Redux: Lineage

I remained naked on the bed, knees tucked up to my chest and my eyes locked onto my mother. She'd taken a seat at the dressing table, humming quietly to herself as she brushed her hair. The sparkle in her eyes, the curves of her body, and the glow of beauty she radiated kept me entranced towards her. My mind began wandering all over the place, to thoughts of her marriage, my father, the relationship with my aunts, and all the other questions that the last hour had awoken inside me.

"Your eyes will get sore if you don't blink, sweetie," she said from across the room.

"Sorry," I sighed. "I'm just..."

"Conflicted?" she asked, grimacing as she got a painful knot out of her hair with a mighty tug.

"No... not really," I said, looking down at the floor of the bedroom before continuing. "I feel fine... just a little confused as to where we all stand now."

"We stand in the same place we always have, Richter," Cadance said, setting the brush down as she got up to her feet, walking over to me, and using a gentle finger to raise my chin, causing our eyes to meet. "I'm your mother, you're my beautiful, perfect son, and your aunts still love and adore you as they always have. You just get to be closer to them now than ever before."

"What about dad?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow. "Does he know about this?"

"Of course he does. I love your father with all my heart, and I'd never dare keep anything a secret from him," she said, setting her hand on her cocked, wide hips as she nodded slowly. "Richter, I may have never told you this, but I'm a being 'inflicted' with severe polyamory. I could not, even if I wished it with all my being, bring myself to fall in love with a single person. I explained this to your father when the two of us started courting, all those years ago, and he was more than fine with it. That was even before I made the offer for him to share the same luxury of having as many partners as he chooses."

"And the incest?"

"Well... that came later, after we'd fallen in love. He was more than shocked at first, I could see it on his face, but he soon came to terms with it and said he wasn't one to judge the machinations of higher beings," she said, her eyes glossing over with nostalgia for a time long ago. "So you can stay calm and not worry about having to duel your father to the death for the right to my hand. I love both of you equally and will forever be at your side, no matter what happens."

"That's... that's good to know," I said, sighing in relief as my eyes looked up the ceiling. "I don't want anything to come between us."

"Worry not, my love," she said, kissing me on the cheek again.

I wasn't sure if I did it willingly or not, whether it was instinct or conscious thought, but I wrapped my arms around my mother and pulled her close, sighing in relief as I felt her warm and loving body press up against mine. She wasted no time embracing me once more, resting her chin on my head and holding me close to her beating heart.

"I have to admit, I was a little afraid you wouldn't take to this so readily," she said, kissing my head and inhaling. "I feared I'd have to hide the heartbreak of never being able to love you the way I've wanted to for so long... I am beyond enraptured that it never had to come to that."

"Thank you," I said in a hushed tone, kissing her collarbone softly before she stepped back and looked at me, beaming widely.

"Oh, I don't think I've ever been so happy before in my life!" she beamed, eyes glowing with love and affection. "I have the two men I love more than anything, my darling boy is a heroic dragonslayer, and he's finally reached the age where I can enjoy myself without feeling guilty! It can't get better, can it?"

I smiled widely, feeling a genuine sense of pleasure merely from seeing how happy my mother was at this turn of events. She did also have a point as well. I may not have been the only one involved, but I had helped kill a dragon. It was going to be written in the history books, sung about for years to come, and could even be a name locals gave me 'Prince Richter the Dragonslayer'. I grinned happily, feeling a large sense of pride well up in my chest at the concept of finally being held in the same regard as the other Alicorn.

"Now, I believe you have other business to attend to with your aunts?" Cadance asked.

"Aunt and Grandmother, apparently," I said, getting to my feet as Cadance moved back.

"Ah, yes. It's good to finally have that out in the open," Cadance smiled.

"Yes, good to know our family is a bunch of disloyal con-artists," I chuckled, looking around only to realise my clothes were in tatters.

"Hey, any act done for the good of our people is one we hold as good," she shrugged, noticing my reaction and pressing a finger to my chest, conjuring up thick leather boots, thicker fur trousers, and a padded gambeson over my body. "Keep warm out there, gorgeous. And don't forget your sword."

