Chapters King Sombra smiled as he relaxed in his throne, the Crystal Empire once again under his command. Screams and pleas for mercy echoed up from the city below, where his enslaved guards were putting the pathetic ponies of the city back in their rightful place.
Under his hoof.
He would have the populace back in the mines by the end of the week, even with the time he planned to take to solidify his control over all Equestria. He had special plans for that damnable whelp and his caretakers, and the Princesses who had banished him the first time.
Speaking of Princesses….
“I should thank you for keeping the place clean during my absence,” he noted, looking down at the royal family chained at the base of his throne. All three glared up at him through iron muzzles, even the infant. Sombra chuckled deeply to himself, licking his lips and the sharp, batlike fangs that marked his sinister nature.
“Of course, I can hardly approve of how you’ve handled the rabble. It’s dangerous to let them start thinking, you know. So much more manageable when they know who their betters are and what will happen if they disobey them.” He stood from his throne, walking down the stairs and circling the trio, looking them over with a predator’s gaze on Cadance’s flanks. He raised a hoof, touching the crystal heart on her thigh and tracing around it.
“You have no idea who you are, do you, Princess? Perhaps I should show you.”
There was barely a rattle of chains before Shining Armor lunged, telekinetically snapping the chain binding him to Cadance with his horn aimed squarely at the tyrant’s throat. Sombra didn’t even move, his own horn merely blazing with red and green light as he picked the prince up by the head and slung him across the room like a rag doll. Cadance and Flurry both screamed into their muzzles. Sombra sneered at Shining Armor, dragging him back over through the air.
“Foalish colt - don’t you remember the last time we fought? I took your magic with no effort; this time, I’ll take your-” He was cut off as Cadance reared up, slamming her hind hooves into Sombra’s jaw, sending blood and teeth to clatter against the opposite wall. The guard standing next to the captured royals turned, lowering its spear towards the elder Princess.
“Enough!” Sombra snarled through blood-soaked teeth and blasted each of the adult royals with his magic, slamming them into the floor. He put a hoof on the back of Shining Armor’s neck, digging the tip of his steel-shod hoof into the gap between two vertebrae. “One more outburtht and he dieth!” Cadance turned her head, looking pleadingly at her husband as she ceased struggling against Sombra’s superior power.
Sombra wrinkled his nose at the new lisp he’d been gifted, and cast a quick healing spell to undo the harm, quartz-like teeth regrowing to replace the ones kicked out by the alicorn.
“Guards, take the Prince and his spawn to the dungeons,” Sombra growled, picking both the alicorn toddler and her father up in his magic and chaining them together again. This time, he also blasted both of their horns with his magic, black crystals growing along the spiral spires and locking away their magical abilities. “I have business with this insolent wretch.”
Shining struggled against Sombra’s grip, but Cadance shook her head, indicating Flurry Heart with her own horn and eyes. Reluctantly, the unicorn stopped fighting, stepping close to his daughter as they were put on the ground for the guards to escort out of the throne room.
The doors behind them closed with a deafening slam, leaving Sombra and Cadance alone, in silence, at the base of the throne they had each once called their own.
“I underestimated you, Princess,” Sombra admitted, keeping himself outside of easy striking range as he circled her like a timberwolf circling an injured fawn. “I suppose that cursed Luna taught you to fight. It certainly couldn’t have been your mother; she never would have dirtied her hooves with an enemy’s blood. I’ll make a deal with you. If you behave like an adult, I won’t have my guards make your daughter watch tomorrow as her father is executed for assaulting the King. If you meet my demands… I may even excuse his conduct, and spare his pathetic life.”
Cadance’s head shifted as she swallowed hard, then nodded. Sombra released the pressure on her back, and undid the muzzle keeping her from speaking. Cadance stood, working her jaw and watching the conqueror warily.
“Celestia isn’t my mother, and she won’t be too proud to beat your sorry flank back to Tartarus where it belongs.”
