Author's Note

Special thanks to 'VolkspanzerIsME' you know who you are...

An apple gets some seeds?

The grey stallion turned his roughspun cloak against the rising wind, and plowed onward despite nature’s resistance. He crested a hill, and finally the light of the cabin came into view, a faint orange speck midst a swarm of white snowflakes like the dandruff of heaven.

The grey stallion’s mare buried herself deeper into his side, the closer they got to their home the harsher the cold seemed to bite, perhaps it gave them its all in desperation as it saw that they were nearly home.

The last few steps toward the front door were the longest of all, but soon the grey stallion, and his mare passed beyond the creaking portal, and stepped together into the warmth of home and hearth.

The grey stallion’s lavender mare still clung to his side despite the warmth of the cabin now caressing away the frigid ache that the howling breath of winter had wrought, but even for her loving embrace the grey stallion felt the need to rest awhile.

He walked toward their crude bed, his mare clinging on as she had in the snowy miles outside the wooden sanctum of the cabin which the grey stallion had built with his own two hooves, he had laid each log with the love, and apprehensive pride of a stallion about to start a family, even in a place as cold as this his mare was all the warmth he needed, and in her swelling belly was a foal he would love as much.

The furs of the crude bed slid across his own course coat, as he slid in the warm bed along side his mare. The grey stallion ran a gentle hoof across the bump of his mare’s belly, and relaxed into a state of drowsy contentment.

“Will we be happy here?” mumble his mare, who had been asleep on her hooves as soon as she entered the cabin.

The grey stallion said nothing, but kissed her on the cheek, and that action was reassurance enough. In time sleep took hold of the grey stallion, and his mare, and in later hours dreams followed in the wake of needed rest.

The grey stallion was awoken not by the sounds of the roaring snow outside his rectangular world of wood, and warmth, but by the sudden absence of such. The snow storm which had been raging on the outside had ceased as suddenly as could be – the sun was not close to waking, but the grey stallion felt a diurnal inclination to greet the absence of a morning.

His mare stirred softly, as the grey stallion slipped from the warmth of the bed as silently as the shadow of a cloud. The grey stallion made his way to the door on his tippy- hooves; the wooden door creaked in protest as it was pushed against the piled snow at its foot. The mare cooed in her sleep, and reached for the stallion who was still laying beside her in dreams.

The grey stallion looked back as if for the last time, and trotted out into the cold night, driven by some strange longing which in all the subsequent days of his life he was never able to describe fully.

King Sombra stood in darkness, darkness above, darkness ahead, all the world was darkness and cold. Sombra gazed forward but not a single photon made its presence known; the cold here was profound, he felt that if he spoke his words would fall to the ground and shatter like glass before anyone could have heard them.

Sombra’s horn pulsed with magic as he tried a spell of illumination, the light of that spell would have been bright enough to blind, but in this place the air itself seemed to soak up the light like a velvet sea, turning the spell to nothing more incandescent than a match struck underwater. A brief spark, and then nothing.

Sombra’s hooves stood atop what felt like cold sand, perhaps ground ice with none of the slickness, a desert of unseen cold. Sombra stood as still as the frigid air for what could have been hours or could have been seconds, at some point he decided to walk, but nothing could have told him if that achieved anything, in this place the darkness made walking as motionless as standing.

Sombra kept walking, and walking across the cold desert, not knowing if he had even moved, until he saw a sign; a tiny thing, yet it was all that was needed to give direction and purpose to this place, a pinprick of light straight ahead and above like a lone star which only gleams when all the others disappear.

Drawn onward by the distant light Sombra’s trot transformed into a gallop, and as the cold sand rushed like a river between his hurried hooves the far-off star grew ever closer so slowly. As quickly as it had appeared the star vanished, and Sombra skidded to a halt, but this area of blackness somehow felt different, he was now standing in what felt like icy water which nipped at his pasterns.

“Now” the grinding voice percolated out of the air “Are you ready to talk of your duties?”

Sombra said nothing, and waiting to see what the phantom voice which he knew to well had to say.

It could have been years that Sombra spent listening to the voice describe how he was not putting in enough effort into finding…whatever it was the advisor wanted, out under the earth of equestria, and that he should try harder before he found out what darkness and cold really meant.

Sombra still knew nothing as to what the advisor had wanted in exchange of helping him claim his throne, just that It lay underground, but since he was here, he might as well ask.

“just what is it you want me to find out there!” shouted Sombra into the blackness, he had not expected a reply, and was met with silence.

He heard them before he saw them. distant splashing of feet and hooves trudging in the frigid water, and then he saw them wandering past him in single file, mostly ponies, with some dragons and griffons among the damp parade, he even saw several species he could not name, and all had the same distinct features of the magic that the advisor had given Sombra, that he wore on his own body.

The voice took on a tone of slight emotion for the first time: “why the original of course…eternity is a long road and even the most recent of you have been all but forgotten”.

The marching succession of previous King Sombra’s began to fade. And the royal stallion was left in darkness and cold once again.

Sombra stood in the dark abyss for so long he started to get bored, and soon he decided to try to teleport again. Much to his surprise it worked, and he was back in his bedchamber. The king laid down on his fine bed, and wondered if all that had been a dream, if it was but a dream he needed to find a good explanation for why his hooves were damp.

The grey stallion had walked far from the cabin where he left the warmth of his mare behind, but he found comfort in the idea that no matter the distance of time and space her face would be engraved on his heart until the day it stopped. A strange calling had drawn him from the cabin, and from were it came, and were it drew him he could not say, but none the less he walked onwards in darkness and cold.

The call led him to the mouth of a hollow, which led him to a cavern where the sun had never shon. As the grey stallion descended futher into the darkness of the cavern his concern grew deeper as he climbed down rough stone stairs which were no longer slickened by ice, and blown snow.

