Stelimus groaned as he rose up from whatever pit he was in.
"Where am I?" he wondered aloud.
Looking around he could see that he was, once again, in a hospital. His reaction was an immediate loss of any emotion. In fact, he could almost feel the irony, and it was seeping deep into his--
"YOW! My butt!"
A massive white hoof landed gently on the young stag's stomach and pushed him back down onto the bed. "Don't be such a baby," a deep yet feminine voice complained.
The voice belonged to a massive white mare with a lime-yellow mane and tail bunched into what Stelimus could only surmise to be the roots of swamp trees. She wore a mint-green gown, implying she was a doctor, but she didn't seem to have any instruments with her aside from the syringe she had stabbed the young fawn's butt with.
"Why am I in a hospital?"
"You don't remember?" Stelimus shook his head, prompting the mare to sigh and straighten herself out. "Well, everypony heard the sirens telling us to get into the bunkers below the city."
"Sirens?"
"Yes." She started gesturing while she spoke to indicate height and other details. "At the top of the immense crystal spires that border the kingdom, the princess put sirens to alert us when the Black Giant approached."
"The giant!" Stelimus sat up. "Do you know what it is or where it comes from?"
"Not at all. It appeared seven years ago, more-or-less, and just wandered the tundra while leaving us alone. Without reason, it then entered the kingdom's land and started destroying everything and leaving weird black gunk where it passed. It took weeks to chase it off." She sat on her haunches and hugged herself tightly. "So many died and so much was destroyed. In the end it took the combined powers of the three alicorns and both the Royal Guard and Crystal Guard to fight it off. It was badly wounded, but in just a few weeks it was seen roaming the plains again. I was certain and hoping that it would have died right there..." Tears started to well up in her eyes, but she pushed them back down and took a deep breath while cleaning up the little that had still leaked into her fur.
"Then this isn't just some sort of cliché 'chosen one' thing like the Matrix. I was just 'born' at a bad time, but that begs the question: Why did it attack us? Too many variables around, and it wouldn't be stupid enough to attack a 'god-king'. So, what happened to the others?"
She took a deep breath to calm herself and spoke in between sniffles. "Well, as I mentioned earlier, a patrol found you in a pile near the border after the siren had stopped. You and guards were brought immediately to the hospital, and they found a smoldering deer skeleton nearby. One of the patrol ponies are currently in psychiatric rehabilitation."
"Huh. I'd imagine. Uncle Grimliss has a strange appearance that he hasn't bothered to explain to me."
"THAT'S YOUR UNCLE?! And what's with the four armored deer with him?"
"I know. You'd actually think gods exist," Stelimus chuckled.
The doctor narrowed her gaze. "They do exist."
"Pffff. No they don't." Before the mare could answer that angrily, Stelimus interrupted her. "I'm really not in the mood for a religious debate. First, what did you inject into my butt?"
"Vitamins, antibodies, and other nutritious things."
"Where is my uncle?"
The doctor's anger perspired through her tone despite trying to keep it as civil as possible. "The skeleton is outside, attending our 'Artist's Decorum'."
"What is that?"
"A place where mostly botanists go, but a few artists of varying schools have started attending them as well."
Stelimus rubbed his chin. "How do I get there?"
"Who says you're leaving?" the doctor said with a raised brow.
"I am. I need to find my uncle. NOW!" he roared.
Stelimus' shout attracted the attention of a few ponies down the hall, one of them being a gigantic blue stallion with a lime colored mane and tail and was wearing a feminine nurse gown.
"Is there a problem?" he asked with a false-woman voice. Stelimus stared at him in horror.
"Yes. We need to finish checking up on this little one but he wants to see his uncle as fast as possible."
The nurse turned towards the young stag and his serious face turned to a rather flirtatious one. "Oh. How cute this little thing is. If I were younger I would definitely try and cuddle up with you whenever I could." He flicked Stelimus' lower lip with a giant hoof. "Mmmm. I love taking care of weak patients, and I know just how to do ALL of those tests under an hour, then you can leave."
While Stelimus was being assa--examined by the doctor and nurse, Cadance and Shining stood upon the balcony from which they could see the entire kingdom and the tundra beyond. The pink princess looked on into the void and slouched on the railing.
