Ditzy sighed as I placed her on Luna’s luscious bed, wrapping her in the comforter and placing a pillow better under her head. Kissing her, she smiled up at me, eyes only half open, before turning into the blankets and burrowing deeper into them.
“She’s very beautiful, Spike,” Luna said to me from across the room, in the middle of placing her silver regalia. Her long, dark blue dress complemented her features without sexualizing them, and her necklaces and bangles further served this purpose.
The only thing really out of place was a small circlet made of silver thread; not cotton strands, but truly thin silver wires. It was almost lovely, if not for the tarnish covering the entire thing.
Walking over, I turned her and smiled, looking her over. “I don’t know what these are for,” I said, jangling her necklace in my hand. “You’re so lovely anyhow, it’s not like these add anything.”
She smiled sadly, touching her wrists, neck, and then head. “They’re reminders, Spike,” she said. “They tell me that no matter what, I belong to the people.”
I made a face, and she giggled. “That’s what they used to mean. Celestia had a golden set, but I believe she donated them to a museum long ago. I wear these because I like the weight… except…” She touched the tiny crown. “I’m sure you can see this is tarnished. This one I wear as a reminder still. It was on my head… when that creature attacked me… Attached to me…”
I pulled her into a hug, smoothing her hair down her back. She sniffled slightly, hugging me back, before pushing me away. “Thank you Spike, but I’m okay. Promise.” Wiping a hand over her eyes, she smiled, before changing the subject.
“So, the cute one’s asleep,” she said, pointing to the slumbering form on her bed. “You don’t seem to be sleeping tonight. What’re you going to do, go to the library?”
“No, I’m not quite that Twi,” I told her, smiling. “I hadn’t really thought about it… Maybe I’ll wander the castle, reacquaint myself…”
I slowed as Luna’s grin grew, and found myself quickly propelled from the room. A hand in my own tugged me along the hall behind its owner. “Keep me company then,” she said, weaving through the hallways to the courtrooms. “Wandering the castle, what kind of night is that… You’re not a vampire, Spike…”
I laughed as she drug me down the hallway, agreeing when there wasn’t a choice. When we go near the doors she stopped, letting go of my hand and smoothing her clothing. “No hints that there’s anything between us,” she said, grinning at me sternly. After I’d nodded, she opened the door… to half-full room. I watched her sigh, showing next to no outside signs.
After a short announcement of her presence, and a tacked-on introduction when the official saw me with her, we proceeded to a large chair, not quite a throne, where Luna sat. Pulling a spare, I sat off the edge of the platform, well out of the way. Looking regally around, Luna nodded to the guard who had announced her, who called a name off of a large list. The first person walked up to the stage, and bowed.
……………………………………………………..
I sighed, elbows on my knees and chin on my hands, bored out of my mind. So far it had been a lot of minor disputes, mostly settling small dues and claims. So far tonight the biggest problem had been a man who’d stolen a valuable necklace to feed his family. He’d left with a large debt… and a job in the castle.
Don’t get me wrong, Luna was good at what she was doing; it’s just that what she was doing was so impossibly boring. It may have been better if I could have had some sort of input, but it was clear that Luna didn’t need it anyhow. So, all I really got to do was sit and watch, listening in the beginning but quickly giving up.
Daydreaming, I was roused by a loud voice screaming about irrigation. Looking up, I saw a lithe and swarthy man, currently red-faced. Two guards stood in front of him, stiff backed with their hands on their swords.
Luna sat in her chair, reclined and closed-eyed. Walking over, I whispered in her ear, asking, “Think this is the guy Celestia warned you about?”
She nodded, opening her eyes and standing. “Sir, if you continue to yell, we will be forced to have you escorted out, and banned from our courts forever more.”
Sneering, the man took a deep breath. His shoulders slumped, and he closed his eyes. The guards relaxed slightly, loosening their grip on their weapons.
Snapping his eyes open, he whipped a wand out of his pocket, blasting apart the ground between the guards and sending them flying apart.
Luna’s hand leapt out, sinking wrist deep into pocket of air she kept her wand stashed in. The farmer was faster, pointing his wand directly at her, piece of wood whistling as it leveled.
Stepping in front of her, I pushed my wings out from their hiding place, unaltered shirt tearing as the leathery appendages burst forth. Cupping them around me, I advanced on the poor idiot as he stared at the clawed flesh stretching to his sides.
“Devil’s consort!” the man screamed, blasting some red spell directly into my chest. I flinched as the magic dissolved my shirt and splashed across the now bare skin, leaving a sticky residue and sizzling.
Now several steps closer, I spun my body and lowered myself as I cocked my arm back, the man getting one last word as I surged my fist forward.
“Interloper!”
Popping my fist open, I pushed my palm and body up, catching his jaw and pushing his entire head back. His feet lifted and he started an awkward ark to the floor, body tensing.
Hand coming down, I snagged the belt he was wearing and spun him, guiding his head into a nearby bench. With a hollow clunk, his body shuddered and he released his wand to clutch at his skull.
