When the Crystal Heart shatters seemingly out of nowhere, the Mane Six are ready to face the horrendous she-demon that emerges from inside it...only for said she-demon to immediately surrender.
The Crystal Heart has been broken, and the ancient evil imprisoned inside has been released from the crystal prison, surely to wreak vengeance on those who had imprisoned her. The Mane Six are right on the scene and prepared for an inevitable fight to defend their homeland and loved ones.
Only for Luxure, the goddess of lust who was trapped in the heart, to give up almost instantly.
Very bewildered, the Mane Six question the supposedly evil goddess why she would do this.
Kind of my attempt at a deconstruction of typical MLP villain ambition and behavior. Also considered my return to trying to write as I've been out of it for a while.
Alternate Universe tag obviously for the inclusion of an OC, and the fact that "The Crystalling" doesn't happen in this continuity. Sex tag for minor sex jokes and implications.
“Hurry, we need to get to the center of the Empire NOW!” Twilight yelled behind her to her friends as she flied as fast as she could towards the center of the Crystal Empire. The remaining members of Twilight’s circle of friends followed suit and tried to keep up the pace, though Rainbow Dash was possibly the only one capable of doing so.
“C’mon we gotta move! Cadance wants us there on the double!” Rainbow also yelled to the others.
“G-Goodness, did she even say what’s happening? It sound awfully urgent.” Fluttershy asked in nervous anticipation for whatever was to come.
Twilight quickly nodded in her panicked state. “There’s something wrong with the Crystal Heart, she said it’s c-cracking! Without the heart’s protection, the Empire could be engulfed in snow from the Frozen North and…” Twilight gulped a little. “She said there was something else that could just make things a lot worse in there.”
Pinkie tilted her head. “By worse do you mean total planetary disaster oooor-“ Pinkie was cut off immediately after
“I don’t even want to think about that; I just know it’s BAD!” Twilight yelled out.
“Well, whatever it is that’s gonna come outta this, Ah’m positive we’ll come out of it alright as long as we keep ourselves level-headed.” Applejack added.
“I agree dear, panicking will do none of us any good. After all, even if this does turn out to be quite a bad situation for Equestria, how much worse could things get? We’ve defeated Nightmare Moon, King Sombra, Queen Chrysalis, the list goes on. What else could possibly be left? There can’t be THAT many intensely powerful creatures left at this point right?” Rarity asked
Twilight took a few deep breathes as she continued to fly. “Well for all our sakes, I really hope you’re right….y-yeah we’ll be okay, I’m sure!” she said, trying to keep a smile despite the grim possibilities that lied ahead.
“There’s the optimism we all know and love! C’mon, we got an empire to save!” Rainbow said, smirking and zooming ahead. At the center of town, a huge crowd of the resident Crystal Ponies had formed around the heart, which was blocked off by yellow tape. Just as Cadance had informed them, the Crystal Heart did indeed have a slight crack in it. The Alicorn princess in question was at the front of the crowd, trying to appease them and keep them calm. For whatever reason, she also held a large, pink book with an emblem of the Crystal Heart emblazoned on it.
“Now everypony, I ask that you please keep your distance from the heart at this time please! It’s very, very unstable right now!” Cadance shouted to the Crystal Ponies, resulting in quite a few nervous murmurs from them.
“O-Oh no this sounds bad.” One of them said quietly.
“I-Is Sombra coming back? P-Please tell me Sombra’s not coming back” Another one stuttered.
Not wanting to waste any time, and wanting to get a full brief on the situation at hoof, Twilight quickly approached her sister in-law, followed by her friends. “Cadance, what’s going on? Why is the Crystal Heart cracking all of sudden?” Twilight asked, eager for an answer.
Cadence put a hoof to her chest and took a deep breath before letting it out and extending her hoof out. “I have an explanation for that. Unfortunately, I believe the spell that keeps certain…things from escaping the confines of the Heart is wearing thin.”
Twilight’s eyebrow raised slightly. “Things? What’s in there that could possibly cause any harm? The Crystal Heart is an artifact of pure love and positivity isn’t it?”
“Yeah! Enough love and happiness to keep evil shadow beasties and snowstorms at bay! What could be in there that’s BAD?” Pinkie asked with her usual high levels of energy.
“Exactly what I was getting to.” Cadance replied, putting down the book she was holding and slowly opened it. “A long time ago-“
“Aaaand there it is.” Rainbow Dash added in quickly before Cadance continued.
Cadance had a slightly annoyed look on her face for being interrupted, but easily shrugged those feelings off and opened the book to a page depicting minimalist-looking illustrations of the Crystal Empire and it’s resident ponies. “A long time ago, before even the time of King Sombra, there was another plague to the Crystal Empire that threatened its times of peace. By making the Crystal Ponies slaves in a slightly more…indirect way than you would think.” Cadance said, turning the page to the next one, revealing an illustration of a pink Crystal Earth Pony with a dark purple mane and a cutie mark that depicted a heart having an arrow being jabbed through it. As indicated by the pony’s slender figure and bright blue, enchanting, half-lidded eyes, she was obviously quite an attractive one. Her smile though, was not a genuine one. The way it was formed in combination with her eyes made that much clear.
“Ooh she’s pretty.” Pinkie said, peeking over her friend’s shoulders to get a good look at the book.
“Indeed she is. That is part of what makes this particular mare incredibly dangerous.” Cadance replied, skipping over to the next page, which showed the same mare, only now with a pair of dark green, dragon-like eyes and her smile widening a little to show quite a few pairs of sharpened teeth.
“Oh dear. So she must have been this “plague” then. Who WAS she though?” Rarity asked curiously.
“Her name was Luxure. The Goddess of Lust, as the Crystal Ponies called her.” Cadance answered, turning the page again, showing the mare now known as Luxure, striking an enchanting pose and giving a sultry look to a stallion in front of her, whose eyes were now glowing pink. Behind said stallion though was a crying mare.
“Luxure would use her looks in combination with her magic to lure ponies away from their loved ones and ultimately do her bidding. Some couples that were affected by her deceit never fully recovered. It was an endless cycle of betrayal and misery whenever it came to her.” Cadance said, sighing sadly as she turned to the next page which depicted Luxure floating above an ensuing battle with Equestria’s royal guard, and her new minions who seemed content with fighting to the death to keep her safe. Luxure herself had an incredibly devilish and sinister smile and was rubbing her hooves together as she watched the carnage below her.
“O-Oh my goodness that’s horrible!” Fluttershy gasped.
“It’s not enough that she would lure ponies from their loved ones, but then used them as hollow shells for battle?! Absolutely horrendous!” Rarity shouted in disgust.
“However-“ Cadance continued with a straight face. “Princess Amore of the Crystal Empire managed to conjure a spell that would keep her sealed inside the Crystal Heart, the ultimate source of love and positivity in Equestria. It is the only place where her seductive enchantress magic is useless.” Cadance turned to the final page in the book, which showed Princess Amore, a very tall and regal-looking unicorn, casting a spell on the Crystal Heart. Inside the heart was a very tiny, and very livid Luxure, who appeared to be banging on the crystal from the inside.
Twilight remembered reading about Princess Amore alright. Unicorn princess of the Crystal Empire a very long time ago but was eventually shattered by Sombra when he came to power. Definitely not one of the happier things she’s read.
“So the spell’s weakened after all this time huh? And you need us to fight off this freaky Goddess of Lust chick?” Rainbow asked.
“Only until I can seal the heart and put her back inside it. As long as the heart doesn’t completely shatter it will keep the blizzards at bay, but cracks are a different story when it comes to Luxure.” Cadance said turning back towards the heart. “Maybe if I can just…” Cadance lit up her horn and fired some magic on the heart, causing a cluster of crystals to grow where the crack on the heart was growing. At first they seemed to hold steady, but after about fifteen seconds or so, the crystals shattered. “Rgh. I was afraid of that. I haven’t found a strong enough spell to seal the cracks. She’s going to come out any moment now!”
“Don’t worry your highness. We deal with nasties like this all the time, we can handle it.” Applejack nodded confidently.
“Yeah, we can buy you enough time to seal her back in!” Pinkie cheered optimistically.
Cadance took a deep breath and smiled a little. “I can’t thank you enough. Now ready yourselves, she’s coming out.”
The entire audience of ponies looked onward at the heart as the crack grew ever so slightly. After a couple of seconds, a dark pink smoke began to leak out of it and cover the ground. It was so dark and thick that nopony present could see their own hooves through it. The Mane Six crouched down into their fighting stances, those that could use magic in their group, beginning to light up their horns.
“Alright girls. We’re dealing with a mare with incredible powers of manipulation and deceit. Don’t fall for any of her tricks.” Twilight said with the upmost seriousness.
“Mah mind’s a steel trap sugarcube. Ah’ll be good.” Applejack replied.
“U-Um….mine too.” Fluttershy said meekly.
Once a lot more smoke accumulated, it began to form the shape of a pony slightly off the ground. The top portion of the smoke-pony seemed to open a pair of glowing green eyes that weren’t there before. This sight made the mares shiver slightly, but remain firm in their stance, ready to battle whatever horror emerged from the smoke.
When the smoke cleared though, what they DIDN’T expect to find was this. The mare that emerged from the smoke was indeed Luxure, no mistake about that. She was still quite curvaceous and alluring in her form, but her face is what put the Mane Six off. Her hair was incredibly messy and sticking out in every which direction, and she had deep, dark bags under her eyes. Complementing those was a deep frown.
“….Uh….You sure we have the right Crystal Heart? That does NOT look like the face of somepony who could make ponies betray their kingdom.” Rainbow whispered to Twilight, earning confused faces from both of them.
Luxure’s bitter frown deepened and she rolled her eyes. “Oh excuse me for not looking my best after being stuck in there for as long as I have. I can’t just poof up makeup when I don’t have access to my magic in there. I mean, I’d love it if my life was just ‘I’m too sexy’ on repeat forever but it’s not that simple.” she growled a little. Luxure’s eyes glowed a slight tinge of green. With a quick flash of white light, Luxure’s hair was fixed and made into long curves near the end of it. The bags under her eyes had disappeared, and she now had light purple eyeshadow on.
Poofing up a mirror, she took a good look at herself in it. “Mmm. Better.” She said, nodding in content.
While still quite baffled by the way Luxure currently carried herself, the ponies before her still resolved to fight if need be.
“Luxure, you may have managed to escape the Crystal Heart, but we’re gonna make sure that’s as far as it gets! We’ll never let your evil ambitions come to be!” Twilight shouted at her.
Luxure stopped staring at herself for a moment to actually get a good look at the ponies around her. All of them were giving her stern, determined looks. Eyes narrowed, nostrils flared. The Crystal Ponies remembered her alright. And the pink alicorn princess was a new addition that she’d been aware of for far too long.
And then she looked at the six that looked really prepared to take her down.
That’s when she simply shrugged.
“Okay.” She said simply.
“Yeah, we’re not gonna let you hurt anypon-…wait, what?” Pinkie Pie asked.
“I said okay. What, you need me to spell it out for you? Maybe write it in the sky with clouds or some stupid crap?” Luxure asked, getting a little irritated.
Cadance was among the bewildered in this case and she quickly shook her head. “Wait, are you just…giving up? But you just escaped!”
“Yep. It’s just not worth it.” Luxure replied, putting her hooves up.
The Mane Six all stared at her for several seconds in shock. This had never happened before. None of the foes they’d faced has simply given up straight away. It didn’t make any logical sense for them to do so. This usually went with villain escaping from X, villain tries to take over Equestria for X reasons, they would beat them in the end by using X magic.
What was this?
“N-No no no, this has to be a trick. You’re just trying to get in our heads, why else would you do this?!” Twilight shouted in confusion.
“I’m not. I know you six, and I know I can’t beat you. If I’d escaped like, two years ago maybe I’d be more motivated and I’d probably be going full tyrant mode right now. But since you six are in the picture? Nope, I’m done.” She replied, trying to keep a straight face.
“Wait, you know us? How?” Fluttershy asked softly, being very careful not to anger her.
“The Crystal Heart might be magic proof, but sound proof? Uh-uh. The Crystal Ponies talk about you all the time and how you’ve beaten every major threat that’s come your way. Before then, I was absolutely pissed for over a thousand years, really eager for the day I could get out and rip Princess Amore a new asshole. Sadly Sombra beat me to it. After that I’d just resolved to taking over Equestria with a new army I’d eventually form using pony’s temptations against them.” Luxure let out a long, deep sigh.
The Mane Six all looked at each other with confused looks. “Aaaand you all of a sudden don’t want to do that now becaaaause…?” Rarity asked, stretching out her question.
Luxure growled a little in annoyance. “Don’t you get it? Have you not figured it out by now after beating so many baddies no matter the odds? We’re in a situation where villainy has absolutely zero chance of ever winning. I might not’ve realized that when I was young and stupid but I do now. When I heard that you beat Nightmare Moon I thought ‘Okay, beginner’s luck, big whoop.’ Then I heard about Discord and thought ‘Okay that’s slightly discouraging.’ By the time I found out the king of evil and darkness himself could be beat by a frickin’ baby dragon, I realized any chances I had of winning were deader than shit.”
"You found out about Sombra's defeat LAST? How? The heart that you were inside of was used to make him explode." Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow.
Luxure shrugged again. "I was taking a nap at the time."
"But it fell from a really tall tower and was thrown around practically everywhere!" Cadance added, raising her voice a bit.
"There isn't really much to do in the endless, soul-crushing darkness that is the inside of the Crystal Heart besides sleep. I've had PLENTY of practice to become a REALLY talented heavy sleeper...and I might've taken up on lucid dreaming from time to time, interpret that however you want." Luxure shook her head a little bit. "Big emphasis on the soul-crushing portion though. The way I see it, I in no way benefit from playing the bad guy."
“You…don’t even want to try? I mean, come on there’s no way you have no motivation to at least make an attempt.” Rainbow said.
“Rainbow, you realize you’re encouraging a super villain to try and take over Equestria.” Twilight looked at Rainbow with a deadpanned expression.
“I’m just saying.” Rainbow shrugged.
Luxure shook her head. “Knowing what I do now about this world, if I actively tried to make an attempt to be villainous again I would just be making a jackass out of myself and you. I know I’m not going to win in the end, so what’s the point?” she asked with a slightly depressive tone to her voice. “Just put me back in the heart, or in the dungeon or whatever, I don’t really care anymore.”
The girls all looked at each other again with slightly concerned faces now. Twilight motioned Cadance to come closer, and she obliged. They all huddled together and whispered quietly.
“I did say to not trust anything she says but…I’d think if she really cared enough to try and hurt us she would’ve done it by now.” Twilight said.
“She’s literally asking to be imprisoned again after she just got out. If that doesn’t scream lack of motivation I don’t know what does.” Rarity added, ears folding a little.
“Ah can tell when a pony’s lyin’ and she actually seems pretty legit about this. Though Ah can’t really tell if that’s a good or bad thing.” Applejack said, looking over her shoulder at Luxure, who had a half-lidded, tired expression while she stared at them.
“She reaaaally doesn’t look mean, happy, cocky or anything. She just looks…really, really sad.” Pinkie said, frowning.
“Yeah but she’s…ya know, technically still evil. But she’s not really doing anything so…do we just put her on parole or something? This is confusing, we’ve never had a villain just flat out give up.” Rainbow said, scratching her head. “…Kinda lame too, I really wanted a good fight.”
Cadance also looked back at Luxure, whose expression hasn’t changed. “Well…she did serve her time already. And she really doesn’t seem to have much villainous ambition now….I’m not sure, I expected her to be a raging magic beast when she escaped, not have her spirit broken.”
“Well um, I could take her in until we figure out what else to do with her. Just…if she’s as alluring as your book says she is, I really don’t want to wake up with her in my bed.” Fluttershy said, blushing a little.
“Fluttershy be honest, you’re probably the first one out of us that WOULD want that. Don’t kid yourself.” Rainbow replied, deadpanning at her. Fluttershy’s blush deepened a little and she covererd her face with her wings.
“I-I’ll just t-tell her then.” Fluttershy broke out of the huddle and trotted slowly over to Luxure. “U-Um…M-Miss Luxure. We’ve decided that we’re not going to imprison you in the Crystal Heart again.”
“Why? What reason could you have to not do it? You beat the bad guy and it’s made into a stained glass window in Canterlot, isn’t that how this works?” Luxure asked with a slightly more bitter expression.
“W-Well um…” Fluttershy looked away nervously. “Usually y-yes but…you’re a special case. You really don’t look like you have the motivation to do any harm so…do you want to come with me? We could try to be friends…maybe I could help you figure out what to do with yourself?”
Luxure raised an eyebrow. “…..You just want to sleep with me don’t y-“
She didn’t get the chance to finish as she was interrupted by the sound of Fluttershy’s high pitched and frustrated yelling. “NO! NOW DO YOU WANT TO COME WITH ME OR NOT?!?”
Luxure flinched a little bit in discomfort. This was supposed to be the cuddly and nice one? “…Fine jeez…I guess when the alternative is really uncomfortable crystal as opposed to a warm bed, my choice should be obvious.”
Fluttershy calmed down and smiled. “That’s good. Just promise not to cause any world-ending catastrophes and we won’t have any problems. Okay?
Luxure’s eyes flashed green for a fraction of a second before nodding. “Very well…also, you. The blue one. Turn around.”
Rainbow looked at her in confusion for a moment before doing as she asked. When she did, Rainbow noticed right away that her tail was gone. “Hey what the-“ Rainbow turned back around to see Luxure wearing Rainbow’s tail like a scarf around her neck.
“I happen to think rainbow is a good color on me, what do you think?” She asked, fluffing it up a little.
Cadance narrows her eyes. “I thought we agreed that you’d-“ Luxure put a hoof to Cadance’s lips and spoke in front of her.
“I said I didn’t have motivation to be evil anymore. And I meant it. There’s no way it’d benefit me knowing what I do now…I never said anything about being nice though.” She replied, with the slight presence of a smirk coming on.
“Come on now Rosemary, you don’t want to keep me waiting do you?” the tall and slender pink unicorn princess called out with a warm smile as she waited at the entrance to the Crystal Faire, where the festivities and sounds of happy, cheering ponies could be heard from miles away. Not far behind said crystal unicorn princess was a small, pink, crystal earth pony filly with purple hair and a lack of a cutie mark.
“NO NO I DON’T YOUR HIGHNESS PLEASE WAIT!” the filly squeaked loudly as she galloped towards her as fast as her short legs could carry her. Incidentally this, along with a lack of attention, caused her to trip over a crack in the path and she fell over flat on her face, only inches from the princess’ hooves. “Owieeeee.” The filly groaned in pain.
Understandably, the princess was quite distressed by this. “Oh dear, Rosemary are you okay? You aren’t hurt are you?” she asked, quickly helping the filly stand on all fours again.
Rosemary was obviously shaken by this, as she looked to be quite dizzy after the accident and she had a small crack growing on her cheek. “Princess Amore it huuurts.” Rosemary whined in addition to a pained whimper.
“Oh you poor thing, hold still honey.” Amore’s horn lit up with magic and in turn, the injured area on Amore’s cheek glowed with the same magic. After a few seconds, the injury closed itself up and completely healed as if it had never happened. “Feel better now?” Amore asked softly.
Rosemary looked down at her healed cheek and back up to Amore with a smile. “Mhm! Thank you Princess! I’m so sorry if me hurting myself was inconvenience to you.”
Amore gently petted Rosemary’s head. “Oh hush now, don’t you go worrying so much about me when you’re the one that was hurt. I’m just happy that you’re alright. Do try not to panic so much and be more careful okay? Today is a day for fun!”
Rosemary’s face blushed red in embarrassment. “Okay Princess, I can try. I’m just nervous.”
“I know dear, I know. Big crowds can be frightening. But you need to do things outside having your face buried in your books. I know you want to impress me but gracious, have some fun once in a while. You are quite young after all, you have plenty of time to grow.” Amore said to her with a warm smile.
