I was in my room when the changing of the guard took place once again on the patio downstairs. I wasn’t in the mood for watching it, or even peering through the windows. Still, it was impossible not to hear the rustling clinks, clanks, and bangs of the armored ponies trotting around.
That was a morning routine I had gotten used to since I was transferred to the Crystal Empire almost a year ago. For 'well-being' reasons.
I knew my presence in the capital was attracting too much unnecessary attention; ponies in Canterlot have their dull, stable lives, and any sort of disruption is widely regarded as a nuisance to be eliminated.
Needless to say, I was the nuisance.
The decision to move me to the Crystal Empire was solely based on the idea that in such an isolated nation, I could do all my infamous disruption, annoyance, and abnormality, without bothering the nobility.
It was not a matter of choice.
I’d still be a happy guy cleaning swimming pools for a few bucks a day if it wasn’t for a certain alicorn messing up with the castle’s artificial lake. The least they could do for me was to provide food and shelter while the responsible for my unfortunate arrival attempted to recreate the shit she had done.
Aside from the deathly cold mornings, life in the Crystal Empire wasn’t as detestable as it was in Canterlot. Few ponies bothered me here, and the local royal family was less of a pain in the ass.
It somehow reminded me of Europe, politically speaking. We all know who’s the Queen of England, but it’s not like she rules over the entire continent for Christ’s sake. There are a dozen royal families or so in Europe, but honestly, who the hell cares about the Principality of Andorra?
That’s how I felt about the Crystal Empire. The ponies are aware of its existence, but it’s not like they care.
Well, I cared.
I looked at my watch, it was nine twenty-five. A little bit late for breakfast, but I intended to be late. Cadance was very punctual, she would have her breakfast every day at seven, and leave thirty minutes later to do whatever a princess has to do.
When her husband was around, they had breakfast together on the winter garden, usually thirty minutes later because Shining Armor was addicted to his mattress and pillows.
Still, it wasn’t the case today; the prince was attending to a conference in Saddle Arabia, and wouldn’t be around for a few days.
Considering the fortunate lack of royalty, I changed my clothes to something more warm and casual; a plain dark hoodie and jeans, and my traditional pom-pom beanie. With this certainty in mind, I headed to the kitchen to have my meal, maybe fry an egg or two.
I checked the corridor before leaving the safety of my room – it was devoid of life. I sighed, chuckling a little at my unfounded paranoia.
There were no guards on duty today, or at least not in this part of the castle. I wasn’t a criminal on the run or anything, but I preferred to stay away from those inquiring blue eyes.
Humming a tune to keep myself from thinking about Cadance, I made my way down the stairs, taking notice of the sand-like snowflakes rustling outside and building up on windowsills. It would be another cold day, as expected.
With my hands tucked inside the pockets of my hoodie, I crossed half of castle, paying little attention to the ponies around, just nodding my head every once in a while to greet a servant. Those ponies deserved way more than a nod for all the cleaning, washing, ironing, cooking, they do. It’s certainly not easy to keep a place like this in pristine shape, and the ones responsible for that deserved my respect.
As I reached my final destination – the kitchen – I immediately noticed that the chef was nowhere to be seen, as so the cooks. The well-lit place was insulated by thick stone walls, that regardless of the weather outside, always maintained a warm and pleasant temperature. I rolled up my sleeves and got a frying pan from the pot rack; put some eggs over the counter alongside with a bread loaf cut in a half.
The butter jar was nowhere to be seen. I looked inside the cabinets, on the shelves, even the dispenser room, but there was no butter to be found.
“How’s that even possible?” I muttered to myself.
“Looking for something?”
I scampered to the side, my arm accidentally dragging everything to the ground as I turned around almost expelling my heart through my mouth.
The loud bang of the iron pan falling on the floor may have reverberated through the entire castle, although the pan was intact, I couldn’t say the same for the eggs, and perhaps my eardrums.
“Ah… Sorry?”
Cadance was softly leaning against the door, a butter jar floating by her side. She looked at my pathetic face and egg-covered shoes as if that was the most casual of conversations.
“Crap! Are you fucking trying to kill me?” I shouted, only to realize I had cursed in front of the princess. It had happened a few times before, but it was not something I was proud of.
“I’m sorry I-”
“Oh please Henry, just quit it.” She waved a hoof. “I don’t mind if you swear, I even think it’s cute. Besides if that’s a cultural thing of-“
“It is not cute, and it is not cultural – I guess…” I said, letting out a slow sigh. “Princess, I don’t mean to be rude, but what are you doing here?”
“In special with the only available butter jar” I was quick to add, stepping out of the sticky mess on the floor, kicking off some eggshells from my shoes.
Cadance placed the polemical butter jar back on the shelf where it belonged, and chuckled. A blue flash of light left her horn and suddenly the kitchen floor was clean again.
“You’re welcome” She said, a mischievous smile on her face.