The grey stallion stopped his already hesitant stride when he thought that he heard hooves just behind his, but for as long as he waited no-one appeared. The grey stallion started up his journey once more, the stone tunnel narrowed, and he knew that in the small space no one could hide, but he kept looking behind himself anyway.

The cave came to a halt eventually, and the grey stallion came to realized that he had wandered across frozen moors for nothing but a lingering dream; the sun was probably Beginning to rise, and his mare would be waking up alone.

The grey stallion was standing at the nadir of a sightless pit, and he was alone save for the untouched shadows.

“we can make you a king…” said the shadows.

King Sombra laid atop the silken covers of his luxurious bed, and to any who would have seen him he looked dead to the world, still as stone with breaths further apart than normal nocturne respiration. But the only one who saw Sombra sleep was Sombra himself, the king looked over his own sleeping form, and considered the notion that without the weight of his soul his body needn’t breathe so deep of the earthly air, and divorced from his flesh, no longed fused to his own bone mass his spirit did not need to breath at all.

He wondered how long he could last outside his own body if its heart were to stop in the night, without his flesh to anchor him to this world would he just expand, and fade away as the drop of ink that was his soul was diluted by the world around him – until he was spread so thin that he was nothing but an echo of thoughts and feelings drifting over the land.

Would he linger on until the ends of the earth, a phantom kept cohesive by the strength of its own undying will. with no home to return to Sombra did not think so, and hoped not, even more, Sombra didn’t believe in ghosts, but then again he didn’t believe in King Sombra until he became King Sombra, so maybe it was the same for spirits, and haunts, and then ghosts would turn out to be more than just old houses dreaming of people in the night.

He didn’t plan on finding out anytime shortly, for now, he was just taking a walk on the other side, but he would find his way home tonight, just as soon as he felt the rising sun upon his unoccupied body.

Sombra did not know if this had a name, but he had always thought of it as dreaming, dreaming in the material world. The advisor had given him powers dark and terrible, but this was not one of them: the dreaming was made stronger by the power of shadows in the same way that learning another language helped you better understand your own, but it had been with him since before he could remember, he was a native speaker in dreams.

The dream of Sombra turned away from his body and headed out for the night. The phantom stallion trotted down the silent tower rungs until perhaps a third of the way to the bottom he realized he was only traversing the castle in this way out of habit. King Sombra leaped through the wall and emerged on the other side some 150 feet above the ground, Sombra plummeted exactly like a heavyset unicorn diving from a great height. Sombra hit the castle courtyard with all of his weight behind him: the impact did not even cause the grass to sway. Sombra trotted on, looking for any sight more interesting than the dreams he could have been having instead of this excursion.

Sombra sighted a nightguard trying to look busy despite the fact that nobody tangible was watching, Sombra recognized the guard as…Gottfried?...Graham?...Glenn – something that began with a G anyway. Sombra put his mighty snout a few inches from the guard’s ear, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

“GONAD!!!”

The guard turned His head to look this way and that as if he heard something, but soon returned to his glassy eyed patrol.

Sombra hadn’t expected much else.

Sombra made his way into the castle proper, he had decided with the barracks, but yielded nothing more interesting than his own guards: some sleeping, some polishing their helmets, all too boring for Sombra to bother himself with.

The grey unicorn wandered along deathly silent hallways that were scarcely warmer than ice: completely alone, even when he was present in this state the places that he wandered were still as empty as they had ever been, and since Sombra’s takeover the castle of Canterlot had an abundance of empty rooms.

Sombra heard the faintest moan from one such empty room, and placed his eyeball to the keyhole, he could just as easily have walked in to the room and performed a jaunty musical number for all the chance the rooms occupants had of seeing him, but if he was going to watch people fuck he was going to do it properly.

Private Donut let out a muffled groan of surprise as the griffons thighs clasped about his neck, but his tongue kept going to work on her birdbox, making moans slip from her beak, just as Donut thought she was about to cum again the griffoness pushed him away with her hind-legs, and rolled off of the grand piano onto her paws.

“enough with the tongue stuff dweeb” intoned the hen sultrily, “time for the main event” with that the griffon turned away from Private Donut and presented her hindquarters to the burly beige stallion.

“there’s just one more thing that’s puzzling me” said Private Donut, his mind lagging a bit behind his penis which throbbed beneath his belly “why didn’t you get GIlmore to fuck you?”.

The griffon looked back at Donut with growing impatience: “maybe I will If you don’t mount me already dweeb” said the griffon. “And I don’t feel like getting knocked up anyway, that would be lame”.

Donut was about to fuck her when another thought crept into his mind, and an odd one at that, it came with the strange discomfort of the sensation that a cat had just licked his heart. “don’t you feel like we are being watched” he said, the waiting vagina in front of him temporarily forgotten.

“yeah dweeb, it feels like that when you fuck in someone else’s bedroom” said the griffon, tapping her claws impatiently “we going to do this or can you not get it up?”

Not wanting to stand the accusation of having a limp dick, even if it was said as a clear tease Private Donut wastedno time in proving the griffon wrong. “Hey Gilda you know the difference between jam and jelly?” choogled Donut.

“What?” scoffed the griffoness.

Private Donut grinned a little “I can’t jelly my cock inside you.” With that Donut placed his hooves onto the griffons rump, and buried himself up to the balls in the Gilda’s snatch, making her cry out in pleasure.

“fuck! – you’re tighter than Pinkie” grunted Donut. as he withdrew and shoved himself home the last of his syllables being given a rather goofy inflection by his pleasure.

“And you’re bigger than King of the lame-o’s Sombra, now we can both feel special” said the griffon, her words bridging the gaps between the peaks of her pleasure.

“glad that he is not here to hear that” said Donut, the words brought an odd sensation that the king was right next to him comparing willy sizes, but Donut’s mounting pleasure quickly obscured that zany notion.