“Oh, oh! I wanna be a princess like yo-” Rosemary caught herself before she went on any further. “…Ehe, a Crystal Earth Pony princess, wouldn’t that be something?” She asked with a sheepish smile, a bead of sweat forming on her brow from her slight anxiety.
Amore giggled a little. “It could happen. Whatever you do, I’m sure you’ll be wonderful at it. Now come on, I saw a ring toss game up ahead that looks your speed. And it has a stuffed rabbit with your name on it!~”
Rosemary’s ears perked up a little at that. “You have my attention your majesty.”
Luxure laid back comfortably in the bright gold sky-carriage she sat in, a pair of sunglasses covering her eyes and a wad of bubblegum in her mouth as she stared out ahead of her, not bothering giving her attention to anything else. She absentmindedly took a deep breath and blew a bubble with her gum which grew to a decent size before it popped and splattered on her face.
Not seeming to care, she peeled the wad off her face and dropped it onto the ground miles below the carriage.
Fluttershy, who was hoisting the carriage with the assistance of Rainbow Dash, looked at her passenger. “Are you enjoying the ride so far?” She asked with a warm smile, though obviously a tired one from having to carry this heavy carriage.
“It’s acceptable.” Luxure retorted, not taking her eyes off the path ahead.
Rainbow Dash however, was not taking to this as well as Fluttershy was. “Rrgh. Remind me again why we’re carrying you when you can take the train like the others?” She growled a little in irritation.
“Public transportation is for heathens.” Luxure replied in a way that made it seem like she was deadly serious.
“And what about your magic? Can’t you just teleport, wouldn’t that be easier?” Rainbow asked again, deadpanning.
“Too easy. Wouldn’t get to see the sights. I assume a lot’s changed outside the Crystal Empire over my imprisonment.” Luxure said, making a glass of cider appear in her hooves with her magic and proceeding to drink out of it. “Besides, your frustration at having to go through the Frozen North was amusing to me. You mortal ponies are so sensitive with your frostbite and your hypothermia.”
Rainbow’s anger grew even more at that. “Oooh you want frustration do you? I’ll give you frustratio-“ Rainbow Dash was halted by Fluttershy’s hoof on her shoulder.
“Now Rainbow, please don’t go picking fights with Luxure. We don’t want her getting upset with us already. Poor thing probably feels awful enough as it is.” Fluttershy asked softly of her friend.
Rainbow let out a quiet but aggravated grunt. “Rgh, I don’t know about this Flutters. I’m not a hundred percent on it, but I think if she actually WANTED to change, she wouldn’t be treating us like basically nothing.”
Fluttershy frowned a little. “I know Rainbow. I don’t really approve of her attitude myself. That’s what I’m hoping to help her with. Even then though, I can still understand where she’s coming from. Admit it, you would probably feel just as bad if, for example, the universe always set you up to fail at getting into the Wonderbolts.”
The uncomfortable thought of her dreams of becoming a Wonderbolt being crushed because the world was set completely against her gave Rainbow a tight and uneasy feeling in her stomach. “Okay yeah that really does sound bad.” She mumbled slightly nervously.
“You see? So it would probably help if you didn’t try to get into fights with Luxu-“ Fluttershy suddenly stopped when she took a small glance at Luxure behind her, only to see she had already gone through about sixteen glasses of cider in the time her and Rainbow started talking. On top of that, she was drinking an additional one in her hoof. “Um, I don’t think drinking that much cider is good for you. Maybe you should stop now.” She suggested
Luxure rolled her eyes with an annoyed frown on her face. “If I ask you to use your head would that be asking too much? I’m filled with powerful magic, I think I can live down a little cider.” She replied as she immediately took another sip.
The splitting and unfamiliar pain now present in the Goddess of Lust’s head was nearly too much for her to bear as she stood up from her restless and uncomfortable sleep; the latter probably due to her having been sleeping on a coach that for some reason smelled of carrots and cat urine. “Rgh. My heaaaaad.” She whined. When she gathered the strength to open her eyes she looked up to see an unamused Fluttershy sitting on her haunches and looking down at her.
“Now Luxure, you’re at home with me now, don’t try getting up. What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked, holding her unapproving expression.
“Ggh, not so loud.” Luxure mumbled, rubbing her temples. “Uhhh lemme think. We were on the way to your town, your friend was being an annoying cunt, you told me not to drink so much and…ooh.” Luxure put a hoof to her face and groaned.
“Luxure you drank sixteen glasses of cider and blacked out after one sip of number seventeen. You kept mumbling unintelligibly and yelling at just about everything. You even snatched one of the birds out of the air and started licking it.” Fluttershy said, shivering a little at recounting the event.
Following that statement, Luxure conjured a bottle of mouthwash and swished it in her mouth before opening a window and spitting it out. “BLECH! I actually would have liked to NOT know what I do when I’m drunk thank you!”
“Ooh, I’m sorry I just thought I should let you know.” Fluttershy shook her head. “Listen, today your reformation starts so I was hoping the two of us could get to know each other a little better before we try to help you with other ponies.”
Luxure waved her hoof at her dismissively, the other hoof being on her forehead. “Rgh, yeah yeah whatever. Just let my hangover go away first. I didn’t even know I could get those before now.”
Fluttershy put on a smile. “Alright. I’ll try to be quiet so I don’t disturb you.” Fluttershy said as she trotted into another room to give Luxure a little privacy.
Now knowing that Fluttershy was gone, Luxure laid back on Fluttershy’s sofa, still cringing at the stench of the cat pee on it. Trying her best to ignore it, she instead took her attention to the ceiling and stared at it, trying to escape into her own thoughts and perhaps make some sense of her situation.
If she was to always fail, could this supposed reformation even succeed? Probably not. Then again, she’d heard about what had happened regarding others like her that were swayed to the “side of righteousness, harmony and friendship” but one thought regarding the matter was eating at her.
Was this REALLY meant to help her? Or did the ponies that sought to change her only do it for THEIR benefit and not hers? She had a really difficult time buying that anypony would legitimately want to be her friend, of all ponies. After all, the history books had surely made her out to be a completely merciless monster.
Luxure shook her head. “You’ve had too long to think Luxure, just let your head heal.” She said as she made an incredibly thick book appear out of thin air and opened it. “Well when invasive thoughts come knocking, it means it’s time for distraction.” She said to herself as she looked at the words on the page. Unfortunately due to her massive hangover, everything in it turned out as complete gibberish to her.
Annoyed at this, Luxure angrily shut the book and crossed her forelegs, pouting. “Everything sucks.” She grumbled.
“You have any fours?” Luxure asked Fluttershy, sitting across from her and staring at the cards she had floating in her magic.
Fluttershy giggled a little. “Go fish” she replied.
Luxure groaned in annoyance and picked another card from the pile in front of them. “Did I do something to piss off the powers that be who are in charge of ‘Go Fish’, because I don’t think I would wish these accursed cards on even my worst enemy.” She pouted grouchily.
“You’re just having a bit of bad luck, that’s all.” Fluttershy said reassuringly. She diverted her attention to Angel who was down at her side, holding cards of his own. “Now Angel, do you have any twos?” she asked him. This earned her a grumpy nod from him, causing him to fork over a card to Fluttershy.
“Remind me again why I’m playing cards with a rabbit? Aren’t they, you know, too stupid for this?” she asked. This resulted in Angel loudly and angrily squeaking and throwing his entire hand of cards in Luxure’s face before stomping off to fester in his rage. “Ooooh you are so lucky I’m basically on probation you little cotton ball.” She growled, eyes slightly glowing the familiar shade of green.
“Luxure that was very rude of you! I’ll have you know Angel is very intelligent!” Fluttershy raised her voice slightly in a scolding manner.
“He’ll get over it. I didn’t even know rabbits where capable of being offended in the first place, throw me a bone here.” She said, using her magic to summon another glass of cider and drank from it.
“And quit it with the alcohol for a minute please! Did you not learn anything from last time?!” Fluttershy shouted again.
“No. Just keep me in the dark on my drunken escapades and I’ll be golden.” Luxure said, continuing to drink it before Fluttershy swiped the alcohol out of her hooves. “Hey, that’s mine!” Luxure shouted in anger.
Fluttershy, having a stern demeanor about her, took a deep breath. “Getting yourself as drunk as you possibly can won’t keep those bad thoughts at bay forever. I’m supposed to be helping you change for the better, I can’t just watch you do this to yourself!”
Luxure growled in frustration. “You don’t get it, so quit pretending like you do. If you were in my horseshoes you’d be doing the same thing. But I’m sure no mortal pony can understand my situation, not really. None of the GOOD ponies anyway.”
Fluttershy stayed silent for a moment, the tension in the words coming from her new “friend” . If Luxure was going to succeed in changing herself then she’d need to talk to ponies that can actually understand the terrible realization that she’d had while imprisoned. Ponies that even while having that same realization, were able to change and be happy in spite of it. That unfortunately was not something Fluttershy could provide for her on her own.
Though she did have a pretty good idea about what could be done about that.
“I think I should have you talk to a couple of ponies that might be able to give you some different perspectives on problems like yours. They should be meeting together today at Twilight’s castle. Maybe you could join in their discussion? Might be good for you.” she asked.
Luxure’s eyes narrowed. “That depends on a lot of things. Are any of said overly obnoxious, annoying, aggravating, or all of the above?”
“Um…those all mean the same thing.” Fluttershy replied.
Luxure lightly snorted a bit of hot air out of her nostrils, a sign of her impatience with Fluttershy. “Answer the question damn you.”
Fluttershy nervously rubbed the back of her neck, still hesitating to answer her. “Weeeeeeeell…”
“PFFFAAHAHA! WHO SURRENDERS THE SECOND THEY ESCAPE?!?!” Discord chortled, tightly holding his own stomach and gasping for breath from his laughter.
Twilight, who was sitting across the meeting room table in her castle face made a grimace at the sight of this. “Discord, how can you find something like this funny?...actually no, no don’t answer that. I don’t know why I should be surprised.”
In Twilight’s castle, the meeting herself and Discord attended consisted of a few ponies that had been known to cause a lot of trouble for Equestria in the past but have since made attempts at changing their ways. In the long run, Twilight thought it would be good to have them come together and discuss their problems. Those in attendance were Discord (Who had still not stopped laughing), Sunset Shimmer, who had come from the human world temporarily; Starlight Glimmer, and Princess Luna. Directly at Twilight’s side was Princess Celestia to help her oversee the whole thing.
“I’m quite sure we are relieved that Luxure has agreed to not cause any harm. No question about that. But from the way you’ve described her Twilight, it sounds like she is a very troubled mare.” Celestia said, looking down at her former student at her side.
“I don’t think I’ve heard of a case quite like this. She says that the good will always triumph over the evil, and yet that depresses her?” Luna asked with a questioning tone to her voice.
Twilight nodded slowly. “You could say that. I can tell she was once a mare of ambition, and using that drive unfortunately to do bad things. But said ambitions have been foiled for her to the point where she can’t be bothered anymore. You really should have seen the look on her face when she first came out of the Crystal Heart. Her depression seemed almost contagious. But if it’s one thing I’ve learned in my studies, it’s that no one is beyond change. And if she does, everyone will be all the happier.” Twilight said, gently patting Starlight Glimmer on the back.
Starlight smiled a little at her teacher and nodded. “Besides, no way she could have done things worse than the rest of us...especially me” she said, her smile slightly faltering a little.
Sunset Shimmer frowned a little bit at that. “Starlight, we’ve all talked about this. It’s not a competition to see who’s done the most damage, this is a time for healing.”
“Buuuut if I did have to cast my vote on who’s the biggest sociopath, Starlight maaaaay just take the cake. Congratulations! ” Discord snickered a little, snapping his fingers and putting an oversized crown on Starlight’s head that was so big to the point it covered her eyes.
Starlight took a deep breath of frustration. “I really shouldn’t be proud of this.”
“Not really no. Buuut you may be right by saying this new mare couldn’t be worse than the rest of us.” Discord replied with confidence.
“OOoh ya don’t think so do ya, ya misshapen bastahd?” The voice of Luxure emanated from the mare herself’s mouth as she trotted in, stumbling over her own hooves and talking with incredibly slurred language. Not far behind was Fluttershy, with an ever nervous look on her face.
“I-I’m so sorry everypony. S-She drank herself silly on the way here, I-I couldn’t stop her.” Fluttershy whimpered.
Everyone in the room stared at Luxure in shock, Discord, who had a tendency to not be surprised easily included. “Oh my…I didn’t think there existed a pony that could actually swear until now. I believe I can die happy now.” Discord now wore a huge, ear to ear grin.
Completely ignoring that comment, the very intoxicated lust goddess used her magic to float up in the air right in front of Discord’s face. “Ya think I ain’t the most evil bitch alive do ya? Youuuu got noooo idea how terrible I am.” Luxure slightly growled, her speech barely comprehendible. This didn’t faze Discord much, considering the sight of a former villain acting almost just as immature as himself was really relieving and hilarious at the same time.
Everypony in the room awkwardly looked at each other, all of them thinking the same thing. This was the goddess of lust that staged the hostile takeover of the Crystal Empire before the time of Sombra? At that moment, she proceeded to try and teleport her way into an empty seat, but just missed it by a couple of feet and ended up falling right on her rump. “Oooowiieeeee.” She whined.
Twilight took a very deep breath and tried to calm her nerves. “Discord, can you please do us all a favor and use your powers to sober her up? I don’t think any of us want her to be doing this drunk.”
“But it’s so funny just watching her try to stand up, just look!” Discord said gesturing to Luxure attempting in vain to get off her flank. Occasionally she also stumbled into one of the nearby crystal walls as well.
“Discord please, she’s never going to get better if we can’t talk to her coherently.” Twilight added. “Not to mention with the amount of magic she has, her being intoxicated is not a good thing if we want to keep Ponyville from being turned to dust.”
“Oh fine your highness.” Discord grumbled and pouted a little before snapping his fingers. A blue light encircled Luxure’s head. Somehow this made her vision refocus and her body overcome the effects of the vast amounts of alcohol she’d ingested.
Luxure quickly shook her head to compose herself. “Ugh. I didn’t say anything I’d regret later did I?” She asked, looking at the other ponies in the room, all of them responding by shaking their heads.
“You DID say something along the lines of you being the most evil bitch alive though.” Sunset replied with a frown of concern. “I get that you’re still in the early stages of your reformation. A low sense of self-worth usually comes with it when you’re first starting out. Believe me, I know.”
Luxure snorted a little bit, crossing her forelegs. “And who are you to say you know anything about me miss ‘prom queen from hell?’”
Seeing the hurt expression on Sunset’s face, as well as the somewhat angered look on Celestia’s at her former student being addressed as such, Fluttershy chimed in before things could get any more out of hoof. “Please have some courtesy with them. They’re in the same boat as you. Maybe if you share your feelings with ponies you can relate to, it’ll help you feel better.” Fluttershy spoke softly to Luxure in an attempt to get her to be less rude.
“She’s right you know. We’re trying to help ourselves get better, and that includes you too.” Starlight added, attempting a smile.
Luxure inhaled deeply to help herself calm down. “You wanna know my feelings do you? Well I’ve had waaaay too much time to dwell on those and trust me, you’re not gonna like them.”
“If we are to make any progress, it is important that you be honest with us.” Luna replied.
“Well if you insist on putting it that way, then allow me. I FEEL that the majority of you are dumb pieces of shit for trying the villain shtick.” Luxure said with confidence, her nose turned up to the rest of them, the tension in the room all of a sudden growing to unmeasurable levels.
“…Dear me, that was just plain mean.” Discord said, scratching his chin with a shocked expression on his face.
“Luxure, that’s not what Luna meant!” Twilight said, somewhat panicking and really hoping to diffuse the situation.
“No no, I’m gonna speak my mind here. This has been a long time coming, and I think I’ll start to lose brain cells if I keep it in. Look, knowing what I do when it comes to villainy, the way I see it, any reason any of you could have had to make the shit choices you did are void. Except for maybe Discord, he just kind of did because he can.” Luxure said in a scolding tone and pointing to everyone in the room who had at one point been villainous.
Discord, still somewhat surprised, only folded his arms. “I can neither confirm, nor deny that last part.”
Luna was now visibly irritated. “My feelings of inferiority and jealousy, Starlight losing her friend, and many others…you imply that none of that even matters?” she said in a low and unsettling tone in her voice.
“I’m not implying anything. I’m TELLING you it doesn’t. You’re victims of a formula. Good triumphs over evil every time, no exceptions. Not here. If any of you were smart you’d bottle your feelings up and NOT face certain humiliation and defeat. Because in the long run, it’s not worth the effort.” Luxure growled a little, trying to look just about anywhere now but the group.
“Well, if our feelings are so incredibly worthless, that would mean yours don’t hold meaning either. It won’t mean anything to you if you explain why you did anything you did right?” Sunset asked her, desperately hoping to get some information out of her about why she would think this way.
For several seconds, no one in the room spoke a word. Everyone expected Luxure to talk but it seemed like she never would. All she did was sit there in silence and look at everyone else. She looked like she was feeling some combination of uneasiness and anger.
After she felt that this had gone on for too long, she still said nothing but stood up out of her seat. “Sorry, but we all wasted our time here. Mostly mine. Hope you’re proud of yourselves for making me feel stupid.” She said a she quickly trotted out of the castle.
“Oooh no no, Luxure wait!” Fluttershy shouted, chasing her out the door, leaving everyone else in shock. Everyone in their mind tried to contemplate what just happened, and if any of it was their fault to begin with.
“It’s worse than I thought Twilight. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but certainly not that.” Celestia said with a sigh.
“I know. I’m sorry everypony. She’s really not in a good place right now, but she really should not have talked to you like that.” Twilight said with her ears folded to the side of her head.
Sunset closed her eyes and shook her head. “I understand Twilight. It’s obvious she’s not ready to talk about herself; she kept trying to keep the topic off her.”
“It…really hurt…but I guess I can see where she’s coming from too.” Starlight added.
Luna, however, didn’t even seem to notice that Twilight spoke to her. She just looked down at the floor in complete and utter disbelief at what she’d heard from Luxure only moments ago. “How dare she…my feelings don’t matter…” she mumbled quietly to herself.
Discord, not saying much of anything either only watched at how everyone else had reacted to Luxure’s sudden leave. He couldn’t help but smirk a little to the point where nopony could see.
‘Oh that poor mare. I remember when I’d thought the same way. But, I suppose that’s the price of self-realization after all. Don’t have many other options but to join the heroic effort at the point of realization I’m afraid.’ He thought to himself. ‘But happiness is subjective I guess. One pony’s dream could be another pony’s nightmare.’
“Stop following me Fluttershy!” Luxure yelled to the yellow Pegasus behind her that she’d been trying to lose for the past half hour. She didn’t let up on her even for a second ever since she removed herself from Twilight’s castle and the unsettling thought of having to discuss her feelings. It was starting to really wear a toll on her nerves.
“You know I can’t do that!” Fluttershy shouted back to her in a frustrated manner. Clearly Fluttershy was getting sick of having to try and force meaningful conversation with her. If she didn’t get through to Luxure, bad things would surely come out of it for Equestria and Luxure herself. She didn’t want to think about the specifics.
Luxure finally decided to stop and turn to Fluttershy and confront her directly on this. It was clear she wasn’t going anywhere so her options were slim. “Why not? Why the hell is knowing me so important? Better yet, why are you doing any of this at all? What’s your endgame here?” she asked.
Finally relieved she’d caught up to her, Fluttershy let out a slight sigh of relief. “I want to help you be better. I want you to be happy; we all do. You want that too right?”
“IS that what you want? Or do all of you just want to get on my good side because I’m really powerful? Maybe reforming villains is like stamp collecting to you or something. How many real villains are even left?” Luxure asked.
Fluttershy thought to herself for a moment about this. They had managed to reform a lot of major threats to Equestria lately. “Well…Tirek’s locked up in Tartarus, we think Sombra might be dead, and Queen Chrysalis is still out there somewhere.”
