The Queen's screams filled the darkness of the birthing chamber, echoing off the stone walls of the deepest bowels of the Chrystal Castle. It was all the midwives could do to keep her alive as she labored to give birth. "Give her something for the pain!" one of them screamed.
The court wizard, a female unicorn garbed in a brown roughspun robe that was cinched at the waist with a simple hempen rope, had been alerted to the Queen's critical condition. Her horn filled the chamber with bursts of pulsating light as she weaved a mercy spell that would ease her Queen's suffering. "I'm doing the best I can," she said in a tone that was strangely calm, despite the situation. Easing the pain was all she could do now. The Queen was as good as dead, there was no getting around it. Out of the hundreds of births that she had assisted with, she had never seen one go so bad as this: The labor had gone on for far too long, the Queen's bleeding was too excessive. The only thing there was that was left for her to do was ease the poor mare's passing to the best of her abilities.
"Try harder!" one of the midwives roared over the Queen's anguished screams.
"Damn you, let me see her!" The King demanded. "Let me see my wife!"
"There's nothing you can do for her! Just let us work," pleaded the midwife who attempted to bar the King's path.
The King, maddened by the sound of his wife's shrieks, struck the mare so hard that she was sent reeling dazed and half-conscious into a bronze candle rack, sending both the midwife and the lit candles clattering to the cobblestone ground. He pushed passed two others and seized his Queen's hoof. "My Queen, I'm here!" he announced, as if that would somehow ease his bride's suffering.
The Queen let out one, final, deafening scream, piercing, agonizing, like the crescendo of death itself. And then there was silence. The King stared into nothingness, candles blotting like flickering fireflies in the gloom of the chamber as tears distorted his vision. "My Queen?"
"She's dead," one of the midwives concluded after an interval of uncomfortable silence. "We have no choice." She unrolled a burlap kit that had been set upon a stone slab and drew from it a knife that was tiny and razor sharp, perfect for making deep, precise incisions.
The King threw his arms around his lost love in a piteous attempt to protect her. "What do you think you're doing!" he snarled.
"My King," the midwife attempted in a placating tone, "the Queen is... She's gone. I'm terribly sorry for yours and the Chrystal Empire's loss, but do you wish for your child to perish as well?"
The king hid his unbidden tears by burying his face into his dead bride's bulging belly. "She's not dead!" he insisted, the madness of his loss tearing away at his sanity. "She's not! She's...." Suddenly, he could feel it, his unborn child still in his bride's belly. He could feel it, struggling, thrashing, fighting, wanting to be born.
"It could be a boy," the court wizard suggested. "Your heir. The future King. Sire, the Queen is gone, but she will never be forgotten. Please, let us remove the baby before he dies too." The wizard emphasized the word 'he' to further the King's hopes.
The prospect of a male heir was the thing that seemed to bring him back to his senses. The King, sniffing, tenderly brushed a stray lock of hair behind his bride's ear before he finally stepped away from her. "Yes," he surrendered in a tone laced and intermingled with the conflicting flavors of hope and despair. "I want to see my son... Give him to me."
The wizard nodded to the midwife wielding the thin surgical blade. "Do it."
One careful incision was all it took to open the mare's tender flesh and muscle tissue. The midwife placed the soiled blade upon the nearby stone tablet from whence she had obtained it, then dug her hooves into the mare's belly, prying her open like a dissected toad, a sound similar to that of hooves slogging through thick mud filling the air. The younger and less practiced midwives heaved and gagged and averted their eyes. "There he is," she announced.
"Let me see him," the King demanded.
The court wizard watched as the midwife carefully liberated the newborn from its maternal confines. "Patience, my King. It will only be a moment longer."
"I've been patient long enough!" the King snapped. "My wife lays dead because of your incompetence. You're lucky I don't have you boiled in your own fluids, now give me my son!"
The midwife gently pulled the baby from the womb of its dead mother. "It's...." She stared at the newborn, blinking uncomprehendingly at what she was looking at, as if the veteran of over a hundred successful births had never laid her eyes on a newborn before.
"It's what!" The king demanded. "Why isn't he crying?"
"It's... I don't..." was all the midwife could manage.
"What is it? What's wrong with him?" The wizard magically enhanced her night vision to improve her site in the dimly lit birthing chamber. She cast her gaze upon the child, ice blue eyes shimmering like stars in the twilight. She beheld the babe, a mane black as coal, a corpse-grey body larger than any newborn she had ever seen, its horn malformed and discolored. Its teeth... Dear Celestia... It's teeth were pointed and jagged, like a demon's fangs...
"Let me see him!" The king ripped the child from the midwife to look upon his newborn son. He held the babe close to a torch embedded in a nearby sconce to behold the young lord who would be his heir. It was at that time the child had begun to open his eyes. Green. That was all the court wizard saw. The baby opened its eyes, and a green glow filled the chamber. The irises, like that of a snake's, burned a cherry red, and purple wisps of phantom light seeped away from the lining of his eyes.
The midwife fainted. The King dropped the babe in a startled gasp. The child hit the hard, cobblestone ground with a wet, fleshy smack, and its screams of anguish pierced the darkness. "What is this thing!" The king demanded. "Is this some kind of cruel jape?"
"It's... It's no jape, sire," the wizard said. "It's..." She scooped the squalling child off the floor and examined him in a desperate attempt to comprehend what it truly was. Only one answer came to mind. "It's... Your son."
A fresh barrage of tears welled up in the King's eyes as they went to his mutilated wife. They then went to the monster in the wizard's forelegs, the beast that had slayed his bride, the devil with the pointed teeth and glowing eyes. His eyes narrowed in a vicious glare that seemed to betray a hint of madness. There was a hatred in them, blacker and colder than a moonless winter night. "That little devil," he said, "is not my son."
