//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: The King and his Garden // Story: The Legend of the Scorpion Queen // by cursedchords //------------------------------// The Legend of the Scorpion Queen A Myth of Equestria Chapter 1: The King and his Garden Long ago, in the days of the Unicorn Kingdom, there lived a grand King, and he maintained a great garden in his castle grounds. His garden was the envy of the whole kingdom, and even Earth Ponies marveled at the number and size of the plants that he grew, and of the diversity of the animals that inhabited it. The King made many travels to far-off lands, each time bringing back exotic species which he used to make his garden richer and fairer still. The King was especially proud of a great tree which stood at the centre of his garden. Its sloping branches cast shade over much of the rest of the grounds, providing a cool place for him to rest in the summer, and he delighted in climbing its branches, reaching up to heights that before only pegasi had been able to see. From its top he surveyed the entirety of his kingdom, and he was glad. And the kingdom was glad with him, for he was a kind King, and treated all of his subjects fairly and with justice. On one of his expeditions, the King traveled far off to the great deserts of the east, and when he returned he brought with him the plants and animals that he had collected in his travels. Included within these animals there was a scorpion, who was excited when she saw the lush and verdant garden that was now her home. When the King released her, the scorpion rushed out and explored every hole and passage in the garden, and, finding the perfect spot for her new home, she settled down to wait for dawn. For in the deserts of her home, the sunrise had always been the best part of her day, and the scorpion would admire its striking crimson hues before retiring. With the rest of her new home such a wondrous place, the scorpion felt certain that its sunrise would be truly a momentous sight. But when the time came for the sun to rise, the scorpion was disappointed, for the dawn was clear and blue, and nothing like the beautiful sunrises she remembered. In the deserts of her home, the sun would colour the sky in prismatic shimmers of red, pink, and yellow, each day different and new. As the days passed, and each dawn came bright and clear as the last, the scorpion felt her hope fade. And it seemed to her that all the garden lost some of its lustre. It was too crowded, she decided, too wet and too colourful. She came to miss the desert that she had once known, and she came to despise not just her new surroundings, but also the stallion that had brought her here. The scorpion took to shadowing the King and his gardeners whenever they worked in the garden, and she listened intently to everything that they said. She noted with interest the great love that the King had for everything that he grew, but eventually she heard whispers that the King needed another love in his life. He needed an heir to continue his line, and so he was now searching for a mare to be his Queen, and in this she saw her opportunity. And so that night the scorpion brooded long in her lair. With all that she now knew, there was a way for her to get her revenge upon the King. It would not get her back what she had lost, but it would ensure that he knew just how much he had taken from her. The scorpion was not accustomed to navigating the garden by the light of day, but eventually she managed to find her way out, and scrambled over a wall into the castle itself. She did not spend any time about with the ponies that walked in its stone halls. Instead she ducked quickly into a crevice and headed down, into the darker and damper corners of the structure, where she knew her way around better. Eventually, the scorpion found her way to her goal, a small hewn stone chamber beneath the castle, inhabited by a wizened old unicorn: the King’s court wizard, Star Light the Bright. The walls of the room were bare stone, and the air was damp, smelling of mould and rot. Star Light himself was a decrepit old skeleton of a stallion, trundling about on four wobbly legs, his narrow eyes squinting suspiciously at the items on his worktable. The cold lighting of the room made his pale blue fur look grey, and the last few threads of his loose mane were white as snow. The scorpion detested the look of Star Light, but she had heard whispers from the gardeners about his magical prowess, and in order for her plan to work, she was going to need his help. And so, after taking a deep breath, she dropped herself down onto his worktable, right in front of him. “What’s this?” the old unicorn muttered, attempting to scrutinize the scorpion through his low-hanging glasses. “Away with you, pest! Afore I swat you aside myself!” “Please don’t,” the scorpion answered. “I have heard that you are a great and powerful unicorn, and I humbly request that you spare a moment to help a poor animal in need.” Star Light brightened up at her glowing words. “Well now! Perhaps a great and powerful unicorn like Star Light the Bright could take a moment to help a poor soul. What seems to be your issue?” The scorpion reached down inside herself to find the words that she had rehearsed. When she spoke, her voice was soft and gentle. “I see the King walk in the garden often. He tends the plants and befriends the animals, including me. He rescued me from the despair of my old home, and brought me here into this great paradise of his garden. I would do anything to repay him. But now I have heard that his heart