Kingdom of Loving: Fear and Loving in the Crystal Empire

Chapter 6: The Pony in the Library

Books.

Books were what really made Twilight feel at home. Shelves and shelves full of books, tables strewn with them, the feel of delicate old parchment beneath her fingers, the smell of ancient wisdom and fresh ink and the soft glow of a candle, all of these things were what put her mind at ease when things got too stressful. Unfortunately, she was still feeling no more relaxed than when she’d started collecting the cartloads from the library’s extensive magical theory section, a few pieces from the history of the Empire, even going so far as to pick up a few tabloids from the newsstand archives.

She had nothing.

Rubbing her eyes, Twilight leaned back in her padded chair heavily. She was surrounded by leaning towers of books amidst the glimmering light of a few crystal lamps. Despite this very familiar setting she still felt anxious, anxious that she had no more information to go off of, and anxious that she was stuck here in the Crystal Kingdom while Celestia waited, brooding, suspecting incorrectly that Cadance was up to something.

It wasn’t hard to come to that conclusion. Just the night before she had practically worried herself sick with the same assumption. Now things were a bit clearer and Twilight didn’t suspect Cadance - not as much, anyway. Nothing could rule out foul play while there were still unknown shapeshifters running amok among the populace.

Grabbing another book off a pile, Twilight looked over its cover. Instead of a title it was engraved with a gold circle that was composed of the shapes of many naked ponies all tangled up in suggestive positions. Her cheeks burned under her purple fur, but with a quick glance around to ensure she had her privacy, Twilight placed the tome on the desk in front of her and flipped it open. It wouldn’t have what she was looking for, she was quite sure, but she was also looking for more than just information on mystery doppelgangers.

The first thing Twilight noticed was that there were very few words. Other than some basic descriptors, this book was full of diagrams. Hand-drawn, they were slightly stylized but still quite graphic. She swallowed the rising swell of dread she got whenever she started thinking about seeing a nude pony and forced herself to flip another page past the surprisingly tame introduction where the book simply displayed the anatomy of stallions and mares on two generic figures.

On the next page, the two example ponies were in the midst of carnal activity. The stallion had the mare on her back, one of her legs lifted and supported over his shoulder while he pressed his hips to hers. Another angle on the drawing showed that he was on his knees and entering from a slight angle above the line of her pelvis. Twilight could only imagine what a firm, thick cock like that felt like as it slid into her at that angle, hitting first her back wall and then rolling up, moving deeper with the powerful thrust of Shining’s-

“Found anything?”

Twilight nearly lept out of her chair as she simultaneously slammed the book shut and spun around in her seat. “No!” she nearly shouted in the middle of the silent library.

Shining raised a brow curiously at his sister. She was panting, red-cheeked, and looked like she’d just seen a ghost! Maybe the books full of monsters were getting to her, like the old mare’s tales their mother used to recite just before bedtime. He chuckled at the memory of her creeping into his bedroom and asking if she could sleep in his bed. Although that might be a bit of a complication if she did the same thing, especially because the loincloth around his waist was not exactly for her benefit. Even now he felt himself stir, a slight twitch coursing through familiar regions beneath the rough cloth.

He cleared his throat. “It’s getting late.”

Twilight gazed up at the large, intricate crystal clock that hung on one wall. Its hands had moved quite a lot since she’d last looked up at them. Fatigue filtered through her burning curiosity and embarrassment and her eyes were getting heavy.

“Yeah,” she agreed, grabbing a few books and piling them on top of the very lewd manual she’d found. She picked them all up together as she turned to face her brother.

“Taking those back to your room?” Shining asked as he offered out Twilight’s bookbag.

“These are the only ones I haven’t finished,” Twilight said with a nod, stuffing the tomes into her bookbag together to disguise the fact that the one on bottom was pornography.

Shining chuckled as he glanced over the table, which looked like a miniature castle made out of books. “If I didn’t know you I’d say you were full of it.”

“Hah,” Twilight faked a laugh. The privately dirty euphemism made her avert her eyes quickly as she grabbed her notebook and inkpen to put away as well.

“Are you okay?” Shining asked, seeing the obvious anxiety written on his sister’s face.

“I’m fine, Shining,” Twilight said and looked up at him. She forced a smile. “Just tired is all.”

