Garroted Harmony

Her horrible, keening wail pierces through the once serene room.

Shining Armor staggers to his knees while hooves clasp around flattened ears. His deep timber joins her cry of ultimate suffering, a pony not in distress but despair.

To say that her most joyous day turned into a tortured mockery would be a gross understatement.

It is only once her despondent cry ceases that he spins on his stunned sister. “Twilight!” he bellows, rage consuming him. “What did you do?”

Cadance can barely make out the resulting conversation, turbulent thoughts threatening to overturn and overtake her. She thrashes uncontrollably, her tormented lament unanswered.

“I-I…” Twilight stammers, unable to tear her eyes away from the writhing mare. “I thought it worked!”

She can feel her love, her very essence seeping out of the grievous wound.

“You thought?” Shining Armor shouts as he towers over her. Twilight’s ears flatten as a cold steel clad hoof menacingly points. “We trusted you, Twilight Sparkle!”

But the wound isn’t in her heart, much as the saying might go. For that is merely a muscle, frantically pumping. But instead her magical core, missing a chunk of itself!

“I thought it was going to work! I thought it did work!” The purple alicorn scrambles as pieces of paper bamf into existence. “The timing was exactly the same as before!”

Perhaps they are more alike than she thought, because with every beat of her fully functioning heart a little more love spurts out into the void. Perhaps, if she was able to stop, she might suture the rift and stem the loss.

“That’s not good enough!”

But she cannot. She desperately seeks her lost foal. And not the lifeless pair of cells deep inside, but her Stormy Heart’s core! Agonizing pulses search through the void, her own core ripping a little more as each comes back empty.

“I… Shiny, look! She’s hurt!”

With every passing moment she grows weaker, slumping against the unyielding crystal. It barely registers, her mind frantically pursuing any possible lead. But there is no trail, none she can see! Where has she gone?

“She… Cady! Cadance!” A hoof roughly shakes her. “Twilight, what’s happening?”

A hoof paws at the floor. If there is any hope, any at all, she would sell her soul to find it. Is this what drove the black king mad? Did Sombra find a solution in the crystals, but too late?

Twin beacons of pure light shine above her, but they aren’t what she is looking for. The voice that comes is dry, clinical in her observations. “...There is a rip, a tear in her magical core. It’s… bad. Draining fast enough to kill her in a matter of minutes.” Another pause, this time filled with terse scratches and frantic scribbling. “No… stasis won’t work... cauterizing only helps against physical wounds… a teleport to Canterlot would be even riskier…”

She gasps as her Shiny leaves her side, the fragile scab formed by his love tearing open. She attempts to rise, to tell him to come back, but her strength fails.

His voice gets quieter as he gallops to the door, shouting, “What else? Come on, hurry!” Then a loud bang, his next shout outside. “Get Celestia and Luna! It’s an emergency!”

She only regains her thoughts when he returns. Are they talking about her?

“I am hurrying! Oh, why did we do this so far away from Canterlot? They would have been able to help! They’ve got the equipment, and the personnel, and-”

No, she is not the one who is lost!

A single hoof stamp rings throughout the room. “Focus, Twilight! They aren’t here, and they couldn’t fix a tear this large! But you can! How can I help?” There is a brief pause broken by a single sharp intake of breath, an excited exclamation. “Your fertility spell! The one you used on Starlight! Can you cast it?”

They need to be searching for Stormy Heart! By returning her foal, they can seal the rupture!

“That takes time that we don’t have! And it’s not how the spell should be used!”

Cadance grunts, struggling to rise to her hooves.

“But will it work, Twilight? Will it save her?”

The barest turn of head and the merest raise of eyelids takes all of Cadance’s meager effort.

Twilight, eyes ablaze in white, doesn’t notice. “...Yes. It could. Giving her a… an alternate will seal the rift in her core. But, if it doesn’t take, then-”

She can barely see her Shiny vigorously stroke his cock as he lines himself up with her marehood. It pains her to watch, to see the agony scrawling across his face, the soreness and emptiness he will never give in to.

“It won’t fail! Our love is stronger than that! Now clean her out and cast it! Full power!”

