Glados had looked down at her straw, then around at all the others. She had frowned, having drawn the shortest one. It had come down to that, to decide who might live or die. Their enemies had taken all but one of the attack vehicles, and it was only large enough for one person.
It was just her luck, that she had been sent home.
She'd have to look the princess in the eye, and explain to her what was happening.
She was more likely to survive this than the rest of her crew.
They had all hugged her, patted her on the back, and sent her on her way, towards home, towards a place that they may never lay eyes upon again.
She sniffled in the stuffy air of the cockpit, her engines blairing somewhere through a few meters of the endless sand. She couldn't see them, but they sang of a struggle she couldn't even speak of.
She looked down at her radar map, with its great green gaze spinning around her timid little vessel, all that protected her from the wrath of the Badlands. She could see the tail end of the Prydwen vanishing from sight as she flew away from it.
She and her armor were covered in grease and grime, mostly from the enemies' weapons, those great guns they'd brought with them, and taken her home away from home under siege.
"They won't win," she muttered to herself.
She could still turn around, make a last stand, show those pirates who was boss.
No, she had made a promise. She was not going to turn around. She had just enough fuel to get her home. If she turned around or got thrown off course by some unforseen wind, or by another attack, she'd never see the princess again.
Suddenly, a faint sound rung out through the cabin, and she looked down at the map. A dozen red dots were right in front of her, just a few kilometers ahead.
She hissed at the map, and reached a hoof up to deactivate her cabin's light, throwing her into near complete darkness. She flipped a switch in front of her before she could forget where it was, activating the silencers on her engines. All that she knew was the endless howling of the wind outside, and the shaking of the cabin as she looked up.
As her eyes adjusted to what fortunate light could pierce the sand, she looked down at her map, and the red dots it claimed to be directly overhead.
She couldn't hear them, nor could she see them. She only knew they were there because, for a few short seconds, everything went pitch black. Her map fizzed out, and her monitor went dark, leaving her in total, uncompromising shadow of something massive.
A few tense moments later, she emerged into relative light.
Her map flickered back on, and she gulped as she looked it over.
Directly behind her, was a mass of bright red light, at least twice the size of her beloved vessel, and easily massive enough to have snapped her plane in half on its hull without even slowing down enough for someone onboard to ask, "Did you feel that?"
She grit her teeth as she considered this new threat, and how lucky she had been to have flown under it rather than level with it.
A familiar aching pain in her stomach haunted her for the next few minutes, and and she finally turned her silencers off and her light back on.
The bulb above her head glowed for a moment, then fizzled out like a candle in a flood.
"Dammit!" she cursed, slamming her hoof against the one section of the dashboard that didn't have any buttons on it.
She ignited her horn, and held her hoof in front of it. She pulled her hoof away, dragging a ball of purple fire with it. It remained a few centimeters away from her hoof, and licked at the stuffy air, greedily using up the small amounts of oxygen the filters could supply to her. It didn't matter, as the tanks had plenty in reserve.
She looked around the cabin, quickly activating autopilot, and glanced at the map, then out of the cockpit window. "Shit!" she declared, and swiftly deactivated the machine that had almost flown her into the another massive object. She rolled the red trackball in front of her forward, and the plane dove downward.
She glanced above her head, and waved her hoof to put out the flame she'd made.
Right there, was a grand, chrome ship, likely entirely unaware of her presence. Her head was a meter away from its hull, and she could see that distance closing as she dove out of its way.
She could feel her heavily armored biplane shaking in the wake of the air the larger ship pushed away. She could hear the great flying machine's propellers and the beating of her heart, threatening to jump out of her chest.
She saw the ship's hull moving away as she descended out of its path, and then it vanished behind the sand. She pulled back up, and silenced her engines, hoping that no one had heard them.
She looked down at her map, and at the large craft above her. She hit her hoof against the screen to make sure it wasn't broken, then she gulped as she realized why the entire cabin was awash in bright red light. It was that big.