“Oh, I wasn’t talking about Celestia either. I meant your real mother.” Sombra chuckled at Cadance’s confused expression.
“You really don’t know, do you? Ah, they haven’t changed, have they? Over a thousand years, and still Celestia and Luna prefer to keep their secrets. I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose.”
“I’m not any thousand years old,” Cadance frowned, circling to keep Sombra in sight. “You didn’t know my mother.”
“Don’t I? You really don’t know what you are! You have the heart on your flank , and you still don’t get it!” The coal-black stallion laughed, his entire body shaking with mirth.
"The Crystal Heart only responds to the Empress of the Crystal Empire, Princess. The Empress, or her line. That meant that despite my claim to the throne, my conquest, my power, I could not control the Crystal Heart. Only Empress Amore could. Empress Amore, or her child. As you might imagine, she was… less than willing to assist me."
Cadance looked back at her cutie mark, starting to put together what he'd told her with what she remembered from her childhood.
Her parents, her real parents, had never been one of those memories.
"So you started hunting down her descendants," she guessed. Sombra laughed again, shaking his head and reaching up to stroke Cadance's chin. She jerked her head away, fighting the urge to snap at him.
For Shining and Flurry, she reminded herself.
"She had no descendants, nor any nieces or nephews - Amore was the sole heir, and last of her line. At the time I conquered the Empire, at least."
Cadance’s eyes widened as the rest of the pieces started falling into place, but Sombra just continued speaking, conjuring a puppet show of crystal to play out the melodrama.
"I intended to raise the foal as my heir, my malevolent little bundle of joy," he moaned theatrically, an obsidian unicorn teaching a rose-quartz pegasus something from a book, presumably of dark magic.
"But instead, the Queen conspired with the midwife to keep the birth a secret. When I heard what was going on, I reached her chambers just in time to see her cast our foal into time." A ruby unicorn and a smaller emerald one glowed with magic, and the pegasus disappeared. The black unicorn reared up, and with a flash of light the rubies and emeralds shattered, falling to the floor as dust.
"I was preparing to find our foal when those alicorns arrived from Equestria," he muttered with disgust. "They attacked with their precious Elements, and all I could do was throw the Empire into the aether with me, until my daughter had emerged whenever the Queen had sent her. Of course, it didn't work quite as planned." He snorted, sweeping away the crystals and turning back towards Cadance.
"You said 'our foal,'" she observed cautiously.
"What, do you think I'd trust control of the Crystal Heart to the child of some pathetic guard?"
He moved in close to her, whispering into her ear.
"Now, will you do what I need, or will it be my granddaughter?"
"Stay away from my family," Cadance growled, her horn blazing to life and wings springing wide open, pushing him away from her.
"That's the spirit I'd expect in my daughter!" He grinned wickedly at her, dropping down into a defensive stance.
"You might be my sire, but I am not your daughter!" Cadance fired a magical blast at Sombra, who dodged effortlessly.
"You may be right; no daughter of mine would fight so poorly."
Cadance heard something snap off to the side near the wall, and turned to see what it was just in time for two bloody teeth to hit her face, a third striking her eye and sending her reeling, shaking her head and trying to clear her vision.
"A pity you were born a pegasus," Sombra mused, picking her up in his magic. "You keep forgetting everything you're capable of."
He focused his grip, muting Cadance's heartbeat, slowing her blood to a crawl as she started uselessly gasping for air.
"Of course, most unicorns don't even bother, so I can't be too surprised. Don't worry, I'll make sure my granddaughter is properly trained."
“Over… my… dead… body!” Cadance focused her magic, releasing Twilight’s failsafe spell and gasping as she felt like she could breathe again, dropping to the ground and following up immediately by grabbing Sombra and slamming him against each wall of the throne room, rattling the crystal walls. She took a moment to line him up with the window, ready to let gravity finish the battle, when he twisted around to face her, his eyes glowing with dark magic.
