It wasn't that pain was something that Shadow Hopper was unacquainted with. Unfamiliar, perhaps; he was created as much as born in the strange dance of his stranger parents, and they made their children to endure. But they had permitted him to explore and learn, and sometimes, that had included a scorched hand equivalent to an inchoate being of void and starlight. Even once formed into a physical being, one of the alicorn divinities of Equestria, his terrifying potency hadn't shielded him from knowledge of pain. Indeed, in his conscientious way, he'd actually requested direct psychic stimulation in order to build up a resistance. And it wasn't as though he'd lacked for sparring partners who could sting or more if they broke through his guard.

What he experienced now, he couldn't detail, couldn't describe. He wasn't sure if he'd actually stopped screaming yet.

Female voices surrounded him. He trusted them. The terrible overstimulus that ran his mind and soul ragged receded slightly, but he couldn't make sense of the words.

Heat and fear said things he didn't understand. "If this is going to become a habit, then damn my ritual anyway; he's never leaving Canterlot again."

Passion and sanctuary responded with words that made no sense. "If you are expecting me to argue a warrior's right, dear sister, be assured, I only pass him out of my Dream and into the waking world but reluctantly. I can put him back just as easily."

"I'll keep that in mind. Fluttershy?"

Balance and empathy was weeping. He wished he could make sense of it. Of any of it. "His hold's stronger, but I can't purge all of the poisons, Princess! They're more than life and death-- they're abomination!"

Heat returned. "You have him stable. That's all I need. Luna, hold his mouth open. Hopper, dear, don't fight us."

Three concepts got through. Fingers held his remaining cheek and the left side of his jaw; cool hands, strong, but trembling. He applied strength; he applied discipline, and somehow, he thought he might not be screaming, or at least not so much, and he didn't struggle.

Passion murmured incomprehensibly. "Good lad. Now, drink that which is given."

He smelled salvation. Elysium poured down his throat.

Shadow Hopper was briefly aware that he was healing that which should be unhealable, and that the screaming was starting again.

The terrible screaming began again as divine flesh began to re-knit. Moments later, blessed silence enveloped the young stallion's head-- literally blessed, alicornic energies. Celestia resummoned her shining breastplate as she pulled her voluminous breast away from Hopper's mutilated face, and gave Luna a half-reproachful, half-guilty look.

Before her sister could protest, however, the soft voice of Fluttershy spoke up. "Um, Princess? I did that. Sorry. He can hear himself, and it's not healthy for you two to be trying to flagellate yourselves over this. He's alive. That's what's important, isn't it?"

Two multithousand year old alicorns looked at each other, and shared three thoughts: wondering when Fluttershy would remember to call them by their names more often than their titles, an apology from elder to younger with an acceptance returned, and a mutual recognition of shared folly. Celestia reached down and stroked the smaller alicorn's mane. "You're quite right, dear. My apologies. Do you need to monitor him?" she asked, and decided to forgo a gentle tease about the princessing. She'd saved Hopper's life and Luna's, and even if Celestia didn't find her utterly adorable, she'd be forever grateful for those lives.

Fluttershy flushed soft orange under pale gold hide, but stood her ground for a moment. Turquoise eyes far wiser than a mare with less than a mortal life should own met Celestia's, and Celestia had the uncomfortable feeling that all of her authority and presence would wash right over and past Fluttershy's psyche if the Guardian of Life and Death felt she should remain. Not the Stare; not a clash of wills. Just an utterly uncatchable mind, fluid and resilient. And, Celestia reminded herself, a mare concerned for the stallion she's claimed and let claim her.

Once again, Fluttershy acted before Celestia could deal with this strange, loving insubordination. She curtseyed low to Celestia, her own battle armor shed for ritual robes hours ago. "You'll be healthy for him now," she said softly. "But I can't leave him any more than I can leave you, or Twilight, or any of the others." She took Celestia's giant hand in her merely amazonian pair, and kissed her knuckles. "If he needs me, I'll return." Wings settling restlessly behind her, Fluttershy left.

