The Crystal Empire
Ask anyone in Equestria what the most stunning and beautiful city in the world is and they’ll confidently answer “Canterlot.” But everyone in Equestria is dim beyond all measure, so don’t even waste your time. The correct answer would be the Crystal Empire, a land of incomparable glitz and glamor. So much so that it was able to dazzle its way right out of Princess Sunbuns’ jurisdiction and become its own empire, despite consisting of only one city with no plans of imperial expansion. And it was ruled over by a king instead of an emperor... Did I have something to do with this? It doesn’t make any sense, sure, but now I can’t even remember.
Back on point, while half of the name is misleading, the half about the crystals is spot on. The Crystal Empire was shinier than Celestia’s freshly-polished ego and looked like the city planner had gone mad with power and glitter while designing it. Crystalline towers of all colors and hues spread out like fingers reaching for the heavens, extending out toward the sun and stars above to steal even more light to magnify their own beauty. Crystals are the greediest of all forms of rocks. And while I’m airing out dirty laundry I want to go on record saying that pyrite is actually pretty two-faced and amethysts talk about you behind your back.
But the crystallic charm of the empire didn’t extend to the architecture. Even the ponies shimmered and shone like the land around them. Now I’m definitely starting to think I had a hand in this. “Crystal ponies” they called themselves, because they’d be damned if they let themselves be grouped together with the rest of the Mud pony tribe. They were exceptionally unexceptional, not even bedazzling their entire bodies could make up for their mind-numbing homogeneity. And perhaps even the ponies knew that themselves, which explains why they chose a Unicorn to be their ruler. The hierarchy lives on!
King Sombra was a decent enough ruler. Didn’t make any waves, never did anything too radical, kept his subjects happy, never questioned why he was a king of an empire, and made sure everything was in order. The Crystal ponies liked him well enough, but the social hierarchy is still the law even in a solitary city isolated from the world in the frozen northern wasteland, and they knew that an Alicorn outranked a Unicorn any day of the week. And it was poor Sombra’s luck that my big brother simply cannot resist the alluring siren song of a shiny object.
“I think I’ll live here,” Love announced as he threw open the doors to King Sombra’s throne room. “Princess of my own empire. That should be a perfect position to keep order and whatever I’m meant to be doing.”
“Brother!” Harmony protested as she flapped in the air in front of him, “You can’t just show up and seize control over a kingdom.”
“Well why not?”
“Because that’s precisely what Brother Discord did and that’s the exact thing we’re trying to prevent!”
“I don’t know who’s in charge of security around here...” a deep, velvety voice rumbled from the front of the room, “...but he’s fired.”
Sombra rightfully considered himself a powerful magician by pony standards. And his particularly pronounced horn only served as proof of how sharp of a wit he was. He could cast spells with the best of them, summon anything living or dead of any size from any distance, and scry into the future further than even the legendary Starswirl the Bearded. So it took him only half a second of tuning his precognition to be certain that the pony strolling down his throne room was going to be incredibly unhealthy for him.
The King regarded The Intruder coldly. The mare was an alicorn of all possible things, with a peach pink coat and eyes like two, back-stabbing amethysts. A lot of the hate boiling inside of him was probably from the intrusion, the overtaking of his kingdom, yadda yadda yadda. But as I explained earlier, Alicorn trumps Unicorn trumps Earth Pony. And Sombra, for all his years of supporting the outdated hierarchy, was beginning to feel the first stirrings of personal rebellion. This alicorn, you see, was clearly a threat to national security.
“I know exactly what you’re saying brother, but can you hold on a moment?” Love said as he cantered across the room. “They let this grim, unstylish mess of a pony get into my throne room.”
Sombra mustered every dramatic bone in his body, and rose from his throne in a mighty flourish of his cape. He stomped forward, cracking the crystal floor beneath him as he went.
“I was thinking the same thing,” he growled. “About this loud-mouthed, odious quim of a mare who has breached my sanctum.”
Harmony retreated from her sibling’s back and distanced herself further from the two rulers. “Brother, I think that we might be approaching this the wrong way.”
Love nodded, face cold. “We might be.” And thus, with a stomp of his hoof, he cried: “Artless, common-kissing malt-worm!”
“Quailing, urchin-snouted strumpet!”
“Tottering, pottle-deep dewberry!”
“Gleeking, fen-sucked flax-wench!”
Sombra and Love stared hatefully at the other, locking horns and hissing venom with every breath as they wrestled to force submission on their enemy. The Crystal King’s fury only deepened when his superior size and muscle was barely phasing the mare. Alicorn or not, nothing with such a frail frame could hope to stand before him.
“Impertinent...” Sombra hissed. “flap-mouthed... flirt-girl!”
“Inconsiderate! Root-munching! Bubblebottom!”
“Siren of the syphilitic caverns!”
“Toned, ebony stallion of malice!”
“Cantankerous...!” Sombra’s words died. “Wait, toned...?”