Luxure’s ears perked up a little bit at the mention of some of those names. “Hey hey wait…I knew you guys beat Sombra but really? Dead? As in...” Luxure ran a hoof across her throat with a questioning expression
Fluttershy rubbed the back of her neck. “He might have um…exploded when the Crystal Heart was used.”
Luxure was in awe at this revelation, and her mind couldn’t bring her to do anything else but blink for the next couple of seconds. “Wow. You girls ARE the good guys right?” she asked before shaking her head. “Oh whatever. The point is that do you REALLY give a shit about my feelings because I have a really hard time believing that.”
Fluttershy gently put one of her hooves on Luxure’s shoulder. “You underestimate a pony’s capacity for good Luxure. I really do care. Whether you choose to believe that or not won't change that.”
The lust goddess let those words sink in. She didn’t think anypony in the world could be this sickeningly nice. Not since…
She quickly shook her head again to clear her head. “Alright. You got me. I’ll talk.” Before Fluttershy could open her mouth again though, Luxure covered it with her hoof to keep her quiet. This obviously earned a confused look from her. “Not here. I need to be somewhere where I’m comfortable.” She answered, taking her hoof off Fluttershy’s mouth.
“Oh I understand. Do you have any place in mind?”
“Whyyyyyyy” Fluttershy mumbled quietly to Luxure as they stepped into the local bar. The place was filled with mostly burly stallions chugging down as much alcohol as possible, and a couple of single mares doing much of the same (the most notable being Berry Punch who looked to have already passed out).
“You want me to talk? Then we do this on my terms. My feelings, my rules. Otherwise you and your friends can all collectively kiss my polished crystal ass.” Luxure said with a slight huff. “Besides, I haven’t had a drinking buddy since…ever now that I think about it.”
“Wait you expect me to drink with you? I reaaaally don't think that's a good idea. I’ve never really drank anything stronger than Applejack’s cider. Plus I d-don’t think I have the bits for th-“ Fluttershy was cut off by Luxure’s loud, annoyed groaning.
“Uggggh should have expected this kind of behavior from you. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. Let me handle this.” She said as she trotted over to the counter and sat down in one of the stools, Fluttershy nervously following suit. Once they were in place, Luxure motioned the bartender over to them.
“Excuse me, I’m afraid my friend and I left our bits at home by accident. You don’t mind right?~” Luxure asked, putting on the subtlest of flirtatious smiles, with a pair of half-lidded eyes added in for effect, along with a voice that was dripping with fake despair and seduction.
Having not turned around yet, the bartender groaned a little. “Lady, you can’t be serious right now. You want drinks, you pay like everyone el-“ he suddenly stopped midsentence though when he turned around and laid eyes on Luxure. She made sure that the bartender locked eyes with her, which is when both pairs of eyes glowed with a slight light-green tinge. The difference though was that while Luxure had a confident smirk on her face, the bartender’s mouth had dropped open almost completely. The sight of this sent a shiver down Fluttershy’s back.
“Come on, help a girl out. Pleaaaase?” Luxure asked, drawing her question out and fluttering her eyelashes a couple of times. After that, the bartender blinked a couple of times, the green tinge now gone from his eyes.
“Ooh yeah not a problem…what can I get you?” He asked with a now somewhat dazed look about him.
“Good boy.” Luxure replied, patting him on his head as if he were simply a dog. “Scotch. Both of us. Now” she said quickly, to which the bartender silently obeyed and got her and Fluttershy their drinks.
Fluttershy, holding the glass of scotch in her hooves, was somewhat horrified at what just transpired. “W-What…what just…”
“I’m the lust goddess for a reason. I might be absolutely rotten but being as drop-dead gorgeous as me kind of balances things out.” Luxure said with her confident smirk returning and proceeded to take a sip of her drink. Her eyes drifted to Fluttershy as she saw that she hadn’t drank any of her own scotch yet. “You know it kind of defeats the purpose of going to a bar if you don’t drink.”
Fluttershy nervously rubbed her arms a little. “Weren’t we here so you could speak your mind to me?” she asked.
Luxure looked like she was going to retort, having slightly opened her mouth and raising her hoof before thinking it over for a second or two. She then lowered her hoof back to her side. “Okay fair point, I’ll give you that one. Still, I don’t want to be alone in this, throw me a bone here.”
With a quiet sigh, Fluttershy took a sip of her scotch. Immediately she recoiled from the strong, burning sensation in her throat that it caused and she gagged a little. “O-Oh gosh.” She mumbled in between gags.
Luxure could only roll her eyes at this. “You know you’re in for a real bad time if you can’t even handle this.”
“N-No no, I got it!” Fluttershy said with determination in her eyes before quickly downing the rest of her glass and slamming it on the table. “My throat is on fire Luxure. Talk. Now.” She said, narrowing her eyes at the lust goddess.
“Congratulations, you’ve graduated from beta-mare to slightly-less-beta-mare. Alright, what do you want to hear from me? Be specific, you know I’m tricky like that.” Luxure replied in a somewhat chastising tone and resting one of her forelegs on the counter.
“Well, I’ve heard all about how you think villainy is a pointless road to take because of inevitable failure. I can see why you would believe that. But you also talk about yourself like you’ve done the worst out of all the others. Aside from…what the book told us, can you tell me if there’s any of those I need to know? Or do you just believe your own hype that much? All cards on the table.” Fluttershy said, giving Luxure a calm but hardened look.
Luxure twirled her hoof around a little. “Eeeeh let me see…ruled as the Crystal Empire’s evil queen for a while, that one’s a given. Probably ruined a LOT of marriages before that; goddess of lust you know how it is. Aaaand…promise you won’t freak out from this last one?” Luxure asked.
Fluttershy confidently nodded. “I promise.”
With that confirmation, Luxure took a deep breath. “Alright…when I was ruling the Crystal Empire, a big swarm of those disgusting changelings showed up and tried to overthrow me. ‘You’re sucking out all the love!’ they said. ‘Lust can’t feed us!’ they said.”
Fluttershy thought about this. She’d only known about the changelings that invaded Canterlot when Shining Armor and Cadance were getting married. From the way they seemed to feed off of love, it would make sense that someone like Luxure ruling the empire would be very counterproductive to their needs. It’d only make sense they’d want her out.
Luxure took another swig at her drink before continuing. “So they invaded. Tried to out me and put their queen in power. Ugh, Chitin that bitch. My brainwashed army took on her own, but the dumbass came right for me herself. Lemme tell you, she really wasn’t much to look at. Changeling upper-body, spider lower-body. Blech. Take the disgust you'd get from seeing a spider and crank it up to eleven.”
Fluttershy frowned a little and took a sip of her own drink as well. 'I happen to LIKE spiders' she thought, quite annoyed. Throat still burned, but she’d live. “And she didn’t succeed did she?”
Luxure seemed very dismissive at this. “Pff, what do you think? She tried. She tried her damndest I could tell you that. She put up a good fight. Real good. Even went as far as to give me that whole speech of ‘I will protect my subjects!’ and ‘Your reign is over, sorceress!’ blah blah blah. Celestia’s errand-girl’s given it before, I know.” Another swig of alcohol was poured down Luxure’s throat.
“Unfortunately she made the mistake of not collecting enough love to power herself up to challenge me. Really sloppy and reckless of her to underestimate me like that. I managed to overpower her. When she was down on the ground, too hurt to get up, she begged for mercy for her and her hive. Well she picked the wrong day to invade. My milk had gone sour that morning and I twisted my hoof getting out of bed. I was willing to put up with a LOT of shit that day, but an invasion was not one of them. What I said next I think cemented me as a one of the worst villains ever and ensured me a life of eternal damnation buuuut it was badass.”
Fluttershy’s ears fold a little at that. “What did you tell her?”
Luxure cleared her throat a little before putting on the most serious face she could, sporting a deep and angry frown. “I told her in these exact words in the most cold voice you could imagine, ‘If I see your ungodly disgusting species step hoof in my kingdom again, all eight of your legs are going down your throat. THAT will be the least of your troubles.’…it was something to that effect but probably more old-timey sounding. The details don’t matter. What did matter was that that scared them all off real quick, and my ‘tyranny’ I guess you could call it, went on…until Amore inevitably crashed the party.” Luxure growled bitterly and tightened her grip on her glass at the mention of the crystal unicorn princess.
Fluttershy at this point was horrifically mortified. Luxure’s time as rule of the empire sounded like it was a terrible time to live. Ponies only willing to serve her and give her attention, couples and family being split apart, even changelings being terrified of her. Fluttershy knew there was good in her, but given the severity of what she’d done, and her very unremorseful attitude towards her acts, this would be more of a challenge than she’d anticipated. “I’m…wow, I don’t know what to say. That’s quite a story.” She said. “But, you know they only wanted you out because they were hungry. You could have negotiated, maybe.”
“Need I remind you that they invaded me? If they didn’t think about the possibility of failure and the consequences, that’s on them. I put an unbelievable amount of effort into getting my kingdom, and I wasn’t going to let those things ruin it for me. Though it didn’t matter in the end because Amore ruined it later anyway buuuut I was living in the moment.” Luxure replied with that familiar grimace coming back to her face.
“You keep bringing up Princess Amore. You talk about her like how Nightmare Moon would talk about Celestia. How she ‘ruined everything.’ What are you not telling me about you and her?” Fluttershy asked quickly, hoping to uncover even more about why Amore kept coming up when Luxure spoke.
Luxure exhaled deeply at the question “That’s a whole other ball game Fluttershy, I hated her even before she imprisoned me. You wonder why I kept asking you if you wanted to reform me for my gain or your own? Well I’m going to say that I don’t like having my feelings played with. I made a lot of dumb mistakes myself by choosing the villainy road in the first place, but if I had to say why I’ve done what I’ve done, it’s because of her. Not that my feelings matter now, because you know. The world’s formulaic and I sealed my fate a long time ago. That can't be helped.” She growled a bit before taking yet another swig at her drink. “Now do you want the long or short version?”
Mentally preparing herself for what was to come, Fluttershy downed her entire glass of scotch in one go. “I have time. The long version please.”
Taking a moment to gather her thoughts, Luxure took a deep exhale and prepared for what was surely to be a long conversation. “Well, if you want everything, I’ll start with the first thing I’m able to remember. Everything before this eludes me. Everything but the god-awful, unforgiving cold of the Frozen North,” she said with a somber look in her eyes as she stared down into the glass of alcohol before her.
The only color that occupied the Frozen North surrounding the Crystal Empire was white. Nothing else as far as the eye could see. Aside from the unending blizzard that occupied it, it was also for the most part motionless. If the sheer size and temperature of the area wasn’t enough to scare ponies away from it, the lack of another living soul until reaching the Crystal Empire sure was.
Nevertheless, this day there was someone present among the bitter snowstorm. Huddled inside a small hole made in a pile of snow, curled up in a desperate attempt to keep warm, was a small and pink crystal earth pony filly. Covering her head and providing only some semblance of warmth in the harsh weather was a dark purple mane, accompanied by a tail on her rump of the same color.
Even with her having said mane and tail though, they did little to shield the filly from the blisteringly cold snow. It was to the point where it nearly felt like it was burning her crystal body, causing her to shiver and eliciting quiet and pained whimpers from her mouth. She hesitated to cry from it, as she feared if she were to do so then the tears would freeze her eyes shut. It did not stop her from venting her frustrations in different ways, however.
“AAAAAH!” she wailed, making sure to keep herself from tearing up. She hoped against hope that maybe someone, anyone would hear her. She’d been in this unfamiliar place for what felt like hours, days even. That, and the pain accompanying being covered in snow terrified her. For all she knew there wasn’t a pony in sight that would come to her rescue, and she would surely die in that burrow.
As much pain she was in, and as afraid as she was, the little pink crystal filly refused to submit to the wrath of the blizzard.
It seemed that her persistence had paid off, as in the distance she could hear something. Someone. Voices. There was someone else out of her line of sight. “Over there! It’s coming from over there!” the voice made the filly’s ears perk up and she wailed even louder to get their attention.
“Help me! Please!” she shouted as loud as loud as her small lungs could manage. Her efforts were rewarded with the sound of several hooves hitting the snow-coated ground, and seconds afterwards the snow around her being melted by magic. She looked up to see the faces of her rescuers, only to find that their faces were covered by black masks to protect them from the blizzard. Among the party that had dug her out were what looked to be several crystal stallions of various races wearing crystalized armor in addition to their face masks. The only exception was the very tall, and clearly female crystal unicorn with a pale vermilion coat and a raspberry colored mane. When the filly managed to make out more details, she could see that the mare had some kind of regal attire emblazoned with hearts as well as a blue crystal crown.
The mare knelt down to the filly’s eye level so she would not be more afraid than she already was. “Little one, are you alright?” the mare asked.
Still shivering, the filly answered. “I-I’m f-freezing. Please, help. I d-don’t like it,” She whimpered, stuttering a little. She couldn’t tell, but she almost guessed that behind the mask she was wearing, the mare smiled at her.
The mare picked her up in one of her forelegs and cradled her close to her chest. “We need to get you warm immediately. Your whole body has gone cold,” the mare said, making sure to keep her close for warmth. “Back to the castle on the double soldiers.” The stallions all nodded in response to this and turned right back around, the mare following suit.
“W-Where are we going?” the filly asked quietly.
By the tone of her voice, the filly could only guess that the mare was a little confused by this question since she couldn’t see her face through the face protective mask. “You’re a crystal pony and you don’t know the Crystal Empire?” the mare asked. “That’s very unusual. May I ask where you come from then?”
The filly answered nothing but instead kept staring at her intently, a small frown coming onto her face. It didn’t take long for the mare to get the message. “Oh…I see. In that case, you will come home with me. I’ll make sure you’re nice and rested.”
This all sounded well and good to the filly. She’d actually get to stay somewhere warm for once, a castle no less. This pony seemed quite nice too. “U-Um…who are you?” the filly asked.
The mare giggled a little behind her mask. “Just call me Amore honey.”
“It sounds like you two met on really good terms,” Fluttershy said after Luxure explained her meeting with Princess Amore.
“That’s almost ALWAYS how these kinds of things start. Of course we didn’t start out as bitter enemies when we locked eyes or whatever. Shit didn’t hit the fan until much later,” Luxure replied, followed by her downing an entire shot.
A little disturbed by this, Fluttershy couldn’t help but cringe. “You’re REALLY dreading this aren’t you?”
“You don’t have a clue,” Luxure said, clearing her throat of the burning sensation. “But anyway, I didn’t have much to tell her about. No parents, no home, no cutie mark, not even a name. Knowing all of that, Amore gave me a name herself. I absolutely revile that name now, but I can’t deny it was a part of me once.”
“And that would beeee…?” Fluttershy asked.
After a few seconds of hesitance, Luxure groaned a little and gave her answer. “She named me Rosemary. A name I’d love to forget about altogether.”
Curled up by the fire in one of the many bedrooms of the Crystal Empire’s castle, Rosemary felt much better compared to earlier. The mug of hot chocolate in her hooves helped a lot as well. Whenever it graced her mouth, it felt a little bit painful from it being as hot as it was, but delicious all the same. It was a good trade off as opposed to being painfully cold. She was still sniffling a little bit, but she would live.
In addition to all of this, she’d been completely wrapped up in a blanket that was much too big for her. Not that she was complaining, it was the comfiest she’d ever been from what was available in her memories.
Amore stepped into the room, sans cold protecting mask, and laid down on her stomach next to Rosemary. “Are you feeling better Rosemary?” she asked with a warm and inviting smile.
Rosemary nodded in response with a wide smile. “Mmhm. I’ve still got the sniffles but I’ll be okay. Thank you very much princess,” she answered with cheerful glee as she took another sip of her hot chocolate.
“I’m glad to hear you’re recovering. You do look like you’re enjoying yourself here,” Amore said. “You don’t mind if I talk to you for a moment do you? I’d like to clear some things up with you.”
Rosemary tilted her head a little. “Huh? Like what?”
Amore cleared her throat. “Well for starters, do you know how my guards and myself managed to find you out there in the snow?”
Unsure of where Amore was going with this, Rosemary dug herself deeper into her blanket and contemplated this question. Putting on the most serious thinking face she could muster, she came to what should have been the obvious conclusion. “Ummmm…my crying right? I was crying pretty loud.”
Amore only patted Rosemary’s head. “Well, that certainly helped but not exactly what I mean. You see Rosemary, one of my scouts picked up a very strong magical energy coming from the Frozen North. It was unlike anything we’ve seen from any unicorn capable of magic thus far. It’s much more powerful and at the time was very unstable. Imagine how we felt when we set out and realized the magic was all coming right from you,” she answered, gently poking Rosemary’s nose with a hoof, causing her muzzle to scrunch up a little.
This baffled the young crystal filly to no end. “Huh? But I’m not a unicorn. I don’t have magic.”
Amore giggled a little. “That is where you are wrong Rosemary. All ponies have magic of some kind. It just manifests itself differently in Pegasi and Earth Ponies than it does with Unicorns. From the kind of magic that you give off though, you are a special case.”
Rosemary looked down at the ground, trying to comprehend this. “I-I’m sorry I really don’t understand th-…th-…o-oh gosh, here comes the sneezes,” she said stuttering a little in between breaths. “A-A-ACHOO!” Rosemary sneezed fiercly and loudly. After she opened her eyes from doing so however, she saw that the result of her sneezing wasn’t snot or boogers. Instead, her sneezing had caused small, purple crystals to grow out of the floor of the room and shine brilliantly in the light coming through the window.
To say the least, Rosemary was floored by this revelation. “W-Wha…b-but h-how did I-”
Amore giggled again, her theory having been confirmed. “Gesundheit,” she said.
For a moment, Rosemary could only sit there in her blanket and stare at the crystals she had created. Not even once for the next several minutes did she so much as blink. “I-I really am magic...but…how? This goes against nature!” Rosemary exclaimed.
“Well now you know what I was thinking when I found out about you. I’m not sure where you received your powers Rosemary, but I know it is the source of the strongest magic that I’ve ever seen in a pony. If you allow me to study you and help you learn to channel your magic, I’m positive you could do wondrous things with it,” Amore said, slightly petting the young filly’s head.
Rosemary’s ears twitched from the petting and she hummed a little in satisfaction. “Mmm…what kinds of things?” she asked.
“My dear filly, if an Earth Pony can control magic the way you can, I’m sure nothing is out of the realm of possibility,” Amore replied with that same kind smile.
“So, she taught me how to control my powers. By my teen years I’d already surpassed every documented unicorn magician at the time,” Luxure stated as she summoned an orb of magenta-colored fire in the middle of her hooves. She then proceeded to use it to light her alcohol aflame and chug it down as if it were nothing.
“O-Oh goodness that’s quite an accomplishment,” Fluttershy said in a shocked response to both Luxure’s magical feat, and the downing of a flaming shot. “Um…doesn’t that hurt your mouth?”
“The pain is unreal, yes,” Luxure said in an uncaring voice as flames were shown to still be present and dancing around in her mouth. “Anywho, things were looking up for me for a while. Little did naïve teenage Rosemary know, it was aaaaall downhill from there.”
“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.
“Years passed. Many more refusals from Amore about my requests to be a princess came after that. Of course, she continued to try and teach me humility and not to be that uncaring and reckless again. She NEVER forgot about that incident with the Minotaurs. I hadn’t used that sort of magic for a long time after, and she was still horrified that I’d relapse at any minute.” Luxure said with a bitter eye roll.
“B-But um, didn’t you?” Fluttershy pointed out while wincing a little bit.
Luxure paused for a moment of reflection, her expression changing every few seconds. From surprised, to attempting to offer a rebuttal but stopping, to finally looking down in resignation. “…You’ve got me on that one. I guess she did have a pretty good reason to fear me,”
Fluttershy shook her head. “No no no, you’ve got it all wrong! She couldn’t have been scared of you! She was scared FOR you! I may not have known her myself, but what I do know from what you’ve told me is that she cared about you so much, and she didn’t want to see you make a big mistake like that!”
