Lineage

Having asked Cadance to never let Grael watch my daughter again, I swapped back to my body, gave Grael a bollocking for sleeping on the job, and decided to go and rescue Twilight from her champion’s mile-long sex session with Eris. Knocking on the door and entering greeted me with the sight of a panting, red-faced, completely exhausted Eris lying in a pool of orgasmic juices while Twilight was sat at her dressing table, calmly brushing her hair.

“Of all the people I expected to out-sex Eris,” I said as I closed the door behind me. “It wasn’t you.”

“I’ll take the surprise as a compliment,” Twilight giggled as she looked at me in the mirror. “Fetch the poor thing a towel, will you?”

“Right. You alright there, Eris?” I asked, poking her on the leg as she gave me an exhausted thumbs-up.

“Succubus are awesome,” she wheezed. I chuckled and headed into the bathroom, grabbing a large towel from the rack and throwing it at the Chaos Goddess, who then began to mop the liquids off her body.

“I kind of expected to be coming to the rescue for you…” I smirked, walking over to the dressing table. “But I guess Eris was the one that needed a timeout. Cadance teach you how to fuck like that?”

“Yeah, the True Succubus form is amazing to fuck with,” Twilight nodded. “It’s fun for everyone, but rational thought is nearly impossible with it. All I could think about was sex. I even started fucking myself with the tail when Eris wanted a moment to catch her breath, which is a dangerous thing to do.”

“How come?” I asked. “Skewering yourself a possibility?”

“Nope. The tail acts as a functioning set of male genitalia, able to ejaculate fertile seminal fluid if the tails is brought to orgasm,” Twilight explained.

“So if you cum while fucking yourself with it-” I began.

“-You run the risk of getting yourself pregnant,” Twilight finished. “I’ve heard some horror stories with that one. Not a pretty outcome.”

“I can imagine,” I said, shaking my head at the thought. “Now that you mention it, I think Mom might’ve mentioned something about it a while back. Anyway, what’re you up to today? Finished tinkering with your locator ball?”

“Yeah. Think it’s given me as much as it can at this point,” Twilight nodded. “I was planning on getting back to my little pet project on you, actually.”

“Pet project?” I asked with a cocked eyebrow. “What’s that about?”

“I’ve been trying to find a reason as to why your magic locked itself away five year ago,” Twilight answered, gritting her teeth as she pulled on a knot in her hair. “We all had ideas ranging from the city’s curse having unforeseen effects, a curse being placed directly on you or our family, or if you somehow subconsciously sealed it yourself.”

“And? What did you find out?” I asked.

“Well, without the subject being around to observe for the past five years, I couldn’t really form a conclusion,” Twilight shrugged. “But since you’re here and we’ve got a bit of free time, I figured I can take a look at a few common factors in magical release and see if there’s something in yours that doesn’t work properly.”

“Is that going to involve you sticking things in me?” I asked.

“Nope, you’re just gonna need to sit around and do nothing for a while,” Twilight chuckled. “The worst thing that’s gonna invade your body is boredom, as it’s gonna take a while to look at every nook and cranny of your magical power, storage, and release ability.”

“Great… do I need to be awake for that?” I asked.

“No, you can sleep if you want,” Twilight answered. “Just try not to fall out of whatever you choose to sit in… do you wanna start soon or later on today?”

“I’ve got fuck all to do today… now’s as good a time as any,” I shrugged.

“Perfect!” Twilight exclaimed, leaping out of her chair and offering it to me. “I’ve got a good number of theories as to why you can’t use your magic, but let’s see if any of them hold ground. I can put you to sleep with a spell if you don’t wanna do it yourself?”

“Yeah, sure thing,” I nodded, sitting down in the padded seat and leaning back. “How long will it take for you to-”

I didn’t even finish the sentence before Twilight poked me in the back of the head, I felt a spark light up my brain, and I then fell unconscious in less than a second.

And as I slipped away into unconsciousness… something strange happened.

The cold wind blew through my hair, the sounds of birds flying through the frigid air mixed with the creaks of the trees that stood tall behind me. My eyes focussed on the colossal mountain, the passageway carved into it only easily spotted by those who knew previously of its existence. A long, slow breath existed my lungs, the flow broken by a vicious cough, forcing me to hunch over as agony splintered through my chest and spine, screwing my eyes tightly shut as blood was launched up onto my gloved hand.