The words ceased, and the only sounds in the cold room were the wet slapping of Donut plunging in and out of the griffons tight cunt, and the grunts and Caws of both parties delight. Until.

“SKREEEEE- ONK!” the high pitched call of the griffons orgasm surely would have ruined any notion of discretion, but Gilda cleary didn’t care. Donut was not far behind, his tongue lolled from his mouth and his hot breath lingered in the cold air as he was pushed over the edge.

Just thirty odd foot of grunts later Donut jellied his cock up to the hilt inside Gilda’s birdbox, his shaft pulsed and twitched as his balls were emptied into the griffon, each pulse of ecstasy accompanied by an ugly grunt of satisfaction.

Donut slipped free, dragging a sloppy rope of cum onto the carpet as he withdrew his now flared tip, his softening penis shined with the Gilda's fluids.

The dream of king Sombra stood beside the spent stallion, and contemplated. He had been slightly annoyed by the griffon’s comment about the size of his yogurt hose, but Sombra was a monarch most magnanimous: he summoned little rancor at objectively true statements.

The glow in Sombra’s horn faded, and the ethereal ruler he had summoned fell away; dissipating into nothing without a sound. King Sombra trotted out room to find something more interesting. He didn’t hear all that was said behind him, but the word ‘dweeb’ floated past his phantasmal ear.

There was now a little more banter in his canter knowing that even in coldness and night his servants were enjoying Themselves. Sombra passed along yet more silent tunnels of ice, until he found the guest bedrooms.

He picked one makeshift cell at random, and passed his body through the door. An orange earth pony lay asleep atop the silken sheets of the bed. Sombra sniffed the air about her as best as he could; in this form his sense of smell was diminished by the inability of his ghostly lungs to drew air, but he could tell just the same.

“In heat I see.” Choogled the phantom king “be seeing you in the morning Applejack.”

With something to look forward to tomorrow morning, Sombra checked another cell to see how his heirs were coming along.

The cell held the yellow pegasus, the second of the mares he had impregnated, her belly was just beginning to swell with the foal he had put in her. Sombra moved closer in to investigate the mother of his child, she was a beautiful mare by any stallions metric, but she was not a creature Sombra could have loved as a wife: she was a worthy vessel for his heir, and a great pleasure it had been to make her a mother, but alas Sombra could only see her as breeding material, not loving material.

Sombra gentle pressed his snout to her growing belly, and whispered nothing in particular to his foal within, Fluttershy cooed gently in her sleep, her hooves moving to hold something that wasn't there, maybe the baby within her, perhaps a stallion that would never hurt her, perhaps just her old life of peace from before she met Sombra; but all those things were beyond her reach now.

The next of the cells held a cyan Pegasus whom Sombra was not surprised to find was awake and quite restless. Her estrus had subsided early, a sure sigh the she was pregnant: maybe her lingering heat made her lively at this late hour; it could as just as well have been anger at her defilement or pain from the bandaged wound where her ear used to be.

Whatever the case Sombra was glad that a mare so fiery was bearing his child, he hoped that fierceness would be passed on to his foal. Satisfied with the lay of the fertile land, Sombra moved on. He decided to bother with the formality of corporeality, instead simple wandering out through the nearest wall, which left him standing on air cold outside.

Sombra liked to wander far from his seat of power, It gave him a sense of the unformed freedom he had enjoyed when he had dwelt in wild places far from anybody: it was a hard kind of liberty, and not the kind of freedom he would give up completely for a crooked crown, but he had duties in his kingdom, and he could not be there in the flesh save for the free hours in which he slept. Maybe someday his rule would be so secure that he could wander beneath the untamed sky during waking hours, but today was not that day, and he knew from experience that often someday never comes.

Sombra marched on the wind to the rhythm of his beating heart so far behind him, as once again the false king of shadows trotted out into infinite space. In the quite of his bedchamber, the dampness on his hooves climbed just a little bit further up.

They had started the dig early in the morning, progress had been swift, the hooves of the ponies enslaved to do Sombra’s hoofywork worked fever pitch, spurred on by the whips of the Guards. It was a hot day, and nopony would have been here given the choice, but the guards at least had the conform of periodically dragging a slave off for ‘discipline”

Quartz prospect, the fore-pony of the whole operation was very excited at the digsite’s potential, and oversaw what progress they had made enthusiastically. He didn’t know why he chose to dig here, it was merely the product of some faint calling, he worked in mining to fuel Equestria for all his life, it was what his cutie mark had told him, but shorty after breaking ground he realized that there was more under this earth than coal and jewels.

The site sat below a small camp of ponies who had been fleeing the carnage in Appleoosa, which meant digging was a little faster for the extra slaves. Several slaves hadn’t got the memo, evidently preferring the rope over the whip. That had no fancy gallows here, and so they had made do with an oddly isolated apple tree, conveniently located were the slaves could see the fruits that resistance bore.

Quartz watched as a rope pulled an amber mare into the tree’s fruitful branches. she had bitten a guard as he had put his cock in her mouth; if she had just serviced him like a good mare she would gotten away with nothing much worse than the need to comb dried splooge from her ginger mane. Maybe it had all been a foolish attempt to keep her virtue and dignity, if that was the case it had backfired. Quarts watched as she began her last dance, as she bucked and flailed, the semen of half a dozen different stallions dripped from between the engorged lips of her mareparts, fertilizing the ground at the foot of the tree.

She had not been the only pony taken, a blue stallion had tried to run, but had been caught by one of the griffons: he was destined to swing alongside the mare just as soon as Quartz was done with him.

