Redux: Lineage

I watched as Jenevive dressed herself, covering her grey eyes with her silver mask and putting as much of her frock on as she could after both of us tearing into it something vicious. Once she was sufficiently armoured, she turned to me with a gentle smile and bowed her head slightly, joining her hands at her waist in her usual gesture and speaking.

"Richter," she said in a soft tone. "I believe it would be best for us to return to Cindria's room and discuss plans with the others, lest they begin to miss you."

"Trust me," I said, sitting on the side of the bed and looking at the wall. "Nobody misses me at these things. I've got about as much skill in strategy as a fish does in whistling... and you also kind of tore my clothing to pieces."

Jenevive's lips pouted for a moment, staring down at the pile of cotton, wool, and leather that lay on the floor around her bed. She blushed red for a brief moment, looking around her room, before turning back to me.

"I'm afraid I don't have any men's clothing that are your size..." she mumbled. "I'm... I'm sure that one of the other male Blades must have similar measurements to you."

"Do you know of any off the top of your head?" I asked her with a cocked eyebrow.

"I... actually... now that I think about it..." she said, looking even more embarrassed than ever. "I don't believe we have a single male blade here that isn't at least six feet and four inches..."

"Anything for children that might fit?"

"I'm not entirely sure," she said, bowing her head lower than before in an extremely apologetic gesture. "I apologise for making such a mess out of this."

"Don't worry yourself," I chuckled. "I've been in worse situations with much less beforehand. I tell you what, go find Twilight, and I'm sure she'll be able to wrangle something up for me."

"As you wish," Jenevive said, moving towards the door before stopping short, her hand resting on the knob. "What... what should I tell her so that we don't raise suspicions?"

"Tell her 'the usual happened'," I shrugged. "I've got a reputation for this kind of thing. Every woman in my family's used to it by now."

Jenevive nodded slowly, opening the ornate door and heading out, closing it lightly behind her and leaving me alone in the warm, homey room with my thoughts. My terrible, perverted, manipulated thoughts. So, me, let's go over all of the horrible things you've done today:

First off: outright abuse of power. Doesn't matter if Jenevive offered you sex, you should've been a responsible adult and turned her down as it was clearly fuelled by her worship of your kind.

Secondly: willingly allowing said worshipper to molest you and only feeling bad about causing her to go insane because of the fact you couldn't put your hands on her for most of the sex. You didn't even stop to think if she had some kind of breakdown, you merely shrugged it off and kept on screwing.

And finally: using a real-life woman with a personality, thoughts, feelings, and emotions as nothing more than a masturbation tool to fuel your own sick and twisted desires for a woman who might not even reciprocate your sexual attraction to her.

You are a terrible person, Richter. Signed, yourself.

I sat up on the bed, looking around for the sword I'd received from Celestia and wondering if it had damaged anything after being tossed. I picked it up off the bed, laying the cool scabbard across my legs as I pulled it out of its sheath. I stared again at the faint, humming light emanating from the blade, running two fingers down the fuller and feeling a warm, soothing heat coursing through the entirety of the blade. I gripped the oval-shaped hilt with a good bit of force, hearing the leather wrapping stretch as I did so, before releasing the tension in my hand with a weighty sigh.

"A sword fit for a king," I muttered. "And a boy not fit for a crown..."

I sheathed it again, hearing the blade lock into place with a satisfying click, before setting it down against the side of the bed, lying back down once again and staring up at the ceiling. I began to wonder if anyone else in my family had gone through these kinds of situations. Dabbling in the exploitation of those loyal to them for some kind of gain, sexual or otherwise... I imagined they'd done it in some small manner. Whether ordering a servant to let them stay up past their bedtime or using their title to get out of paying for something. I hadn't done anything like that, never liked abusing my power... except when it came to sex, apparently.

Girls liked rich guys, girls liked powerful men, and nobles always liked to do anything and everything they could to boost their own social status. I'd slept with more than my fair share of noble daughters solely because they knew it would grant their parents' greater stature once my royal seed had stained their little girl forever. I was never able to comprehend how that was meant to work, what was more noble about whoring out for what was essentially a stranger, but that was one of the major reasons I never went for court studies as a kid. Was too busy training and fucking to care about a proper education.

It had worked well enough for me so far. I knew how to read and write, knew enough mathematics to get by, and was somewhat competent at a few sciences that related to monster hunting. I was serviceable. Nothing wrong with that, right? Sure, if you don't mind sitting in the very wide and very large shadow of a family larger than life itself. I placed my hands behind my head, staring at the magnolia-coloured ceiling and thinking back to the things I knew about the upbringing of my other family members.

Dad was the same as me, really. Wasn't fussed about numbers and books, cared more about actually working, found his way into the military and... then proved himself to be a strategic genius by the age of seventeen and received war medal after war medal from that day forth. Okay, so maybe dad and I weren't the same. He was cut from a different cloth and had to work infinitely harder than I did because he had something to prove. There was Twilight, who was a prodigy from the day she learned to talk, excelling in everything she picked up and managing to catch Celestia's eye very early on.

I knew my mother had undergone a much less-specialised but a much more typical noble upbringing than I had. Lessons of etiquette, politics, public speaking, basic and advanced forms of education regarding language, mathematics, science, and all the other subjects I'd never bothered with. She'd been taught to fence, was quite talented at singing, and pursued a higher education once she'd finished her mandatory training before training as a master cook and an alchemist.