“My King!” a female voice exclaimed behind me, the sound of snow crunching followed by a gentle hand on my back.

“I’m fine, my love,” I sighed, speaking words not of my choosing in a voice that was not my own. I stood up straight once more, spitting black blood onto the snow and staring at it for a long second, feeling a creeping sense of dread wash over me, but also a sense of urgency. I needed to hurry somewhere, but I knew not where.

But at the same time, I did. I knew the path I needed to take into the cave mouth I could see, hidden away under the torrent of snow. I turned around to see the beautiful woman standing behind me, her face a beautiful shade of brown, with long, flowing hazel hair. Her brown eyes were brimming with tears, her thick lips trembling with sorrow as she hugged me, a seemingly final gesture of love and goodbye. Though I had not seen it immediately, I could feel the bump in her stomach, bearing a child that was soon to be born.

She broke away from me, tears now streaming down her face as she became unable to speak. I placed a finger under her chin and directed her eyes to mine, staring into her soft orbs for what I knew would be the last time, placing a hand on her shaking shoulders as she sobbed uncontrollably.

“Go now, my love,” I said to her in a gentle, yet hoarse voice. “Return to your sister. Try to forget me as best you can.”

“I… I could never do s-such a thing…” she sobbed, her tears falling and freezing before they hit the cold ground. “I love you.”

“I know… I know,” I sighed, fighting back another cough as I spoke. “But I do not wish for you to spend the rest of your life mourning me. Find solace in your survival, and find hope-”

I stopped speaking for a moment, placing a hand on her stomach and gently massaging her before continuing.

“-In our daughter,” I finished, removing my hand from her stomach and away from my child. “Be strong for her, Saryna. She’ll need you now more than ever.”

“I… I…” she whimpered, trying to find a sentence before nodding quickly. “Okay, my love.”

“Now… hurry back to your sister,” I said with a kind smile, now feeling an ache and pain in my body that made it nearly impossible for me to stand. But I endured it, as to not let her see me as anything but the strong, loving husband she knew me as. I watched as she turned away, looking over her shoulder once more before mounting the horse that had been behind us, tying the reins to my own steed before looking at me once more.

“I love you,” she repeated, more weight and depth to those words than I’d ever heard before.

“I love you too,” I nodded, watching her as she lashed the reins and made the horses trot off, leaving me alone in the last location I’d ever see. Once I was positive she was gone, I dropped to my knees, the pain finally becoming too much to bear standing, vomiting bile and blood into the cold snow as tears flooded down my cheeks. After emptying the contents of my stomach and other organs, I staggered back to my feet, wiping my eyes and forcing myself to stand up straight.

I slowly limped towards the cave mouth, having memorised every step of the way to my chambers inside the cave, feeling my body freezing, slowly shutting down as I did so. I soon entered the cave, the snow dying away and being replaced with the blue-lit tunnels made of carved stone. I turned around, stared at the snow, the ground, and the forest that lay beyond it for one final time. With a heavy breath, I waved my hand over the entrance, the rocks growing out into a natural cover for the cave, for me to never be discovered, except for those I left the message.

My boots clacked loudly on the cold stone, the hallway going deeper and deeper into the ancient mountain. The passageway soon widened out into an enormous hall, a castle cut into the mountain itself that I’d carved myself hundreds of years ago. I passed the dining areas, ignored the kitchen, paid no mind to the bedrooms of myself and my long-dead children, only stopping to visit the armoury. Inside the stone structure once sat a vast array of weapons with power beyond power, gifted, forged, or claimed by myself and the other Alicorn, all entrusted to their true High King.

I walked into the vault I’d created, seeing the armour stand in which the armour I’d had forged in memory of my fallen friend, had his body and spirit sung into the armour by the elves, should he never leave my side again. But now the stand lay bare, the armour having been given to my most trusted friends and shipped off to locations in the world even I knew nothing of. The only thing that remained of the great set was the sword I carried on my back. The sword that had slain beasts, monsters, men, and gods.

The sword that I now left for a willing successor.

