Prodigy Part 2
“So you looked to Amore as your mother, she taught you to use your powers properly, what then?” Fluttershy asked, eager to hear the rest.
“As I said, I was a young mare when I was in what I thought was my prime. The level of power that I have with the emotional stability of a hormonal teen is a dangerous combination. Teenagers tend to think nothing can touch them at that age and as such, I became a vain, sexy powerhouse,” Luxure replied, conjuring a picture of her teenage self laying in bed and covered by her blankets while giving a half-lidded stare, with a tiny smile added for effect. “…It was my dark ages before my dark ages,” Luxure added.
Fluttershy’s eyes widened a little bit and she quickly covered her face with her wings. “L-Luxure don’t show me that! Y-You’re underage there!”
Luxure rolled her eyes. “Oh please, ponies don’t wear clothes anyway.” She said, making it disappear. “But when I say vain I mean…well…”
The citizens of the Crystal Empire all scattered around the kingdom, desperately attempting to escape the Minotaur army overrunning it. In an attempt to take the empire for their own, the Minotaurs launched the surprise attack right from under the noses of the Crystal Ponies. Buildings were crumbling to the ground, smoke brought on from the Minotaur’s mass fires blackened the usually blue sky, and several ponies were struggling to escape due to their injuries.
Despite most of the guard’s best efforts, the Minotaurs were much too big and powerful for them to handle, and many of them were captured and thrown into carriages that were turned into temporary prisons for the captured Crystal Ponies. Eventually, the guards realized that the Minotaurs’ numbers were far too high and were forced to retreat to the castle.
The Minotaur general, a burly brown one with a scar across his nose and carrying a sword and shield noticed this and set his sights on the crystal palace. “There! Raid the castle, take whatever riches lie inside and capture the princess!” he shouted. The army obeyed his commands, dropped what they were doing, and galloped toward the castle, fully prepared to tear it inside and out.
Just before they were about to crash through the doors though, the doors slammed open themselves. Obviously not prepared for this, the Minotaur army backed off quickly, being ready for what awaited them on the other side.
It was none other than Princess Amore’s personal student, Rosemary, seventeen years of age from the looks of it. The bedhead she was suffering from was a clear indication she had not been awake for long, as well as the annoyed grimace.
“Hey um… I know you guys are here to invade and everything but, can you like, not? My alarm’s not set to wake me up for another few hours and I need beauty rest,” She grumbled, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
The Minotaur general was not deterred at this in the slightest. “Out of our way young mare, unless you wish to be detained like the rest of the empire’s citizens. We are the new law of the land!” he growled.
Rosemary dismissively waved a hoof at him. “Yeah real cute honeybun. Can you go now? I’m trying to just go back to sleep and spare you the humiliation of failure,”
The Minotaur’s rage only grew from there. The total disregard of their hostile takeover on her part was infuriating. “Y-You arrogant little runt, how dare you!”
“Oh that’s the third time I’ve heard that during a hostile invasion. Can I get four? It’s my favorite running joke and it REALLY makes my day,” Rosemary replied with a little bit of a growing smile.
At this point, the Minotaurs had had enough and were growing much too impatient to deal with this sharp-tongued young Earth Pony. They had a castle to raid. “Enough of this. You will not be getting in the way of our conquest today,” The general grumbled, putting his hand on her shoulder and shoving her out of the way, fully expecting his army to follow him inside.
That’s not what happened. What happened next was that the Minotaur general felt himself encased in a blue magical aura and unable to move. Confused, he squirmed and writhed in the aura in a desperate attempt at escape. “W-What?! What’s happening?!” He yelled in frustration.
Rosemary, her back facing the general, turned her head, revealing a pair of glowing blue eyes and a confident smirk on her face. “Weren’t expecting that were ya?” Rosemary then put her hooves to her cheeks and changed her expression to that of a mock-surprised one. “Oh she doesn’t have a horn, where’s it coming from?” she mockingly exclaimed. Not even taking a moment to take note of the Minotaur’s horrified expression, Rosemary used her magic to quickly chuck the Minotaur far into the distance to the point where he was not visible to the army anymore. “There we go, outta sight, outta mind.” Rosemary said, patting her hooves together.
The Minotaur army looked on at the display of power from the young mare, completely dumbfounded and mortified at what she had just done. She just threw their commanding officer who knows where without a second thought. Having witnessed a sight such as this, they slowly began to back away from the castle, not wanting any part of what their general had just been subjected to.
Rosemary turned her attention to the terrified army before her. “You guys are seriously still here? Uugh,” With a slight groan, Rosemary once again summoned her magic and her eyes glowed bright blue again. “You don’t want to raid the empire,” She said in an almost robotic manner.
With that, all members of the Minotaur army’s eyes glowed the same shade of blue as Rosemary’s and they stood straight up. “We don’t want to raid the empire,” Every member of the army repeated in unison.
