> Pri(n)celess
>  by Ice Star
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prelude: Maiden of the Old Lands
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Princess Platinum, like all of the Unicorn Royalty before her, was a mostly insufferable brat. Her muzzle was always scrunched up with disdain and turned upwards with contempt. However, this was not an unusual display for any who dwelled in the cold, unforgiving stone stronghold that was the unicorn royals' castle in the near-barren Tribelands.

She stumbled down dim halls after the adults when she could escape her nurse. To the little filly, this mare was just another easy replacement following in her mother's hoofsteps, and not because she thought her nurse cared for her in any way. Platinum was a proper filly and was indulged with no silly notions by any of the castle staff, or her mother, Queen Vitalis when the latter was alive. She was raised to be a proper unicorn, after all. Even at the tender age of four winters old, she knew that only three things mattered: the blood in her veins that marked her as royalty, the gold of her family, and the horn on her head. The great exception to these three things was that magic was not among them, for mastering magic was a mad notion for those below her to waste their time on, and it always had been. The fine crown that sat upon her father's head — and would one day rest on her own — would get her what she wanted. That was how it worked for her father, and all of Platinum's many-times-great grandparents back. Every unicorn dynasty before her family had used the crown the exact same way, no matter all the different, equally violent ways that they took it from one another. 

She heard this and much more whispered in the hall by noblemares and stallions rushing about with servants rushing blindly to their every need. Those servants never questioned an order, as was proper of unicorns in their station. Platinum was a good filly, and in her time a good filly was a little filly just like her. Even if that kind of filly was spoiled beyond belief and rotten to her very core, as cold as the metal for which her and her father before her and his father before him were all named.

Platinum looked like her father too. Her luminous white mane — a trait that named her sire before she could even speak his name, grew long and spilled over her withers and brow. This was helped in part by the long grooming sessions that maids made her endure, brushing out each tangle. The whole time, they were given special sanction to ignore the young filly's constant cries not to pull so hard — and sometimes Platinum thought that they were ordered to pull harder when she cried. But those ceased after a while, the queen would not have such a noisy daughter and her cold, loveless words made it clear to the young filly. While Platinum did not understand much at all at her tender age, one lesson always stood out — that she was to obey. She was a proper filly. A good filly. A royal filly. A unicorn filly. All of which were things that mattered, as she was so often told. Though, she was never told why, but that was alright, for she never asked. She wasn't supposed to, just like her father hadn't been expected to, nor was his father before him, and...

Her father's coat of silver had not shown in hers, but his watery blue eyes were shared with her. She loved them, even though she had to squint nearly all the time to see anything that was more than a couple of hoof-lengths in front of her. But that was okay too, because if she squinted hard enough her mother's pale green coat — something that was rare and to be treasured, or so she was told —  almost looked bluish. She hated her coat, and whispered curses at her hooves when nopony was listening, all in the hopes that one day she would have cursed the garish green enough that it could drain from her body. 

It was ugly because it reminded her of her mother. Anything that reminded her of her mother was ugly. She was glad that her mother was not there to hit her as all the other mothers Platinum knew. Otherwise, every misdeed she had ever done and all those she had yet to do would be punctuated with thrice the amount of strikes a foal was supposed to receive. Were those that her father and the servants gave her not enough? 

She was glad that in Tirek's invasion, her mother was the most notable victim of his destruction. The whispers she was not supposed to hear still told of how Tirek had squished her like a closet-moth could be pulled from locked-up petticoats and smeared under one's hoof upon the floor. Yet, this never changed the fact that every time she opened her eyes, she often saw the face of a mare that only lingered in portraits on the halls. Platinum was surrounded by all the sights of a mare she had never met. She was haunted by a ghost no magician could detect, if they believed her at all when she cried to them about the mare who stood over her bed each night. This was the phantom-mare that her father, King Tantalum, told her to shut up about each time she dared breath an attempt to confide in him. He roared like a dragon at her about how she ought to keep quiet, lest the court think she was mad!

In her chambers, she heard her mother's voice haunting her and telling her about all the things a good filly would do. Her voice as cold as Platinum could recall from the lingering memories of her mother, and matched the same tone that her wet nurses and others were supposed to speak to her in. Those memories were few, considering she was only an infant at the time of her mother's death. Even then, Platinum had known later that her mother only wanted to adhere to the proper customs of the court and allow a nurse to see to her daughter, who was the throne's heir in name only. Platinum would continue to be that heir-apparent until the death of her father. Her father's near-scandalous choice not to take a new wife made her the heir of the Unicorn Tribe — even if she wasn't a colt. 

More than the way the window-shutters rattled, Platinum had learned that it was such a shame that she had been born a mare. Stallions were expendable and capable of seeding as many heirs as could be possibly needed in a legion of bought brides, should the family tree suddenly appear to be scant on branches. A colt was an easy price to lose to sickness if he had enough bastards and heirs trotting about. Mares were supposed to live in comfort, to squawk at husbands, and to make foals by the dozen. They were important in ways that stallions were not, and the stress of politics was not to be upon them if possible because politicking was second to running a household and being the administrator of an estate's war-choices on the other two tribes. Those were mare-duties, and stallions were merely meant to be figureheads bedecked in all that might advertise them as a proper spoil for mares to enter into the business arrangement that marriage was. Kings, lords, and other stallions were susceptible to be slain and tortured during raids and intra-race feuds. Mares and tradition, the two most powerful things in the world, had decreed that it was they who were to be the busiest and first up for dying in the name of duty. The only acceptable death for a mare was after she was old and gray and had no more foals to push out, for a mare who died while she was foaling was the greatest source of shame a family could have. 

Her mother liked to remind her of these many secrets a lot too — even when ponies were around Platinum. The queen was there to tell her daughter that she should have been a colt, for if a colt died in his crib, there was less shame than if a filly had been in his place. To be female was to be a charm locked away in life's jewelry box and flaunt oneself as much as family flaunted the power of daughters. When a daughter died, there was a real tragedy to be had. Platinum didn't know why her mother longed for this so much. She was dead. Her stare was cold. Her voice was like the ice of the long winter that her land experienced — the kind that was growing longer by the year. Sometimes, the little filly would wonder if she could touch her mother, though she had no reason to, and if she would feel as cold as her voice was.

The days when her mother wouldn't come were the worst. Platinum was often alone then, and she hated being alone, even when her mother wasn't there. She would sway back and forth on her hooves as much as her gaudy silk dresses and jewels would allow under cold pressures that she didn't think should be there. Platinum would suffer through her usual bouts of achy headaches that she liked to imagine were just from her having a horn. It was like when her father told her the crown was a burden, she simply concluded that all this was the burden of being the pure race, the true race, and all the other things she was told.

Listen and obey. She did those a lot. The only pony Platinum never thought to obey was her mother, who told her things she wasn't sure how to obey and didn't sound like commands at all.

Princess Platinum was not a scholar. She was not smart, but she was called beautiful countless times, as was proper for mares and fillies to be called. Smart and powerful were words for the stallions — those were the words that told you they were meant to be used. She knew that, but being a princess and the heir made Platinum like to think that she knew a fair deal too. Even if she wasn't ever allowed to tell somepony that, it was a nice thought to nurse. She knew that she hated her mother — who made her eyes burn with colors she didn't like before she appeared — and watched little Platinum when she wasn't visible. Platinum felt cold strokes on her mane when no crown was there, and she knew it was her mother. The bitter taste of something like poor ale would touch her throat after she spoke her mother's name, but she smiled to show everypony how much she loved the dead mare who stalked the halls from one portrait to another. From the walls, Platinum's mother would urge her to listen, listen, listen to everypony and all the things that the queen knew to be true about life. She had been born to the highest gentry and had a marriage arranged with the king, whom she never loved and never would — as was proper — and she always loved to remind Platinum of this as a distant scream that was never hers replayed in her daughter's mind. 

Was it her mother's scream? She wasn't sure of that, but Platinum always liked the sound of it. Sometimes, it would make her feel safe. If there was anything in the world that could make her mother scream with such pain as that, Platinum knew that there was still good in this world. Maybe one day the vision who stalked her would make that same agonizing scream, and there would be nothing to touch Platinum's body or mind ever again. Platinum liked to think that this phantom was just a shadow, one that nopony else could see. Surely there was something powerful enough to make a shadow disappear? 

She was almost glad that the shadow of the queen took such pleasure in tormenting her. It meant she had a heart. Somewhere. Probably.

Just like her mother and father, Princess Platinum took to lies easily. What pony didn't? Lies were everyday, common among both the wealthy and the poor, and almost required. Nobles and slaves alike would lie, assuming the slave still had their tongue. They were a basic part of speech, like all the other things she was supposed to memorize from the tutors who didn't quiz her all that well at times. A lie was as needed as a noun. She heard them talk about how she would have been better off a colt, but that was okay because most of the time she didn't hear them. She avoided the cane and always stared straight ahead. In the event that her tutors were stallions, she was actually able to focus on the painstakingly boring lessons. However, Platinum was quite sure she would never need to use reading and horn-writing in her life, much less her other lessons. When her tutors were mares, there was nothing harder than paying attention to her lessons — and Platinum had no idea why.

