Heirs

Princess Celestia sat with Cadence in her study explaining things.

“Cadence, I really need you to talk some sense into them.” Celestia sighed. “Steven tells me that he knows what he’s doing, but I don’t think he does.” Cadence sat there for a while.

“I’m just don’t know what to think. On one hoof I completely agree, he is too young. But on the other hand…” She paused. “That night…I felt their love. I’m the only other one besides them that knows how they feel.” Cadence looked Princess Celestia in the eyes. After a second Celestia averted her gaze.

“Whether their love is real or not doesn’t matter. It has to stop. Do you know how bad it would look for all of us if it were to get out that my sister was romantically involved with a pony that young? It would cause outrage!” Cadence closed her eyes.

“I know, but I can’t bring myself to break up true love. There has to be another way to take care of the situation.” Princess Celestia took a deep breath.

“I think I have an idea but we would definitely need Twilight’s help.”

Twilight stood in front of Celestia and Cadence with her jaw dropped.

“Wait, what?!” Princess Celestia sighed.

“Do I really have to explain it again?” Twilight hurried to stop her mentor from repeating herself.

“No, no. I understood your plan, but when was anypony going to tell me that Luna and Steven were in love?” Cadence put her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder.

“It only came to light a few days ago. We’ve just been trying to keep it quiet until we could do something about it. I’m sure that you understand that the public wouldn’t look at their relationship in the right light with him being so young and all. Thank goodness they have been very cooperative about it.”

“I see, but…” Twilight hesitated. “If it really is true love then your plan wouldn’t work. I’m not even sure that I could come close to executing the spells you’re asking of me. And even if I could there would be no guarantee that everything would work as we planned.” Princess Celestia closed her eyes.

“Then what are we to do? We can’t just leave it as it is.” Cadence suddenly smiled.

“Maybe we can.” The two other ponies looked at her questioningly.

Twilight, Celestia, and Cadence stood outside of the door and knocked.

“Luna, sister, could you come out here and talk with us?” Princess Celestia spoke in a sweet voice. Hooves were heard moving on the other side of the door. The door opened and Luna stuck her head out. It was still early and when Twilight stretched she could see Steven sleeping soundly in Luna’s bed. “Sister, we need to talk about Steven.” Luna looked at Cadence and Twilight and frowned.

“Ugg, okay.” She closed the door behind her and followed the three down the hall.

Celestia tried to put her wing around her sister, but Luna shrugged it off.

“Luna, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way…”

“How could I? All you want to do is take away the love of my life and leave me alone with nopony who understands me. It seem pretty straightforward to me.” They sat around a table in the library and Celestia was trying to reason with her.

“Luna, he’s too young. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“You don’t know him. He knows exactly what he’s doing.” Luna stood up from the table. “I don’t even know why I followed you. I guessed I hoped you finally understood.” She began to walk away but Cadence called to her.

“Luna wait.” Luna stopped walking. “I understand. I’ve felt the love between you two. It is real, trust me, I feel everything between you.” Luna gave a sly grin.

“Everything?”

“Everything.” The two locked eyes for a second and then began giggling. Princess Celestia put her hoof to her face.

“Will you at least hear us out now?”

After hearing their plan Luna was still skeptical.

“Are you sure that this will work?” The four princesses were walking down the hall back to Luna’s bedroom. Twilight responded confidently.

“Well it should. It takes a powerful alicorn just to perform an age spell on a normal pony. With four powerful alicorns we should be able to perform a little age spell on an alicorn easily.”

“I hope so,” Luna turned to her sister. “Because whether it works or not…” Celestia closed her eyes.

“I know, I know.” Cadence was the first to reach the bedroom.

“Well, here we go.” Luna opened the door and peaked in before entering with the other three ponies behind.

Steven stood in the center of the four ponies.

"I don't understand..." Luna knelt down in front of him.

“I would be fine if you stayed the same Steven, but there are some ponies here who think our relationship looks bad because you are so young. They just want to change your age and make you older so that everypony will be more accepting of us.”