“Well, let’s get you back up to your room. There’ll be more time for monsters and mystery tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Twilight said distractedly as her mind wandered. She wasn’t thinking much of monsters anymore. She was more concerned with getting back to the meat of that book, and perhaps having a little alone time. Something told her she wouldn’t be sleeping right away.

Shining escorted his sister back up to her room, and after a quick hug and their goodnights Twilight practically shed her clothing. It was starting to feel confining. Was it something about the Crystal Kingdom that was beginning to rub off on her, or was it just because she was so insanely horny? For a brief moment she stood in front of the dresser and looked at herself in the mirror - really looked, as if admiring herself for the first time.

Twilight had never really given her body much thought. She was more worried about her studies, her progress, and her apprenticeship than she was about appearances. Maybe it was good fortune that she didn’t have to put much effort into making her long, three-toned purple mane look good or keeping her figure slim. She was pretty, according to her mom and dad, but was she attractive? Standing there, naked, in front of the mirror, her mind went back through all the mares she’d seen since coming to the Crystal Kingdom. Caramel Cream, Aqua, Lemon Tart, the waitress at the cafe, even Cadance. How did she compare to each of them?

Her breasts were on the small end, she knew, but they were not tiny. They were round and full enough to be cupped by her hands, and she covered them briefly to really feel how they shifted and reformed under her grip. Her purple nipples were erect and tender to the touch, making her huff through her nose in her experimental fondling. There was no point in her recent memory where she had actually considered her own breasts before.

Twilight also didn’t trim or shave her pubic fur at all, although it was naturally thinner down there. She could clearly follow the slightly puffy curvature of her mons as it descended between her thighs, but if she pressed her legs together like a proper lady she wouldn’t see her private bits. It made her shiver to think about sitting out somewhere in public without proper posture, legs spread in her skirt, rude and salacious and whorish.

Right. That was enough of that, she told herself, and went over to the bed. She pulled back the covers and hastily clambered into the silken sheets, trying to force down the image of herself being ogled. There were more important things to keep in mind, like shapeshifters and the problem with Celestia and Cadance and her brother’s wedding. The sudden burst of nervous energy led to Twilight propping up a pillow against the headboard and reaching for her bookbag on the floor. She wouldn’t be able to sleep without reading something and calming down.

Her hand came back holding that untitled tome with the gold circle of lustful ponies on its cover.

Twilight sighed. This wasn’t the book she had been intending to go for, but here it was. She propped her knees up under the covers and laid the book out on them. She flipped to the last page she’d been on and looked over the diagrams once more to refresh her memory. Then she turned the page, and a new image of perverse delight greeted her. In this one, the stallion was on his back and the mare was on top of him, her legs spread around his hips. He was supporting her waist with his hands, and the few images from different angles suggested she was lifting and lowering herself with her legs. Twi could just barely picture the extra weight of her own body helping to grind the stallion to her deepest reaches, nuzzling up against the very back of her canal. Even in her most enthusiastic self-sessions she had never hit the limits of her own sex. To have her whole body balanced like that, pivoting around that point inside here where should could feel him almost up to her belly-

Twi shuddered. Her breath trembled out of her lips and her cheeks and ears were hot. Sliding a hand down under the sheets, her fingers crawled with a singular purpose beneath her upraised thighs and began furtive exploration. Her other hand flipped the page.

Sleep could wait, just for a bit.

Twilight was woken up by a knocking on the bedroom door. She blinked a few times as her brain lurched from the seductive swirl of images that had been dancing through her mind all night, naked ponies doing incredibly flexible things, bending and arching and gyrating. Her gaze settled on the book on her nightstand, still opened to a page of three ponies contorted together in a lewd circle. She quickly lunged for it and snapped the book shut as the knocking repeated.

“Twi? Are you up?” Shining’s voice came through, muffled but distinct.

“I’m up!” she called back as she jerked the book off the stand and thrust it under the covers with her to get it out of view.

“Can I come in?”

“Yes!” Twilight said, hopping out of bed. It might have been her haste, or it might have been her mind racing through a thousand excuses for why she was reading a dirty book alone in her bedroom, but as the door crept open she had forgotten she was still completely naked.