“You will free your captives and never return,” Rosemary continued.
“We will free our captives and never return,” they repeated again. Afterwards, they all turned around, a few of them opening the cages for the crystal ponies they had captured to walk out, confused and scared. Once they were all free to go, the Minotaurs all marched straight out of the Crystal Empire, none looking back even for a second.
Once they all disappeared into the Frozen North, the crystal ponies all looked toward Rosemary, still standing in the castle doorway. In seconds, the air erupted with their thunderous cheering. “Horray! Rosemary has saved our kingdom once again!” somepony cheered out.
The sounds themselves were simply too much for Rosemary’s ears, and she quickly covered them. “Heh, yes indeed I have!…praise me quieter though, I’m still just waking up.” She yelled out to the empire’s citizens. The Crystal ponies, now self-conscious of their volume, complied.
“Our apologies…hooraaaaay.” Somepony whispered, the rest following suit.
Rosemary only rolled her eyes and stepped back into the castle, shutting the door behind her. “Ahhh peace and quiet.” She said as she started to trot back to her bedroom. As she was doing so however, she bumped into something tall and soft in texture. Looking up, she saw it was none other than her mentor, Princess Amore herself who looked down at her with an expression that Rosemary couldn’t quite read. It looked somewhat stern but she couldn’t pick up on it.
“Oh Princess hey. You’re not going to believe this, a bunch of Minotaurs tried to barge in here and wreck house. Don’t worry though. I took care of it already,” Rosemary said to her with a smile.
“Oh yes. I saw more than enough,” Amore replied, her stoic expression not changing.
Confused, Rosemary tilted her head. Why did it seem Amore was in a bad mood? “…Did you uh, wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning too?” she asked.
“Rosemary, I have told you to not look into the magic of mind-manipulation. I’ve explicitly said such magic is forbidden.” Amore replied, raising her voice ever so slightly and keeping a stern tone to it.
Hearing this coming from her teacher and maternal figure, Rosemary was taken aback. Her ears folded and she looked at her with a nervous frown. “Well…I know what you told me, but I still saved everyone. Just like last time, and the time before that. I just wanted to try something a little easier, actual battle is tiring. Who cares how it gets done? Besides, no one got hurt,”
“Including the Minotaur that you simply tossed into oblivion?” Amore asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I don’t take kindly to being shoved. He could have smudged my crystal body,” she said, gently stroking her own shoulder where the Minotaur general had laid his hands on her.
Amore closed her eyes and let out a sigh. “What I am getting at is that are no shortcuts in magic. None that do not lead to disaster. I will be forever appreciative for everything you do for our kingdom. I just do not want you to get used to using such morally questionable spells. Invasion of one’s mind is the ultimate violation of one’s self, and those that practice this set themselves on a path to ruin. I do not wish that to happen to you,”
Rosemary, seeing the somber look on her teacher’s face, also sighed while looking down. “…I understand. I won’t ever use this kind of magic again. I promise,”
“Good. I am quite happy to hear that.” Amore said, growing a more comforting smile and embracing her student in a hug. “Do not mistake me dear. I truly am grateful to you for saving our beloved empire as much as you have,”
‘It sure doesn’t feel like it,’ Rosemary thought to herself with a hint of bitterness. “Thank you, Amore…um, if it isn’t too much trouble, can I ask you something?”
Amore gave Amore the same warm smile she had given for all the years she’d been raised with her. “You may,”
“How long would it take for me to become a princess like you?” Rosemary asked with a small and hopeful smile.
In response to this, Amore simply patted her student’s head, similar to that of a child. “When you are ready my dear. You still have a ways to go, but you’re applying yourself,”
On the outside, Rosemary appeared content with this, and gave her teacher a nod. However in Rosemary’s own mind, the sound of this was frustrating to hear. ‘I’ve saved the empire so many times, and I’m an Earth Pony that can do magic, what more do you want from me?’ she thought to herself with that tinge of bitterness again. “…I understand Amore. Can I return to bed? This messed up my sleep something awful,”
“You may. You do look rather tired,” Amore told her, taking notice of Rosemary’s still-present bedhead. “Have a good rest, my student,”
Rosemary nodded and turned away from Amore, beginning to return to her room. As she walked, she made sure not to let Amore see the frustrated and annoyed look on her face. Letting her thoughts regarding her possible future ascension to princesshood fester, the more she thought about it, the more it annoyed her. ‘Really, what is her problem? I’m doing way better than anypony else she’s ever trained, I should have been a princess after the FIRST time I saved my home. Now I’m going on four times and I’m still learning? Come on!’ she thought, her body tensing up a little. It felt like a lot of her work and progression in her magic wasn’t going towards anything for her. She’d been doing this for years anyway, what needed to be done different?