"Just keep flying straight," she muttered to herself, shaking herself free of the stupor she'd entered. Her crew, her broodmates, her sisters were going to try and take on that thing. It must have been the size of a small city, if not in width, then at least in length. "Just keep flying," she repeated.
Arachne made a sharp left turn, scrambling to gain traction on the cold obsidian floor, and sprinted down the hallway, towards the royal suite, where the princess surely slept, and would be less than pleased to be awoken at such an hour as this.
Her purple eyes were of little help in such light as that of the lamp which illuminated the princess's chambers, so she knocked in the door to rouse the princess. She panted for a moment, and held her breath as the sounds she had heard too often this time of year met her ears, although she tended to hear them from Glados's chambers, and only when another member of the guard couldn't be accounted for. She said, "Your highness."
The noises cut off. There was a scuffling sound, and one of chitin and fur. Ladybug's voice shushed that of someone else, and asked, "Yes?"
Arachne said, "We have lost contact with the Prydwen." She slumped against the door, and asked, "May I be made aware of your lover's identity, so we at least know who is here under your custody?"
Ladybug answered, "Toothless."
Arachne asked, "Are you mad, your highness?"
A masculine, almost startlingly familiar voice came from the other side of the door, "No. Do alert your congressional committee that I uh... I'm not dead anymore."
The guard blinked her purple eyes, dumbfounded, but quickly regained her bearing, and said, "I'll need to see you personally in order to present such a groundbreaking piece of information. And uh..." She drifted off, trying to think about anything other than what must have been going on just behind that door.
"Uh... Use protection," she told the royal couple. She felt her ears burning, and could almost see the deep purple color her cheeks must have been turning. She stood up, prepared to leave, and added, "Remember what father taught you."
Toothless had always been uneasy whenever someone brought up sex as a topic of conversation, so the princess's lover's response made her question their identity, along with her own sanity. "I will," he told her.
Arachne almost considered poking her head instead, if only to be sure that was Toothless, but shuddered at the thought. She said, "I'm uh... I'm gonna go get some sleep. I do not feel very well." That was totally a lie, but she desperately needed a reason to get away from that door.
"Okay," Ladybug shouted, and then the noises began again, of two creatures deeply enthralled in the most beautiful —or disgusting— act of love.
Arachne sprinted back up the hallway, trying as hard as she could to clear her mind's eye of what Toothless must have been doing to make such a tough mare be so loud. When she returned to the barracks, casting her armor onto the floor, it occurred to her that, perhaps, Toothless was the one being so loud. That could have been it. Their voices were similar in pitch, so she may have mistaken them.
She shuddered, and rolled over in her bed, glad that Glados wasn't in the castle, or she would have asked to join the two of them, if not also drag another guard with her.
Meanwhile, Toothless and Ladybug were standing on opposite corners of the bedroom, panting, their sides heaving, wings limp at their sides. Their front legs were supporting more weight than their hind ones, so they leaned forward a bit.
Toothless said, "Give it up. I've been wrestling since I could walk, against proportionately larger opponents than you."
Ladybug shook her head, and said, "You know, you don't need to grunt every time I bluff a charge. This isn't television."
Toothless flared his wings at his sides, and brushed his hoof against the ground, kicking up a small cloud of dust. He tensed up, then froze. His face went pale —or they would have if his chitin hadn't been white already— then his cheeks turned bright blue. "Ladybug, I... I think Arachne..." he began, before relaxing as he broke out into laughter.
She raised an eyebrow at him, and asked, "What about her?"
He threw his head back, displaying his fangs as he laughed. He wiped his eye with a hoof as he calmed down, and said, "Arachne thought we were mating."
Ladybug stiffened, and her wings folded against her sides as she considered this possibility. She smiled faintly, and chuckled.
Toothless closed his eyes for a split second to say, "That'd never happen, what with my whole, being a nerd and a-"
Ladybug pounced upon him, and pinned him to the ground below her, saying, "You let your guard down." She pressed her nose against his, and curled her lips back in a snarl, appearing much more intimidating than she would have otherwise. She spread her wings out at her sides to balance herself as she placed her front hooves on his chest, not supporting enough weight there to hurt him, but enough to keep him from pushing her off.