"Right," I said, picking up the beautifully-crafted weapon and fastening it to my back. "I shall see you when I return."

I gave her a brief peck on the lips and attempted to move away, only for her grab a hold of me once again and give me another big, wet kiss that lasted for a good long while. We broke apart, Cadance grinning like a giddy schoolgirl as she patted me on the head and moved me towards the door.

"I'm never going to get tired of doing that," she giggled, wishing me well before returning to her beauty routine.

I headed down the stairs to the bar seeing, Celestia grinning smugly as a very angry Karra and a slightly terrified Angela sat at the table, both scrawling what appeared to be signatures down on a piece of paper with a begrudging stare.

"I hate you," Karra spat at the princess.

"You'll make the money back in no time, dearie," Celestia shrugged. "And until you have your central hub, your mercenaries can work from rented accommodations, same as you."

"I hate you," she said, flinging the page back at Celestia after she and Angela had signed it.

"I look forward to seeing your business thrive and expand inside my wonderful city, ladies," Celestia said, standing up and walking over to the bar.

"More like seeing your fucking treasury expand and thrive..." Karra hissed, her eyes alight with fury and her ears flat against her head.

"Well of course," Celestia sniggered, ordering a glass of wine. "But you didn't hear that from me."

"Personally... I'm just glad to have my business back," Angela sighed. "I'd go stir crazy without the hustle of running a guild."

"It's good to see somebody's grateful," Celestia said in a sing-song tone.

"Eat my ass, you crusty old slut," Karra spat, getting up from the table and storming out of the inn.

"Thank you again, Princess Celestia," Angela said, bowing her head as she made her exit.

I walked down to the bar, seeing Celestia look at me with a smile as she sipped from her wine glass. She held up a finger and quickly beckoned me over, finishing the glass of wine and seemingly ready to give me advice.

"Okay, so: I'm more than proud of you for being honourable enough to pay off your debts to those who have been inconvenienced due to their loyalty to you," she said with a smile. "Honestly amazed at how noble it was. But please: never offer to give people that much for free ever again."

"R-Right..." I sighed, feeling that downer come over me again.

"Ah, no moping," Celestia said with a point of her finger. "You've made your mistake, you've had your slap on the wrist, and that's that. Let's not get all depressed because of a mistake that's been fixed and move on with what we have to do."

"The summoning circle?" I asked.

"Indeed," Celestia said, knocking on the bar as a signal she wanted a refill. "Now, from what you've told us, the circle is deactivated, but still intact. We'll approach it with caution, but dismantle it without summoning anything, and be ready to head home soon enough."

"Sounds easy," I nodded, following along thanks to my training in demonology. "Are we going to need to purify the area or convey a holy blessing to clean out any unwanted remnants?"

"It depends," Celestia said, necking the refill of her wine immediately and setting the glass down on the counter. "If there's a lingering presence, we'll contact the Blades of Illuminia and ask them to send a Priestess over to perform a few basic rites while we go home. If not, then we just scrap the circle entirely and leave it as is."

The Blades of Illuminia. I'd read about them a while back. They were supposedly a holy order of knights that were brought up and trained to worship and follow the Alicorn wherever we went. Heard they were a pretty inclusive bunch for a religious group, too. Female leaders, acceptance of homosexual relationships, and while they still viewed humans as the 'godly species', they would never actively ignore other races in need of saving... merely 'prioritise' them.

Nobody's perfect, okay?

"Are we heading there now?" I asked.

"In an hour or so," Celestia nodded. "I still want to check in with the queen and Celana to check for damage reports and if the kingdom shall require anything more than financial aid to help get back on its feet."

"Making every opportunity a golden one, eh?" I asked her.

She winked at me in a sly manner, that usual playful gesture she'd always made at me since I was a child now taking on a whole new air of sexuality now that I knew she was on 'open season', as it were. Putting my objectifying, man-whoring standards aside for a long moment, I bid her farewell as I went to look for the others, finding Annerose feeding Grael bacon strips while Zane was, strangely, absent from the group.

"If you snap that hard, you'll damage your teeth, you numpty," Annerose said to the large Direwolf as his powerful jaws mashed the meat into paste.