Either way, she really didn't like lessons all that much. Instead, Platinum preferred to stare as calmly as possible at her mother, who sat there with her. The old queen attended every lesson, her hard look of disapproval always boring into Platinum...

...especially when her tutors were mares. 

It didn't matter. Things were okay. Lots of things were okay. Many ponies were okay.

Platinum just wasn't one of them.
> Chapter 1: Platinum, Age 5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Princess Platinum was five winters old when the last of the traitors had been put to death. There were those in the Unicorn Court who had said that King Tantalum had let his wife die during the attack of Lord Tirek, a monster from beyond the Known Valley. They lingered about, hiding and whispering among themselves like rats until her wonderful father dragged them all into the light — and to their deaths. Every pony tribe had some concept of a court and each did it differently, but King Tantalum was always there for his little daughter to croon about how the unicorns did it right, and how that was what mattered. She knew it was a very big lesson to absorb, but Princess Platinum adored her father, and knew all of his lessons to her were important and must be obeyed. 

He was one of the few ponies she knew who could read, which made him doubly important to her. Her tribe was the most literate of the three, and most of the Unicorn Court could read too. Of course, you had some among the gentry who had entered left-hooved marriages and the like, so their spouses could not read, and many in the lower classes could only read minimally. They might know their family tree or the reading for running a shop, but they couldn't do anything beyond that. Princess Platinum knew that as a noble, she would be taught to read eventually. However, at five winters old, something like reading was secondary to the bulk of her education — properly developing her magic, sewing, doctoring, politicking, rhetoric, and more. Nopony needed to know how to read for those things, not at first. King Tantalum told her how even colts learn this way — that obedience makes up the first units of education, and that reading comes afterward. 

"My precious Platinum," he'd always say. "Do you know what we must never displace in a healthy society?"

"What, Father?" she'd always reply back. It was exactly as she had been taught to — questions could be dangerous if asked wrongly. 

"Tradition, my dear. To rule over this tribe, you must always uphold traditions if you want the unicorn race to live as it should. What I do now, my forefathers in the mountain tombs have done. Any society that displaces its tradition is playing with evils that must be avoided at all cost. You do not need anything but the persistence of how things have always been and the ways of your ancestors to live. There is no beauty outside of it. Those who talk about reason, virtue, newness, or anything of the sort are those who wish to upend tradition — and our traditions must be defended with blood."

Princess Platinum always listened and nodded. Most importantly, she obeyed. She knew that the other two tribes had traditions — though they were the wrong traditions — but there was something so appealing about knowing that they were all defended the same way. Tradition was watered and defended with the blood of those who opposed them. Without that beautiful sentiment, there could be no safety, no order, and no survival. Sometimes, wars were fought because it was traditional to do so rather than over any specific thing — that was one lesson Princess Platinum learned when hearing her father talk about all of the active wars. Some of them began as raids and assaults simply because it was the unicorn way. 

Unlike the other two tribes, it was the unicorn way to love your family. The earth ponies had no love for their leaders and decided them through a corrupt process known as elections, which were a huge part of why they were always starving. Earth ponies didn't care about providing for their families and their mares and stallions paired based on fancies, so they all had big, starving families with little to call their own. Pegasi were wicked and didn't have families. They had something called eugenics which meant that their foals never saw their parents and the ponies they didn't like were thrown off of the clouds with their wings removed, if necessary. (This was also how the earth ponies got so much fertilizer.) They also didn't have anything to call their own — everypony was a soldier, or they were dead. Unicorns were different. They could have homes and families and they didn't need to have forever-foals as labor or because they died too often like earth ponies. Unicorns could even make brews that stopped foals from starting, but that didn't mean unicorns were short on foals. 

Even though she loved her father, Princess Platinum knew that they weren't quite a family. Princes are supposed to be kings when they grow up to rule and princesses are supposed to make the family stronger through skills or marriages. Queens are supposed to help their kings and have as many foals as possible for servants to raise. Yet, her father had no queen. He was supposed to have had one after her mother died. Everypony does, and then they keep having foals. When a spouse died, that was the end, it was the duty to move on to another pony and keep having foals. There weren't supposed to be any complications in the matter. But King Tantalum didn't, even when everypony said these things to him, which little Platinum was often present for. 

He only had her. When her father said that she was his whole world, nothing less could capture the gravity and unusualness of that. If she died, two things could happen: either her father would have to remarry or be declared insane and unfit to rule. If her father was already dead by then, the Unicorn Tribe would fall into war over who would become the new Royal Family, which would make them vulnerable to pegasus and earth pony attacks. Platinum's whole race depended upon the fact that her father had to raise her like a prince while knowing that she would also have to produce a prince so that a royal unicorn male could continue the legacy of the tribe. She was instrumental in one day conquering the earth ponies and pegasi. Her father wasn't the only one who told Platinum this nearly every day. 

It was a vision dear to her race, one that countless ancestors before her had dreamed about. And now her father was telling her one version of that hope. Little Platinum sat in her bed, her layered floor-length nightgown ready to combat the cold. Countless sheets were pulled over her. The trundles on either side of her enormous bed were pushed in — the chambermaids assigned to sleep with her would enter her room when storytime was over. The curtains on her bed's canopy were pulled aside so that the little filly propped against so many pillows and atop her multiple mattresses could see the stool her father sat on more clearly. His kingly robe swept to the floor and his crown was placed on her nightstand — this was the only time that she got to see her father without his crown. King Tantalum's white forehooves gripped a large storybook for little unicorns, and she watched excitedly as his white-mustached muzzle spoke each word:

"...and with the Pegasus Tribe finally conquered, King Mighty Horn rallied his troops and charged into the cloud ruins of the perverse city they had pulled from the sky. All survivors met the might of unicorn spears and other bravely made weapons, and the earth was nourished knowing that the blood spilled upon it was no longer unicorn blood. Those who still managed to survive were captured as slaves. From them, King Mighty Horn knew that their secrets would not last forever. It was unicorns whose grave lottery decided the sun and moon would rise and set each day. Yet, that was not our only boast of superiority. Our race was clever, and King Mighty Horn knew we could learn the magic behind pegasus abilities, and then the weather and skies would be ours. The last of their kind would be rotting away in our dungeons when this happened, but the path ahead was clear: pegasus extinction was possible."

Princess Platinum let loose a dreamy sigh. "Is that where the story ends? Oh, Father, please tell me that it does not end so! I want to see the pegasi go extinct! Please, please, let me hear more of the glory our race could have!"

King Tantalum chuckled, magic smoothing his large mustache and a long beard. "My precious Platinum, your excitement warms my heart. That only ends that chapter of King Mighty Horn's adventures, and I planned to save the next chapter for tomorrow night—"

"Tomorrow night?!" Platinum squeaked, her expression contorting to one of disgusted offense. She drummed her little forehooves savagely upon her sheets — which would have knocked off her little crown had it not been on her nightstand. This was the only time her father saw her without her crown too. "I want it now! Now! Now! Now!"

King Tantalum's expression slipped into something unreadable beyond slight annoyance. "Then you shall have it, but only if you remember next time — a mare makes her demands differently than a stallion does."

Two green little ears perked up. "Of course, Father." 

"Very good," the old stallion replied as his daughter ducked her head modestly. "Now, as promised. The seventh chapter of the saga of King Mighty Horn is 'The Search for a Queen'..."

Princess Platinum held her forehooves to her mouth to daintily stifle the squee of joy that followed. 



...



"...and it was here that King Mighty Horn believed that he had found the perfect bride," read King Tantalum, his narrating voice a carefully enunciated, deep-barrel tone. "The Lady Mountain Stream was everything that a unicorn bride should be and more. Her family was alive and healthy. Not a single crime could be found in her family tree no matter how far back one looked — King Mighty Horn had not even found a single candy thief! The wealth of her family would ensure a properly enriched castle for generations. Her good breeding showed that her family did not succumb to the pegasus folly and crime of inbreeding. She had all her teeth, had survived every pox she had without a mark, and her magic was not stunted. Its power was proportional to her education, immediately dismissing the possibility of witchcraft along with her lack of peculiarities and good social skills. Her mane, tail, and coat were always washed and she had learned the art of makeup from her mother. Not only did she know how to purify water better than any other unicorn in the city, she grew the best herbs for remedies. A town physician promised King Mighty Horn that she was both virginal and likely to survive a birth. That was the part that sealed the deal for King Mighty Horn, who could already see this mare in the castle and ready to foal." 

Platinum scrambled up her muzzle. This book was slightly above the level she had been read to so far, but not dramatically so. She simply didn't recognize all the words. There was never any doubt in her mind during previous portions of the story why certain characters were warriors or wizards, or who was brave and who was a traitor. However, the more this 'marriage' came up and was actually talked about, the less she understood it. She had known all her life that it was something ponies do, and a unicorn invention — and she knew that one day her father would 'marry her off' since she was even younger than she was now. Yet, the layout and the content of it didn't make any sense to her — why did these things make a marriage? Why did they matter? How did having all of her teeth or lots of money make King Mighty Horn want Lady Mountain Stream? 