Luxure’s ears drooped slightly. Of course she’d thought about this over her imprisonment plenty, but she’d always chalked that up as her being too optimistic. Who wouldn’t be terrified of someone like her? At the same time, who wouldn’t be terrified of seeing someone they considered their own child ruin her life? Hearing someone else say that to her face made her begin to think that maybe she actually was right. “…Nevertheless, to say our relationship wasn’t what it once was would be an understatement,”
RRRRR. RRRRR.
With a groan of annoyance at being awoken, Rosemary rolled over in her soft and warm bed and looked over at the nightstand at her side. On it was a framed picture of Amore, an oil lamp to keep her room illuminated if she were reading, and a bright pink crystal that was fashioned into a necklace. This particular necklace had been what woke her up due to the bright flashing pink light coming from it and its nonstop vibrating.
Barely processing what was happening, Rosemary repeatedly tried to tap her hoof on it, only to miss her mark several times. At last after several seconds she managed to land her hoof on the crystal necklace, and in response to this, the crystal glowed much brighter and emitted a small beam of pink light which contorted itself into a real-time image of Amore looking back at her.
“Rosemary. Are you awake?” the magical hologram of her mother asked her.
“With how loud the holo-gem is, how could I not be?” Rosemary mumbled with a tinge of hostility toward her mother. “Alright, out with it, what do you want?”
“I hate to bother you this early, believe me I do, but this is very urgent,” Amore said, taking a deep breath, appearing to be very stressed out. “From your studies, how much do you know about dragons?”
“Hmm,” Rosemary thought to herself about this and adjusted her frown as she thought. “Not much is available to me about them. I know they eat gems and are greedy assholes but that’s about the extent of my knowledge,”
Amore sighed a little at this. “That is what I was afraid of. At least you are aware of their diet. Listen to me Rosemary. I ask you this because there is a monumental threat to our kingdom residing in the mountains,” As Amore said this, her hologram head moved to the side and beside her showed another hologram, this one spinning slightly, of the snow-covered mountains of the Frozen North.
“I don’t even need to take three guesses as to what’s up there,” Rosemary replied, looking at the hologram closely as it zoomed in on a cave in one of the higher points of the mountains.
“I’m afraid so. It’s a newly discovered species as well. Invulnerable to the cold unlike others, and has magical breath that can freeze anything. An ice dragon. It took several guards that were out on patrol of the north this morning. There isn’t much a dragon would want a pony with a crystal body for, except…” Amore did not want to finish her sentence.
Taking a moment to let this sink in, Rosemary’s eyes widened quite largely and she looked down at the ground in disbelief. The grotesque imagery that filled her head regarding what that dragon wanted with those crystal ponies made her shiver. Trying her best to compose herself, she shook her head and brought her attention back to Amore. “You realize that those ponies are most likely dead by now,” she responded.
Amore sighed and gave a sad nod. “It is most likely. If there is even a sliver of a chance that they are still alive though, then we must act. And we can’t allow this to happen again regardless. Our empire is not safe as long as this ice-dragon lurks here,” she replied, her ears folding back a little. “Listen to me, this is possibly one of the biggest threats to our empire yet so-“
“Yeah yeah, smack the lizard, save everypony I can, I know the drill. Talk to you when I get back,” Rosemary said with a groan, reaching her hoof toward the crystal to turn it off.
Seeing this, Amore tried to act quickly. “Wait wait, be careful! Dragons are resi-“ before Amore could get another word in, Rosemary had already tapped her hoof on the crystal, making the hologram retreat into the crystal and silencing Amore.
“Don’t get what she’s so worried about. I’ve faced worse, surely.” Rosemary said as she finally stood out of bed. As she did so, the crystal vibrated yet again with the same intensity as before. “UUUGH!” Rosemary exclaimed in disgust. Having had enough of this, she opened her bedroom window and quickly tossed it out of her sight.
“Hmph. Now without any interruptions maybe I can get something done about our little reptile problem.”
“Yaaaaa know, maybe I shouldn’ta’ thrown that crystal out,” Luxure said with her speech slurred slightly as all the drinks she had ingested were clearly taking a toll on her now. “Buuuuut me playin’ the tough girl wanted ta prove mahself, soooo I took it alone,”
“O-Oh?” Fluttershy’s face had begun to turn red and her eyes were having a little trouble keeping focus. At Luxure’s urging, she’d already drunk quite a bit in her time at the bar herself, and was definitely feeling the effects. “Did you at least beat the dragon?”
Luxure leaned back on her seat as far as she could go and looked up at the ceiling. “Weeeeeeell lemme tell ya. There was pain. Soooo much of it.”
The one thing Rosemary had actually dreaded when going to face the ice dragon was not the beast itself, but having to enter the Frozen North for the first time since she was a child. The awful memory she held of nearly freezing to death there immediately came rushing back to her the moment the snow hit her face. The cold was still just as harsh and unforgiving as she’d remembered, not a single thing had changed from the frozen wasteland in all those years.
She hated it. She hated every single step she took in this vile blizzard and every single snowflake that hit her face. Reliving the memory and the feeling of helplessness it brought her back then infuriated her to no end.
“Focus Rosemary. You’re not a filly anymore. You’re a grown mare. A grown mare with incredible magic power and no weakness!” she growled, gritting her teeth and trying to remain as pumped as she could. This was a big deal. If she did something as big as defeat a dragon, Amore would surely recognize her as her equal at last.
Prompting to keep her mind on her resolve instead, she trekked her way through the snow, using her magic the best she could to keep herself warm. Given the magical nature of the Frozen North’s unending blizzard though, it only helped so much. As expected, the path to the dragon’s cave was long, and given how everything in this horrid excuse for a land looked the same to Rosemary, repetitive.
Eventually, Rosemary made her way up the mountain that supposedly housed the great beast. The entrance was littered with gemstones growing from the ground, and decorating it was the heavily damaged armor that Rosemary immediately recognized as belonging to the members of the empire’s guard. Taking a few moments to stare intensely at the armor, she took a deep sigh, her breath visible in the cold air of the Frozen North. Not hesitating even at the disturbing sight, Rosemary trotted inside the cave, barely able to see even a few feet in front of her. Once she could hear the heavy snoring somewhere deeper in the cave of the dragon, she stopped and glared out into the darkness.
And she whistled, and the sound was amplified off of the cave’s walls, echoing throughout.
Knowing full well it would wake the dragon from its slumber, she truthfully wasn’t worried all that much. She had faced many a monster in her time, this wasn’t much new to her. Of course that’s not the way the Empire would see it, they’d lost several guards to this thing and feared plenty of the other threats she’d gone on to defeat.
After several seconds, what she expected to happen, happened. The ground beneath her hooves shook with each footstep the dragon took, slowly creeping out of the darkness toward her. Eventually it made its way enough into the light where she could see its features. Light blue and shining scales, enormous dark blue horns, and claws that looked to be even much bigger than herself. It stood on all fours and was barely able to fit in the cave it resided in even with its quadrupedal way of standing. The creature stared down at her for a moment before leaning its neck down and meeting the mare at eye level, snorting notably frigid air from its gigantic nostrils.
“I don’t take kindly to those that interrupt my power naps,” it growled in a distinctly deep male voice at her, baring its several rows of razor sharp teeth.
“And I don’t take kindly to brutes snorting in my face. Clearly we have a problem here,” Rosemary said to it, clearly unwavered by the size and appearance of the monster.
Unamused, the ice dragon narrowed its bone-chilling, slitted eyes at her. “You are the champion of the Crystal Empire aren’t you? You expect to face me without any weapons or armor? How foolish are you?”
“Oh yeah, a lot of good that did the guards you’ve eaten. I’ve beaten things like you under the same conditions before. Other ponies might see you as a big eldritch horror, but you’re not special to me. Get it? You’re on the same level as a purse snatcher for all I care. So let’s just make this easy for both of us with you leaving so I won’t make you my new pair of boots,” Rosemary said defiantly to the dragon. Very subtly so she was sure the dragon wouldn’t see, she put up an invisible barrier to absorb any blows the dragon would deal her. This was the part she enjoyed most if she ever fought. The look on her opponent’s face when they realize her magic is keeping her safe is always a rather priceless one.
The dragon only shook its head out this, making a ‘tsk’ sound. “That’s a shame. Your kind really is special to me…specifically…” before the dragon finished, its nostrils flared up with some kind of blue smoke coming from it as it smirked. “…That you’re delicious!” it roared as a stream of a bright blue mist erupted from its mouth straight at Rosemary, who didn’t move a muscle.
That is, she hadn’t expected for that mist to get past her shield.
It happened so fast that she almost didn’t know how to react. The ice breath of the dragon hit her skin at full force, and no amount of magic she could muster could keep her legs from freezing over with ice almost immediately. Her heart skipped a beat when she realized she wasn’t safe anymore.
‘What?!’ Rosemary screamed inwardly as her eyes darted downward to her frozen limbs, unable to move them. How could this have happened? That shield should have been impenetrable, nothing should have been able to dissolve it. Beginning to panic on the inside, she glared back up at the dragon, trying to seem as threatening as she could given her circumstances. “Oh you’ve made a big mistake you dumbass gator with wings!” she growled.
Not wasting a moment due to seeing how dire her situation could get now, her eyes glowed a bright yellow and shot beams of magic out at the beast. This was pure magic going straight for the ice dragon’s abdomen, this thing was toast.
Proving her situation even worse than she could have imagine, the beam of magic did not affect it at all and only faded out when they made contact. The dragon appeared to be unsurprised at this and it looked back down at its prey with a devilish smirk. “Ohoo my. You REALLY don’t know, do you? Your magic can’t hurt me,” it growled, releasing more of its ice breath on Rosemary; the ice beginning to creep up and engulf her body ever so slowly.
Rosemary would’ve been shaking in fear and rage if the ice were not present on her. ‘NO NO NO NO THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!’ she inwardly screamed again, continuing to fire magic from her eyes fruitlessly at the beast. As the ice covered her more and more, she could feel that very familiar and unpleasant feeling of cold come back from being frozen all over. Her desperate struggles to move against the ice was in vain and she could feel it begin to cover her face as well. The pain it was causing squeezed out a horrible scream of agony from her. “AAAAAAAAH!”
“Uuugh, why do they always scream? I prefer my food frozen and quiet, is this too much to ask?” the dragon didn’t let up on continuing to freeze the young mare as he spoke.
After a few moments of her screaming dying down, Rosemary just stood there, scared stiff. This cold was so much worse than anything the Frozen North could do to her. Though she was cold, it felt like her skin was burning. This monster was making her feel the worst pain she’d ever felt, but she felt helpless too. Gone was the unstoppable badass with no worthy adversary that she’d thought herself to be, and replaced with that same terrified little filly that Princess Amore found shivering in the snow. Without her magic, this is what she was reduced to.
‘…No’ the young mare thought, her teeth gritting behind the ice now covering her entire face. She was angry. No, beyond angry. Infuriated is the better word. This was not how she was going to go out; feeling like nothing but a helpless little kid again. ‘…No, no, NO DAMN IT!’
The dragon picked up the pony-shaped block of ice that the intruder had once stood and licked his lips. “Yummy,” he said as he opened his gaping maw and was fully prepared to toss her into it. Before he got the chance, he noticed the ice now had a few cracks in the area of the pony’s eyes that were growing ever bigger with every second. “Huh? What in the-“ he mumbled when he shut his mouth and tried to get a better look at it.
Only for the ice around the pony’s eyes to break completely. They were glowing an eerie shade of green that bounced off the crystals in the cave and lit it all up with the same shade. The dragon was quite startled by this and dropped the pony back on the ground, causing the rest of the ice to shatter and release her from its frozen grasp. She didn’t look afraid like she had before. She looked enraged. Her horrified screaming face had been afraid with the most angered frown the dragon had ever laid his eyes on.
With the pony directly into the eyes of the dragon, over time the dragon’s eyes turned green as well, his body slumping over and his jaw hanging open. It looked as if he was a corpse that was still standing upright and appeared void of any kind of thought of his own.
Not saying a word, the pony lifted her hooves into the air, and several crystals outside the base of the mountain grew upwards with it. She then pointed to the cliff outside of the cave in a commanding manner. The dragon did as his mind instructed him and walked out of the cave and out on to the edge of the cliff, his feet shaking the ground with every step.
Once the dragon was just perched on the edge of the cliff, the pony muttered only a single word, of which her voice had a deep, unpony echo to it.
“Die.”
And with that, the dragon fell to the ground below, nothing heard until he collided with the pointed crystals down below with a loud “SHRNK”
After seeing the beast fall to his certain death and staring out at the entrance to the cave, the pony quickly realized what just happened and shook her head to get herself together. “W-What did…” her eyes widened when she walked out of the cave and stared down at the carnage below. Not wanting to believe what she was seeing, she covered her mouth and shuffled her way back into the cave, taking several deep breaths as she sat against the wall. “O-Oh shit oh shit oh shit,” she mumbled and tried to get herself together.
She tried to reason with herself. That dragon had eaten several of the empire’s guards and was about to eat her too. He was only a menace that would have continued if she didn’t, it was self-defense.
But she used mind manipulation magic. Only this time she actually killed something with it. The dragon was totally helpless when it was under her control; she could have just forced it to leave. Her arms and legs were free. She didn’t have to do it.
All these thoughts raced through the young crystal mare’s head at this point. She couldn’t make them go away, she couldn’t reason with herself over this. The one indisputable thing in her mind that she knew is what hurt her the most. There was no way she could go back to the Crystal Empire now. Not like this. Amore already distrusted her enough as it stood. If this were to ever get out, Amore would…
“…No,” The pony said to herself. “No no no, this is wrong. I-I’m the one that protects this empire, if I hadn’t done that it would have just come back and eaten more of us. It’s not fair that I’m the only one that had to get my hooves dirty while MOTHER stays all squeaky clean and polished!” The pony growled and angrily kicked at the dirt beneath her hooves.
“I’m u-unclean” she said, staring down at her hooves. “Things have to change! I-I can’t fucking do this anymore mom!” She yelled with tears forming in her eyes, slamming one of her hooves against the wall of the cave. The walls shook in response and sent a few crystals to the ground. Her breath was getting much shallower now; she was still freezing cold from the ice she was encased in. Taking note of this, she quickly used her magic to summon a fire to keep herself warm.
As she warmed up and let her heart and lungs be a little more at ease, the young crystal pony was left to her own thoughts. Her mother, the empire, the dragon she’d just killed. Though this was the last thing on her mind, she knew she’d never be royalty after this. Amore would continue to send her on these missions to protect the empire until something potentially even more dangerous than an ice dragon came along. Then she’d kill that too. She didn’t want this. She couldn’t just stand by and let Amore keep doing this to her. After so many years of devoting her life to the princess and the empire’s ponies and Amore still not trusting her after all she’d done.
The crystal pony’s body tensed up and she gritted her teeth, the tears in her eyes flowing freely down her face now. She’d officially had enough.
“AAAAAAnd that my fine yellow feather friend is how the illusion was s-shattered,” Luxure remarked with a goofy smile on her face as her upper body swayed back and forth drunkenly on her barstool. “So what’d ya think B-Buttershy?”
When she looked at Fluttershy, she had an equally drunk and oblivious smile on her face, complete with half-lidded eyes. “Heh heeeeh, nice sthory Lux,” Fluttershy replied, tongue now hanging out.
“I know, might’ve never felt so alone even when in the heart, but makes a nice conversation riiight?” Luxure said, putting a foreleg around Fluttershy’s shoulder. “Sayyyy, waddya say we get just a few more drinks eh? Night’s still young, ya know?”
Fluttershy nodded her head with practically her entire body moving along with her, falling off the barstool, and landing flat on her face on the bar’s floor. The only words she could let out were a few low and drawn out groans.
“Ooh, we’re doing this now? M’kay,” Luxure said, intentionally doing the same. Both of them now drunkenly laying face down on the floor, Luxure raised her hoof to the sky in what looked like an act of enthusiasm. “To crippling depression!” she shouted.
“Yaaaaay…” Fluttershy mumbled, her speech being muffled by the floor.
The sound of all the crystal pony soldiers under her control outside the castle, fighting off the changeling invasion that had descended upon them annoyed Luxure horribly. Not helping was the groaning sound of the “spiderling” queen as she called it, groaning in pain as Luxure dragged her to the huge, dark ruby-colored doors of the castle. In her time as lust goddess and queen of the Crystal Empire, she’d felt a few aesthetic changes should be made to the castle to fit Luxure herself. The bright and colorful crystals all around the empire had been changed to much darker and sinister colors like reds and greens. Her favorite though, had to be the stained glass window she’d had installed above the castle entrance, depicting herself standing righteously above all the ponies under her control as she cast Amore out of her kingdom.
She wouldn’t deny it was beautiful, and probably her favorite thing she’d added in her time as ruler, but the thought of her mother…
She decided not to reflect on it and instead decided to focus on the task at hoof; getting Queen Chitin here to be quiet. “Do you ever shut up your highness? I get it, I broke all your legs, you don’t need to emphasize that any more than you already have,” she said, chastising the spiderling queen currently twitching as she was being dragged outside.
“Y-You…what kind of m-monster are you?” Chitin asked, tears forming in her eyes from the pain in all eight of her legs, bending at angles they should not be able to.
To that, Luxure let out a loud, hardy laugh that echoed off the crystal walls. “Ohoooohoo you’re joking. Two things you have to remember madame. One, I am a vision of beauty, obviously. Monsters are hideous, I should know, I have seen them,” Luxure replied, flipping her long, purple mane over her to the left side of her neck. “And two, YOU invaded ME remember? Surely you knew I wouldn’t go down without a fight,”
This response obviously enraged the queen, as shown by her clenched teeth and baring her fangs. “My subjects are starving! What you have done to this empire has left us with nothing! There is no love here!” she shouted.
Luxure’s uncaring expression didn’t change as the queen vented her anger at her. She did notice though that in her rage the queen had tried to summon magic from her horn to fire at her, but the spell fizzled out quickly. She must have been quite love starved. “Are you finished?” Luxure asked in a monotone voice.
Chitin stared up at her horn in horror as the spell she had tried to conjure fizzled out, along with the last hope of this invasion being a success. She turned her attention down to the floor, too ashamed and scared to meet Luxure’s icy gaze. “Please…if you have any decency left in your heart, spare us…”
Instead of answering directly, Luxure used her magic to open the doors to outside and kicked the Chitin down the palace stairs, injuring her back and abdomen on her way down. All of the battling Chitin’s hive and Luxure’s mind-controlled soldiers had been doing was halted when they laid eyes on the broken queen at the bottom of the stairs. The soldiers didn’t seem too phased by this, but the changelings were all horrified by the realization their queen had been defeated. Still alive for sure, but in no condition to continue the invasion. They all knew what this would surely mean for their hive.
“Not so eager to fight anymore, are you BUGS? I told you I would not stand for you parasites trying to overthrow me, and well here we are,” shouted over the crowd. She started down the stairs, glaring at all the changelings down below as the shadow she reflected loomed over them, causing some of them to back away in fear. As expected though, her hypnotized soldiers all stood straight up and saluted their goddess. “Your service is greatly appreciated gentlecolts. I will make sure you are…greatly rewarded,” she said with a devilish smirk and scratching one of the soldier’s chins with her hoof.
“Thank you your majesty!” They all said at the same time in a near robotic tone.
“Now then.” Luxure said, turning her attention back to the broken spiderling on the ground before her. “Today was fun, kind of. But now it is time for you to-“
“MOMMY!”
Luxure was shockingly cut off when the terrified, shrill voice of a child pierced everypony and everychangeling in the crowd’s ears, Chitin’s included as she managed to pick her head up and looked back at the source with a look of pure terror on her face. Barreling through the crowd and pushing everyone she could aside, was a young female hatchling changeling, surely no more than about six years old. Her eyes were different than the other changelings in the fact that she had those dragon-like pupils, in addition to her long green hair. When she caught sight of Chitin, she let out a sharp gasp and took her stand in front of her, growling at Luxure. “You leave my mommy alone!” she yelled, tiny green sparks erupting from her crooked horn in an attempt to appear intimidating.
