Warding Glow was the greatest stallion in the world.

I know, that's a bit blunt, but listen. I'm the Princess of Love, and I'm not sure I have words to describe him. So let's start with blunt.

He was tall, handsome, and strong. He was smart, perceptive, and funny. He was good, and kind.

He was patient and wise and forceful and gentle. He was both plain and complex, simple yet impossible to predict, the greatest among warriors and among peacemakers. He commanded Celestia's legions as easily as he commanded my heart.

His eyes were oceans, both the most peaceful and the most stormy of places, and in either case you could drown in them. His smile was a balm, a drug, that took away every ache and hurt when he wanted it to, or turned you into a mindless animal that could only think of getting to see it again when he wanted that. His touch was fire. His laugh was triumph, it was peace and war and justice and warmth.

Sometimes I think he could have made himself king of all the world just by laughing. He could have, but did not, because being beside me was better. Because the king of all the world could only envy him for standing at my side.

That is how he made me feel when he looked at me. Such was his power.

He had everything, but he didn't need any of it to be great – he just was. Even were he stripped of his rank and title, if he lost his voice and his strength and his bearing, were he reduced to begging in the street or wandering the wastes as a madman, the greatness of his spirit would not be quenched but all the world would come around, as inevitable as the motion of the continents, to kneel in reverence before him.

He knew none of this himself, obvious though it was to everypony around him.

He was the Captain of Celestia's Royal Guard when I was truly young, and he was my husband. We met when I was just eighteen, and all the world was fresh and full of wonder. He was just a few years older than me, a junior officer rising rapidly through the ranks. We saw each other one day in the palace garden.

When he would tell this story, he said he was awestruck and lost his voice at the sight of me. To this day I refuse to believe it, because never while he lived did he ever miss the words to make my heart do exactly what he wanted. He would say he decided then his life could never be complete in my absence, and set out to win my love and my aunt's blessing. I will say that from the first moment I heard him speak I wanted him, and would never permit anything to stand between us.

Somehow it still took three years before we wed. I have never understood that.

In all the many years we lived together I was the happiest mare in the world, and I spread my gifts far and wide, seeding love in every corner of Equestria. Every day my smile greeted the ponies of Canterlot, so that poets fought to decide which was more generous, my smile or my aunt's sunrise. She and I both laughed at that. And every night, Warding Glow made me melt to his touch.

A legend from that time held that whenever I scream in pleasure, a pony is conceived. In our first ten years of marriage, the population of Equestria doubled.

In truth, if anything that legend underestimated my husband. Quite often I couldn't scream, since my mouth was otherwise occupied.

But inevitably, after many years, Warding Glow died.

That was when I discovered what true pain felt like, and it has come back every time since.

Aunt Celestia declared a moon of mourning, in which all of Equestria spent its days in silence and duty, bereft of mirth, beneath a sky of shiftless clouds. I wish they hadn't. It made no difference to me, for whom it was all supposed to be set, and only added to the misery of Equestria. The Princess of Love forsook her work, and I knew for absolute certain that no new flowers would bloom ever again.

– – –

There was a knocking on my door. I ignored it. The door opened anyway, casting a harsh light into my dark chambers.

I turned away from the light, lying curled up tight on the bed I had shared with him, and pulled the sheets closer. “Go away...” I croaked.

Heavy hoofsteps drew closer. “Mother...?”

Bright Eye's voice was only slightly more composed than my own, and my maternal instincts got the better of my grief. I turned, and rose up on my forehooves to see my beautiful colt standing unsteadily beside my bed. He was still in his ceremonial armor's chest plate, but his helmet was gone. His mane was a ragged mess, his eyes were lined with dark rings, and the smell of liquor lingered on him.

“Mother,” he tried again, his voice heavy and haunted. “Please talk to me.”

I looked down at my ragged coat emerging from the bunched-up sheets I had thrown about me, stained and crusted with my tears. “Don't... please go,” I said. “I don't want you to see me like this.”

He came closer, his steps slow and unsteady. “You should let the maids in. This room is... filthy.”

“I won't,” I said, and I meant it. I had chased away my regular maid, a meek young thing, several times already. In the end she had given up, and her attempts had been taken over by the iron-nosed head maid. I had chased her away several times as well. I assumed she would come back later and I would chase her away again.

“You need to come out of here, mother. You can't keep living like this.”

“Tough,” I spat. “The world has stolen everything of him from me. This is all I have left. I will not let them set one hoof inside my door, lest they steal away his air.” I raised my head and turned my bloodshot and puffy eyes on him, and felt shame on top of my grief. “Don't look at me. Go away, and close the door behind you.”

Bright sighed and tried again, his voice flat and unconvincing. “You need to come out, mother. Princess Celestia wants—”

“I don't care what she wants!” I wailed. “I don't care what she thinks of me, or what Equestria thinks of me!” I curled up tight again, my chest aching as I gasped for breath. “I'm a Princess of Love with a dead heart. I'm nothing without him. It would be better if I joined him...”