"Is something the matter, my daughter?" said King Tantalum softly as he looked up from the book, marked his spot, and then shut it. "You have been making that face for some time."

"I..." Princess Platinum wrung her forehooves and looked at them carefully. She didn't want to sound curious, since she knew that was something that only infected bad ponies. She also knew from years of blanket training with the servants to keep her hooves to herself.  "I am confused, Father. The story is... getting hard to make sense of."

"In what way is that?" King Tantalum asked, his blue eyes carefully watching his daughter. 

"I... I do not think I could say..." Platinum winced, "...without asking a question."

Slowly nodding, King Tantalum set the book aside with a flick of his magic. "You have learned so well to shun curiosity that is a curse upon the worst and most unruly foals. There are times when questions help us do what is normal, daughter. That is when they are especially valuable. You are not some wizard who trots on the edge of magic and potentially falls into the follies that inquisitiveness brings. I permit you to ask a question."

"In... in all the 'happily ever after' stories, unicorns get married. B-But I do not understand this marriage deal, Father," Platinum stammered, carefully avoiding looking into the corner of her room. As she always tried to. "What makes unicorns get married?"

"Ah, my dear, a very mature sentiment for a question," muttered King Tantalum as his magic combed through his beard in thought. "Think back to the story. Marriage is what happens when you meet somepony of the right health, political connections, and breeding with whom you can have a foal. Mares and stallions get married so they can form a more perfect estate that will enrich the family for generations to ensure their young ones are provided for. Replacing a dead spouse, cultivating better magic, respecting an old political deal — all of these are reasons mares and stallions get married other than the necessary reproductive element. There is nothing more to it than the will of the two families involved — and anything less is not a marriage. Anything 'different' does not exist." 

"And you just... like the unicorn your family picks?"

"Sometimes," said King Tantalum sagely, nodding slowly. "The families' assent is all that is needed. It is up to the unicorn mare and stallion to get along well enough to have foals. Marriages rarely turn into romance."

"Father," Princess Platinum said weakly, "I do not know what that last word means."

There was a long, weary sigh from the elder stallion. He hummed deeply in thought before he spoke. "Romance is... quite like an illness. Some creatures describe the feeling as a form of goodness, but alas, it is no such thing. Romance is a persistent wanting to cultivate love unlike any shared by a family between a mare and a stallion. Unicorns in love are incapable of any reasoning whatsoever. Their magic is not to be trusted. Love corrupts tradition, love must be overcome, and love is a delusion that seeps into the deepest part of a unicorn and robs them of their manner and sensibilities. Spouses who end up falling in love are insufferable, stubborn, superstitious, unhealthy, and overly emotional creatures. Ahem. I am certainly lucky — I have never been in love in my life. Wizards and physicians are more prone to encountering anything dealing with love than most, who are sensible enough to not travel far. To better ward yourself against it, you might find that they have wisdom to spare." 

Platinum nodded because it was expected of her rather than out of understanding. Some of what her father said made sense to her, but there was much that she could compare to nothing. She had never known such a feeling — either at all or just based on how he described it. She really wasn't certain. In fact, she could think of little that was supposed to be more dangerous — she knew strangers were, witches were, and race-mixing was talked about with similar severity. "Yes, Father. Thank you."

"Now, my precious Platinum," her father said, his voice grave and his eyes fixed seriously upon her. "There is something that I must ask of you."

"Of course, Father. Anything."

"My dear, I need you to promise me that you will never fall in love." The way that he was looking at her now — equal measures of calm and seriousness — made the room feel strangely colder despite all her pillows, blankets, and dresses. Even without the dramatic light of all the candles in her room, Princess Platinum could not recall many times when her father had been so honest and serious about something. The honesty alone scared her, as she was sure it always had.  "I also would encourage you to avoid asking questions in the future, especially if you are fretting that it conflicts with a tradition of our race. The best way to experience a tradition is to participate in it without disturbance and simply let it happen." 

"Of course," Platinum said immediately. She saw no reason why she needed to hesitate. "I promise you all of both, Father." 

As she spoke, it was by mistake that she finally caught sight of the corner of her room. When she did, she did her best to show nothing, as she always had when she struggled with the sight of her. There, in the corner, where no shadow could hide her was the familiar coat of light green on the whole opaque shape of Queen Vitalis, who had been sitting there silently the whole time. As she always did. The dead mare in her jewels was noticed only by Platinum, always. Why was it that she was so focused on the filly that never knew her, but was invisible to the stallion that had married her? 

And now, Princess Platinum watched as her mother offered an eerie clap of her hooves as soon as Platinum spoke her promise.
> Chapter 2: Platinum, Age 8
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three more winters did nothing to Princess Platinum but exaggerate her. Though she had begun her reading, she found it shallow and could not see what good it did her to have a scholarly side. She read only when she must with great pressure from her tutors or when it benefitted her to do so. And for Platinum, she only saw more benefit in getting more of what she wanted — so, even at eight winters old, she was already fostering what political skills she could. As the sole foal of Unicorn Royalty, she had to have the most dresses and jewelry. She would start wearing makeup if she wanted to, and when she demanded a tutor to teach her what a mother normally taught her daughters of beauty, she was given one. She could not stand it if any fillies among the gentry and servants had more dolls than she did. 

Yet, that march of winters did not just make Platinum more spoiled but heightened her skills in manipulation. Perhaps the way she manipulated ponies best was learning to hide that there was something not well with her, something that went beyond what any material indulgence could soften. What child would be well in the head if they were as haunted as she was? Every morning, Platinum woke to Vitalis' stare and words, and every night, she knew that the strange sight of her mother was always lurking in the corner. Her greediness and vanity were earnest attributes of hers, not her manner of masking. That was something she learned from both manners and the art of performance. Acting was swell as long as she was the star of the show — but she had to act as though she were normal, which petrified her in quiet moments when she wondered if perhaps all she might be was the shell of a filly, if all she did was pretend. And what amount of toys, dresses, and jewels could fill an empty child? 

The Unicorn Tribe was the only one of the three tribes that had true healers. The pegasi all disposed of the sick, weak, and those deemed burdensome. Only those with the most superficial of wounds survived a return from the frontlines of war among the pegasi — because for them, the return to their own kind was more perilous than the two-front wars of the races that they called enemies. Earth ponies had healing poultices and spreads, but they couldn't stitch a wound shut or mend a broken leg in a way that let the pony be in fighting shape again. Yet, what was it that healed troubled eyes? And how did one keep silent if it was their mind itself that was injured, lest they be locked away? The only way a unicorn with an ailment of the mind could have any power was if they were the reigning King or an unwed Queen. Then, they only had to eliminate any enemies among the court that might try to get them deemed unfit — which was not likely, as there had been many mad enough unicorn kings before Princess Platinum. Though, the degree of madness mattered too — there were those whose ailment's nature was not sufficient enough to create a tyrant at least some could rally around, and would result in overthrow no matter what. Thus, pretending to be normal even when she was stalked down every hall by what was surely a ghost was all Platinum knew to do. 

And what could be more normal for a young filly than to play with dolls? Princess Platinum was alone in her playroom, surrounded by a colorful array of dolls from all classes and forms of dress. Every single one of them was a unicorn, just like her. No little filly would have earth pony or pegasus dolls. Some of her dolls were dressed for dancing. Others were dressed for winter. Some were dressed as peasants. A few wore colorful and shimmering robes that marked them as mages. There were princess dolls and pauper dolls. Some dolls were shopkeepers, wig-makers, cooks, and all manner of things a mare could be. 

The sheer variety of dolls that Princess Platinum had made it easier to ignore how Queen Vitalis watched her. Today, the old queen was silent, and not even her long skirts rustled. Without even a servant in the playroom, there could not be a more perfect afternoon for playtime. Immediately, Princess Platinum scooped up one of her dolls in her magic. The doll was newer, and the colors on her face were bright with this fact. The cloth legs of the unicorn doll mare dangled out from beneath a wedding dress. The dress was obviously made with the scraps of some gentry-mare's actual wedding dress, since the white fabric was gorgeously shiny and smooth, and the jewels on it were real ones from the gem mines owned by her tribe. A woven headdress netted the little doll's mane and glittered with shards too small to injure a filly. The doll's horn was smooth and unchipped while her expression was both blushing and the sternness appropriate for a wedding. Two button eyes were hidden behind a veil that Platinum loved to flip. 

Normally, she had tea parties with her dolls. In that regard, she was a typical filly. They had dances, fancy dinners, and she tried to play house to the best of her ability. But Platinum had never had a wedding before, and this doll was utterly perfect for a play marriage. Princess Platinum loved to go to weddings — it was one of her royal duties she genuinely adored — and to drink in all the sights as though they were as precious as sunlight and would never be seen again. The magic shows, the food, the music, the gifts, and the dancing all overshadowed the contract-signing and the dullness of the ceremony itself. Except for the bell-tolling and the first kiss, there was little about the actual ceremony that appealed to young Platinum. 