“Shut up and kiss me.” Love twisted his snout and pressed his lips against Sombra’s before forcing his tongue inside his mouth. Paralyzed by shock, Sombra could only stand like a bitter draconequus frozen in stone and let it happen. His senses returned to him after a few seconds and he hurriedly and ungentlemanly pushed Love away from him, recoiling in embarrassment.
“No need to be embarrassed, my lowlife ragamuffin,” Love cheerfully tittered, “Now that your feelings are out in the open...”
“My feelings?! Get the hell out of my throne room!”
Oh, if Love had only paused for a moment, he might have noticed the gray smoke radiating of Sombra’s body was not, in fact, a fancy effect. And the cold? Not exactly from the temperature of the room. Cue Love noticing these things in three.
“Oh wow,” Love laughed. “I was completely misreading your signals. That gutteral growl in your throat, that’s your ‘sexytimes’ voice right?”
“It is not! My voice is my voice!”
“Wow. I’m sorry to hear that. I could have sworn you were forcing it for effect...” Love’s face fell. “You sure you aren’t even a little into this sort of thing?”
“No!”
“Well!” A heart-shaped bubble bloomed from Love’s horn. Like a handspider in heat, that bubble smacked itself into Sombra’s face and jettisoned all of its lovey dovey contents into his brain. His eyes grew wide, and his pupils pounded into dazzling red hearts. “You are now!”
“You smell wonderful...” Sombra mumbled, getting creepy with Love’s mane. “Like a summer spring sunset blush....”
“I know!” Love squealed. “So really, I’m the boss here now.” He plopped his fat pink ass directly on the still-warm crystal throne. “But tell you what, you seem to be pretty attached to this place. You can be the court jester or something.”
“Anything for you, my glittering queen...”
“So first order of business! You got any snacks or something?”
“There’s a secret snack compartment in the left armrest, your beautiousness....”
“Score!”
After a junk food binge the likes of which had not been seen since I could wiggle my toes, Love opened his mouth wide and erupted with a belch like a bullfrog exploding, filling the room with a noxious gas. Harmony gave a meek cry as the gas ignited her burning feathers, combusting her on the spot and turning her into a fireball rolling across the throne room.
“It... it smells like Death’s backside!” the pile of flames whimpered as she writhed in distress.
“You hear that, Sombra? Your stench is upsetting my sister,” Love scolded. “Go roll around in the toilet until you smell better. I’m already tired of looking at you.”
“At once, my princess of philia...” Ex-King Sombra practically dragged his head along the ground as he bowed out of the room. “Hearing your voice is unto hearing the heavenly cadence of heaven itself...”
Love forced a smile and waved the unicorn away as he delayed for a few seconds at the doorway to admire his visage. Once the crystal doors sealed shut, the spirit hopped up from his throne and pulled a jagged hunk of the shimmering stone from the wall and began to will it into a new shape. Harmony rose from the ashes of being gassed to death and returned to her brother’s side. She crooked her head side to side, trying to decipher what was going on inside her brother’s mind to no success.
“What are you doing?”
“Just following pony tradition, Sister dear,” Love hummed as the crystal snapped and buckled under the crushing force of his magical field. “Your Celestia has a sun on her cheeks, and the ponies worship her sun. Lumpy Moon Princess has a moon, and they all kind of ignore her but that’s still what she’s known for. So my ponies are going to need an idol to properly worship the flank of Princess Love, so voila!”
The once-rough hunk of crystal had been completely transformed into a smoothly-cut heart as large as the phoenix admiring the gem.
“It’s very pretty, Brother. You should be proud. What does it do?”
“Not a thing. It just reminds them who’s tush is in the throne: Princess Love’s!”
“About that name... I don’t know, it just doesn’t sound very... ‘pony’ to me.”
“And what would you know about being a pony? You’re a bird! You don’t know what it was like living under Discord’s tyranny!” Love cried, burying his watering eyes into his foreleg.
“Neither do you.”
“It’s called playing a role. It’s a little more complicated than pooping on newspaper and chirping,” Love cheerfully played with his mane in the cattiest way possible. “Do try to keep up. But fine, a pony name... A pony name.... Hm...” After all two seconds of thought: “What about Princess Pink Lips?”
“You’re naming yourself after your mouth?”
“Wrong lips.”
“Bro-ther!!”
“It was just a joke! Honestly, I don’t need a pony name. I’m not going to call myself anything like Truck Bump, or Apple Pasta, or something equally horrible and plain. No, I need a Princess name. Something with punch! Something to show that I’m in charge, and I’m their Crystal Alicorn Princess wahey... So uh, maybe something like...”
Once more, my brother fell silent. A name, a princess name, a perfect name. A name is an important identity, and its rare one chooses a name for themselves. Most get defined by roulette, or by whatever pony spots them first, like namesake roulette. I got lucky, but my brother Love was even luckier. Now was his once-in-a-lifetime chance to define himself, not just as a Spirit, but as a being in charge of what’s precious and important. Little, tiny, easily conquerable and even more easily impressed ponies.