"Instinct overwhelms even the best of us, Annerose," he said, his eloquent and well-spoken manner being hard to take seriously in between his vicious and animalistic snaps and growls as he 'wolfed' down the bacon.

"Where's Zane disappeared to?" I asked them as I sat down.

"Oh, he and Ressa disappeared a while ago, I think just before Karra came back with her tail between her legs to ask if she was still allowed to negotiate terms for her business," Annerose answered, eating a slice of bacon of her own as Grael licked his chops clean of the fat and gristle.

"I think the young kitten's taken a fancy to our Zane," Grael said.

"Which you'd know already if you were a half-decent guard dog," I said, rolling my eyes as I recalled him sleeping through the conversation.

"Even the greatest of champions needs their beauty sleep, Richter," Grael shrugged. "And one does not become as gorgeous as I am with a mere six hours."

"That'll be right," I smirked, crossing my arms and looking out the open door, into the cold snow outside. "Think we'll be seeing more of her?"

"If Karra moves the mercenary guild down to our capital, then I'd be more than confident in saying yes," Grael nodded, growling at Annerose to give him another strip of bacon.

"You'll make your fur greasy and your breath smell," she said in protest.

"I asked for sustenance, not a lecture," Grael said, narrowing his eyes. "Feed me."

Annerose rolled hers, stuffing a rasher of bacon directly into Grael's mouth before getting up from the table and walking over to the bar, eager to start drinking alongside Celestia as a reward for a job well done.

"So what about you?" I asked Grael as he licked his maw once again. "Thinking of getting a job as a rescue hound after all?"

"I will bite your feet off," he snarled, narrowing his eyes at me before I'd even finished the sentence. "I'll stay here with the others while you attend to whatever it is you need to."

"I think you should all come along, actually," I said, looking at Annerose as she toasted with Celestia and the two began drinking. "A lesson or two in exorcising demons wouldn't be a bad thing for when I'm not around."

"And when are you not around?" he asked.

"Y'know, some nights I might be too deep in mead and pussy to get out of bed and you might have to fend off a demonic threat to the kingdom all by yourselves. Need to know how to get rid of them, don't you?"

"You know that'll never happen, right?"

"Yeah... I don't really drink all that much mead to begin with."

Grael proceeded to walk away from me at this point, irritated beyond standing with my usual attitude, and he left me alone at the table for several moments before Luna made her way over to me.

"There you are," she said, patting me on the shoulder before sitting down at the table. "Got a minute?"

"I have as many as you need," I nodded, sitting down at looking at the dark-skinned Alicorn.

"I've been getting reports of how you handled yourself against Heimili earlier today, and I have to say I'm quite impressed," Luna explained, leaning back in her chair and smiling. "Quite impressive for one as young as yourself, but as the case with every fighter, there's room for improvement. That's why I want to ask if you'd be okay in stepping up your training in the coming months. I know your lack of magic really put you at a disadvantage against a dragon, so I wanted to see if the four of you wouldn't mind learning a few techniques to help even the odds when against magical opponents?"

"I'm not going to protest that," I nodded. "I've got a reputation to uphold now, after all. Can't be seen having my ass handed to me by some wannabe mage with a staff after I slayed a dragon."

"Don't let it go to your head, Richter," Luna said in a cautionary tone. "Even the greatest warriors can be felled by the beast that is arrogance."

"Right, right," I nodded, looking over at Celestia, who had been joined at the bar by Celana as well, the court mage using magical projections to seemingly brief Celestia on the situation proper.

"She looks like she's going to be busy for a while," Luna sighed, rubbing her jaw with her thumb before half-standing up. "Tell you what, Celestia can stay here and gather intel, while you and I go take care of this summoning circle, okay?"

"Is she going to be okay with that?" I asked Luna.

"She's always a fan of less work, even if she constantly buries herself in it," Luna chuckled, standing up proper this time. "Tell you what, I'll clear it up with her now so she knows the plan, then the two of us can be off to determine whether or not we're going to need to call in assistance for this circle."

With that, the Lunar Alicorn got to her feet and moved over to her sister to give her the new, updated plan of action.