Chitin looked as if she was panicking from this turn of events. “C-Chrysalis no! You’re not supposed to be here!” she yelled.
“I don’t wanna let this big bully hurt you anymore!” the young changeling now identified as Chrysalis shouted back, not taking her eyes off Luxure.
Laying eyes on this changeling princess gave Luxure an uneasy feeling at first, though she didn’t show it but instead wore an expression of annoyance. Not because she was afraid in the slightest, but because while this child’s body language, what with the shaking knees, clearly showed she was scared, she refused to back down from her. HER. An all-powerful lust goddess. She didn’t even know where to go from here, or what to make of it. This situation was a new one to her. Just looking at this young one reminded her of how she refused to die in the snow when she was young herself. Determined, but afraid, she was.
Not to be outdone, she kneeled down to the child’s eye-level, making Chrysalis bare her tiny fangs, but clearly more afraid than before. “You know who I am, correct?” Luxure asked.
“Y-You’re the witch that hurt my mamma!” she growled back stuttering a little.
Chitin, now more afraid for her daughter’s safety than ever, butted in. “L-Luxure please, she’s just a child, she knows not what she says,” she stammered hoping against hope to keep her appeased.
Luxure kept her eyes glued on Chrysalis and said nothing for several minutes. Eventually she simply stood back up and turned her back to the crowd. “…It would be best for you and your hive if you got out of my sight. Do so before I change my mind,” she said quietly. Not wanting to even look back to see if they understood, she teleported back into the castle, the doors shutting as she did so. When she was sure nopony would see her, Luxure rested her forehead on the castle doors, thinking long and hard about what had just transpired.
“I didn’t ask for this shit,” she told herself.
“Mmmph, again with this. When’re you going to stop being such a stupid piece of shit?” Luxure groaned to herself as Celestia’s morning sun arose her from her slumber. The thing she noticed right away was that she wasn’t in Fluttershy’s cottage like she expected to be. Instead when she looked up from the source of the sun, she saw she was outside instead, looking up through some kind of hole. The second thing that she noticed was that wherever she was horrible smelling and whatever she was laying on was unpleasantly slimy. “Haaaaang on. Processing, processing…I’m in a trash can.”
Luxure’s suspicions were confirmed when a pile of fresh garbage was thrown on top of her. Panicked at the suddenness of the situation and the awful smell strengthening with the fresh load, she gagged and tipped over the trash can that she’d slept overnight in, now laying on the ground outside of Sugarcube Corner. Not the best way to start her morning. Looking up, she saw the bewildered expression of Mrs. Cake, who had been the one to just take out the trash and was not expecting a lust goddess to fall out. This was surely a weird morning for her too.
“Um, Miss Luxure was it? What were you doing in my garbage?” she asked, shocked she had to even ask this question in her liftetime.
“Oooh stop the presses, beyond omega-level monster pony gets blackout drunk and wakes up in garbage can. Blame drunk me. Must’ve wanted me to be with my own kind or something,” Luxure said, rubbing her temples. Another night, another hangover. “Look you haven’t seen Fluttershy have you? She had to have been with me when I blacked out,”
Mrs. Cake shook her head. “No I’m afraid not. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any of her friends today either. Especially strange for Pinkie, Wednesday is pie day and she’s usually so ecstatic to start baking early,”
“If I wanted to know balloon-butt’s work ethic, I’d ask for it,” Luxure groaned. “Screw it, she’s probably just at home, as most shut-ins are,” Luxure said beginning to turn around to leave. ‘If my hangover’s this bad, I can’t even imagine how a lightweight like her is doing right now.’ She thought. Before she got the chance to though, Mrs. Cake stopped her with a hoof on her shoulder.
“Now hang on, hang on,” she said as she said as she galloped back inside the bakery, and came back moments later with a pie baked for the aforementioned ‘Pie day’. The alluring smell of cherry came emanated from it and hit Luxure hard in the nose, causing the slightest bit of drool to form in her mouth, against her will. “I can’t exactly let you go off without breakfast, can I?” Mrs. Cake said with a smile.
“Uhhhh…” Luxure just sat there for a moment taking this in. Who offers pie to some random pony that they found in their garbage can? Then again, she wasn’t just some random pony, it’s clear that Mrs. Cake knew her, and surely only knew the bad things. Was she doing this just to get in the good graces of someone as powerful as she was to save her own skin if the time came? No that couldn’t be it, not a smidge of fear was present on her face. “…Thank you?” she said, taking the pie, still looking baffled. “So how much do I owe you?”
Mrs. Cake shook her head, still keeping that smile. “Oh no no it’s alright just go on home and relax. Just take care of yourself, won’t you deary?” she replied before going back into the bakery, leaving Luxure with her jaw agape and in a state of shock. What she believed to be the true intention behind this just hit her like a pillowcase full of bricks.
‘That…was PITY. In its purest form. I was just looked down upon my some rando mare, are you serious right now?’ she angrily thought to herself. ‘Well no shit she pities you. Waking up in the trash isn’t the greatest first impression in the world. Gaaah.Know what? I’m too hungover for this right now. Screw it, pie for breakfast,’
Proceeding to take a bite out of the pie and walk back to Fluttershy’s cottage, her first immediate thought was how it was undoubtedly the best-tasting thing she’d had in a long time. It happened that cherry was her favorite flavor of pretty much anything. At the point where she was in total bliss from the fruit itself and the flavored-filling inside, she didn’t even care if this was given to her out of pity or not, she just knew it was better than anything she could conjure with her magic and was just happy to have it. That in itself was an almost alien feeling to her for the longest time.
That feeling changed to annoyance though when upon arriving at Fluttershy’s front door, she found she had eaten the entire thing on her walk home. “Oh damn it, you don’t have any self-control at all you stupid fatass. Keep that up and you’re gonna lose literally the ONLY THING left going for you,” she grumbled to herself. She’d have to make sure this didn’t happen again.
Trying to ignore that horrifying thought, she knocked on the door and awaited for Fluttershy to answer. Several seconds passed of pure silence. No such luck. Trying again, she added a shout to try and get Fluttershy’s attention. “Hey, c’mon open the door! I know your head hurts as bad as mine does right now. Stop ignoring me and open up or I knock twice as loud!” she yelled. Still no response, not even a yell back. After several seconds of even louder knocking without any success, a very cross Luxure finally decided to just phase through the door with her magic.
Upon entering, she realized something was wrong almost right away. No sign of Fluttershy anywhere, and the animals in her cottage all were just rolling around on the floor, shelves and tables holding their stomachs. It was clear that none of them had been fed today, hence the look of pain on a lot of their faces and them clutching their stomachs.
“Seriously? So hungover she can’t be bothered to feed her pets? Come on Fluttershy, you’re better than this.” She said, shaking her head. When she felt a tug on her leg, she looked down and saw that Angel was standing there, clearly impatient and hungry like the other animals. As soon as Luxure looked down at him, he pointed to a few of the other animals across the room, including things like birds, cats, snakes, and even a bear, all having that same, hungry look about them.
“Yeah I get it, you guys are hungry, what do you want me to-oooh,” Luxure stopped midsentence. She was seeming to be the only pony capable of feeding them at the moment since Fluttershy was still missing in action, and she did have magic on her side so surely it wouldn’t be too difficult.
But this was servant work, not for one such as herself. Why should she lower herself like this, it was ludicrous. She was going to voice her concerns but ceased to do so when she got a good look at all the animals giving her sad, puppy dog eyes. Even the bear was managing to tug at her heartstrings with that expression.
Fully realizing she can’t beat those eyes, she let out a long sigh and poofed up a bandana that wrapped around her forehead, as well as sanitary gloves around her hooves. Animal germs and fleas were an absolute no no. “Alright, alright, feeding time, just stop looking at me like that,”
It didn’t take long to get every animal well-fed, after all, Luxure’s magic was valuable in getting many of them food at the same time. The difficulty for her was figuring out what they actually ate. For most of them it was rather easy, but Angel especially, the little shit that he was in Luxure’s mind, was real picky. He’d ask her for one thing, she gave it to him, he tried it, decided he didn’t like it, kicked it right into her face, rinse repeat.
How Fluttershy got weighed down with such a little hellspawn and why she kept him around at all was a mystery, but he was Fluttershy’s hellspawn, not hers.
Eventually she managed to get him to eat through use of the most stone cold glare she could muster, and that left all the animals satisfied. After laying back on the couch, she sat there for several minutes just watching all the animals eat and impatiently waited for Fluttershy to show her face. As minutes turned into hours, Luxure grew more and more disgruntled. Surely she should have been home by now, hangover or not, this was annoying.
Still waiting, even at around noon, Luxure crossed her arms. “Fluttershy you are NOT doing this to me right now, come on.” She grumbled. Not even a second after she was done griping to herself, the door creaked open and it made her jump to her hooves. Anticipating Fluttershy to finally show her face today, she was rather confused when the pony she saw coming in, turned out not to be Fluttershy at all. Instead it was the orange hick, Applejack if she recalled right. Of course she did, no way would she forget any of their names after hearing them so many times.
“Ooh it’s just you.” Luxure said in a tone laced with annoyance and slight disappointment as she reclined back on the couch.
“Luxure? Yer still here?” Applejack asked, confused at her presence.
“Yeah, what’d you expect? I don’t really have anywhere to be. No job, no real responsibilities, don’t even gotta pay rent, why would I be anywhere else?” Luxure answered back.
“Ah uh, guess ah can’t say. Ah honestly just kinda expected ya to have bailed out by now,”
Annoyed by her assumptions, Luxure’s ears twitched slightly and her frown deepend. “Well I guess that’s a good sign that you don’t really know me,” Luxure said , poofing an already lit cigarette into her mouth. “What’re YOU doin’ here?”
Having looked around the room, seeing all the satisfied faces of the animals, Applejack answered. “Well ah was comin’ over to feed Fluttershy’s animals but uh…looks like you’ve got everythin’ taken care of,”
“Oh yes, that would bring me to my next question,” Luxure said, burning the cigarette out on her own forehead without even the slightest flinch. “Mind telling me why Fluttershy is taking her sweet time getting home? I don’t intend on holding down the fort here forever,”
At the mention of Fluttershy’s absence, Applejack’s ears folded. “Ya really didn’t hear, huh? Guess it’d explain why ya weren’t with us,”
The way Applejack’s voice sounded, soft and actually sounding pretty upset, caught Luxure’s true attention for the first time since Applejack had entered. She turned her head, meeting her eye-to-eye. “What, what are you talking about?” she asked, still annoyed she hadn’t given her a direct response.
“Luxure, don’t get cross with me, this is serious. Fluttershy’s been in the hospital since last night,” Applejack answered straight out.
With that revelation, Luxure felt like her heart dropped into her stomach. “Wait…what?”
“Alcohol poisonin’. Pinkie found her face down in a puddle outside the bar. Ah trust the doctors know what they’re doin’ but she looks awful right now,” Applejack said, taking off her hat and putting it to her chest, taking some deep breaths to try and calm her nerves. “Everyone else is at the hospital with her right now, ah only came back to check on things with her animals here. She’d want them to be okay above all else,”
All Luxure got for sure out of that sentence was “alcohol poisoning”, she had tuned out nearly everything else due to the loud, ringing sound that was coming from nowhere but her own head. It had to be, Applejack clearly couldn’t hear it. She’d come to realize it wasn’t even ringing at all, but a voice. Her own.
‘You did this. Fess up,’ It said.
‘No no no no, she’s a grown mare, she can make her own decisions. She had to have known what she was getting into,’ Luxure tried to reason with herself.
‘NOPONY knows what they’re getting into when they’re involved with you. Do you REALLY think Fluttershy would’ve done this without you pushing her to drink as much as she did? You are poison, and you know it,’ Her conscience replied
‘DAMN IT QUIET! The element of honesty is standing right in front of me and sooner or later she’s going to read my fac-‘
“Luxure? Shoot. You look like you’re takin’ this just as bad as the rest of us. Sorry ah jus’ didn’t expect ya to look so torn up with how jaded ya’ve been,” Applejack said with a look of concern on her face.
Luxure quickly shook her head and tried to save face. “U-Um…yeah. Listen, I’ll probably go to the hospital to see Fluttershy later. I’m just…not ready yet,”
Applejack gave her a solemn nod and gave her a pat on the shoulder. “We’ll be ready for ya sugarcube,” Applejack said as she turned around and left, shutting the door behind her.
For several minutes Luxure just stood there standing at the door, without words. What was she even supposed to say after that? That she was the reason that Fluttershy very nearly could’ve died? Not even she could tell somepony that to their face. And there was no way she could go to the hospital with that thought in the back of her mind. She was basically the one who put her there.
‘Applejack even called you ‘Sugarcube’ and you still can’t be a mare and admit what you’ve done. You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?’ her conscience chastised her again.
Choosing to try and ignore her inner-voice again, she looked around and saw that all the animals knew something was up with her. They all stared at her with equally concerned faces as Applejack’s. All those pairs of eyes on her grew to be too much, and she quickly ran to the bathroom and locked herself inside, sitting in the bathtub. In there, her breathing was growing rapid and shallow. She knew what she was going to do next, and she knew for sure it was going to be painful, but she just had to.
With her eyes glowing, a blast of green energy erupted from them and stuck onto the wall in the form of a spinning, green, circular window. Mumbling, the words almost not leaving her mouth, Luxure spoke to it. “Show me Fluttershy,”
The magical window obeyed her command, and the window opened up to show Fluttershy laying in a hospital bed on her side, groaning in what Luxure could only assume was pain. She’d never had alcohol poisoning herself but she knew it was lethal. Surrounding her bed were her friends, sans Applejack who must have not returned yet.
All of them were barely able to hold back tears, but they all reacted differently. Pinkie’s mane had gone completely flat, all of the pomf in it had left. Rarity’s mane was a frazzled mess, obviously having not slept whatsoever since arriving. Twilight was frantically looking through a book of spells in an attempt to find a way to make Fluttershy healthy again. There was something especially off-putting when Luxure saw Rainbow’s reaction to the situation. The tears in her eyes were still there like the others, but she looked really angry. More than Luxure ever expected a pony outside of herself could be.
‘She knows,’ Luxure thought to herself. ‘Somehow, she knows what really happened. She’s had a bad feeling about me since the beginning, of course she does,’
She couldn’t sit there and watch this anymore. It was too much. With a touch of her hoof to the window, Luxure’s magic flowed through it and straight into Fluttershy, all the way across Ponyville. After several seconds of this being seemingly invisible to everyone else, Fluttershy’s eyes opened very slowly. This of course elicited shouts of surprise from all the ponies present.
“Fluttershy, oh my gosh, Fluttershy you’re awake!” Twilight shouted, quickly hugging her friend, the rest of them following suit.
“W-What, where am I?” Fluttershy asked, confusedly looking around.
“F-Flutters you were passed out at the bar, you drank so much you nearly died!” Rainbow shouted very loudly, having practically become a sobbing mess of tears.
“O-Oh dear…” Fluttershy said with her ears folding. That obviously did sound very drastic to her. But she was rather confused about something regarding this revelation. “Well, I don’t’ know why but, I feel perfectly fine now.”
“I-It is rather bizarre indeed. But, so long as you’re alright, I don’t believe I wish to question it,” Rarity replied, taking a deep sigh of relief.
The only one who wasn’t even able to speak comprehensively about this was Pinkie, who was hugging way too tight and was in hysterics with her crying. A little bit of snot was even leaking from her nose. “WAAHAHAAAAA!” she screamed.
A little uncomfortable from this, Fluttershy squirmed slightly. “Um…Pinkie? It’s fine. I’m fine,”
“I-I DON’T WANNA LET GOOOHOOO!” she wailed.
“O-Oh gosh,” Fluttershy said, still a little uncomfortable and patting Pinkie’s head to try and keep her calm.
Rainbow, wiping the tears out of her face, tried to regain her composure long enough to actually talk to her now-awakened friend. “L-Look Fluttershy you’re not really one to over-drink. What happened?” she asked, though it was clear from her expressions that she already had some idea of what occurred the day before.
When Luxure saw that Fluttershy was thinking to herself quite hard, making it clear she was having trouble remembering, that is when she shut the window. She couldn’t stomach to see what the outcome would be.
‘Coward,’ her conscience growled at her.
“I know I messed this up bad, don’t rub it in,” Luxure replied to her own mind out loud.
‘You keep this up and you’re going to ruin even more ponies’ lives, just as you did those thousands of years back. The way you see it, you’ve got a couple options. If you have any sense of heart left in you, you go to the hospital and own up, they might even forgive you. They’re known for forgiving even the worst scumbags,’ it shot back. ‘Or, you can do what you KNOW you’d rather do, abandon all responsibility and leave. Though they might go looking for you because let’s face it, they can’t leave someone with your power on their own no matter how docile,’
For what felt like hours on end, Luxure sat there in the bathtub, weighing every option she had.
In probably the most panicked state he’d ever been in in his entire life, a young changeling drone zipped through the hive, past all his now-confused associates. He nearly slammed right into many of them as he flew, as well as a few walls, but the holes in them made it a lot easier. It did little to calm his anxiety. What news he had to give to the queen would certainly not be pleasant to give, but it was urgent.
“CHRYSALIIIIIIIS!” he shouted, eventually making it to the main throne room, where Chrysalis’ magic-nullifying throne stood. On said throne, the disgusting yet beautiful at the same time queen stood, using what magic she had to conjure green cocoons on the ceiling that oozed unidentifiable green slime from them.
“This had better be quite important scout. I’m rather busy preparing the cocoons for our soon-to-be prisonors. You know how much attention this needs from me,” she replied, not even looking the changeling in the eye as she continued working.
The changeling scout heaved and coughed from lack of breath due to his panicked state. He tried several times to get the words out of his mouth but kept coming up short. “I-GAAAHK-EVIL-HEEE-“
“Use your words, worm. Otherwise you are wasting my time,” Chrysalis said, still keeping her mind on making the cocoons.
Managing to finally contain himself at his queen’s request, the changeling managed to calm down enough to speak comprehensively. “Y-Your majesty, we are in b-big trouble. B-Biiiiiig!”
“Don’t tell me you doubt my ability to take over a kingdom. Last time was a bust, but I’ve taken every precaution for the next invasion,” Chrysalis said, smirking in a confident manner and continuing to boast. “This time we will succeed for su-“
“THE LUST GODDESS HAS RETURNED!” the changeling interrupted loudly. His words couldn’t echo through the hive thanks to all the holes, but he did shout loudly enough to the point where every changeling could hear him and stopped dead in their tracks.
Among those were Chrysalis, who flinched at the sound of it, causing her to lose focus on the cocoon she was making, and it fell to the ground with a SPLAT.
Chrysalis just stood there, looking down at the scout, and blinked. “…Excuse me? Surely I misheard you because it sounded like-
“I saw her myself! I-I was scouting out the Crystal Empire for the i-invasion a-and she was walking right up to the entrance from the Frozen North! I swear I’m not seeing things, s-she’s free! WE ARE GOING TO DIE!” he screamed, barely able to keep himself together.
This elicited some nervous whispers from the changelings all around the hive. They knew the stories of what happened to the last queen when her hive confronted the lust goddess, the monster that she was. If such a being had really returned, what could they even do when an invasion was so close to taking place?
Chrysalis knew the threat the lust goddess posed more than any of them. The rest of them hadn’t seen the monster throw THEIR mother down the palace stairs like a wet rag. They never saw her up close or met her cold and unfeeling eyes with their own. Recounting the day of that failed invasion gave her a sense of dread unlike any other. Chrysalis tried to block out the memory of that awful day for years, but the state of her hive only served as a reminder that they’d never really recovered since then.