“Look, if you’re here to talk about what happened last week, I don’t-”
“Relax for Celestia’s sake! I’m not here to talk about that, it was an accident – it’s over. Can’t a princess just talk to her human friend?” I couldn’t believe in her yet. “Are you avoiding me?” She cocked an eyebrow.
“What? No, of course I’m not. I was just… Just trying to fry an egg, and have some peace.” I stated, pulling a chair from the table to sit down.
Cadence stood right in front of me, even being slightly taller than the average mare, she could only look me straight in the eyes when I was sitting.
“Why didn’t you show up for breakfast?” She asked.
“I was sleeping.”
“You’re lying.” She snickered. “I don’t bite, you know that?”
“Well, you tried…”
“That was a different kind of bite.”
“I didn’t know there were categories.” I rubbed my neck, steel feeling the contours left by her teeth on my skin.
By the way she stared at me, I feared that a bite would be the last of my worries if she ever tried to ‘comprehend’ my alien mind again.
“Hey, quit staring! I’m not a piece of meat.” I waved my hand in front of her face.
“Your luck I’m a vegetarian.” Cadance giggled. “Anyway, I expect to see you later Henry… Please don’t miss the diner, I have ordered something special for you. Take it as an apology of my part.” She nodded.
“I’ll consider the offer.” I responded, narrowing my eyes.
As quick as she appeared in the kitchen, the princess vanished away in a spell, leaving no trace of her presence behind, except the uncanny feeling in my chest, that something was fucking wrong there.
'You got me hypnotized, no choices I had to ever react. You simply can’t mess with my heart and then tell me it was nothing.
You think I’ll be wasting my time and sanity with your love games again? Those sick psychological experiments of yours.
I’m not your freaking toy.
I’m not your human puppet, Cadance.'
I didn’t know I could be such a poet when hypnotized.
I’ve read and re-read that little piece of parchment the whole week. I couldn’t quite remember what made me write such a thing, the answer was buried somewhere in my brain, I was certain of that. But I didn’t know where.
My memories of that day were completely fragmented, as an old video tape missing several chunks, the remaining ones precariously glued together with pieces of duct tape. One would expect a lot of cuts and static.
I wrote on that parchment as soon as I regained conscience, almost as if predicting the future – a few hours later, not a single frame of memory was intact.
Days later when I found the parchment over my desk, my suspicions that something pretty fucked up had happened gained even more strength.
I hadn’t the guts to show the evidence, but I asked Cadance about that night. She came up with an excuse that one of her spells went wrong and I was in the way when the thing ricocheted through my room.
According to her, I had some sort of cerebral glitch when the burst of magic interacted with my neurons, and portions of my memory had to be erased so I could ‘work properly’ again.
Still, what she was doing in my room remains an incognita.
I tried very hard to forget that, but it turned out to be immensely difficult to do so after the incident, because now for some unholy reason, every time I’m in the same room with Cadance, I feel like a teenager talking to his crush.
It’s like the third world war.
Of course that becomes a massive problem when you realize that you’re talking about a married, pink, flying unicorn.
Whatever she did to me, wasn’t undone properly. Or wasn't undone at all...
Now it was about time to dinner, and I barely knew what to wear. The fact that I was worrying over what to wear or not struck me like a lightning bolt, and from that moment on I had absolute certainty that my brain wasn’t working properly.
The castle was always colder at night, and to save time I just picked a long trench-coat, this way I could hide my not formal at all outfit and still keep me warm. Most of my clothes were black, white, or gray; it saved a lot of time, but also made me look like an actor from the monochromatic television ages.
Satisfied with my choice, I headed to the dining room.
I stopped in front of the imposing gates, a thin beam of yellowish light escaped from the gaps between and under the hardwood doors. Without ceremony, I pushed one of them open.
All the huge crystal chandeliers hanged unlit from the ceiling, a large fireplace on the opposite side of the dining room provided enough light and heat for the booth of us.
And it was, literally, just us.
“Where is everyone?” I asked, letting the door close behind me. The table was empty, and the promise of good food was instantly broken.
“Am I not enough for you?” Cadance asked, not looking away from the window.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, having a hell of a gut feeling as she finally looked at me with those sharp, entrancing eyes. “You said you had ordered something special for me.” I chuckled nervously.
“Oh, and I did!” She pointed to the table.
As I approached, I noticed that the table wasn’t completely empty – on top of it was a pearly white chest. It looked anything but relevant, although something inside of me said the contrary.
“What is it?” I inquired, inspecting the object closely.
“I’m sure you’ll understand, if you open it.” Cadance smiled, walking to my side and nuzzling my arm.
That made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, it felt wrong in so many levels, I couldn’t even describe. I just wanted to walk away from that room- my body urged me to walk away.
“I’m not sure if-”
“I said you should open it.” She repeated, her face dangerously close to mine.
Slowly, I extended an arm and ran my hand over the surface of the chest. It was smooth like a piece of ivory, but still profane at the touch.