“I’m scared.” Luna pushed his chin up.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, everything will still be the same. You’ll just look older.” She was able to get a small smile out of Steven. With that she stood back up and rejoined the formation around him. Twilight looked around.

“Is everypony ready?” They all nodded and began to cast the spell. Their horns glowed more intensely as the spell progressed. Slowly Steven began floating and his eyes glowed with yellow light and electricity arced around his body. Cadence began struggling after a few minutes.

“Twilight, how much longer will this take because I don’t know how much longer I can last.” Twilight had to shout over the noise in the room.

“It should have worked by now, but it’s never been done before so…” Her voice trailed off as she became unsure of what was happening. All four princesses stared as Steven began glowing and the air swirled around him. Suddenly there was an explosion and he was shot off to the side and became limp as his body hit the wall and fell to the floor.

“Steven!” Luna ran to his side and knelt down. Princess Celestia looked at Twilight.

“What went wrong?”

“I-i’m not sure, it looked like it was working the way it should.” Luna just knelt there crying. The others stayed slightly behind her. Cadence gently touched Luna’s shoulder.

“He is still alive. All we can do now is hope he is okay.” Steven groaned and they all leaned in to see him. Slowly his eyes opened. Luna spoke softly so as to not hurt his ears after the explosion.

“Steven, are you okay?” Steven’s eyes watered before he jumped up and ran under the bed. Twilight stuck her head under the bed.

“It’s okay Steven, what happened wasn’t your fault. We weren’t sure if the spell would work or not.”

“No, it is my fault.” Twilight tilted her head.

“Why do you think that?”

“Because I can’t control it anymore…” His eyes flashed with darkness and he shook his head to clear them. Twilight backed out from under the bed quickly and ran over to the other ponies with a worried look in her eyes.

“Steven is convinced that he made the spell mess up.” Cadence frowned.

“That’s absurd, why would he think that?”

“I don’t know how to explain it…he has some kind of power in him, and its dark, like nightmare dark.” Luna shook her head.

“No…” She began crying again as she walked to the bed. She poked her head under the sheets. “Steven?” He looked away from her. “Steven, please come out from here. We can fix whatever happened to you together. I sure that the others want to help.” Steven looked at her for a second before looking down.

“I just don’t want to hurt anypony.” Luna laughed.

“You won’t do anything to hurt anypony if you don’t want to. Nothing can make you do that.” Steven smiled before suddenly grimacing. “What hurts? You did hit that wall pretty hard.” Steven just shook his head, shut his eyes tight and put his hoof to his head. Just as suddenly as it had started it stopped and Steven fell unconscious. “Steven!” Luna took him out from under that bed and placed him within the covers of it. She then looked at the other princesses. “We need a doctor.” Cadence immediately ran off to get one.

Steven opened his eyes and looked around. He knew he wasn’t awake because there was nothing when he looked out the window. It wasn’t just dark, there was nothing. He was laying in the bed that he and Luna shared in their room. He got up and stretched.

“I guess that I must have hit that wall pretty hard because it hurts even in my dreams.” A voice hissed from the shadows.

“Oh, this is more than a simple dream.” Steven squinted at the shadows, trying to make out who was there.

“Luna?” The shadow snickered.

“No, but she and I have met before. It was actually just like this, how I met her.” Steven realized that there wasn’t anything in the shadows, the voice was the shadows.

“Who are you?” Steven carefully walked to stay out of the shadows.

“Who, me? Hmmm, Luna never even questioned that. You are quite unique aren’t you? For all intents and purposes, I am darkness.” Steven sat down in a patch of light. “Hmph, I hope you don’t think that light is anything special.” The shadows condensed into the shape of a pony. “You see I do as I please.” It wisped around Steven. Steven's bravery began to fade and it was showing.

“W-what do you want with me?” The shadow smiled as much as a shadow can.

“Here’s the thing Steven. I already have what I want with you. A better question is how do you want this to happen?” Steven tilted his head, scared, and the shadow let out an evil chuckle. "This is going to be fun~"