I removed the sword from my back and placed it on the rack, positioning the mannequin to hold the sword in its empty hands as if to present it for my successor. A feeling of sadness and regret washed through me, the feeling of failure at my fast-approaching end. The Immortal High King had been slain by nothing more than a mere demon, his body wasting away inside him to leave him a shell.

I shook my head, stepping away from the armoury and away from the castle, trudging upwards through a winding staircase, sung into the stone by the same elves that had created my armour, the winding stairs drawing me closer and closer to my final resting place. I entered a large chamber, barren of the usual gold, jewels, and prizes the other Alicorn laid their tombs with, mine holding nothing beyond a large, stone throne, and two blue gems either side of it, needed for the preservation ritual.

A heavy sigh followed by a heavy bout of coughing brought me to the floor once again, this time presenting me with more than just blood and bile, instead seeing a chunk of flesh on the ground, black and rotten, as my organs finally began to rot, as the curse had said they would. A bitter smile came to my face, thankful that I had managed to make it this far before death had reached me, weakly hobbling over to my Eternal Throne, the age I’d always escaped now being brought onto me in the form of death, my once proud stature now reduced to that of a hobbling, old man, weakened and worn by time and life.

I sat down heavily in the throne, pouring every ounce of magic into the two gems either side of me, taking one final breath as they formed an airtight, magical seal around me, sound cutting out as I closed my eyes, exhaling slowly once more before I used the last of my magic to continuously slow my rotting heart. I thought of my family, my friends, and my love once more, wishing them the best life they could live and praying that my kind found a worthy successor to my throne once they had learned of my passing.

And as I brought my heart to a standstill, the world darkened for the last time, thoughts, feelings, and emotions leaving my dying form as I slipped away into a world of nevermore, fulfilling the last boast any Alicorn ever wished they could on their deathbed.

‘If I shall die… it shall be on my own terms.’

I rocketed out of my chair, rearing to fight and yell, as I woke up in my regular body. I opened my eyes to see a panicking Twilight and a very concerned-looking Luna pull her hand away from my forehead as she took a step back.

“Richter?” she asked in a calm manner. “Are you alright?”

“Y-Yeah…” I said, coughing and gasping loudly, terrified that the pain of those rotting organs would return to me should I breathe again. “What the fuck just happened?”

“I… I don’t know!” Twilight exclaimed in a hectic voice, grabbing me by the face and checking my eyes, ears, and throat. “The second you went under and I start analysing your magic, you just… died.”

“What?” I asked in horror. “Like, literally or metaphorically?”

“Literally,” Twilight nodded. “You stopped breathing, your heart stopped, and there was no aura from you for a solid fifteen minutes. I went to get Luna the second I couldn’t kickstart your heart again.”

“Wait… how am I not permanently damaged?” I asked, going over a few mental maths equations, mouthing difficult words, and remembering lyrics from ballads I’d heard before. “Three minutes is the best you get before your head melts, right?”

“Y-Yeah… but when you just fixed yourself, you came back to life as if nothing was wrong,” Twilight said, scrabbling through notes on her table and books she’d had open. “The weirdest part was that your magic still worked… so… so maybe that was what kept you from becoming a vegetable? But that’s… that’s not physically possibly, at least, not possible for it to be your magic keeping you alive. If it was Necromancer of something, that’d be one thing, but even they can’t fully fix their corpses… I… I…”

“Twilight, breathe,” Luna said, putting a hand on Twilight’s shoulder and running her through a few breathing exercises to try and get the frazzled Alicorn to calm down. “There’s a few explanations for why Richter isn’t braindead. He could’ve had an enchantment placed on him by someone else.”

“Yes, but it was Richter’s magic keeping him alive…” Twilight said, nearly tearing her hair out. “There was no outside source keeping him going… and I still don’t know what fucking killed him!”

“Did you feel anything?” Luna asked, looking at me. “Go to a white place in the sky, fall into the pits of lava, anything like that?”

“No… but I did have a vision… I became someone else while I was asle… dead,” I said.

“Describe it,” Luna said, pulling up a chair and listening intently. “Maybe it’ll help us figure this out.”

