Prince Dusk's Twilight

by TheFaceofMercy

Royal Explanations

Dusk Shine swallowed her embarrassment as she looked up at her mentor, panicked violet eyes meeting calm magenta ones. “Hello Prince,” she said meekly, her voice barely audible.

Prince Solaris raised an eyebrow as he cleared his throat, “Dusk Shine, we’ve already talked about this, we are equals now, just Solaris will suffice,” he said feigning annoyance while Dusk gasped loudly at the remark.

“Oh, Right! Sorry… Solaris.” The mare responded looking at the ground avoiding even her friends’ gaze.

“It’s alright my faithful student,” the Prince reassured, walking towards the depressed mare raising her chin with his hooves. “Now, I would rather talk about certain developments, you can imagine my surprise when they told me that princess Dusk Shine was at the hospital,” he said, smiling gently at the mare who despite her embarrassment smiled back.

“I’m sorry, I should have told you, but I didn’t want to be a bother and this was a pretty embarrassing mistake,” Dusk explained, before Rarity cleared her throat loudly, rolling her eyes afterward, making the former stallion blush loudly. “And I was also scared that you would punish me for this,” she said, as Rarity smiled broadly.

Solaris chuckled at his pupil dismay “My dearest student, where did you get that ridiculous idea? I won’t punish you for a mistake that I once committed too,” He said, sitting beside his fellow alicorn in the bed, his large frame sinking the bed slightly, wrapping his wing around her afterward.

Dusk’s cheeks heated up once again, but this time for the prince’s proximity, of course, they had shared a lot of tender moments during the years, but this one, for some strange reason felt different. Was it the height difference? Maybe the bed wasn’t comfortable enough, or maybe it was the fact that it was the first time she had seen Solaris sharing a very emotional moment with a mare that wasn’t his sister.

She coughed in discomfort, looking uneasily at the clueless prince, who raised an eyebrow in question “Are you alright Dusk Shine?” Solaris asked, tightening the grip on his wing, making the embarrassed mare shiver at the soft touch “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“N-No, I’m okay, is just a little hot in here, isn’t it?” she said, fidgeting in the bed as everyone else looked at her confusedly.

Fortunately for the mare, Rarity seemed to have picked up her hints, clearing her throat loudly she attracted the attention of the other ponies in the room. “Well then, now that we have all sorted up, why we don’t discuss ways to fix Dusk’s little problem?” she said, pulling the princess out of the embrace forcefully.

“Indeed, as far as I know— ” directing the attention back to himself “ — this small mishap of yours happened because of a mistake in your potion making. Am I right Dusk Shine?” The prince asked, seeing how the mentioned mare straightened herself up, ignoring the stressed pronunciation of her name.

“Actually that wasn’t exactly what happened,” she corrected, becoming what her friends called as ‘Teacher Dusk’ that fused her academic knowledge with Pinkie’s ability to ramble aimlessly.

“I was trying to use the potion inherent magical properties as a matrix to amplify my output, sadly, I must have used too much of one ingredient, I don’t know which yet, thus destabilizing the equilibrium between my own spell and the potion passive magic field.” as she finished everyone but Solaris and strangely enough Pinkie Pie was looking at her with expressions that varied from downright confusion to amazement.

Dusk blushed at her friend’s faces “I-I was just trying to fuse my own magic with a potion to make it stronger while casting spells,” she simplified, breathing in relief as everyone else gave an ‘Ohh’ as a response.

“You could’ve just said that sugar cube, instead of that fancy-schmancy magic talk,” Applejack said chuckling at the mare’s blush.

“Sorry.”

“No need for that my faithful student, I understood perfectly,” Solaris said, furrowing his brows in concentration.

“Sadly I do not have anything that could help you at the moment, but maybe if we collect a sample of the potion we could isolate the compound that caused your transformation in the castle’s lab, and then we could synthesize an antidote for your predicament,” He explained, earning an excited squeal from the alicorn mare.

“Really! That’s amazing! I’m sure you’ll get the cure in no time,” she said gleefully, jumping from her spot on the bed to stand directly in front of the Prince, who stopped the impromptu presentation of her trademark victory dance, raising a hoof.

“There’s another thing I’m going to ask you, and I’m sure you won’t like it,” Solaris said seriously.

“Oh, you’re going to banish me aren’t you?” Dusk asked, backing slowly from the prince’s larger frame.