Luna and Celestia... I stopped staring off into space for a moment as I tried to grab any knowledge I had about them only to realise it was a shockingly small amount. I had no idea what their formal education was, I had no idea where they grew up, I had no idea about the life they lead before having Cadance and helping her raise me. I didn't even know the names of their mother and father, my own great-grandparents, even after how long I'd been around to be able to inquire about it.

They were an enigma to me entirely... and I began to wonder if they were the same to everyone else, even Cadance. I didn't know if their history was known to the general public, whether there were scriptures or tomes that spoke of their early lives, or even if there were documents about them from when the other Alicorn were still kicking about. But then... were there other Alicorn kicking about when they were children? How old were they, exactly? I'd heard that they were around four thousand years each, but that could've been the number they gave to the public in an effort to hide something about them.

Were Alicorn even real? Or were the two of them some other race that they made up a story for to explain their supernatural qualities, and did everyone else that was born after they explained it just believe it because the sisters had said it happened? Were they even sisters? Were they demons? Angels? Hyper-mutated rabbit women in disguise? As stupid as it may sound, it was a possibility from how little I knew about my aunt and grandmother at this... great aunt and grandmother... still hadn't gotten used to doing that yet.

I could ask them about it... but what if they didn't want me to? What if they killed and ate everyone that asked questions about their history? What if their physical appearances weren't even real? What if they were illusions to hide the fact they were hideous monsters that stole and ate children? Was I a hideous monster? Were my humanoid looks just an illusion I didn't know how to get rid of? Is that why I can't use my magic? Did they lock it away from me so I wouldn't expose their dark and dirty-

"What the actual fuck are you blithering on about?!" I heard Grael bark angrily inside my head, nearly making me leap off the bed in terror as his angry, booming voice suddenly invaded my skull.

"Can you fucking not, please?" I asked in an angry tone, my skull still ringing from the sudden noise and my heart pumping as hard as a drum,

"Not when I've been sat here for the past five minutes listening to you spew nonsense about illusions of beauty an rabbit women," he growled.

"You can't tell me I'm wrong though," I said. "We know nothing about them."

"Except we do. Because of the several thousand tomes, scriptures, paintings, poems, sonnets, epics, and all other forms of literature that speak of, in great detail I might add, everything Luna and Celestia have ever done in their lives," Grael spoke. "Which you'd know by now if you'd spent more time with your head in a book rather than between some woman's backside."

"I mean... you don't have to be a dick about it," I said after a long pause, not having any justification for my own stupidity at this point.

"Jenevive arrived a few minutes ago and asked Twilight to retrieve some of your garments from Equestria after 'the usual happened'," Grael said in a annoyed tone. "I hope you're capable of sleeping at night knowing that you and you alone are the sole reason our plans are being delayed for so long."

"Pffft, I came to terms with that years ago," I shrugged.

"Just making sure you're comfortable with it," he said. "So, was Jenevive to your preference in the bedroom?"

"Why do you care?" I asked.

"Because I wish to know if it'll be necessary to add the Blades' fortress to my ever-expanding list of 'Places Richter goes to whore himself out and avoid his responsibilities'," he answered.

"I think you just want to fuck her," I shrugged.

"I wouldn't be opposed to the offer if the chance ever presented itself, but that's not what we're discussing here," Grael responded in a dry tone. "Is she something you're going to be using often?"

"Don't phrase it like that..." I said, another pang of guilt hitting my chest.

"Like what? Like the way you operate?" he asked. "So you're perfectly okay with using women like disposable hand towels every day of the week, but we're just not allowed to say you do?"

"What's crawled up your ass today?" I asked in an annoyed manner, starting to get a little sick of his attitude.

"The fact that we're on the brink of a cataclysm that could end the world as we know it and you're too busy frolicking with women to be paying attention and lending a hand when its needed the most," Grael answered.

"Have you all not got it under control?" I asked.

"That does not and never will give you permission to shirk all of your work, never learn or grow as a person or a fighter, and then complain about being weak and pitiful when you yourself are the reason for it," Grael snarled. "Because there's going to come a day where you're backed against a wall in a situation where you have no idea what to do and nobody is going to be there to save you. So if I were you, I'd get myself down to the war room again and start making an effort to being an asset to this team, rather than a detriment. Understand?"

"..."

"..."

"I hate it when you're right, you know that?" I sighed in a depressed way.

"Then stop making the wrong choices, and I won't be so often," Grael said. "Twilight said she wouldn't take longer than five minutes. Use that time to think about what you're going to do, and do it."

"Right..." I sighed, looking down at the ground in a dejected manner.

"Richter, I only say this because I love you and don't want to see you stuck in this cycle of defeat and misery," he said in a softer, less aggressive tone. "But you've always needed a boot up the ass to actually do anything in your life, and this here is mine. Now hurry up and get down here before you miss most of the important things. I'll see you soon. I love you."

"Yeah, I love you too..." I said, leaning forward on my elbows and almost feeling the heat drain out of the room as Grael's words got through to me.

He cut the connection between the two of us and left me alone again. Alone with my thoughts.