“I… I was in a snow field by a mountain. There was a woman with me, I think she must’ve been Middle Eastern or from somewhere near the Arid Plains…” I began, being able to remember her face as clear as day. “She spoke with an accent, was about six feet tall, dark skin, hazel hair, brown eyes, and wore black… she was pregnant as well.”

“Anything else?” Luna asked.

“I was dying… I remember hearing… remember saying something in my head about being cursed by a demon, rotting from the inside, something like that…” I said, having it come back clearer and clearer as the seconds went by. Though as my eyes glanced up to Luna to see what her reaction was, she’d gone as white as her skin would let her with a gaunt, shocked expression.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“That woman… was her name Saryna?” Luna asked.

“Yeah, that was it,” I nodded.

Luna immediately rocketed out of her seat, fast enough to nearly knock it over, as she clapped a hand to her face and sighed loudly. Alarm shot through all of us as she began to pace back and forth through the room, myself about to ask her a question before she asked one first.

“Were you in a tomb by any chance?” she asked me. “Barren place inside a mountain, only a single throne… two blue gems either side of it?”

“Yeah, I sat down there, froze myself in some kind of barrier, and then died,” I nodded. “How… how do you know that?”

“Because that’s exactly the same place Celestia and I found Arragaithel’s body eight months before you were born,” Luna said, a look of disbelief on her face so strong it made me feel slightly scared. “How the hell do you know where that is? No, fuck that… how the hell do you have his memories of the place seconds before he died?”

“Not just that, he walked through the castle in the mountain… talked a lot about a friend that died and was made into armour or something… left his sword there for a worthy successor,” I explained. Luna froze in place, turning to look at me with a dumbfounded expression before walking over to me and taking my hand.

“What are you-” I began to ask, only to be dragged with Luna through a portal, finding myself standing in the throne room of the Castle in Equestria. “Whoa, why are we back here? We still have to take care of the shit in Falketurm?”

“This is infinitely more important,” Luna said. “I… I can’t even put a name to what just happened to you. I have never heard of this happening before.”

I was then dragged by the hand through the castle, eventually finding my mother and Celestia sitting at a table in their study, reading through reports. Luna loudly knocked on the table, getting their attention and their surprise as they spotted me there, especially my mother.

“Luna? Richter?” Celestia asked in surprise. “Why are you back?”

“Because Richter just somehow managed to sleep his way into the biggest archaeological find our species has ever had,” Luna said, turning to me and shoving me in front of the table. “Tell them everything you told me and then everything else.”

I nodded, sorting my sleeve out before going into as much detail as possible as to what I saw when… dead, eventually finishing with the memory of dying, the room going silent for a long moment before Celestia spoke up.

“Genetic memory? Enchanted memories?” she threw out there, clearly as confused as all of us as to what had happened. “Some kind of spell that shut Richter down and replaced his brain with Arragaithel’s for a short time?”

“But he was dead,” Luna reminded. “His brain wasn’t doing anything.”

“Then memory the memory was a spiritual one, fused to Arragaithel’s very essence?” Cadance offered.

“Richter may have Arragaithel’s genetics, but he’s not a clone of the man,” Luna said, rubbing her eyes with her fingers in frustration. “So unless there’s something we’ve missed… Arragaithel managed to create some kind of… genetic memory magic that infuses his memories to any of those that possess his DNA? On his deathbed.”

“It’s a fact known to this day that Arragaithel’s power was never truly fully revealed,” Celestia said, taking her glasses off and crossing her leg over her knee. “He was a God among men and was said to even make reality itself bend to his will. Maybe this is one of those reality-altering spells he was rumoured to have?”

“Why Richter, though?” Luna asked. “Why would Arragaithel purposefully leave a memory of his castle, his armour, and his sword in magical… hereditary memories to someone he’s not even related to?”

“Maybe he didn’t?” Cadance asked. “Sure, Arragaithal left a memory of his in his DNA for his children, but like you said, Richter wasn’t one of them. Maybe us taking Arragaithel’s DNA and infusing it into Richter somehow gave the two a father-son relationship strong enough for that spell to work on Richter?”

“But if it was given to Arragaithel’s children, why did none of them seek out his treasures?” Luna asked. “We all know his children died young, most of them killed by animals or enemies because… Gods Above…”

“What?” Celestia asked. “What did you just figure out?”