Dropping him, I had time to grin before my own shudder, the smoking smell of flesh hitting my nostrils a second before the pain hit my consciousness. Falling to my knees, I looked down at the red goo coving my torso, expanding to cover as much as it could.
I felt someone grab my hair roughly, and with a hard pull I was looking at the ceiling, with Luna standing in my periphery vision. She had managed to pull her wand out, and pointed it at the residue covering my chest.
The burning turned cold, and then some of the pressure disappeared. Forcing my head back down, I took in the angry red mess of my chest, covered now in angry purple boils.
“Don’t look,” Luna said with another tug. Staring up, I could only feel what was happening with my flesh as Luna poked at it with her wand. With another sizzling, I felt my skin start to crawl, and flinched as I felt what seemed to be miniature explosions all along my torso. Moaning and shivering, I closed my eyes and waited for the popping to stop.
When Luna released my hair, I breathed in, shuddering. Looking down, I saw shiny, pink skin tightly covering my ribs. I gently touched the area and flinched, feeling like I’d been sunburned badly.
Another moan sounded from a few feet in front of me. The farmer lay on the floor, curled into a ball with a puddle of cooling blood around him, bloody fingers holding against his head.
Luna walked around me, a terrifying scowl sprawling across her face, and for a minute I thought she was going to kick him. Instead she wrenched his hand away from his head, jabbing her wand angrily forward. A blue streak shot into his skin, and the bleeding stopped immediately. Pulling itself together, the skin became the same shiny color of my chest.
“Take him to a holding cell, and send a doctor. No wands near him.” She pulled him up by his shoulder, lifting him from the floor and thrusting him to the nearby guards, almost throwing him. They started dragging him away, but before they could leave completely he dug in a heel and screeched one last thing at me.
“Whore, Whore of the Moon, you’ll get the knife she deserves! The blade both temptresses deserve!”
Grunting, one of the heavier set guards dug thick fingers into the man’s neck and lifted him, carrying him from the room through a door set off to the side.
Luna returned to where I knelt, me still panting like an animal. Gingerly she wrapped her arms around me, then stood.
“These courts are ended.” She glanced around at the handful of people. “Get your name and address to one of these men, and they will ensure that either my sister or I hear you out the next time you show, with preference.”
There was a general murmuring around the room, before the rest of the citizens were led into the halls by guards with scrolls and pens. Luna tried to sit by my side as they filtered out, but I stopped her, and lifted myself onto the platform to sit.
She sat down on the stage beside me, and as soon as the doors were shut, her face crumpled as she stared at my skin.
“It’s not the first time this has happened,” I told her lightly, smiling a bit. “I don’t know if your sister ever told you…”
“She mentioned yo-your skin,” she sniffled. “She never mentioned ho-how much the sp-spell burned you…”
“Well, it didn’t hurt this much last time,” I told her, wincing as I ran a hand over my skin. “I don’t think it did this either, Celestia just sort of siphoned it away.”
Luna hung her head, sniffling harder. “I’m so-sorry Spike, i-if I had been quicker-er…” She was sobbing in earnest now, shoulders tensing inwards and hitching as her hair fell over her face like a curtain.
Reaching over and through the veil over her face, by her neck I pulled her to me and held her loosely, planting a gentle kiss on top of her head as I wrapped a wing around her. Wrapping my arms around her shoulders, I held her and let her tears fall into my lap.
When her breathing normalized a bit, I asked her, “Hey Luna? I’m not your whore, am I?”
She hiccupped and moaned quietly, punching my thigh.
“I mean,” I continued, “I’m not exactly getting paid well enough to be more that the Moon’s Slut, and Ditzy would just further complicate the matter…”
Luna hiccupped again, and hit my leg much harder this time, but I also got a quick giggle. “We’ll talk compensation later,” she spoke roughly, unwrapping my arms and placing her around me, much gentler than I had been. The wings I still had out made this a bit difficult, but she managed.
I settled into her a bit, but we separated when the doors to the hall blasted apart, bouncing off the wall and rebounding into the blazing hands that outstretched themselves to catch the wood.
Celestia stormed into the room, hair flaming larger than a bonfire as she stalked towards us, fiery footprints showing where she had walked. She had a silk nightgown on, and probably would have been dead sexy if she hadn’t been so… on fire.
“Where,” she commanded, voice flat and voluminous. Her eyes narrowed when I shook my head, and her skin released steam before she spoke this time, much lower in pitch and size.
“Spike, he hurt you. He will not escape unpunished,” she threatened.
“He’ll not escape at all,” I snorted, tenuously smiling at her. I watched as confusion swept her features, and she gradually returned to normal. Smiling with more strength, I told her exactly what had happened. After I nodded towards the door the guards had pressed the man through she started that way, stopping when Luna caught her sleeve.
“He’ll wait,” she said sternly, surprising all three of us, I believe. Taking a deep breath, she looked back down to me, then at her sister.