Quartz could just about hear the creaking of the mare’s rope above the sound of his balls rhythmically slapping Against the stallion’s ass. The stallion winced in pained when Quartz’s hooves grazed his fresh claw marks from when the griffon had been rough with him, but he did not express any obvious Discomfort from the cock pistoning in and out of his ass, this stallion was clearly familiar with getting fucked in the ass.

Some said that a stallion getting fucked in the ass was a sign of femininity and submission, such as might be inflicted on a stallion defeated in battle, a mere final act of violence and humiliation before the victim was disposed of, and not inherently lustful beyond the fact the it ending in orgasm. Quartz did not think so, he had taken a cock under his tail and had liked it, and he did not think himself less of a stallion for it, although he still preferred to be the one doing the fucking.

The stallion had already came when the griffon had used him, but the battering Quartz was giving his prostate kept his erect cock flopping beneath with every time Quartz lanced him, a sting of errant cum stills swinging from his tip.

Quartz has not far from orgasm, the sensation of the stallion’s tight, pulsating ring, sliding up and down his shaft with just brief moments of resistance as it passed repeatedly over his medial ring. While his tip plunged repeated into the loose warmth of the cavity beyond. It didn’t take long before Quartz was clenching his teeth with every thrust, and holding his breath as he worked himself closer to ecstasy.

Quartz jaw trembled as his gaped wide to make way for a bellowing groan of pleasure, Quartz’s balls tightened and the length of his penis throbbed in time with the ropes of seed he shot into the blue stallion’s ass. He lingered for a moment to regain his composure, before he pulled his softening cock free.

Quartz made his way back toward work now that pleasure was done with, as he went he looked over his shoulder, the blue stallion was allready being hoisted up next to mare: who’s face was turning as blue as the stallion’s. with a spasm and sudden release of muscle tension she embarrassed herself one last time before finally going limp, leaving the soil below her final resting place enriched.

The sun was shining down like water, making even ponies who were not digging sweat. But for all the heat the day brought The soil remained cold, and grew colder the deeper that they dug.

“Quartz!” called out a tall violet slavedriver, one of the few mares doing Sombra’s ground work.

“you know about geology right?” choogled the slavedriver: “care to explain this?” she said gesturing vaguely in a westward direction with her jagged stub of a horn.

Quartz followed the slavedriver over to were a few slaves had been digging, they now milled about looking as confused as their owners.

At the bottom of a newly dug exploratory pit which was filled with a few inch's of dark water, a single guard stood unmoving as a statue.

“Hey you down there!” shouted Quartz: “get up here before I get really mad!”. no reaction.

“okay, just what the buck happened here?” he said to the nearest slave.

The peevish slave swallowed before replying: “I just swung my pick, made a wee hole in the earth – and…and, all this cold black water started pouring out.”

“what happened to that guard” said Quartz, the slave replied: “He just kind of…stopped – like he was hypnotized or something.”

Quartz considered the guard in the damp pit, as used all of his substantial intellect to create a subtle, and masterful course of action.

“WAKE UP DIPSHIT!” shouted Quartz as he pitched a rock at the stationary guard.

The rock impacted the guard’s side, who shattered into pieces.

King Sombra’s eyes slowly opened, it was early evening by the look of the sun shining in the window, he felt cold despite the growing warmth of the day. King Sombra trotted from his bedchamber, leaving a trail of cold damp hoofprints along the way, he had recently developed a dislike for teleportation, and now considered walking a reasonable option.

He was on his way to the kitchens for a snack of some kind, while passing down another corridor he came face to face with flash sentry.

“Your grace” said Flash: “another one of your ma —“

“I know, I know, the apple is ripe” interrupted the passing monarch: “just make sure you get some-pony to bring her to me on your way to the kitchens.”

“K – K – K– k kitchens?” stuttered the guard.

“A place were food is prepared if you didn't know, they have plenty of grease traps to clean out I am sure, good luck” said the monarch as he departed.

A thought occurred to Sombra as he was trotting away.

“hey flash,” choogled king Sombra over his shoulder: “do my hooves look normal to you?”

“they look normal to me sire” said the guard formally.

Sombra gave no reply and continued his merry way down the hall, looking slightly concerned at the floor behind him for reasons flash didn't know.

Flash Sentry thought about those greasetraps, awful things, pits of decay and sin which had not been cleaned in all of Sombra’s reign

Flash mumbled to himself “A guard’s gotta do what a guard’s gotta do.”

Gilmore the griffon, and his compatriot Private Donut had been sent to retrieve the mare who had came into season. They had both tried to pass the task onto the other as they both knew handling a mare who was in heat would leave them with blue balls for the rest of their shifts.

They had debated rank, and had come to the conclusion that there was only two ranks in Sombra’s guard: ‘King Sombra’, and ‘everybody else’. Yes Donut was a private, and Gilmore had no named ranked, but Sombra had only dished out ranks based on how well they fit the persons name, it was largely a mystery if Donut outranked Gilmore or not.

The iconic duo arrived at the door to the cell, and Donut could smell the mares estrus from outside. The cell door swung in, reveling…an empty room.

“Huh?” said Gilmore as he peeked under the bed: “where is she?”.

“not inside this teapot” replied Donut, replacing the lid with a ceramic click.

“well…fuck” they both said in union.

Applejack washed the last of the dirt from her hooves in the water barrel, and considered her situation. No doubt the guards would find the tunnel she had used to escape, she had not constructed it, it had been there since the castle was built, it was not meant as an escape route, but rather a means for somebody to sneak in, and out of the room unseen. It didn’t lead out of the castle, but had instead took her to a forgotten wine cellar, ever other entrance to which had seemingly been sealed years ago.

She had had to dig a bit from there, but she was out now and that was what mattered. She would come back for her friends once she formulated a plan, but for the time being she needed a place to hide.

Applejack had made temporary refuge in a barely accessible gap between two buildings, which had opened up to a slightly larger space which had become something of a magnet for trash.

