Sex and the Crystal Empire

Gleaming Shield looks around: she's in the street surrounded by stalls of fresh fruit. The sky is black as night, but the ponies in the street are illuminated as though by the noon-day sun. She walks forward, looking around pensively, not sure of why she's here. Then she feels a presence. It's very weak but she recognizes it instantly as Shining Armor. Running around a corner, ducking down an alleyway, she finds him.

He's still trapped in time in that moment when she took over for him earlier the previous day. He and Big Macintosh are two granite statues locked in eternal embrace. Big Macintosh ruts into his ass furiously, foaming at the mouth, and Shining Armor lies piteously beneath him, his face a frozen mask of pain.

She feels inchoate rage boiling up from deep inside her, and with a surge of speed she spins around and gives the stone farmer a powerful kick with both hind legs. The head of the statue and most of the shoulders are knocked clean off, crumbling on the cobblestones below.

Haltingly the statue begins to change, from granite, to clay, and then finely packed sand. Shining Armor too changes in much the same way, from granite, to clay, and then flesh and blood. She pulls him from under the sand sculpture, watching as it collapses, the fine grains scattering on the winds. She picks him up and carries him out of the alleyway and around the corner, the streets now morphing from that of the Crystal Empire's to those of Canterlot.

With a few steps more, they're in front of their parents' house. As she steps through the door Gleaming Shield notices Shining Armor is much lighter now, transmogrified back into a very young colt. She herself is a young mare, about the age that Cadance was when the two first met.

She carefully carries him up the stairs to the bathroom, where she draws him a nice warm bubble bath. Placing him gently in the tub, she begins scrubbing him softly and singing a song their mother used to sing when she would bathe him. Shining Armor finally opens his eyes, and when he looks up and sees Gleaming Shield, he breaks down and cries.

"I wasn't strong enough, I was never strong enough," he whimpers, and she fights back tears herself as she consoles him.

His mother appears at the doorway, and she rushes in with concern. "What happened to him?"

"He and another boy were...playing in the street and...he got hurt," she lies, piecing together a plausible story as she goes.

"And just where were you?" Shining Armor's mother's question bounces around the inside of the bathroom like an echo inside a vast cavern.

"I wasn't there," she shakes her head. This is my fault, she laments, stepping aside as their mother comes forward.

"Wahh-maa," the young Shining Armor sobs, and his mother leans down over the rim of the tub to hug him.

Gleaming Shield stands dumbfounded with guilt when Cadance shows up, perky as can be. "Any room for me?" She chirps, and when Gleaming Shield looks back to Shining Armor and his mother they are both in the tub, and he's now the same age as Cadance and herself. Cadance gets into the oddly-expanded tub and the two mares hug Shining Armor tightly, and he's smiling happily, playing with a rubber ducky.

He gets out of the water and dries off, giggling as he runs out of the bathroom. Gleaming Shield follows him out the door, and they're in one of the hallways of the palace. She follows the trail of water around a corner where it stops. She blinks and looks down at herself, now inhabiting Shining Armor's body. In front of her is a shape that can't decide if it wants to be Twilight Sparkle or Gleaming Shield.

Shining Armor just stares at her, stunned. Flash Sentry approaches from another doorway and he smiles at Twilight/Shield. She smiles back at him, and the two lean in to kiss. Shining Armor's body propels itself forward, knocking Flash Sentry to the floor and strangling him brutally.

"Shiny what are you doing?" Flash Sentry screams in Cadance's voice. Shining Armor stops, bewildered, and in that moment Flash Sentry strikes, punching him right on the bridge of the nose. The entire world screeches with the sound of hooves scraping across a chalkboard as it's rent to pieces around him in hot red and white streaks of disconcerting pain.

"Why were you choking me?" She shrieked at him in a panic, hurling pillows in every direction as she stumbled out of the bed.

"I was having a nightmare," he offered up hesitantly, holding a hoof up to his bleeding nose.

"Well I'd certainly hope that you were!" She wailed as she ran from the room sobbing. A guard quickly rushed into the room to investigate the commotion.

"Please, go, I'm fine, just go make sure Cadance is looked after," he mumbled dejectedly as he dismissed the guard, levitating over a nearby handkerchief to wipe the blood from his face. He covered his face shamefully, distraught at having assaulted his wife while asleep. He wondered what could have gotten him in such a state. The last thing I remember before waking up I was...wandering the street? But that was in the middle of the day! Where'd all those hours go, what happened that made me lose half a day...or perhaps even more?