is torn, and that he too despairs at his lack of a companion who shares his great love for all things growing. With your help, I could be that mare for him. That is what I ask. Turn me into a unicorn mare, so that I might become the King’s wife.” Star Light considered it. “Well now, that is an interesting proposition. Excuse me if I don't immediately agree.” “Why not?” Antares asked. “You should be as aware as any that he needs a Queen, and while I may not be a real unicorn, I would love him just as much as a mare could.” Unexpectedly, Star Light chuckled. “I’ll bet you would,” he muttered under his breath. Then he brightened up, and plucked her up off of the bench with his magic. “Well, who am I to stand in the way of true love? The King needs a wife, and I suppose that you and I shall provide one for him!” The old unicorn hemmed and hawed for a moment, and then summoned a great swarm of teal magical threads, which wrapped themselves tightly around her body. There was a second of nothingness, as though her body had ceased to exist, and then she stood once more within the wizard’s room. She walked over to a basin of water that stood in a corner, and when she looked down, she smiled, for she saw that she now wore a luscious purple mane that swept down a long neck towards slender shoulders. Her face was high and curved, perfectly proportioned with large eyes and a subtle mouth. She was an excellent specimen. She turned back to him. “Thank you so much, sir!” she said. “Now we can be together finally, and we will both live out our days happily.” And she turned to leave. “Hang on a moment,” he said behind her, and she stopped. His voice had not been happy or kind. “I don’t give away favours of this kind for nothing, my lady,” he continued, now striding forward to look her right in the eye. “That spell’s not going to last forever, and by tomorrow night you’ll be needing me again to keep you in that form.” His eyes were drawn into narrow, smirking slits, and the scorpion knew that he had her at his mercy. “What do you want?” she asked, letting the innocence fall away from her face, so that her true nature shone through her eyes. “Not yet,” he replied, and his voice had grown low and grave. “You won’t be able to do it until you’re the Queen, anyway. But remember this bond that keeps us together as you court him. When the ring falls around that horn of yours, I will come and ask this favour, or else your love will know everything that you truly are.” “All right,” she said warily, and turned once more to leave. But inside she laughed at the old fool. For of course she would never love the King, who had robbed her of all that she had once loved, and once she was his Queen, it would not take long for her to accomplish her task. The old unicorn would never be able to collect on his investment. The scorpion realized that she would not be able to spend her night in the garden as she was used to. After climbing up the steps from Star Light’s laboratory, she found herself in an unfamiliar part of the castle. It did not take long for her to run into one of the castle guards, who gave her a short look before nodding knowingly. “You must be one of the fair ladies who has come in from the countryside to win His Majesty’s hoof,” he said, extending her a respectful bow. “Not sure what you’re doing so far from your quarters at this time of night, but allow me to escort you back to your room.” Without a word, she followed along behind the guard, who eventually led her to a spacious bedroom on an upper tier of the castle. There she slept the night, and when she awoke, she took time to prepare her face and her mane, until it looked just like the ladies of the court used to when they would stroll through the garden. Outside of her room she found the castle all in a hustle. Courtiers rushed about from door to door, and indeed one immediately grabbed her by the shoulder and hurried her downstairs and to the large audience chamber. There were already a large number indeed of high-bred mares from across the countryside gathered there, each dressed in their fineries in an attempt to catch the King’s eye. But they all paled in comparison to her, and as she stepped into the room and saw the looks that darted across their faces, she saw that they knew it too. Shortly, once all of the mares had been assembled, the King himself entered, and the scorpion could not stifle a gasp as he did. Dressed in a flowing crimson robe, the King was more handsome than she had remembered him. She had always seen him up to his knees in soil, weeding his flowerbeds or watering his orchards. But now his brown mane shone like polished wood, and his regal features cast a nonchalant glare over the room. That was the other thing about him that the scorpion had not been expecting. Whenever she had seen him in his garden, and indeed when she had first met him in the desert, he had always worn a smile as bright as the stars. Now, he merely looked bored and restless. When he had retreated to his throne, the courtiers began the process of introducing him to each of the assembled mares. The scorpion waited her turn expectantly, watching as he waved off each of the mares in front of her without even a glimmer of interest. Once it was her turn, she stepped up to the high dais, and bowed once to him. His face however, did not brighten. “Presenting,” the courtier began beside her. “The Lady Antares,” she finished for him, batting her eyelashes flirtatiously as she had seen all of the others do before her, “from the east.” He sat up when she spoke. “Antares…” he repeated thoughtfully, his