Applejack had been thankful for the trash, as amongst it she had found a…garment? that was just the opposite of revealing. Rough spun grey...wool?, and sufficiently large to cover her entire body more or less, including her mane, and cutie mark, and the pong of the thing would cover up the smell of her estrus. Perhaps it was an ancient artifact, a cloak of social invisibly, used by some secretive sect of homeless wizards.

The guards had brought her gruel while in captivity, but usually just the same few, that beige stallion who smelled of baked goods, or that snowy griffon that kept giving her weird bedroom eyes, applejack was never sure if he had wanted to fuck her, or eat her. Overall only a Couple of Sombra’s guard likely recognized her, her chances of being detected made even lower by the ugly garment she now wore.

It really was a masterfully hideous thing — amorphous — shapeless — eldritch even, she doubted even the most fashionably challenged Guard would want to look at her long enough for a positive identification. No wonder the Garment had been relegated to a trash heap, throwing this kind of thing into the garbage was just reintroducing it to its natural habitat.

Applejack had not gleaned much from the chattering of guards, looked in her gilded cage she had been as cut off from the current state of Equestria as a pony who had slept the changing of the world away like old Ripcord Van Winkle.

Applejack: midden scented master of disguise, decided to she what was happening on the ground with her own eyes. Venturing out of the small alley she seamlessly merged into the quite street.

Along her way she was shocked to she the fruits of Sombra’s work. As she passed the open mouth of an alley, she saw one of Sombra’s guards balls deep in a crying mare. She averted her gaze, and moved on as if she had seen nothing, the mares cries and the guard’s grunts of pleasure disappeared behind her. Of course she would have done something to stop if she could have, but right now she could do nothing.

In several places Applejack saw corpses hanging from ropes, on trees or over shop sighs, many ponies had spent their last moments dancing like puppets with one string. Whoever had put them there cared little for hygiene; ponies rotten beyond being recognized as anything more than homes for maggots, swung in the breeze alongside ponies which looked almost alive.

Applejack slowed as she recalled that both her brother Big Macintosh, and her cousin Breaburn had been captured, and unlike her and her friends, Sombra had no real use for them…

Applejack ducked into an alley and cried her heart out.

“and nobody saw her leave?” said king Sombra with surprising calm.

“No sire” replied Private Donut.

“well…fuck” exhaled the king. The basement that Sombra stood in must have been Sealed off from all access save for the panel they had discovered in Applejack’s cell. His mare had vanished, but the day was not all lost, he may have lost a breeding mare, but she had hardly been his favorite.

Life takes, and lives gives, you loose your mare, but you gain a wine cellar. Sombra’s had plans for Applejack, he still wore the painted on zebra stripes, and carried the banjo which he had intended to serenade the county mare with, dirt farming bumpkins loved the banjo and hated zebra’s, he had desires to juxtapose to two while he fucked her, but now he just felt stupid.

Applejack had given him blue balls without ever going near him.

“Do you want us to go find her” queried Private Donut.

“Of course I want you to fucking find her!” choogled Sombra back, up to his knees in cold water now.

Sombra needed a warm hole to fuck. he looked at Private donut’s retreating rear, then to his banjo, then back at Private Donut, then back to the banjo.

“Not in a million years” he said to himself, as he plucked a few notes pathetic bum-notes from his instrument.

The days passed uneventfully for Sombra, he had filed applejack’s escape into some part of the back of his mind, in matters of reproduction his thoughts were now firmly on waiting for the purple unicorn to come into season.

No matter how hard he tried his hooves remained damp and cold, leaving trials of wet marks wherever he went that nobody else could seemingly be convinced to notice.

Just as king Sombra was prepared for another night of cavorting as a spirit in the material world, there was a knock on his bedchamber door.

“enter” said the king as regally as he could with the weight of sleep baring down on him.

The door creaked open, and in its frame stood a black coated earth pony who Sombra recognized as Quartz Prospect, the pony whom he had placed in charged of finding – if the advisor was to be believed – the original king Sombra.

“Sire, we have found it.”

Applejack had found refuge in Canterlot with a pony she knew she could trust: Mrs Cake had happened to be in the city when Sombra took the reins of power, and ever since she had been worried to death about her husband in Ponyville.

She had not asked for anything from Applejack in return for sanctuary, but none the less Applejack was a country raised pony, and she felt obliged to help wherever she could, although the amount of tasks she could perform was limited by her need to avoid being seen, presently she was helping to roll out pastry for the production of hard tack, they had ingredients which could have forged any manor of food, but hard times called for hard foodstuffs.

“hey Applejack, would you mind getting some more water from the well?” said Mrs Cake.

Applejack didn’t mind the labor even at this late hour, but the minimal prospect of being caught on her way to the well troubled her slightly.

“And you simply must do something about this...garment” said Mrs Cake, gesturing with a hoof to the peg by the door which held the offending mass of fabric.

“I will put it one the washing line come morning if you wash it, but if it eats any of the other cloths there I am blaming you” said the plump blue mare.

Applejack noted that the current situation had done little to dampen Mrs cake spirit, maybe it was true what ponies said, maybe fat stored a supply of jolliness which could be fell back upon like that way it stored nutrients. Mrs cake was plumper than the average mare, although not close to being called a porker, and still attractive.

Perhaps it was some inner perseverance that kept Mrs Cake jovial, some essential spirit not born from experience, but innate to a being, like Rainbow Dash’s defiance, which Applejack had heard from the next cell over.

“how are you taking this so well?” asked Applejack, curious as to the source of Mrs cake’s optimism.

“mustn't grumble, I am sure princess Cadence will come with an army soon enough, and then everything will be back to normal” replied Mrs cake as if everything really was just fine.

Or maybe she had been backed into delusion from all the horror she had seen, thought Applejack, feeling slightly bad for having done so.