Flurry Heart screamed as she watched her father’s body being pierced with spears by the guards he’d trained himself. He fought not to cry out, but as the blades were twisted and ripped from his body, carrying organs with them, his stoicism gave way to agonized screams. Cadence watched, bound in place, crystal spikes driven through her limbs to keep her from turning away, not even able to blink thanks to her eyelids having been cut away.
Flurry sobbed as her father gasped his last, turning into the comforting grasp of Sombra, who smiled sadistically over her at his daughter, stroking Flurry’s mane gently.
"You know what she is capable of," Sombra crooned as he limped around Cadance. "What she could accomplish without your pathetic morals, without love and compassion holding her back."
The alicorn toddler was older now, clad in black armor and one of her grandfather’s mind-control helmets as she stormed Canterlot with an army of crystal ponies, stripping the flesh from the bones of the Pillars with her magical blasts. Sunburst tried to break through to her, and was ripped apart from within for his troubles, his remains flung into Starlight’s face before the unicorn was crushed beneath the rubble of the Friendship School. Twilight, Celestia, and Luna flew towards the born alicorn, only for Sombra to reveal his presence by impaling the two elder unicorns on crystal spires rising from the ground.
"And you know that you cannot stop me from unleashing her full potential upon Equestria, if I decide to do so."
Flurry scowled as Twilight called out to her - and the Princess of Friendship screamed as her body froze from the inside out, her friends showered with shattered pieces of their leader just before Flurry annihilated them for Sombra’s approval and amusement. Cadance only trembled, in vision and reality, tears streaming down her face as Sombra made her worst fears come to life in front of her.
"I'm not an unreasonable stallion, dear Cadance. Everything you're seeing? That only happens if you force my hoof. All I ask is what is mine by right!"
The Crystal Heart blazed with black and emerald light, its power growing greater by the day as Flurry fed it with the pain and misery of nations, leaving all Equestria, all the world a frozen wasteland of death and hatred, only the Imperial City hospitable to anything besides the windigoes. There, Sombra and Flurry ruled over paradise, their subjects working themselves to death building ever greater monuments to the glory of Sombra.
"Give me another option, and you have my word that none of this shall come to pass."
"I- all right," Cadance whispered. "I'll control the Heart for you."
Sombra sneered at her, licking the tears from her cheek.
"You think me a foal? No, daughter, you are beyond my faith. Even your firstborn, I admit, might prove a threat to me. It would be such a shame to have to kill you both for treason."
He strode behind her, summoning his magic and casting a spell. Cadance gasped as she felt it sinking into her, Sombra’s dark magic slithering through her haunches, settling into her womb, stoking her libido to raging heat.
"I will need a new heir. One who hasn't been tainted by Equestrian weakness. One with the steel to lead, to command - and to obey."
Cadance flagged her tail, instinct overwhelming the sickness in her stomach as she felt Sombra - her sire - mount her from behind, his breeding spire dropping from his sheath and sliding between their bodies.
"Give me another child, and I will leave you and your weakling husband to raise your bastard in peace. Refuse me, or do what your mother did…."
She felt a hot, slick drop of pre land at the base of her tail as he remembered what he'd done to Queen Amore.
Cadance didn't particularly care to learn anything more about her alleged parentage.
"Just leave my family alone," she begged quietly.
"As long as you remember this foal is mine ," he growled. He shifted, plunging himself into Cadance's magically readied body.
The princess drew in a sharp breath, biting her lip to deny Sombra the satisfaction of knowing how badly her body ached to be filled thanks to his spell. She squeezed down around him, putting her considerable bedroom skills to work satisfying the dictator.
That he claimed to be her sire was something she tried her best to ignore.
Sombra bit at the base of Cadance's wing, forcing a cry of pain and pleasure out of her as he started thrusting into her with all the strength of his reborn body.
Does your precious Captain fuck you like this, Princess? His lips curled as the scent of sex and shame filled the throne room. Let’s see if your second foal is an alicorn as well!