With little effort, I raised the lid.
“See? Now there will be nothing in our way.”
Her whisper was a dagger that pierced my soul, it opened a wound that would never heal. Just like the lid of that chest would never close again in my mind.
The scent of deadly obsession filled my lungs, as the fragrance of Cadance's perfume mingled with the smell of fresh unicorn blood, staining the insides of the white box with crimson madness.
Frozen in my own body, I stared at the severed head of Shining Armor, as his so called wife planted a kiss on my neck.
Author's Note
Blame the villains inside my head.
For Christ's sake, if you downvoted the story, please tell me what kind of shit I need to improve. Seriously, you don't even need to be polite.
I found myself down on my knees, head laying against the table. The hard surface printing valleys on my forehead.
But you don't know me at all. I could be anyone.
If that's a game she wanted to play, so games will be played. You see my face in the tar pit, while the crimson surprise streamed down that open chest. I was not the surprise you thought it'd be.
Cadance stared down at me, a wing brushing against my back, one of its feathers reaching my exposed neck. She looked at the face of her deceased lover as if it was a piece of exotic meat. It was intact, nonetheless. We could sew it in a mannequin and pretend he was alive until the bugs started to decompose his face.
"Where's the rest?" I asked under my breath, raising from my knees and dusting the sides of my dark coat with a hand.
"The rest?" She asked, tilting her head to the side.
"Yes Cadance, the remaining pieces of Shining Armor." Those were strong words, even more so was to pronounce them in the same sentence. I guess there's not a way to be polite when asking about the missing parts of a corpse.
The raw fact was that Cadance was clearly a delusional murderer, and my options narrowed down considerably with each wrong word. Now the shit was done, and there was nothing I could do to glue Shining's head back to its proper place. The prince was dead, and the princess insane.
I trembled considerably when I decided it was time to close the ivory chest again. I trembled because I had to touch it. But I did not hesitated. It would burn in a corner of my mind for a very long time, anyway.
With an almost inaudible clank, all the horror seemed to disappear. Ivory always made things look the prettiest.
"I buried it." She said bluntly. Turning around to face the windows again, as if no murder had ever happened. Of course, it must be a cultural tradition to mutilate heads and present them to your guests.
"You can't simply kill your fucking husband and get along with it. Someone will find out sooner or later." I stated.
"My little Shining was attacked by terrorists in Saddle Arabia." She sobbed, a tear running down her cheek. "They sent me this... This horrible box. I j-just wanted a chance to see my hubby again..." Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she tried to cover her bloodshot eyes with a hoof.
As the princess rubbed her head against mine, a frightening smile formed on her lips.
It was very difficult to find a single point to focus my thoughts, I just pulled a chair from the table and sat down. Do I wanted Cadance? What for fuck's sake was I thinking? She had sent a prince to the guillotine. My coat felt like a cloth prison around my body, so I unbuckled the belts holding the vest together, breathing deeply in relief.
"I was tired, Henry." She muttered.
"And killing your husband provided great relief."
"It's not a matter of relief." She turned around, her messy mane covering half of her face, a teary eye looked up at me. "It's a matter of freedom."
"You're a sick bitch, that's what you are." I snickered sarcastically.
"And you're my little psycho..." Tenderly, she ran a hoof over my chest, nuzzling my cheek. "I don't know what'd be of me without you." She whispered in my ear, my hand groped for a piece of fur to grab. I buried my fingers into her mane, exposing her face as I pushed the bangs of hair away. Her tears evaporated.
"You'd be a happy princess." I smiled. Planting a kiss on her forehead. Cadance chuckled, curling around on my lap, her head resting against my neck. I caressed her sleek body, thinking to myself that never in Equestria, a spell went so wrong.
"Did you enjoyed my surprise?" She asked, rolling on her back and poking my nose with the tip of her hoof.
"I loved it."
It was late at night, when I finally managed to return to my room. The undisturbed quietude of the castle was only disrupted by the panicked screams I let out inside the bathroom. I punched the mirrors, feeling the glass shards spattering against my face.
My hands bleed, together with my spirit. It bleed in shame, in cowardice.
It was too much.
This time Cadance had gone too far, and no superglue would fix the behemoth-sized problem she created.
I was a human, not a machine. I needed time to think, although not even the train station's giant clock would be enough time for me. I had to be realistic in an unrealistic world. And several times that proved itself to be impossible
I had to think straight, when all my paths were crooked and bent.
Landlocked in an isolated outpost of this world, surrounded by a permanent winter. I wouldn't dare to write a letter, I don't trust magic, or the ponies who deal with it. I trust no one, and even my shadow is doubtful about me.
Soon the news would scream in the headlines, and the little princess - poor princess - would be the victim.
The future scared me, but I couldn't fight against it. I'd be waiting for the royals to step in the situation, the shit will hit the fan sooner or later.
I hoped.
