Princess Celestia never knew what it was like to be feared. Sure, she knew of the anxiety of those meeting her for the first time, but that was a given. That wasn’t true fear. She knew of the fear of defeat shown by past villains she had brought down, but it was never true fear of her or her actions.

This colt, though? This earth pony who just appeared in her castle? He fears her. He fears her above all else, even death itself. Not even Nightmare Moon was feared this way. So why, oh why was this little colt so terrified of her? What had she done? How can she ever hope to alleviate her little pony of his pain, if her very presence causes him to lock up in terror?

Just where did this colt come from?

(So imagine a character from a grimdark story (ideally the victim) ending up in canon Equestria, and you pretty much have the premise behind this story. Do be warned though; this is much darker than my other stories, mostly because of the setting the aforementioned character came from. Seriously, when I thought of a victim of a grimdark story, I really wanted his old home to be as grim and dark as I could make it.)