And she smelled like sex.

Twilight froze in the middle of the room. Shining stepped in, and he froze too. They looked at each other for a long moment. Twilight’s hands were folded in front of her in a nervous fiddle, but she forced herself not to scream or duck behind the bedpost or grab for her skirt laying on the floor nearby. She just looked at her brother, her cheeks pink, her breasts rising and falling with her slightly elevated breath.

Shining tried not to let his gaze wander from his sister’s apprehensive eyes, but he couldn’t help it. Taking in her purple-furred figure at a glance, he saw her supple curves on display for the first time in - well, since she’d had supple curves to begin with. In his time in the Crystal Kingdom Shining had seen many, many mares and stallions nude and paid them no mind. With the exception of Cadance he had begun to think of it as unremarkable; they had their own natural beauty, each and every one of them, but the simple act of being naked had begun to lose its luster, its sense of forbidden attraction. There was no longer any taboo about seeing a pony’s breasts or cock or pussy on plain display.

That was until he found himself looking at his sister’s. Shining swallowed heavily and hoped that the warm feeling pumping down through his legs was just the burn from coming up the stairs too quickly.

“What is it?” Twilight asked, trying to get Shining’s mind off both her naked figure and the slightly acrid smell on the air. She hoped she was just being self-conscious about not showering yet, but she also needed to change the sheets. Very badly.

“Oh, um. I wanted to ask if you were coming to breakfast,” Shining said after apparently forgetting the entire reason he’d come up.

“Oh! Right, yes,” Twilight latched onto that idea as if it was her saving grace. “I need to shower. I guess I slept in a little.”

Shining chuckled. “Stayed up late reading, huh?”

Twilight felt the heat in her cheeks skyrocketing. She gave a quick, forced little laugh. “Yeah, you know me!” She paused for a pensive moment, letting the very obvious omission in that story hang in the air while she debated. “Shining, I was wondering…”

Shining tilted his head as his sister played with her fingers, picking at one nail, then switching to another. “What is it, Twi?”

“I was wondering if it would be alright if I came to breakfast like...like this.”

Shining blinked, his mouth hanging open just slightly. He had to shake his head to get it to snap shut again so he could speak. “What? I mean, of course! Are you okay with it, Twily?”

“Yes,” Twilight said, mostly to reaffirm her decision to herself. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, actually, and just trying to get comfortable with it. But you can’t swim if you don’t get in the pool.”

“Yeah,” Shining said with a growing smile. “I’m glad, but I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable. Remember, this isn’t about-”

“I know,” Twilight interrupted him before he could say anything about being naughty. It definitely did still carry an element of being naughty, of breaking what she considered taboo. There was no way it would ever be different for her unless she worked to change that, however, and she couldn’t keep walking around as the only clothed pony in the Crystal Kingdom and expect to find herself fitting in.

Shining looked like he wanted to hug his sister, but they were both completely stripped down. Twilight was a little glad he didn’t considering she was positive he could smell her from where he stood, and if she got any closer and inhaled that deep, earthy scent of his that would probably be the end of her little experiment in treating this all as some casual thing.

“Well, I’ll see you at breakfast. Cadance and I have to meet with the wedding planner, which is pretty boring stuff.”

“Right,” Twilight said as she snapped out of thinking about Shining’s smell with a new sense of shame lighting her inner ears and cheeks. “I’ll let you two do your wedding stuff and um, probably check out some more of the books in the library.”

“Don’t work yourself too hard,” Shining said before stepping back out of the door, closing it behind him. Twilight exhaled loudly, a whicker of both frustration and relief ruffling out of her lips.

These thoughts about her brother were getting more invasive and more unsettling. She loved him, she truly did, but Twilight was not attracted to her brother, was she? That was wrong even by the shifting standards of wrong that played at her brain. Even if the Crystal Kingdom was all about love, platonic or sexual or otherwise, there was absolutely nothing right about the buzz she felt in the pit of her stomach every time she saw Shining’s broad, muscled chest, those defined abs, his swinging-

She was doing it again!