She had to have a doll wedding, and it had to be now, before she forgot. Perhaps it could even be the first of many doll weddings. Princess Platinum's smile slipped slightly as she looked around at the other dolls scattered on the floor and in their houses and costume chests. Something was quite wrong. She wanted a wedding, and while there were plenty of guests, bridesmaids, audience members, and even a mage to officiate things, there was a vital element to any wedding that was missing. Not a single one of her dolls was a stallion — she was without a groom! How could a doll wedding happen now?

Platinum's hoof almost slipped, but she hugged her bride doll more tightly to her chest as she plopped onto the floor. Her skirts flared out with the gesture, almost as if they guided the spread of her thoughts. Just what was she to do? Should she stop playing at all — even if it meant not getting what she wanted? Or, perhaps, she should just quit? But then what? Should she just summon one of the servants to entertain her, as she had countless times before when she was struck with boredom? 

What was the harm in playing, though? That question sprouted up stubbornly and refused to be tamed. She had no good answer for it, even as she stroked her doll's mane and tapped her muzzle with a forehoof. How could she be doing anything harmful if she was just playing with dolls, as she always had? 

The question that felt so loud that it almost pierced the silence that Platinum sat in had no easy answer. The little filly slumped, momentarily letting her perfect posture slip, though she kept the doll clutched closely. There didn't appear to be an answer at all. All she heard was the impossibly slow ticking of the clock on the wall. Platinum knew that she couldn't just walk up to one of the servants and ask them for a ready-made doll. They took time to order and have delivered to the castle. Sometimes, her father ordered that the foals of servants surrender their dolls to Platinum's collection when she made a big enough fuss, but if she wanted a doll even half as nice as her unicorn bride, she was going to have to wait ages for such a doll to be completed, and too many playtimes would have passed by then. 

She wanted to play, and that was exactly what she was going to do. Platinum slipped her doll onto her back and stood up. Her skirts still brushed the stone floor — she'd made the mistake of trying to scoot across it when she was much younger. She trotted innocently around the room, eyeing the dolls strewn about. Eventually, she found one that looked satisfactorily coltish enough to pass for a groom. The doll was of a warrior mare — something rare only in her tribe, where mares had the luxury to not be slaughtered in battle — and still had her face stitched in a way that made it obvious she was a mare with little eyelashes and the like. However, there was still enough about her short-cropped mane, armor, and miniature spear accessory that set her apart from the other dolls' femininity. She would simply have to do.

Princess Platinum hummed her best imitation of a wedding song as she reached into her costume chest and pulled out enough scarves and petticoats to pretty up her nicest dollhouse. When that was done, she arranged all of her other dolls in their proper formations. The mage was at the front with a few scraps of a lesson Platinum had done poorly in folded a few times over to make a book. Various peasant dolls found themselves as makeshift soldiers. Without enough dolls to serve as defined members of a family, Platinum heaped the rest of her dolls into the rows needed to serve as a proper audience. All the caution she hadn't realized she had been clinging to faded away as she began to hum louder. Finally, Platinum sat herself down beside the mage doll and positioned her groom. Careful telekinesis guided the bridesmare to the altar, before Platinum took her groom in one hoof and her bride in the other. After a few breathlessly mumbled vows, the wedding was nearly complete.

Guided by her excitedly shaking hooves, Princess Platinum's two dolls met. The bride kissed her soldier mare and something almost right stirred in Platinum's chest as she drank in the sight. 

Behind her, a mare screamed. It took only a split second, but Princess Platinum looked to where Queen Vitalis was as she hurriedly plopped her dolls in the heap of her skirts. This was a habit she'd picked up for whenever anything seemed amiss or any sudden sound could be heard. Half the time, the sound came from none other than the vision of Queen Vitalis herself, and Platinum would have to pour her heart into dismissing anything about odd behavior. She only needed a few months of her earliest years to learn that snapping her head towards the source of her mother's noises and the like would only get her asked the wrong kinds of questions — or scolded for the wrong kind of behavior. 

Especially when it was the bursts of that damned scream tearing across the room. Even when Queen Vitalis was not within Platinum's line of sight, there were times when she would hear the scream. In the past, she had reacted visibly enough that the servants and even her father had asked about her behavior and scolded her for it in equal measure — sometimes even in the same breath. She learned to sit through the screaming that only she could hear, and even to smile through it, no matter how loud it got, how much it hurt, or how murderous Queen Vitalis would glower at her daughter.

This scream did not come from Queen Vitalis. It was not the scream. In fact, Queen Vitalis was almost ignoring Princess Platinum — she eyed the filly with a disgusted sideways glance that almost felt as though she were being shunned. Princess Platinum had to turn around to find the source of the scream. One of the maids was standing in the doorway, her magic clasped around the door's handle and a bucket and sponge that floated in the air next to her. She quickly followed the maid's eyes as a chasm of fear opened in her stomach. 

The dolls gathered in Platinum's skirts felt heavier. There had been no mistake in what she was doing. 

"YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS!" breathed the mare all in one shriek. Platinum immediately swiveled her ears back. In any other circumstance, it would normally be she who got to throw out the commands and demands. However, this was one of the few situations where the servants were to act as disciplinarians to the young filly, in accordance with unicorn tradition. She couldn't even remember the name of this mare — or most of the servants — if she wanted to throw a fit, which would probably only make things worse. "YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS YOU MUST NOT DO SUCH A THING!"

"I..." Princess Platinum mumbled, gluing her eyes to the dolls sitting in her skirts. 

"YOU KNOW WHAT PROPER PLAY IS! NOPONY SHOULD EVER SEE SUCH A PERVERSE THING!"

Perverse? thought Platinum. What does that mean? Had the feeling that she had gotten in her chest — that feeling like no other she had ever had, that incorrigible sense of rightness — been perverse? What on earth was that feeling — and why had it been so wrong?

"WHERE DID YOU EVEN LEARN SUCH A THING? YOU ARE TOO YOUNG TO HAVE BEEN TO A BURNING! YOU HEAR ME? TOO YOUNG! JUST WAIT UNTIL I TELL YOUR FATHER ABOUT THIS! YOU KNOW THAT MARES CAN ONLY BE WITH STALLIONS! YOU ARE THE SOLE HEIR TO THE THRONE OF THIS RACE! IT IS THROUGH YOU ALONE THAT OUR RACE SURVIVES — AND THROUGH YOU ALONE THAT WE CAN GET PROPER HEIRS! ONCE YOU ARE OF AGE YOU WILL FINALLY SECURE US A RIGHT AND PROPER KING, YET YOU WASTE YOUR DAYS BEING A WICKED FILLY WHEN EYES ARE AWAY FROM YOU!"

While the form of Queen Vitalis stared indifferently down at Platinum, the little filly felt as though she would burn a hole through the floor. She was filled with so much confusion that the ache it tore through her made her want to lie down and melt through a bed. Just what had she been doing wrong? Why had that feeling happened? Why did she feel so terrible and like she might wilt? Normally, when the maids yelled at her, she would simply launch a tantrum back. Some ponies said she was getting too old for them — eight winters old was already old enough to consider marriage. Ten winters old was a definite marrying age, though the adulthood of ten winters never meant she would have any more say in her future than she did now. Power and tradition did not decree it so. Her father would be just as much her lord as ever. 

"WHEN YOUR FATHER HEARS WHAT I CAUGHT YOU DOING, YOU WILL NEVER NOT KNOW THE CORRECT WAY OF THINGS EVER AGAIN! AGAINST THE NATURAL LAW IS WHAT THAT IS! DISORDERED! RACE-KILLING BEHAVIOR! NONE OF THIS NONSENSE OF LOVE AND ALL ITS PERVERSIONS!"

As she felt herself falling away and her heart burrowing in on itself, a tiny part of Princess Platinum reared past all the dread of knowing she would have to face her father. Through the crushing shame, she realized one thing of note — she had never, ever heard the word 'love' brought up in the context of what she had done before.
> Chapter 3: Platinum, Age 8
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Any room where Princess Platinum was to meet with her father was practically a throne room. As the race that claimed the mountains, the unicorns alone had access to mines. Jewels were the reward for their labor and the Royal Family had more jewels than any other unicorns. There had been times in the past when the palace was so full of splendor that ice dragons would stray into the Known Valley, and after much unicorn blood had been spilled or gobbled, their soldiers would finally manage to bring down the winged beast. Unicorns would never make beauty their folly, and dragons were violent savages who hungered only for meat and gems. The same brilliant multitude of gems that decorated every chair her father claimed, no matter where it was. 

The castle could not accommodate high ceilings, but King Tantalum chose the meeting hall with the highest in the castle. Jeweled chandeliers twinkled above, their candles kept lit by the spellwork of marches of maids. His chair was a throne by any other name: high-backed and covered in the finest cloth, with gems embedded in a frame that dwarfed all other seats. The artifact was without any name that Platinum knew of, but it had been in the castle longer than she or her father had been alive. And now he was sitting in that chair, watching her as she approached with her head hung so her luscious white mane fell in front of her face. Maybe it was an obvious tactic, but she loathed to look her father in the eyes when he was displeased, and the way he sat so impossibly straight and displeased with everypony who looked at him made it hard to tell if that same displeasure extended to her. Meanwhile, the maid trotting alongside Platinum's plodding steps was filled with furious energy — she had already left the room once before to tattle on Platinum, and now she was simply escorting the princess toward her inevitable punishment. 

