a moment before reality could sink in. He held his hooves to his face. They were still trembling. It had been a dream. He reached up to his neck to wipe away the memory of that mare’s touch. It was only a dream, another one of those horrible dreams that had been plaguing his sleep for the past year.
Still breathing hard, he fell on to his hunches and cupped his face between his forehooves. He was safe. Ponyville was far away from those things. They would never come here, he told himself. Ponyville was not isolated enough to keep a changeling attack hidden for long, and too small for a changeling to hide. Changelings hunted in a certain predictable pattern. Life in Ponyville was safe, and he knew he was telling himself a lie. That thing’s daughter was here. A changeling princess would never go unguarded. His sister was mistaken.
He had to check. He rose from the couch. He had to make sure. So he crept up the staircase like a thief in the night. His horn was lit with the blue glow of his magic, but only just. He climbed and climbed; one step at time until he was at his sister’s bedroom door, the first room on the right. He reached out with his magic and turned the door knob. The door swung open without a sound. It wasn’t even locked. There was only one occupied bed in the room.
Ever so quietly he approached the bed until he loomed over the sleeping form of his sister and that mare’s daughter. His sister was tucked under a purple blanket, one of the many identical blankets their mother had given her when she moved away to Ponyville. It bore the stars and moon emblem of House Twilight as befitting the heir of a noble house. The changeling lay between his sister’s forehooves, half hidden under a fold of the blanket. He stared at it. His eyes traced its small form hidden under the blanket. For how long he did this, he did not know. But it was long enough to study its’ every feature.
Its coat was white. He didn’t want to look at his own to compare the colour. He didn’t need to touch it to know it would be just as soft as any pony foal. A two tone coloured strip ran through its mane as if to mock him for his feeble attempts at denying her lineage. Blood had bred true, and this was undoubtedly a foal of the House Twilight. Only a fool would say otherwise. Its face was some strange twisted fusion of his sister and of that mare, who even now continued to haunt his dream. It was a terrible mix to see, one almost as terrible as the unnatural blade-like horn on her head.
“If only you had never been born,” he whispered. “If only you would disappear,” he wished.
In that one terrible moment, he could see his next course of action in perfect clarity. His sister may be the most powerful unicorn in a thousand years, but if caught unprepared, even she would fall to something as innocuous as a sleeping spell. Then there would only be him and it. Shining Armour looked down at his hooves.
A quick twist and snap would be all it would take. A single monstrous deed and the reputation of House Twilight and Princess Cadance would forever be persevered. Nopony would ever know of this mistake… aside from his sister. Twily would know and she would never speak to him again. She would hate him with every breath for the rest of her life. Yet he knew he could live with that. He could bare that burden of hate. Without that monster, without his mistake, his sister would have a life, a good long life surrounded by friends and the community that she had built around herself. It would be a privileged life that the position of Celestia’s personal pupil all but guaranteed.
He couldn’t let his sister throw away her future for a monster that would only bring misery to every life it touched. He looked down at the sleeping foal. Its face was that was too narrow for a unicorn, yet not so sleek as to be confused with the snout of a pegasus. It was a changeling’s face. What possible future was there for a monster in pony form?
And even if his sister was right, as the Captain of Royal Equestrian Guard couldn’t risk a foal of House Twilight standing opposed to the Princesses. All great unicorn Houses such as the Bluebloods and the Shimmers, had an echo of alicorn blood flowing in their veins. House Twilight too had once been counted as one of their number until the Rebellion of the Night a thousand years ago. They were descendants of Princess Luna’s second daughter, Twilight. That trace of alicorn blood allowed the noble Houses to birth many powerful unicorns over the ages, ponies like himself and his sister. Equestria could not afford to face a changeling Queen even more powerful than Queen Chrysalis.
Shining Armour made his decision. It was the only decision he could see that would protect everything he loved. His face went blank and his eyes became emotionless mirrors as lowered his horn. He was the Captain of the Guard. He had a duty to perform. ‘This is the right decision,’ he told himself repeatedly. The sleep spell was at the edge of being cast when he found himself staring straight into a pair of young harlequin blue eyes.
They were beautiful.
Shining Armour turned his head. He didn’t have time for this. The rest of foal however wasn’t quite as enchanting. Her horn was caught in a blanket and her blue mane was messed up with a severe case of bed mane. In a word, she looked comical, and the scene might even be considered cute. She was in desperate need of a good brushing, just as he did in the mornings. She blinked at him, no doubt startled at seeing a stranger so close. She recovered quickly and did the most terrible thing possible, she smiled at him. It was a genuine smile, a wholehearted and welcoming smile without any shadow of deceit or fear. It was a smile of an innocent foal, smiling up at her executioner.
Shining Armour stumbled back as if he had been physically struck. The iron determination he had just moments before shattered. A single question raced through his mind. ‘What the hay am I doing?’ He could fight changelings. He could kill changelings when duty called. But what was sitting in the bed was a foal. Could he kill a defenceless foal? And it was not just any foal of a strangers, this was his…
‘No!’ His mind shouted in denial. Shining Armour took a step back, then another. Why was he even here? He was no longer certain anymore. What did he hope to accomplished? Shining Armour left the room feeling sick. He was many things, but there were some things he would never be. He had joined the Guard to protect and defend ponies, not to murder little foals in their beds.
He was not a monster.
** ** **
From between Twilight Sparkle’s hooves, Honeydew Wisp lowered her head in a wide exhausted yawn. Her bright harlequin blue eyes began to dim as she rubbed her snout against her sleeping aunt. She was safe. She was warm, and most important of all, loved. And that was all she needed in the whole wide world. Honeydew Wisp closed her eyes and dreamed of purple.
** ** **