‘No,’ Chrysalis thought, shaking her head. ‘I can’t let her presence ruin this, not now,’
Refusing to look like she was inwardly in a fit, Chrysalis stood straight up in her throne and put on a hardened expression. “If what you say is true, we will need to take much more extreme precaution going forward. The ponies may have many powerful beings on their side, but SHE has no filter. We will need to dispose of her as quickly as possible. Tell the other scouts if they see her, DO NOT approach her. No death would be more certain. I’ll need time to dwell on how to deal with this,” she said sternly.
“Y-Yes your majesty,” the changeling said, opening his wings and flying off. The other changelings around the hive were still looking quite scared at this news and Chrysalis’ response did little to reassure them.
Chrysalis sat back in her throne, rubbing her eyes with her forehooves, growling. Of all the precautions she’d taken, she hadn’t accounted for this. “You have provoked the wrong queen Luxure. I will make you pay for what you’ve done to us,” she growled to herself.
The Crystal Empire had been getting progressively colder and colder as the Crystal Heart still had a large crack in it. Cadance had been trying for days to fix it but to no avail, and it was undoubtedly the most frustrating thing she’d ever done that wasn’t childbirth. On top of this, Flurry Heart had been crying nonstop, the Crystal Ponies were wondering when the heart was going to be fixed, and some of them were even beginning to panic that Luxure’s surrender days before was just an act and that she’d come back to invade at any moment.
It really hasn’t been a good week for Cadance.
Despite this, she soldiered on. Continuously looking through books in the palace library on something, anything that could fix this mess. Just when she thinks she finds something though, the spells fail to seal the crack. Right now, she was simply standing at the heart’s alter, practically out of breath and angered beyond measure; eyes twitching, a bit of a forced smile, the whole deal.
“I sweaaaaar if you do not get your act together right now, I’m going to lose it,” Cadance said to the heart, clearly fatigued from all the stress she had been under as she’d gone to reprimanding the artifact itself as if it were alive. Just then, the terrified screams of several Crystal Ponies snapped her out of it. She looked down the main road where the shrieks were coming from, only to see many of them running into their homes.
When she saw just what it was that caused them to do this, she wasn’t all that surprised, despite the fact that it didn’t look all that threatening in itself. Very slowly trotting down the main road was none other than Luxure, the entire top of her head and back completely covered in snow, and looking down in a rather pathetic manner.
Ever since the events of the last couple of days took place, Cadance had a lot of time to think about Luxure in addition to trying to repair the heart. Had she legitimately given up villainy with the threat of even more humiliation hovering over her? She hadn’t heard of any terrible catastrophe coming from Ponyville, and Luxure never really did look to be in the emotional state to pull anything. But as Cadance had learned from her past, trickery was something Luxure excelled at. For all she knew she could just be biding her time. She really did hope that the latter wasn’t the case though, because looking at things at face value, Cadance did feel bad for her.
That is, whether Luxure wanted her to or not.
The mare in question, when approaching Cadance, spent several seconds staring at the ground before meeting Cadance’s eyes. “Hey,” she said very simply.
“Um…hey,” Cadance replied back, having nearly nothing to work with given only that. She guessed it was up to her to make the real first move here. “If I might ask, why are you covered in snow?”
“Maybe because it’s a never-ending blizzard outside this kingdom?” Luxure said in what Cadance assumed was supposed to be sarcasm, but nothing in the tone of her voice suggested it as such. Something was very wrong here.
“I mean, I’m fully aware of that. It’s just that, you can teleport can’t you? Why walk?” Cadance replied.
Luxure sighed a little and shook her head. “I don’t know, probably the same reasons I chose to be carried out of here when I left. Teleporting doesn’t give you time to yourself to think or anything. It’s just ‘BOOP’ and you’re there. Not really as satisfying to me anymore. It’s about the journey, not the destination and all that crap,”
“I see. I suppose that does make sense,” Cadance said, looking Luxure over a little. “You do look like you’re about to freeze though. Come inside the castle and warm up,” she said leading her over to the castle doors.
“Thanks,” Luxure said, walking in as quickly as possible. She could already feel the eyes of the Crystal Empire’s citizens that hadn’t run into their homes in fear weighing down on her. Of all things, that isn’t what she needed right now. “So…still working on fixing the heart, huh?”
Cadance, thoroughly exhausted, sat down in one of the chairs in the glimmering palace dining room, groaning and trying to rest. “I am. I don’t know what it is, but the Crystal Heart just doesn’t want to cooperate with me right now,” she said as one of the palace maids approached the two of them, and handed Cadance a cup of coffee to help keep her awake. Cadance silently gestured to her to also pour one for Luxure by slightly tilting her head towards said mare.
Though the maid was, of course, terrified in the presence of Luxure (hence her shaking knees), she quickly poured her a cup of coffee, handed it to her, and galloped off as quickly as she could. Not enthusiastic about this, Luxure sighed and took a long sip from her coffee. To her delight, there was indeed cream and sugar in it. Black coffee was high up on the list of things she found truly repulsive, so this was lightening her mood a little. Though not much considering everything else on her mind.
“Have you tried duct tape?” Luxure asked Cadance, who was taking a sip of her own coffee at the time.
“Hm?” Cadance asked, lowering her cup from her lips.
“I mean, duct tape can fix anything right? Does that exclude ancient magical artifacts or what?” Luxure elaborated.
Amused by the seemingly honest question, Cadance rolled her eyes, with a tired smile on her face. “Oh if only it were that simple. I’ve been going through nearly every kind of magic tome the empire has to offer, and nothing has worked yet,” she replied.
“Sorry about that. I’d fix it myself but, you know, my magic doesn’t affect that accursed thing,” Luxure said, looking away rather pathetically.
“It’s alright, it’s the thought that counts,” Cadance took a moment to observe Luxure’s posture. She appeared to be slumping forward, actively avoiding eye contact with Cadance, and took long sips from her coffee in a way where it appeared she was quite stressed. Seeing this, Cadance set her cup aside and felt the need to address her state.
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but why did you come back? This place had to be a great source of pain for you,” Cadance asked.
Luxure let out a saddened chuckle. “Not really being subtle about it huh?” she asked, tracing her hoof around the rim of her cup. “I wouldn’t be here if I had somewhere else to go, you have no idea,”
“I’m asking so I can get an idea. Why can’t you stay in Ponyville like we agreed on? Is it not working out?”
Luxure’s laughs got a little more loud and distressed. “It is SO much worse than you think. What was the plan going into this? To make me realize my role as an evil monster hasn’t REALLY ruined me and my capacity to succeed? Assimilate me into the whole ‘friendship is magic’ mindset? Sorry to disappoint you, but I have just the slightest inkling that I don’t have any redeeming qualities,”
Cadance couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The cold and overly logical way she talked about trying to get better and possibly make some friends made her feel very uncomfortable. It wasn’t in the somewhat charming, introverted way Twilight was before she learned friendship. It felt like she believed with all of her being that efforts to change her are fruitless. “What happened in Ponyville?” Cadance asked, dreading the answer.
“My second or third biggest screw up of all time. Fluttershy just wanted to get to know me, poor, naïve thing wanted to help so bad. I gave her an ultimatum; I’d tell her anything, but on my own terms. In a bar, and with her drinking with me. I pushed her too hard and she ended up in the hospital for alcohol poisoning,” Luxure mumbled, rubbing her own shoulder.
Cadance gasped. “Goodness, is she alright?!”
“Is now, I fixed her with my magic, it was the least I could do,” Luxure responded, recalling in her mind witnessing the looks of relief on all of the elements’ faces. “This isn’t the first time I’ve really hurt someone, not by a long shot, but I never saw what my presence causes up close. It got me thinking about everything I’ve done leading up to now. I’m a parasite. This incident with Fluttershy was surely only the beginning. If I stay in Ponyville, I run the risk of destroying everything the elements of harmony have worked to achieve. Knowing how that feels all too well, I can’t let that be my fault, I just can’t,”
“You don’t know if that will happen. The point of sending you to Ponyville with the elements was so they could help you, but they can’t do that if you won’t willingly let anypony in. Even if you are as toxic as you believe, the elements would surely take the risk to help you heal,” Cadance said solemnly and putting one of her hooves on Luxure’s chest.
Luxure looked down, a little bit uncomfortably before meeting Cadance’s face again. “Ponies today really don’t have much of a sense of self-preservation, do they? Rgh, trusting somepony like me even the slightest. This is just asinine,”
Cadance put her hoof down and sighed. “Not to us it isn’t. Now I’m afraid that incident in Ponyville is very serious indeed. But, the first step in making up for mistakes is realizing you’ve made one, which you’ve done spectacularly. I’m sure if you were to make it clear that you didn’t mean for it to happen then you’ll be able to work things out,”
“Heh, you act like that makes it okay,” Luxure said sarcastically, and somewhat sadly rolling her eyes. “I don’t know. I need more than reassurance from someone I barely know. ” Luxure said with a sigh. “Do you mind if I stay here for the time being? I have zero alternatives,”
“I couldn’t even imagine all the things on your mind right now. If you feel you need time to consider your next move, feel free,” Cadance said, giving a more genuine smile than the tired one she’d been trying to keep up.
“Thanks. I’m just going to head to my old room,” Luxure said as she stood up out of her chair. “You know, you do kind of remind me a lot of my mother. Her better qualities anyway. Even kind of look like her.”
“Oh? Well thank y-“
“Just please, if you ever take a student under your wing, don’t screw it up. I mean it,” she finished as she teleported away, presumably further into the castle.
Cadance simply sat there, trying to process what was just told to her. “I…won’t” she said, not sure what else to say about it. Taking her last sip of her drink, she immediately stood up and teleported a book in front of her face with her magic. Unlike the other several hundred books she had looked through in her task in fixing the Crystal Heart, this one was not an ancient tome of magic or anything of the sort. No, this was heavily damaged journal that’d been stuffed in a small display behind one of the library’s bookshelves. The spine was slightly bent, as if it’d been thrown against a wall in frustration at some point, and there were several dark stains all over the cover and pages of the book.
In some of her off time, Cadance had read through it, but hesitated to read it further due to the fact that she had been focused majorly on fixing the Crystal Heart, and the fact that the contents of said journal were actually quite disturbing, given context. After this conversation with Luxure though, she had to continue.
Opening up to the page where she left off, she read aloud quietly to herself. “After seeing Rosemary’s display of mind-altering magic against the Minotaurs, though my kingdom is safe and I couldn’t be more grateful to her, I can’t help but feel a terrible sense of dread clawing into my subconscious whenever I dwell on her methods. I fear what will become of my daughter and my ponies if I enable her to use such spells consistently when her time to rule comes,” Cadance read, swallowing a little from the intensity of the read.
“Such power may be used for good at first, but as I’ve come to learn, if not kept in check, it can corrupt its user. They become all too quick to use this power for their own purposes. It makes them arrogant, like they are in control of all that they see; a sort of god complex. Even just one taste of that kind of power can set a pony on the road to ruin. Though I don’t know the full nature of Rosemary, she is an Earth Pony with the ability to use powerful magic after all, a god complex is the last thing somepony like her needs. I pray to the heavens that my worst fears are never realized, and I will do everything I can to correct her behavior before it’s too late,” Cadance read outloud, cringing slightly. She had figured out long into this that this journal had belonged to Amore and was written during the time before Luxure’s rule of the Empire.
Once again not being able to bring herself to read this further, Cadance shut the book and placed it on the table before her, staring at it. “I hate to say it Amore, but it’s clear you didn’t do enough,” she said quietly.
Having found the door to her old room, Luxure found that the door had been magically locked from the outside when she pulled at the knob. From all the dust that had settled on the door, it was clear it had been that way for quite a long time. Not in nearly a thousand years had it been budged. On some level, Luxure was impressed. The spell was so strong not even Sombra could get through it.“Mmph. Typical Amore, trying to lock away her mistakes. Should’ve known you’d go to such lengths.” she growled. “Oh well, I don’t need to unlock it to get in,”
With that, Luxure’s body sank to the floor, turning into a dark pink liquid, her eyes being the only distinguishable features remaining after she was fully liquefied. Now that she was a puddle, she crawled across the floor and through the small crack under the door before re-forming into her usual shape. Plopping back into her old, elegant bed, she was immediately reminded that this was much comfier than Fluttershy’s couch or someone’s trash can. She would have rejoiced this comforting feeling more if the circumstances behind her being in this bed again weren’t less than ideal.
“Something is wrong with this,” she said to herself, looking up at the crystalline ceiling. “Surely they all have to know they’re too nice for their own good by now. What the hell do they see in me to even take the risk?” Luxure thought. After everything she’d done during her rule, how spiteful she’d been since her return, and even after doing something that resulted in Fluttershy nearly getting killed, how could Cadance look her in the face and tell her everything could still be okay?
Fluttershy
Luxure shook her head in shame. Here she was self-loathing while Fluttershy went through much worse than she did. Not even that, but she also left her back in Ponyville without owning up to her situation. If Fluttershy were never with her, if she never asked her to drink with her in exchange for disclosure, she never would have been in this situation to start with. Meanwhile, all she wanted was for all of this to just go away and not have to deal with any of it. Was she always this selfish?
She wanted so desperately to believe that she had some good in her. That she wasn’t as evil and self-serving as she thought and that maybe there was merit to what all these ponies were telling her. But there was the pattern that all the other major threats to Equestria had followed. Inevitable defeat. The very same she had suffered. If she suffered that, then she truly was evil, she just had to be.
Catching herself again, Luxure rolled over in bed. There she went thinking only of herself again, as if the ponies she affected with her baggage’s feelings didn’t matter. Hell, she had told that exact thing to Luna. Oh by the gods, Luna. She flat out told her to her face that her turn to the dark side was a pointless effort and a losing battle. She’d practically spat in Twilight’s face when she tried getting through to her in her frustration at having to explain herself. Then there was Rainbow Dash-
Luxure put her hooves to her face and groaned loudly. “Everything is the worst,” she said, making a glass of whiskey appear in her hooves and preparing to take a sip. When she looked into the glass though, she stopped. She didn’t lift it to her mouth, she just sat there and stared at her reflection in the brown liquid for what felt like several minutes. On some level she just wanted to go to town on it, but just couldn’t. Not after what happened.
Finally, she just shook her head again and made it vanish into thin air. “Not tonight.”
Despite having slept in her old, elegant and pillowy bed, Luxure barely slept. As if her usual thoughts on her situation weren’t enough, there was the ever-present guilt over what she’d done to Fluttershy and everypony else in the time she’d been returned which made her rest anything but peaceful. If she was honest with herself, she felt like she slept better in the Cakes’ garbage can.
But it was morning now, she knew what was coming.
Groaning, she rolled out of bed and tried the door. Still magically locked just like last night; she didn’t know why she expected that to change. She repeated the same process she did the night before to get around it. Turning to liquid, sliding under, and coming back out the other side in her usual shape. With that out of the way, she started to make her way back down the halls of the castle, trying to completely gather her thoughts together.
‘Okay…cons of returning to Ponyville with the Elements. You’ve already caused one of them to poison themselves and there’s nothing that says this won’t be the last time something like this happens. At least one of them surely hates your guts as it is too. Pros on the other hoof…’ Luxure repeatedly gave her forehead some light slaps in frustration. How could she think positively in a time like this?
Just when she thought she might be getting it together though, she heard a voice coming from downstairs that she swore caused her blood to turn to ice.
“-And we thought the first place to look would be here,”
Luxure pressed herself against the wall just outside the stairway, totally out of sight. There was no mistaking it. That was Princess Twilight’s voice. She didn’t dare to look down but she could assume the rest of the Elements were present with her since she used the word “we”. She’d hoped against hope that they wouldn’t find her so quickly. But then again, she did go to the one place in Equestria she’s associated with more than anywhere else. In hindsight if she wanted to stay hidden this may have been a bad idea. Was it just bad idea on her part, or did she subconsciously wish to actually be found? Regardless, this was beyond stressful.
Deciding not to show herself just yet, Luxure resolved instead to keep quiet and listen. The first thing she heard was Cadance letting out a stressed breath of air.
“Well you were right to, she’s here and she’s safe,” Cadance replied, sounding almost hesitant to.
“Oh thank Celestia fer that,” she heard Applejack say.
“However,” Cadance continued. “The two of us had a heart to heart when she arrived last night. She wasn’t sure she wanted to return with you if you were to show up,” This blunt statement was followed up by a collective gasp of surprise from most of the elements.
“But…why ever not? We’re only trying to help!” Rarity exclaimed.
“Simply put Rarity, she is afraid. After what happened with Fluttershy, she believes her presence is toxic to you, and does not wish to endanger you anymore,” Cadance said, shaking her head. “Listen, I would like to ask that you please give her some space and let her decide for herself if she wishes to go back to Ponyville on her own,”
The Elements all hummed in agreement with Luxure noticing the sole exception being the silent Rainbow Dash. That was certainly not a good sign where Rainbow’s mood was concerned, but she wouldn’t let herself turn the corner to see her face.
“I-If nothing else, can you at least pass a message for me and let her know I’m not angry? I really don’t think she should be blaming herself when I’m the one that overdid the drinking,” She heard Fluttershy plead with a tinge of sadness to her voice.
Just when Luxure thought Cadance would surely respond with a yes though, that was when she heard Rainbow Dash butt in, having a very noticeable aggressive tone in her voice. “I’m sorry…what? Fluttershy, how? How are you not angry?”
Fluttershy, obviously having not expected this from her friend who’d been quiet for so long, stuttered a little nervously. “W-Well um…you know I’m responsible for my own actions like anypony else is so-“
“Don’t give me any of that. I probably know you better than anyone else here. If not that much, I at least know you well enough to know there is no way you would drink that much without being pressured! Fluttershy, she almost killed you!” Rainbow yelled, sounding increasingly more frustrated.
The silence that permeated the castle became all the more tense the longer nopony spoke, and it was driving Luxure mad with anxiety. ‘Well there it is, straight from the horse’s mouth. No way around it,’ Luxure thought grimly to herself.
Rainbow’s frustrated growl pulled Luxure back into her eavesdropping. “Just …why?! Why are we still sticking our necks out for her?! She yells and berates everypony that’s just trying to help, gets drunk all the time, bosses us around, now this?!”
Luxure heard the clip-clopping of a few hooves over the floor and to Rainbow’s position followed by Twilight speaking. “Rainbow I know you’re really upset. What happened was definitely not okay. But it would be very irresponsible of us to not try and help,”
“Would it?” Rainbow said, sounding even more irritated. “Because with the way things are going down right now, it just looks like she’s just trying to drag us down with her,”
“Rainbow! How could you say that?! She would never!” The last one that Luxure expected to get this loud and confrontational was Fluttershy, but there she was. Fluttershy yelling at one of her best friends on her own behalf.
On the one hoof she felt somewhat flattered she’d even bother but on the other…
“For Celestia’s sake Fluttershy, look at what’s happened! Isn’t manipulation something she was known for?! Is it REALLY crazy of me to think she’s doing it on purpose?!” Rainbow shouted back.
“You haven’t gotten to understand her like I have! She is in so much pain and hasn’t had anypony to comfort her for so long! Don’t you care?!” Fluttershy angrily shot back.
“Oh well excuse me for not feeling all that bad for a mare who nearly got one of my best friends ever killed! How soulless of me!” Rainbow Dash retorted, the tension in the room rising with her and Fluttershy’s volume
“Nnnn p-please stop fighting,” Luxure could hear Pinkie’s request falling on deaf ears while said mare was trying so hard to suppress choked sobs.
“No no no no no no no,” Luxure quietly mumbled to herself so she would not be heard. Her fears were being realized. She did this. Her actions were what was causing them to fight. Most villains would probably consider this a major win, she was tearing the heroes apart. But she wasn’t like most. This was nothing short of a disaster. By nearly tearing down what the elements worked so hard to achieve with each other, she was subjecting them to her fate.
When the goddess felt the odd sensation of water in her eyes, she could finally take it no more.
“AAAAAAUGH!” Luxure wailed so loud it reverberated off the crystal walls, catching the immediate attention of everypony in the room. This included both Fluttershy and Rainbow who were so caught off guard they stopped their argument on the spot.