Platinum dearly hoped that she would be spared the rod. It was an impossibly ancient piece of polished wood shaped into a long staff, with rounded metal studs around one end and a metal grip along the other one. The latter was for the magic of whoever wielded the terrible thing — sometimes it was an unsympathetic servant, and other times it was King Tantalum himself. There was something so senseless about the rod that she couldn't put into words, something beyond the horrible welts it produced and the fear it generated. She always wanted to be on the other side of that fear — truly, she would love it if ponies could fear her even half as much as she feared the rod. It was the same rod that King Tantalum himself had been smacked with and every member of the Unicorn Royalty before the two of them. Once, Platinum thought she had spied dried blood on it — and that blood hadn't been hers. She hated the tradition of the rod so much not simply because it hurt, but because the rule of the rod was that crying meant you got hit until you came to your senses again, instead of the amount of appointed strikes you were told you would be given. 

Her first few times under the rod, Platinum cried. She had barely been one winter old when she first faced it and her father wielded it well, though it was too big for a filly of her size at the time. He still managed to beat all of the tears out of her so that good manners and a sound mind could rest in her head once more. After that, she stopped crying for some time when she was faced with the rod. There was a day she could not remember that landed her under the rod for something that escaped her around the time she was three winters old. Perhaps her blanket training had not been completed that afternoon; she didn't know. For whatever reason, the strikes started without interruption other than her father and a servant-stallion giving them in alteration. Then her mother's screaming started at some point between strikes, and though young Platinum had not even seen the form of her mother, the screaming was everywhere in the castle and her head felt like it was cracking from the inside out that day. She wailed and begged as much as she could, saying over and over that she was hearing the screams of Queen Vitalis again. Each tear and admission of what her father called 'residual madness' earned her harsher and harsher strikes, and she was held down until every last tear was beaten from her. The screaming and headaches hadn't stopped after her beating that day, but Platinum knew to say nothing in the time afterward, even when she had to see healers to fix her ribs from the harshness of her father's discipline. 

She never told anypony how she heard her mother's death throe scream after that. 

Thankfully, Princess Platinum saw that the rod was nowhere to be found. However, she kept her facial expression stiff as she flipped back her mane, making the gesture seem as though it was done out of feminine annoyance. As the maid stopped to bow, Princess Platinum looked cooly at the phantasmic form lingering a few steps behind where her father was seated. Queen Vitalis' forehooves were folded primly on her lap, and despite her lack of a chair, she still managed to find a ladylike way to sit on the stone floor — which shone through the edges of her skirt. Each layer of her petticoats was like a flower against the imperious and sense of formality that no corner of the castle was free of. Even in her mysterious presence, Queen Vitalis was frozen with the trappings of ladyhood: while her mane was lowered somewhat from the trappings of her diamond-studded snood, gold netting still caught the light blue and pink locks so carefully arranged under the most elegant coif in all of Unicornia.

Princess Platinum tried to avoid how her mother's wine-dark gaze followed her into the room, as if she hadn't left Platinum alone with the maid in the hallway.

"Your work here is done, Dustmop," King Tantalum said solemnly. He always stared at the servants down the length of his muzzle, not because he was much taller than them, but because all the seats of the Unicorn King were splendidly boosted. "I shall do my duties and you must return to yours."

With those words, the maid rose and gathered the edges of her skirts in her magic to do one last quick bow before turning and trotting away. 

Brown-muzzle, Platinum thought with a hiss to her words that only she could hear. She wasn't afraid of thinking thoughts like this about other ponies. She knew that Queen Vitalis probably had some sort of connection to her thoughts, though how she knew it was only a deep-seated paranoia that gnawed at her all of her life. So she did not care if the spirit overheard her think such mean and petty things — as if most mares were strangers to pettiness. 

"My precious Platinum," came the deep voice of King Tantalum. His crown in all the tribal colors of purple and silver was atop his head, always silently reminding her that to be a father meant little else but to be a king. "Do you know why you have been brought before me with such haste?"

Really, a father was just a king who didn't use the majestic plural — though, there were times when her father did slip up and refer to himself in such a way. He did it more often than he forgot the names of her dolls, and he forgot the names of her dolls a lot. 

She swallowed when she realized his voice sounded graver than usual. "Father," said Platinum, her voice mousy and struggling not to shake, "the maid who brought me here told me nothing of what I did to wrong you. She screamed at me and declared me wicked, yes, but I know not what wickedness I have done."

There was a lie in there — the truth was that she had some idea of what she had done. She was also not one to play ignorant when blame was best shifted to the countless servants she was surrounded by. While she knew her father expected an obedient and simple affirmation if Platinum toned things back just so, she might be able to spare herself the full brunt of whatever torment was planned for her.

"Dustmop tells me that you were throwing some of the most perverse displays with your dolls instead of busying your hooves with something better. She also tells me that you were alone in your playroom, and that was why you did these devious acts. Is that not what happened?"

Princess Platinum shook her head no and immediately ducked her eyes to the floor with the most excessively humble display she could think to put on. Hooves all together. Skirts brushing the floor just so. Deep breaths. 

"You know exactly what is expected of you. There are few who indulge in playrooms at your age. My daughter, you do so splendidly in your lessons that I know you to have the makings of a shrewd queen in you, one quite capable of securing a husband that can rule our tribe. In all the years we have had, I have seen you grow so fast. Now, you stand before me, just shy of marrying age. Our lives are like the bracelets your mother used to wear: one knob for birth, an opposite knob for death, and a perfectly plotted path of gems from one end to the other. You have a most splendid fate and life planned for you that started before you were even born. You will not work to death like a mud pony, unaware of if you will have a next meal or roof over your head. I know in your classes you learned of how brutal they are sending mares into battle. Pegasi are brutes unlike any other, using foals to fight. Their lives are with and without kin in all the worst ways, and they rape chosen mares full of the next brood of soldiers. Just think of how beautiful your life is in comparison."

"It is perfect, Father," lied Platinum with the gentlest of whispers. She calmly drew in a breath and kept her eyes on the floor, watching how the stones brushed her hooves. She was overdue for another set of proper regalia horseshoes. Would she be able to get out of this mess first? 

"Then you know that the traditions which await you are the lifeblood of our race. You have the ability to have a home and family. You will not starve. Your neighbors will not depose you — or worse — for a chance at leadership the way earth ponies do. In Unicornia, we have stability and art. We are worthy of the culture that we have created while the other races oppress themselves and are not worth living. You are expected to tip your horn into the circle of society and find a husband that will do his part too."

"Of course, Father," Princess Platinum said with a smoothness not typical for a filly her age. "I think of nothing else. I know that every day you have given me greater gifts than the fillies of the past by allowing me to partially have access to what only princes before me have."

"Now then, little one, what was it that Dustmop saw you doing?"

Privately, Platinum was glad that the high lace color of her dress hid her nervous swallow. Just what was she to say? "I... I was playing with my dolls, Father..."

Was it ever worth it to tell the truth — even in part?

"What is that you did with your dolls? Dustmop reported no small offense to me."

Platinum resisted the urge to shudder that so often came with trying to wriggle out of the types of trouble no tantrum could quell. "I was using the doll you got me for my birthday to have a wedding party..."

King Tantalum's thick white brows knitted together with stoically concealed confusion. "I see, daughter. You know there is nothing wrong with a wedding. What happened afterward to get Dustmop riled so?"

"Father..." murmured Platinum with a trace of a whimper in her voice. She couldn't meet his gaze. "That is all that happened... I was playing with my dolls. I had a wedding... and I picked my spear-clutching doll to be the groom." The little princess swallowed quickly before adding the lie she had so carefully rehearsed in her head, delivering it with enough fake meekness that she hoped would convince the stallion who saw so little of such behavior from her. "I thought the doll was a stallion because war-mares are so rare. Her mane and tail were not unlike a stallion's length of hair, yet they hid her eyelashes. She had no blush or eye paint sewn onto her face. Oh, Father, she looked so bulky and boyish to me in her little armor that I thought I must have a stallion doll in my hooves and I had never gotten to have a play-wedding before. Only when Dustmop screamed at me did I notice my doll was no stallion at all."

For good measure, Princess Platinum gave her eyes a few strong blinks. Fat tears began to course through the daily makeup so carefully applied by the castle servants. She looked up at her father at last, lower lip protruding with a small whimper.

King Tantalum's face showed nothing and he simply nodded slowly before lighting his horn with an aura so pale blue it was almost white. The edges of a pair of saddlebags Princess Platinum recognized from her chambers began to glow. From underneath the lid, the warrior mare doll was produced. 

"Is this the toy that you speak of?" her father asked coolly, holding it out to her. "Dustmop brought it in after you had been escorted to your parlor."

Princess Platinum nodded mutely, tears dribbling down her muzzle as she did so. 

"Then I see the cause for your confusion. I will have the tailors modify the doll to be more feminine and less offensive. We would not want to have such an improper piece in the playroom of a developing young mare. When they are finished, you will never have any doubt that you clutch a mare dolly. I see no reason why I should punish you for a mistake that even an old stallion such as myself could make."