He thrashed about, trying to throw her off nonetheless, but his new body still wasn't cooperating with him, and he gave up after a few seconds of this.
Ladybug dropped her aggressive expression, figuring he'd basically surrendered, and that acting more like a serious opponent would only succeed in terrifying him or giving him a heart attack. She smiled at him, and, suppressing a giggle, asked, "You think I wouldn't have sex with you?"
He blushed madly, and stammered, "W-well... I'm still in school."
"Oh, about that, you missed your seventeenth birthday, and um... I didn't look to find any other partners," she said. She gave him a warm smile, and a quick peck on the lips. "And we're married, so I kind of assumed that sex was a part of what I signed up for."
"Not even Glados? And, technically, the marriage ended when I died," he told her, still pinned beneath her, but waiting.
Ladybug said, "She mostly avoided me, and I got the impression that she didn't enjoy wrestling with me."
He smiled, and raised an eyebrow at what he imagined was incredible naïveté. "Sure," he said, and kicked her in the gut as she blinked, attempting to get out from under her, and possibly pin her down, but it didn't go according to plan.
He wound up with her lying down on top of him, their stomachs and chests pressed together, her hind legs hugging his sides. Now, with her actually sitting on him, he said, "Fine, you win. What do you want?
She grinned at him, and nuzzled his cheek affectionately. She said, "A chocolate fountain at my wedding."
He blinked at her, and asked, "What's chocolate?"
"You poor, poor, uncultured soul," she said, sighing, and shook her head. "Your parents never let you try chocolate? I'm sorry, but, are you sure they were your parents?"
He nodded. "Yeah, pretty sure, between the whole um..." He spread his wings out on the floor, glancing at them. "... having these, my father being the last bat pony, and my misshapen fangs," he told her, and smiled warmly at her. He wrapped his forelegs around her back, and held her on top of him. "Oh, and don't forget my elongated ears, my horribly messed up reproductive system, my ability to survive things that nopony should."
She smiled, and nuzzled her nose against his chest. "It's not that messed up, I'm sure," she said. She lay her lower jaw against the floor next to his head, and whispered into his ear, "I have a question."
"Okay," he whispered.
"Can you drink blood?" she asked him.
He rolled his eyes, and said, "My grandfather was a fruit bat pony, not a vampire." He shook his head slowly, and gasped as Ladybug playfully nipped at the tip of his ear. "H-hey, that's sensitive," he stammered.
She said, "That's the point."
Glados dragged herself to the large double doors she knew so well, and, though her eyes were bloodshot, slammed her hoof on the left door. She waited a moment, heard nothing, and said, "Your highness?" Again, nothing. She grit her teeth, trying to placate her conscience, and pushed her way through the doors.
Immediately, she said, "My apologies, your highness, bu-" She paused as scent she had known from her childhood until a few months ago met her nose, and she looked towards the bed. Then another smell, the underlying implications of which she understood from experience. Something gnawed at her when she realized what had happened.
Toothless woke up first, and, blushing, said, "Good morning, general. What are you doing here? I thought the Prydwen was under your command al-" It was then that his eyes focused on the damage her armor had sustained, how misaligned her helmet was, and how she reeked of fear, rage, and what must have been pain.
"What happened?" he asked her.
Glados couldn't listen to his voice, couldn't accept what was happening, wouldn't come to terms with what had clearly happened. She tried to simply say what she had been tasked with telling the ruler, "We were attacked by a..." She went quiet, and simply stood there, staring.
This was extremely unusual of the general. She rarely became speechless, and when she went silent, it was usually to make a point of it. Silence was a powerful tool in the general's line of work, and a well placed break of even a few seconds could rally a crowd around her.
But now, she was at a loss for words. She was more scared than she ever had been since she'd first met Rainbow Dash, on that first day, in the old bunker, huddled up with her sisters while the endless storm of sand and pain raged outside, howling like the dogs of Tartarus.