voice low and clear. “A strange name, that one is. You must have travelled far.” Though she wanted to let him know just how far she had travelled, against her will and because of his, she merely smiled instead. “No distance is too great for a chance to meet you, Your Majesty.” She willed him to return her grin, to fall for her charm just as Star Light had before him, but instead the King merely sat back into his chair, once more disinterested. “A pleasure to have met you, my lady,” he said in a voice flat as a board. And he waved her off to join the sea of other rejected mares. That night, she returned to Star Light, as she knew she had to. She had spent the rest of the day thinking about what she could have done differently, and why the King had so simply passed over her great beauty. She had considered all that she knew about him, and watched him throughout the day, as she had used to watch him when he worked in the garden. She had seen how whenever he had a moment to spare, he would send a wistful gaze out the window of the audience chamber, toward the castle grounds, and toward his garden. It was then that she had had a new idea, as to what the King was really looking for in a wife, and how she would give it to him. “I thought ya’ said ya’ loved him!” Star Light snarled to her as she came into his laboratory. “I hope you’re not thinking of blaming me for any o’ this! Now what do you want? You think you’re still any use to me when you’re not going to be Queen?” “I am going to be Queen,” she answered calmly and assuredly when he had finished. “Leave the courting process to me. Just keep holding up your end of the bargain.” The old unicorn looked significantly less certain of himself than he had the night before, but with a sigh he summoned up his magic and renewed his spell. Without another word, Antares left and climbed back up through the castle toward her chamber. Once there, she went right to the window and looked over the starlit grounds. From here she could see the entirety of the great garden, and the tall tree which stood there, seeming to mock her failure at winning the King’s heart, a heart that it already owned. “We’ll see,” she said to it, imagining what the garden would look like once the tree was gone. That morning, Antares did not go down with the rest of the ladies to take another crack at the King. She did not put on any makeup or dress up her mane. She did not even dress at all. Instead, she made her way stealthily down through the floors of the castle, out to the garden, and slipped in. She stopped by the shed at its entrance to pick up a canteen of water. She planned to be here working for a while. As she walked along a flowered path, she looked about at these surroundings from her new perspective. Everything seemed a lot smaller now that her eyes were so much higher off the ground. In her old life, every one of these plants had seemed tall and intimidating. Now, she could destroy any of them with but a small effort. It was refreshing knowledge, but she knew that she couldn’t destroy them today. That would come later. It did not take her long to find a flowerbed in need of some work. With the sun already high overhead, she reached down to do some weeding. She was there alone, working silently for a few hours, before he came. She heard his whistle from up the path, a jaunty tune that brought back memories of the day that they had first met, when he had been the trespasser in her domain, about to take away from her everything that she held dear. As he came around the corner, she noticed that once again he was smiling, as if the dreariness of the court was now miles away behind him. When he saw her, though, he stopped. “What under the stars do you think you’re doing?” he gasped at her, and began to run up to where she was. Quickly, Antares stood up and came out of the flowerbed. She bowed her head to him. “My humblest apologies, Your Majesty. I should not have interfered. I saw only that some weeds were encroaching on these flowers, and I could not step away without tending to them. And then I noticed that they needed some water, and before long I had completely forgotten where I was.” She did not really know what she was saying; she was merely repeating what he often muttered to himself while he worked within the rows. “But these are ice poppies, you fool!” he shouted as he arrived. “An untrained hoof digging around them could totally upset their root systems!” He knelt down to examine the flowerbed, a look of grave concern upon his face. Antares continued to stand contritely off to the side. She was well aware of how delicate the plants were, as they were some of his favourites. And he had shown her exactly how to properly weed their bed. After a moment, he stood up again. “Pardon me, my lady,” he said. “It seems you know more about these plants than I gave you credit for. You’ll have to excuse me, I’ve grown rather protective of this garden over the years.” Antares raised her head to look at him again. His smile was just beginning to return, a subtle tug at the corners of his mouth. But the stress that had been so plain upon his brow the previous day had all left him. “I understand, Your Majesty. In my youth I heard many legends of your great garden, and so today I ventured out to see it for myself. You truly have a wondrous collection of flora.” Now he finally smiled again. “It seems you and I are some of the few unicorns that can truly appreciate things that grow in the earth. I have seen so many that care only for power, wealth, or material beauty. But here, in nature, here is where real