"Thank you... thank you so much, Father," murmured Platinum as she hugged her doll tightly to her chest. "I was so worried you might not believe the truth." As she reared up, her whole body was dizzy with the same relief that was overflowing from her head. The light and quick patter of her heart was practically a song. It was enough to distract her from the sound of magic popping and the bright flash spilling out from under her skirts. 

With her eyes closed in the bliss of her victory, Princess Platinum could not see her father's reaction or the immediate response of her lingering mother. It was her father's voice that snatched her from her serenity and the softness of her doll's coat pressed up against her. Right now, all she wanted to do was savor her victory. So much of the tricks she had learned and used even now were absorbed from the mares of the Unicorn Court. No matter the era or the unicorn on the throne, there were always those among the court who were only as deep as their makeup and finery. They broke no rules but the ones that suited them to break, and mocked anypony who spoke of false idols like progress or asked more questions than they answered. Their every manner was mired in elegantly crafted deception that no ordinary socialite had. To Platinum, unicorns like this were the gentry among the gentry, and she longed to grow into similar horseshoes. 

"PLATINUM!" her father bellowed. "Little one, look at your mark! 'Tis here, 'tis here!" 

Platinum gasped right as her rump hit the floor. Her eyes fluttered open with the dramatic practice of a mare twice her age. Shifting her doll so that she could clutch at it with only one foreleg, the little princess used her other hoof to peel back her skirts. Right there on her flank was something that had never been there before. The image was one that Princess Platinum had seen on no crest or monogram and was something uniquely hers as she took in the newness of the sight. Upon her flank was an ornate hoof-held mirror whose color gave away that it was made of her namesake. A few sparkles were struck into her fur that now marked the mirror's shining glass pane, which would have obscured the image of anything reflected within, had there been anything. 

The patch of her coat that the mark adorned felt no silkier or different than before, and Princess Platinum already bathed more regularly than most unicorns — and bathing was a unicorn practice in the Known Valley. Still, she found herself wide-eyed and marveling at the new symbol. She was at such a normal age to get a mark, and hers was so fancy compared to most ponies. Dustmop's mark was literally a duster because she was good at dusting. Her father's mark was a helmet that he got when he was slightly older than her, after he drove his horn through his first earth pony in one of the wars. She had never seen her mother's mark, and most unicorns had marks of items that could at least be found on a proper manor estate, in the mines, or related to magic. Mages had the best marks of unicorns, and usually the most complex. Unicorns that had complex or unusual marks but were never magically educated to explain their skill were usually witches. 

Even among the range of mundane marks that she had seen on unicorns, she knew that there were ponies who never gained a mark in any race. Pegasi never worked with the possibility that some ponies got their marks lake, bound their wings, and dropped them from their cloud fortresses once the markless pony reached a certain age. Earth ponies had the most laughably pathetic marks that Platinum had ever seen — and she had seen many earth pony marks brought home on trophies by the most savage among the soldiers in the unicorn army. There was once a country lord who collected many earth pony marks and had them made into tapestries for his manor — his name escaped Platinum. But she heard tales from returning soldiers and captured earth ponies alike that the life of an earth pony offered so few chances for a mark that some of them begged and pleaded for them, or indebted themselves permanently to masters that they gained marks under. 

There was something so pathetic about the thought of mud ponies and marklessness that Platinum heard herself laughing in delight as she beheld her fabulous marking. 

"How noble!" said King Tantalum with rare excitability. His eyebrows climbed high up, revealing a look of wide-eyed delight that Platinum had never seen on her father before, except at war victory banquets. "A mirror of truth for a mare who is forthcoming even in times of trouble. Your future husband will be so proud of you." 

Are you not proud of me? 

"He absolutely will be," chimed Platinum with a sudden, big smile. She knew that the mirror could not be for truths she never spoke, but she was happy to let her father live that fantasy. 

"Now..." began her father, leaning back into his tall bejeweled chair. "I think it is high time I shared some fantastic news." He brought his forehoof to the long table and gave it a few resounding taps. Princess Platinum saw a few unfurled papers with their wax seals freshly broken laying on the smooth stone surface. 

"What sort of news?" Platinum asked breathily. She shivered slightly, in both excitement and from a draft that poured in from one of the halls. All around the two ponies, the banners of noble unicorn clans rustled with the cold wind. As the winters grew longer, the sight and chilliness were becoming more familiar, even in a land where their castle stronghold had never been resistant to the coldness of the land. 

King Tantalum shivered and pulled his purple cloak closer. Platinum loved that cloak, and not just because it had a fur trim bigger than any of her dresses. That cloak was a symbol of Unicornia itself, and one day when she was closer to being of age, she would have her own proper regalia made. "My daughter, you are starting marehood rapidly. Your marking is just another sign of how you must turn your thoughts towards readying yourself for marriage. A stallion is always needed before your first heat, as the ideal goes."

"My first what?" piped Platinum, her ears swiveled with genuine confusion. She scooped her dolly back into both of her front forehooves and began to cradle it as she cocked her head in thought. She knew what the word heat meant, but not how her father was using it. During her time eavesdropping on the servants and mares of the Unicorn Court, she had only managed to gather that it was vaguely related to foals. 

"Nothing important," said her father emotionlessly. He waved a forehoof and tossed the white rolls of his mane. "It is merely a reward for your husband." 

Even from where she sat, Princess Platinum saw a shift in the visage of Queen Vitalis. She fixed her eyes on her daughter with an active, piercing look unlike any that the filly had seen before.

"You are next," mouthed the mare with a smile crueler and fuller than Platinum's vain sneers.

What was that supposed to mean? thought Princess Platinum with a sniffle that went unheard. She stopped rocking her doll and protectively clutched her cloth friend closer for comfort that was hard to extract with those eyes on her. Under her swooping white forelock, Princess Platinum's head began to have one of its routine awful aches. The kind only her mother brought.

"As I was saying: I need, more than ever, for you to be getting ready for the stallion I pick out for you," droned Tantalum. "Any offers I would get now would be premature, and there are things that a young mare needs to be married whether she is leaving her estate or bringing in a sovereign husband, as you will be. A dowry is expected in traditional arrangments, yet for your husband, your kingdom and riches more than make up for the bulk of your dowry. However, his parents are going to want their fair share — whether it is treasures from our vaults or crafts from you. They will also likely be requesting some of the servants of the castle, which is why it is more important than ever to prepare you with a flock of them that will never leave you."

From her place in the background, Queen Vitalis crept closer to the back of the throne and then around it. Platinum sat frozen and blank-faced as she watched the way the queen crept soundlessly to stand off to the side of her throne. Not a single bit of the rushes from the floor clung to her dress — nothing ever did. The horrible, leering look of her mother was gone, and she no longer flashed her translucent teeth the way dragons in Platinum's storybooks stared down the ponies that they were about to snap up. Just feeling the hurtful chill of her proximity drained away all the delight that Princess Platinum had from hearing her father's praises. Her doll felt like such a pitiful defense against when her mother was on the prowl, and she had to content herself with being grateful that her mother could do no lasting damage to them. 

For as long as she lived, Platinum was sure that she was the only thing that her mother was able to touch. And she hated the mere thought of that enough that she had to reset the smile she used to flatter her father. She tried to keep her eyes solely focused on him; she tried to think of how they had the same eyes. Still, from the corner of those eyes, she caught how her mother nodded along and mouthed bits of approval to everything her father had just said. 

And Platinum — who had been declared a 'fussy foal' after her first year for crying at what they could not see — sat through the sight with the stillness she had to have.

"I have been writing with the great conjurer Starswirl the Bearded," King Tantalum went on, leaning back in his chair and folding his hooves in the way of somepony well-pleased with themselves. "And, for a fair price, he is willing to help you along with this rite of passage fit for any noble."

"Splendid," purred the icy voice of Queen Vitalis. There were two features to the voice of this mare that never changed. The first was that she always sounded like she was speaking softly in the cold, and she managed to sound both very far away and terrifyingly close up at the same time. Second, everything about her tone made Platinum have to suppress shudders and squirms. Something about her voice was wrong in a way that went beyond the words of the little filly. No amount of dollies, new mane ribbons, or fur-trimmed gowns alleviated that dreadful feeling. 

Platinum did her best to suppress one such shudder and nod along to what her father said. Everypony else was okay, so she had to be too. Besides, Starswirl the Bearded was one of the most interesting unicorns alive. Not only was he uniquely talented at magic, but he was freer than anypony Princess Platinum could think of. He had forsaken the clan of Glimmer that he came from and still had access to its riches and privileges, and not just because his parents loved him to the point it bordered on the sick devotion that Platinum promised she would never partake in. 

She never had anypony to ask about what her mother's voice sounded like. All her mother's siblings were older than Vitalis and had been married off before Vitalis was born. Most of them still lived in the city, as far as Platinum knew, but she never left the castle walls unless she absolutely had to. She also didn't know the names or marks of her aunts and uncles. Her father died in one of the wars against the pegasi and Vitalis' mother had caught a plague shortly before Platinum's second birthday. One of her brothers had been among the traitors executed for insisting that King Tantalum did nothing to save his wife. 