Slowly, Celestia nodded, then dropped to the stage beside me. Luna sat my other side, and we stayed still for a while, Luna breathing raggedly and Celestia in short, hopefully calming bursts. Reaching out with my still-extended wings, I laid the thin layer of skin over their backs, attempting to restore some of the warmth that had left the room.
For a while silence reined, and then there was a knock, followed by a golden-helmed guard peeking in.
“My liege? Lieges…? Ladies?”
Celestia sighed and looked up, Luna giggling a bit. “Yes?” they asked at the same time, voices overlapping perfectly except for their tones.
“Uhm, who should I notify?” the young woman asked, nodding at me.
“No one, yet,” I said, interrupting Luna. “Sorry. Right now it’s not a big deal. I’m alive and all, right? I’ll tell Twilight and Ditzy myself.”
Luna nodded, with Celestia hesitating before nodding herself.
Bow hidden by the door, all we saw was the guard’s head dip before she closed the door, a few strands from the top of her helmet stuck in the door.
Sighing, Luna stood up, holding a hand out to me. “Come on then. If the courts aren’t going to run, I may as well catch up on paperwork. I’ll see you back to Ditzy though; I imagine you’d want to sleep…?”
I’d started shaking my head, scratching at the burn on my chest. “I can help, and it’s not exactly like I need the sleep…”
Celestia had risen beside her sister, hands on her hips. I tried standing with them, but they laid their hands on my shoulders and forced me back down, ignoring the scowl on my face.
Flaring my wings, I used them to push myself up to my feet, forcing my way through both of them. “My legs are fine, as is everything else,” I almost snarled, gaining two sets of wide eyes.
“But, Spike…” Luna started, stopping as I snapped a stern look at her.
“I can… I can walk just…”
I stopped speaking, clutching at my head with a hand, rubbing at the central part of my forehead. My vision wavered, and I felt something strange going on with my chest.
I dropped my hand from my forehead and scratched at the skin, raking four furrows across my torso. Red fluid leaked out, thicker than jam and the color of bright rubies, too bright to be my blood.
I was immediately returned to a horizontal position, this time Celestia above me. Her wand plunged into my chest, and I felt a hollow forming as I choked to breathe.
Within seconds my head started to clear, and after a minute the only sensation was four burning marks in my chest. Sighing deeply, Celestia flopped down beside me, running her wand over my entire body.
“Oh, that’s going to be good,” I muttered when the wand buzzed and glowed red, just above my face.
“Damn. Hold still, okay?” Celestia said, pointing her wand at my nasal cavity. Groaning and shaking my head, I tilted my head back for her.
Something thick stirred inside my sinus, tickling the back of my throat and pressing all around my eyes, making me gag and turn my head while bile exited my body.
Ignoring my gasping, Luna grabbed my forehead and pressed down on it while Celestia reasserted her wand, now pressing it almost into my nostril. Another writhing mess, another gag, and then Celestia whipped her wand arm back, pulling a great load of red slime through the air.
Holding her wand out as far as she could, Celestia watched distastefully as the red goop writhed for a second, and then hardened into a loose bag holding onto the end of her wand. With a flick of her elbow, she dislodged the mass onto the floor, where it evaporated to leave a nasty stain on the violet carpet.
Coughing, I laid back, gesturing at Celestia to wand over me again. This time, nothing buzzed or flashed. After a minute of panting, I started giggling. Celestia looked down at me, cautiously. Luna inched away, readying her own wand.
“You cursed,” I laughed, between choking coughs.
A surprised look crossed both Princess’s faces, before Celestia covered a small smile beneath three of her fingers. Luna opted for loud laughter.
“I suppose we can’t be proper all the time,” Celestia smiled, before sighing.
“And you can’t be indestructible all of the time. Any of the time. You’re not indestructible, Spike,” Celestia said, leveling a finger at me.
“Obviously not,” I grinned at her, gesturing at my scored chest. Holding up a hand, I interrupted her angry rant before she could restart it. “No, really, I know. I just…” I shrugged. “I don’t think about it.”
“Well, start,” Celestia huffed. “I’m quite confident that Luna could have handled whatever spell that man may have thrown at her…”
A low tone chimed in the room, and Celestia looked to the door, irritated. The same guard as before slammed through the door, allowing it to rebound and close behind her as she strode up to the stage area.
Before either of the Princesses could say anything, the woman pulled a scroll out and unfurled it, baring a crest and the rest of the blank paper.
“This was on the man’s back,” was all she had to say.
Celestia looked at it for a moment, then snatched the scroll and rolled it back up, dismissing it into a pocket of air. “Tell no one yet. We can fix this before it gets out of hand.”
“Before what…?” I started, until Celestia Grabbed my arm and pulled me into a standing position.
Turning back to the woman, Celestia spoke two sentences.
“Summon Dawnbreak. Tell him we found a follower of Sombra.”