She had been terrified, paralyzed by the sound, the threat of her only home collapsing around her, of her sisters and maybe even herself being swept away into the unforgiving desert, unable to see, hear, or be heard. But that had all changed when the tender warmth of a hoof on her shoulder, and a wing around her back had given her an anchor, something to hold onto, a shred of hope and security against the endless winds outside.
She was now only slightly less terrified than she had been on that day, on the day that had shaped her, that had brought her more a mother figure than Princess Sweet Tooth had ever been.
She watched the princess's sleeping form, how she rolled over, how naturally the corners of her lips curled up in a smile, how truly happy she looked, sleeping beside her mate. And they were mates, that much was made clear by the smell that hung in the air.
Glados's legs tensed, and her wings folded at her sides. She took a deep breath, attempting to regain her composure. She felt something, something inside of her breaking, violently shattering, sending little pieces of itself throughout her mind, and burying those pieces into everything else like shards of glass.
Everything, all that she'd done in the last five months, dreaming, waiting for the bright pegasus to recover from the loss they all shared, how carefully and meticulously she'd avoided talking to her, so she was not being sly about her plans, all fell apart. She felt everything inside of her shaking, threatening to collapse in above her, crush her beneath it.
"V-very well," she said. "I'm glad for you. I... I can't be happy, I get it." She felt something chipping away at her, like she was slowly being consumed from the inside out, like the symbiotic worm in her stomach had decided that she looked tasty, rather than all of the love she'd fed it since her mother had given it to her so she could be normal, so she could be like her sisters.
It was like that worm, so oblivious to what pain its host was going through, contained in the pitch blackness of her stomach, was as ungrateful, and undeserving of receiving all the love she'd harvested, as the prince. It hadn't bent the very rules she was tasked with enforcing to get that love. It hadn't worked until its legs gave out beneath it. It hadn't done anything but sit there, and reaped the benefits of her tireless work.
It was fun work, and she had enjoyed most of it, but it was still work, work that she had done. That she had spent her every moment of her well earned spare time collecting love was of no consequence to that worm. It only wanted more, more of what she alone could provide it, and would continue to provide it until she died, and the worm went off to find a mate of its own.
It gnawed at her very soul, and what resolve she had to preserve that worm's life. Just because she needed it in order to maintain her diet was all the reason the worm needed to know, and it knew how safe it was. It didn't consider the fact that she could unsheathe her dagger at any time, cut herself open, and pull the parasite out.
She would have to start eating pony food —which would only keep her alive for a few weeks— and return to a normal sleep schedule, but she could still do it.
Toothless had only known Ladybug for three weeks, and she had married him, just as how she had accepted the worm. And when the host had been cleansed of its parasite, Glados had worked so hard to let her mourn in peace. She had conceded to wait, to wait until six months had passed, but he had given her five before deciding that she couldn't be happy.
She had come so close. She had worked so hard. She had waited so long. She had been one month away. She had been so close on a dozen different occasions to confessing her love for the bouncy pegasus who plagued her dreams, who had stolen her heart, and now, she would never get it back. She would never know happiness. She would never forgive him.
Before she could say something she'd regret, before the princess could wake up to find her in such a state as she was, she ran. She charged through the hallways of the castle, her entire mind threatening to fall away like ashes left to the mercy of the desert, and managed to slam her bedroom door closed behind her.
She survived long enough to drag herself to her bed, having removed her armor, and collapse onto it, and then, she finally gave in, to the pain, to the emptiness spreading from the center of her chest, where her heart and once been. She, for the first time since she could remember, curled up into a ball on her thin, purple bedsheets, and wailed into her pillow.
The great general, the supreme commander, who had been tasked with readying her home for a war, was ripped apart, by the news of her prince's return from the dead. She, the great tactician of her generation, mentored by the great Rainbow Dash, the element of loyalty herself, broke like a piece of glass against a hammer.
She cried, and that was all she could do.