When Luxure came into view of everyone else, a universal sense of dread washed over them. The mare’s entire, crystal body was enveloped in a magical aura that was the same eerie shade of green as her glowing eyes. At first glance she looked absolutely furious with them, but the tears rolling down her cheeks told a different story.
Daring anyone to say a word, Luxure stomped down the stairs, every step making a very visible crack beneath her hooves. “STOP. FIGHTING,” she bellowed, her voice clearly distorted from the magic she was giving off. “I am not, in any sense, worth fighting over like this! I demand that you cease this asinine infighting at once!”
Fluttershy couldn’t even find her words at that. “A-Ah…but…”
“Please calm down, you’re emotionally unstable!” Twilight tried appeasing the furious goddess before them.
“Your rage is affecting your magic, please breathe!” Cadance desperately cried out.
“I just…RRRGH!” Luxure stomped in frustration again, this time, causing a semi-powerful tremor in the castle. It was hard enough to knock just about everypony inside off balance, though the castle remained intact. “I can’t understand! Why?! After what I have put you through, most of you still insist keeping me around?! Do you all wish to be hurt so badly?!”
Twilight was the first one to make it back to her hooves, albeit with a little struggling. “It’s this pessimism we’re trying to fix! Our goal is to spread the magic of friendship anywhere we can. No matter the risk involved, it would be irresponsible of us to leave you like this! Would you truly rather be left alone in this state?”
Trying and failing to hold back her tears, Luxure failed to find her words, visibly deflating. Her rage was subsiding, but she hid her face from them by simply staring at the ground. “Y-You ponies are very compassionate. I don’t get it. How do you know what happened was really an accident? How do you know I wasn’t lying? How do you know this all isn’t just an act and I really am trying to tear you apart from the inside?”
Rarity winces a little at the possibility. “You’ve um…thought quite a lot about all of this haven’t you?”
“When your only real friend is yourself, you find yourself talking to them quite a lot. Though lately that relationship has gotten uh…unhealthy,” Luxure said somberly.
“Well, the truth is we really don’t know any of that,” Pinkie said, her demeanor looking much more serious than usual. “But that shouldn’t stop us from at least giving you a chance. And hey, if all that stuff you were saying really was true…well we’ll just have to keep trying to change your mind!~” she added, trying to look a little bit more cheerful.
“This ain’t our first rodeo in tryin’ ta help other ponies sugarcube. We’ll find a way. We always do,” Applejack tipped her hat a little.
Luxure anxiously looked over the group of mares who were all trying on some level to give her a comforting smile. All that is, except for Rainbow Dash; she just looked off to the side, unable to meet her eyes. “Call it a hunch, but I feel not all of you are in agreement on this,”
The rest of the elements exchanged some worried glances before their eyes fell on the quiet Rainbow Dash. “Rainbow? Do you have anything to say?” Rarity asked.
Still remaining quiet for several seconds, Rainbow finally worked up the courage to speak again. “I-I’m sorry. I can’t do this right now,” she mumbled before spreading her wings and bolting out the door as fast as she could.
“Rainbow wait!” Twilight reached her out her hoof as she desperately yelled for her friend to come back.
“Let her go for right now Twilight, not a chance she’d stay away from you all forever,” Luxure said, approaching Twilight and pulling her foreleg back down. “Think about what she’s feeling. She just witnessed her friends take the side of somepony who put another friend of hers in grave danger,”
“But it was all an accident!” Fluttershy shouted again.
“It doesn’t matter. What happened should not have ever been an issue. If I were in her horseshoes I would probably be furious myself,” Luxure retorted again.
“Still...I feel I should be the one to talk to her,” Fluttershy said trying to look stern, though it was hard given the situation.
“All that being said Luxure, have you made up your mind about what you’ll be doing?” Cadance asked, stepping forward.
The lust goddess gave a reluctant nod. “I have. I’ll return to Ponyville with the elements as planned,” she said, though she did not appear quite happy about it.
“That’s good ta hear. This time ‘round though, a few things gotta change,” Applejack looked over to Rarity to continue for her.
“I concur. Though we know you did not intend for Fluttershy to get hurt, it would appear to me that, if this incident was any indication, perhaps she may not be the best choice to combat your kind of…urm, how do I put this…personality,” Rarity said trying her best not to offend the goddess before her even more.
“Hold on. So that means I won’t be living with Fluttershy anymore?” Luxure asked, ears drooping a little, looking slightly disappointed.
“Sadly no. Instead, you’ll be staying in my castle with Spike, Starlight, and myself. Perhaps we will be a better fit,” Twilight said, trying to comfort the goddess a little bit with a reassuring smile.
Fluttershy approached Luxure from behind and gave her a little pat on the back. “Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean we can’t still have fun together! We all still live in the same town after all, we can still meet up!...Just no more bars please,”
“H-Heh what’re you talking about? I’m ecstatic! I don’t gotta live on your couch now, I get to have a real bed!” Luxure said with a large, clearly fake smile to convince everypony this turn of events didn’t affect her at all.
Fluttershy giggled a bit. “I expect to see you at Discord and my next tea party. He usually prefers those remain between us but I’m sure he’d be happy to have you! He did seem to take an interest in you when you two met at the castle,”
“O-Of course,” Luxure said nervously, her eyes darting between all the smiling mares staring at her.
‘This is fine. I’m okay with this…maybe’ she thought in her mini-panic.
Unknown to all present though, they had a silent spectator just outside the castle windows. Donning a crystal Pegasus disguise was none other than the changeling queen herself, watching the entire event unfold before her.
To think that that Luxure was so easily able to win over the ponies’ sympathy with her fake promises of having no ill intention. Even when her crimes against the Crystal Empire were heavily documented from all those years ago. She didn’t even have to put on a disguise to do so like Chrysalis had to. Though she had to admit her acting was impressive, the entire thought of this made her skin crawl.
From the bottom of Chrysalis’ blackened heart, though she would never admit it, she was afraid.
“So, that scout had a reason to be hysterical. Luxure truly has returned. She may very well be worse than before as well,” Chrysalis growled, grinding her teeth a little. “Gloat to yourself all you feel like you monster. Your crocodile tears may have the ponies fooled, but I will not be so easily tricked. Still though…it would appear there is trouble in paradise where that blue one is concerned,”
For the most part, things had calmed down among the rest of the elements and Luxure. While everypony else headed back to Ponyville, Fluttershy insisted that she stay behind in the Crystal Empire for the moment to pursue and comfort Rainbow Dash. Though the rest of the elements were reluctant to leave Fluttershy to deal with this dilemma on her own, she remained firm as she didn’t want to overwhelm Rainbow in her fragile state. In the end, they respected her decision and returned home, hoping for the best.
The train to Ponyville ripped through the Frozen North at breakneck speed, thankfully heated so the ponies inside would not feel the blistering cold outside. Luxure had not said too much during the trip, most of her focus being on sitting in her seat, levitating a quill and scroll in front of her with her magic and appearing to be deep in thought.
Curious, Twilight sat in the seat next to her. “You look like you’re concentrating pretty hard. What are you trying to write?”
“An apology to Princess Luna,” Luxure replied, tapping the feather of her quill on her chin. “I’ve been ruminating a lot about this. The things I said to her on our first meeting were uncalled for. Having my own hangups about villainy is one thing, but tossing my baggage on other ponies with a similar history was a line I should not have crossed,”
“How could I forget? That meeting did go pretty sour. But I’ve gotta say I’m impressed you came to this conclusion yourself. May I see what you have so far?” Twilight asked, leaning her head over to see what she had written so far. To the discomfort of Luxure, the scroll was blank.
When given a questioning stare from Twilight, Luxure awkwardly smiled. “Eheh…the keyword is ‘trying’. This isn’t what I would call my field of expertise,”
“Oooh having trouble expressing your thoughts, are we?” Rarity asked, looking over from the seat behind Luxure, Applejack doing the same.
“Y’know, ya could ask us for advice if ya don’t know where to start,” Applejack added.
Luxure groaned and put her hooves over her eyes. “Please help, I have no idea what I’m doing,”
“Alright! Time for a real heartfelt apology!” Pinkie gleefully shouted, squeezing herself in between Luxure and Twilight, much to the former’s discomfort as she had taken the window seat. “First off, you’ll want to let Princess Luna know that you realize now what you said wasn’t nice and you’re really super-duper sorry for it,”
“Indeed. And something to the effect of ‘I may have plenty of work to do on myself at the moment, but I should not have taken out my frustration with destiny on you like I did’ wouldn’t hurt,” Rarity added as well, watching as Luxure wrote along with them.
“Sounds about right. Go on,”
“Right, now there’s always the chance she might not be too keen on talkin’ to ya just yet so might be a good idea to include somethin’ like ‘Ah understand if you don’t wanna reply, or even if ya don’t forgive me. Ah jus’ wanted you to know ah’ve realized my mistake’ “Applejack said with a sincere smile.
“And that you hope despite everything that maybe you can be friends!” Twilight continued, sporting a similar smile.
Luxure didn’t look at any of the elements as she wrote, only listening. After a few more seconds of writing she completed her letter, signing it with her name in cursive. “It’s done...hm. That felt nice to get off my chest,” Luxure sighed in relief. Said relief did not last long though, as Pinkie all of a sudden snatched the letter from her. “Uh hello?”
“Hmmmm” Pinkie stared the later over with a thoughtful expression and rubbing the bottom of her chin. “It’s missing something...oh I know!” Pinkie cheered, quickly snatching the quill from Luxure as well and drawing a smiley face at the end of the letter next to Luxure’s signature. “Now it’s perfect! It’s the little details that really help it feel real!” she giggled, handing it back to Luxure.
“Erm…thank you?” Luxure said, somewhat confused at how two dots and a curved line could make her apology feel more genuine. Nevertheless, it wasn’t worth the death of her brain cells to ponder it. With her letter complete, she contained it in a green bubble of her magic and within a second, it vanished from sight.
“You did great, we’re all very proud of you!” Twilight exclaimed with probably the biggest of grins she’d seen her sport since Luxure met her formally.
“I was able to convey my emotions like something that at least resembles a normal pony without crying or yelling, don’t oversell it,” Luxure said resting her head on her seats headrest with her eyes closed. “But at least I can rest with a clear conscience where that’s concerned,”
“Give yerself some credit sugarcube, at least yer tryin’. More than Ah can say for a couple other nasties’ we’ve dealt with,” Applejack said patting Luxure’s shoulder.
“Lovely, just please don’t touch me right now,” Luxure said prompting Applejack to pull her hoof away. Wanting this train ride to be over quicker Luxure poofed up a glass of whiskey that levitated in front of her face, preparing to suck it down. She only stopped herself right before the alcoholic liquid touched her crystalline lips. “Mmph. Damn it, again with this,” she growled, making the glass disappear in a flash of fire.
“Quitting the alcohol?” Rarity asked.
“Fluttershy could have died from my stupid mistakes with this stuff. If I don’t quit now, who knows what will happen later,” Luxure said with a depressed frown and looking down at her fidgeting hooves. That look they’d all had in the hospital when looking at Fluttershy’s sickly body, the anger from Rainbow Dash that came in the fallout, none of that was something Luxure could take happening again. Something had to give.
“I might not know much about addiction, but maybe we could help you quit by finding something else you enjoy to use as your new outlet!” Twilight suggested.
“That sounds great!” Pinkie said, bouncing directly in front of Luxure seat, making her sink back in it a bit more just to get away from the pink ball of endless energy. “Just think about it, what’s something else you like?”
Luxure tried looking just about everywhere else except for the big blue orbs of excitement that took up most of Pinkie’s face. “I-If I told you, you wouldn’t like it,”
“Tell us your secreeeeets,” Pinkie continued, pulling Luxure’s face to her own and looking her dead in the eyes.
Having been forced to face Pinkie Pie head on now, Luxure simply sighed in resignation and looked straight ahead at Pinkie as she gave her answer as straight-faced as she could.
“Sex,”
That answer shut all four of them up. Pinkie let go of Luxure’s face and seemed to not be doing any better than the other Elements in responding to that. All of them exchanged some very awkward and flustered glances.
“Ya…don’t say,” Applejack said with a beet red face, attempting to hide it a little by tilting her hat downward.
“Don’t any of you give me those looks, I’m the Goddess of Lust. You had to have seen this coming,” Luxure said rolling over in her seat to face the train window.
“I-It’s not that we’re surprised darling, it’s just most ponies would not be so…bold about this,” Rarity replied with a stutter and an equally flustered face.
“Yes, well, I haven’t had a release in over a millennium, so excuse my lack of subtlety,” Luxure did not turn again to face the Elements as she spoke, somewhat out of self-consciousness.
“Wait, over a millennium?” Twilight asked trying to get over her own embarrassment at the situation. “I would’ve thought when you were ruling the empire you-“
“My reputation precedes me it seems,” Luxure interrupted, not looking at any of them. “When I used my magic to allure ponies to me, it was strictly business. The idea of using mind-controlled ponies for THOSE purposes is a tad too gross,”
Twilight winced a little bit, filled with immediate regret. “I’m…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” Twilight apologized with a pair of drooped ears.
“Forget about it. The point is after being in the Crystal Heart for so many years, I have gone a very long time without release and being a dysfunctional ball of stress and misery ever since I returned has not helped,” Luxure said in a frustrated growl.
“Couldn’t you have…well” Pinkie struggled to find the right words. “Done it yourself?”
“It’s not anywhere close to the same. My hoof is incomparable to the passion a stallion or mare could give me. Not to mention I wouldn’t have anypony to-” Luxure was very quick to stop herself, almost as if she seemed too embarrassed to speak her mind for once.
Pinkie, having suddenly realized what Luxure was trying to get at, clapped her hooves onto her own cheeks “Oooooh that’s so cute, you like to cuddle afterwards!” she squeed.
“Mmph, shut up,” Luxure grumbled, crossing her forelegs with her face having turned her own shade of red. Her eyes wandered briefly over the remaining elements with her, Twilight especially. She’d never really thought much about it until now, but in the looks department, all of them were indeed pretty. Just the right balance between cute and beauteous. That was something Luxure could appreciate in a mare, especially after so many years going without relief.
“You know…“ Luxure started, her face still red and an ever-growing smirk beginning to appear, very clearly eyeing up Twilight. “You DO look relatively above-average, princess. You wouldn’t happen to want to give me a little…’help’ would you?” she asked, slowly putting a foreleg around Twilight and not-so-subtly pulling her closer.
Unsurprisingly, Twilight was not mentally prepared for that and she nearly lost her breath. “A-ACHK. E-Excuse me, what?!”
“I mean, I know you’ve wanted to help PLENTY already so shouldn’t I also respond in kind? Don’t lie Twilight, your stress is killing you. Celestia puts so many expectations on you after all. I can’t imagine putting up with me has made things any better. Do you not wish to relieve yourself of it? I promise you I can make it VERY pleasurable for the both of us,” Luxure continued while slightly nuzzling her neck and cheek, making Twilight shiver a little.
“N-Nnn L-Luxure I-I don’t-“ Twilight stammered, only to be interrupted by Luxure herself.
“Oh? Is this attention unwanted?” Luxure asked, giving a genuine questioning look instead of the smirk she’d been wearing.
“I-I don’t know if I’d say that, i-it’s just we don’t know each other that well and-OH HEY LOOK” Twilight shouted, pointing out the window and showing they were pulling into Ponyville station. “WE’RE BACK NOW, GUESS WE’D BETTER FOCUS ON GETTING YOU SETTLED IN RIGHT?! E-Eheh,” she nervously motioned to the door as she’d unwittingly caused enough of a ruckus to catch the attention of the other train passengers.
The flustered, nervous smile and reddened face on her let Luxure read her like Twilight read her books. On some level it did give her a bit of pride knowing she still knew how to make a pony squirm. ‘Heh, still got it old mare,’
“I suppose you’re right,” Luxure said as she got up and stretched a bit after being in the train car for so long and heading for the exit herself.
Twilight’s friends were all too shocked to know what to say, all their mouths hanging agape as they saw Luxure head out.
“Woah nelly. She sure don’t beat around the bush none,” Applejack said, taking off her hat and fanning herself with it.
Twilight meanwhile was inwardly a frantic mess of mixed emotions. ‘Oh great, get her to open up and one of the first things she says is ‘Lets sleep together, it’ll be fun Twilight’, AAAGH WHY ME EVEN?!’ she mentally yelled.
“Um, Twilight? You’re looking rather conflicted. You’re not…considering Luxure’s offer are you?” Rarity asked.
“NO!” Twilight shouted, becoming self-conscious again almost right away. “I-I mean, no. I’m not. We’re trying to help her be a better pony and have a more positive life outlook. We’re going to try to be friends with her, and not the ‘with benefits’ kind,”
“Well that’s a disappointment,” Luxure said, having been listening and sticking her head back in the train door. “It’s rude to keep a lady waiting you know. I have living arrangements to make, come on now,”
“R-Right sorry, we’re on our way!” Twilight said as she led the rest of her friends out of the train. ‘Sweet Celestia, please let us find that mare some healthier habits’
Luna yawned as she prepared herself to head off to bed at about noon. As she worked the majority of the night in the dream realm, this was the only time she really had to get some rest and mentally prepare herself for the night of nightmare battling that was to come.
Though when preparing for bed, Luna never found letters sitting right smack in the middle of her pillows. And said non-existent letters also didn’t come with roses to go along with them. Tonight was the exception.
“What is…” Luna said to herself as she lifted both the things up with her magic. Eyeing the letter curiously, she unfurled it and began to read it outloud.
Dear Princess Luna
I’ve had a lot of invasive thoughts for the last couple of days. Among them being the nasty way that I treated you on our first meeting. I should’ve realized it sooner, but the feeling I’ve felt in my black hole of a heart of which no light can escape had to have been guilt over the way I treated you and your feelings about your past. I might have my own frustrations with the destiny of ponies like us, but you’ve moved on. Truthfully, I don’t know the real reason I said what I said. Maybe I was just jealous? Jealous that other ponies in a situation like mine could function normally but I just…can’t? Maybe that’s just a luxury I don’t have, knowing what I do, I don’t know. This isn’t about me though.
I can’t imagine what you’ve been feeling since we met proper and frankly, I’m sorry. I get it if you don’t want to talk to me ever again, but above all else I just wanted to make that clear to you. Don’t feel like your feelings don’t matter just because someone screeches it at you. Never let anypony tell you otherwise. And maybe if you DO decide to speak to me again we could…I don’t know, be FRiEndS maybe? I know I screwed things up quite badly but it would still be nice to have acquaintance with someone who is my equal and not practically my therapists like the Elements have in mind.
Just a thought. Hear back from you later. Or not.
-Luxure 😊
Luna simply stared at the page for a couple of moments after reading it, almost not knowing how to react. “It would seem she struggled to write the word ‘friend’ quite a lot. Perhaps she truly does mean it,” Luna said to herself as she took a bite out of the rose that came with the letter, contemplating the apology.
Truthfully, Luxure’s words did sting. The whole reason she had changed into Nightmare Moon so many years ago was her feelings towards her sister. Envy, anger, and inferiority especially. Never had she been told before that it all just meant nothing to her face.
However, clearly Luxure’s stance on Luna’s feelings at least had changed. And extending the olive branch (Or rose rather) no less. Her apology did seem genuine after all. If Luxure was legitimately willing to make an effort and admit her mistake, perhaps she should respond to it as such. Luna had learned a lot of things over the years since returning from the moon. Holding onto a grudge is very unhealthy for instance.
Luna placed the letter on the table next to her bed as she climbed under the covers. She would respond to Luxure’s letter for certain, she decided. Just not in a way Luxure would see coming.
Taking refuge on a nearby cloud was all Rainbow could think to do. She was not alright. She’d sworn to be loyal to the bitter end to her friends. They’d been through so much together over the years, overcome so many odds. Their love for each other was incomparable to anything she’d ever felt in her life.