Twilight clutched her own head and forced herself into the bathroom. Cranking on the shower’s cold water, she was determined to get the idea out once and for all. It was nothing but the new and exciting rush she got from thinking about being undressed in front of him, or in front of anypony. This was nothing more than the same thrill she got when she found a new book on magical theory or Equestrian history. Feeling a deep quiver course through her very core, Twilight adjusted the stream of the water until it was warm and began to lather her fur down with shampoo. She’d never find a book like that book in Equestria’s library.

Wait.

Last night Twilight had read over a dozen books on magical theory, searching for applied uses of shapechanging magic. There were several spells that could disguise a pony, from invisibility to imitating the appearance of another, but there was little at the scene that would help her track it down. They were all in some way magical and they had found no trace of external magic at the shop yesterday. That meant that whatever was using it must have been innate, which meant it had to be a creature that could employ a natural magic to alter its appearance. Nothing like that was recorded in the history of the Crystal Kingdom, but that was the problem.

The Crystal Kingdom, even the Crystal Empire, had been dormant for centuries, ever since Sombra was defeated by the princesses. There wouldn’t be any chronicles in their records, not without Cadance knowing about them. She was looking in the wrong place! Maybe Equestria’s chronicles had something on shapechanging creatures. But how would she get access to the Canterlot library, or even the library in Ponyville, from all the way up here? The train took three days to get to north.

Twilight quickly finished up her shower and dried herself off. Her long hair was still damp as she brushed it out, hurrying to finish up her preparations. She opened the drawer of the dresser in her room and halted, staring down at the collection of neatly-folded skirts and blouses. What an odd feeling, she mused, having to stop herself from getting dressed. When she was a filly, her mother had to chase her down to get her to wear her clothes. Now, she could barely even fathom not slipping on her usual outfit, a uniform so familiar she’d worn it every day for the last several years. It was so habitual she didn’t even think about heading over to the dresser and opening it. Before coming to the Crystal Kingdom Twi had never questioned the need to get dressed, not in a good, long while.

She pushed the drawer closed and looked at herself in the mirror. Slowly, building confidence with each stroke, Twilight continued brushing out her mane until it was neat, straight, and shiny. Turning away from the oak chest where her coverings were kept, Twilight flipped her tail up and combed some of the out of line strands down before she experimented with a few postures to cover her butt with her lengthy horsehair. Satisfied that she was at least not being lewd with it, she put the brush back on the dresser’s top and grabbed the bottle of lavender scent she used. A quick spritz under her chin and over her bare chest left her smelling clean and fresh and helped brighten up the flavor of the room.

Twilight moved back over to the bedside table and frowned. She’d need to get these sheets cleans. Or, worse yet, she’d have to hope any cleaning staff were discreet. She dug under the covers for the book she’d hidden from Shining. This would also have to go back to the library at some point, and she’d want to put it somewhere where it couldn’t easily be tracked back to her.

Deciding against returning it, at least for now, Twilight tugged opened the nightstand’s drawer and placed the book inside. She grabbed her bookbag and pulled it into place over her bare shoulder before she moved over to the door, took a deep breath, and stepped out.

The air outside her room was crisp and clean and fresh on her fur, every inch of her exposed to it. There was a lingering bit of dampness about her pelt and its evaporation made her shiver - at least, that was what she told herself was the cause. Her nipples perked stiffly through her fur and she ignored them, pushing aside the vaguely pleasant feeling of having her bare little nubs tantalized by the gentle caress of the breeze as she walked.

Twilight even felt a rush of confidence as she descended the staircase to the main hall, where all the guards in their naked splendor nodded to her politely, but did not stare. There were no whistles, no catcalls, no gasps, and certainly no screams. In fact, she was fairly certain that the few smiles she caught on the corners of their lips were approving, since most of the guards had seen her on the previous two days, fully clothed. That was the unusual specter, the odd sight out of place among the Crystal Kingdom ponies.

There was nothing odd at all about walking naked to breakfast with her brother and sister-in-law.

“Twilight!” Candace practically squealed as she stepped through the door. The pink alicorn grabbed her future sister-in-law in a tight hug, and the blushing began anew.

Cadance was taller than Twilight by about a full head, so in the embrace she got to lay her cheek against the fur around the mare’s collarbone and feel the way those supple breasts molded and conformed against her ribcage and around her own bosom. It was the first fully naked hug she’d ever received.