“I’ll be off to get that water then” said applejack as she made her way to the back door, leaving her hat on the hook as she slipped into the shapeless grey Garment.

The door closed gently behind the orange pony as she departed, and Mrs Cake was left to knead dough on her own.

There was a knock on the front door, Mrs Cake shook some of the flour from her hooves, and went to answer it. The door slowly swung open, and on the doorstep stood a snowy griffon.

Gilmore the griffon had not had any reason to choose this one house in particular, there had been little sigh of the orange mare to go on, so he had simply taken to searching houses at random, this one was going to be his last before he found a place to roost.

He was met at the door by a plump blue mare, who’s mouth dropped open as she saw him. Before she said a word Gilmore had pushed her into the house, and had pulled the door shut behind him with his tail.

“Hello, hello you wouldn't happen the be harboring any fugitives by any chance?” said Gilmore, he had used that line for every house he had visited, and he liked to think he had gotten rather got at reciting it.

“what? No I have nothing of the sort here, just me and my baked goods” said the blue mare hurriedly.

“Baked goods...” said Gilmore, his red eyes scanning the counter tops. “hard tack, pretty expensive if I recall” continued the griffon, crushing the piece of hard biscuit in his beak. As the crunch reverberated in his skull, it unearthed in his mind the phrase, ‘Polly want a cracker?’ the odd words seemingly being whispered into his ear by some ephemeral phantom which needed to shout to even be heard in this world. The whole sensation Gave the griffon a queer feeling, queer as in ‘strange’ not queer as in Quartz Prospect.

Gilmore stalked the perimeter of the room to take his mind off of whoever Polly was, all the while never taking his eyes off the blue mare, looking over her like a piece of meat in a butcher’s window. Gilmore liked the look of this mare, plenty of soft meat on her, and no doubt space for plenty of meat in her.

The griffon’s eyes were drawn away from those of the frightened mare, as an object of interest caught his vision. A hat was sitting on a hook by the door. Gilmore padded over and took the headpiece in claw, the slightly worn hat seemed familiar to him somehow, like a kind of thing he had paid only the most cursory of attention to, only for the need to recall precise details to be unexpectedly thrust upon him.

Gilmore held the had by its brim and turned it like the wheel of a ship, hoping it would guide him to a sudden realization of the objects significance which would make him feel quite the fool for not having divined its meaning sooner, but no sudden epiphany greeted the snowy griffon.

The hat’s appearance did nothing to inspire revelation in the avian, but there was a smell there, just the faint musky whiff of a mare in heat. He was sure of it. Griffon hens went into heat in much the same mare’s did, and the scent of mare’s estrus had similar, but lesser effects to a griffons arousal as that of a hen, Gilmore was very familiar with the musky scent.

“is this yours?” choogled the griffon in the direction of the plump mare, “doesn’t seem much like your style.”

The plump mare looked nervous “yes it’s mine, I wear it for gardening, and…stuff.”

The griffon took another sniff of the hat. “stuff?, it smells like you wore it while you were in season, that so some lucky stallion has extra grip?” said the snowy griffon.

The blue mare said nothing, but cast her head downward. Gilmore quickly padded closer until the blue mare’s rump pressed against the wall.

Gilmore raised her chin with his claw so that he could look her in the eyes, she had nice eyes. He stared for moment before he spoke.

“what is your name anyway?” choogled the griffon.

“Chiffon Swirl.” Said the plumb mare curtly, her eyes swinging away from the griffon’s in obvious fright. “but people call me ‘Mrs Cake’ - mostly.” Gilmore liked that name, ‘Chiffon’ a delicate fabric that look as good to touch as the mare who bore its name, and could be torn as easily in his claws.

“Well the cake needs a cherry on top” choogled the griffon. He gently placed the hat on top of Chiffon’s head, covering her pink mane.

“I was wrong” Said the griffon, “it does look good on you.” This comment made the mare blush a little. Gilmore wanted to put her at ease.

“Why was I here again?” said the griffon, “oh yes, harboring escaped prisoners.”

“No” quavered Chiffon, “none under this roof…Mr Griffon.”

“oh please Call me Gilmore” said the griffon. “gotta be sure of course.” The griffon Released Mrs cake, and in one swift motion tore the back door open.

Gilmore took a Brief patrol around the back yard, examining the well and the log pile, but he found no runaway mares, all the while pulling Chiffon Swirl behind him. The plump cerulean mare seemed mightily relived that he had found nothing more objectionable than an unkempt garden, but he still had a whole house to search, even if the effort was a mere formality at this point.

Gilmore dragged Mrs cake back through the kitchen, and onto the rest of the house. First was the den, which yielded no fugitives

After suitably brief examinations of both the bathroom, and the basement, the only place Gilmore had not searched was the bedroom. The door to the bedroom creaked open on rarely oiled hinges. Inside Gilmore found nothing more elicit than a bed, and a few other nighttime amenities.

Mrs Cake was greatly relieved that the griffon had found no sigh of Applejack. She could only assume the mare had seem him fly over, and she had thusly ran away or hid herself.

“Well, everything seems to be in order” concluded Gilmore. “well that’s it for my shift, time for bed.” With that the avian slid into the floral pattern linen sheets, a bird gliding gracefully into a field of embroidered flowers. Mrs Cake suspected that he wanted something more than sleep, and she would not have been sincere if she had said she was entirely unwilling to supply.

Gilmore did not seem so scary to Chiffon as he had when he came walking through the door, and he was by no means Unattractive, he had the grace of a predator, dangerous, and Cleary made to kill; there was a certain kind allure in that kind of creature.

“anything I can get you, before bed?” choogled Chiffon Swirl stiffly.

“I think I should enjoy some cake, I’ll add my own cream filling” replied the griffon smoothly.

