Author's Note

Since clop didn't seem appropriate for the melancholy final chapter, I instead decided to include some in this optional bonus!

Basically, a "What if Beatrix took up Inky's invitation into the bedroom?" While inessential to the main story, some extra characterization and minor revelations are thrown in.

Bonus Chapter: Beatrix's Decision

Steam rose from a pool that stretched across the spacious room, its pristine waters swishing and casting a glimmer across hieroglyphic covered walls otherwise shrouded in dimness. A soft splash echoed when Beatrix Belladonna experimentally wiggled her toes into the bath. “Th-thanks for inviting us here, your highness. I'm honored.”

“No need to be so formal,” replied Inky Rose who like her stood naked, the serving girls fetching their clothes while they bathed. “I'm relieved you decided to take up my author. It should help with any...unresolved feelings.”

“Plus, it'll be fun!” Cerise Silhouette let her pigtails down and sunk into the pool beside Diamond Tiara and Cozy Glow. Situated across from them was Bellatrix Primadonna, who absentmindedly filed her nails.

Sombra chuckled and lounged in the bath. “I feel rather lucky. However, something is missing.” He looked to his Queen who nodded. “Would the Lady's handmaidens like to join us? It's not required, of course, but we would appreciate the company.”

A number of the servants stripped down and waded in. Each was handpicked by Inky, exotic beauties meant to please the eye, which the rulers sometimes invited into their bed. But tonight they settled on a new prize, one of their fellow heroes in the alliance's war with the Eldritch. Beatrix shyly avoided the eyes of the couple, who lingered on her nakedness.

The aromas of oils and perfumes arose from the bath, and the one who'd supplied them, Somnambula, padded in. As the new guardian of this Empire and the Sphinx, she loomed over them, casting a long shadow upon her approach.

“Welcome back, little Beatrix. And you too, Bellatrix.” Somnambula beamed with sharp teeth.

Beatrix laughed. “I thought cats hated water?”

“Ah, but the Sphinx passed on her secrets to me. And I also learned much from the holy book I never shared. After much practice I have mastered quite a spell. Observe.” She chanted inscrutable words in a long dead tongue, until a white shrouded enveloped her sleek mass. Within an instant the priestess shrank down to her former pegasus self.

“Wow, neat!” Beatrix studied the priestess, who stood naked and proud, flexing her plumage.

“Most impressive,” mused Sombra with a chuckle, his hand around Inky's waist and pulling her closer. “Of course, you too are always welcome to dally with us. As are your lovely retainers.” Diamond Tiara and Cozy Glow grinned as one.

They all settled in to bathe, and Beatrix hovered next to Cerise, who despite being more of a stranger than the rest of them she somehow felt more comfortable around at the moment. Maybe it was her spacy, oblivious nature? That she seemed so non-judgmental and welcoming? She knew how moody the rest of them could be, and didn't want to intrude on Inky's relationship.

“To think,” said Cerise who squeezed Beatrix's hand under the water. “You could've been my mother!”

“Probably not. I can't get pregnant,” admitted Beatrix who stared down at her belly.

Cerise shook her head and lowered her voice. “Not literally, but I mean, imagine if you became Sombra's second wife? I heard my parents discuss it before, and Inky seemed okay with it. You'd have part of this Empire to rule over, a vast fortune, lots of subjects, plus, think of all the time we could spend together. Maybe you should think it over again?”

“But I have so much more to do. And it would hurt to always play second fiddle,” she said with a hand over her heart.

“That's a shame. But I understand.” Cerise hugged her in sympathy.

After the hour came to an end most present parted ways. “Come with me,” said Inky who took Beatrix's wrist. “You too, Bellatrix. And would Somnambula also like to aid in our little affair?” She half-lidded her eyes at her with a sly grin.

Somnambula returned the gesture. “After being without this form for so long, it does miss the old carnal pleasures.”

“We'll take care of your duties,” said Diamond Tiara. “You deserve a day's rest!”

“More like a night's!” Cozy Glow giggled. “Leave it to us!”

Cerise beamed. “I'll help, too. Sounds like fun!”

The group rose in unison from the pool, all sopping wet and thin vapors of steam rising around water-beaded flesh. They toweled themselves off, and didn't bother to redress, the King and Queen headed to their private chambers. Soon they reached the room, its interior spacious with a silken bed to match. Inky sat on the edge with a titter, hand clasped with her lover's.

Beatrix waved farewell to Cerise, Cozy, and Diamond, then followed in, the door closed behind them by Somnambula who entered last. Enchanted crystal lamps lit the area in a soft glow, which was otherwise enshrouded by shadows.

Sombra licked his lips and cupped one of the witch's firm tits. “Soft and pliable as ever.”

She arced her breast into his touch, relished the warmth that radiated through her bosom. Her heart still skipped, but she forced herself to relax with a deep breath, reminded that Inky wasn't the jealous type so long as she came first in his eyes. Inky pulled Beatrix over by the waist, and she settled into Sombra's lap, shyly met his eyes with a silly smile and pink cheeks.

His stiff member rested against her puffy slit but didn't press into it. Her wetness slathered his vein-lined tool, his flared tip slick, one hand cupped around a tit which he tenderly crushed while the other did the same to a plush buttock.