Celestia gave a bemused smile. For a moment, Luna simply gave a fey, knowing look; she was closer to the spiritual aspect that Celestia avoided, and Celestia supposed that gave her an insight into their little psychopomp and life-kindler. Both faces fell when they considered the heavily damaged Hopper.

"We owe her," Celestia whispered. "Lulu, she had to rebreak her stallion's bones! I don't even know how she could manage it physically, let alone emotionally."

Luna considered the question for a moment, then vanished her armor and, naked, sat down on the couch. Her hands still cradled Hopper's head; the ten foot six stallion floated suspended in her cobalt magic. A plethora of magical glows, effects from the entire bachelorette herd, ritually bound or not, were sparkling over almost every inch of his heavily damaged form. Rainbow Dash had been the only one able to manifest her Rainbow Power, but that was there as well. Eventually, Luna replied, "I don't think she did, physically, or not alone. His soul and hers intertwine; I think she convinced the life in him to re-break over the bad regenerations."

Celestia sighed, and unsummoned her own wargear. Little chance it would be needed now. Hopper's desperate ploy had sealed the portal on both ends-- fragmented its very ability to exist below the Ponyck limit. And if the Entropic Defile had functionally limitless legions, there were, in fact, limits, when compared to the dispersed and unfocused priorities across the multiverse. Her perfect body trembled, not from a cold she didn't feel, nude or not, but with barely suppressed wrath.

She sat beside Luna, and wrapped an impossibly burly arm around her shorter sister's immense shoulders, leaning into Luna's metaphorical support as well as undying strength. Celestia grinned weakly as Luna rotated the young stallion around and let him rest across their laps. Luna's magic didn't lapse; indeed, Celestia's joined hers as they cradled their foster, Luna's fiancé, and her promised close. She sighed again and said, "Queen Healing sent a message. It was … difficult to interpret."

"Unsurprising," Luna replied, and nuzzled lightly at Celestia's cheek.

Celestia turned her muzzle to tenderly kiss her sister on the lips, then went on. "The upthrust is that they still trust us, and some degree of risk is expected in incarnation. That's… a relief, right?" She hated the way her throat caught. Fear had no place in her soul. Not fear of Hopper's parents; fear for him. For his recovery, and for the mind scarred by brutal warfare on a level he shouldn't have needed for centuries to come, at least.

Luna continued to nuzzle, licking Celestia's lips lightly before pressing her soft nose to Celestia's and waiting. Celestia rolled her eyes, and exhaled into Luna's nostrils, who returned the favor in the nose kiss older than modern ponykind. "Luna, yes, I get it, I'm bossmare, you don't have to make every gesture a submissive one." She frowned. "You're not trying to resign as his teacher or Warmistress, are you? Fluttershy's little haymaker was meant for both of us, dear, if me the more."

Chuckling, Luna kissed Celestia again and shook her head. "No new tantabi for me, dear sister," she said softly. "I have learned that lesson, and am comfortable with myself, whereas you still carry the Burnings with you; even now, I deem, you reproach yourself for not having mastered miraclry."

Accurate enough, Celestia admitted to herself. Not to her younger sister, of course. That wouldn't do. She'd been worshipped once. Her addictive milk carried with it enhancement of the mind, the body, and the soul-- and lust, of course. The last time it had been given without thought for the consequences, the Burnings had resulted, and she'd sworn away from the mantles of divinity whenever possible. Now…

An ungentle finger prodded one of Celestia's vast, sloshing melons-- and then Luna pinched her! "Let it rest. You've no more right to berate yourself than I do," she pointed out and then considered the naked form across their laps. She stroked his scruffy mane and she sniffed. "But of course, this would regrow as wild and unkempt as ever. Blasted male." Eyes watering, she rested her head against Celestia's titanic shoulder. "I've punishment enough here." She glowered a bit, and pushed the tears away with the back of a giant hand. "It's not like I haven't lost warriors before, and he's not even lost. And it's one of the things males are for," she added, though only at most perfunctory in her maretriarchal grumblings.