The alicorn stallion rolled his eyes at his student remark “Of course I’m not going to banish you, where did that even came from? I only wanted to ask you to come with me to Canterlot. Your sister and brother in law are already there, and Gleaming Shield got a little worried when I received the letter,” Dusk’s eyes widened in fear, her left ear flickering in response to her stress level suddenly skyrocketing.

“M-my sister is there? What is she doing in Canterlot?! The last time she wrote, she said that she couldn’t visit because of some border disputes with the Deer’s kingdom,” Dusk said, visibly agitated.

“Oh yes, King Hert… A very stubborn leader if you ask me, fortunately for them his wife is a wonderful negotiator and the dispute ended rather quickly. Gleaming and Eros went to Canterlot to discuss with me and Luna the terms of the new agreement,” Solaris explained the mare, who was slowly pondering her options.

I can’t go to Canterlot like this! Gleaming is going to freak out as soon as she sees me! the purple mare thought, But if I go, I have the opportunity of overseeing the antidote formula… they’ll be able to make it faster.

Seeing that Dusk wasn’t going to answer anytime soon, Pinkie decided to peep in poking the aforementioned mare playfully with her hoof, “Oh come on Dusky, your sis will be super happy to see you, and now that you’re a mare you’ll do all sort of mare stuff together,” Pinkie said cheerfully, pulling Dusk out of her crashing train of thoughts.

“That’s the deal Pinkie!” Dusk yelled, pacing around the room nervously. “Gleaming always teased me about wanting a little sister! I don’t know what would she do if she saw me like this,”

“My faithful student, Your sister had been supportive of everything that had happened to you, what makes you think this time is going to be different?, you two are family after all,” Solaris intervened, putting his hoof on Dusk’s shoulder for comfort, “And we might find the cure faster if you are there,”

Dusk huffed in annoyance but conceded with the Prince’s decision. “Fine, I’ll go but on cover, I don’t want everypony in Equestria to think that they have a new princess,”

“Fair enough,” Solaris said, “Now If we may go to your library to retrieve our sample?” he asked.

“Sure, I’ll ask Spines to take it.”

“But… she is a baby dragon."

“Pshh, Don’t worry about her, dragons are very resilient to magic,” she disregarded Fluttershy’s worries turning away from the yellow mare. “After all she owns me one with that stunt of hers this morning,”

“Fine by me. Let’s get going, I hate hospitals,” Rainbow said flying away.

---

Teleportation would have been much better…

But noo, being a prince—princess, whatever— meant she couldn’t just blink in or out of any place as she wanted. No, she had to follow the proper protocol and decorum whenever traveling somewhere. They were only six of them! It didn’t even require a smidge of her resources.

Yet, she had been forced to wait the loathed ten minutes ride from Ponyville to the capital alongside her teacher and four of her friends, seeing that Applejack and Fluttershy had to stay both for things related to their respective jobs… or so they said; Dusk couldn’t be so sure anymore.

Anyways, trying to explain such a… compromising situation to her mentor wasn’t an easy feat, in fact, she still didn’t feel comfortable enough to talk about it.

She would rather spend the day with Eris… But hey! At least she had science!

“— And with both matrices sharing the same frequency, while the caster’s output isn’t significantly increased, the efficiency which it casts is thoroughly improved.”

“Impressive. But how did you compensate for the inherent loss of potential while the matrices remained active?”

“It was hard, but I found the answer in the Stark-Bolt laws of resonance, with a little tweak though so— “

“Dusk, I know you’re excited and all, but all this magical talk is making me sick.” Though he was blunt, Rainbow’s sentiment was shared by most of the carriage’s occupants; that, strangely enough, included the pegasi crew.

Solaris chuckled acknowledging the pegasus stallion’s plight while the mare in question groaned, her features marked by a light blush.

Having the Prince focused on the theory behind her experiment was the only thing keeping her from the increasingly disturbing thoughts regarding the solar alicorn’s proximity. As a stallion, Dusk always found Solaris' presence imposing, strong, royal with the tiniest hint of paternal care behind his chiseled features; now, though, the firm muscles under his coat and his warm golden eyes seemed to be screaming something completely different and she wasn't sure how to feel about it.

Noticing Dusk’s eyes widen a fraction Rarity decided to intervene."So… Darling, What are you planning to do once we arrive? Aside from your experiment, that is.” The little question would keep her mind busy until Rarity could correctly inquire about her friend's well being.