The sheets were ripped from me and I found myself being held. I shouted and struggled to hold the sheets close. “No more of this!” my son yelled at me. “Mother, look at me. Look at me!”

He held me up, as I feebly pressed the sheets against my chest. I tried to turn my head, to hide behind the frail sheets, so my son wouldn't see the miserable broken mess I had become, how pitiful I finally was, but he put a hoof to my chin and turned me to face him.

“I've already lost my father,” he said. “I can't lose you too. I won't leave you here alone, mother!” His voice cracked, his teeth clenched together. “I love you too much, mother. I'm not a special pony like you or father, but I'm not leaving you. Not here, not like this.”

All my thoughts were of my husband. I heard his voice in my mind, felt him hold me, his touch soothing and smoldering all at once.

I almost fell, but he grabbed me and held me up in his strong arms.

“I'm not going to let you give up, mother. You're going to get through this.”

His strong arms. His voice, his words... “Warding...” I whimpered as new tears clouded my sight.

“I won't let you go,” he said, as he took a stronger hold around my back, leaving me resting against his body.

“Equestria needs its Princess of Love,” he said. “I need you.”

I raised my head and looked at the pony holding me, and saw my husband.

Without thought, I bent forward and gently touched my lips to his for a second, before pulling back.

Time froze as we looked at each other.

I bent forward again and kissed my son's lips, and both of us suddenly grabbed each other and pressed our bodies against each other. He kissed me back with a ravenous hunger, his lips mashing against mine clumsily, pulling back then lunging forward again and again. I ran my tongue against his lips, hoping to draw his tongue out to meet it. He did, and they met in a primal, sloppy struggle. I threw my forelegs around his neck and pulled him towards me as I drew my tongue back. He followed it back inside my mouth, as if to lay a claim upon it, just as I wanted.

I felt his hot breath on my muzzle, the sound of his breathing and his hungry, wanting moans as I leaned back over the bed and pulled him down on top of me. “Get out of that armor,” I said, tearing myself away from his mouth. He unfastened it awkwardly and dropped it to the floor, even as I clung to his neck, and as soon as he was out of it I pulled him down on top of me, my legs spread wide so I could feel his body and his pride rubbing against me as much as possible. We kissed again, and I reached down to stroke him, and my lips curled up at the corners when he moaned into my mouth.

“I need you,” I whispered as I stroked down his length. “Do it... Drive everything but this out of my mind. Please—mmm!” Here he attacked my tongue again, and with my head now flat against the bed I couldn't pull back but had to wait until he withdrew. “Make the Princess of Love feel herself again.”

– – –

“I shouldn't have done that,” I whispered. “I used you for my own desire, my own son. It was wrong, and I'm sorry.”

“You needed it,” he said. “I'm not a foal, mother. I'm a grown stallion. I made my own decision last night, and if it helped you then I don't regret it.”

A thousand reasons he was wrong ran through my mind, but I listened to his voice. He was my son, and I could tell if he was lying before he got a word out. He was not.

“Don't feel ashamed because of me,” he said. “Tell me honestly, because this is what matters: did it help you?”

I thought back to my pain of the night before, and the weeks before that. It was still there, not gone, not dead. But the blade had dulled. I had been brought out of myself in the oldest way. “Yes,” I whispered. “It helped me.”

I bowed down and kissed the tip of his muzzle lightly. “Thank you.”

He rose up and kissed me back. I didn't stop him. A grin grew on my face. “Ohh... is that how it is?” I asked playfully. I rolled over and pressed my back into him, pulled his arms around me. “How long had you been dreaming about this?”

“...Ever since I first began to look at mares,” he admitted, his voice low and shameful. “You're the Princess of Love, mother.”

I cooed him as I had when he'd hurt himself in play. “I doubt colts have changed since I was a filly. When you were at school, I don't doubt that all the colts would talk about whose mother they'd like to rut. That must have been awkward for you.”

He snorted with laughter. “Every pony in the school wanted to rut you, mother. Not only the colts, and for that matter, not only the foals.”

“And you too?” I asked, moving his arms to press his hooves against my teats. “Do you still want me?”

My son grunted in affirmation as he gently began to stroke and knead my sensitive mounds. “Can anypony not desire you?”

“I've never met anypony who didn't,” I said, then moaned for him to continue playing with my nipples. After a few minutes I placed my hoof on his and guiding it down between my legs to my red and dripping marehood. I gasped and let out a soft moan of appreciation as he began to stroke my lips.

There is a magic that is passed down from parent to child. In my son, I saw everything I loved in my husband reborn.

That was when I first decided upon my special project.

“You're going to fall in love with a wonderful mare,” I whispered. “Who will make you happy in every way, and you'll have lots of beautiful foals. They will grow up strong and beautiful like you, and have children of their own. Our family will never die.”

“You sound very sure,” he said.

“I'm the Princess of Love,” I said. “And more importantly, I'm your mother. Listen to what your mother says.” I gasped again as he rubbed a slow circular motion just above my clit. “Right now your mother says to rut her.”

My son growled then, like a hungry wolf. “As my Princess of Love commands.”

Author's Note

Next time: Strange Fruit.