Celestia gently stroked a patch of unbroken hide on Hopper's near thigh with one hand and smiled despite herself and the rapidly fading red mark of pain her sister had left. "One of the others being love?" she asked with as much levity as she could muster.

Navy fingers rubbed gently at matte black temples, and Luna pursed her lips. "When they prove themselves, aye, which this insufferable youth had the temerity to do even before he held a narrow gap and brought ruin upon the enemies of being," she said finally, and sighed, enormous chest heaving. "'Tisn't fair that your milk brings life and power, and mine addles."

A wingpoke put paid to that sulk. "You also don't have anywhere near the addictive qualities, which is why you can avoid waste with your cute little hoofmaiden despite the storage issues," Celestia said. What she wanted to do was squeeze Hopper close, and put as much of him in her cleavage as she could fit, tucked away safely, even if he was only two inches shorter than she now. Given how raw his healing flesh was, and how deep the damage remained, no, a poor choice. Desperate to keep her mind away from that, she pinched Luna's nipple, eliciting a yelp. "You're just jealous I'll be nursing him thrice daily," she harumphed. She had calculated to the milliliter per second how much each of the herd could take, and wished she thought she could push it.

Glaring back at her sister and rubbing the abused nip gently, Luna narrowed her eyes. "Fluttershy's lactating And she's accepted him as her stud," she sniffed. "As his current bossmare, I don't know why I should let you."

Lips curling back in a smile, Celestia fixed her sister with a stern look. "Do you honestly think I won't just teleport him to her room while I tickle you if I have to, sweet sister? Twilight told me of this lovely little trick he used on her," she said with as much mirth as she could put in her voice. The sternness, alas, melted under the great, watery eyes and big, quivery lip of the Woona Face.

So she kissed her again. "Honestly, dear," she told Luna, "You think I'm not going to be making her drain that lovely fat rack of hers for him between times? It's going to be all of us. And I mean all three of us. You'll just be feeding me, you see." She cupped a huge hand under Luna's giant near breast, lovely and expanded with the pregnancy that was only just starting to show at her belly. It was a good thing that their armor conformed to their needs as much as its originating design.

Confused, Luna tilted her head. "You intend to dreamwalk, Celly?" she asked with a frown.

"No, love. I'll leave soothing his unconscious mind and its hurts to you. But the trance-induction can shortcut a lot of practical learning. Whatever you think of my distaste for being a figure of religious worship, I did do the academic work."

"Count me unsurprised, beloved sister. You intend to soulwalk, then."

Celestia reached over with her left hand and took Luna's right in her grip. Warmistress of Equestria or no, Celestia dwarfed her lovely sister's meaty fist, holding it in her own with ease. "I'm leaving nothing to chance, Luna," she said firmly. "I may not have taken him to bed yet, but he is still mine. I claim him for my own, and I will brook no harm come to him. Do you dispute me, little sister?"

Panting softly, Luna kissed Celestia's lips again, her free hand tenderly stroking Hopper's forehead. "Never, my beloved mistress," she said softly. "We'll see our stud back to health, then."

Celestia sighed. "And likely back to another war. Maze isn't backing down, and Incubation…"

Luna nodded gravely. "Would that I could say I shall never again send him to stem a terrible tide alone. But I cannot."

Nodding, Celestia said, "It would suit him ill. But even if armor wouldn't help where he could be hurt, and weapons would shatter, it's time to arm him properly. Applejack's not far enough in her craft, though she's doing well. Who should we send to old Pyrana? Not Barb, surely."

Luna shook her head. "She's never been comfortable with her strangest children. Send Rarity; presuming we don't have to rescue her from becoming a dragon's horde-piece, she'll fascinate the old dinosaur."

Celestia's lips quirked again. "And she'll have all the more motivation to come back, given that she's next."

Snorting, Luna merely retorted, "I will count not the weeks of his recovery, mare. Especially not when thy cheating breasts shall be at his lips as thee claim'st mine!"

Laughter surrounded Hopper, who had long since since screaming. Fluttershy understood well the healing powers of Harmony.

Author's Note

Yes, I'm strange.