"My precious Platinum, he has among his gaggle of wards a mare by the name of Clover the Clever. I am told she is not only uncommonly docile but also well-trained in magic from all her years of close instruction with so spectacular a wizard. She appears to be fair in her conversation skills and incapable of theft or rebellion. Starswirl bought her when she was younger than you are now from a peasant family — the ones that give themselves long names and often have strange tails."

Princess Platinum knew of no such unicorn ponies, and she had never met this Starswirl the Bearded. But this was her father speaking, so she nodded along anyway. All she knew of Starswirl was that he took frequent trips between the Unicorn Court and his own valley. Not only did he apparently always have magic so good and complicated Platinum was not allowed to see it to present the Unicorn Court, but he also had valuable information about the territory within Unicornia. Most mages lived and worked in the capital, but some country lords had their own household mages that they patronized. With the way her father was talking, it sounded as though perhaps she would get to meet this Starswirl figure one day and see why her father was so pleased to have him among the wizards and mages he patronized. 

"Anyway, you need not worry about Clover. She apparently does not have such a tail. What she does have is all the proper domestic skills that one would expect of a mare as old as she is. Fourteen winters!" Her father let out a low laugh and a laugh as deep and whistling as the howling of the wind, though so much warmer in sound. "Fourteen winters without a husband or foals — really, Starswirl could have sold her as a wife for quite a bit of coin. Instead, he likes my offer best. She is the only one of his Arcane Student lot that he is ready to part with, and he feels she would be wasted as a wife. You shall finally have a hoofmaiden — and a famous one, too! When she was but six winters old, Clover embarked with Starswirl the Bearded on an adventure to defeat the monstrous Lord Tirek. Though, we certainly will not need to worry about her having any adventures with you. Starswirl is looking to give her up anywhere from one to two winters' time, so we can prepare for her arrival." 

Platinum nodded and scrunched up her muzzle with confusion. "What is a hoofmaiden?"

Her father cleared his throat. "A hoofmaiden is a special servant meant to replace impersonal staff. They follow a mare with marriage the same way her jewelry does. Hoofmaidens are trained in chores and companionship. Each is there to aid you with tasks, sometimes even before you ask." 

Princess Platinum had never had anypony like that in her life before. Other than the servants, she had played with the foals of other nobles and servants alike. Though, as the princess, she was able to delight in ordering them around more than anything else. Even then, she couldn't order them to be around her all the time or treat the nobles' foals the same way that she would treat the servants' foals. Now she was going to be given a grown mare to have all to herself, and to serve her for the rest of her life. A mare who was older than her. A mare who was alive when her mother was. 

"I think that is a splendid idea," Platinum lied, ensuring her voice oozed the closest thing to gratitude that she could manage. She would rather have a new wardrobe. 

"Wicked filly," hissed Queen Vitalis through gritted teeth, as though there were anypony to hear her but Platinum. "We shall see how you maintain this ungrateful heart when you finally have a husband to put you in your place."
> Interlude: Mare in a Mind Gone Mad
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Her mother did not always make her way into Platinum's dreams; when she did, they were almost always terror-filled. Those were the dreams for which language had no name despite the potent fear that went into each one. Every time Princess Platinum was struck with such horrid visions, she would find herself startled awake and unable to move an inch, lest she disturb the mares of the bed chamber assigned to sleep in the two pull-out trundles on either side of her extravagant bed. The bed was older than her and had been used by every princess of the Unicorn Tribe before her, and she always wondered if those past princesses liked to stay up in the aftermath of their bad dreams to watch the rise and fall of their maids' chests or to see how the flouncing piles of their nightgowns clung to their form. Princess Platinum knew she couldn't tell anypony, but she always found it soothing to try and forget a bad dream by imagining the form of her maids under their clothes — the same elaborate dresses that she wore — and how the sight of a stallion was ever supposed to be sweeter. She could never touch them, though she longed to. In the darkest reaches of her heart, she wondered if perhaps her station would grant her the weight needed to impose over one of her chambermaids if she decided to touch them. Blackmail was in her blood. She'd met wives who got husbands in similar ways. 

Platinum would always have to lie stiff and heavy as the stone floor with the fear her racing thoughts generated — both the receding dreams and the knowledge that she was surrounded by mares she could not touch. The way the darkness cast itself on the skirts of her bed or great things in her room like her vanity only made the atmosphere so much more sinister. Platinum's bedroom had no windows, but whenever she was jolted awake she knew that she would see the ghost there, sitting somewhere with a pale light all her own. The nearest windows were in other chambers connected to hers, each had bars over the window put there long before she was born. She'd once slipped a bracelet she hadn't really liked between the cold metal and tried to listen for the sound of it hitting the ground below the mountain where the castle and its city were built upon. She never did. That had been such a rare opportunity too — the windows were almost firmly shuttered, all because of the ever-worsening cold.

But tonight, there was no cold in Platinum's dreams. She found herself in a naked forest, like the one along the wilds between her tribe's settlements and the Magicspire valley, where Starswirl the Bearded lived. The foot of the mountain that the unicorn's capital city of stone was built on had a meager old forest that was used to being stripped of its resources by needy unicorns as it tried to take root in the horrid and inhospitable lands they had called home for generations. Gnarled trees grew into one another and even tried to root themselves into the rockier bits of the soil where the base of the mountain began. And in her dream, it was all ablaze. The light of the fire was bigger than anything that Princess Platinum had ever seen roaring in the fireplaces that were the only source of heat in the castle besides the furs, finery, and meager relief of the unicorns' collective magic. The fire's glow was even bigger than the burnings she had witnessed — and Princess Platinum had witnessed more than her fair share at her age, just as her parents had before her. It was customary for all of the royals to attend and see the tree they ordered pulled — often from this very forest — stopped of its branches and made ready for rope, with a freshly piled bed of logs, twigs, and anything that would light ready to burn below. 

That same fatal structure was now at the center of the flaming forest, and though it was ablaze Platinum saw it did not disintegrate, only warp and wane in the terrible fire. Her mark was still new and the mirror glowed so brightly in the firelight. Her hooves did not burn as she darted around in an attempt to evade debris that would not fall. Smoke made the air horribly pungent and yet she was not coughing despite how it wafted through the air in heavy clouds. Ash rubbed at her hooves and sparks flecked at her coat, but little else happened besides the sharp pinches of warmth making her flinch and canter faster on her way.

She did not know where she was going. The smoke obscured her vision a good few feet in front of her, but she still saw the great shadow of where ponies were to be burned. Thieves, adulterers, murderers, traitors, degenerates, and more found themselves meeting firey ends that way. They even burned rapists, if the King and his Court investigated them and found that they were the type of unacceptable rapist where arranging a marriage wasn't an option. It was all such a strange thing, as Princess Platinum knew multiple unicorns among the gentry who ended up with their spouse in a more forceful than the usual arrangement of marriage via the families. She would probably need more than two sets of hooves to count them all.

What was stranger was how Princess Platinum dreamed herself. Not only was the ghost nowhere in sight, but she made herself a mare in her dream. Her tail was long and flowing, dusted with ash each time she paused her flight towards the burning stake. Her mane was a braided wreath about her face, worn like a crown, with nary a strand escaping despite the dreadful, flaming chaos that she was surrounded by. The white hue looked perfect in the firelight the moment she was able to catch sight of it, and Princess Platinum's heart swooned with the severe beauty of the sight. Without her usual gowns, lace collars, or regalia, she could glimpse her svelte figure quite well. She could only hope that she would grow to be half as fine of a mare that her dreaming mind made her.

And then she saw her.

Not the ghost, but somepony Princess Platinum never should have seen again. King Tantalum had taken Princess Platinum to a burning not even a month ago of a double-charged mare. The unicorn had been unmarried in old age — her twentieth winter — and made every excuse as to why this was. She was able to hide in one of the other unicorn cities of stone somewhat farther down the mountain, always working odd jobs and trying to hide the fact that she lived alone without family or husband. It was this abominable loneliness that she insisted on that eventually caused her to fall under suspicion from her community, arrested, and extensively investigated. The way the mare sorted so much so neatly and peculiarly in her home, avoided eye contact, existed without friends, and was overly interested in meaningless things based on craft supplies found in her home were strong indications that she might be a witch. When she was magically tested after enhanced interrogation by King Tantalum's guards, it was found that her magic level was above average despite there being no background to explain it, and she was charged with witchcraft as those like her with excessive peculiarities had to be. 

What wasn't initially known about her was that she was a tribas. It was a word that King Tantalum was in no hurry to explain to his daughter, describing it only as a term that was handed down since before the Known Valley was settled, and that despite its unknown language, it referred to a most heinous crime. Mares who were disordered and denied stallions wives, refused to be mothers to foals, ruined inheritance, and killed bloodlines by denying them heirs. And they did all this through equally disordered and perverse actions that corrupted other mares. Despite her apparent maturity, King Tantalum saw no need to elaborate on what these 'perverse actions' were when little Platinum tried to ask. He only went on to tell her how there would be another burning soon because somepony had turned in a mare that was said to be with the witch who was to be burned — though Princess Platinum was unsure of what it was to say that two mares were 'with' one another. There were only three types of unicorn described that way — those in simple proximity, married couples, and unicorns in love who needed their unions split. 