“Arragaithel’s children were killed because they couldn’t protect themselves,” Luna said, piecing it together more and more. “Now, tell me if this sounds strange, but how many super-powered Alicorn children do you know that don’t have some kind of instinctive magical explosion when threatened?”

“Only one, and that was Richter,” Celestia said. “But he proved he can still use it through extreme desperation five years ago. Where are you going with this?”

“I’m thinking that they might’ve been killed because Arragaithel sealed away their magic as a way to protect themselves and others around them,” Luna continued. “We know that Alicorn get their magic young, hell, Astraea is already throwing lightning around at anything she wants to. But we don’t mind her doing that because she’d not essentially a demi-god. Now, if you were a man who could bend space and time, but only gained that power once you’d trained for it, would you want your untrained children running around with god power from the day they turn three?”

“No… I’d probably try to lock the power away until they were old enough to handle it,” Celestia nodded. “And to be better safe than sorry, I’d make sure that the enchantment was done to the child in the womb, the place where it would be easiest to do so.”

“And for a man that knows how to manipulate DNA and magic as well as he did, surely you’d use that power to make all of your spawn have that lock until you released it yourself?” Luna asked. “Maybe just having his DNA would come with that lock on it? We’ve seen stranger enchantments many a time before in our lives.”

“So why did it break for Richter?” Cadance asked.

“Maybe the lock was designed to deal with the power his children would possess?” Luna threw out there. “He has the base limits and tweaks it as needed when they get older. But there’s been no tweaking to Richter’s barrier, thus it breaks when he manages to fully power up.”

“Then why does it reseal?” Celestia asked.

“Maybe it adapts to power bursts?” Luna suggested. “If Arragaithel can record his memories and store them in his DNA, a little self-adjusting spell should be nothing for him, right?”

“So… that’s the reason then?” I asked, speaking up for the first time in a while. “The natural block I’ve got on my power comes from you splicing my DNA with his?”

“Maybe?” Celestia asked with an unsure gesture. “This is all just theory at this point…”

“I still want to know what triggered the death-vision, or what kept him alive,” Luna said. “Twilight said that it was Richter’s own magic, but that can’t be possible.”

“Maybe it was Arragaithel’s magic?” Cadance suggested. “We do know that magic signatures can have resemblance between family members, especially if they have a lot in common. Astraea looks nearly identical to me and you two have even confused her for me at some points. Maybe Arragaithel and Richter share so much that their magic signatures seem nearly identical. Remember that Arragaithal’s DNA was diluted as much as it would’ve been with a normal conception. You just took and stuck it in there and moulded it to fit where needs be.”

“This… this is completely crazy, right?” I asked. “This isn’t just me?”

“No, we’re all in the same boat as you are,” Cadance nodded. “Though I’d really like to know what triggered the vision to begin with.”

“Maybe Twilight’s poking around pushed a few blocks into the proper order, so to speak?” Celestia suggested. “Richter’s not a true descendant, so maybe he needed some modification before all the pieces fell into place?”

“Maybe,” Luna nodded, scratching her head. “I think the vision meant something though. It showed him a whole section of the mountain we didn’t discover. Maybe there’ll be something else there if he shows us where it was?”

“Are we not gonna finish up in Falketurm first?” I asked. “After all that?”

“The job’s done anyway,” Luna said with a shake of her head. “We’ll just let your dad give the last set of orders, finish the job for you, and get it done properly. Let’s be honest, you were just wasting your own time there anyway.”

“And that means I get to meet my new business partner,” Cadance said in a giddy expression.

“Right, okay, fine,” I sighed. “But if we’re bailing out of Falketurm… I’d like to ask Annerose to come with us.”

“She won’t fuck you, you know that, right?” Luna asked.

“I don’t care about that,” I said with a shake of my head. “She’s a great friend and good to have on our side. I don’t wanna just up and abandon her like that.”

“Alright, fine,” Luna nodded. “We’ll get your girlfriend, grab anyone else from Falketurm that’s useful once they’re done there, set up an expedition to the tomb, and try and figure out exactly what the hell our High King is trying to tell us.”