After a moment of hesitation a burst of raspberry magic obstructs Cadance’s vision. She feels her inner self wash clean, scrubbed as desolate as the Badlands. She slumps over, her precious Stormy Heart now unrecoverable and truly lost to the void. Her mind clears, no longer fixated on what dark magic might have wrought, and cowers under her stallion’s stony glare.

They don’t give her even a moment to grieve, and she... she stumbles over the word. She hates that they are likely right.

She grunts as her stallion’s tip rams at her entrance. She would moan if she could spare the energy, cry if she could spare the tears. It’s good her marehood suffered from Flurry Heart as every callous thrust strains against her bone-dry walls. Relentless, he forces his cock deeper and deeper.

She can sense Twilight’s magic coursing through her inner parts, taking but a second to select and accelerate a single follicle along life’s journey. The new beacon blossoms, releases, and raspberry magic speeds the egg along its merry way. Simultaneously the lining of her womb replenishes, again ready to accept and nurture the new life. If only she could spare the same for her raw inner walls, only now starting to release their lubricant.

Two sets of heavy, galloping hoofsteps echo through the open door. Cadance can barely see, through the corner of lidded eyes, the arrival of two alicorns. It takes her a moment to place them as Celestia and Luna and not Noon and Midnight, their foals with whom they share a near identical likeness. They seem so small, so scared, as they stay so far away with rare expressions of hesitancy and unsureness on their faces.

“Is it safe?” comes Celestia’s melodic and eloquent voice, commanding even as she pauses. Fear and worry radiate from her, her tone warped and mutilated by a rippling magic.

“No,” comes the echoing reply of a dark and terrible tyrant, Twilight’s tenor amplified and distorted. “I am already casting, and cannot account for more sources of magic.”

“Cadance… lost... the first attempt,” her stallion grits out as he thrusts. “And with it, her hope.” He can’t keep himself erect with his wife in such an awful condition, and yet he valiantly fights the losing battle. Her inner walls burn, sore beyond any of their marathon sessions together, but she bites back any complaint, afraid of affecting her stallion. “She doesn’t have much time!”

“Twilight… art thou sure?” demands a deafening Luna, slipping back into her Royal Canterlot. “Because-”

“Yes.” The lavender alicorn’s curt reply cuts her off, but there is uncertainty masked behind her words.

“Luna!” Celestia says quickly, her muted tone brooking no disagreement. “Seek help from the Queen of the-” she cuts herself off with a quick shake of her head. “No, the Chief Architect! And you must not let Flurry Heart catch wind of what might transpire! Now go!”

The midnight blue alicorn’s teeth set against each other. Yet she nods once, galloping away with a forlorn glance backward.

Cadance can no longer keep her eyes open. She feels her essence fading fast. But there is a tiny speck of hope, drifting along her uterine horn. She binds herself to that speck, staking and directing her love.

“I love you,” she whimpers.

“I love you, too,” he whispers back through gritted teeth.

“You must release.” Twilight’s menacing tone echoes forebodingly. The heavy clop of a single set of hooves draws closer.

And when it brims it does not overflow, her own gushing torrent sealed. Breathing becomes easier, her tunnel shuddering in a pleasureless attempt to coax seed from her spent stallion.

“You will never speak of this,” Celestia utters as she steps behind the guard captain, her mane spilling around his backside. Wet licks accompany pained yelps, his thrusts doubling in urgency.

But it would not last. Not without her stallion’s contribution. She can already sense spiderwebs on once-sleek surfaces, cracks that will shatter the untempered vessel. But neither can she stop, or her own core will burst again, nothing to contain her own essence.

Not a moment later her stallion releases. Gone are the gushing spurts that might overflow around his cock and leak past his flare. But his valiant effort is not in vain, the pathetic dribble sufficient for their purposes. A reckless caress collects the closest, muttered calculations attempting to coincide the coming conception with the conclusion of Twilight’s cast.

In an instant the vessel solidifies. She can feel her, her newest foal. She dreads the connection, a porcupine liable to change direction without notice. Yet stroke she must, loving caresses of her foreleg across a needle laced back, faith in her Shiny giving her the strength to carry on.

An agonized moan matches a horrifying cackle, the former growing weaker as the latter intensifies. A terrified Cadance turns to see Twilight Sparkle looming above a fallen Celestia and imbibing her golden glow.

“I told you,” the dark tones reverberate as the white alicorn slumps over, lavender standing straighter, “that I could not account for more sources.”