“Say what you want,” urged Inky with half-lidded eyes and a sensual drawl.

“I...” Beatrix met his gaze. “I want you to fuck me,” she admitted with a lusty hiss. She pleaded, “Please, put it in.” He visibly considered it, tilted her back a little, teased the ring of her pink asshole which he smeared in his discharge. “You're cruel,” she whispered, but in truth she was so horny she hardly cared how he took her, so long as he offered some sweet release!

He lifted her up by the waist and impaled her pussy. She cried out with sharp lust, speared cervix-deep, his flare teasing her last barrier to lock in place in preparation for when a stallion wanted to make certain he impregnated a mare and claimed her. Her gooey release slathered his dick, drenched down the medial ring, onto his swollen balls. She wrapped around him with a coo.

Sensing that a certain hint of self-loathing hadn't ever fully left her, despite all these years of separation and the Demiurge removed from her, Sombra stroked her mane and whispered into her ear, “Good girl...” She smiled coyly in appreciation.

“Allow me to tend to you, my Queen.” Somnambula climbed atop Inky Rose, kissed her inner thighs and around her cunt in preparation, her posterior presented to the gothic mare who tenderly kissed her sexholes. Within moments they dug into each other, nuzzles sunk into moist entrances, slurped at the glistening nectar that slathered down their supple skin.

Beatrix traced his muscles, bounced atop him, his nails digging into her buttocks and his snout latched upon a squishy tit which he suckled and nipped at. “Oh teacher~” She met his gaze, starry-eyed, a dopey smirk on her face.

She couldn't help but act foolish around him, clumsy and dim-witted at times, still adoring him and eager to impress and win his affections. Moments like these made her flush, left her feeling rather stupid, but thankfully despite his chuckles he didn't judge her. He planted pecks and nips on her nipples, her neck, her lips and ears, and she happily tittered in response.

He filled her up, stretched her out, her pussy warm and cozy. She clenched in response, needy and desperate, her asshole puckered and her twat sucked on his cock, drenched it with her love honey, determined to drink up a seed that could never take root. Yet instinctively she wanted it inside her womb, wished to complete their love and pretend in the moment.

“I...I love you, Sombra,” she whispered into his ear.

“And I you,” he replied watching Somnambula and Inky eat each other out from the corner of his eye. At the same time Bellatrix stretched out naked, toyed with one of her tits, and drew circles around her messy cunt, watching them all intently.

“I'm envious,” admitted Bellatrix with narrowed eyes, her pale cheeks flushed bright. She was rewarded when he lit up his horn, and wrapped his aura about her lower holes, teased at them with sensuous strokes. She pressed her bare tits to his back, let them squish on his muscles, enshrouded him and her sister in her seraphic plume. “Mmm, I thank you.”

His aura pressed deeper into her canals, gaped them open, and she moaned into his nape and came upon him. Slurps sounded from the pair of pegasi, who nibbled and pulled on inflamed pussy lips, lapped at the glistening treasures within and the soft pink rings of assholes, wings stretched to full mast each time Somnambula and Inky writhed and moaned in shameless bliss.

Beatrix arched her breast, and gripped his muscular buttocks, wistful about times long past. Twenty years had passed for everyone here, and while she'd been on a number of adventures in between, it hadn't been nearly that long for her and Bellatrix. Nonetheless it both felt like yesterday and simultaneously a lifetime ago since they'd faced the Eldritch menace.

Wrapping her limbs around her, she closed her eyes and cried out with a particularly tight squeeze of her cunt, gripping his cock vise-like. She came first on his groin, cried out his name with tears in the corners of her eyes, and with a growl he locked his flare into her cervix and fired repeated shots of gunk that painted her gooey, contracting and expanding slimy womb.

“My apprentice,” he wheezed and breathed heavily with her, crushing a tit and a buttock in his strong hands. His flaring horn wrapped Inky's and Somnambula's loveholes in his aura, and they too whinnied in approval, spatters of feminine ambrosia coating their lover and leaving the sheets drenched in stickiness the handmaidens would have to clean later.

The musk of sex overpowered the air. Most of them collapsed in their afterglow, satisfied, and Beatrix continued to rock atop Sombra with a contented giggle and flustered blush, her cervix still gripped tight around his flare and her belly bloated with his sperm soup which drowned her eggs, unable to be inseminated no matter how many times she was fucked.

Already her sister had drifted off to sleep. Beatrix wanted to remain like this forever, with him entombed in her, a moment of intimacy that made her feel so wanted and needed. She kissed his forehead under his twisted horn, reluctantly withdrew from him with a wet pop, her gaping twat pleasantly sore and still clenching at air, oozing with his spunk and her release.

She curled against one side of him, Inky at the other, heads on his shoulders and hands on his sweat-soaked chest. Somnambula curled up cat-like at the foot of the bed, Bellatrix sprawled and slumbering at the side with soft snores.

Uncertain like always where their adventures would take them next, Beatrix surrendered to her fantasies, snuggling to him with a giggle. He stroked hers and Inky's hair, and with another flare of his horn snuffed out the lamps. Her scattered thoughts drifted, until she was overtaken by a peaceful slumber, her dreams alight with past worlds she'd traveled to.

Yet despite all the hardships faced here, this version of Equestria would always be one of her favorites.