“Morning, Cadance,” Twilight breathed, making a playful show out of not being able to breathe. It wasn’t thanks to the squeezing.

“Shining told me about what you asked, and, well, here you are!”

Twilight took a step back once she was released and Cadance gave her a quick look. She wasn’t entirely sure it was platonic, since Cadance grinned in a way she’d only seen from Shining when he looked at Cadance.

“You might’ve talked me into it,” Twi said with a little nervous rub to the back of her neck.

“I’m glad you’re at least willing to try. It’s your choice, always,” Cadance gestured to the table where there was a fresh pot of coffee. She was holding a mug herself, and there was another one on the table. Twilight smiled as she took the mug and poured out some of the aromatic black drink, then reached for the carafe of cream and the sugar cube dish.

“Y’know, I never used to like coffee either,” she joked as she mixed it up to creamy mocha color. “I just didn’t know how to drink it until somepony showed me.”

Shining stepped in through the kitchen door and was not wearing his cook’s apron. Twilight reflected on the notion that this made it the first breakfast she and her brother and sister-in-law had fully in the nude, and for just a second, she wondered if this were all some elaborate practical joke. Would she, at any moment, be revealed as the only one not in on it in front of her parents, in front of Celestia, in front of all of Equestria? Carted away and jailed for public indecency and betraying her teachings, never to be heard from again?

That little voice of paranoia was quieted with a long sip from the hot coffee, its deliciously rich flavor from being fresh-ground complemented by the sweet sugar and velvet smoothness added by the fatty cream.

“Hey Twi. We were just about to head out, but there’s toast.”

“Mm, toast. Oh, before you leave,” Twilight said to Cadance, “do you know if you have any books on Equestria history? Specifically creatures of Equestrian legend.”

Cadance’s thin brows knit and she scrunched her nose. “I don’t, but I do know somepony who would. Did you think of something that might help catch our mystery monster?”

“It’s a stretch,” Twilight admitted. “I just don’t know if the Crystal Kingdom’s records on historical monsters would be complete. There’s that huge gap between the fall of Sombra and your rule starting about a hundred years ago.”

“If we do have anything it would have been brought by some of the ponies that came with me from Canterlot,” Cadance mused, mostly thinking out loud. “Even a century old textbook would be more recent than Sombra’s old scrolls.”

“Sheesh, can you two quit reminding me I’m marrying a mare ninety-nine years older than I am?” Shining bemoaned more loudly than he needed to, purposefully stepping over to give Cadance a quick grab right on the flank.

“Hey now,” she snorted. “You keep that up and you won’t be getting any until your hundred and twenty-first birthday.”

Shining flashed his fiance a silly grin and she eyed him with a smirk that simultaneously said it was in good humor and that she was probably going to spank him. Hard. Twilight found herself grinning a little at the display, her tail flicking in unconscious amusement. That only served to remind her that the three of them were standing in the breakfast nook bare to the fur and joking about her brother having payback sex later. She shook her head.

“Anyway,” Twilight said to try to get the conversation back on track.

“Right, I’ll have one of our librarians pull up whatever we’d be able to. Feel free to head down. We’ve got to get going.” Cadance put down her mug of coffee and stepped forward to face Twilight. She put a hand on her shoulder and leaned forward to kiss her gently right between the eyes. Then her hand patted Twilight’s cheek and she passed, but the impression it left made Twilight quiver. The gesture wasn’t unwelcome, and actually had made Twilight feel strangely accepted.

Shining chuckled as he patted his sister’s shoulder to snap her out of her reverie, but he was already well past her when she blinked back to reality. She’d been fantasizing about what those pink lips might do if she let them go further, what she’d seen them do the day before right in this very room.

“Go get ‘em, bookhorse.”

“H-Hey!” Twilight’s tail twitched again in slight annoyance at her sibling’s teasing. She hated when he got the last word in during their little exchanges, so she’d have to pay him back later. But not like Cadance was going to pay him back! Wow, her thoughts had gone into the gutter more quickly than she was used to, hadn’t they? Twi turned back to the table to grab her coffee. The warm mug in her fingers still steamed and she hurried to finish it off while she went to the kitchen to grab a piece of toast with butter. It wasn’t much, but it’d keep her going while she poured through some more books in search of more answers.