But something about this sat incredibly wrong. One of her best friends in the whole world nearly got killed because of Luxure dragging her into her mess, and her friends were all too willing to forgive her. Not Rainbow, not really.
That mare was the point of contention for sure. She’d wanted so badly to believe Luxure was just manipulating her friends into pitying her, but after the incident with her in the empire, she didn’t know anymore. That scream. Dear Faust that scream of pure anguish that Luxure let out wouldn’t leave Rainbow’s thoughts. But she couldn’t just forget what happened to Fluttershy, not by a long shot.
“Rainbow Dash!” shouted a familiar voice from down below she’d been tuning out. Rainbow peered over the edge of the cloud to find Fluttershy on the crystalline streets below looking up at her. “Rainbow, please talk to me!”
Not responding to her friend, Rainbow instead just frowned and rolled back over on the cloud. Now with Fluttershy’s frustration mounting, she opted to instead fly to the cloud herself, seeing when she got there that Rainbow had finally sat up, but had her back turned to her.
“We can’t avoid this conversation forever. I know you’re upset but-” Fluttershy spoke but was interrupted by Rainbow herself.
“Doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Rainbow muttered, hearing the cloud make a few ‘poof’ sounds. Fluttershy was walking closer.
“Your feelings on Luxure aren’t positive, I know,” Fluttershy went on, eventually sitting next to her. “But I need you to understand. She reaaaally needs our help and to be honest I don’t know if we can if we’re not all together on this,”
“I just can’t get my head around it. You might’ve turned out okay this time but what about the next time she wraps us up in her bullshit? I know Luxure’s messed up. Anypony who’s got two eyes and a brain can see it…but damn it!” Rainbow stomps her hoof on the cloud. “She shouldn’t be dragging you down with her! Hell, any of us! Might not be on purpose but if things stay the way they are she’s going to get one of us killed!”
“The idea Rainbow-“ Fluttershy began, putting her foreleg around her. “Is to help Luxure be better and control herself so it doesn’t happen again. Hindsight is 20/20, I might not have been the best fit to handle Luxure’s…extremely aggressive personality. That is why she’s with Twilight now,”
“And how do you know she won’t mess things up with her too?” Rainbow grumbled.
Fluttershy’s solemnly sighed. “I don’t. She is a very damaged mare, maybe more than anypony I’ve ever met but…we have to have some faith that she’ll try. How can she ever have hope to improve if nopony believes in her?”
Rainbow winced a little bit and tried her best not to look Fluttershy in the eye. “Mmph…I hope you know you’re really going to bat for the mare who got you basically caused your alcohol poisoning”
“I realize. But think about it Rainbow. That kind of ailment’s not something you immediately get better from like I did. One moment I felt deathly ill, the next I’m fine. Wasn’t it…odd?” She asked.
Rainbow didn’t respond for a while. She hadn’t thought about that. Admittedly, her and her friends were all so caught up in the heat of the moment when Fluttershy awoke they didn’t care to worry about the ‘how’. “You…think Luxure cured you?”
Fluttershy nodded. “I can’t guarantee it, but I have a feeling Luxure found out what happened, was overcome with guilt and tried to fix things without us knowing. You haven’t gotten much time with her Rainbow so you might not see it, but I have. Underneath the hardened crystal, Luxure has a heart, not just an endless abyss like she believes. We need to help her see it,”
“Aaaagh” Rainbow groaned rubbing her temples. “Okay, okay. Much as this makes me wanna pull out all my feathers, if it really means that much to you, I’ll try to give it a shot. But…look, I know you believe in the mare, but I just don’t trust her yet. I’m gonna watch her like a hawk,”
“That’s fair,” Fluttershy said with a smile, patting Rainbow’s back. “Do you want to get some cider? Might help you feel better,”
Rainbow winced, thinking about the group’s most recent experience with alcohol. “Y’know…normally I’d be all about that but…I’ll pass all things considered. Just gonna fall back on apple juice for a while,”
Realizing her mistake, Fluttershy sheepishly smiled. “Right. Sorry. Me too, I wasn't thinking,”
As the two Pegasi began to head back to the train station, they were still unaware of the presence of the Changeling Queen, now disguised as an average crystal weather patrol worker moving some clouds around nearby. Their conversation about Luxure absolutely got her thinking.
“Well well, tensions are running quite high, hm? The blue one’s faith in that monster is hanging by a thread. It sure would be quite the shame if that thread were to get cut wouldn’t it?” Chrysalis started to quietly cackle to herself.
“Hey newbie, c’mon we’ve still got twenty-seven more clouds to get into position. Pick up the pace!” the chief of the weather patrol, a well-built crystal Pegasus with five-o-clock shadow barked at her.
Annoyed at having demands screeched at her, Chrysalis was a millisecond away from yelling expletives at him before catching herself and clearing her throat. It would be a disaster if she blew her cover and Equestria was made aware that she’d returned. “Y-Yes of course, right away sir,” Chrysalis replied through gritted teeth.
‘Once I have control of Equestria, you will have the luxury of having your love sucked out first for speaking to me like this. Assuming you have any to give you stupid winged donkey,’
“So…” Luxure said as she looked down at the small purple dragon that greeted her and the Elements at the door to Twilight’s castle. “You are the famous Spike the Crystal Empire always goes on about these days,”
“Weeeeell not to toot my own horn but…yep,” Spike replied with an ever so slightly cocky smile.
“Lovely. If you are ever in the situation where you are handling a magical artifact like the Crystal Heart again, do whatever deity that may be inside it a favor and be gentler. My vessel had been motionless for so long and to have it jerked around and dropped so suddenly gave me some horrible motion sickness,” Luxure said, almost immediately deflating the young dragon’s ego.
“E-Eheh,” Spike rubbed the back of his head nervously. “Sorry, it was a tense situation and I didn’t know anypony was in there,”
“It is fine. I survived. Just something to think about for the future,” Luxure said as she trotted past Spike into the castle with the elements, who right away led her to the map room. “So, what are your plans for me, hm?”
“Well as we discussed, you’ll primarily be under my supervision and live in my castle here. As for our approach going forward, if nothing else we want you to see that the future isn’t written in stone, even for ponies who have a dark history,” Twilight said as they all sat down in their respective seats around the map, Luxure herself taking a seat in Fluttershy’s seat as it was vacant.
“That seems like wishful thinking to me, but it’s the thought that counts I suppose,” Luxure replied, leaning her front leg on the map and resting her face on it. “How do you plan on doing that if I may ask?”
“Well, we had been thinking we could start you off with trying to find you an actual hobby to keep you occupied,” Rarity said with optimism.
“Yer magic didn’t work in the Crystal Heart right? Probably wasn’t much ta do in there. Left ya only with those bitter thoughts of yers,” Applejack continued, lightly tapping her own forehead to make her point. “Had nothin’ ta do but sulk, y’know?
“That is an understatement,” Luxure just looked down at her hooves on the Cutie Map as she spoke. “For over a millennium I spent inside the heart alone. Not another living soul to speak to, no magic to entertain myself, and nothing but the white, empty void inside of it for me to float in for what I thought would be an eternity. All I could do was listen to the outside as the world moved on, trying to forget me. Frankly even hearing another pony’s voice was the biggest positive,”
Luxure grimaced, clearly displeased with what she remembered next. “Oooh but because Sombra was a sore loser and made the Empire vanish, I didn’t even have that for the longest time. Loathsome, blueblooded little piece of sh-“
“OKAY SO, POTENTIAL HOBBIES!” Twilight interrupted, bringing Luxure back to reality.
“Oh. Right, sorry. Went off the rails,” she said shaking her head of her impure rage toward the shadow king.
“I’ll say. Least you got that outta your system!” Pinkie said, leaning upward on the map. “So, you were having trouble with thinking of things you like before, so let’s make it easier! Back when you lived in the Crystal Empire, before everything went…bad, what did you like to do in your free time? Maybe you could pick back up on that if you can remember!”
“Hmm, well…” Asking Luxure to recall positivity in her past was a hell of a task to ask of her. So much of the resentment that shrouded the later parts of her young adult years made it difficult to look back on much of it with so much as a smile. Even her happier memories had the cloud of her darker periods of life constantly hanging over them like a storm cloud. But maybe...
“If I had to say something, I have spent a long, long time neglecting my reading, even before I was put away. That is absolutely something I regret not keeping up with,”
That garnered an almost immediate invasion of personal space on the part of a very giddy Twilight. “You like to read too?! Oh my gosh that’s great! It’s not all that often I have a reading buddy around here! Oh, are you mostly a fiction or nonfiction type of pony?! What’s your favorite genre?!” She asked with probably the biggest smile Luxure’d seen from her yet.
Of course, Luxure simply asking Twilight to take a few steps back would have done the job, but that would not be as fun.
Instead, Luxure gave a small smirk with the faintest of blushes coming to her cheeks. “Erotica my dear princess,” Luxure replied, planting a small kiss on Twilight’s nose. “Mwah”
Twilight’s entire face turned tomato red and she leaped backwards several feet into the air with her wings. “W-W-Why did…D-Don’t mention that in front of Spike!”
“Uuuh Twilight? What’s erotica?” Spike asked, scratching his head.
“WHEN YOU’RE OLDER SPIKE,” Twilight, incredibly flustered, shouted before landing back on the ground.
“Heheheh. I knew that would get under your feathers,” Luxure snickered. “But no, being serious. If I had to pick a favorite genre, I do enjoy a good tragedy,”
“Ah ain’t the most booksmart pony in Equestria or nothin’, but don’t the main fellas die at the end of those most of the time?” Applejack asked.
“Well I mean if you boil any genre down to its most basic tropes you can make any of them sound uninteresting, sure,” Luxure said, waving a hoof a bit. She then used her magic to open up a tiny green portal about the width of her hoof in midair before sticking her hoof inside of it. “Oooh come now it’d better still be here…Ah there we go!”
Out of the portal, Luxure pulled out a thick book (of which she had to adjust the portal just to get it out). The cover was nearly totally black, with only the two burning eyes of a unicorn pony breaking the darkness. The most defining feature of this unicorn’s face was her horn; instead of the usual glow of magic coming off of it, this one’s horn appeared to be flaming.
“This right here is my favorite. ‘The Tragedy of the Firecorn’, first edition. Kept me awake for days as a filly,” Luxure said with a genuinely pleasant smile, an apparently heavy contrast to the book’s content.
“Woah, hold on WHAT?!” Twilight exclaimed, snatching the book from Luxure’s hooves and flipped through the pages in darkish excitement. “I know the story, but I thought all copies of the novel had been lost to time! And it’s in such good condition! HOW?!?”
“I was present for its release when I was young. My mother had reservations about letting me read it but, you know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” Luxure explained as she shut the portal to her small pocket dimension.
“And yer ma’ had worries becaaaause?” Applejack asked
“Never heard of this one? It’s more on the intense side where stories are concerned. See, it’s about this unicorn commander who’d been trying for as long as she can remember to achieve a higher stage of magical power, ‘The Firecorn’. Her failure to achieve her dream for so many years frustrated her with no end in sight. Her dream would eventually become reality, but it had been warped into a nightmare,” Luxure explained as her eyes glowed a fierce, intimidating orange.
“Her superiors had sent her younger, inexperienced unit into battle against her wishes. They were clearly not yet ready for a true fight. Every single one of them was killed. The commander’s anger and grief finally sent her over the edge; her mane and magic burst into flames and she was filled with raw power the likes of which she’d never felt before. But she was too overcome with grief to care about her achievement, and would eventually go on to rip the government she’d once sworn to serve to shreds as revenge,”
Luxure’s eyes then closed, clearly back to normal and she smiled again. “Sounds cool right?”
Everyone else, sans Twilight who was still too caught up in the fascination with the book, sat in stunned silence.
“That’s uh…dang,” Spike barely even knew what to say.
“It is…quite a dark tale,” Rarity added, just as shocked as everyone else.
“Yep, gripping as heck though,” Luxure said as she teleported immediately next to Twilight, very lightly dusting Twilight’s back with her tail in a flirtatious manner. “So, feel like reading that with me? It’s a bit more in-depth than what I described obviously,”
Still too excited to notice Luxure’s sultry expression, Twilight nodded. “Oh without question! It’s not every day I’d get to read a novel once thought to be extinct!”
“…Lovely,” Luxure replied, attempting not to sound disappointed that Twilight didn’t freak from her advances again. ‘That one wasn’t as fun. Rats,’ she thought
Feeling the all too familiar sting of the uncaring snow hitting the crystalline coat that made up her body, Luxure jolted awake. To her horror, she appeared to have found herself in the frigid wastes of the Frozen North. Her hatred for this place was an intimate one, for it had been the site of her earliest memory; a small pink crystal filly curled up in the snow desperate for warmth.
For many ponies, Hell was the scalding hot to the point of their flesh melting. This though, in her mind, had to be worse. This was Luxure’s personal Hell; a horrible, cold place of reflection and regret she despised more than any other place on the planet.
How did she end up here though? The last thing she had remembered was having an admittedly fun reading session with the Elements at Twilight’s castle, she didn’t remember leaving again. She had no reason to. And she certainly hadn’t drank any alcohol to make her black out and teleport here herself. That left her with only one other possible conclusion.
“Shit,” she said to herself as she felt her head, dreading what was to come next. She had gotten too comfortable, and fell asleep during their reading session.
As with every personal Hell, there is also its devil. Luxure had heard its monstrous hoofsteps approaching the whole time, shaking the earth as it got closer. She was hoping in vain this time it may be different, THIS time it may leave her alone. She’d silently hope this every time she had this dreadful nightmare, but like with every time this nightmare invaded her slumber, it never came to be.
The hoofsteps stopped, and Luxure could feel the presence of the monster behind her. If there were any sunlight to be found in this frozen Hell, she was sure it would cast a shadow eclipsing her entirely. Meekly, the goddess turned around to face it yet again. Looming and staring her down was a dark monolith vaguely in the shape of a pony, dwarfing even the Empire’s castle. When Luxure’s eyes adjusted to the snow, she could make out the titan’s features. The creature, in every way, was a recreation of herself, the only differences besides its colossal height
After the events of the past couple of days, she had the feeling it had more to say this time around.
“YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME,” it bellowed.
“Go away,” Luxure spat, her anger and fear barely restrained. “I am at peace right now,”
“STILL YOU BELIEVE THAT’S POSSIBLE FOR YOU? DO NOT BE ABSURD,” It replied, looking down on the goddess with an air of contempt. “BOTH OF US KNOW ANY SEMBLANCE OF PEACE IS FLEETING. BY DESIGN YOU ATTRACT CONFLICT, IF NOT CAUSE IT YOURSELF,”
“It doesn’t…have to be like that,” Luxure replied meekly, her resolve starting to wear as her nightmare continued to push her “If I just…try my best to not mess this up, maybe-“
“ALL YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND POWER, AND SOMEHOW YOU STILL TURN OUT A FOOL!” the nightmare laughed, throwing its head back. After it finished it lowered its colossal head to Luxure’s eye-level, giving her a toothy smirk. “JUST AS ANY WHO TOOK THE PATH OF THE TYRANT, YOU ARE DOOMED. EVEN IN YOUR EFFORTS TO LIVE RIGHTEOUSLY. IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME. MARK MY WORDS, IT WILL BE OF YOUR OWN DOING,”
“F…Fuck you,” Luxure squeaked out, unable to think of a smarter response. Her nightmare monster’s shadow started to feel all the heavier as it draped over her. “I-I’m allowed to be happy damn you!”
“AFTER ALL THE SUFFERING THAT YOU HAVE WROUGHT, AND ARE INEVITABLY GOING TO BRING? YOU STUBBORN, SELFISH LITTLE-AAAAAAAAGH!”
Luxure looked up in surprise as her nightmare had stopped mid-insult and roared in agony. When she did, she was shocked to see a ray of blue magic striking the titanic imposter in its neck from behind. Trembling a bit, Luxure tilted her head to get a good look behind it.
Flying behind the monster, was someone Luxure had not expected to run into tonight. Wearing a stern face of determination was none other than Princess Luna; she was focusing her magic so hard the back of the nightmare Luxure’s neck began to melt.
“BEGONE MONSTER!” Luna bellowed in that Royal Canterlot Voice of hers. “ALLOW THIS POOR SOUL TO REST, OR BE DESTROYED!”
“HOW DARE YOU!” the nightmare snarled. It raised its mighty hoof into the air and attempted to swat Luna out of the sky. The alicorn managed to dodge the nightmare’s swats as it was too big to move quickly enough to strike her down. The one time that the nightmare did manage to make contact, Luna had conjured a dark blue magic shield around herself, so the nightmare had only succeeded in hurting itself, leaving cracks in its hoof. “RRRRRGH” it growled in pain, withdrawing its hoof.
“So that is what you choose,” Luna started to speak again, lighting her horn up for another spell. “You may be able to disrupt Luxure’s mental state, but you are none but a joke to ME!” she finished as she unleashed another ray of blue magic, this one much bigger than the last.
This ray collided right in the nose of the nightmare, slowly but surely engulfing its face. Its head. Its neck. Its entire torso. “AAAAAAAGH!” it screamed as Luna’s magic ravaged it, though Luxure herself couldn’t see it, the light of the spell was simply too bright.
Eventually, the nightmare’s scream grew silent, and all that remained in its place was vapor, and four melted circles in the snow where the creature’s hooves used to be.
Her work finished and her horn smoking hot, Luna exhaled deeply and turned her attention to the goddess who was staring up at her in awe. She fluttered down to Luxure, her stern frown now having been replaced with a gentle smile. “I received your message,” Luna spoke first.
Realizing she had been stunned from the powerful display of magic that Luna had just shown, Luxure snapped back to reality. “O-Oh?”
“Yes,” Luna continued, poofing the opened scroll to her presence with her magic. “Not only was it quite the moving apology, but the smiley face was a nice touch,”
“That one was more Pinkie’s idea than mine, but thank you nonetheless, e-eheh,” Luxure replied, resolving herself to just sit in the snow. “Um…truth be told I didn’t actually expect you’d read it. After the way that I spoke to you I was sure you would not piss on me if I were on fire,”
Luna opted to not even acknowledge Luxure’s vulgarity in this instance. “You don’t truly believe me to be so cold that I would ignore an attempt at reconciliation do you?”
“No no, not that, it’s just...” Luxure struggled to find the words. “Just what I figured any normal pony would do I mean…come on this is me we’re talking here,” she finished, her ears sadly folding to the sides of her head.
“Bear this in mind, Luxure,” Luna said as she came a little closer, resting a hoof on her back to comfort her. “After what I had done as Nightmare Moon, I felt much the same as you do in that regard. Ironically, I turned into that because of a desire to be loved the same as my sister, feeling I was not getting it. But after the darkness was purged from my heart, knowing full well of my sins, I felt undeserving of that love. And yet, even after all I had done, my sister and many other ponies could still find it in their hearts to forgive me and to give me just that. I know your feelings all too well, how could I not give you a chance?”
“And you even went as far as to rid me of my nightmare. But…I-“ Luxure started again, only for Luna to move her hoof to her mouth this time, silencing Luxure.
“No buts here. Not stepping in when your own dreams are giving you such a verbal lashing would be cruelty. You may not believe it yet, but you are just as deserving of love as anypony else. For what you said when we first met, I forgive you. If you truly want this, I suppose we could even make an attempt at friendship. It was your suggestion after all,” Luna said, still with that same comforting smile.
Almost not knowing how to respond, Luxure stuttered on repeat for several seconds. “I…I….”she stopped as she could feel a tear running down her cheek. “D-Damn it all not again,”
“Shhh shhh it’s alright, go ahead,” Luna assured her, bringing Luxure close in a hug.
That was just too much. The dam had burst, and the mighty goddess of lust hugged Luna back, quietly sobbing into her shoulder. Gently patting her on the back, Luna decided to additionally rid Luxure’s dream of the harsh cold of the frozen north that tormented her so. Instead, she used her domination over the world of dreams to change it into a lush green field set in the middle of spring.
She was confident her new friend would be able to sleep soundly once she left.