He closed his eyes and shook his head, breathing deeply to calm himself.

"Shining."

His eyes snap open. The room is much darker now, and he is not alone. Next to him in bed is...Gleaming Shield.

"Shiny baby, we need to talk," she says, a hint of sadness in her voice.

"Oh, Gleamy, I haven't seen you in..." he trails off as cheerful recognition gives way to the realization he's never seen her with his own eyes. Only imagined her, really; and a chill moves through the room.

"Yes, this is all new for me as well. Lately there have been some very strange occurrences. The way I manifested yesterday was not normal for us," she frowns, "And I know it's partially my fault that I wasn't there quick enough to...protect you."

"You're telling me that something strange is going on? Because I've been finding myself with holes in my memory for awhile now—mostly of nights when I couldn't sleep—and I often go places completely unbidden of my own conscious thought! Do you have an explanation for any of that?" He asks angrily, but he softens on looking at his double's apologetic demeanor.

"I'm sorry, but I don't. I vaguely recall that when I first began to exist, you needed me for...well, to 'shield' you from...shall we say, certain aspects of your own behavior. Behaviors that your mind didn't know how to handle. I took on only what I needed to, and became only what you allowed me. Gradually that grew and shifted to encompass a wider range of...activities."

They exchange knowing glances. "So, why do you exist?" Shining Armor asks abruptly. I think we both know it's because you get turned on by other stallions' cocks, the thought runs through both their minds as one. "Oh Celestia, why me?" Shining Armor sniffles, existential dread wracking him to the core. He starts hyperventilating, his breaths coming short and ragged as Gleaming Shield reaches over to rub his shoulder.

"There, there, it's perfectly normal. Well, it was perfectly normal, at the start. Now, though..." she trails off, unsure of how best to continue. "Maybe we should ask our sister for help with this?" She asks quietly, and if Shining heard her, he doesn't acknowledge the question or the implications that come with it.

"I just don't know what to do here, this is completely bucked up beyond all recognition," he shakes his head, staring forward at nothing.

"I have an idea," Gleaming Shield suddenly says with a smile, trailing a hoof up his broad chest. She straddles him, their thighs rubbing together, her limp cock juxtaposed against Shining Armor's now rock-hard shaft, both of them falling back on something they found 'normal,' at least to them.

"Wait, is this really the best idea?" Shining Armor asks with a raised eyebrow, summoning up a small trace of lucidity.

"Just trust me on this," Gleaming Shield coos, licking her hoof and giving his dick a few wet strokes before scooting up and positioning herself properly, rubbing his throbbing prick against her soft perineum and hotdogging his fat length between her ass cheeks. She leans forward and reaches behind to steady his cock, lining him up as she slides back and expertly takes him up her tight ass.

She moans with pleasure, blushing as she hears him echo her with a sigh of his own satisfaction. She looks down and sees herself, but still in the way that he sees her. "Shiny, do me one favor though. Here in this world, you still have control, not me. I want you to let me...be the real me, the mare I am inside. Can you let me be myself? Make me your mare," she asks, the faintest tears forming at the corners of her eyes, her body rocking back and forth gently atop his muscular form.

Shining Armor looks at her face and blinks, How am I supposed to do that? But as he watches, her features soften, and his eyes dart down to gaze at her cock rapidly imploding, folding in on itself and becoming a wet, winking cunt. She bucks into his hips again, exulting in her new form, riding him with her ass as she leaks all over his belly.

Her bounces come at a faster pace, her ass slamming down against his muscular frame, as she rides him to a squealing orgasm, spurting pussy juice as she clenches around his throbbing prick. He becomes overwhelmed as she milks his dick like a pro, and he soon empties his load deep in her bowels as well, listening to her cry out his name.

"Shining! Oh, Shining! Shining!"

Shining!

Shining Armor bolted upright in bed, a cold sweat beading on his forehead. It was still dark outside, but now it was Cadance next to him in bed, no longer Gleaming Shield. "Shining, I'm sorry, I was so scared when you...you know," Cadance said softly.

"Please forgive me babe, you know I'd never hurt you, I...I'm just so, so sorry for doing that," he reached to embrace her, and she winced as though still afraid he would strike at her again. When she saw the look of sadness and horror on his face at that, she hugged him immediately, sniffling into his strong chest.

The two settled down into bed in each other's arms and Cadance slowly drifted off to sleep. Shining Armor merely watched the ceiling, unable to find peace. Or perhaps unwilling to face what was waiting for him...

Shining, make me your mare.