He imagined Cadance heavy with foal, his foal, her belly and teats swollen at his bedside. This time, he would make sure he wasn't betrayed, that he didn't lose another weapon to the whore wrapped around his cock.
Cadance drew him deeper into her sopping cunt, squeezing down as he pulled out and relaxing when he drove himself in to the hilt. Tightening her muscles, she practically rippled herself along his length, dropping her chest to the floor to like a cat, curving her walls to make herself tighter around him. She whined as he twisted at her wing painfully, reaching back with her magic to fondle his balls, hoping he'd respond to her tricks.
I'm so sorry, Shiny!
Sombra snarled around bone and feather as he felt her grip on his hefty orbs. They tightened up against his body, pulsing as centuries of scheming and planning poured into her. He squeezed his eyes shut, casting one last spell to ensure his plan would work.
Cadance shuddered as her magically created heat was extinguished by the splatter of seed in her body. She shifted her telekinesis, using it to seal his seed into her womb, wanting it to be over as soon as possible.
"Good girl," Sombra chuckled, pulling out of her and wiping himself off in her flank. "Remember what happens if you betray me."
He walked up along her side, nipping her ear.
"And that I'm much more creative than your darkest nightmares."
Cadance shivered, tucking her tail under herself tightly as the door opened to admit some of Sombra’s mind-controlled guards. Fortunately, they didn't seem to notice the stench of sex in the room.
"Train approaching along the Central Equestrian route, your Majesty," the sapphire-colored pegasus guard announced emotionlessly. Star Sapphire, she believed his name way.
She hoped he wouldn't be hurt in any battle.
"Excellent. I wondered how long it would take for them to respond. Thank you so much for inviting them, dear." He replaced Cadance’s muzzle, zapping her horn to seal her magic safely away.
"Take her to her family," he commanded. "When my guests arrive, have them all brought to my chambers, so they can witness my victory."
As she was led away, he chuckled and went up to his throne, taking a seat and relaxing there.
He loved it when everything went according to plan.
Author's Note
Originally, this was the meat of the story - and if you don't want to see things get a lot darker, you may want to stop here, maybe after Chapter 2.
And yes, I realize I'm saying that after Sombra forces himself on his daughter to impregnate her with his grand/child to control the Crystal Heart. The parts that follow carried through with Sombra's plan, and he's a sick jagoff.
Nimbus Burst took a deep breath as he slipped out onto the balcony of his rooms at the Crystal Empire. The dusky pink pegasus shook his black mane out, enjoying the feel of the wind through his fur and feathers. From the railing, he looked around, checking the neighboring balconies and windows for any signs that guards were watching the walls of the castle. Seeing that the coast was clear, he hopped up and flared his wings, dropping off the balcony to build up speed. He dove for a few floors, then tipped his wings and circled upwards, catching a thermal near the kitchens to carry him up to the balcony three floors higher. He touched down quietly, flapping his wings to avoid making any noise as his hooves contacted the crystal floor.
“Hey,” Flurry Heart smiled out at him from her bed. “I had a feeling you’d come up here.”
The teenaged alicorn’s horn glowed, and she flipped back her blankets, stretching out languidly on her bed. Her half-brother held a wingtip to his lip to shush her, slipping into her room and closing the windows behind him.
“Can you blame me?” Nimibus asked her, sliding into the bed next to her, slipping between her forelegs as she laid the blankets back over them.
“Mom and Dad would be so pissed if they knew,” Flurry teased him. “Especially with the Duchess of Maretonia and her daughter arriving for their visit tomorrow?”
Nimbus snorted, nuzzling his half-sister’s neck and inhaling the crisp scent of her manewash.
“The Marquessa can stay home, for all I care. You’re lucky you’re the Princess; Mom’s willing to let you find somepony for yourself.” He sighed as Flurry wrapped him in her wings.