Dusk Shine sighed, uneasily fidgeting in her seat."I don't know, I wouldn't like to go o-out of the castle that's for sure but— “

“Oh, c’mon Dusky! Your sister is in town you gotta do something together!" Dusk opened her mouth to retort yet the abrupt turn of the carriage signaling their arrival convinced her otherwise. The Prince found the gesture amusing, Dusk— mare or stallion— didn’t do well in high-pressure circumstances; he had a tendency towards overreaction something probably brewed in his years under Solaris’ wing, or perhaps even further than that.

“Your majesty, we will arriving shortly,” a guard said. The message was received with both joy and panic by the distressed princess. Joy of course as the ending of the tortuous journey, and panic because she was only a couple of feet away from a social suicide.

What would Gleaming Shield think? Spines playfully joked around, the sheer ridiculousness of the situation too funny for the baby dragoness… Gleaming on the other hoof, she was bound to take this to the next level.

She must’ve been already trembling from anticipation because she didn’t even register Pinkie’s tender hoof patting her back until her voice snapped her out of the frightening results of her overwhelmed imagination. “Just relax Dusky, everything is gonna be just fine.”

Facing Pinkie’s overconfidence with a smile, Dusk thanked the sun she was facing this alongside her friends; having them by her side made this experience a little more bearable.

As the chariot touched ground and Dusk’s heart rate intensified to an impossible speed, hushed voices discussed something outside, weird because—

“SURPRISE!” Of course, they had to do something like that.

When the door opened, two of the ponies Dusk definitely didn’t want to face right now, yelled at top of their lungs; they were accompanied by a small platoon of royal guards, whose serious facade was slowly falling at the sight of two monarchs indulging themselves in such silly antics.

Prince Solaris, having recovered first from the sudden if somehow expected welcome, greeted the couple with his tranquil, warm smile while the remaining passengers exited the carriage.

“Prince Eros, Princess Gleaming Shield, what a pleasant surprise; we weren’t expecting such a committee!”

“Well, Uncle, we just wanted to make sure Dusk was okay. You left in such a hurry this morning we got worried and— “

“Dusk?! Is that you?!” Gleaming’s shriek cut Eros short, as the couple’s eyes traveled to the last pony who reluctantly made its way out of the contraption. Their eyes widened for the petite purple alicorn could not be the same Dusk Shine they knew and loved.

The mare looked around for a moment, before lowering her head while pawing shyly at the ground. “H-hi, sis,” she said in a Fluttershy-esque squeal.

The pair’s dumbstruck expression would have been hilarious, had the circumstances been different. Right now it served only to make the awkward silence worst. ‘If that was possible’

“I’ll explain inside,” The sun prince sighed as if these shenanigans were a common occurrence in his daily routine.

While making their way inside, Princess Dusk Shine raised an eyebrow at the sudden serious frowns of the guards in the platform. She dared to think the soldiers had finally realized the importance of the situation and were (for once) being as professional as they could.

Sadly, her guesses weren’t always correct.

Howling laughter promptly burst from the squad as soon as the castle’s doors were confirmed closed. Soon the barracks would be joking about the wonder-colt of Equestria turning into wonder-filly, in a couple of hours half of the castle won’t be able to hold a straight face around the new princess. Give it a day and the Canterlot’s newspapers would be full of columns speculating every little detail of the royal’s lives.

Wasn’t life awesome?

---

“So… “ trailed off Prince Eros after the complexity of Dusk’s predicament had been explained in what was known as the second most excruciating experience of the purple alicorn’s young life.

“A mare… your experiment turned you into a mare— “

“By accident,”

“... By accident,”

“...”

“You sure you didn’t want this?”

“Ugh!”

“You know me and Gleaming would accept you with whatever you choose, right?”

“Kill me please…”

“It’s completely normal for colts, uh, fillies to, erm… feel uncomfortable with— “

“OH COME ON!”

“Alright, alright, I think you’ve teased him— her enough,” Gleaming Shield said, wrapping a hoof around the traumatized alicorn, she was wearing a smile that screamed mischief, an evil grin that every older sibling in the world could relate to; and if Eros didn’t know better he’d said it looked a little frightening.

They sat down at an ample table, at the castle’s library. Prince Solaris had taken the potion’s sample to the lab while trying to inform his sister of Dusk’s current state.

On her part, Dusk was having the time of her life at mercy of her older sister and brother-in-law who were taking advantage of the situation at hoof as much as they deemed necessary. Her friends weren’t any help for her anyways. But she couldn’t find the will on herself to blame them… it was just too good to pass by.

