At the height of King Sombra’s reign, his secret guard apprehended a traitor, the ringleader of a group who had tried to get a message out to the Equestrian princesses. He was given a severe beating and left in a cell somewhere in the dungeons beneath the crystal spire until the next day. Then he was hauled before the king.
“Your life is forfeit, of course,” said Sombra, “but by itself that only seems to inspire others to further attempts at heroics. So before you die, I would like you to witness some of the consequences of your treason.”
The traitor stood mute before the king. He knew he had lost, and that all that was left for him was to endure his punishment. Sombra’s cruelty was as boundless as it was unbearable, and even attempting to stand up against him had been worth it. He was sure of that.
At a signal from the king, a young mare was brought into the throne room and chained to the floor in front of the high seat.
“Your daughter Dawnblossom,” said Sombra to the traitor. “I understand she is a virgin. It is my royal will that she cease being so within this hour. Now, if you take care of that for me, you can be as gentle as you want. Otherwise, I have more loyal, but perhaps less careful, servants I can ask. And you still get to watch.”
Behind the king, the stallions in his personal guard began laughing crudely among themselves, leering and whistling at Dawnblossom.
The traitor understood what the king was asking of him, and he knew it to be vile and unspeakable. He also knew it was unthinkable to let the guardsponies carry out the king’s will, if he had the slightest hope of preventing it. And he knew that he had lost, and that resisting would only make it worse. He walked slowly towards Dawnblossom.
“No, Father,” she pled. “Please, no.”
The traitor wept as he embraced his daughter and explained to her that this was how it had to be and it would be much worse otherwise. And he whispered to her that everything would be alright and that he loved her, and that she had to be strong and try to relax as much as she could because that would make it hurt less. Eventually she nodded, and he wiped the tears from her cheeks, and she tried to smile bravely. And the traitor mounted his daughter, slowly and with the utmost care, and he deposited his fatherly seed within her. The entire court saw his shame and knew what he had become.
They took him away to the dungeons beneath the spire, and he was fed and given water to drink.
The next day, surprised to be alive still, the traitor was again taken before the king. Dawnblossom was already there.
“I greatly enjoyed seeing your daughter being known by a stallion yesterday,” said Sombra, “so much that I desire to see it once more. If you wish, you may again be that stallion.”
The traitor asked his daughter: “Does the king speak truth? Have the guards left you alone?” Perhaps he half wished to hear they had not.
She nodded wordlessly. Already knowing what her answer meant, she walked to the space in front of the king, and waited there for the inevitable with her head hanging.
“This time,” said the king, “I wish to see her climax. I trust that you can achieve that. If not, plenty of my other servants stand ready to make the attempt.”
It took the traitor three tries, but he managed.
On the third day, it was not the traitor’s daughter who was chained to the floor in the throne room when he was brought up from the dungeons, but another young mare whom he did not recognize at first.
“I regret to inform you,” said Sombra, “that your trusted lieutenant Monoclinic perished this morning during an escape attempt. For this reason he cannot be here to come between my guards and his younger sister, like you did for your daughter. But he was a worthy foe, and for his sake I will allow you to stand in his stead.”
The traitor remembered her now. Not used to trusting him, and stricken with grief for her brother, she was not as easy to convince of the necessity of his actions as Dawnblossom had been. In the end he relied as much on her chains as on persuasion when he mounted her, amidst some grumbling from the guardsponies that the king was letting all their promised fun slip away. It was the least he could do for his fallen comrade.
The next day it was the beloved niece of an older pony in whose basement they had met in a few times, and the day after that a filly who was a courier for Monoclinic’s subgroup. Each reacted differently. There was the mare who stared him down defiantly, full of contempt and hatred. There was the one who fought back so vigorously that the guards had to hold her down for him. And several just wept quietly while he carried out the king’s wishes. But he went on, day after day, defiling mare after mare as as gently and tenderly as he could, because no matter how filthy and monstrous it made him feel, those mares would be in for something much worse if he refused and let the guards have their way with them instead.
Once, he began doubting that he was really making a difference, with his neighbor’s daughter, a filly without even a cutie mark yet, who was much too tight for him and whose anguished screams echoed through the palace. But the next day Dawnblossom was in the throne room with him, the king desiring for her to know the taste of stallionhood, and the guards already had theirs out, and she looked so scared that he relented and lay down on his side so she could suckle him instead, while he stroked her mane and promised her he would always be there for her.
The traitor lasted until the twenty-third day after his capture. Then he could not get his instrument to come out, no matter how much he licked and nibbled and nuzzled at the terrified filly beside him. He had only the haziest idea how she was supposed to relate to him or the resistance movement, but she deserved his protection no less for that. Yet at the end give up he must, and he turned to the king with an immense sadness.
“I am sorry, sire. I cannot do it. I just cannot.”
King Sombra raised an eyebrow. “Are you giving up, traitor?”
The traitor could but shrug. He turned to the filly. “I am so sorry. I truly am,” he said to her, voice breaking. Then he crumbled down sobbing on the floor.
“Very well,” said the king briskly. “Let the filly go!”
The guards began releasing the filly from her bonds. The traitor looked up from his misery in confusion.
“Let her go?” he asked. “But were she not supposed t– I mean – the guards –?”
“I am feeling uncharacteristically merciful today,” said Sombra. “Does that distress you? Perhaps you feel I had given you a promise that the filly would be violated, rather than merely a threat? If you wish to hold me to it, just say the word. Upon your desire I will order my guards to hold her down and rape her.”
The traitor shook his head hopelessly and sank back down to the floor.
The king continued: “Truly, I am impressed with how long you went on. Between you and me, it was becoming a bit of a chore for my enforcers to keep finding mares for you to practice your art on. But that is all behind us now. You have served me well, and in return I will forgive your treason. You will be set free later today.”
The dungeon overseer shrugged apologetically.
“The items you had with you when you were arrested are all contraband, so I cannot give them back to you. But it is the king’s wish that you should have this, to serve your most immediate needs after your release.”
The traitor took the bag the overseer offered him, and looked inside. It contained a coil of rope.
“The king is exactly right,” he said.