“You already know she won’t approve of the pony I found,” Flurry pointed out, kissing his muzzle lightly. He was younger than her, but had inherited his mother’s stature, leaving the two ponies the same size despite Flurry’s alicorn status.
“So tell your Dad first,” Nimbus murmured as he kissed her back. “He won’t have any problems thinking I’m not family.”
“Nimbus! Don’t do this to yourself!” Flurry scowled at him. “They don’t hate you, it’s just… it’s complicated, especially for them. And they don’t bring it up that often.”
“They don’t have to. I just wish… I wish they’d see me, instead of him. Maybe then they wouldn’t want to get rid of me so bad.”
“I won’t let them,” Flurry promised him. “I’ve already been talking to some of the staff about it… they don’t all think that you’re just His foal. Some of them even like you!” She smiled, nuzzling his neck gently.
“Hopefully just not as much as I do,” she murmured into his soft throat-fur.
“Mmm… and how much is that?” He tipped his head back, exposing his throat to her tender nips and licks.
“Roll over and I’ll sh-ow!” Flurry yelped as she pricked a hoof on something hidden in Nimbus’ wing. “Nimbus! Seriously, are you still carrying those stupid things!”
The dark-furred pegasus cringed, fluffing out his wing and dropping a concealed blade, shifting his weight to drop one from his other wing as well.
“I don’t have magic if somepony tries something, Sis. You might have found the staff that like me, but a lot of crystal ponies know damned well who sired me and have a couple centuries of hard feelings against him to work out on *somepony*.”
Flurry picked up the two in her magic and teleported them away with a sigh.
“Nopony’s going to try anything, Nimbus. Even if they would outside, they wouldn’t do it here . You know they’d never get past me; I'd do anything to keep you safe. Now… where were we?”
“I think you were about to show me how much you like me?” He asked as he rolled onto his back.
“Mm-mm - other way on top, lover,” Flurry grinned, licking her lips. Nimbus did as he was told, splaying his wings out
He let himself relax as Flurry started preening his wings, her lips and teeth tugging feathers into alignment, pulling loose ones free to be cleaned up in the morning. She massaged his back with her hooves, standing over him and working out the tension that years of being “Sombra’s bastard” before “Prince of the Crystal Empire” put into him. She loved the little squeaks and moans he made as she worked him over, finding the knots and easing them out of his muscles, the way he squirmed under her hooves and gradually relaxed into a happy puddle of teenaged pony.
The way he tensed up afterwards, when she reached down with her magic to give his sheath and balls a light squeeze, was particularly delicious.
“Mmm… is this for me?” She crooned into his ear, gently playing with his sheath to coax his mottled black shaft into the open. “Naughty colt, getting so hard for your big sis!”
“Half-sis,” Nimbus mumbled lazily, tucking his wings in and rolling onto his back beneath her. “Not really any worse than if we were cousins, remember?” He wrapped his forehooves around her neck, pulling her down to kiss her tenderly.
“Mhm… I swear, I think Uncle Sunburst wanted us to hook up when he gave us that lesson.” Flurry giggled, kissing Nimbus on the nose and rubbing her hindquarters against his stiffening cock. “Fortunately, I have that handy little spell Mom taught me, so….” Her horn glowed as she cast a spell that made her brother’s sack glow briefly, then slid down his body to lick and nuzzle at his member. "We don't need to worry about it anyway!"
Flurry slid a hoof under Nimbus' shaft, lifting the flared tip so she could take it into her mouth with a satisfied 'hmm. The teenaged colt wrapped his pattern around her horn, letting the bobbing motions of her head turn the blowjob into a hornjob for her.
She looked up at her half-brother with opal eyes, meeting his stormy grey ones and hoping he could see how much she cared. She barely remembered the months after Sombra’s brief return, just a vague impression of worry, that her parents were hurting, that something had gone terribly wrong. The first time she'd heard them fight was when Nimbus was on the way.