She was nine years old, and had been confused by the screams of the witch-mare as they tied her to the stake that day. Was it supposed to be glorious that she watched with her father, his court, and his soldiers? She did not detect the glory in the act, nor did she applause and cheer as loudly as the other unicorns when the burning commenced. She did just enough to be normal, and so the ghost would leave her alone. Plus, Platinum wasn't sure what else would make sense to do when a pony burned. She listened to the mare's screams and the shouts of unicorns below who added more fuel to the fire and whose talk was laced with enough sexual remarks that Princess Platinum had swayed with understanding and epiphany. It was not uncommon for somepony of her age to hear sexual conversation, especially when she was deemed to be near-ready for marriage. But from the jeers of the crowd, the little princess extracted something — she hadn't even known that two mares could do what a stallion and a mare were supposed to do. Why would something like that even be possible?

Her dream self had no way to answer these questions. Instead, Princess Platinum found herself staring at the instrument of death before her. The ropes appeared to be cut, and the frame wasn't afire as it should be. Its prisoner was absent. 

A nicker in a tone that Princess Platinum had never heard caused her to turn her head and leap away, back towards the flaming woods. She found the source of the sound in the smoke: a mare burned beyond what anypony alive could bear, one eye socket a flame-consumed hollow, and bones aplenty visible under the blackened flesh of what was once a pretty mare. Yes. She was definitely pretty, with one pale purple eye and a coat and mane the deep blue-gray of a river cleaned by the purification magic all unicorns had. Even though her horn was charred and her body was broken and ravaged, all Platinum could see the gaps where her memory filled in how delicate and pretty the witch-mare had been. She thought of how this mare had been when she was still whole, as she was dragged kicking and screaming to where she was to be tied. 

It was the witch-mare who started it. She galloped over and pressed Princess Platinum against a tree, her whole body language hungry for something that Platinum couldn't name. Platinum could only gasp as her back thudded and she was pressed up the tree in a way not unlike the mare had been when she was tied and set afire. The roar of fire seemed even louder in the woods as Platinum let the dead-mare lean forward and kiss her. The kiss was a gesture between mares and stallions as the first seal of their marriage at a wedding, that was knowledge as common as snowstorms in winter. The kiss was simple, a brief peck that some couples used to show that they had actually developed romantic feelings in their marriage. That was all it was supposed to be, and yet none of what Platinum was experiencing. The witch-mare was kissing her like she would not be able to breathe again, like she was hungry for something only Platinum could offer. Their lips met with a hardness that Platinum could only previously understand in the context of cruelty. Their mouths were open, the witch-mare desperately giving Platinum kiss after kiss without ever fully pulling her lips away. 

Then there was a tongue, one impossibly not stolen by the wrath of the fire that had consumed the witch. When Princess Platinum felt the impossibly preserved tongue find hers, something broke. It was like her mind was not but a potion pouring our her ears and leaving her impossibly warm and bright. Every movement she returned was clumsy and starved but craving control. Her own tongue dictated the motions of the witch-mare's after wrestling her into the necessary submission. This was enough and somehow not so — but Princess Platinum knew in her bones that somehow nothing beyond this could exist. The docile sound the witch-mare made, the back and forth pressing of their lips, the way that Platinum was drooling with sudden agitation into the other mare's mouth— 

Should there be a revelation in this? She was already doing something that was beyond what her culture said of kissing and she was doing it with a mare who was not her husband because husbands were stallions and wives had husbands. Could it still be considered a kiss if there were two mares? Was she doing something beyond definition? Platinum's mind was drowning in the new sensations that this dream thrust upon her and did not let thoughts float in except in thin whisps. But when she let herself think, she had to wonder if there was anything in language that could describe this at all, or how she was now the one forcefully pressing against the dead witch. Why did she want to keep kissing this mare? Why was it always something about mares in her thoughts? 

Platinum was breathing heavily and her heart was racing more than it ever had after running. She watched as a thin trail of saliva linked her to the witch-mare's muzzle and how the witch whined. She was entranced by those little, mind-blowing details, certainly, but she hated them too. They clearly meant a pause. They meant that Princess Platinum hadn't gotten enough of whatever this was, and so she thrust her beautiful mare-face forward and locked her mouth over the witch's with an indignant whinny as the other mare squeaked and whined when Platinum found her tongue again. 

She was doing it with a mare who was not her husband...

The thought made her stand as still as a statue as her heart rattled in her chest. Immediately after it bubbled up in her mind, Princess Platinum stopped responding to the burned witch-mare. 

"No..." she croaked, as the desecrated mare drew back, fixing one confused eye on her.

Were these 'perverse acts'?

That thought cut in with a powerful, upsetting explosion like the sudden smell of the first singe of flesh at a burning. 

"No... No..." Platinum moaned, her eyes wild and her breathing in rapid gasps. "I can't do this. Ponies aren't supposed to do this. This is debaucherous, evil conduct. Oh, my crown, it is exactly what my father warned me about! And I was too foolish a mare to see!" 

Platinum's wailing was not lost on the mute witch-mare, who made an effort to lumber over.

"No," hissed Platinum suddenly. "This is all your fault. You seductive, wretched brute, I shall show you what is meant to happen to ponies like you!"

The witch's mix of skeletal and burned hooves made a skittering noise on the ground. Half an ear was laid back in a timid, docile display of nervousness. However, her one good eye never left the Princess. The look in it was not fully one of fear. There was something else in that eye too, and it remained there when Princess Platinum finished dragging the dead mare back to the stake again. 

Platinum had watched this mare burn once before. 

She watched as the mare thrashed and kicked with half of the spirit she had in life — which was still more than enough for one mare to manage — as Princess Platinum light her horn and grasped the ropes again. They weren't as broken as they looked, and would serve their purpose once more just fine. If anything, it looked as though the evil witch-mare had wriggled out from the ropes, not that they had been burned or slashed. 

"Enough from you!" Platinum screamed. She fired up her horn so much that the light on it shook and her head ached something fierce. She grabbed hold of the witch with her magic, not realizing her telekinesis was applied so sloppily that the charred parts of the mare were being crushed in a grip not meant for an animate creature. "I will not be brought down by the crimes of commoners. I will not be debased by the illnesses that I am meant to overcome. There shall be none who interfere with my life, let alone my future marriage. Time to find out what happens to ponies like you," the princess said, twisting her last words into a snarl.

The other mare's fight was stolen from her once again with the works of ropes and magic. She writhed against the coarse, unforgiving ropes until Platinum tied them so tightly that the witch-mare appeared as though she couldn't breathe anymore. The ropes were digging into ribs and overcooked flesh, breaking off the brittle parts. Finally, Platinum stood triumphant. She sneered at the other mare, which was an easy expression for her. Though her breathing was coming in sharp, angry heaves she did her best to look composed as she trotted off to collect flaming branches.

"I am to have a future that will shine brighter than your death, you monster." Platinum's magic waved about brightly burning branches that were popping with sparks. "AS QUEEN, I WILL SHOW THE WORLD WHAT HAPPENS TO PONIES LIKE YOU!" 

After her screech, she flung the branches and watched the logs light. She stayed a safe distance away but did not leave the clearing as they burned and the rest of the fire in the woods converged to where the witch was burned once and for all. Platinum heard herself laughing but did not feel herself doing it. As trees crashed to fuel the witch's firey true death, there was something to be heard above the ruckus. Something nagging and feeble in a voice that wasn't Princess Platinum's. Under everything was a faint echo: 

"...ponies like you."

"...like you."

"...you."

There was something cold and deadly about that which made Platinum's expression of conquest falter momentarily. She didn't think she had heard right, and if she had, she didn't want to have heard right. In response, she took a few slow steps away from the sky-climbing fire and the way the hot air from it blasted her like an open furnace. Why had that echoed the way it did? Who spoke those words? Throughout everything, the witch hadn't said a single thing, so who— 



...



Princess Platinum awoke as herself. As a filly whose long white mane was drenched in sweat, whose sleeping gown suddenly felt so oppressive with how strangely hot she felt, and whose cutie mark was newer than any young mare's. The snoring of her chambermaids droned loud than the way her heart was stuck in her throat in a way it never had been before. A fluffy, fragile feeling flooded with shame hung precariously in her chest where it threatened to break into more pieces than she could count — and that break might be more than she knew how to conceal. She thought if she lied in waiting for the candles to burn to stumps and counted her breaths that could erase everything she had dreamed about. In her mind, she thought she could still see the fire and hear that whisper. Worse than that, she could still taste the not-kisses she was never supposed to have. All the struggles and sensations of the dream hung over her in the dark like a veil only she knew clung to her. 

A whole lake of feelings was roaring into young Platinum's heart, and she did not want to touch the deepest layers of them. So many of them were hateful, and she tried to take solace in their venom as they splashed about her little body. She told herself that was all there was: a deep, powerful drought of multi-layered hatred. 

The next room over had barred, shuttered windows, and despite the distance between rooms, little Princess Platinum heard the snowstorm outside rattle them and wail louder.