Chapter 0 - The Dawn of Nightmares
The Conquering of Love
By Littlecolt
Chapter Zero - The Dawn of Nightmares
This day has been just perfect,
The kind of day of which I dreamed since I was small.
All their love I’ll soon devour,
It is now the grandest hour!
Who says a girl can’t really have it all?
Darkness.
Darkness was all Princess Cadence could see around her. Darkness with a feeling of weightlessness.
As she blinked her eyes and looked around, trying to regain her bearings, she realized she had just awoken from a dream. In her dream, her beloved Shining Armor, after their perfect marriage, had taken her to their room in the castle in canterlot. She closed her eyes, remembering the sweet dream.
“Love you too, B.B.B.F.F.” Twilight said to her brother as she pulled him into an embrace.
Cadence glanced out of the carriage at her husband hugging his little sister and smiled. Those two were so close, even more now that Twilight had proven that she was there for him, even against impossible odds… There for her, too.
Changelings had usurped her wedding, tried to conquer the nation, and impersonated her in order to get close to Shining Armor, her love, whose shield spell protected Canterlot from the threat that had been made against it.
Cadence smiled. It’s true… I've married into an amazing family. More wonderful than being royalty, more magical than magic itself. So full of love and wisdom, she thought. I’d never want it any other way. I can cast magic that spreads love, helps ponies understand one another and come together, and yet I could never compete with the love between those two. Not to mention the love between Shining Armor and myself.
She grinned at her husband as he climbed into the wagon and they began to advance forward, the streamers and cans hanging off the back of the wagon clanking as they went.
He smiled back at her. “That was a truly amazing wedding day.”
She grinned back at him, winking seductively. “Just wait until the wedding night,” she said teasingly. Shining Armor blushed and smiled widely. He nodded his head with excitement as he smiled back.
The carriage made the rounds of the streets of Canterlot, ponies waving and smiling at them as they passed by. The two of them waved out the windows for some of the trip, but became entangled within the carriage eventually. The blinds of the windows pulled closed, shielding their passion from the prying eyes of the city.
After a short time, the carriage pulled back up to the castle, coming to a halt. The driver cleared his throat and shouted back to the two lovers, who had remained conspicuously silent for the last ten minutes. “It’s time to go, now. Your chambers at the castle await.”
It took only those words, and the two of them bolted from the carriage, practically racing up the stairs to their private skylight suite at the top of a tower in the castle.
After that, everything was a blur. The feeling of warmth, the touch of lips on lips, desire and amazing shocks up Cadence’s spine. She breathed out heavily as she thought about it. She dwelled on the moments she could remember, eventually noticing something that bothered her.
“Love…” she said aloud. “There's no love in these memories... why is that?” She turned her head to the side, opened her eyes, and saw a cold stone wall to her left.
Her mind suddenly noticed her forelegs. She could feel a cutting, cold sensation from above her hooves. She blinked her eyes and realized she was not just feeling weightless, but was suspended somehow in midair. She shook her head, trying once again to get her bearings.
As she tried, a sound and light caught her eye from the left side of her field of vision. A door opened and slammed against the wall as it swung. A dark figure approached her. She squinted her eyes, trying to gain focus on who was coming. Her vision was so blurry, she was having trouble.
“Shining...” she said, her mouth straining to push the words out. Her tongue felt dry and coarse against the roof of her mouth.
“Not quite…” a frighteningly familiar voice cooed out at her, sultry and sweet.
A hoof pressed up against Cadence’s chin, raising her field of vision upward, bringing into view the face of the Changeling Queen.
“But I can be,” Chrysalis finished, a sinister grin spread across her face. Her entire form began to warp into the shape of Shining Armor, his face perfectly replicated. The queen giggled with glee as Cadence, unable to accept what she was seeing, pulled her face away in horror.
"Something wrong, sweetie?" Chrysalis said, her voice perfectly imitating Shining Armor's. She pressed her nose against Cadence's and playfully flicked her tongue against her lips.
Cadence felt the memories she’d just experienced being ripped from her mind, her heart being crushed by the reality of her situation. She felt her stomach bottom out as she lost all will to go on.
Hanging in the air and chained to a wall, weak and powerless, she stared up into the face of her love, knowing that it was the one who stole him away from her and destroyed her dream of a perfect wedding- A perfect life, a happily ever after.
This… this can’t be… No!
But her wishes were not granted. The truth was too powerful, unable to be resisted by wishes alone.
Shining Armor, Cadence thought, clenching her eyes shut, trying to will her true love to her. Where are you? Where am I? What's going on? She tried as hard as she could manage to bring back her sweet dream.
It would not return.
The darkness washed over her once again, and she lost consciousness, drifting from the waking nightmare into the depths of dispair.
A happy day, a victory over evil... Now just a fleeting hope. A sweet dream.
Wake up, my friends.
Wake up or sleep forever.