What she remembered most, though, was just being looking forward to having another foal in the family. She'd loved Nimbus from the moment she met him, and while what that meant had changed over the years, it had never stopped.
She just never would have thought about swallowing his cock until the last year or two, not that she regretted it in the least! It would just have been nice if he realized she cared more than just to use him to scratch an itch, so she tried to put all of that into her eyes as she bobbed up and down his cock, watching his face screw up in pleasure.
Nimbus bit back a groan, not sure if guards would be passing outside, or if they'd do anything if they heard him. He was pretty sure most of them had an idea what was going on, but were too polite to say anything.
Not that it should matter; if his mother or Shining Armor did disapprove, it would be rank hypocrisy considering what he'd caught 'Auntie Twilight' doing on a few visits. If they had anything to say about it, he always had that to throw in their faces.
Not that he'd have to worry about it much longer.
He ran a hoof through Flurry's mane, pulling her up off of his cock and kissing her hungrily. Her wings flared out as he took control, wrapping a hoof around to grope at her flanks and pushing her back, using his own wings to press up and start tipping her.
Flurry laughed as he pushed her into a roll, turning herself to pull him down on top of her.
"Feel like taking charge tonight?" She grinned up at him, blowing her bangs up out of her eyes.
"You willing to let me?" Nimbus pressed himself against her slick vulva, sliding himself up and down as her clip winked out to kiss the underside of his member.
"Take me, Prince Nimbus," Flurry murmured, leaning up to kiss him and hooking her hind hooves around his legs.
Nimbus didn't need to be told twice. He sank himself into his half-sister’s wet, waiting folds, each swallowing the other's moans as their bodies molded to each other like they were made for each other. He held still for a moment, adjusting to the intensity of Flurry’s body clinging to his, the warmth of her body pressed so close their fur blended together. When he started to thrust, it was with slow, powerful movements of his hips, taking his time to avoid blowing his load too quickly.
"Give me a tug," he told Flurry. "Want to come together tonight."
The alicorn's horn glowed a pale blue, a matching aura pulling the pegasus' twitching balls down a little as he started thrusting faster, letting his instincts take hold. He wrapped his lips around Flurry’s horn, smirking as she gasped at the sensation of his tongue tracing the groove running up its spiraled length.
"Oh buck me," Flurry moaned throatily. Her horn was longer and sharper than most unicorns her age, but it was also more sensitive. She craned her neck so her brother could fuck her on both ends at once, the lanky pegasus stretching out to do just that, gagging slightly when the tip poked at his tonsils.
His hips tensed, his balls trying to pull up and empty themselves into his sibling's hungry pushy. Instead, thanks to her magical grip, he was held on the edge of orgasm, pleasure blending with pain as his body ached to cum. He started thrusting faster, shifting his hips to slide along her clip with each thrust, suckling harder at her horn as it sputtered and flickered in his mouth. He pulled back as Flurry cried out, her horn gushing magical energy, a few of them sizzling in his mouth as her grip came undone and his own delayed orgasm spilled into her womb, a low groan rumbling up from his chest through closed lips.
Flurry flopped back onto the bed as her orgasm passed, and Nimbus snuggled up in her hooves, nestling in against her body.
"Love you, baby brother," she murmured tiredly, closing her eyes and quickly falling asleep, utterly spent.
Author's Note
Aww, isn't that sweet?
Too bad Nimbus is a bastard in more ways than one.
Reminder that chapter 3 takes a sharp left turn into not-so-nice, so take note of those content warnings.
Nimbus lay in his half-sister’s legs for minutes, his mouth tingling with the power of her magic while he waited for her to settle fully into sleep. Once she started breathing steadily, her heart slowing ever so slightly, he pulled out of her legs and moved to her dresser.
He pulled the top drawer open with a wing, and then locked the inside of his mouth collecting sparks of potent blue magic onto his tongue and touching it to the lock on the jewelry box inside.
