Hail to The King

Queen Crystalline didn't especially hate the Two Sisters, but she was determined to see her strongest potential competition canned before they had a chance to present a real threat. Thus it was that between the coronation proper and the Shimmering Starlit Serenada (a high-class karaoke party), the former ruler of the Crystal Empire had made a quick little trip into the Forbidden Arts section of the Imperial Library. Therein, she browsed fervently until she found the book she was looking for: "Love Me Not", a book that was full of love-cancellation spells with the primary purpose of countering wayward love spells such as "Want It, Need It"; love poisons of varying flavors (no pun intended); and of course freeing the unfortunate from the shackles of unrequited or unwanted love so that the pony suffering from them could get on with their daily lives. It was an old tome, scribed in glyphs rather than words, and more etched than written into the layered-papyrus pages by the grand vizier of an ancient pony pharaoh.

Of course, Crystalline's intentions were not so benign. It took longer than she'd have liked to find the spells she was looking for, but she was a quick study and had them memorized in moments. As she prepared to cast them, the vizier's spirit appeared directly in front of her, which gave her quite a fright. Not least because she recognized him! He didn't look much older than when she'd seen him last, and that was quite sad, because he'd been in his prime. To her credit, she didn't condemn herself by screaming for the guards, who of course would have been immensely curious as to why she was summoning ghosts from the pages of lore she herself had rendered taboo. Instead, she smiled at him and spoke coyly, as though she meant to seduce him.

Not that she had any reason to doubt her ability to, had he been alive. Taking aside the fact that she was still an alicorn specialized in Love magic, the millennia had done little but refine her beautiful appearance. Standing taller than nearly anypony, her coat was the shining black of polished obsidian and her mane and tail descended from her like ever-flowing cascades of liquid emerald. Her exquisite wings scattered any focused light that struck them in a dazzling display of every shade of green a pony could conceive of, and probably several they couldn't. Her horn, rather than the primitive, twisted lances of her "lesser" southern cousins, was a curved dark blade akin to her fellow Shadow Crystal Ponies, including Sombra's (though his was inexplicably red).

"My, my..." Crystalline purred, her voice the product of natural talent honed by centuries of practice. "Are you not quite the handsome spirit, Sire-"

"Do not speak my name!" The ghost hissed, his burning gaze and chilling voice sending shivers of terror through her in spite of her immense concern with maintaining her dignity. "The only possible reason I could be here right now is because some moron tried to cast the spells I bound my very being to the guardianship of! You cannot imagine my outrage and disappointment that you, of all ponies would be that moron, Crystalline!"

"Temper, temper..." Crystalline muttered as she rolled her eyes. "I am not going to cause any real harm. I just need to stop a couple of fool fillies from drawing both our nation-states into a boiling muck of unnecessary drama."

"You are going to cause far more damage than you can possibly imagine, Crystalline! Those spells you cast could doom our entire world!"

"Oh hush! Really now, there is no need to be so melodramatic! You act like an adolescent girl sometimes!"

"If that is how you are going to act over this dire matter, then so be it. Just know that you are not as powerful as you think you are, and that a curse cuts also its master, and none more so than a Love curse" the stallion concluded petulantly before vanishing in a puff of smoke. He wasn't going to fight because he knew both that he couldn't defeat her, and also that she already knew what she was doing was wrong.

"Like I said... melodramatic," Crystalline sighed as she began casting the spells. "First, for the younger will be 'The Eye of Chastity'. With this, she will be unable to perceive Love being directed toward her for... let us say about ten years. That should be long enough for even Sombra to give up on her."

She closed her eyes and focused on a mental image of the lunar princess's face, and after a flash of brilliant green light, she opened them again. After a couple minutes, she realized that she was breathing far too heavily. But she couldn't help it. She felt so... empty somehow. Hollow even. However, with some effort she got herself back under control.

"Now for the elder one... let us see. She is clearly the more proactive of the two, so she will require a different means of deterrent." She flipped through the pages some more until she alit upon inspiration. "Ah! Yes, this will do! 'The Stalker's Shame' will see to it that she does her best not to be too intrusive with her presence! It is brilliant! I do not see a duration on it, however. Well enough, it should at least be able to last the night, and that is all I desire of it!"

Another few moments with eyes closed and another flash of green light later, and Queen Crystalline re-shelved the book, wondering if she had started to lose her hearing or if the Imperial Choir had lost their key. Probably the latter. After all, her hearing was still quite sharp. So much so that she was able to hear how strangely hollow her hoofsteps sounded against the library's crystal floor. She paused on her trip back through the public aisles and lifted a front hoof to study it curiously, noting that though it didn't appear as hollow as it sounded, her coat had mysteriously lost its luster. The ghost's warning flashed through her mind, but she shook it back out. In its place were new concerns, primarily revolving around the effects that aging seemed to suddenly be having on her.

Like how her teeth itched, or how she felt with growing alarm a distinct stillness deep inside her chest.