So of course, knowing the weight and value of the choice, my wise and intelligent brother gave it careful thought for the ridiculously long stretch of ten entire seconds.
“What’s-his-name said something about cadence. What about that? Princess Cadence?”
“I like it!” Harmony chirped, finally happy her brother was able to take one thing seriously today.
“Wow, really? I was just sort of saying whatever stupid name popped into my head. I really didn’t think you were going to go for it. Crap.” The alicorn dropped to the floor in a grump, moodily rolling the Crystal Heart from hoof to hoof. “I guess I could spice it up later. But for now, I guess, um...”
Princess Cadence knocked the heart around in thoughtless contemplation for a bit longer, right up until a stray thought found its way tumbling into her head and trapped alone forever.
“Oh, doy!” she slapped her forehead with a laugh. “No one else knows I’m in charge yet! I should prepare something special for my glorious presentation to my awaiting public.” Cadence tucked the Crystal Heart under a wing and trotted out of the room. Somewhere in this magnificent palace, there was a balcony that overlooked a crowd of Crystal Ponies to cheer for him. Of this, my brother was certain. All he had to do was shotgun down every corridor until he found one.
“Are you sure that they’re going to just accept that some new pony is their new leader?” Harmony asked suspiciously, following just a bit behind the dashing princess.
“Some-beer did. He was so happy he gave himself a swirlie for me.”
“Only because you hypnotized him! And who knows how long that will last.”
Somewhere, in a bathroom stall in a corner of the palace, a deep voice began to scream in terror and fury. Somewhere in the bathroom stall next to that, a servant pony pressed himself against the walls in fear, suddenly feeling that his business was complete, albeit not on his own terms.
“So all I have to do is impress them! That should be easy. Ponies aren’t that hard to impress.” Cadence skidded to a stop in one of the many crystal castle hallways. With a flick of his mane, he ignited his horn with a brilliant blue glow. “Behold a miracle! I have turned all the city’s water into wine!”
Harmony hesitated. “All of it?”
“Of course all of it! They all have to see, don’t... oh no!” Princess Cadence slapped his forehead. “I’m so stupid!”
“Oh good! you understand how unreasonable--”
“Nobody saw me cast that! They have no idea that it was their new Princess who caused the miracle! Oh Love, you are such a stupid spirit!”
Something tells me I’ll be out of stone in no time.
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Get yourself drunk, and the ugly shall become beautiful, while the beautiful shall become hideous... Sorry Love, you just gave the Empire an inoculation against your hypnotism...
You just updated, so it must be my birthday! There's no other explanation for something that could make me so happy.
Stop it, you're making me old!
EDIT: Oh geez, I just got finished reading, and things are not looking good for the Crystal Empire, thus far.
Oooh Discord, you are my no.1 narrator.
Poor Sombra.
He has every right to be pissed at Love.
Oh, this is glorious. Too funny.
When Love says all the water, does that include the water in ponies' bodies? Probably not, but if so, he's just killed his subjects. All of them.
Anyway... wow. I'd forgotten how big a douche Love was. Poor Harmony. What's the incarnation of cooperation to do?
OHHH SHIIIITTT!! Why did you have to drag me back? I just recovered all my feels from the previous story so I hope this one wont be depressing, But still i gotta read up as to how Love ends up marrying Shining Armour...
Why is love such a dick? I don't remember this, also what timeline does this follow and when is this happening?
I thought chaos(Discord) was a spirit like form that is out of his stone form? Can anyone hear him?
I gotta know how sombra ends up imprisoned in the end
Didn't stop at the architecture, you mean? Because the architecture looks pretty crystal-y to me.
Roulette, or roulette. Somehow I think you meant to say something else in that first half, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it was.
Okay, wow, I did not expect you to actually come back with a sequel, and you've definitely hit the ground running; this is great stuff! Love the bickering spirits, and how absurdly irresponsible Love is being with his body(again), though it's rather confusing to have everyone(and the narrator) refer to him as a him when his body is currently female. Any particular reason for that, or for why Sombra didn't apparently take notice?
1907852
It's because Love, the spirit, is male, while Cadence the pony identity is female. Whenever Discord is going to make fun of Love, he'll refer to him as his brother and a guy. For all the other narrative, he'll be Cadence and a female.
If all this is confusing, then it's just going to make a lot of the jokes later on more relatable.
Lumpy Moon Princess
Was that a 'Lumpy Space Princess' reference? Because if it was, then I love you.
1945990
Then I love you too, affectionate stranger.
Because of this story and the last one every time i see Twilights brother
I just burst out laughing
poor dude he married a dude in a mares body
I'm happy that you're still making these, though Love seems like even more of a jerk than before. Poor Crystals.
MIND CONTROL!!!
Humph. If it's not permanent... better not happen again, Cadence.
And yes.