She was ripped directly from those thoughts though when not far off, she spotted a group of teenage stallions who were all the royal crystal guard uniform looking directly out the windows, and looking quite shaken at the events that had taken place outside. She’d seen groups like these in the castle before. The guards would begin to train ponies who wished to take part in it at that age, and where given clear instructions to not take place in major catastrophes until they were properly trained.
Nine times out of ten, Rosemary found the body type those ponies had unbelievably attractive. Guards where after all trained intensely to be big and powerful strength-wise. Looking over these guys’ bulging muscles, this was one of those times and it made Rosemary blush. ‘…At least today might not be a total loss for me after all.’ She thought to herself. She began to walk toward the group, quickly fixing her messy mane with some help from her magic, and proceeded to flip her mane upwards just for a little bit of help in the sex-appeal department. She had yet to meet any male that could resist the mane-flip. “Ooooh booooys!~” she said in a sing-song voice.
Turning their attention to the mare, they were almost immediately drawn to those alluring blue eyes and curvaceous, thin body of hers. It made them forget about the mess that happened outside not to long ago rather quickly. “O-Oh um, miss Rosemary that was impressive what you did out there…disturbing but impressive,” One of them said with a bit of a nervous stutter to his voice.
Rosemary snickered a little. “Yeah, everything’s fine. No more invaders,” Not wanting to give the stallions long enough to think, she quickly grabbed the forelegs of one of the stallions, and wrapped draped it around her shoulder and cuddled up against his chest, making the stallion shiver from the physical contact. “Ooooh so firm~” she said, rubbing her hoof on his chest. “Listen, after dealing with that mess I would really hate to simply return to my bedroom alone. Could you pleaaaaase join me?” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes.
“I-I’m sorry to interrupt again b-but please don’t tell me about all the times you did…t-that,” Fluttershy asked, really not wanting to hear the rest of how that encounter played out.
“I didn’t exactly earn the title of lust goddess from being a virgin, you know that right?” Luxure asked with a raised eyebrow. “Whatever, that was only when my doubts started. I’d saved the kingdom plenty of times and I still had not gotten what I felt I rightfully deserved. Looking back on it, I was a fool. Someone with my level of vanity was not worthy of the title of princess. I didn’t know it at the time, but I didn’t save ponies to do the right thing. I did it to boost my ego and get laid,”
Fluttershy’s ears folded a little and she looked generally very uncomfortable. “Well um…at least you’re honest about it,”
“Anyway, Amore was not blameless here. Victory after victory on my part and still I was not a princess. I felt that she did not trust me. ME. Practically her own daughter. My frustration and my own distrust of her judgement grew stronger with every refusal. Especially after this one. The last good thing I ever did for that empire,” Luxure said, seeming to look dead into Fluttershy’s eyes as she spoke.
Fluttershy looked back and shivered a little from the cold chill that went down her spine. Her stare was an enchanting one, but at the same time, it was cold and distant. Just as the book Cadance had showed them described. Only, she felt it wasn’t the face of a true monster as it said. Fluttershy felt that it was the face of a pony in pain, no more or less.
Always keeping this at the back of her mind, Fluttershy quietly continued to listen.
Stats
Page generated in 0.022 seconds
Total duration
1,006 users online
82,586 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Juuuuust going to put this out there, but Equestria's general opinion toward mental magic is less harsh than you'd expect. Reforming spells, casual use of Want-it-need-it, the general opinion of Discord's brainwashing was less that it was evil because it was brainwashing and more it was evil because of what it did...
I think a good metaphor is that Equestria sees mental magic as a form of drug--it can be used for good, if applied by a doctor, but it's also easy to abuse.
8181338 If Cadance's description of what Luxure did with her powers is any indication, she absolutely abused it. In probably the worst way too. She used her powers and beauty to lure ponies away from their families and do her bidding. As she said, some couples never recovered.
If that's not abusing it, I don't know what is. With the kind of personality that Rosemary/Luxure had, Amore saw it fit that she stay away from that form of magic altogether.
8181338 Huh, I had never thought of that. Maybe things were different a thousand years ago in the Crystal Empire, though. I guess.
8181361 That is also a possibility. And seeing what Luxure would go on to do with that kind of magic, you can see why Amore would want her to stay out of that field.
Hahahaha, well then, this was interesting~
Good show, good show
8181354
I'm not saying she didn't abuse it. I'm saying that mass-hypnosis of an invading army might not exactly constitute abuse from an Equestrian standpoint. It's a borderline issue.
This alone has earned this story many positive points.
Anyway, gonna take a guess that this goddess uses reverse psychology and slowly converts all the ponies into craven whores one by one using their own weaknesses.
It's how I do it! (The notion of Alondro as the god of lust is truly one of the most mind-warping and horrifying concepts ever to exist...)