beauty lies!” The two of them walked on for some time, with him pointing out notable species as they happened across them, and her reciting noteworthy facts about them that she had learned from him or the other gardeners weeks ago. Duly, he was impressed by her knowledge of his trade. Eventually, they approached the center of the garden, where the tree towered over all else that grew. It stood within a great ring of rough paving-stones, and other paths from each of the garden’s corners converged on this point from afar. Antares felt the anger burning deep in her heart as she approached it, but she hid it deeply, for the King beamed when his eyes found its sweeping branches. Instead, she breathed a wondrous gasp. “This is the legendary royal tree then?” He nodded beside her. “The joy of my life. It was the beginning of all of this, the first plant that my father gave to me, when I was but a foal. He said to me, ‘My son, from this small sapling can grow a plant mightier than an army, if tended right. I give it to you as I see you delight in the work of your hooves, so that you might make something magnificent from it.’ And so I planted it here, upon this hill in what was blank countryside. And around it I tilled flower beds, and rows of vegetables, and orchards and vineyards. But never did I forget this tree. It was the start of everything.” And he turned to look at her, with a youthful grin. “Come, let us climb it!” She accepted his outstretched hoof, and together the two ponies scaled the tall tree, jumping quickly between the low boughs before helping each other up from branch to branch as they climbed, ever higher, above the world. As the ground beneath them shrank away, Antares would occasionally look around her, to see the whole of the garden, then the castle, then the capital in its splendour. This was far higher than she had ever been in her life, and as the wind whipped through her mane, it lifted her heart too. For a moment, she forgot about her purpose. For a moment, she was just there with him, and all the rest of the world did not matter. Finally, the two reached the apex of their ascent, beyond which the branches would no longer support their weight, and they sat, the King holding the trunk, and her with a hoof around his neck for support. The sun was moving lower, toward the western horizon, when he spoke again. “When I met you yesterday, Antares, I did not think that here was where I would see you next.” She chuckled once, carefree. “I must apologize for that. I was foolish, in thinking that it was within that throne room that I would find the real you.” It was his turn to laugh. “So you did come out here still trying to court me.” His words came as a surprise; she had not intended to let a detail like that come to his attention. She had lost her focus, letting the bliss of this afternoon distract her from what her true purpose was. She quickly composed herself again and stole a glance at his face. But he did not look angry. Instead, he merely smiled a knowing grin. “I have told you how much I admire your pursuits, Your Majesty,” she replied. “Please,” he returned gently. “Call me Jupiter.” And he pulled her closer to him. They sat there silently for some time, admiring the sun as it sank toward the horizon. Finally, as twilight was beginning to descend over the garden, Jupiter spoke up. “You know that we cannot stay here forever, Antares.” “I know, but I want to.” “As much as I do too, I have a dinner to host. My kingdom needs me.” Jupiter led her carefully down through the branches, and the two of them hurried back to the gates of the garden in silence. Just in front of the door that would take him back into the rest of the castle, Jupiter stopped. “Shall I ever see you again in my audience chamber?” he asked. Antares shook her head. It would not be wise for the other competitors for his hoof to know that she had the inside track. “I cannot stand those other ladies of the court.” But as she let go of his hoof, she gave him a wink. “There is plenty of work that the garden still needs, though.” He watched her go for a long moment, and only once she had turned a corner in the distance did Jupiter shake his head to dislodge her memory, and proceed with the rest of his schedule. Over the following weeks, they spent their afternoons together, working and exploring the garden. He showed her hidden places that she had not even known about before, and she offered him advice on properly caring for the plants native to the deserts. Antares found herself looking forward to those afternoons, not just as she knew that she was winning his heart, but even just because she enjoyed being with him, and sharing in his sense of humour, and working by his side to bring out the beauty of the space. But every night, when she returned to her room, she would still look out her window at the tree which stood in the distance, and remember what it was that she was in this for. She made certain to rise after the sun, for the sunrise that she wanted to see was the one viewed from her home down in the garden. Even when she and Jupiter were together, she noticed that he was more comfortable if they worked within that tree’s vicinity and that he would steal a look at it whenever he could. Every night, it still seemed to mock her, insisting that no matter how deeply she delved into Jupiter’s heart, it still stood above her. She was still just a guest in a house that it owned, just a tenant who would move on, while it remained. “We’ll see,” she said to it every night, and worked all the harder the next day, to get it out of Jupiter’s mind.