Mrs Cakes hooves shuffled her inexorably toward the bed in tiny, beetle-like strides, while her face wore the expression of a mare drowning in the urge not to laugh her head off at how stupid Gimore’s invitation to sex sounded. Although she knew that was probably his intention. This griffon thought laughter was the best aphrodisiac, and Mrs cake had to admit he was onto something. She knew that he probably wouldn’t take no for an answer, and that she needed to keep him busy for Applejacks sake; none the less he was gradually kneading the dough of her apprehension into the sultry baguettes of desire.

The plump mare scooted onto the bed alongside the griffon until she was lying on her side facing him. For a while she just locked gaze with him, waiting for the avian to make to make the first move.

“these sheets” said the griffon, grabbing a claw full, “they are linen right?”

“Er…yeah” replied Mrs Cake, unsure of where he was going.

“linen” said Gilmore, “rough, bland, I much prefer Chiffon.”

Mrs cake felt herself smile a little bit at that, and she did not feel even the least bit uncomfortable as the griffon planted his claws about her sides and pulled her closer. She could feel his underbelly pressed against hers, a warm, slight tickly sensation as his feathers rubbed against her chest, and belly.

Chiffon felt a tugging sensation at the nape of her neck as the avian buried one claw in her mane and pulled her face closer to his. She parted her lips in expectation of a kiss, but Gilmore seemed more interested in nuzzling about her neck.

Mrs cake let out an elongated soft moan as the griffon took one of her ears in his beak and gave it a gentle suck, and a slight nibble. One of his paws slid down her soft underbelly leaving a trailed of ruffled fur, before coming to rest between her thighs. The sounds of Mrs cake’s pleasure grew sharper as the griffon rubbed the little pleasure button above her entrance.

Just as Chiffon felt that she was about to have a moment of extramarital bliss, the griffon stopped his ministrations at both her ends, and with a sudden blur of motion that made her head spin, Gilmore had flipped her onto her front and positioned himself behind. Her stimulated body reacted faster than her conscious mind, extending her knees to push her rump into the air, and raising her tail.

Chiffon’s delayed exclamation of surprise at the sudden rough treatment had scarcely left her lips before it melded with her gasp of pleasure as she felt the griffon push himself into her, her mareparts throbbed in delight at their sudden occupation. The griffon had slid inside with rough ease, and Chiffon only just realized how wet she had become.

She felt two claws grip the soft flesh of her cuties marks, and the griffon let out a satiated caw as he began to pump in and out of her with an increasing vigor. Mrs Cake felt a claw return to her mane, this time pushing her head down into the pillow, all the while Gilmore’s pace grew more savage, and his intonations more animistic, each sharp buck sending ripples across her plump ass.. Chiffon would have avoided being taken this way if she had been asked permission beforehand, but now that it was happening she began to realize how much she enjoyed an aggressive partner. For her to taken full control of, and thoroughly validated as mare that Stallion’s would abandon control and courtesy for. Being bred like an animal was giving her more pleasure than, any night of rose-scented gentleness, and she with the assistive action the griffon took her heart thumped faster. Maybe if her husband had been more like this his children would look like him.

The griffon was no less eager to express his enjoyment, over the maritime creaking of the bed and the wet slapping of his penis plunging in and out of her sex, the snowy bird cawed and Squawked with delight as he rutted her. Mr cake had liked to suppress his moans as he had thought that was a masculine way to behave, but Mrs knew now that she preferred to be fucked by somepony who was happy to express his pleasure as noisily as she did

Chiffon did not register how close she was to orgasm until she it was almost upon her, just a few more jabs of the griffon’s hips and she was pushed over the edge. Her vagina spasmed repeatedly against the cock inside it, and Chiffon buried face in the pillow as hot waves of carnal pleasure passed through her body, making her every muscle clench in time with the pulses of her orgasm. She screamed the pleasure into the pillow, her cry of ecstasy muffled, but still loud.

Gilmore grinned as the plump mare’s orgasm, proud of the loud Acknowledgment of his ability to make a mare cum. He was a ways behind her yet, but still every time his penis plunged into the pulsating warmth he could feel a pressure build in his belly. A milky pearlescent bead of his precum slid down the shaft of his cock and dripped off of his balls.

The griffon slipped out for a moment, the mare’s fluids which now glistened along the tapered length of his cock created a pleasant sensation as they begin to cool in the sex scented air of the bedroom, but his organ was not without accommodation for long. The blue mare gave a slight yelp as Gilmore flipped her onto her back, right in wet patch the had formed where she had been dripping.

Gilmore hissed blissfully as his once again buried himself in Mrs cake’s hot – dripping folds. He usually preferred to mate in the face to face position, most of the stallions who worked for Sombra liked to enjoy their Prey from behind, to push the victim’s face away and reduce them to nothing more that warm hole to empty their aching balls into: an impersonal act.

It was true that it was easier to make a mare orgasm from behind, and Whether Gilmore was taking a female by forced or with consent he liked to watch them orgasm, but he enjoyed it even more to look them in the face as they succumbed to orgasm, to watch the little twitches and trembles which were unique to each mare’s cum face. Looking into a mare’s eyes made it so much more intimate than treating somebody just as a warm hole and then a warm meal.

The sharp points of Gilmores agape beak pressed into each side to plump mare’s neck, and he could feel her racing heartbeat in the hard surface of his beak - an organ designed to rip out throats and tear bodies into bite size chucks. Chiffon’s eyes were closed in pleasure and she seemed only to register the deadly organ pressed against her neck as another caress.

The blue mare’s eyes half opened, as Gilmore removed his rostrum from her neck and introduced it to her lips. Her hooves gripped more firmed about Gilmore’s neck and shoulders as his slick tongue pushed against hers. The griffon took each of Mrs cake’s hooves in a paw and gently, but forcefully pushed them into the soft bed at each side of the mare’s head. All the while not parting from her lips.