Keeping this on my Read It Later for now. It's good, but I really want to see which way you take Luxure before I move it to another shelf. You've promised a deconstruction though, so I look forwards to the result.
Does anyone think that it was actually Amore's fault? Instead of detailing why, she just goes 'You're not ready' and leaves it at that. Why doesn't she specify why exactly she's not ready; because from the way Rosemary acted, she was never even taught how to be a proper ruler in the first place.
Does anyone know that movie called the Lion King? Simba, he had all the makings of a bratty ruler, but we actually saw his father take him and tell him why and how to be an effective ruler. He was a brat, but he was also barely an adolescent. It's pretty obvious that under Mufasa's guidance he probably would've grown up to be an effective ruler.
8182091 Yeah, Amore could really be doing more to provide Rosemary guidance here.
Also, I think she's too fixated on the type of magic Rosemary used, when I think the real problem here is Rosemary's IDGaF attitude about using really powerful magic. The lesson she needed wasn't, "Don't use mind magic." It was, "Don't be so flippant about having the power to instantly defeat an army."
8182091 And this is part of the reason Luxure blames Amore for the way things played out, and for the most part on that front of not completely teaching her what makes a ruler, she's kind of right. Amore's had a pretty bad track record with helping raise children correctly (Sombra's origin)
That being said though, Rosemary's decisions were her own, and they did ultimately lead to her downfall. And when she WAS a leader for a time as Luxure, everypony in the empire suffered for it.
No one's blameless here.
...I'll give you this, the story is a great read, has great grammar, and most importantly: a great plot.
...
Take from that what you will. I will neither confirm nor deny any thoughts you have regarding what I just said.
8182091
8182130
Okay, this is kind of where you guys are abusing audience perspective and being too caught up in Luxure's viewpoint since she's the story voice. What Amore did was not wrong. This was one of those lessons that would only work for Rosemary if she learned it herself. Amore just telling her "this is what makes a good princess" does not actually help Rosemary in the slightest. If I told you how to be a good ruler of a nation for the rest of your life, would you suddenly be one? Or would it take understanding yourself, the nation, the subjects, their lives and problems, and the other nations of the world on a level that is personal and unique to yourself to actually get it?
It's easy to blame Amore if you think very shallowly regarding it. "Why couldn't she just TELL her" sums up these two posts. It's also what Luxure herself is saying, and I originally came down into these comments to point out how wrong Luxure was, that she realized she wasn't worthy of being a princess but doesn't realize WHY fully, given that she's still blaming Amore for her failure.
I mean, this story is just Sunset Shimmer's, told again. If not the official one then the most common one we tell in the fandom. Being groomed to be princess, and flipped her shit before learning a lesson she could only learn through the path she was already on. In essence, her patience failed - and as a leader patience is one of your strongest virtues. Further proof of her personal failure and supporting evidence. By telling her 'she's not yet ready', Amore all but said 'just be patient'. And then Luxure was not patient. Amore, as implied by the story, was already training the girl in the ways, and she failed "Patience" spectacularly. If you say "she should have just told her", well, she did - as I just explained, she told her to be patient, where if she had she would have come to the conclusions, comprehension, and personal understanding she needed to have to be ready had she stayed the course and done as instructed/instructed not to do. With patience, time, and maturity this story leaves me no doubt she would have made a fine fit for the throne.
So how can Amore be at fault for doing as she was supposed to? She was already grooming her for succession, she was having her wait to grow into her maturity and learn the lessons she needed to along the way. But clearly Rosemary did not do this and threw a temper tantrum, because as she stated herself, she was young and impetuous and immature. Her arrogance led to this thinking that is being supported in these posts, not some gross negligence or something worse on Amore's part.
8184837 Yeah, okay. Amore isn't entirely to blame, but at the same time when your student begins to act like that it doesn't sound like a good idea to adopt a 'Wait and See' approach.
Hmm... the Minotaur's what? Given the whole lust theme... and that exceedingly leading line just BEGGING to be parodied, I'm certain I know!
She's an even bigger and badder Mary Sue than Starlight Glimmer! Yayyyyyyy!
Yeah, seriously. You were gladly pummeling enemies without mercy and then mind-controlling ponies to satisfy your hormonal impulses... and you still can't figure out why Amore was just a wee bit hesitant to grant you leadership status.
Your ignorance speaks for itself.
Just gonna note, simply because a general wins a whole lot of battles doesn't automatically qualify him for king/president. For every George Washington, there is a Ulysses Grant. Rare is the combination of competency in both battle and statesmanship.
8182091
8182130
...I'm seeing serious Shimmer parallels now. "You're not ready" indeed.
I was totally like that:
Look what you did Luxxure now the guards are gonna get banished for committing Pedofillya
11792901
Guards in question were teenagers, aka same age as Luxure at the time. From this passage in the chapter:
I mean still not a great look for anyone involved there but that's just how teenagers can be.