"That...thing is still lurking in the tundra, and it attacked another passing group..." Shining huffed. He was as exhausted as his wife.
"I haven't had a good night's sleep in weeks. In between the siren blaring off every few hours and us getting those enchanted letters from Anglacite that yell at us, reminding us not to forget our agreement and to uphold to it, it’s nigh impossible to slumber in our comfortable beds," Cadance added.
"Then there's that foal we adopted after the rampage of the giant, although I'm not sure it was a good idea anymore. She ended up being swept into Anglacite’s little ‘plan’," Shining pondered.
Cadance couldn't believe what she was hearing and turned towards her husband, disgust and surprise plastered on her face like make-up fired from a shotgun. "How could you say something like that? And then what, leave her to suffer in the streets? She was barely even a filly then, and we owed her family for negotiating material exchange with the Nebwezar. They're--"
"The only ones to have ever reached the Cotton Mountains and returned. I know. That's also why we made them nobles," Shining frowned. "If anything, they owed us."
Cadance shook her head."This is very uncharacteristic of you. What's wrong?"
"Well, aside from the 'deal' we've been forced into, the two deer that are here, one of them BEING the 'deal'."
"And the other?"
"He's one of the three the deer call a 'god-king'."
Cadance put a hoof to her chin and started to think. "It isn't Anglacite, is it?"
"No. It's that creepy undead one walking around with its skeleton constructs." Shining visibly shivered at the thought.
"Are you sure they're skeletons? They could just be deer using the same magic he uses."
Shining answered only by pointing towards the festival. The confused mare walked towards the railing and pushed herself on to it to get a better look. Using a focusing spell, she got to look down towards the festivities to see the god-king, surrounded by his purple energies and the four guards, admiring a sculpture made of clouds. There was a distinct green energy surrounding the guards, and every so often, a distorted and screaming face would appear in said energy before dissolving. The alicorn threw her head back in disgust.
"Yech. I see what you mean."
"See?!"
'Gnaxing' noises and weird gittering sounds similar to rabbits vibrated into Cadence and Shining's ears, and a little creature rubbing up against Shining's leg brought the two's attention to a weird, gray, bunny-like creature scratching the stallion's leg protection and cleaning it by absorbing whatever weird dusty material had attached itself to it.
"Oh look, a dust bunny!" Cadance noted.
"Get off." Shining shook his foreleg, but the bunny wouldn't let go."Why won't it get off?"
"Awww. It likes you"
At this point, Shining was starting to stress, then a noise brought his attention to the throne room where several dozen dust bunnies were staring at him.
"Uh-oh," the couple cringed.
Grimliss did always enjoy the creative arts. When you're immortal you have a tendency to start noticing the little things in life because you the time to do so. Rare was a mortal who could do the same, but this artist was apparently one of them. The artist of the piece in question was a stallion from the lands south of the tundra. His body and hooves were a cerulean blue while his legs and muzzle are both covered in white fur with the parts reaching blue looking like they were splashed onto the stallion's coat. His cutie mark consisted of two paint buckets pouring downwards into crossing streams and making an entirely new color. They seemed to change colors every time Grimliss looked back at them.
"What is your name, pony?" Grimliss asked.
Everypony around reeled back in horror at the sight of the God-King and his armored and unmoving guards, but the stallion in front of him did not react in the slightest.
"Mix-Up," the stallion replied blandly.
The deer put a spectral hand to his chin and walked around the sculpture and raised his brows. "What sort of sculpture is this? I have only rarely partaken in Pony Philosophy."
"It's a cloud sculpture. It's a new form of art I'm trying to put forth."
"And what's with all the random shapes and colors?"
"I'm just experimenting and trying several new techniques, so I mashed them together to create a sculpture of the mind's experiments."
Grimliss 'blinked' slowly, or rather, the smog surrounding him covered the purple flames serving for eyes. "Well, new forms of art are never great when they are started." Grimliss turned around, ready to leave, then an idea came to his mind and spun around once again. "Tell me, would you be able to customize clouds for a very dark swamp? I feel it is so boggy and a bit of colors in the sky would do wonders for it."