The tumblers on the lock shifted and turned into place, then the box popped open, revealing Flurry's tiara, other particularly precious trinkets of hers - and his wing knives, teleported inside when he'd 'accidentally' let her find them.
Tucking the blades back into his wings, he closed the box and drawer. He turned around, smiling as he watched Flurry sleeping.
"You'd do anything to keep me safe, wouldn't you, Sis? So sweet of you. I'm going to hold you to that."
He walked past her with no worry that she'd wake up. One thing he'd learned about her since they'd started sleeping together, when she got off from hornplay she was dead to the world until morning. Like her penchant for hiding his blades in her jewelry box, he was counting on it.
It was a shame, really. With her power, if he could count on her, they'd have Equestria well in hoof. But he would have to be able to count on her.
He'd long ago learned not to do that.
He slipped out through the main door, glancing to see if any guards were outside first. Seeing the way was clear, he flew up to the ceiling, moving from tapestry to wall sconce to support beam to painting, navigating the castle he'd grown up in. He spotted the occasional patrol, but as always, they never bothered to look up unless their attention was drawn there.
Finally, he reached the door to the Royal Chambers. This was the part that would try his patience. He sat, perched above a support beam outside his mother’s chambers, waiting for a patrol to come through. Fifteen minutes… half an hour… forty five minutes… multiple patrols passed through, but none of them opened the door to the chambers.
Then, after an hour, they finally opened the huge double doors, one of the guards stepping inside for a cursory check. Nimbus walked along the ceiling, slipping into the room while using his innate pegasus magic to cling to the minute amounts of water vapor clinging to the cold surface of the castle.
“...the Prince seems to be absent from his chambers, your Highness. We’ve sent a stallion down to the servant’s quarters, and another out to the Carnal Carnelian to see if he’s there.”
“So you’ll find out in about fifteen minutes that he’s not in the servant’s quarters,” Shining Armor yawned, “and in the morning, after a very thorough ‘search,’ that he probably isn’t out paying for company either, while he turns up back in his bedroom. As usual.”
Hmm. So they weren’t entirely ignorant after all. Just incompetent. A slight improvement.
“Actually, Lieutenant Sentry was expecting this would happen, with the Duchess bringing her daughter up tomorrow, so he volunteered to take watch in the Prince’s chambers and have a talk with him when he returned.”
Nimbus smirked and nodded approvingly. On the one hoof, this meant that he would be expected, and observed, returning to his chambers. On the other, Flash Sentry was one of the guards he most suspected was aware of the… arrangement… between he and Flurry Heart. Which meant he would be expected by a sympathetic audience that wouldn’t want to ask too many questions, for fear of confirming those suspicions.
Perfect.
“Good. If he has a pony he’s actually in love with, we’ll back off of him, but we can’t do anything if he won’t talk to us.”
Oh, we’ll have a talk, Shining. Don’t worry.
“We’ll resume the patrol, your Highness, but you did say you wanted to know if we found him missing again.”
“I appreciate it, Sergeant Quartz. Have a quiet patrol.”
“Thank you, your Highness.” The sergeant saluted his prince, then turned to leave, closing the door behind him.
Leaving Nimbus and his parents all alone in the royal suite.
Nimbus dropped from the ceiling, plunging towards Shining Armor and plunging one of his wing-knives into the base of the unicorn’s neck, paralyzing him from the neck down. Shining tried to shout for help, but a hoof on his muzzle muffled the noise. Nimbus slipped his second knife into his wing-grip, raised it high above the former Captain’s head, and brought it down point first.
Cadence stirred in her bed as she heard something going on in the other room. Realizing that she was alone in bed, she yawned and rolled up to her hooves, looking around for her husband.
“Shiny? Where are you?” She waited for a response, for the noise that woke her to be repeated, anything. Instead, all she got back was silence.
Too much of it.
The door to their bathroom was open, and the lights off, so Shining Armor wasn’t in there. She couldn’t hear him moving around in the other room, or talking to one of the guards. Her horn glowed as she stepped off the bed carefully, illuminating the ground ahead of her as she started to step out into the main room.