“T… Twi…” Celestia ekes out, a pleading gaze met by sadistic glee.

“You brought this on yourself,” Twilight chortles deceitfully, greedily drinking down her mentor’s spirit. Malevolence shines from her eyes, apathetically ignoring the despair wrought from her betrayal.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Shining Armor orders, his voice ragged yet commanding.

She ignores him.

The pastel hues of the solar diarch’s mane dull as the ever-present movement ceases, abject sorrow in her tortured visage.

His face softens, begging, “Please. LSBFF.” Each letter pulls Twilight away from her… meal. “Take me instead. She only wanted to help.”

“You…” Twilight starts, turmoil coursing across her expression. “You would sacrifice yourself for her?”

“I would,” Shining Armor declares. He stands crisply, guard training on full display.

A swell of pride fills Cadance’s ragged chest, that her stallion would act in such a selfless manner. Though another part of her cannot stand that he would leave her bereft a husband. But it is a price they both know he, or she, might ultimately pay for their country. She silently prays that that day would not be today, and may never come.

As Twilight struggles with the concept the golden flow ceases, sounds in the room return to normal, and colors brighten to their usual hues. Celestia’s leg kicks once then goes still, her mane limp against her side.

Twilight snaps out of her fugue with a manic shake, her normally pleasant smile full of shock and horror. “Shiny!” she calls, embracing her brother in a bone-crunching hug. “Thankyou thankyou thank you! I was so... so starved, I couldn’t think straight! But you saved me!”

“Of course,” Shining Armor says nervously says as he initially tries to keep her at bay. When she merely sobs against his coat his defenses drop, embracing her in return.

Twilight’s eyes suddenly widen as she pushes her brother away. “Princess Celestia!” She races to the downed alicorn, gently lifting the unresponsive head. Tears stain the alabaster coat. “Are you alright?”

“She’ll,” Shining Armor starts, his voice catching in his throat as he looks at the fallen form. “She’ll be…”

Cadance’s head slowly lowers, concentrating on her aunt’s weakly beating heart. She takes a deep breath, willing forward reserves she didn’t know she had, and pushes forth a burst of love. Her body quakes at the expenditure, yet she couldn’t live knowing there might have been a chance to save her aunt that she didn’t take.

A single magenta eye opens, if briefly. “Twilight,” whispers Celestia, struggling to raise a foreleg and stroke the purple strand out of her herdmate’s violet eyes. “I’m-”

“Celestia!” Twilight exclaims, gripping onto the white alicorn as if her very life depends on it. “I’m so sorry! The spell, I couldn’t control it, I was too weak! And…”

“-Okay,” Celestia finishes as Twilight takes a deep breath, softly nuzzling her crestfallen friend. “Are you feeling better?”

“After what I did to you?” Twilight shudders, burying her face in the pastel mane. “I can never forgi-”

“Twilight,” Celestia interrupts with the stern tone she gets whenever Twilight starts Twilighting, “I will recover. We are alright. Though perhaps tonight I will require your assistance in lowering the sun.” She winks coyly.

“You…” Twilight starts, then gulps. She stands straight. “I would be honored to assist, though I fear I have… regained less power than you have lost.” A sheepish smile pokes out. “I didn’t exactly calibrate it for maximum efficiency, but maybe if I had more time I might be able to-”

Celestia holds up a hoof placatingly. “That is quite alright.” She glances at Cadance and Shining Armor, smiling as they rest in each other’s hooves. The urgent aura surrounding Cadance has faded to an uncomfortable throb, a grim reminder of what could have been.

All heads turn as the double doors slam open, revealing a dark silhouette.

The reformed changeling once known as Queen Chrysalis strides into the room. Ebony chitin covers her gravid midsection, armored plates flexing around two bulges of foal and half a dozen incubating eggs. Emerald wings lazily settle against her back as the bright green flare around her horn fades.

“This room reeks of dark magic.” Chief Architect Chrysalis’ fanged grin, malevolent no matter her true intentions, never fades as she casts a scornful glance. She lingers on the downed alicorns with a twisted smirk before pausing on Shining Armor and Cadance. Her scorn turns to shock as the whites of her green eyes flare brighter.

“What have you done?” she demands, filling the chamber with echoes of fury.