“Guys! You shouldn’t even be laughing at this!” Dusk groaned, almost whined; a sound that apparently was becoming too frequent.

“Sorry, Dusk, they are just great doing that,” Blitz chuckled, along with Pinkie, Spines, and surprisingly enough, Rarity! ‘Traitors’ Dusk thought, then rolling her eyes she sighed ‘you’d do the same thing, though’

“Yes, we’ve known little Dusky-poo since he was a little foal, we know how to push his buttons,”

Dusk banged her head against the table, cursing alicorn’s resilience. It wouldn’t concede her the sweet sleep of unconsciousness.

“Pfft, Dusky-poo?!” The pink (traitor) mare almost cried with the ridiculous nickname. It certainly had been a while since Dusk had heard that cursed name.

“That’s how mother dear used to call him, isn’t it sweet?! I’m curious why she hadn’t told you that yet,” Gleaming said, faking innocence, caressing slowly her sister’s cheek.

The aforementioned mare retaliated with a glare of her own once the laughter and giggles had quieted down. “I guess you already told Eros how mom used to call you,” she said, the fire of revenge burning in her eyes.

A nervous laugh from Gleaming and five sets of curious eyes answered her jab. Finally, she had something to bargain with.

“Hehehe… Let’s not do something we’ll regret.”

“Your call, Gleaming,” The unicorn mare gulped at the sight of all the expectant faces gazing in her direction, especially her husband’s, and reluctantly for the sake of her own honor nodded slowly.

“Alright, alright, you win kiddo,” she said, ignoring the groans of disappointment of Dusk’s friends plus Eros (who was certainly going to be sleeping outside tonight).

“So,” Eros started, ignoring his wife’s glare. “You got any plans for the week? The Wonderbolts are doing a show and I thought— “

“The Wonderbolts?! Oh, please tell me there are still tickets left!” Rainbow Blitz asked, almost jumping from his seat in excitement.

Eros nodded nonchalantly, his wife rolling her eyes at the spectacle. “As a matter of fact… I happen to own eight tickets for tomorrow’s show,”

Before Rainbow could let out the manliest squee ever heard by ponykind, Dusk interrupted him with her eyebrow raised. “I didn’t know you were a Wonderbolt’s fan, Eros,”

“I’m not actually, I was planning to invite you and your friends before we had to go back to the Empire, but well… this thing happened, why not make the best out of it?”

“Oh please! Can we go? It’ll be awesome! Maybe Spitfire will actually notice me and let me show her my awesome moves… If you know what— “

“Eww, I sincerely doubt it, Blitz. Plus no mare would fall for that.”

“Really? You can tell now?”

“Oh shut up!”

“Joy-killer,” Rainbow said, dismissing her statement waving his hoof.

“Darling, please, you surely can take a couple of hours to spend with your friends, can’t you?” Rarity whine—asked, resorted to the unavoidable trump card: ‘Prince of Friendship’ to get him out of his shell.

“And… well,” Dusk’s sister started, fumbling with words while awkwardly playing with her hooves in a not-so-Gleaming fashion. “I was wondering if we could spend, erm… some sibling bonding time— ?”

“—Sister’s afternoon!” Eros supplied, earning him a couple of deadly glares from both siblings.

Focusing her attention once again in Dusk’s uncertain purple eyes, “Maybe a walk through the town? You know it’s been a while since I’ve been here in Canterlot and—”

“But Gleam’, a sister’s afternoon, really? What, are we going shopping and then spend the day at the spa?”

“No, no, no! Nothing like that! You know I’m not that kind of mare. It’s just— Ugh!” Gleaming stuttered, blushing heavily not quite finding the word to describe her… feelings. She was a tough mare, not used to expressing herself if it wasn’t for Eros she’d hide behind a stone facade at all times. But as he would say, she was learning how to take off her mask around her family and friends.

“Dusk,” she said, confusing the alicorn with her sudden change from frustration to melancholy. “I’ve never had a little sister… and don’t get me wrong, having a little brother is awesome, but it’s not the same. Couldn’t you just bear with me a couple of hours… please?”

“Awww— “

“Ugh! Fine!” Dusk said, ignoring her friends’ bickering. “But if you make me do something girly you’ll pay,”

“Yay! This will be the best day ever!”

“Yeah… fun… “

Author's Note:

derp

Comments

[SageBrony07]

Thanks for the update. Great job.