Her breath hitched as her purple aura caught the edge of a spreading pool of blood. She cast a spell to illuminate the entire room, gasping as she saw Shining Armor laying on the floor, his body twitching uselessly with a knife buried into the base of his horn, his eyes looking up at Cadance pleadingly as he tried to say something.
She was just starting to realize he was saying ‘watch out’ when a powerful pair of forelegs wrapped around her from behind, a knife pressed to her throat as she felt a pony’s weight landing on her back.
“He’s trying to say ‘watch out, he’s behind you,’” Nimbus rumbled as he pressed the sharp blade against his mother’s neck, drawing a thin line of blood. Her pulse was racing, throbbing beneath the edge, her entire body tensed as adrenaline flooded her system.
“Sorry to wake you up so rudely, mother, but I needed to talk to you about something,” Nimbus explained. “Specifically, the little issue of the Crystal Heart. End your connection to it, or you get to watch me take Shining Armor apart before you die.”
“Nimbus, you-” Cadence stopped talking as her son moved the blade up to her eyes, holding the point against one of her eyelids.
“Now, Mother.”
Her horn glowed as Cadance cast the spell, relinquishing control of the Heart to her heirs.
One of whom was asleep… and one of whom was ready to torture her husband to death and murder her in order to get that control.
“Good girl,” Nimbus crooned. “Now, go ahead and lay down next to Shining.” The blade was still just above her eye, ready to plunge into her brain in an instant if she tried anything.
“Why are you doing this, Nimbus?” Cadence whispered, doing as her bastard son ordered her. “Do you really want the Empire so badly?”
“Partly,” he admitted. “But it’s more than just that. Flurry would be happy to have me rule alongside her. More than happy,” he chuckled deep in his chest. “I keep my promises though.”
“What prom- NO!” Cadance screamed as Nimbus moved one of the hooves around her neck, stomping it down on the pommel of the blade trapped at the base of Shining’s horn. The unicorn twitched as the blade slipped through the soft base of his horn into his brain, his eyes rolling back in his head as a light wiggle of the hoof on the knife sent the blade slashing through soft grey matter, destroying everything that had made Cadance’s husband the pony she’d fallen in love with. He started gurgling helplessly as he lost control over all his body’s functions, lungs and heart spasming helplessly as blood leaked from his nostrils.
“I promised that I’d make you regret betraying me,” Nimbus pointed out with a smile, starting to slide the tip of his blade into Cadance’s eye along the bridge of her muzzle, scraping the tip along the orbital bone as the pressure in her head became unbearable.
Just before he sank the slender blade into her brain, as hooves beat towards the heavy double doors outside, he whispered up into her ear.
“Just know that your Daddy is so, so proud of what a bitch you grew up to be.”
With that, Nimbus sank the blade into her skull, twisting it to destroy her eye and the frontal lobes of her brain. He leaped off of them, running out onto the balcony and taking off, soaring around the castle as he left the Prince and Princess of the Crystal Empire dying on the floor of their own chambers, with their son’s knives buried in their skulls. He hadn’t even gotten his hooves bloody in the process.
Which was going to make it so, so much harder for Flurry to explain why his knives were the ones that had killed them, when she had locked them up in her jewelry box herself not even hours before. With her inevitable exile, he would be King of the Crystal Empire again, and this time with control of the Heart all to himself.
Nimbus smiled to himself, an expression that would horrify any crystal pony who saw it, and would recognize it from centuries before, in another body. He slipped back into Flurry’s chambers through the balcony, climbing into bed with her to be found when the guards arrived to announce the tragedy.
Flurry wrapped her hooves around him, snuggling up close in her sleep, mumbling something sleepily into his neck.
“Won’t let ‘em send you away.”
Nimbus fought not to start laughing as he closed his eyes.
He loved it when everything went according to plan.
Author's Note