Gilmore was close now and he could feel his orgasm crawl its way from his balls and further up his length every time he poked into Chiffon’s snatch. His tongue dominated hers in the arena of her mouth, the rough, but intimate treatment shortened the gaps between her groans of pleasure, Gilmore broke the kiss just as she came. Her rear legs clamped to the small of his back and her body writhed beneath him as her climax was announced by her mouth.

“Gi – Gil – AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” shouted Chiffon as she came.

The Spasms of her sex were sufficient to finally send Gilmore into paroxysms. He gritted his beak, and his plumage stood on end as his orgasm arrived. His penis twitched inside the Mare’s pussy as the griffon pumped several ropes of hot seed against her cervix, each one accompanied by a jolt of pleasure which made the avian chirp in ecstasy.

Gilmore stood over the blue mare for a moment as he regained his breath, before allowing himself to gently collapse onto her soft body. Gilmore looked into Chiffon’s eyes which to his surprise still look pretty even after he had nutted.

The kite-Andean griffon and the cerulean earth pony exchanged no words, and after a while the griffon rolled off of the mare onto his side. The sun had set outside and his work of searching for Fugitives was done for tonight, he would rest now.

Gilmore wrapped his arms about Mrs cake and pulled her warm body close to him, so that his head rested in the crook of her neck. She was as snuggleable as she was fuckable, and Realizing that Gilmore brought his wings in to assist his arms – Mrs cake was a Compact pony, and Gilmore was a big bird so the embrace effectively left her cocooned in a snowball of white feathers.

“what a lovely bird.” Thought Mrs cake as she began to drift into sleep. “I wonder how Applejack is doing.”

Applejack had seen the griffon drifting in slow circles above as she had been about to start working the pump of the well. She had read in a book that a griffon’s sight was excellent, but that they tended to ignore stationary objects. that old book may have been her salvation, as she had stopped herself a moment before breaking into a run when she recalled the writing. Maybe books had more use than hanging in the outhouse after all, after all that one might have prevented her from...hanging in the outhouse.

She had sneaked away slowly once she had seen the griffon land at the other side of the house – she had heard his name at some point...Giuseppe?...Griggs?...Gilium?. She tried not to think about what horrors the beast was inflicting Mrs Cake, Applejack might have cried for her, but she had used up her entire allotment of country tears in that alley. Maybe the griffon just searched her house and left if Mrs Cake was lucky, but more likely the griffon had torn out her throat, as soon as he was done with her, griffons really were no better than zebras.

Applejack drew herself deeper into the shapeless mouldy abyss dimension of the Garment. This was not over, she would come back – for her friends – for her country – and for her hat. Life on an apple farm had taught her to never stopped fighting, and she never would.

King Sombra sat on his haunches once again in darkness and cold, but only that of the empty throne room at night. He stared at what he had been made to search for all this time. He had made himself a crown the day he had decided to sire heirs, and had used the elements of harmony to do so, he had melted their metal and craft them into a jeweled coronet. It was lumpen and crooked, for he would have no one else make a crown for him, and his was no craftspony.

He placed the crown onto the seat of the throne. And held the other one...was this all that the advisor had meant by the first King Sombra? The grey stallion’s crown had been of both silver and gold, and even for it’s lack of form, it spoke of wealth and power. The crown of the first King Sombra could not have been its kin. An unadorned black circle of a metal so dark it cold have been a hole in the world, its only jewel a tiny green star of a jewel. no matter how long Sombra held it it did not warm to his touch, it just ate the heat of his hooves. A circle of ice as cold as the gulf between stars, and to Sombra’s mind it belonged in a place so unwelcoming and distance.

Kind Sombra held the crown above his head and felt the cold dampness which had reached above his knees climb faster to reach it. It was inches from his head when he stopped. The throne room was not so empty as before. The king’s coronation had gained an audience.

It was perhaps the only time the crowning of a king was attended only by other kings. They were of many species, griffons – ponies – dragons – a yak, at some point a beast of every paw had feather had done the same as Sombra as about to. None so recent as to have been known in anything by legend.

For the variety one would have expected for such a crowd, they where all united in darkness. Here a once colorful Pegasus stared with mily eyes, his coat soaked in dark water which had washed all life from him. There, a dragon sat like a whale carcass at the body of the sea.

Sombra trotted over to greet his subjects...no, his predecessors.

“Who were you?” he asked the Pegasus.

The Pegasus did not move, but spoke in a voice creaking with the weight of time.

“I was...a king...I rule the kingdom of...the Pegasus...death of unicorns...I rule...I rule...I will rule – the empire of...the Pegasus...my advisor told me...rule...rule...crown.” The soggy little king trailed of into meaningless fragments.

“What was you name” asked Sombra Slowly and clearly as if to be heard across millennia.

“Som...Somb...I am the king...” the voice of the Pegasus little more the ripples in the water of sea of time.

Sombra tried another, the dragon this time. “And just who are you?”

the dragon’s voice was deeper in pitch than the pegasus king but not less deep in its quality of being of the some dark abyss.

“you will kneel to me pony...for I am king...ki...Sombra, eternal ruler of the dragon lands...who are these people? Why can my flame not warmth this cold...why can my fire not dispelled the dark...what is this place?” the dragon spoke more clearly than the Pegasus but with no more meaning.

“I see...” whispered the grey stallion to himself. These kings might have been proud and perhaps he would be seen as such by the next to wear the crown of shadows. Or maybe not.

The crown stuck the tiled flood with a loud metallic clang, the echos of which caused the past king Sombras to dissipate like cobwebs in the wind. And then there was one. The throne room doors slammed behind him, and there was none.

The darkness poured out of crown like water, It wanted a warm body, but it could make do without.