Once back atop the mountain, the two of us delved inside the dark caves, with Luna throwing up her own ball of light to illuminate the area. I guided her to the summoning circle, seeing her eyebrow cock in confusion as she began to examine it.

"I honestly expected the former Dragon Matriarch to have a more extravagant set up than this," Luna said, tapping on the crystal wall of the circle and shaking her head. "Its quartz. I've seen cannibalistic cults that have had crystal walls sung from diamond before. Heimili was a cheap old mare, wasn't she?"

"Looks like it," I said, looking at the inside of the ring and noting the symbols etched into the middle. "What's that rune for? A fire demon? Can't really make it out from here."

"No, look at the way the lattice curves more towards the floor," Luna said, tracing the pattern against the crystal wall. "It's a Rage Demon. Much worse than a Fire Demon."

She had a point. Rage Demons were strengthened by the hatred of those who summoned them, usually granting more power depending on how high their pyre of anger was burning. Of course, the deals came with a cost. Usually the soul, or servitude, or even demonic corruption should the demon be in the mood for a laugh at the end of the day.

"Can you sense anything lingering?" I asked Luna.

"No, this whole place is clean," she said, her eyes scanning the area for any other kind of demonic apparatus. "While the demon doesn't have a chance of coming back on their own, I'm still feeling the need to get a Priestess from the Blades to come and purify it on their own time."

"Huh. Celestia said the same thing," I chuckled. "Modus Operandi?"

"Of course," she nodded, walking over to my side of the crystal wall and looking at the symbol on the floor from my angle. "So..."

"So?" I asked, looking at her as she turned her eyes to me.

"Have an interesting talk with your mother?" she asked me.

"Among other things," I nodded with a chuckle. "Why do you ask?"

"Just want to know if I'm allowed to handle the goods yet," Luna smirked, placing the tip of her finger against my chest as she eyed me with a very sultry gaze.

"Of course you can," I chuckled. "I just didn't expect you to be this desperate..."

With that, she leaned down and kissed me, placing her hands to the side of my face and allowing me to lose myself in the sweet taste of her tongue. Like my mother, she seemed to have magically enchanted herself to taste a specific flavour, hers being a delicious black cherry tang that made my tongue sing as we continued to slobber on each other. I placed my hands on her wide hips, toying with the belt that rested on them as she slowly backed me against the wall, kissing my mouth with more and more vigour as the minutes trailed on.

She eventually broke apart from me, staring down with the same glow in her eyes that my mother had during our time together. Luna licked my cheek briefly, kissed my mouth for another second, and then stepped away with a satisfied sigh.

"Oh, I am so happy I can do that now," she chuckled, crossing her arms and smiling at me.

"Cadance said the exact same thing," I said with a proud smile. "I'm really surprised to see just how desperate the two of you were to get your mouth on me."

"It can't be helped," Luna shrugged. "We've all known just how beautiful you'd grow up to be, and it's just been a matter of us holding ourselves back until you entered adulthood. It was a very difficult time, I tell you."

"I'm flattered to hear it..." I said, looking between her and the summoning circle. "D'you wanna finish up here and head back to my room so we can enjoy ourselves?"

"As much as I'd love to shirk work and have sex, there's a mountain of things Celestia and I need to work through before we're able to relax again," Luna said, clearly unhappy with her own commitment to work. "I get the feeling you and your friends aren't particularly interested in talks of treaties, alliances, and repair costs for thirteen hours straight."

"You, uh, might be right about that," I chuckled, scratching the back of my head as I looked aside for a moment.

"So, would you like one of us to teleport you and your friends back to Canterlot so you can rest for a while without having to journey back yourselves?" she offered.

"That'd be great, Aunt Luna," I said with a nod.

"Right then," Luna nodded, looking at the crystal wall for a long moment before turning back to me. "We can clean up here, I'll send words to the Blades to have them dispatch a Priestess for cleansing rights, just to be safe, and then we can get you and yours home for a well-deserved rest. How's that sound?"

"Sounds beyond perfect," I grinned, excited to get home and sleep in my own bed for the first time in a long time.